DLSIKL 
 
 SILBERILAD
 
 DESIRE
 
 DESIRE 
 
 BY 
 
 U. L. S1LBERRAD 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 1908
 
 RICHARD CLAY & SONS. LIMITED, 
 
 BREAD STREET HILI , K.C., AND 
 
 BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 CHAPTER 
 CHAPTER 
 CHAPTER 
 CHAPTER 
 CHAPTER 
 CHAPTER 
 CHAPTER 
 CHAPTER 
 CHAPTER 
 CHAPTER 
 CHAPTER 
 CHAPTER 
 CHAPTER 
 CHAPTER 
 CHAPTER 
 CHAPTER 
 CHAPTER 
 CHAPTER 
 CHAPTER 
 CHAPTER 
 CHAPTER 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I . 
 
 II . 
 
 III . 
 
 IV . 
 
 V . 
 
 VI . 
 VII. 
 VIII 
 
 IX . 
 
 X . 
 
 XI . 
 XII. 
 XIII 
 XIV 
 XV . 
 XVI 
 XVII 
 XVIII 
 XIX 
 XX . 
 XXI 
 XXII 
 XXIII 
 
 116 
 
 131 
 146 
 
 158 
 1 80 
 
 230 
 246 
 26l 
 283 
 296 
 312 
 
 33 
 347 
 358 
 
 2138326
 
 > V-- 
 
 **.-,.-. *
 
 DESIRE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PETER GRIMSTONE stood in a doorway looking on. Nature 
 had given him some faculty for that, or at least endowed 
 him with characteristics which made him content without 
 a star part in things. He had reason to be content to-night ; 
 the company in which he found himself was in part 
 fashionable, in part artistic, and he was neither the one nor 
 the other ; the occasion was a soiree which the artistic gave 
 to the fashionable, and he had entrance there by right of a 
 ticket handed on to him by a man who, in turn, had 
 received it from another. He knew no one present, and 
 this was stranger had no wish to know any one. He had 
 frankly said when he accepted the ticket he wanted to see 
 what it was like, and he literally was seeing and nothing 
 more. 
 
 There was a great crush ; Peter recognized several well- 
 known men. Of the women he did not know any even by 
 sight, but though he knew nothing of the hundred distinctions 
 there were between those present on such an occasion, he 
 did know that some few had the appearance of being much 
 more perfectly finished than the others. There was one not 
 far from his doorway who particularly caught his attention ; 
 she was not really beautiful though, like others of the perfect 
 sort, she gave one an impression of it, a more lasting
 
 DESIRE 
 
 impression too, than greater beauties among them. Her 
 hair and eyes had a curious red shade in them, and she was 
 tall and powerfully built, with a beautiful strong body which 
 followed natural lines in defiance of fashion. Her dress 
 rather defied fashion too, for in spite of a general taste for 
 things which stuck out hers clung about her, winding round 
 her when she walked and revealing the splendid strength 
 and grace of her movements in a way Peter admired at 
 least he did till he caught the moist eye of a man at his 
 elbow fixed on the beautiful figure. Then he looked away, 
 vaguely ashamed. 
 
 At that instant the woman glanced round and caught his 
 look. She said something to her companion, she had a man 
 with her : a succession of men had sought her notice. This 
 one glanced towards Peter, without interest, and Peter was 
 momentarily amused, for his utter insignificance removed 
 him as far from any one present as if he wore a cloak of 
 invisibility. 
 
 A stout dowager and a famous artist passed ; they paused 
 a moment while the lady made some gracious speech ; 
 when they moved she of the red hair was alone, her cavalier 
 dismissed on some errand. Two others quickly took his 
 place, and Peter, himself no longer under observation, watched 
 her again until the dismissed one returned. The kaleido- 
 scopic crowd came between, and Peter lost interest in him ; 
 when he next saw him he was approaching Peter himself; 
 almost unavoidably their eyes met, and as they did so a look 
 of recognition came into the stranger's. 
 
 " Why ! " he exclaimed, " it is you ! I've been puzzling 
 over your face no end. Who'd have expected to see you 
 here?" 
 
 " No one would," Peter answered, with truth. He was a 
 good deal nonplussed, it was almost as much of a shock to be 
 
 2
 
 DESIRE 
 
 accosted in this crowd as in solitude. He also knew the 
 stranger was mistaken and he said so. 
 
 " What ! you've forgotten me ? " the other said. " I'm 
 Bamfield." 
 
 Peter was perfectly sure that he had never seen the 
 man before to-night, he had not even known any one 
 of the name ; he said so politely. But the other did 
 not heed, probably did not hear, there was a continuous noise 
 of talk and music going on, also he was speaking himself, 
 apparently quite assured of Peter's identity and the sufficiency 
 of his own explanation. 
 
 " Beastly crush," he said ; " no end of strange animals here. 
 I suppose you don't know any one hardly ? don't know 
 many myself one or two of our people. D'you know 
 Miss Ouebell ? I'll introduce you." 
 
 Now Peter Grimstone was an essentially straightforward 
 person, but when the man who had called himself Bamfield 
 mentioned Miss Quebell, and glanced towards her of the 
 reddish hair, Peter hesitated then went. 
 
 He was introduced, but he did not catch by what name 
 though he listened. Miss Quebell said she was glad to 
 meet him, or some other commonplace, which would have 
 sounded nothing in another voice but which in hers had an 
 alluring, almost personal note new to Peter. He wondered 
 who she took him for ; she was very gracious and even 
 allowed him the coveted seat beside her, but no word she 
 uttered helped him. 
 
 In a little she dismissed the obliging Bamfield. When he 
 had gone she turned to Peter. 
 
 "Well," she said abruptly, "what do you think of us 
 all?" 
 
 Peter was surprised alike by the question and the 
 intimacy of the manner. In his limited experience one made 
 
 3
 
 DESIRE 
 
 acquaintance if one did it by slow degrees, and he hardly 
 knew how to answer. 
 
 " I don't think I quite understand what you mean," he 
 said. 
 
 " Yes, you do," she retorted ; " you stood in your doorway 
 and looked on at us, at the whole lot of marionettes, like a 
 man from another planet, till I was inclined to come behind 
 you and demand your thoughts. Perhaps you think I am 
 rather doing that now ? So I am. What is your opinion of 
 
 us?" 
 
 " I don't think I have got one," Peter answered truthfully. 
 
 " You see, I am not in a position to have one. I don't know 
 anything about any one here." 
 
 " Don't you really r " she said with mock gravity. 
 a I thought you looked as if you knew every one here." 
 
 Peter, who watched her face all the time she spoke with 
 earnest gravity, smiled. Then he made his confession " I 
 don't know that man, Bamfield, who introduced me to you $ 
 I don't know who he took me for, but I am certainly not 
 he." 
 
 " How can you be sure of that ? " she asked. " If you 
 don't know who he took you for you can't know you are not 
 he. Why shouldn't you have made the mistake and not 
 Mr. Bamfield ? " 
 
 "I never saw him before," Peter persisted. "I don't 
 know any one of his sort." 
 
 " * Of his sort ' ! " she laughed. " Poor thing ! He's an 
 idler, I grant it, a mere fetcher and carrier, but you need not 
 entirely relegate him to ' a sort ' he is not such a fool as he 
 looks ; I sometimes suspect he has brains though he would 
 blush to have it known, and, anyhow, he does know some 
 serious people who work, like my father." 
 
 Peter did not doubt it, still he maintained that he was 
 
 4
 
 DESIRE 
 
 himself unknown. She listened to his explanation, watching 
 him with the whole-souled attention she seemed to devote to 
 the object of momentary interest, whatever it might be. 
 When he had finished she said 
 
 " Don't you think you might tell me who you really are, 
 since you are not who he said ? though I have not the least 
 idea who that is. " 
 
 " I am afraid I am nobody," Peter confessed ; " my name is 
 Grimstone, and I am a writer of sorts : I suppose a journalist, 
 after a fashion : that is to say, I do a certain amount of 
 writing for papers and magazines and things." 
 
 And don't like it .? " 
 
 " I don't know ; I do in a way. Why do you ask ? " 
 
 " Because I'm sure you don't really. You have not the 
 look or the manner one associates with journalists." 
 
 " I am not altogether one," he explained ; " there is other 
 
 work which I like much better, and by and by Well, I 
 
 don't suppose I shall always be a journalist, though I expect 
 I shall always be a writer." 
 
 The moment the words were spoken Peter was surprised 
 at himself, he had never, except under pressure of dire neces- 
 sity, given so much confidence to a human being before. It 
 is hard to say what induced him to do it now, unless it was 
 the, to him, astonishingness of her interest. 
 
 She, for her part, showed no surprise : perhaps she was 
 used to confidences ; she just nodded. " Novels ? " she asked. 
 
 " Perhaps," he answered ; he could not go further than 
 that in self-revelation even though the thing was so near 
 fruition that it was less ambition than fact now. " Do you 
 think I don't look like that either ? " he asked. 
 
 She considered him thoughtfully. " Of course you are so 
 young yet," she said, and then, seeing the frankness was 
 rather a surprise to him, she added, " You don't mind my 
 
 5
 
 DESIRE 
 
 saying it, do you ? You may grow into a novelist one day, 
 though I don't know. You will never write yellow, or purple, 
 or whatever you call the sort of novel which sells by the 
 hundred thousand. I tell you what you look like, a con- 
 structor : one who builds things, not one who does them in 
 a flash of inspiration. Can one build novels ? " 
 
 " I hope so," he answered, rising, " if it is the only way I 
 can do them, for I mean to do it." 
 
 " I have meant to do several things at several times," she 
 answered, making no sign of dismissal. 
 
 " Have you ? " he began with interest, then, remembering 
 the nature of his introduction, he stopped and apologized. 
 " I've no right to ask you about it," he said ; " no business to 
 be talking to you at all." 
 
 " Why ? " she asked. " Why have you no business to 
 speak of my characteristics and I to speak of yours ? Because 
 we have never met before to-night and may never meet 
 again ? I see no reason in that. Life's not long enough to 
 bother over making acquaintance ; if a person is worth know- 
 ing let's come to hand-grips at once. Don't you think so ? " 
 
 " It sounds a good theory," he allowed, " but how are you 
 to know what a person is worth without some preliminaries? 
 He may not really be worth what you think he is." 
 
 " Then you can drop him," she said ; " but," she added, " I 
 always know when a person interests me, that is all any one 
 is worth to me ; when they do that I seek them out with- 
 out any ulterior motives. You interested me when " she 
 was going to say " you were abashed for me," but she changed 
 it to " when I saw you looking on. Of course, I don't 
 flatter myself that I necessarily interest you very likely I 
 bore you to death, if so the remedy is simple go. If I 
 don't, take the advice of an old hand, and don't for Heaven's 
 sake throw away a chance of amusement, however slight." 
 
 6
 
 DESIRE 
 
 Peter sat down again. 
 
 He was still there when another woman, equally expensive 
 looking but totally unlike the first, and some years older, 
 approached. Miss Quebell presented him to the newcomer, 
 who, to his great surprise, appeared to be her step-mother. 
 The older woman not only did not look nearly old enough, 
 but was so utterly and entirely unlike the younger that there 
 might have been a century of civilization and the whole 
 gamut of womanhood between. Her manners were gracious 
 though just a touch condescending ; after a few words she 
 bore her daughter off, saying they had to go on to another 
 party. Peter left directly after. 
 
 It was a fine, dry night in early April, and he walked 
 leisurely back to his own part of the town, thinking in a 
 curiously slow and unsuitably logical way of several new 
 things. 
 
 It was said by some who knew him that Peter Grimstone 
 did not know what comfort was ; certainly the rooms he at 
 that time occupied suggested it. He had been nearly three 
 years in town, but he had done little to soften the appear- 
 ance of the cheap furnished apartments which were still all 
 the home he boasted. Little, that is, except to clear away 
 what of the superfluous he could. 
 
 "There's not a decent chair in the place," Austin said, 
 when that evening, some half-hour before Peter's return, he 
 invaded the place. 
 
 Austin was the man who had given Peter the card of 
 invitation. A card, by the way, which he ought to have 
 used himself since he was an artist with his way to make. 
 But being young, and chockfull of theories of revolt and 
 other of the golden froth of youth, he had passed it on to 
 Peter as the most unsuitable person of his acquaintance. He 
 had known Peter on and off for some time, principally off, 
 
 7
 
 DESIRE 
 
 for though the two of them at one time had something to do 
 with the same paper, he had never really got to know any- 
 thing of him ; no one did. Peter was in their world but 
 not of it. This naturally did not diminish Austin's good- 
 natured contempt for him, rather increased it. 
 
 " He has gone to-night," so Austin said, with amusement, 
 " to see what it looks like." 
 
 He said this to Farmer. He had fallen in with Farmer 
 at the Circle, a small and select club of the apostles of the 
 Ugly. 
 
 Farmer showed little interest, he thought the card ought 
 to have been passed on to him. It was his opinion that it 
 was a clear waste that the chance to meet those who might 
 be useful should be thrown away on a writer, and one who 
 was not even a member of the Circle, and who, so far as any 
 one knew, had no more views on art or literature or aesthetic 
 revolt than a bricklayer. 
 
 But Austin only laughed. " No waste," he said ; "for he, 
 in going, will achieve what he went for and you wouldn't, 
 my son." 
 
 " Rot ! " Farmer returned. 
 
 " I tell you he will," Austin maintained ; " he will stand 
 in a doorway and look round and be satisfied. I bet you he 
 won't speak to a soul there, and won't want to." 
 
 Farmer did not believe in the existence of such a fool 
 i.e. a man so unlike himself. Eventually they made a bet on 
 it, and it was for the settlement of this that, a while later, 
 they and the fox terrier, Paddy, repaired to Grimstone's 
 rooms, there to await his return. Paddy, who liked all 
 that appertained to Peter, accommodated himself on a pile of 
 manuscript. Farmer, still ill-tempered, stretched himself on 
 the knobby horsehair sofa, and Austin filled up the time by 
 executing a couple of rude and rapid sketches to adorn the
 
 DESIRE 
 
 chimney piece. He had just finished the second, and was 
 putting it in its place, when he heard Peter at the door. 
 
 " Ha ! " he said, turning, " here comes our David, back 
 from the camp of the Philistines." 
 
 " Hulloah," Peter said, without enthusiasm ; "you here ? " 
 
 " Seems like it," Farmer answered gruffly. 
 
 And Austin explained. "We've come to see how you 
 enjoyed the party if you saw all you went forth to see." 
 
 " Oh yes," Peter said, without attention ; his eye had 
 caught a large brown paper parcel, which had not been in 
 the room when he left it some hours earlier. Its shape and 
 size suggested books, but the sight of it sent a thrill through 
 Peter that it is not given to all books to produce. Swiftly 
 he looked away like one who has sighted a treasure and does 
 not want by his own attention to direct others to it, then he 
 glanced furtively at his companions. Neither showed the 
 least interest, if they had observed the parcel at all it was 
 clearly just a parcel to them. Peter breathed a sigh of relief 
 and wondered how soon he could get rid of them. 
 
 Not immediately it seemed. Farmer had not moved from 
 the sofa and Austin had taken up a position in the easiest 
 chair in the room. 
 
 " Well," he said filling his pipe as if he were prepared to 
 stay indefinitely, " and what did you see ? All the big Paint 
 Pots, and all the little ones, a-swilling champagne and a-sun- 
 ning themselves in the condescending eye of any plutocrat 
 that would look that way r " 
 
 Peter had not noticed that " Though," he said, " I dare 
 say it was to be seen." 
 
 Austin looked across at Farmer and laughed. " He didn't 
 notice the leading lights of Art as she is bought by the great 
 B.P.," he said, " and he's been among 'em for two blessed 
 hours ! I told you he was a rare, a wonderful creature." 
 
 9
 
 DESIRE 
 
 Farmer did not answer, and Peter moved restlessly to the 
 chimney piece and took up the sketches. 
 
 " These yours ? " he said, and stood looking at them 
 without seeing them. 
 
 Austin took them from him. "Go on," he said ;"what 
 did you see, since you overlooked all our distinguished 
 confreres ? " 
 
 " Oh, you know lots of people, all sorts, not all painting 
 ones." 
 
 He crossed the room, he wanted to be nearer the parcel, 
 to be sure that he had made no mistake about it, but he was 
 afraid to go right up to it for fear of arousing their attention, 
 so he stopped by Paddy and turned him off the manuscript. 
 The dog, who loved him for some dog hero qualities unknown 
 to men, appreciated the act as an attention. 
 
 " It's odd," Peter said it seemed he had got to make 
 conversation of some sort or they would see the matter in 
 his mind " it's odd, but it never struck me till to-night 
 there's something attractive about the people who don't 
 work, and can't work, and haven't worked for generations 
 don't you think so ? " 
 
 He stooped to Paddy who lay on his back with his feet 
 in the air to court further attention. "You look better 
 right way up," he said, while Austin laughed. 
 
 " Hear, my Farmer ! " he said ; " hear him ! Our 
 Puritan penman, our Nonconformist conscience, our 
 Industrious Apprentice, has been caught by the glamour of 
 the Idle Rich ! What, think you, would have become of 
 you if I had not saved your artistic soul by not putting 
 temptation in your way ? " 
 
 Farmer apparently did not think favourably. " Oh, dry 
 up ! " was his answer. At the same time he brought his 
 legs to the ground and took up a sitting posture on the 
 
 10
 
 DESIRE 
 
 uneasy sora. " Did you see any one there you knew, 
 Grimstone r " he asked. 
 
 Peter had not. 
 
 "And you did not make the acquaintance of any one 
 either ? " Austin suggested. " You didn't speak to any one r " 
 
 " A man spoke to me " Peter began, when he was 
 
 interrupted by an exclamation of " Pay up ! " from Farmer, 
 and an eager disclaimer from Austin. 
 
 " Doesn't count ! " the latter said, " Ruled out speaking 
 and spoken to are not the same one can't help being spoken 
 to, you know, if one is young and charming." 
 
 " What on earth are you talking about ? " Peter asked. 
 
 " Oh, it's just a bet," Austin answered, while Farmer 
 said 
 
 " We want to know what you did, whether any one spoke 
 to you or you spoke to any one, or what." 
 
 Peter, seeing that it was his only hope of getting rid of 
 them, told them what had occurred, down to and including 
 his introduction to Miss Quebell. This last Farmer held to 
 decide the case in his favour, and Austin could not contend 
 it ; indeed, he did not try, he was too much taken up with 
 the occurrence itself. 
 
 " Who was she r " he inquired ; " one of the admired Idle 
 Rich ? By Jove ! The daughter of Sir Joseph (Quebell, 
 Financial Adviser to the Government ! But no, it couldn't 
 be, you couldn't have got in with that lot ! " 
 
 Peter did not know, and it is to be feared he did not care : 
 " She spoke of her father," he said, " as if he were some one 
 well known, and she introduced me to a Lady Quebell, her 
 mother." 
 
 " She did, did she ? " said Farmer, and grinned sardoni- 
 cally. He knew that Austin would be regretting the waste 
 of the ticket now as heartily as ever he could. 
 
 ii
 
 DESIRE 
 
 But Austin did not heed him or his grins, he was absorbed 
 in astonishment at Peter's fortune. " How the devil you 
 managed it " he began. 
 
 " I told you once," Peter returned impatiently. 
 
 And he had told all he knew. It did not even now occur 
 to him that Bamfield, having been notified of Miss Quebell's 
 momentary interest in the stranger by the door had hit on 
 this simple, though unauthorized way of gratifying her 
 passing desire to know him. Such an explanation occurred 
 neither to Peter nor yet to the others. 
 
 " Did she find you out ? " Farmer asked. 
 
 " I told her, of course," Peter answered. 
 
 And Austin was again astonished though this time at 
 Peter's folly in thus throwing away such an opportunity. 
 
 He was even more astonished when it appeared that 
 Peter had not by the confession succeeded in throwing 
 anything away. He had, it seemed, in spite of it received 
 an invitation of sorts. 
 
 " She asked me to go there next Sunday," he said j " she, 
 they, her mother or somebody, has a kind of at home thing 
 then, I think." 
 
 " What ! " Austin exclaimed. 
 
 Farmer grinned more sardonically than ever. " Serves 
 you right," he said, rising. " Good-night, Grimstone ; hope 
 you'll enjoy the other party as much as you did this one." 
 
 " Good-night " Peter spoke with more enthusiasm than 
 he had shown yet " The party ? Oh, I don't think it is 
 one, anyhow, I don't suppose I shall go." 
 
 He turned away as he spoke. Farmer stopped to laugh, 
 not at him but at Austin. 
 
 " Not go ! " Austin exclaimed, and words to express an 
 opinion on such folly failing him, he swore at his own ill- 
 luck. 
 
 12
 
 DESIRE 
 
 Farmer, in perfectly restored good-humour, took him by 
 the arm, " Adjourned till next session," he said ; " save the 
 rest of the parliamentary flow till then," and he drew him 
 out, pulling the door to after him. 
 
 Peter stood a moment listening to their departing footsteps, 
 he wanted to be quite sure they were not coming back. He 
 even went down-stairs after them and secured the bolts of the 
 front door in the way his landlady approved. Then he went 
 up again and shut himself in. Carefully he took up the parcel, 
 turning it over so that the address side, on which it had been 
 standing, showed. It was addressed to him on a white, stuck- 
 on label where there was printed " Books with care " and the 
 name of a respectable though unimportant firm of publishers. 
 Books, yes it was books, in a moment they were unfastened 
 six copies of the same thing ; six thickish, lightly-weighing 
 volumes with the publishers' wrappers still on. Beneath the 
 wrappers were ugly ginger-green covers, and printed there- 
 on in staring white and unnecessarily distorted type " The 
 Dreamer^ by Peter Grimstone." 
 
 His first book, and he held it in his hand at last a tangible 
 thing. For long, very long, years even, it had been a thing 
 in his mind only ; then, afterwards, for long too, a mass of 
 manuscript, to him, perhaps, the manuscript would always 
 most truly stand for the concrete form of the idea. But 
 now, to-night, it had passed out of the nebulous form, and 
 out of his own personal, private form, into the domain of 
 other men. It was a book, a small but substantial something ; 
 a thing which would be bought and sold (perhaps), would be 
 abused and spoken of (perhaps) and perhaps forgotten. 
 
 But he did not think of that to-night. To-night it 
 contented him to have written it, to have got it published, 
 to see it there before him, to turn the pages gently, the 
 contents of which he almost knew by heart. He would 
 
 13
 
 DESIRE 
 
 not, if he could, have shared it with the general public that 
 night any more than he would have shared it with Austin 
 and Farmer. Other people had not entered into his thoughts 
 in the making of it ; he had been alone in its conception, 
 alone in its slow creation, alone in the wearisome and 
 repeated efforts to secure its publication, he was alone now 
 and it satisfied him, he was quite, quite happy. 
 
 So he sat for a half-hour, unconscious of himself and the 
 world and time, in a quiet, incommunicable happiness not 
 quite like anything he had known before or perhaps ever 
 knew afterwards. But at the end of the half-hour he 
 separated one book from the rest, wrote in it, and then 
 wrapping it up to go by post, addressed it to his mother. He 
 had begun to take other people into account. His mother 
 would like to have that book, she would feel vaguely proud 
 of it, though books and book-making were not much in the 
 line of her people. It is possible she would not altogether 
 understand the contents if she read it, but he did not think 
 of that, it never occurred to him to send it to her to read, 
 rather to have. She would like to have it because she was 
 fond of him, though she knew nothing really about him and 
 his work. And he would like her to have it though he had 
 never dreamed of seeking her sympathy in the long birth 
 struggle ; had they been together now he would hardly have 
 spoken of it. They were a singularly undemonstrative 
 family, the Grimstones.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE Quebell household was carried on the lines of the 
 greatest possible liberty consistent with three people living 
 on good terms under the same roof, and maintained on the 
 same income. The three members of the family each went 
 his or her way almost as much unhampered by interference 
 from or consideration of the other two as if living in an 
 hotel. Some tact was necessary, of course, in the matter of 
 inviting guests, and occasionally arranging not to clash with 
 each other's entertainments and engagements. A certain 
 amount of sense, too, was demanded in keeping within 
 stipulated bounds in money matters ; but all three possessed 
 tact and sense in good store, and the incomes were large. 
 The house also was large: there was no need for people to 
 rub elbows in it uncomfortably ; the three members of the 
 family did not have to meet too frequently. 
 
 Sir Joseph, of course, was immensely busy ; his official 
 capacity and private tastes, which lay in the direction of 
 astronomy and higher mathematics, occupied most of his 
 time. He had his own circle of interests and friends ; the 
 last were not entirely confined to the learned or the official, 
 for he had curious traces of some small taste for the world, 
 the flesh and the devil, though they were not identical with 
 those of his wife and daughter. It was seldom considered 
 necessary that either of them should accompany him, or he 
 them, to a function, except on the rare occasions when their 
 invitations lay the same way. 
 
 15
 
 DESIRE 
 
 Lady Quebell, on the other hand, was essentially and 
 entirely of the polite world : she went where she ought to 
 go, did what she ought to do, and said what she ought to say, 
 according to the canons thereof ; she was perhaps one of the 
 most perfect and emotionless supers that was ever put on the 
 human stage. Though it would be doing her an injustice 
 to say she was entirely without emotions, she had at least 
 one, though she never spoke of it, and seldom gave it scope 
 that was dislike for her step-daughter, Desire. 
 
 Her step-daughter did not dislike her. Desire Quebell 
 did not dislike people, either she liked them or she was 
 indifferent to them, she never thought of condemning their 
 actions or taking offence at their proceedings, she merely 
 said she " couldn't do with them " and dismissed them from 
 her mind. She could not do with her step-mother as a 
 friend, so she dismissed her from her mind, except where it 
 was necessary to consult her wishes for their mutual benefit ; 
 and she never dreamed that she herself raised any other 
 feelings. They got on well together, seeing just enough and 
 not too much of each other, and having each their own life ; 
 their interests and friends were almost as separate from each 
 other as both were from those of Parker, the immaculate 
 butler. Desire had no idea that this very separateness, though 
 it was partly of her step-mother's tacit arranging, was one 
 cause of annoyance. Lady Quebell, in some way, felt her 
 prestige impaired by the younger woman holding a position 
 so nearly equal to, and quite detached from, her own in 
 the same house. 
 
 Desire was engaged to be married, the wedding was 
 to be in the summer, the chosen man, a brilliant barrister of 
 unimpeachable connections. A few people thought Lady 
 Quebell had had a good deal to do with the engagement, 
 but the opposite was the more general opinion, founded on 
 
 16
 
 DESIRE 
 
 the fact that Desire usually did what she pleased without 
 opposition. If married she must be and it was obvious to 
 the most casual observer that she must, the only wonder 
 being that she had contrived to evade the fate so long if it 
 must be, Edward Gore, the selected man was as suitable as 
 any, and for once Desire and Lady Quebell would seem to 
 have been of the same mind about a person. 
 
 He was at present abroad ; a severe breakdown consequent 
 upon overwork had necessitated the rest and change of sea- 
 voyaging. He was not expected back till well on in the 
 summer, and the wedding, for the convenience of fitting in 
 with other plans, was to be soon after his return. In the 
 meantime Desire enjoyed life as she always had done, and 
 the fact that she was engaged to one man did not prevent her 
 from making friends with others. It did not occur to her to 
 question the advisability of plunging into intimacies, interests 
 and friendships as they presented themselves in this matter, 
 as in most others, she had always done as she pleased without 
 so much as thinking about appearances or side issues. There 
 is no doubt there was permitted to her a somewhat wider 
 margin than is permitted to most, for she had Lady 
 Quebell perceived it though she herself did not the gift of 
 success. No matter how she outraged accepted standards, 
 how old-fashioned, new-fashioned, odd, bizarre, or even 
 middle-class her proceedings might be, they always passed 
 If she elected to wear a dress a year behind date it was a 
 success, not because of her beauty, which after all was a de- 
 batable thing, but because of her personality. If she elected 
 to go to a not usually frequented place of entertainment with 
 an unheard of man, even though she were affianced to Gore, 
 no one found fault with it ; it was not merely condoned, it 
 was thought no more of by her world than by herself. She 
 had assumed to herself most of the liberties and privileges of 
 2 17
 
 DESIRE 
 
 a married woman, and a good many not accorded to all such 
 this with a total unawareness of it, or of anything but 
 her own momentary object, which Lady Quebell at least 
 found irritating. 
 
 But among her step-daughter's proceedings the most 
 annoying of all to Lady Quebell was her faculty for making 
 friends, or rather, perhaps, it was the friends themselves. 
 Her circle undeniably did number some people, notably men, 
 who were not to be met with at the houses frequented by 
 her ladyship. She called them " utterly impossible," but 
 they continued to exist all the same and not unfrequently to 
 exist in her company and to be found under her husband's 
 roof. It was because" of these people that Lady Quebell 
 instituted the arrangement which had done something 
 towards dividing the sovereignty of the household. On one 
 Sunday, so she had decreed, she was at home to her friends ; 
 on the next, Desire was at home to hers, who were not, 
 except under special circumstances, to be otherwise invited 
 to the drawing-room to outrage the sensibilities of the more 
 select. And it was not without secret annoyance that Lady 
 Quebell found that the select showed a marked tendency to 
 brave the outrage and present themselves at the mixed 
 assemblage on Desire's afternoons quite as often as they did 
 at the more exclusive gatherings on her own. She herself 
 was often driven to being present on Desire's afternoons 
 because she found it advantageous that the compliment 
 should be returned. 
 
 It was, of course, to Desire's afternoon that Peter Grim- 
 stone was bidden, and to which, in spite of what he had 
 said to Austin, he went. Desire expected him to come, 
 people usually did when she gave them the chance, though 
 she never troubled herself to ask why. To tell the truth, she 
 did not trouble herself much in any way ; she greeted them 
 
 18
 
 DESIRE 
 
 when they arrived but did not otherwise concern herself with 
 them during the visit unless she wanted to at the minute. 
 It was Lady Quebell who arranged bridge-tables, broke up 
 groups and introduced people all of which well-meant pro- 
 ceedings could have been dispensed with by the company 
 that assembled to see Desire. Every one there felt at liberty 
 to do what he liked, and most of them would have willingly 
 bartered the rest of the afternoon's entertainment for a few 
 minutes of the exclusive and complete attention Desire be- 
 stowed on those she was pleased to be interested in for the 
 moment. 
 
 On the afternoon when Peter came she was pleased to 
 bestow this attention on him, an unusually large share of it, 
 for she had heard something about him. 
 
 " So," she said, without preliminaries, " when, the other 
 night, you allowed me to hold forth on the chances of your 
 developing into a novelist, you did not think it necessary to 
 tell me you already were one." 
 
 Peter flushed. " I was not one then, exactly," he 
 said. 
 
 " But I have heard of your book this afternoon." 
 
 He wondered how, and still more, what she had heard. 
 " But," he explained, <c it was not published then when I met 
 you, at least I thought not ; I found my copies when I got 
 back that night." 
 
 " Oh ! " she said. " And it is your first book ? " 
 
 Ready sympathy, deceptively easily aroused in her, shone 
 in her eyes as he acknowledged that it was the first. " How 
 splendid," she said, " to see it for the first time ! " 
 
 It had been splendid with a quiet, inward radiance, but it 
 was astonishing to Peter that any one else should know. 
 
 " How did you hear of the book ? " he asked. 
 
 " Mr. Evans told me ; he was here this afternoon but left
 
 DESIRE 
 
 early before you came rather a pity. Do you know 
 him ? " 
 
 Peter did not, and she went on to explain that Evans had 
 the book to review but had not done so yet. 
 
 " Your name turned up in talk," she said, " and he 
 remembered it in connection with a book, and as soon as he 
 said so I knew I had been giving myself away when I talked 
 to you about writing and so on the other night." 
 
 Peter assured her she had not done anything of the sort ; he 
 had recovered from the first pleasure and surprise at her ready 
 sympathy, it was, he saw, what she had for every passing 
 interest: he was extraordinarily ignorant to have momentarily 
 felt it personal. Nevertheless there was something very 
 pleasant in talking and having her talk about the book ; he 
 had never spoken of it to any one before, and he had never 
 wanted to, but he liked it now. Not that he said much, 
 nothing about the tale or the struggle of production and 
 publication, nothing really of the inside of things, just a 
 few words such as might have been said to any one though 
 he had never said them. 
 
 " Are you satisfied with it ? " she asked. 
 
 He was not, few artists, whether their medium is wood, 
 iron, paint or ink, are satisfied with their creations. 
 
 " I expect you are not the best judge," she said. " Are 
 the people who matter, whose opinion is worth having, 
 satisfied ? " 
 
 u I don't know," he answered ; " I have not seen many 
 reviews yet." 
 
 " Oh, reviews ! " she said. " I did not mean that, that is 
 only an outside judgment, important, of course, but different ; 
 I mean the people you care about what do they think ? " 
 
 The people Peter cared about were an extremely small 
 band and totally unlikely to be satisfied or dissatisfied with a 
 
 20
 
 DESIRE 
 
 novel of his composition. He did not say this but Miss 
 Quebell probably divined some part of it. 
 
 " Your own people are not literary ? " she suggested. 
 " Though after all I don't know that that is what matters, 
 one's own people would hardly judge one's work by literary 
 standards : one would not want them too, exactly ; one 
 would want them to like it, to care." 
 
 Peter nodded. " My mother is very pleased," he said 
 simply ; " I don't know that she will even read the book, 
 but she is pleased that I have written it. She takes great 
 care of it ; she carries it up to her room every night for fear 
 that any harm should happen to it." 
 
 Miss Quebell looked down a moment ; there may have 
 been mirth in her eyes but there was also softness too. 
 "How sweet of her !" she said. "I think your mother 
 must be a dear." 
 
 She had been wearing two large round bunches of carna- 
 tions that afternoon, as she spoke one tumbled out ; it had 
 been tumbling out and being replaced all the afternoon ; 
 there really was not room for both bunches, but no doubt 
 both had been given her and she was anxious to be fair to 
 both donors. Carnations, it would seem, were her favourite 
 flower ; when Peter saw her before she had them, and there 
 was besides about her and her hair and clothes a subtle 
 fragrance of the flowers which to the initiated suggested the 
 possession of a fine essence or oil of them. For Peter the 
 scent had pleasant memories, some of the few idle, sunny 
 memories of his somewhat hard youth. Inevitably it made 
 him think of a quiet, sunny place, and a feeling of having 
 escaped and being alone, at leisure and secure. It seemed 
 odd to meet with the fragrance here in this London drawing- 
 room, yet in a way it was attractive, perhaps made part of 
 the woman's attraction. 
 
 21
 
 DESIRE 
 
 When the flowers fell out of her breast as she talked to 
 him he stooped to pick them up, they had become unfastened 
 this time and some fell on her knee and some on the 
 floor. As he gathered up the one or two on the floor their 
 bruised sweetness brought the garden of his recollection, and 
 the afternoon when he escaped there, very vividly before 
 him. 
 
 " Do you like them ? " Desire's voice inquiring almost 
 startled him. 
 
 " Very much," he answered. 
 
 Her keen, changing eyes were on his face, with something 
 of pity in them, she had suddenly divined that here was a 
 bareness and loneliness very unlike her own lot. " Keep 
 them," she said ; " keep those. I don't want them." 
 
 She spoke as impulsively as she would have spoken to any 
 child in the street who had covetously admired her flowers, 
 and Peter accepted the gift in the same spirit ; without any 
 other thought about it. But there was one looking on who 
 could not view it in precisely that light ; that one was Lady 
 Quebell. 
 
 Usually she did not interfere in her step-daughter's friends 
 and acquaintances, and offered no comments on her pro- 
 ceedings, however she might disapprove of them. That day 
 she made an exception, and when the last visitor was gone, 
 and she and Desire were alone for half-an-hour, she asked 
 who Peter was. 
 
 " His name is Grimstone," Desire answered j " he is a 
 novelist." 
 
 Lady Quebell did not feel herself enlightened. " Who 
 introduced him ? " she asked. 
 
 " Mr. Bamfield," Desire answered. 
 
 She did not, under the circumstances, feel it necessary to 
 explain the mistake there had been, and Lady Quebell did 
 
 22
 
 DESIRE 
 
 not push the point further, contenting herself with asking 
 the extent of Desire's acquaintance with him. 
 
 Desire did not reckon acquaintanceship by hours ; with 
 some people, she held, one might pass half a life and get no 
 more forward, with others ten minutes' chance interview 
 made a friendship. Peter, no doubt, came somewhere between 
 these two. 
 
 But Lady Quebell did not hold these views, and she took 
 the trouble on this occasion to tell Desire how the gift of 
 flowers to an almost stranger might strike the ordinary 
 observer. 
 
 Desire, far from being annoyed or disconcerted, listened 
 with attention. " How interesting ! " she said. " Does it 
 really strike you like that ? " 
 
 " Yes," her step-mother answered ; " and in all probability 
 it struck him in the same ' interesting ' way. Really, one 
 could hardly blame him, whoever he is, if he presumed to 
 think you meant something by it." 
 
 " I did," Desire answered cheerfully : " I meant that I 
 wanted him to have the flowers because he wanted them, 
 and I haven't the least doubt he grasped that meaning." 
 
 " I have considerable doubt," Lady Quebell retorted ; " it 
 is about the last interpretation he would be likely to put on 
 the act, seeing what other ones are open to him." 
 
 " That is where you are so clever," Desire said, with 
 admiration ; " you always know all the interpretations and 
 intentions, and so on ; I never see any but my own." 
 
 " It might perhaps be better if you did sometimes," the 
 elder woman observed. 
 
 The younger one nodded. " But I'm afraid it would bore 
 me rather," she said. " I should never be able to decide what 
 to do if I had to think all that way round first." 
 
 Apparently this did not seem to Lady Quebell an entirely 
 
 23
 
 DESIRE 
 
 undesirable result, but it was useless to say it, so she refrained, 
 and merely remarked, " Of course you have no idea who 
 the person is ? " 
 
 " Mr. Grimstone," Desire said, moving to pick up some 
 gloves left by a visitor ; " I told you. Oh, you mean, who 
 his people are ? No, I don't know, but I'll ask him if you 
 like, or you can if you prefer it, some time when he is here ; 
 he will be coming again soon, I expect." 
 
 "So do I." 
 
 Lady Quebell's accurately inflected voice had an unusual 
 note of meaning, and as she watched the younger woman's 
 unconscious back the one emotion of her life showed for a 
 moment in her eyes and in her compressed lips. 
 
 " I have no doubt," she said, " that he will come come 
 continually that you will go with him to all manner of 
 impossible places and do all manner of impossible things and 
 generally make yourself conspicuous, until you meet some 
 other man who ' interests ' you. Then this one will be 
 dropped, and the other, whoever he is, will be treated to the 
 same process." 
 
 Desire turned round. " What do you mean ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 The expression which might have interpreted Lady 
 Quebell's words was gone from her face. " Nothing," she 
 said, " except that I am quite well aware that this Mr. 
 Grimstone is your latest c interest,' or one of them. Of course 
 I have nothing to say against it, only I think it is rather a 
 pity you should give him flowers quite so publicly." 
 
 She moved towards the door as she spoke, but Desire 
 stood looking at her with surprised eyes : " Is that how I 
 look to you to other people ? " she asked in a somewhat 
 shocked voice. 
 
 Lady Quebell stopped. " Yes," she said ; " I think it is 
 
 24
 
 DESIRE 
 
 how most people regard your somewhat peculiar friendships 
 and proceedings." 
 
 " But it is not true ! " Desire protested. " It is not correct. 
 I like men that interest me, that's true, and I don't care who 
 their fathers are. What on earth does that matter ? It is 
 they, not their fathers, I want to know. And of course if I 
 like them I see as much of them as I can, it would be idiotic 
 not to. But as for dropping people I have never done 
 such a thing. Sometimes I am a little disappointed in them, 
 perhaps, though even then they usually turn out to be nice 
 in other ways ; certainly I have never dropped any one." 
 
 " No," Lady Quebell admitted, and for an instant there 
 was a flicker of the emotion again in her tone, " that is true, 
 for they will not be dropped. Men continue to come about 
 you long after they have ceased to have a shadow of interest 
 for you ; they have not the pride or the sense to go when 
 their time is up but what better are they for that ? For 
 the rest what you say is only another way of stating what 
 I say. No doubt you can manage to see it like that your- 
 self, but you must not be surprised that no one else does, 
 including the people you are * interested ' in." 
 
 " Oh ! " Desire said ; and then, " Do you really think 
 so ?" The idea was evidently both new and painful. There 
 are distinct disadvantages in being so engrossed in living as 
 to be completely unable to see even a glimpse of your life 
 and actions as others see them. It is such a shock when 
 chance gives you a passing revelation, though it cannot be 
 expected that the revelation, unless it is very carefully 
 handled, will make a lasting impression on such a nature. 
 Lady Quebell did not comprehend the nature ; and she did 
 not know how to handle her opportunity. 
 
 " You know," she said more pleasantly, u I never inter- 
 fere in any of your proceedings, or with any of your friends, 
 
 25
 
 DESIRE 
 
 no matter what my private judgment may be. I certainly 
 have no wish to do so now, I only wanted to point out that 
 you do yourself a good deal of harm by these things." 
 
 A look of immense relief swept over Desire's face. " Is 
 that all ? " she said. " I thought you meant I did the other 
 people harm you don't think I do ? I'm a sort of education, 
 perhaps, for the men I like ? I really think I may be. I'm 
 so glad ! " 
 
 A faint flush, that owed nothing to art, dyed Lady 
 Quebell's wonderful complexion for a moment. " I think," 
 she said rather tartly, " you are making a fool of yourself, 
 and that you have been doing it a good many years. Your 
 reputation, I don't know if you are aware of it, is decidedly 
 peculiar. You are asked everywhere, I know, and accepted 
 by all men and most women for the sake of the men ; but 
 for all that people shrug their shoulders at your doings, and 
 don't forget them. There are several persons waiting to see 
 what will happen when Edward comes home." 
 
 " What'll happen ? Why, they'll dance at my wedding. 
 Wouldn't it be delicious to see some of the dear creatures 
 doing it r " 
 
 Desire laughed her rich, full laugh at the vision she con- 
 jured up, but Lady Quebell opened the door sharply. " I 
 think," she said as she went out, " it is possible Edward may 
 have something to say." 
 
 " About my friends ? What business is it of his ? " 
 
 Desire put the question, but the door was shut before she 
 could get an answer. Not that it mattered, she was quite 
 sure Gore would not say anything on so absurd a subject ; 
 her friends were no more his business, in her eyes, than her 
 clothes were. Poor little step-mother, she had lots of quaint 
 ideas ! Some uncomfortable ones to possess, as, for instance, 
 an inability to go anywhere east of a given point, or make 
 
 26
 
 DESIRE 
 
 acquaintance with any one without a given number of 
 quarterings in their coat of arms or figures in their income. 
 Desire dismissed her with a tolerant sigh. 
 
 But though she was quite happy again about her own 
 proceedings, there came back to her a momentary uneasiness. 
 That sudden vision of herself as she appeared to her step- 
 mother, and, presumably, some other people, was not pleasant ; 
 if they really thought like that they must have some grounds, 
 no matter how inadequate, for their opinion. She meditated 
 on the subject while her maid arranged her hair that evening. 
 Mentally she passed in review the people in whom she had 
 been interested, a long list, principally men, and what few 
 women there were could be left out, they were not in her 
 step-mother's charge. Some of the men, it is true, had made 
 the mistake of falling in love with her ; some, in spite of her 
 skill, had precipitately proposed, this, of course, before she 
 had fixed the guard of her engagement ; but it had come all 
 right, they were still her friends, the incident, in most cases, 
 practically forgotten. A few of them had married other 
 women ; she had been very interested in the event always, 
 and was still as good friends with them as ever. With 
 their wives, too, when they would allow it, though she was 
 obliged to own to herself the wives had a tendency to keep 
 her on rather distant terms. 
 
 She looked up at this juncture, and saw her maid's face 
 reflected above her own. " Barton," she said, " do you 
 think I flirt ? " 
 
 The terms on which she was with servants and shop 
 people was one of the things her step-mother resented, and 
 as she carefully refrained from mentioning it the offender 
 was quite ignorant that she gave offence, or, indeed, that she 
 was on terms at all different from the usual. Barton, of 
 course, was quite used to her, though she could still be a 
 
 27
 
 DESIRE 
 
 little startled on occasions. To the present question, how- 
 ever, she was able to answer at once. 
 
 " Why, no, miss ; certainly not." 
 
 " You think not ? " Desire took a hand-mirror and 
 examined her back hair. " I wonder if you know," she 
 said. 
 
 " There isn't much that goes on, miss, that we don't 
 hear," Barton observed. 
 
 Desire thought it possible. " Some people seem to think 
 I do," she remarked, still looking in the mirror. 
 
 " Of course," Barton said, with satisfaction, " some ladies 
 always will be jealous." 
 
 " Jealous of me ? " Desire put down the glass. " That's 
 absurd, Barton ! Now you are talking of what you don't 
 understand. No one's jealous of me ; why should they 
 be ? " 
 
 Barton hesitated, she knew her mistress, whatever her 
 faults, was sincere. " Well, you see, miss," she said 
 apologetically, " it's not your fault, you can't help the 
 gentlemen preferring you." 
 
 " They don't," Desire said ; " you think they do ? Then 
 that's where you are mistaken. They may like me j one 
 may like fifty people and still have room to like the fifty- 
 first. That's not what you mean, I suppose ? You think 
 I take other women's men ? Well, I don't, and I never 
 would." 
 
 " No, miss," Barton answered submissively, and took up 
 a fluffy petticoat. 
 
 A little later, her toilet being finished, Desire dismissed 
 the girl, and, having a few minutes to spare, sat down to 
 think out this new aspect. Barton, of course, was a fool and 
 had a fool's estimate of the value of admiration, but still she 
 possibly reflected some other people's point of view. At all 
 
 28
 
 DESIRE 
 
 events, one thing at least was clear, she herself obviously 
 ought to be more careful what she did and how she did it. 
 With that thought came also the thought of the carnations 
 she had given to Peter Grimstone ; and quickly after came 
 impatience with the whole thing and the nonsensical view 
 taken of the trivial affair. It would never occur to him 
 she laughed at the bare idea, and at the recollection of his 
 grave, almost absurdly young face. He admired the flowers 
 because they reminded him of something pleasant perhaps 
 his mother. Her eyes grew half soft, half mirthful again at 
 the thought. Surely no one could be jealous of her with 
 him ! And no one could accuse her of flirting with any one 
 so completely unresponsive, so reserved and uncommunica- 
 tive. That was one of the reasons why he interested her ; 
 another was that she felt him sincere, and also found him 
 unlike any one else she had come across. But perhaps she 
 had better have no more to do with him, her step-mother's 
 judgment might be other people's ; perhaps, too, he would 
 not understand, he did not know her and her ways, he 
 
 might It was not in the least likely, but she did not 
 
 want to hurt him. 
 
 But on Monday, Evans, the critic, who by chance had 
 The Dreamer to review, sent his copy of that book for Miss 
 Quebell's acceptance. 
 
 c< It may amuse you if you know the author," he wrote. 
 " It isn't bad, a bit amateurish, but rather out of the 
 ruck." 
 
 She found book and note when she came in from a dinner- 
 party on Monday evening. Being tired, she had declined to 
 go on to another party (which she expected to be dull) with 
 Lady Quebell, and so was in comparatively early. She took 
 the book up to her room with her, and, when she was 
 undressed, curled herself up on the bed with it. 
 
 29
 
 DESIRE 
 
 None of the reviewers seemed to have found The Dreamer 
 a remarkable book, but to Desire it was remarkable. It 
 must, of course, be remembered that she read books as she 
 made acquaintance with people, enthusiastically, almost 
 gluttonously, losing herself completely for the time being, 
 and wringing out the uttermost. To her The Dreamer was 
 wonderful. The date and setting of the story was the end 
 of the Middle Ages, the environment largely monastic ; it 
 dealt almost entirely with simple primitive things and 
 emotions, and its outlook was somehow the pure, remote, 
 idealizing outlook of solitary youth. There were some 
 adventures in it, of course, and they were vividly depicted, 
 but for all that they were remote, as if subsisting in an 
 atmosphere of their own. There was romance in it, delicate 
 romance, shyly hinted rather than plainly expressed, and 
 that, too, was seen clearly, yet in this pellucid dream 
 atmosphere. And underlying all was a substructure of 
 truth, not a moral purpose, but an unconscious according 
 with the laws of eternal rectitude, such as one finds in the 
 simple tales of simple people and in much of the work of 
 the great masters. Desire knew nothing about this ; nor yet 
 whether the details of the book were accurate to date, or 
 whether the curious, remote, youthful outlook reproduced 
 the far-off time or not. She only knew that a whole new 
 aspect of life, a new world, swam before her in a translucent 
 dawn haze ; perfectly real, and yet perfectly remote from 
 the world of lunch and dinner, bridge and race and ball, 
 movement and amusement which was hers. 
 
 The last late wayfarer passed, the last belated carriage 
 rolled home ; the pulsing silence, the nearest London can 
 do to quiet, fell. And before it had fairly fallen the early 
 grey of dawn had come. Still Desire read, among her lace- 
 edged pillows. The dawn light spread. It had spread wide 
 
 3
 
 DESIRE 
 
 and been streaked with gold from the rising sun before she 
 finished, and, looking out, saw the distant spires and house- 
 tops, remote and glorified in the pure light as was the 
 world of which this writer spoke. She went to the window, 
 a yearning, that was almost tears, in her eyes, an unformed 
 yearning, though it is impossible to say for what, in her soul. 
 For a minute she stood looking out, then she turned away, 
 and sitting down at the writing-table, wrote 
 
 " / have read your book. I cannot tell you what it has been to 
 me. Words are poor things to me though clearly not to you. 
 " I feel as though my soul had been washed in the dawn. 
 "It is just wonderful, a revelation" 
 
 So she wrote, and, signing her name, slipped the paper in 
 an envelope and addressed it to Peter at the publishers' she 
 knew no other address. She left the letter lying on the 
 writing-table and got into bed, tucked The Dreamer under 
 the bolster, and went to sleep. She slept till a late hour 
 in the morning, in fact, till Barton woke her to remind 
 her of an appointment with the dressmaker. 
 
 " Telephone to her that I can't come," she murmured 
 sleepily. 
 
 But Barton did not go to carry out the order, instead she 
 said something about a near function for which the dress 
 was ordered. 
 
 " Oh, bother ! " Desire said, then, with relaxing energy, 
 " I can wear something else." 
 
 " Not very well, miss, if you remember." 
 
 Desire sat up, laughing. " Barton," she said, " the County 
 Council ought to engage you as public conscience. I'd give 
 you a certificate. If it were at all possible to inspire me 
 with a glimmering sense of obligation and the necessity of 
 keeping engagements you would do it." 
 
 3 1
 
 DESIRE 
 
 She leaned one elbow on the bolster as she spoke, and felt 
 the hardness of The Dreamer through. 
 
 " Oh, the book ! " she said, feeling to find what it was. 
 She glanced towards the writing-table, suddenly remember- 
 ing the letter written in the dawn. It was gone, Barton 
 had taken it, and another written last night, some time ago, 
 by now it was posted. For a moment there crossed Desire's 
 mind a doubt, almost a regret a very unusual thing to 
 trouble her in connection with any of her actions. It 
 perhaps would have been better if the letter had not gone ; 
 she had meant to leave the man alone and not follow up the 
 interest she had felt in him. How well-founded, too, that 
 interest had been ! She felt pleased to find how right she 
 was, very pleased that he, unlike some of her previous 
 ventures, had surprised her on the right side and not the 
 wrong. Next moment she put the whole thing from her, 
 the letter could not be recalled, regretting it would not undo 
 it, and after all 
 
 "If one meets anything astonishing, wonderful, why 
 should not one mention the fact ? " 
 
 She put the question, a propos of nothing, to Barton, who 
 answered 
 
 " I'm sure I don't know, miss." 
 
 3 2
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 " THE ways of fortune are past my following ! It isn't 
 as if the fellow had anything to commend himself; there's 
 no more reason for it in him than in his book, which hasn't 
 even the recommendation of indecency." 
 
 Thus Austin, holding forth one Saturday in the room he 
 was pleased to call his studio. Farmer, his only listener, 
 grunted in reply, for the subject of remark was Peter Grim- 
 stone and the fortune which had befallen him a subject on 
 which, seeing that it could practically be dated from the 
 soiree, Farmer was a little sore. 
 
 Farmer and Austin had been puzzled by the measure of 
 success which had attended The Dreamer, now published 
 some little time. They were, it must be admitted, inclined 
 to rate the success a good deal higher than did Peter, who 
 had no erroneous ideas about the value of newspaper para- 
 graphs, and who knew that there was a good deal of differ- 
 ence between the commendation of the initiated and the 
 approval of (and purchase by) the hundred thousand others. 
 He thought that some people liked The Dreamer, and he was 
 pleased. They considered that he had achieved fame. The 
 book had been received very moderately at first, there was 
 nothing in it to create a stir and it had created none, being 
 reviewed with moderation and praised and blamed with 
 moderation. One exuberant young critic had spoken of it 
 as a work of genius, and referred to the remote setting as a 
 master stroke. Another had condemned that same remote- 
 ness, advising the author to confine himself to dramas of to- 
 
 3 33
 
 DESIRE 
 
 day and a strenuous present which alone was worthy to 
 interest the modern mind. It was this last man who really 
 did Peter a service, for it was he who sent him to the 
 Quebells' that Sunday afternoon. Not that Peter expected 
 to find those, to him, unknown quantities "dramas of to-day" 
 or " the strenuous present " there ; but he thought that at 
 least he might see the outside of a phase of life otherwise 
 beyond his reach. So he went and learnt nothing, which 
 is not surprising seeing that he had already lived and worked 
 three years in London and neither gained nor lost a real 
 point thereby. But by going he did one thing well worth 
 while, he secured Desire Quebell as a friend for The Dreamer. 
 It was Desire who gave the book what vogue it had. She 
 admired it enthusiastically, and she spoke of it enthusiastically, 
 making it the fashion in the circles she touched, securing 
 for it a public of sorts not a very big one, of course, but 
 one that made a good deal of noise for its size. She spoke of 
 it to what editors and writing-men she knew, and they 
 like most men acquainted with her being anxious to please 
 her, pushed it to the best of their ability. She also herself 
 did what she could to push Peter, introducing him to useful 
 people and taking him to suitable places. This in her head- 
 long way, for having once broken through her new resolution 
 by writing to him about The Dreamer she did the rest as 
 thoroughly and completely as the peculiarities of Peter would 
 allow. 
 
 It was some time before Austin found out how it was that 
 The Dreamer came to such fame as it had, and when he did 
 he found the explanation more astonishing than the original 
 puzzle. It was only very recently that he had learned of Miss 
 QuebelPs share in it, and now he was passing on his inform- 
 ation to Farmer and declaiming about the capriciousness of 
 fortune, and still more of women who will at times take an 
 
 34
 
 DESIRE 
 
 interest in the most unsuitable men and unlikely things. And 
 Farmer merely grunted. 
 
 " Serves you right," he said, " for wasting that ticket on 
 him ; just chucked away your own chance.' 
 
 " Rot ! " Austin replied. " Where's the chance ? Because 
 she was pleased to notice him is there any reason why she 
 should have done the same by us ? I tell you there's no 
 reason in these things or in the sex either, and she's got 
 plenty of sex. Have you seen her ? " 
 
 Farmer had not. 
 
 " I saw her the other night at the play," Austin said. 
 " Somebody pointed her out. I made a sketch of her after- 
 wards. I've got it somewhere." 
 
 He began to turn over loose sheets of paper. 
 
 " Handsome r " Farmer asked casually. 
 
 " I'll show you if I can find the thing." Austin smiled a 
 little as he unsuccessfully hunted for the missing sketch. " A 
 fellow wouldn't bother himself much asking if she were a 
 beauty when he was with her, he'd have enough to do to keep 
 from kissing her before the time was ripe." 
 
 Farmer laughed. " I'd like to see Grimstone taken that 
 way," he said. 
 
 " Oh, he'll come a mucker sooner or later," Austin 
 answered. " He's going at it fresh, mind you, he doesn't 
 know anything about women, and he's getting his initiation 
 in a remarkable school. He'll lose his head before long. Some 
 excuse, too, she must be a bit champagney for a temperate 
 man. I don't seem as if I were going to find that sketch." 
 
 Farmer having an appointment elsewhere, took his depar- 
 ture, leaving Austin still searching for the portrait. He had 
 found it and put it aside and gone back to work when a little 
 later Peter came in. 
 
 Peter, of course, came on business, nothing else was likely 
 
 35
 
 DESIRE 
 
 to bring him to Austin. He stated his errand and waited 
 while the artist looked for some required paper. While he 
 did so Peter's eyes chanced to light on the portrait of Desire, 
 which now lay with other sketches. 
 
 It was one of those daring, almost caricature-like portraits 
 for which Austin afterwards became known ; a flashlight 
 effect in which one single characteristic was seized, exagger- 
 ated and insisted upon almost to the exclusion of everything 
 else, yet without destroying an uncanny likeness to the 
 original. The hair in the sketch was redder than in life, a 
 blurred background which suggested a dull but glowing 
 heat ; the eyes were browner than they usually looked in 
 life, and held in them an invitation which was not so distinct 
 in reality, possibly, even, not existent at all except in the 
 roused emotions of the man who looked at them. The lace 
 draperies that had lightly veiled the shoulders of the original 
 at the theatre were gone in the sketch, arms and breast were 
 as bare as the full, round throat bare as a Venus. In some 
 way the thing suggested the head and shoulders of a Venus, 
 not Venus, type of beauty, but Venus, goddess of love, the 
 quintessence of woman, the lure. 
 
 For a moment Peter stood looking at the thing, very still, 
 very tense ; so much so that Austin suddenly became aware 
 of it and looked up. 
 
 " Hullo ! " he said, seeing what he looked at. " You've 
 found Desire ? " 
 
 It cannot be said that Peter stiffened, he was already per- 
 fectly stiff. " Why do you call her that ? " he said in tones 
 deceptively slow and cold. 
 
 " It's her name, I was told," Austin answered ; " an excel- 
 lent name, too the Desirable, the Desired, the Desirous 
 in short, Desire. Our godfathers and our godmothers in our 
 baptism do not usually show so much sense." 
 
 36
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " Will you let me have this ? " Peter nodded towards 
 the portrait but did not touch it. It was noticeable that he 
 had not touched it all along. " What do you want for it ? " 
 
 " Nothing," Austin said, coming round and looking at it. 
 " As a work of art it is worth nothing. I don't mind ad- 
 mitting it to you, because you can't see it for yourself. It is 
 waste paper see here." 
 
 He had a pencil in his hand, and with it would have 
 pointed out the technical blemishes, but Peter cut him 
 short. 
 
 " Then you will give it to me ? " 
 
 Austin shook his head. "If," he said, "you haven't the 
 courage to ask the lady to give you a big panel portrait of 
 herself, or a little wee trifle to wear next your heart, I won't 
 help you." 
 
 " You won't ? " There was a new ring in Peter's voice. 
 
 " No," Austin said ; " I won't. Charming as it would be 
 for you to have such a replica always before your eyes I'll 
 not pander to you. By the way, I suppose it is for yourself 
 you want it? " 
 
 Then Peter looked up and Austin saw there was a faint 
 flush on his face and a steely glitter in his eyes. " I want it 
 to burn," he said. " It is the most abominable, damnable 
 insult that was ever offered to a woman ! " 
 
 Austin burst out laughing, the criticism delighted as much 
 as it surprised him. He had not the faintest idea that his 
 picture with its suggestion shocked, almost shamed, something 
 in Peter, who, not only had never seen the original thus, but 
 never could so see her. He took up the sketch. " Not 
 good enough of her ? " he asked grinning. " We can't all 
 see her with the eyes of love, my boy. Now I call this quite 
 a pretty thing in feet, I rather think of pinning it up on the 
 wall." 
 
 37
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " I should not advise you to," Peter said. 
 
 Austin immediately proceeded to fasten it up. 
 
 " I warn you," Peter went on quietly, " since you won't 
 sell it or give it I shall take it." 
 
 Austin looked round, for the first time becoming aware 
 that Peter, who plainly was not fooling, was also not taking 
 his fooling the right way. 
 
 " No, you won't," he said shortly. " You won't take 
 it." 
 
 Peter leaned across and pulled the half-fastened sketch from 
 the wall. 
 
 The suddenness and unexpectedness of the movement, so 
 unlike the Peter he knew, astonished Austin so much that 
 for a second he did nothing. Then he snatched at the picture 
 angrily. 
 
 Peter deliberately tore it across. 
 
 Then Austin lost his temper. He flung himself upon the 
 offender and for a minute they struggled, the sketch getting 
 badly torn between them ; but the end was easy to see. 
 Peter was the heavier and stronger man, moreover, all he 
 aimed at, the destruction of the picture, was easy to attain. 
 Before Paddy, who barked and jumped round joyously, had 
 realized that they were in earnest, not fun, it was all over and 
 the offending sketch reduced to unrecognizable fragments. 
 
 Austin, of course, was furiously angry, and he told Peter 
 what he thought of him, in no'measured terms. And Peter, 
 it is to be feared, did not care at all. Public opinion, and 
 personal opinion too, entered very little into his solitary life ; 
 it did not matter in the least to him what Austin thought, 
 the only thing which mattered was that the picture was 
 destroyed. That done, the affair was ended for him, and 
 though he saw Desire that afternoon he did not so much as 
 look for any points of resemblance between her and the 
 
 38
 
 DESIRE 
 
 portrait ; he certainly would never have dreamed of mention- 
 ing it to her. 
 
 His appointment with Desire that afternoon was to have 
 tea with her and meet an important editor to whom she 
 wanted to introduce him. As it happened, however, the 
 great man telephoned at the last minute to say he could not 
 come, so Peter was alone with his hostess. He had been that 
 before ; since the writing of the letter about The Dreamer 
 he had seen more of her than he had ever seen of any one, 
 that is to say, he had seen her more intimately, and after a 
 time talked to her of things he had never spoken of to any one 
 else (other men before him had done that). 
 
 That afternoon they talked for a time of his affairs and the 
 progress of the novel he was now writing, in which Desire 
 took a warm and enthusiastic interest ; afterwards they spoke 
 of her concerns. It was on this occasion that she told him 
 something of her family history. 
 
 " My mother was a variety actress," she said. " You 
 didn't know that ? She was more beautiful than virtuous it 
 is reported." 
 
 Peter did not know and he was surprised to hear it, she 
 gathered as much from his tone, and for some reason resented it. 
 
 " You are surprised that I speak of it ? " she asked. " Do 
 you think I ought to be ashamed of it ? I'm not. Every 
 one knows I am not Lady Quebell's daughter j a good many 
 know that I am not my father's legitimate daughter What 
 difference does it make ? " 
 
 " None," Peter said. 
 
 And he was right, for, from early childhood, she had had 
 the position and advantages of a legal daughter, and even if 
 she had not her own personality and characteristics would be 
 likely to have carried off a more difficult situation, and 
 successfully stood up against greater disadvantages. 
 
 39
 
 DESIRE 
 
 But she was not quite satisfied with Peter's answer. " It 
 is a shock to you ? " she asked. " Why ? " 
 
 Peter could not tell her. 
 
 But she persisted. " What do you object to ? Is it my 
 mother's profession or her want of virtue ? Are you one ot 
 those people who think every one ought to marry no matter 
 what their circumstances ? Or is it that you think these 
 things ought not to be mentioned ? " 
 
 " I don't think things strike you and me in quite the same 
 way," was all Peter said. 
 
 " How do they strike you ? " she asked. " I'll tell you 
 how they strike me, as a good deal of utter humbug. We 
 don't make more than a stereotyped and very transparent 
 pretence about our acquaintances' chers amis ; we say quite 
 frankly we must ask the Captain if we ask Mrs. So and So, 
 and it's no good having What's-his-name if we don't have 
 the Thingummy woman. Why, in the name of all that's 
 rotten, make such a fuss over the name of a poor woman 
 who was not quite so straight as she ought to have been or 
 nearly so crooked as she might have been ? " 
 
 Peter could not answer her ; it was no use, he was aware, 
 as he had been before, that her world and his were miles 
 apart, and that things were openly spoken of and only less 
 openly done in hers that were still regarded as disgraceful and 
 a breaking of Divine commands in the humbler circle to 
 which he belonged. He knew that difference but he could 
 not explain it, he had so long been silent about his thoughts 
 that he found it very difficult at times to give them utterance. 
 
 But Desire wanted an answer. " Why is one so much 
 worse and unspeakable than the other ? " she insisted. 
 
 " It isn't," he said. 
 
 She repeated the words after him in surprise, and then, as 
 for once the glimmering of a point of view quite other than 
 
 40
 
 DESIRE 
 
 her own began to dawn on her " Wouldn't you speak of 
 either r " she asked, with puzzled interest. " Then I have 
 shocked you ? But still I don't see why. No, I don't. I'm 
 afraid you must continue to think me shocking. I am quite 
 unable to see why it is worse to speak than to do." 
 
 " It isn't," he said again ; then, as she continued to look at 
 him for enlightenment, he added, " It isn't worse to speak. But 
 if one thought a thing wrong one might be ashamed one 
 
 wouldn't speak " he broke off. " I did not mean to say 
 
 that exactly. Your people are Things are just different 
 
 to them. It is no good trying to explain." 
 
 She nodded without entirely comprehending ; but she 
 repeated one of his words. " Wrong ? " she said. " Do you 
 think about things being right or wrong ? How wonderful ! " 
 
 It did not seem to him wonderful, rather an obvious and 
 ordinary way of thinking, but to her it was clearly different. 
 " Do you know," she said after a little pause, " I don't 
 believe I have ever before heard it spoken of except in a 
 fashionable pulpit where it doesn't exactly count. Oh, of 
 course, I have heard of the wearing of the wrong thing and 
 saying the wrong thing and doing the wrong thing, but that 
 doesn't mean the same, they all belong to the category of 
 the wrong side of the park. But you think about a thing 
 being really wrong ? You do ? And I have lived all the 
 years of my life without once, even in my childhood, being 
 told, to my knowledge, that a thing was wrong that way. I 
 suppose," she spoke almost wistfully, " you were often told 
 it ? " 
 
 He nodded. " Very often," he answered. 
 
 " Too often ? I wonder ! Your childhood and youth were 
 hard, I suppose ? yes, I think I have always known they 
 were. Yet it must be worth something, that training of 
 right and wrong. I don't think you could have written The
 
 DESIRE 
 
 Dreamer if you had not had it and did not still think that 
 way underneath. I was not trained at all, you know, except 
 in the wearing of clothes and the conforming to conventions. 
 And in both, as you perceive, I'm afraid I rather follow my 
 own inclinations. I believe I have all my life done precisely 
 what I pleased without regard for any rule that I know of, 
 except convenience ; I expect I always shall." 
 
 " You would always regard other people," Peter told her. 
 " I am certain you never have and never will do what you 
 please if it hurts anybody else." 
 
 " No ; because it would not please me to do it. I don't like 
 seeing a hurt. If I can overlook that, as no doubt I often do, 
 there's nothing to prevent me from being a beast to any one." 
 
 Peter thought otherwise, she saw it in his face when he 
 rose to go, and was pleased. 
 
 "I'm glad that you, in spite of your convictions, can 
 continue to think well of me," she said ; " and yet, do you 
 know, I have a feeling I shouldn't mind if you found me out 
 isn't that odd ? " 
 
 It did not strike Peter as odd : no one thing about her 
 seemed more strange to him than another, she was altogether 
 outside his range of experience ; he did not attempt to judge 
 or measure her. 
 
 But to her it was odd, for she liked the man and valued 
 his good opinion surprisingly, seeing he was nothing j yet she 
 was not afraid of losing it. For a while the anomaly of it 
 arrested her attention ; she stood thinking about it for quite 
 two minutes after he had gone, and was only recalled to 
 other things when a servant came to tell her that some one 
 wanted to see her. 
 
 " Who ? " she asked. 
 
 " A lady, miss ; she gave no name." 
 
 It was easier to see Desire than many people of her set ; 
 
 42
 
 DESIRE 
 
 as almost everything amused or interested her she went open 
 handed to meet any happenings that came her way. To-day 
 she did not refuse herself to the lady who gave no name, but 
 ordered that she should be shown up. 
 
 She came, a woman of seven- or eight-and-twenty perhaps, 
 quietly but well dressed, with an appearance which suggested 
 to Desire that she gained her living by some more or less 
 intellectual pursuit. A lady undoubtedly, and a good looking 
 one, who just missed beauty ; without knowing why Desire 
 mentally took her measure, and, considering she rarely 
 troubled about such things, she did not do it badly. A 
 strong woman, but emotional, sympathetic in some ways, 
 good for a sacrifice, introspective, able to suffer, superior to 
 some [conventions her hair was done as it became her, 
 without regard for fashion but probably sensitive to the 
 criticism that may arise she had conformed to the usual 
 standards in her costume though it did not quite become her. 
 
 The stranger did not introduce herself but plunged straight 
 into the business; which had brought her, after the briefest 
 apology for her coming. 
 
 " I wanted to ask you a question," she said. 
 
 And Desire acquiesced graciously. 
 
 " I saw in the paper," she went on, " that before long you 
 are to be married to a Mr. Edward Gore, a barrister, now 
 abroad for his health is that true ? " 
 
 " Quite true." 
 
 " Have you " the visitor appeared to swallow with 
 difficulty but she spoke steadily and with indifference 
 " have you been engaged long ? " 
 
 " Since just before Mr. Gore was taken ill." 
 
 " The engagement was announced in the papers ? " 
 
 " I believe so." 
 
 " I didn't see it," the woman seemed to speak more to 
 
 43
 
 DESIRE 
 
 herself than to Desire, but directly after she turned to her 
 again ; her voice and manner were very calm and self- 
 possessed, indeed almost expressionless, but a close observer 
 might have seen that the muscles about her mouth were 
 curiously tense and the pupils of her eyes contracted under 
 the stress of some hidden emotion. 
 
 " Will you tell me how long you have known Mr. 
 Gore ? " she asked. " Four or five months before the 
 engagement ? You know him well, of course ? You 
 you care for him ? " 
 
 Her voice faltered a moment but Desire showed no per- 
 ception of the fact, she had evinced no surprise whatever 
 at the inquiries, nothing but polite and commonplace 
 interest. " Isn't that rather a personal question ? " she asked 
 pleasantly. " Won't you tell me something now ? For 
 instance, what is your interest in this ? You are, of course, 
 a friend of Mr. Gore's one to whom I have not been 
 introduced Yes ? " 
 
 " You never would have been introduced to me. I I am 
 the woman he ought to marry." 
 
 Desire did not wince or start. " Are you sure of that ? " 
 she said gently. 
 
 " Sure ? " there was a bitter little laugh ; " it is not a 
 question on which there is room for much doubt. I left 
 his child and mine to come to you ; I shall find her waiting 
 when I go back. We have been he and I " 
 
 Desire nodded, and the other controlled her rising passion. 
 " Perhaps " she said, and the bitterness had increased, 
 " perhaps you do not consider that a claim a man's 
 amusement " 
 
 "I never concern myself about a man's amusements," 
 Desire said. " What men tell me I hear, what they do not 
 I do not. But," and she leaned forward with a sudden 
 
 44
 
 DESIRE 
 
 concentration of voice and manner, "you are not a man's 
 amusement and you never have been." 
 
 The other flushed faintly then went white again. 
 
 " What I meant, when I asked you if you were sure you 
 were the woman this man ought to marry, was are you 
 sure you are the woman who can help him in himself, 
 his career, everything ? Are you sure, not whether you 
 have a moral, a legal, an honourable claim on one another, 
 but whether you would fit one another always, not weary 
 one another, not regret ? " 
 
 A faint surprise stole into the visitor's grey eyes, this 
 clearly was an interpretation of the question which had not 
 occurred to her ; she had to think before she answered then 
 she said, rather brokenly, "I am sure that he loved me 
 sure that in the past I helped him. Before he came into 
 money, before he was recognized much, when he had his 
 way to make, my sympathy and help were much to him. We 
 ought to have been content with that being friends, you will 
 say, seeing he could not afford to marry me and I was just 
 a woman of no position, only one of gentle birth who had 
 to make her own way. No doubt you would be right, for a 
 time we thought so too, afterwards not. We were both 
 lonely, it did not seem to concern any one but ourselves 
 if we took what of happiness and companionship was to be 
 had. Perhaps you will say it does not concern any one now 
 if one does wrong " 
 
 But Desire waved that aside. " I am no judge of right 
 and wrong," she said. " Go on, tell me the rest." 
 
 " There is no more," the other answered ; " he un- 
 expectedly inherited money, as you know ; it was just 
 before you met him, he had been ill and went south for 
 the cold weather, you must have met him then. I saw 
 little of him ; I thought it was owing to his health, to his 
 
 45
 
 DESIRE 
 
 being so busy and being away, and then finally breaking 
 down again and having to go for the voyage. I had no idea 
 of of anything until I chanced to see this paragraph." 
 
 Desire nodded and for a moment there was silence. The 
 woman sat with set face, the haggard tragedy of her eyes at 
 terrible variance with the studied calm of her manner. 
 
 Desire's face revealed nothing. " And then you came to 
 me ? " she said at last. 
 
 " Yes ; I could not understand it was incredible I could 
 not believe it was for position, money, influence ; if it had 
 been for that it would have happened, when he needed that 
 help. Besides, I know him ; he would never, never do it 
 for that. I could not believe or think why ; so I came 
 and " her eyes for a second passed burningly over the 
 splendid figure "and saw." 
 
 For a moment Desire shrank in spirit under the glance, 
 a sudden feeling of shame came over her, a feeling as if 
 she were a courtesan, a beguiler of men, and this grey- 
 eyed woman was the wife she had robbed. Harder than 
 any charge of cruelty or selfishness or appeal for pity or 
 restitution, the unconscious shaft hit home. 
 
 But the other went on unaware. " I did not know," she 
 said, her voice breaking a little j " I did not realize men were 
 that they could they did " 
 
 " That they responded to the lure of the flesh as well as 
 the world and the devil ? " 
 
 Desire's tone was light ; custom and common-sense 
 always demanded of the people among whom she lived to 
 tread lightly among the deeps of emotions if by any chance 
 they had to be touched ; one should always laugh at things 
 even if it were sometimes for fear one should cry. Desire 
 had assimilated the lesson more completely than most, also 
 she had pride of sorts to help her. 
 
 46
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " You did not know," she asked, " that idols could fall ? 
 That women could topple each other's idols down by just 
 existing, or revealing their existence ? It seems they can, 
 doesn't it ? And * all the king's horses and all the king's 
 men can't put the idol together again ! ' But sometimes the 
 woman can that is wonderful, the wonderfullest thing in 
 the world." 
 
 For a moment her voice softened wistfully and the other 
 looked up. " This will make no difference to you ? " she said. 
 
 " I was thinking of you," Desire answered. 
 
 " Of me ? Of me ! Do you think it makes so little 
 difference to me ? " 
 
 " You cannot forgive him ? " Desire inquired curiously. 
 " You can never forgive a man of flesh for surrendering to 
 the promptings of the flesh ? I take it you regard me as the 
 choice of the flesh, and yourself and your union with him as 
 the choice and outcome of the higher part ? " 
 
 The other woman flushed; she had hardly definitely 
 thought this though it was on these grounds that she had 
 originally justified herself to herself. Somehow it startled 
 her to hear Desire, who stood on the other side, utter it. 
 " I don't know," she hesitated, " I can't explain ; I know 
 
 that he and I What we have been to one another is not 
 
 wrong, whatever the world may say, it is the best, the truest 
 thing in his life. But then you came you are the most 
 beautiful woman I have ever seen though it is not that 
 only, there is something about you, your voice, your move- 
 ments, everything. I can understand that it that he might 
 not exactly be able to help himself; perhaps even he was not 
 altogether false to me while he loved you." 
 
 Desire nodded. " That is what I say," she said ; " there 
 are the two halves to the man, one half is yours, and the 
 other it seems mine. I am not really a beautiful woman, 
 
 47
 
 DESIRE 
 
 there you are wrong ; but for the rest, the effect on him 
 maybe in part you are right. He completely lost his head 
 about me ; I did not know how completely at the time, 
 though of course I knew he was what used to be called very 
 much in love. I did not realize till now how little else he 
 lost beside his head and his self-control. I did not know 
 that the rest, the best part, was already given to you." She 
 laughed, a little short laugh. " Not exactly flattering to me, 
 is it ?" she said. " But it is true, I can see it now ; it explains 
 a good deal." 
 
 Her eyes grew brown in thought as she recalled incidents 
 of the past. The other woman watched puzzled ; but soon 
 her own tragedy reabsorbed her interest. " What does it 
 matter ? what does any of it matter ? " she said wearily. 
 "Nothing can be altered now." 
 
 " It matters a good deal," Desire answered ; " I do not 
 choose to be any man's mistress. Oh yes ! I should be the 
 mistress, you are the wife. The woman with whom a man 
 has been united, as he was with you, with whom he has 
 shared his work and ambition, his hopes and disappointments, 
 his struggle she is the wife. The woman who temporarily 
 blinds him, so that he seeks to possess her because of some 
 momentary madness of the senses which neither looks before 
 nor after she is the mistress. As a rule, of course, it is the 
 first kind of woman who has the ring, the second is usually 
 a temporary impulse and a temporary union. With us the 
 case is reversed, but that makes no difference. For myself, I 
 do not accept all the superstitions about the difference be- 
 tween ring and no ring. In this matter it certainly makes 
 no difference ; if what you say of yourself is true, you are 
 his wife ; if what I now have reason to believe of myself is 
 true, I should be his mistress." 
 
 She spoke as if the view and conclusion, which meant so 
 
 48
 
 DESIRE 
 
 much to both, had been arrived at by pure reason quite free 
 from emotion. The other woman for a moment could only- 
 look and wonder. 
 
 " You will not marry him ? " she said. 
 
 " No," Desire answered ; and it must be admitted that 
 though she undoubtedly did sometimes arrive at conclusions 
 by reason and a fearless facing of facts, she had a tendency to 
 act upon them with a headlong impulsiveness which was 
 nothing less than precipitous. " No," she said ; " I will give 
 him back to you." 
 
 " You can't," the other said bitterly. " Do you think he 
 would come back to me when he knew that it was I who 
 deprived him of you ? Do you think he would forgive that 
 while he is still " 
 
 " Infatuated ? " Desire concluded for her. " No, I do not. 
 But if the infatuation was over, and he came to himself, I 
 think well enough of him to believe he would come and ask 
 you to forgive him. As to whether or not you would for- 
 give well, you know best about that there seems always 
 to be a lot of forgiveness wanted in all contracts between 
 men and women. But I am pretty certain he would come. 
 I do not think I can have been altogether mistaken in the 
 opinion I had of him." 
 
 Again there was a faint wistfulness in the voice, and the 
 other woman wondered what that opinion was. Through 
 her mind there shot a thought of her rival had she cared ? 
 Did she care ? Did she suffer, too ? What was the cost of 
 it all to her ? She leaned impulsively forward, but before 
 she could say anything Desire spoke again, and in the equable 
 tone of kindly justice. 
 
 " You must tell me everything about yourself and him," 
 she said. "You will understand that I must prove this and 
 investigate it all. I can't ask him to justify himself, or it 
 4 49
 
 DESIRE 
 
 would then be impossible to send him back to you if that 
 should turn out to be the thing to do. So, you see, I myself 
 must do what I can to clear him, and you must help me in 
 fairness to us all." 
 
 " I will help you," the other said humbly, " though I 
 don't see what you or any one can do." 
 
 " Don't you ? " Desire said, with a swift and disconcerting 
 return to lightness again ; " most likely you will have to do 
 nothing and say nothing, and I shall have to do a great deal. 
 In the meantime we must talk, and don't you think cognac 
 would help us ? Or would you rather have tea at this 
 belated hour?" 
 
 " William," she said to the manservant who answered the 
 ring, " some tea, please, and some cognac. And, oh, 
 William, I'm not at home to anybody." 
 
 " Her ladyship " the man began. 
 
 But 
 
 " No, not her ladyship, either," Desire said. 
 
 And her orders being obeyed, she was undisturbed from 
 without till it was time to dress for dinner. For, even after 
 her visitor had gone, no one came to her ; and she sat alone, 
 her chin propped on her hand, looking straight before her. 
 When at last the hour was growing late, Barton, who knew 
 her mistress had an engagement to dine out, ventured to 
 knock and enter. She found her sitting very still, but her 
 face was in shadow, and so revealed nothing. She rose, on 
 the maid's hesitating reminder of the time, and stretched her- 
 self, frankly, as a boy or a dog, but also as one who throws a 
 burden down. 
 
 "It is an extraordinary world," she said, " an extraordinary 
 world, so extraordinary that in hurts sometimes. Don't you 
 think so, Barton ? " 
 
 Barton did not think. 
 
 50
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 DESIRE QUEBELL undoubtedly had the faculty for surprising 
 even those who knew her well ; two people were astonished 
 by her during that June one was Lady Ouebell who, by 
 her own showing, should have been prepared for anything 
 of a distressing nature to occur in connection with her 
 step-daughter. 
 
 It was a generally understood thing that Desire would be 
 married at the beginning of August, just before every one 
 left town. Gore was expected home in July, the wedding 
 was to be within a reasonable time after that. Not much 
 in the way of preparation had been made yet, Desire being 
 one who objected to lengthy getting ready, preferring rather 
 to enjoy the present moment and leave the preparations for 
 the next to be rushed triumphantly and excitingly through 
 at high speed. Lady Quebell's tastes were of a totally 
 different order, and through her instrumentality some 
 certain trousseau orders had been placed in reasonable time, 
 not so many as she wished because all had, more or less, to 
 pass through Desire. But by the beginning of June she 
 felt that it was time things were fully in train, and she said 
 so to Desire, and repeated it so many times and with such 
 a manifest intention of seeing to the matter herself that 
 Desire was roused to take action. 
 
 " The wedding ? " she said. " You want to order the cake 
 and fix the date and all the rest ? " 
 
 " It ought to have been done some time ago," Lady 
 Quebell said," seeing how full those last few days always are." 
 
 51
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " Don't you think it is a pity to fill them any fuller r " 
 Desire suggested ; then, observing an impatient look, she 
 added, " Really I mean it ; at all events I think it would be 
 a pity to fix the wedding for then because I am not at all 
 sure it is going to take place." 
 
 Lady Quebell put down the pencil with which she was 
 making notes and stared at her step-daughter in blank 
 amazement. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " she asked. 
 
 " Just that," Desire answered calmly j " I am not sure that 
 I am going to be married. I can't tell you for certain till 
 Ted comes home, but I don't think you had better fix dates 
 and order cakes and so on before I've seen him." 
 
 " You are going to jilt him ? " Lady Quebell, still under 
 the influence of the first shock, seemed hardly able to grasp 
 what was said. " You mean that you can mean nothing 
 else if you break off the engagement now it is nothing 
 less. It is preposterous ! Impossible ! You cannot mean 
 this even you." 
 
 " Well," Desire said, " of course it may not occur, but I 
 thought I ought to warn you." 
 
 Lady Quebell set her lips. " I see," she said freezingly ; 
 " do not trouble to explain yourself, you have of course 
 practically made up your mind to do it already." 
 
 " Have I ? " Desire asked. " I wonder ? " and she seemed 
 to be quite as interested in the question as ever her step- 
 mother could be. 
 
 Lady Quebell did not perceive that, or at all events did 
 not believe in it, for which perhaps one cannot altogether 
 blame her. "What are your reasons?" she demanded, 
 forgetting that a moment before she had intimated no wish 
 for explanation. 
 
 " My reasons for not being sure what I am going to do ? " 
 
 52
 
 DESIRE 
 
 Desire said. " Or for what I do if I do it ? They are 
 rather mixed just at present ; I really don't think I could 
 explain them. Indeed, if it had not been for your quite 
 natural anxiety about ordering the cake and so on, I would 
 not have troubled you now with what may never come to 
 anything at all." 
 
 But Lady Quebell was neither mollified nor relieved by 
 this and she continued to trouble both herself and Desire; 
 she even took the unusual step of troubling Sir Joseph. So 
 much so did she do the last that he made time to speak to 
 Desire himself. 
 
 In the interview that Sir Joseph had with his daughter he 
 did not of course demand information or insist on any line 
 of conduct ; the terms of liberty, equality and dispassionate 
 amiability of the household did not admit of that. He no 
 more thought of it with Desire than he would with any 
 friend or acquaintance in whom he was interested. He only 
 asked her what it was she talked of doing about her marriage, 
 and afterwards gave her a little advice on the subject. 
 
 " Marriage is a serious affair for any woman," he said 
 a trifle awkwardly ; he had an uncomfortable feeling that 
 the parental position, which he had consistently forgotten, 
 demanded some such remarks of him. Unfortunately the 
 actual presence of Desire had rather the effect of reducing 
 the newly remembered position to something of an absurdity 
 and making the saying things even more uncomfortable than 
 the feeling they ought to be said. 
 
 She agreed with him, of course, but added an addendum 
 
 " Serious for any woman, and more serious still for some 
 men. Don't you think marriage with me would be a 
 serious undertaking ? Some people do." 
 
 " Gore is perfectly satisfied, more than satisfied," Sir 
 Joseph said, remembering the rather unlocked for eagerness 
 
 53
 
 DESIRE 
 
 of that serious and ambitious man an eagerness he had only 
 seen paralleled in his own passion for Desire's mother. 
 That passion, by the way, would certainly have resulted in 
 marriage had it not been for the wisdom and generosity ot 
 the woman. It had resulted in the position of the daughter 
 of the union, who did not altogether resemble the mother. 
 Sir Joseph, looking at her now, could trace small resemblance 
 though, so he concluded there must be some, for men 
 seemed to lose their judgment about her as he had about 
 the other woman. 
 
 " There is no doubt whatever about Gore's inclination," 
 he said ; " and as to yours you seemed satisfied, you made 
 the engagement for no other reason that I know of than to 
 please yourself; you believed, I understood, that you would be 
 happy married to Gore ? " 
 
 " Yes," Desire assented ; " I did, I'm not at all sure I 
 shouldn't be happier married to him than any other way, 
 but, in spite of that, it may not be able to be managed. 
 We'll do it if we can, but if we can't it is no good crying 
 over spilt milk. Certainly very little good beginning to cry 
 before the milk is spilt and before we know that it is going 
 over." 
 
 " I should be rather glad to learn what your motives 
 are," Sir Joseph said. 
 
 Desire glanced at the clock. " They would take rather 
 long to explain," she said ; " and you haven't much time just 
 now." 
 
 Sir Joseph glanced at the clock too. " That is true," he 
 admitted : " still, I should like to learn them at some future 
 date ; I might reasonably ask for them, I think ? " 
 
 " I suppose you might," Desire said ; " I'm afraid I some- 
 times forget that you or any one else has such rights over 
 my affairs. I get into the way of thinking it does not 
 
 54
 
 DESIRE 
 
 matter to any one what I decide or how, it is really rather 
 terrible of me." 
 
 " Well, well," Sir Joseph said hastily, " I'm not sure it is not 
 the best way after all ; your concerns are really more your 
 own than any one's, you are no doubt quite capable of 
 managing them for yourself, more capable than I who have 
 little time to spare. As for this business, it really seems yours 
 and Gore's more than anybody's ; I should advise you to 
 settle it with him." 
 
 " You think that would be the best plan ? " Desire said. 
 " Perhaps you are right." 
 
 But it is to be feared that in spite of her words she settled 
 it without waiting for Gore ; at all events, a few days later 
 she took a step that rather indicated something of the sort. 
 This step was the other surprise she gave at this time. 
 
 It was given to Peter Grimstone and came to him in a 
 letter. 
 
 This was the letter 
 
 " / believe I can rely on you at all events, I am going to do it. 
 I want help, and you are the only one I know who can give it 
 for a variety of reasons you are the only one, but principally because 
 you are you." (He had no idea how Desire had reviewed the 
 many men of her acquaintance in the new light lately cast 
 on herself and her doubtful powers before she selected him.) 
 " This is what I want you to do / want you to let me pretend to 
 be in love with you. You need not pretend back, if you agree you 
 will only have to put up with my pretence and give me the 
 opportunities of letting it be seen. I cannot tell you why I ask 
 this, I can only ask you to believe my reason is a strong one and 
 one which I think you would not disapprove though it is concerned 
 with people and events of which you know nothing. Perhaps I 
 am asking too much ? It is like me to do so. If so just refuse, 
 
 55
 
 DESIRE 
 
 I shall quite understand and I know I can trust you in that case, 
 or any other, to forget what I have asked." 
 
 This was the letter which surprised Peter Grimstone as 
 it might have another. But Peter, unlike some others, did 
 not feel himself concerned with the whys and wherefores of 
 it ; the question which concerned him was not why she 
 asked, only whether he should do it. He considered the 
 matter awhile then he wrote 
 
 " 7 will do as you ask so far as it is in my power." 
 
 He did not, it must be admitted, think it was altogether 
 in his power. He did not see how he could ever loom suffici- 
 ently important in the eyes of Desire's world for it to be 
 imagined for a moment that she thought of him, seriously or 
 otherwise. That, however, was her part of the business, as 
 also was the histrionic love-making which, no doubt, was 
 just as well if it was to be successful, for he had not only 
 never been in love, but, before he met Desire, had had few 
 dealings of any sort with women, or thought of them as more 
 than a necessary, though rather remote, part of the world 
 machinery. But he gave the promise unconditionally, and 
 unconditionally put himself under her orders. In his opinion 
 he owed it to her since it was the service she required, seeing 
 how much she had done for The Dreamer. 
 
 Thereafter there began for Peter Grimstone a somewhat 
 wonderful time; a time which made Austin, who, owing 
 to Peter's incurable reticence, never heard anything worth 
 hearing, nearly frantic with envy and curiosity and bewilder- 
 ment. Peter Grimstone, Peter Nobody, Peter the Unsociable, 
 the Unteachable, the Puritan suddenly entered into society 
 after a fashion. Such an opportunity was given to him as fell 
 to the lot of few of his position, such a chance as would have 
 
 56
 
 DESIRE 
 
 turned the head of some of them and served as an education 
 to most. Miss Quebell, the light of a bigger sphere, chose 
 him for her cavalier servant^ a post he was ill-equipped to fill. 
 She took him everywhere possible, and some places not 
 possible to any one else ; he was seen with her in well-known 
 places and little-known ; he devoted to her all his spare 
 time and some he could ill spare, for she was exacting and 
 requisitioned a great deal. He won the dislike and envy and 
 sometimes the contempt of people who in the ordinary way 
 would have been totally indifferent to his unimportant 
 existence. He was severely and frequently snubbed by 
 Lady Quebell that was an inevitable accompaniment of 
 the role, and might, perhaps, have been part of the education 
 to a man who could have been educated that way. He 
 it seemed incredible he actually got himself talked about ! 
 Austin was completely at a loss to understand it and he got 
 little help from Peter. 
 
 Indeed it was difficult to see Peter at all at that time, 
 except in working-hours, for Desire was a hard task-mistress. 
 She seemed bent on rushing the thing through breathlessly, 
 without giving him time to breathe or herself time to think. 
 Peter saw more of life in her company in a week than he 
 had in the whole previous three years he had been in London : 
 more of some things than he would if he- had lived there 
 thirty-three years. For besides seeing the gorgeousness and 
 glamour of the world that plays, from the inside, he also saw 
 a woman of considerable experience play love and the love- 
 stricken part. He saw a fascinating woman deliberately 
 showing the wiles of fascination, a beautiful woman showing 
 the charms of beauty, and, in appearance at least, paying him 
 the compliment of her sole favour and interest. It was 
 acting, of course, but first-class acting, for it had got to 
 deceive an audience that rubbed elbows with the actors. 
 
 57
 
 DESIRE 
 
 Desire did it very well ; she had been made love to many 
 times, and half-way responded, as the much-loved cannot by 
 nature help doing ; she knew all about it. Her full voice 
 softened and thrilled for Peter, her brilliant eyes brightened 
 for him and spoke as if he and she had a language of their 
 own ; the scent of her clung about him, her carnation was 
 often in his coat. As an exhibition it was really clever, 
 though some people said really ridiculous, by which of course 
 they meant that she was making herself ridiculous. 
 
 Besides these public appearances there were also more or 
 less private ones, obvious semi-private tete-a-t$tes that could 
 be talked about. What was discussed on those occasions 
 did not concern the world, and though, no doubt, the assumed 
 parts were then dropped there was necessarily an intimacy 
 in the position and a great opportunity for talk which must 
 have been new to Peter's experience. He, on his side, had 
 not much to do but follow her lead ; indeed, it was the only 
 thing he could do and he did not always do that very well. 
 Once or twice Desire rather wondered that he was not found 
 out. He did his best, following her with attention and 
 sometimes with a rather surprising quickness the quickness, 
 though, of concentrated attention ; he never for a moment 
 lost himself in the part, or forgot that it was a part. 
 
 Desire was not slow to perceive this and she was just a 
 little disconcerted by it although an intuitive perception 
 of its likelihood had a good deal to do with her selection 
 of him. He would not lose his head however she placed 
 him or tried him ; he not only would not take advantage of 
 any position, but also he would not want to, the idea would 
 not enter his head. He would regard the risky bargain 
 as a bargain purely, and to the letter carry out his part of it 
 as a business order. Once or twice she wondered what he, 
 with the training and standards she believed him to have, 
 
 58
 
 DESIRE 
 
 thought of it and of her. He never sought any explanation of 
 the affair, and she, with a shyness rare with her, kept silent 
 about it. He knew nothing and sought to know nothing, 
 but he must think some way. Did he think her that shame- 
 less thing she had for a moment looked to herself on the day 
 when the other woman talked to her ? She asked herself 
 the question once when she was half-way through with the 
 affair, but flung it from her contemptuously, it mattered 
 nothing to her at all what he thought. He was nothing, a 
 mere pawn in the game which had got to be played and 
 should be well played in spite of him, in spite of Lady Quebell 
 and every one else who held and expressed or suppressed 
 opinions. And she threw herself into her part with a new 
 zeal and a recklessness which suggested heart and mind at 
 little ease. And still to whatever length her recklessness 
 led her, Peter followed, gravely, with his best attention but 
 sometimes with an ineptitude which showed he missed the 
 meaning of some points of her behaviour. And the misses 
 irritated her jangled nerves, not because of their stupidity 
 but because, for some unexplained reason, they made her 
 shrink from meeting the grave grey eyes which sought 
 direction from hers. 
 
 But she held on her way to the end, and not until near 
 the end betrayed herself at all to him. Then one night, 
 when, after a somewhat public exhibition, they had secured 
 a temporary, though quite obvious, solitude, she said 
 sharply 
 
 " I wish you would not look at me like that ! If you 
 think I ought not do it, say so and have done with it ! " 
 
 " I don't think so," he answered ; " you said you had a 
 reason and of course you have." 
 
 " Yes ," she began, but stopped on the approach of a 
 
 third person which no doubt gave that person an entirely 
 
 59
 
 DESIRE 
 
 erroneous idea of the nature of the conversation. By the 
 time they were alone again she had largely recovered her 
 equilibrium. 
 
 "I'm afraid you have found it all dreadfully boring," she 
 said ; " and some of them have behaved disgracefully to you. 
 It's abominable it's made me furious at times, I did not 
 think I was letting you in for quite that." 
 
 " Oh, that's nothing," he answered her ; <c I should have 
 deserved it if this had been real it shows they think it real, 
 so it's applause, you know." 
 
 She looked at him rather curiously. " It's generous of 
 you to say so," she said, " and to think it. Do you know 
 you are the only one of my friends I could have asked to do- 
 this ? I thought so, I am sure of it now." 
 
 " Then I am glad you did ask me," he said simply. 
 
 " I wonder if you are ? " For a moment the question of 
 what he really thought occurred to her again ; but she did 
 not ask it, she could not consider such things to-night, she 
 had got to be gay, she was gay in fact. 
 
 " Let us go," she said ; " we shall become improperly 
 solemn if we stop here any longer." 
 
 He rose obediently. " I'm afraid you are very tired," he 
 said. 
 
 "I? I'm not a bit; I'm going on to another party. I 
 could go on to two ; I could dance all night I never felt 
 more fit." 
 
 " Yes," he said, " I know ; I don't mean that kind of 
 tired." 
 
 " What kind do you mean ? Tired in mind ? Please 
 don't distress yourself about that ; I haven't got a mind or 
 any other obscure inside thing. There's nothing the matter 
 with me." 
 
 " Of course not," he said, and looked away. 
 
 60
 
 DESIRE 
 
 For a moment a wave of emotion swept over her so that 
 unbidden tears were near her eyes. She felt grateful to him 
 for the acquiescence and the avoidance of her eyes even 
 though it showed he understood somewhat. She had a 
 momentary inclination to thank him but she did not, she 
 only let her touch on his arm tighten a little and said 
 nothing at all. 
 
 In July Gore came home. Desire had definite know- 
 ledge when he would come, she had it on the evening when 
 she told Peter she could dance all night. Sundry of her 
 friends and sundry more of her enemies speculated a little 
 as to what would happen when Gore returned, and they 
 watched events, when he did come, with interest no doubt 
 much regretting their inability to know quite all the details 
 of what took place. 
 
 The first thing which took place and that was one of 
 the details generally unknown was that Desire postponed 
 the meeting between herself and Gore by twenty-four hours. 
 The result of which was that he heard of Peter Grimstone 
 before he saw Desire, and the hearing was not favourable to 
 the parties concerned. The next thing that occurred, also 
 unknown to most, was that at the appointed time of meet- 
 ing Desire was three-quarters of an hour late. Now Desire 
 was frequently late' for things not inevitably, she was 
 sometimes minutely punctual, there was an uncertainty 
 about her uncertainty which made it quite impossible to 
 allow for it. But on this occasion, when the man she was 
 to marry in a few weeks returned to her after absence and 
 ill-health, she might reasonably have been expected to be 
 punctual, or even waiting to receive him. She was not, and 
 for three-quarters of an hour he waited for her in her boudoir 
 in the Quebell house ; and his eager impatience to see her 
 fought not unnaturally with his growing anger with what 
 
 61
 
 DESIRE 
 
 he had recently heard. The latter was not decreased by the 
 sight of a book lying on the seat of her favourite chair 
 The Dreamer, by Peter Grimstone. 
 
 But at last Desire came ; she was in walking-dress, wear- 
 ing one of the preposterous hats she sometimes affected, and 
 either haste or uneven weight, or the difficulty of steering 
 anything so big out of a hansom in safety had tilted it 
 unbecomingly aslant. Gore noticed it, it was very emphati- 
 cally obvious, he never before remembered having seen 
 anything the matter with Desire's appearance, wind did 
 not disarrange her, she never came to pieces anywhere, nor 
 found the most unhandy garments any impediment to 
 graceful movement. But to-day she trod on her own 
 superabundant draperies as she came in encumbered with 
 small things sunshade, gloves, glittering purse, cigarette 
 case. She tumbled them out of her hands and filled the 
 room with her presence. 
 
 " Oh, Ted ! " she cried, " I am so sorry ! I quite forgot 
 you were coming ! How are you ? " Taking both his hands 
 into what was to spare of hers. " Very fit ? Yes, you look 
 it ; you have done wonders in the way of improving : I don't 
 know how you can have done it in the time, it seems only 
 the other day you went away." 
 
 She dropped his hands, not because of the look in his eyes, 
 but to secure her sunshade which was slipping from under 
 her arm. 
 
 " I am glad you found the time pass so quickly," he said 
 stiffly. " I hope pleasantly, too ? " 
 
 " Of course, I always enjoy everything and every minute, 
 but you know that." She bent to the bell "You are 
 dying for tea or whisky or something, I know I am." 
 
 As she bent, the seductive lines of her splendid figure 
 were brought into sight ; the perfect curves, the free move- 
 
 62
 
 DESIRE 
 
 ment, struck the eye with their old appeal, the deep, full 
 vibrant voice though saying things hard to forgive struck 
 the ear with its appeal too, the appeal to primitive man. 
 Desire, whatever she said or did, was still Desire, and half 
 of Gore for a moment forgot that the other half was justly 
 angry with her. Out of the tail of her eye she saw 
 the look which came into his. He made a step towards 
 her, which she discreetly did not see, being, it would seem, 
 busy disentangling her long chain from a projecting 
 ornament. 
 
 " Desire ! " 
 
 The chain was disentangled and she turned. " Well," 
 she said, with the discriminating bravado which goes 
 forward to meet that which must come, " aren't you going 
 to kiss me ? " 
 
 For answer he took her in his arms. 
 
 But the minute was ill-chosen or well-chosen for 
 William, after a knock which one of the two did not hear, 
 had just got the door open, and, being laden with a tea-tray 
 and followed by an excited poodle, found retreat more than 
 difficult. William was an excellent servant and so of course 
 understood all about hearing nothing, seeing nothing and 
 being surprised at nothing. But he was also an Englishman 
 and consequently found his present situation so embarrassing 
 as to make him forget to hide the fact. Gore likewise was 
 an Englishman and had an intense dislike to looking 
 ridiculous. Men in love do not always think how they 
 look, usually they take care there is no disinterested person 
 to look ; but only part of Gore was in love, also he was 
 placed with a mirror on one side and the embarrassed 
 William on the other. And Desire wore a hat of vast 
 dimensions, secured with so many and large pins that no 
 trifle would shift its position from her face though some 
 
 63
 
 DESIRE 
 
 mystery seemed to have moved it earlier. Also she had put 
 her arms about his neck, with a fervour highly flattering as 
 an expression of affection, but extremely detrimental to his 
 collar. 
 
 That embrace was a failure as no previous one in his 
 intercourse with Desire had been, and he freed himself as 
 soon as he could. 
 
 Desire looked over her shoulder and called to William, who 
 had effected a bad retreat. " Come in, William, come in ! " 
 
 Then she sat down with the utmost unconcern. Her 
 serene disregard for appearances could be curiously irritating, 
 Gore thought. 
 
 " Now," she said, " tell me all about yourself and every- 
 thing." 
 
 " I think," Gore returned a little stiffly, " it would be 
 better if you were to tell me." 
 
 " It isn't half so interesting," she said, carelessly sugaring 
 the tea which he always took unsweetened, " but I'll tell 
 you. What would you like to hear and who would you like 
 to hear about ? " 
 
 Gore did not say Grimstone, though no doubt he thought 
 it ; however, as he soon found, all roads led to that Rome. 
 " Tell me what you were doing this afternoon," he said. 
 
 " I was with Mr. Grimstone ; we went " 
 
 "Indeed ?" Gore's irritation would not let her finish the 
 sentence. "You did not think it worth while waiting in 
 for me, then ? " 
 
 " Well," Desire said truthfully, " no ; I'm afraid I didn't. 
 I knew I should be in in heaps of time, I mean I knew I 
 could have been in if I had remembered. I'm awfully sorry 
 I didn't. You don't think, do you, that I ought to have 
 stopped in in case I forgot ? You wouldn't think it if I 
 hadn't forgotten, you know." 
 
 64
 
 DESIRE 
 
 "I really can't say what I might have thought under 
 different circumstances," Gore said. 
 
 " Shall I tell you what you think under these ? " Desire 
 asked. " That I am a most irritating person, and no doubt 
 I am." 
 
 She put a hand lightly on his as she spoke, and her touch 
 he, like some others, found curiously magnetic, almost 
 thrilling. But as she stretched out her hand the hanging 
 laces of her sleeve caught the handle of a tea-cup, so the 
 usual effect was lost. 
 
 " Who is'this Grimstone ? " Gore asked when the tea had 
 been wiped up. 
 
 " A friend of mine," Desire answered. " He's not usually 
 free of an afternoon, except Saturdays, that's why it seemed 
 such a pity to waste to-day. He's a writer, you know." 
 
 " I have heard of him." 
 
 " His book ? " There was a note of eagerness in the tone, 
 as of one who has unexpectedly struck a subject of mutual 
 interest. For a person of Desire's perceptions both tone and 
 question sounded singularly foolish. 
 
 " No," Gore answered shortly ; " not his book." 
 
 After that the conversation progressed unsatisfactorily, as 
 unsatisfactorily as any of the interested friends or enemies 
 could have wished. 
 
 Gore dined with the Quebells that evening ; that was 
 Lady Quebell's doing. He would have refused if he could. 
 Even when he went home to dress he had thoughts of not 
 returning, but sending some excuse instead ; the only thing 
 which prevented him was a suspicion that it might suit 
 Desire's arrangements too well if he did. 
 
 Lady Quebell was ignorant of what had occurred in the 
 afternoon, but she guessed from his manner that all was not 
 well. She concluded that he had already heard some of the 
 5 65
 
 DESIRE 
 
 gossip that was going round. And so far, it seemed, the 
 spell of Desire's personality had not entirely erased the 
 impression, but let him have some more of it and, so she 
 believed, all might still be well ; so she insisted on his dining 
 with them. But in counting on Desire's fascination she 
 counted on what did not exist that night. Desire was most 
 unbecomingly dressed, she had unnecessarily and inartistically 
 powdered her face ; she seemed tired, too, almost listless, her 
 usual exuberant vitality eclipsed into commonplaceness, and 
 her conversation dull in the extreme. She did not even take 
 an intelligent interest in what Gore said ; her mind was 
 apparently elsewhere, and she did not trouble to conceal the 
 fact. She did not actually mention Grimstone more than 
 once, but it was clear to an observer that a good deal of her 
 conversation might have reference to him, and her thoughts 
 plainly were not with her present company. Lady Quebell, 
 having the performances of the past weeks in her mind, felt 
 very uneasy and very angry. However, she had one comfort, 
 whatever Gore's justifiable feelings, he could do little. Even 
 if his outraged sensibilities or pride or vanity provoked him so 
 far as to wish, in a moment of irritation, to break the engage- 
 ment, he could not well do it. She herself could make it 
 well nigh impossible for him to do it creditably ; the break, 
 if break there was to be, must come from Desire. So far, in 
 spite of her recent egregious and foolish conduct, she had 
 shown no signs of intending to make it. It is one thing 
 for an impulsive woman to make a fool of herself over a 
 penniless and entirely ineligible man, and quite another to 
 throw over an entirely eligible and recognized lover for him, 
 and to face the public talk of breaking an engagement within 
 a few weeks of marriage. 
 
 Lady Quebell, thinking over these things, went to bed com- 
 paratively happy, recollecting, with satisfaction, an arrange- 
 
 66
 
 DESIRE 
 
 ment she had made that Gore should go to Hurlingham with 
 them on Monday. Also of the further arrangement she had 
 privately made that she herself should lunch with friends and 
 join their party to Hurlingham, leaving Gore and Desire to 
 come on alone. " Give him enough of Desire," was her 
 opinion, "and the thing is done; and let him be seen 
 publicly with her again, and the thing cannot be undone." 
 
 But her satisfaction might have been lessened had she seen 
 a letter Desire wrote soon after the Hurlingham arrangement 
 was made. It was to the other woman, of whose very 
 existence Lady Quebell did not know, and would have 
 reckoned of small importance if she had. 
 
 It ran 
 
 " Be somewhere near this house on Monday afternoon. You 
 may have to wait some while, but have no appearance of 
 watching. When the time arrives, and he comes, you should 
 have the look of being there by chance, and, if possible, not seeing 
 which house he comes from. There is no visible break yet, but 
 our relationship is strained and his patience near snapping point. 
 There has been no mention of you between us ; I don't advise 
 there should be any mention of me between you, unless, of course, 
 he tells you of his impending marriage. But I leave you to cope 
 with your situation ; you will be playing for a big stake and 
 doubtless will know how best to play." 
 
 Desire signed her name to this, and also gave an approxi- 
 mate time for Monday. Then she posted it herself, not 
 because she distrusted Barton, had she done so the posting 
 would have been highly unwise, as likely to give rise to 
 suspicion, but because she somehow felt ashamed for herself 
 and for Gore, and would not admit the maid even to the 
 outskirts of this dethronement. 
 
 On Monday Lady Quebell betook herself to her luncheon- 
 
 67
 
 DESIRE 
 
 party, and afterwards to Hurlingham, in peace of mind. 
 Desire, who had kept her room that morning, on a reputed 
 headache, took her lunch alone. Gore had pleaded another 
 engagement, and said he would come afterwards. 
 
 He came, and found Desire in morning dress, her head 
 too bad for Hurlingham. Too bad also, it would seem, for 
 conversation, for anything but the quintessence of aggrava- 
 tion, or at least, so he found it. She, when his irritation 
 became a little apparent, suggested he should go to Hur- 
 lingham alone. He refused rather curtly, and in his turn 
 suggested she should give him some sort of explanation of 
 what he had heard. 
 
 *' An explanation ? " she said, with a little weary move- 
 ment. " I'll try, if you like, but I warn you, I'm feeling 
 terribly stupid to-day. What am I to explain ? Something 
 unpleasant, I suppose, since you seem so no, I won't say 
 bad-tempered, though it's a fact." 
 
 Gore frowned. " I should like to know the meaning of 
 the talk I have heard the talk about you." 
 
 " My dear man," the flippancy of her tone jarred with the 
 gravity of his, " what a preposterous request ! You seem to 
 have forgotten in your voyaging on the high seas that we 
 never talk when we have anything to say, and always talk 
 when we have nothing. I couldn't possibly tell you what 
 
 I meant by what I said, and as for what other people do " 
 
 she spread out her hands helplessly. 
 
 The frown deepened on Gore's face. " This is mere 
 quibbling," he said. " You must know to what I refer; you 
 must be aware of what is being said about you." 
 
 <c According to my step-mother," Desire returned, " hun- 
 dreds of things are said about me every day ; I must be, 
 according to her, the most thought of, talked of, considered 
 person in town. But I'm not, you know j I don't suppose 
 
 68
 
 DESIRE 
 
 what I do interests any one : it interests her, of course, when 
 it displeases her, it is then that I bulk largely in her mind, 
 and then, poor dear, she makes the mistake of thinking I 
 must in other people's too. Perhaps that is what has 
 occurred to you ? " 
 
 " I am naturally interested in what you do," he said, <c and 
 not unnaturally displeased with what I have heard." 
 
 " Oh dear ! " Desire exclaimed with impatience. " What 
 have you heard ? Do for goodness' sake say what you want 
 to say and have done with it ! What have I been doing ? 
 Cheating, stealing, committing adultery ? " 
 
 Gore had never before seen Desire's good-humour and 
 imperturbable calm shaken. He did not appreciate it now. 
 
 " Grimstone " he began, but, with a whirl of passion, 
 
 she cut him short. 
 
 " Grimstone, is it ? A man who has got brain, who has 
 got character, who is above the common ruck and not under- 
 stood by them ! Well, he's my friend, if that is what you 
 want to know, and I hope he always will be. Will that 
 satisfy you ? " 
 
 No." 
 
 She pushed the smelling bottle, ostentatiously placed~at 
 her elbow, from her, as if seeking more room. " Oh, 
 Lord ! " she exclaimed, with concentrated irritation, " what 
 does the man want ? I can't explain him away, if that's 
 what you want and I wouldn't if I could. But go on, ask 
 me questions, I'll answer you if I can; I should think_a 
 catechism would best meet your requirements." 
 
 Gore rose. " I think it would perhaps be better if I were 
 to go," he said stiffly. 
 
 Desire rose with alacrity. " Well, if you really must," 
 she said, with a disconcertingly sudden cheerfulness of 
 tone. 
 
 69
 
 DESIRE 
 
 u See you to-night, perhaps," she said carelessly ; " I go 
 to the St. Justs' for bridge, do you ? And on to the 
 Beauforts' afterwards if my head's better ; I think I shall 
 lie down and take care of it for a while ; I must go to the 
 Beauforts' anyhow I " 
 
 She did not say she had promised to meet, or agreed to 
 take, Peter Grimstone there, but Gore was perfectly convinced 
 that was the case. His manner became stifFer and more 
 distant than ever, also more dignified as he remembered the 
 social unimportance a matter which weighed much with 
 him which gossip ascribed to this man. " I am to 
 understand," he said, " that you would rather rest now, in 
 preparation for the" he wanted to say meeting, but did 
 just say " entertainment this evening than give me any 
 sort of explanation of your proceedings ? " 
 
 It was very clear that he might understand this ; Desire 
 let him do so in no propitiatory way. In a short time he 
 took his departure, he had not been invited to sit down again, 
 though during the few minutes he stood Desire contrived to 
 be supremely irritating and unpleasant before she finally 
 dismissed him. 
 
 "Good-bye," she said at last, with a touch of the flippancy ; 
 " and when you come out to-night do let me advise you to 
 leave the grand seigneur manner at home, such wonderful 
 seriousness is quite out of fashion now ; no one has time 
 to do anything but eat, drink, and be merry now, you 
 know." 
 
 He bowed stiffly. " Good-bye," he said, and shut the 
 door after him. 
 
 She glanced at the clock ; she had glanced covertly 
 once before now, as he left her she glanced openly ; it was 
 not much after the hour she had appointed. He went 
 down-stairs, she listened till her straining ears caught the 
 
 70
 
 DESIRE 
 
 quiet closing of the hall door. He had gone now. She 
 leaned back and shut her eyes, very much as if she were in 
 the stress of the neuralgic pain she had earlier claimed. 
 They would be meeting soon, somewhere near ; she, the 
 other woman, would not miss him, her whole soul, her life 
 almost was in the matter, she would not miss. Desire did 
 not know where they would meet, she had no wish to know 
 or see, had she by an impossible accident been by when they 
 met she would have turned away, she would have gone 
 into a shop, a public-house, a hovel, anywhere to hide 
 herself. Even here, alone, a glow of shame spread over her, 
 not shame for herself exactly, certainly not for the other 
 woman, rather for Gore, and for human nature through 
 him. 
 
 " Edith," that was her name, he would say " Edith ! " in 
 complete astonishment and perhaps at the moment almost 
 fear. He would glance round, and then, in the face of her 
 apparent ignorance, recover and draw her to some less 
 conspicuous spot. He would excuse himself perhaps and be 
 awkward ; but she would be gentle and unconscious, not 
 regretful or resentful or anything but glad to see him. He 
 would be relieved ; he would find relief and comfort in her 
 company ; her sympathy would be balm to him ; her 
 gentleness rouse his shamed chivalry. Before they were 
 aware of it they would begin to walk together ; they would 
 speak of his health, his journey, his long absence safe 
 things, soothing things for one who had been jarred on as 
 he had. She would know how to soothe, this Edith who 
 loved ; she would be tactful, sympathetic, she would humble 
 herself in heart and soul, hiding her knowledge and her 
 hurt, striving only to win him back. He would say 
 nothing of his impending marriage, he had not the courage 
 before, he would not have now ; he would not have the 
 
 7 1
 
 DESIRE 
 
 mental courage, either, to repulse the woman he had loved 
 did love still ? The better of him might protest against the 
 duplicity, but the better would also crave for her company 
 in rebound from the company he had just left. For a 
 little he might waver but in the end he would go with her ; 
 he would argue that there was no reason why he should not 
 recapture one hour of their old restful happiness. They 
 would drive away together. Where ? Perhaps to her home 
 his home the child's home ! 
 
 A spasm of pain contracted Desire's face, and for a little 
 she lay back quite still, her strong fingers crushing a fold of 
 her dress. 
 
 After a little she opened her eyes and, though her mouth 
 still twitched a little, they held again the half-whimsical, half- 
 amused look with which she fronted most of the happenings 
 of her life. 
 
 " You are a fool, my friend," so she told herself; " he isn't 
 worth it, and she isn't worth it, and you aren't worth it, 
 nothing is. A fool, a fool, a fool ! " 
 
 She took up The Dreamer^ which had been lying 
 ostentatiously open at her elbow when Gore came in. 
 " Let us retire to the world of Never Was and Never Will 
 Be, with one who has nothing to do with Things-as-they- 
 are."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 ALEXANDER GRIMSTONE came home in March. He had 
 apparently been expected for some days before he came, quite 
 how many Mrs. Grimstone did not know, she only knew 
 what her husband told her briefly, that he was coming. 
 She was much astonished by the news, but, taught by past 
 experience, did not ask any useless questions. It was enough 
 for her that he was coming, that she should see him again, 
 and probably soon see the wife over whom the quarrel had 
 been begun eight years ago, and the two children, her grand- 
 children, who were strangers to her. She was happy in the 
 thought, and made what preparations she could. She could 
 not kill the fatted calf, for she did not know for which meal 
 to have it dressed, but she put fine linen sheets upon the best 
 spare bed, and pictured to herself over and over again the 
 manner of Alexander's return. She did not, of course, know 
 what was bringing him, whether the initial move was made 
 by him or by her husband ; but her pictures of his return 
 all had reference to repentant sons and forgiving fathers and 
 misunderstandings cleared away. They overlooked such 
 characteristics as mutual obstinacy and mutual cold-hearted- 
 ness ; and also overlooked the fact that Alexander, who at 
 the time of the quarrel had been turned out to shift for him- 
 self, had succeeded in shifting very well a thing liable to 
 make a difference to repentance in some people. 
 
 For two days Mrs. Grimstone wove her pictures ; but 
 nothing happened, there was no sign of Alexander and no 
 
 73
 
 DESIRE 
 
 word about him. She was rather puzzled, for, from what 
 her husband said, she had concluded that he would come at 
 once, any time ; she kept hot bottles in the spare bed and 
 wondered to herself; then, on the morning of the third day, 
 she asked her husband when he expected Alexander. He 
 told her that he had not the slightest idea. Yet, from his 
 manner, she felt sure that he, like herself, had expected him 
 earlier. Wisely, however, she did not say so. 
 
 The day wore through, a cold grey day it was, with 
 occasional squalls of rain on a high wind too wet and windy 
 for any one, like Mrs. Grimstone, bronchially inclined, to go 
 out. It was rather a long day, but the old lady, with patient 
 briskness, went about small household tasks. Towards night 
 the wind dropped and it became very quiet, so quiet that one 
 could hear steps a good way off ; Mrs. Grimstone found her- 
 self listening for steps as she sat by the fire mending. It 
 was very absurd, of course, but she found herself doing it, 
 though the very few that came along never stopped there. 
 
 Supper was at nine at the Grimstones', and probably 
 always would be so long as Ezra Grimstone lived ; the house- 
 hold being ordered on the lines which found favour with the 
 Medes and Persians, where the laws alter not. On this par- 
 ticular night Ezra and his wife sat down as usual, one at 
 each end of the table, and as usual sat in silence. People 
 who have been married thirty odd years and started without 
 an interest in common seldom have much to say to each 
 other, unless they belong to a class who practise polite con- 
 versation in private. Once, as Mrs. Grimstone glanced across 
 at the stern face opposite, she wondered if her husband were 
 thinking of the son who had not returned ; but there was 
 nothing to indicate it, and the thought was soon banished 
 from her mind by momentary annoyance with Mary, who 
 had brought in the wrong dish. 
 
 74
 
 DESIRE 
 
 It was just at that minute, almost the only one in the past 
 three days when he was not uppermost in her thoughts, that 
 Alexander came. 
 
 He walked in much as if he had been in the habit of doing 
 so every day, and as if he had walked out not longer ago 
 than this morning. There was no surprise, no emotion ; 
 even in Mrs. Grimstone's mind so strong was the influence 
 about her there was no emotion, her dominant feeling was 
 regret that she had not prepared a finer supper. 
 
 She did rise impulsively and exclaim, " Oh, Alexander ! " 
 
 But he only replied, "Well, mother," and kissed her 
 lightly before she was fairly out of her chair and long before 
 she could put her arms about his neck if she had any 
 thought of doing so. 
 
 Then he shook hands with his father. " Sorry I'm late," 
 he said ; " I had to see a man in the town on business, and it 
 took longer than I expected." 
 
 The father merely nodded, and Alexander sat down in the 
 place that used to be his. Mrs. Grimstone plied him with 
 food, and did her best to make him welcome. He told her 
 not to trouble, and helped himself, much as if his usual place 
 were at that table. He had a good appetite, but in spite of 
 that and the start his father and mother had had, he was 
 easily done first ; he ate as he talked, fast, faster than the 
 average, and as one who thought anything more leisurely a 
 waste of time. 
 
 Mrs. Grimstone longed to ask after her little-known 
 daughter-in-law, and even more after the children, but she 
 was afraid in her husband's company. She had to content 
 herself with inquiries after Alexander's health, which was 
 obviously very good, and remarks concerning her own which 
 did not greatly interest him. The father and son spoke a 
 little together on impersonal topics, rather as might two un- 
 
 75
 
 DESIRE 
 
 sociable strangers who are thrown together at an hotel table. 
 Mrs. Grimstone, listening, glanced from one to the other, 
 and noticed, without understanding, the changes time had 
 made in Alexander. He was a little like his father in some 
 ways, but with several marked differences, the most striking 
 being the eyes, which in him were over-near together and of 
 the opaque hardness of stone. He was a good deal fairer 
 than his father, too, having the greyish-yellow colouring of 
 some animal. There was nothing in his appearance to 
 suggest the repentant son ; and nothing, it must be admitted, 
 in the elder man's to suggest the forgiving father. 
 
 At last supper was finished, and Mary, the elderly servant, 
 accompanied by Robert her husband, came in for prayers. 
 The old man fetched a Bible, and let it, perhaps by chance, 
 fall open at the parable of the Prodigal Son, as he put it 
 before his master. Mr. Grimstone turned back the leaves 
 till he came to the place where he left off reading last night. 
 It was the prophet Jeremiah's reproof to an unrepentant and 
 backsliding generation. He read a passage in a level voice, 
 and afterwards they all knelt down, and from another book 
 he read a prayer. It was a formal prayer, and he read it 
 formally ; only once did a trace of feeling creep for a moment 
 into his voice when the text contained a supplication that 
 all present might be brought to right courses and kept therein. 
 But no one observed him, Mrs. Grimstone was surreptitiously 
 wiping her eyes, moved less by the occasion than by her own 
 previous pictures of it and Alexander was thoughtfully 
 picking his teeth. 
 
 When the prayer was concluded they all rose, and Mr. 
 Grimstone asked his son to come with him to his office. 
 Mrs. Grimstone hesitated a moment ; but no one invited 
 her to come evidently no one thought of her so she re- 
 mained where she was, rather wistfully looking after them. 
 
 7 6
 
 DESIRE 
 
 Would the reconciliation, the real reconciliation, take place 
 now ? She wondered was sure was doubtful and sure 
 again. She wished so she could help, not so much for 
 Alexander's sake. She had never felt much more for 
 Alexander than the parent animal's instinct for its young 
 it is doubtful if any woman could have done and though 
 the eight years' absence had obliterated the memory of some 
 of his unlovable ways, it had not really increased her affection, 
 whatever she might for the moment think. But for the sake 
 of the children, her grandchildren whom she had never held 
 in her arms, she could have forgiven him anything. If only 
 Ezra felt the same ! For a little after the two left her she 
 stood listening ; once she was almost inclined to follow un- 
 invited, in the hope of helping to ratify the peace which 
 might or might not be made. But she did not, the habit of 
 submission kept her where she was ; and common-sense 
 warned her, too, that though there was a chance that father 
 and son might not come to terms, there was no chance at all 
 of her being able to help them. So she sat down again and 
 took up her mending, while Mary cleared the table and com- 
 mented, with the familiarity of long service, on Alexander 
 and the changes she observed in him. 
 
 But in the small room at the back the father and son were 
 not talking of reconciliation, such a thing, in the emotional 
 sense of the word, was not in the power of either of them. 
 What they spoke of was a commercial understanding, a 
 species of business treaty which, it is true, some might mistake 
 for a form of reconciliation. Ezra Grimstone had sent for 
 his son to make him an offer : to take him into the little old 
 firm of Grimstone & Son ; to ignore the eight years' absence, 
 and the quarrel which had preceded it, and the accumulated 
 differences which had preceded that ; not to forgive or to forget 
 them, but to ignore them in the commercial relationship. 
 
 77
 
 DESIRE 
 
 That was the offer ; not magnificent pecuniarily, perhaps, 
 for the firm of Grimstone & Son was very small. Ezra 
 Grimstone was a potter, as his father and grandfather had 
 been before him, though he was not of what is considered 
 the true potter breed. The first Ezra was not a native 
 born, and the family, in spite of the work, had never really 
 amalgamated with the potter caste, but kept much to itself, 
 mixing little. In the far-off time of the first Ezra, which 
 had been the time of small concerns and working masters, 
 the firm had counted for something. In these days of large 
 concerns, with their eight or ten ovens, rotary kilns, and 
 several hundred hands, it counted for little more than a 
 curious survival. It paid still, even though it was situated 
 some way from a railway it had been built in the days 
 when water was the highway but it was in no way 
 important. To Ezra, however, it was everything ; he had 
 worked in it and lived with it as his father and grandfather 
 had ; it was all his life, as it had been all theirs. To him 
 the continuity of the pottery was as the continuity of the 
 name to a great family, perhaps more, for he had nothing 
 else besides. For its sake he had made this overture to 
 Alexander, a thing he would not have brought himself to 
 do for his own sake or his wife's, or Alexander's, or the 
 grandchildren's, or anything in the world. For the sake of 
 Grimstone & Son he had sent for him, for, whatever else 
 Alexander was, he was the man to carry on the business. 
 He had sent for him, and to-night he made him the offer. 
 
 And Alexander said nothing. Even when the offer was 
 made he sat quite still a moment, a thing rare with him, for 
 he was a curiously restless person. Whether the proposal 
 surprised him or not did not appear, like all the Grimstones 
 his face masked his feelings well ; but he eyed his father 
 once or twice as if seeking to find if he had any ulterior 
 
 78
 
 DESIRE 
 
 motive. He passed his hand over his long chin, a habit he 
 had when he was approaching anything warily. 
 
 " How do you stand r " he asked. " The books have 
 you got them handy ? " 
 
 The elder man nodded. " You are cautious of accepting 
 a gift," he said, " but you never were great at either giving 
 or receiving." 
 
 " No," Alexander said carelessly, and did not add, as he 
 perhaps might, that the characteristic was inherited. He 
 stretched his legs before the cold grate. " I take it," he 
 said, " the proposal is in the way of business ? " 
 
 Ezra did not answer, he was unlocking a safe in the 
 corner ; from it he took books, which he carried to the high 
 desk. 
 
 Alexander rose and came to examine them, and his father 
 drew away. 
 
 For a little there was silence except for the turning of 
 leaves. Ezra had taken his son's place in the black leather 
 chair now ; unlike him it was natural to him to sit very still, 
 he sat so now, watching the long back of the younger man 
 as he stooped to examine the entries. 
 
 At last Alexander closed the books and pushed them from 
 him. "You seem to be holding your own still," he said, 
 almost as if he thought it rather strange. 
 
 The elder Grimstone put the books away without speak- 
 ing j when that was done he turned to his son. " Well r " 
 he said curtly. " You are satisfied as to the position, and 
 you hear what I offer j what's your answer ? " 
 
 "I'm considering," Alexander said, leaning back against 
 the mantelpiece and picking his teeth again. 
 
 " Considering ! " Ezra's voice for a moment lost its 
 distant coldness and rang sharp. " It's a new thing for a 
 son of Grimstones' and such a son to consider whether 
 
 79
 
 DESIRE 
 
 he shall come into the pottery or not. One would think I 
 was asking you a favour ! " 
 
 " Not they ! No one who knew us would think it, we 
 don't deal in favours, this is business pure and simple." 
 
 " Poor business on your part," the father said, " if it 
 takes you so long to decide if you'll have something for 
 nothing." 
 
 "One's got to make sure just what the something is," 
 Alexander told him. "Oh, I know your opinion' of the firm 
 of Grimstone it's natural, of course, though not neces- 
 sarily right on that account. But outside this house I 
 don't want to hurt your feelings but outside the opinion's 
 not the same. What is Grimstones' to the average man ? 
 A two-man-and-a-boy affair, a one-kiln curiosity where they 
 can turn out five crates a week. It makes a profit, I know, 
 a small one, just enough to keep going. It has a good name, 
 too, and a decent connection of sorts, something might be 
 
 done with it, but at present Why, my own show's 
 
 much bigger, my turn-over's a lot more." 
 
 The elder Grimstone's eyes gleamed, but he kept himself 
 in hand. cc You are a tradesman," he said, " and if all 
 that is reported is true, not too honest a one in all your 
 dealings." 
 
 " We're all in trade," his son answered carelessly. " I 
 buy and sell pots, you make 'em, there isn't much difference, 
 and we all make what profit we can. By the way, I'm 
 trying a new line, something more in your way : we do a 
 bit of decorating at my place now. There is something in 
 that buy pots cheap and decorate 'em yourself don't you 
 think so ? " 
 
 " I don't know anything about it," Ezra said coldly. 
 
 " And don't want to ? " Alexander inquired with a little 
 amusement. " But you will that is, if we amalgamate." 
 
 80
 
 DESIRE 
 
 i 
 
 " We are not going to amalgamate." 
 
 Not r " 
 
 " Certainly not. That is not what I offer. My offer is 
 that you join me as I joined my father, and he joined his. 
 That Grimstone & Son is Grimstone & Son, as it always 
 has been, and always will be." 
 
 This interpretation of the offer had never occurred to 
 Alexander, and for a moment he could hardly realize it, it 
 was so altogether absurd. 
 
 " You don't mean that ? " he said. " Why, it's madness ! 
 What about the business I have built up ? If it is not to be 
 amalgamated, what do you propose I should do with it ? " 
 
 " Anything you choose sell it, wind it up do what you 
 please, but get rid of it before you come to me." 
 
 " Get rid of it ? Get rid of it ? " 
 
 " Certainly ; get rid of it, and hope that you may get 
 rid of the name you have begun to get in it. I don't say 
 anything about your ways of doing business. I have heard of 
 them, of course, and I may regret them as I may regret your 
 choice of a wife and your want of religion ; but I can't undo 
 what's done. This is all I have to say I am ready to 
 overlook that, and have you here in a son's place, but on 
 the 'understanding that you wind up your present concern, 
 dispose of your capital how you like I won't have it and 
 come to me with empty hands and an intention of keeping 
 them clean." 
 
 Alexander drew in his breath in almost a whistle ; the 
 folly of his father's words was such to him that it made him 
 for a moment forget to notice the slight on his integrity 
 that they held. To refuse to amalgamate, to refuse the new 
 young business, to refuse even the capital it might represent. 
 It was incredible ! To imagine for an instant that he, 
 Alexander, would think of acquiescing in such an arrange- 
 6 81
 
 DESIRE 
 
 ment was an insult to his intelligence as big an insult as 
 the comments on his ways of doing business (which certainly- 
 had been near the wind, but had always come off safely). 
 He was for a moment really roused ; nevertheless, when he 
 spoke it was with no contemptuous or angry expression of 
 outraged dignity, for, above all things, he loved money, and 
 he seldom lost his head or his temper where it was con- 
 cerned. He saw advantages to himself in a treaty on 
 rational terms, of course with his father, advantages greater 
 than the elder man could. He believed that the union once 
 made and himself fairly in power at the little old pottery, as 
 well as in his own business, the way to fortune would be com- 
 paratively cleared to him and his pace along it accelerated. 
 Therefore, having no wish to refuse his father's offer entirely, 
 and no intention of giving up his own concern, he spoke 
 cautiously and with moderation. He argued for the amal- 
 gamation, pointing out such advantages as he deemed wise ; 
 without, however, showing undue anxiety for it, or letting 
 it be seen that he had all along meant to accept his father's 
 offer on his own terms. 
 
 But in the years that had passed since he and his father 
 had discussed any affair he had forgotten two things the 
 immovableness of his father's prejudices, and the fact that 
 they two had never been able to get on the dark side of each 
 other. In vain did he put his case speciously, and explain 
 his own past proceedings and condemned methods with 
 ingenuity and a fine frankness. He might just as well 
 have made his statement baldly, the older man followed the 
 working of his mind perfectly and did not alter his own a 
 hair's-breadth. 
 
 With complete obstinacy Ezra held to his original offer. 
 " Either," he said, <c you come on my terms or you don't 
 come at all. You are surprised ? You always thought 
 
 82
 
 DESIRE 
 
 money everything, you think so now, I suppose ? Thought 
 you would come to me on your own terms with your 
 capital, and I should be glad to have it ? But I tell you, 
 such capital is dross to me, husks yes, husks, as if when 
 the prodigal son arose and went to his father he took a 
 bushel of the swine's husks with him." 
 
 Alexander bit his lip, nothing but his keen eye for 
 pecuniary advantage kept his tongue under any sort of con- 
 trol. " We'd better stick to trade," he said curtly, " if you 
 start in with Bible parables we shall get no further. Though, 
 let me tell you while you are on the parable tack, that, even 
 if you do believe you feel like the biblical father, I don't 
 pretend to feel like the repentant son. Also, you might bear 
 in mind, that it was you who said * come,' not I who said 
 * I will go,' in this case." 
 
 " I know I did," Ezra returned. " I did it for the pottery 
 I want nothing of you myself, seeing the way you think 
 and act and have acted, you can be no son to me. It was 
 not for that I sent for you, and it was not for that you came. 
 But there is the pottery, you are wanted there ; Ezra is 
 dead, Peter is no use ; you are of use, you are the one who 
 must come after me if Grimstone & Son is to go on and not 
 die out when I die." 
 
 There was a subdued passion in his voice which, plainer 
 than words, showed Alexander the strength of his position. 
 He himself had no more feeling for the little old firm than 
 for his father ; but he saw, probably for the first time, the 
 depth of his father's feeling for it, and seeing determined to 
 profit and to hold out for his own terms. 
 
 " As father," the elder man was saying, " I have nothing 
 for you ; you married against my wish a shallow, shiftless 
 fool with a little money to her name, and it was the money 
 which took you, not the fool. You thwarted me at every 
 
 83
 
 DESIRE 
 
 turn, you scoffed at what I hold to, you ran counter to me 
 where you could. You are a stranger to me, neither you 
 nor I wish anything else, we do not pretend about it. But 
 as Ezra Grimstone, the third Grimstone, I have this for you 
 you can come back and join me as I joined my father. 
 As I joined him, mind not otherwise. Those are my 
 terms." 
 
 Alexander laughed, a short loud laugh, not infectious. 
 " Your terms are too high," he said, and felt for a cigarette. 
 
 Ezra eyed him over, and his eyes were very cold. " You 
 refuse ? " he asked quietly. 
 
 " To bind myself to make pots with old Robert and a boy 
 for the rest of my life ? Yes, I do." 
 
 He held the cigarette-case for a moment, but did not open 
 it, the old stringent rules against promiscuous smoking still 
 had an unconscious influence. " Is it likely," he asked, 
 " that a man of my age, and one who you say yourself has 
 some capacity, is going to be content with that sort of job, 
 little better than the job of a labourer at thirty bob a week, 
 in a little pot-bank in his own backyard, all because his 
 grandfather and great-grandfather did before him ? It's not 
 good enough. I'm going to make money ; I am making it 
 now, but I'd make it quicker if I joined up with you, we'd 
 make it together. We'd run the old place more or less on 
 the old lines if you liked, you could run it if it's your hobby, 
 but we'd couple it, at all events couple the name up with 
 with several new things, and you may bet they'd pay." 
 
 " Then you refuse ? " Ezra repeated the question in the 
 same level, emotionless voice. 
 
 " I've told you so, but " 
 
 " Then no more need be said. Good-night." 
 
 The voice, though still emotionless, somehow cut off what 
 Alexander had to say, and with a sharp finality. For a 
 
 84
 
 DESIRE 
 
 moment the younger man looked at the elder uncertainly, 
 as if in the years which had elapsed since they last did battle 
 he had forgotten. Then he turned away with his short 
 laugh ; he remembered, but he did not repent ; he, too, had 
 learnt nothing of giving way. Moreover, he lay this com- 
 fort to his mind, if he lost by refusal, the father lost still more 
 so much more that he must at some future time be driven 
 to make the offer again. 
 
 " Good-night," he said, and went to the door. 
 
 Mrs. Grimstone, sitting by the parlour fire, heard the office 
 door open, heard steps in the hall, heard the front door open 
 and close again, and then the dull rasping sound as the bolts 
 on the inner side were shot home when it was made fast for 
 the night. 
 
 " Alexander ! " she called. 
 
 There was no answer, and, made bold by anxiety, she 
 went to look down the hall. 
 
 " Alexander ! " she said. 
 
 Ezra Grimstone rose from stooping to the lower bolt. 
 " Alexander has gone," he said. 
 
 " Gone ! Isn't he going to stay the night ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " When is he coming back ? " 
 
 " Never." 
 
 And Ezra went slowly down the hall, back to the office, 
 where he went in and shut the door. 
 
 Neither then nor later did he tell his wife any detail of 
 what had happened, or indeed make any reference to it. It 
 might as well have never occurred. Alexander might never 
 have come home for all that was said between them about it. 
 Alexander himself did not write to his mother, he sent no 
 line of farewell or regret at not seeing her again. He was 
 busy, and it did not occur to him ; he felt no regret himself, 
 
 85
 
 DESIRE 
 
 and never thought of her in the matter. Demonstrative 
 affection, like the social amenities, had been entirely absent 
 from the boyhood and youth of the Grimstones, a lack which 
 cold natures and strong and energetic ones cannot always 
 afford. The habit of considering others, even when there is 
 no heart in it, is worth something. Alexander had neither 
 the heart nor the habit, so he wrote no word to his mother, 
 and she had to guess as much as she could of what had 
 happened. 
 
 As for Ezra, he grew even more silent ; each day seemed 
 to make him grimmer and graver and greyer ; she saw it 
 vaguely as Mary and Robert did, and was as far from any 
 spoken confidence as they. Daily he worked as before, 
 longer hours rather than shorter ; but it was as if a frost was 
 on him and on everything he touched. 
 
 Thus through the spring and early summer, and on till 
 the end of July, when he was taken ill. 
 
 It was not a serious illness, though it kept him from work 
 a little while, and would have kept him longer had the work 
 been further away than his own house, and his workman and 
 chief factotum any other than Robert. But the illness did 
 two things. In the first place it gave Mrs. Grimstone the 
 opportunity for which she was hungering, of feeding and 
 caring for some one. Her husband was not a good subject, 
 still he bore her ministrations with patience more could 
 hardly be expected of him. And in the second it decided 
 Ezra to make some definite provision for Grimstone & Son. 
 If he died, and of course he must die some time, or if he was 
 long incapacitated by illness, or in any way forced to lose 
 his grip on things and he realized with a bitterness that was 
 almost humiliation that this was as likely to befall him as 
 another if any of these things happened Alexander would 
 take for himself and on his own terms that which he had 
 
 86
 
 DESIRE 
 
 refused on his father's. There was only one way of prevent- 
 ing it, some one else must be put in to hold what Ezra 
 prized when he no longer could. But who ? As he lay ill 
 he thought about this, and about very little else. He was a 
 man practically without friends, and possessed of few rela- 
 tions, none of whom he thought anything. He had no one 
 to put in his place in the pottery but Robert, a man almost 
 as old as he was, and not equal to dealing with Alexander 
 and Peter, who he himself had described as no use. 
 
 Peter was no use, his father had never thought him so ; 
 for this reason it had not seemed to him important what pro- 
 fession Peter followed so long as it was honest. The one 
 chosen was one of which he had no opinion it belonged to 
 the realm of play, not work, in his estimation. He had not 
 interfered with Peter's choice of it, because he thought him 
 useless for anything better, but the choice was only a further 
 proof of the uselessness and Peter's recognition of it. Yet it 
 seemed that on this useless one Grimstones' must now fall 
 back. It was bitterly hard, he had no business ability, no 
 potter's instinct, none of the required characteristics ; but 
 there was no one else. One only quality useful to the posi- 
 tion did Ezra recognize, Peter would make a fight to hold 
 his own against Alexander ; he might or might not do it, 
 but he would make a stubborn fight for it. For the rest, he 
 must himself try to teach him, and endure how he could the 
 incompetency and ineptitude. 
 
 He rang for his wife, and ordered her to bring writing 
 materials. 
 
 She brought them, the ink with some reluctance. Some 
 of her fine linen sheets were on the bed, and she was afraid 
 for them in the neighbourhood of the ink-pot. 
 
 "Wouldn't it be easier for you to write with a pencil ?" 
 she said. 
 
 87
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " Eh ? " Ezra said. He was looking to see if she had 
 brought him the paper he wanted. 
 
 " You will be careful of the ink, won't you, dear ? " she 
 ventured. 
 
 "The ink ? Oh yes. You have not brought me an envelope. 
 Ah, here's one. Well, address it yourself if you like, and I 
 can write the letter in pencil. Address it to Peter ; then you 
 can go down-stairs again. I shall be some time writing. 
 Peter never had much sense, still he is all there is " 
 
 The last was hardly spoken to Mrs. Grirnstone, and she 
 did not answer it, but it caught her attention. That her 
 husband should write to Peter at all caught her attention, 
 she could not think what it could be about. She went down- 
 stairs wondering much ; she was not clever, and she had no 
 very good clue, but like many another simple woman she 
 sometimes divined things where her heart was concerned. 
 Instinctively she felt that much hung on this letter of her 
 husband's, and when she felt that it came to her, though she 
 trembled at the boldness of the idea, that she too must write. 
 She had done nothing when Alexander came ; she stood 
 aside, as it seemed she ought and he had come and gone. 
 Perhaps she ought to do nothing now ; perhaps this matter 
 was not the same, perhaps even it was not really important. 
 Yet she would try. Peter was different from Alexander, 
 Peter would not laugh or mind if she wrote or if she seemed 
 silly. Writing was not easy to her, at most times a letter 
 was a matter of composition needing thought and care, and 
 expressing little of what she felt. Now there was no time 
 for this, she must pen a few hasty lines before she was called 
 up-stairs. She felt, almost guiltily, that she must get her 
 letter written and out of the house before she saw her hus- 
 band again. And she did it, thus happening to catch an 
 earlier post than he did.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 A FIRM of publishers, old-fashioned and of repute, had 
 written to Peter Grimstone, saying in the impersonal way 
 used in English houses, that they would be glad to see a 
 novel by him. If he had written, was writing, or was con- 
 templating writing a second work of fiction of not less than 
 seventy-two thousand words they would be pleased if he 
 would give them the opportunity of considering it. 
 
 To Peter the letter meant a great deal ; it was, after 
 Desire's appreciation of The Dreamer, the most important 
 thing which had happened since the publication of the 
 book. He still ranked Desire's appreciation first, not only 
 on account of its results, but because to him it was a wonder- 
 ful and beautiful thing as all human sympathy really is. 
 But the publisher's letter was important ; it meant that 
 outside opinion was justifying his choice of a profession 
 (which mattered little to him), and also that by and by 
 perhaps he would be able to give up the side he did not like, 
 and confine himself to the side he did which mattered a 
 great deal. 
 
 On the same day that he received this letter something 
 else happened, he had a semi-business interview with the 
 important editor to whom Desire had made efforts to intro- 
 duce him. He had by now seen the great man once or 
 twice socially, but on that particular evening he had a semi- 
 official interview, and one of a most satisfactory order. He 
 was told to come to the office to-morrow in working hours, 
 but in the meantime he had to consider an offer, verbal
 
 DESIRE 
 
 certainly, but really formal too, such as was the ambition of 
 most men in his position. No wonder, then, as he walked 
 back to his rooms that night he felt the world was opening 
 before him. He was not one much given to exuberance or 
 excitement, but just for once he felt a stir in his blood, the 
 thrill of hope and power. His first book was a success, his 
 second well begun not being written easily, still, being 
 written with a certain mastery of the tools which made even 
 difficulties not all bad. Life itself was widening to him, 
 there were new powers, new sights, new things. Desire 
 Quebell had done more for him than push The Dreamer. To 
 serve herself, truly, she had done a good deal for him ; she 
 had shown him a bigger and a fuller world, and not least she 
 had admitted him into an intimacy with herself which was 
 educational after a sort. Life held promise that night when 
 Peter walked back to his rooms along streets, somewhat in 
 need of the washing^of the rain, which were to him as the 
 streets of the dream city known only to youth. 
 
 He did not exactly build air-castles for the future, he was 
 too cautious and diffident for that ; he did not exactly exult 
 in the share of success that had come to him, he had too just 
 an estimate of its actual value, too low an opinion of his own 
 ability ; he certainly did not fancy himself in love with 
 Desire Quebell, or make any mistake about her interest 
 in him. But in some way he appreciated and enjoyed all 
 the promise of the future, the fulness of the present, the 
 stirring power within himself. It was to him that night as 
 when one has walked up a steep way in a grey, rugged 
 country, and, coming suddenly out of the shadow at the top, 
 feels the risen sun and sees spread all before the world below. 
 Tardily awakened youth stirred in his blood, and he, teetotaler 
 in such things by necessity as well as by choice, tasted for 
 the first time of the wine of life. 
 
 90
 
 DESIRE 
 
 By the time he reached the door of his lodgings he 
 wanted to share what he could of this good thing, wanted to 
 tell some one. Not Desire, she had never climbed the steep 
 grey way, she had started with the sunshine and the spread 
 world at the top, she did not occur to him as a confidante 
 now, only one person did, his mother. She, of course, would 
 not completely understand, he never imagined she would. 
 But many mothers have the divine attribute of understanding 
 by sympathy their children's feelings even when they cannot 
 by reason understand the cause of them. It was this 
 attribute of mothers which Peter unconsciously thought to 
 draw on when he determined to write to his mother that 
 night. 
 
 But when he reached his rooms he found, rather to his 
 surprise, a letter from her waiting for him. He also found 
 the fox-terrier Paddy, who had been out on some expedition 
 of his own, and gone home to Peter instead of to his master, 
 a thing he not infrequently did. On these occasions he 
 usually managed to creep unobserved into the house some 
 time when the door was open, and, as now, lay in wait in 
 a dark place till he could make himself known to Peter, 
 apologize for his appearance, and demand congratulations on 
 his ingenuity. Peter told the dog he was a scoundrel, and 
 at the same time made him welcome ; then he took up the 
 letter. It was not his mother's day for writing, she wrote 
 once a fortnight ; never otherwise, except once when he sent 
 her his book, it must be something very exceptional which 
 made her write now. For a moment it flashed into his 
 mind that perhaps she had read the book now and wrote to 
 tell him her opinion of it, even that hardly seemed too 
 impossible a thing to-night. But the idea went almost as it 
 came, for it really was impossible, also the first glance at the 
 letter assured him that was not its subject. 
 
 91
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " Mr DEAR PETER" it ran, 
 
 " Tour father is writing to you " 
 
 Peter looked round, but there was no other letter, doubtless 
 it would come to-morrow 
 
 " Tour father is writing to you, I don't quite know what for^ 
 except that I am sure it is about the works ; but pray do not come 
 and go away for good and all as Alexander did in the spring. I 
 do not know what your father asked Alexander or said to him^ 
 but I am sure he is never coming again. If he says anything to 
 you, please do try to do it. 
 
 " Tour loving Mother^ 
 
 " SUSAN GRIMSTONE. 
 
 " P.S. Tourfather y who as you know has been /'//, is recovering 
 now. I hope you are quite well" 
 
 So Peter read, and stood so long with the paper in his 
 hand that Paddy jumped up at it to create a diversion. 
 Peter put the dog aside and returned to the letter. What 
 did it mean ? What could it mean ? It was written 
 apparently without his father's knowledge, perhaps even in 
 defiance of his implied will ; certainly in haste and perturba- 
 tion of mind, the style and writing betrayed that. Peter 
 could not understand it. He had heard, of course, long ago 
 of Alexander's coming and going away again, but he had 
 heard nothing of importance in connection with it Mrs. 
 Grimstone knew little and could explain less. What had it 
 to do with him ? And why was his father writing ? What 
 was he going to ask ? 
 
 A shadow had begun to spread over Peter's exultation. He 
 could not see how he could be robbed of what had so lately 
 come to him ; yet he had an intuitive perception of the 
 possibility. He sat down and went over the letter again, 
 
 92
 
 DESIRE 
 
 trying to read the worst meaning into each phrase and to 
 answer it to himself. At the end a sudden emotion, half 
 anger, half defiance, shook him. He was a fool, and this 
 was folly, and whatever it meant or threatened, it could not 
 and should not hurt. The future to-day had offered him 
 something, the future should fulfil it ! He put the letter aside 
 and went to bed. It did not matter what the writer meant, 
 or what the other writer would unfold to-morrow nothing 
 
 mattered, nothing could and nothing should. And yet 
 
 The exultation was gone, the sun was gone again, and all within 
 was grey and rugged as the hill landscape of his childhood. 
 
 Paddy liked staying the night with Peter ; apart from his 
 inordinate affection for his adopted master, which would 
 have reconciled him to any discomfort, there was no 
 discomfort to be endured. He spent the night on the foot 
 of Peter's bed, and he always had twice as much breakfast as 
 he did at home. On this, which also proved to be almost 
 the last of his unauthorized visits, something went wrong. 
 He spent a peaceful night, and there was a plenteous 
 breakfast, but he did not enjoy it. Peter did not give it to 
 him at first, he had a letter, newly come, which absorbed 
 his attention, and when at last, reminded by the dog, he 
 remembered to put the food down, there was that in his face 
 which spoiled Paddy's appetite. The dog put his nose in 
 the bowl, then he looked up doubtfully. Peter was sitting 
 down to the table, but he was not eating, he was looking at 
 a pencil letter, which was short enough for him to have 
 already read it once or twice. The dog looked at him 
 curiously, wistfully, face and attitude told something to the 
 half-developed mind, something which vaguely roused fear 
 and sympathy. He left the bowl and moved uneasily, finally 
 he came close, nuzzling against the man. And the man 
 replied by an automatic touch of the hand, the touch of one 
 
 93
 
 DESIRE 
 
 who by instinct will not hurt a creature's feelings, but who 
 has just now no thought or attention to spare. 
 
 Paddy lay down at his feet, nose on paws, mute anguish 
 of dumb and patient sympathy in eyes. The morning sun 
 streamed in on them and on the neglected bowl of food, 
 a fly buzzed on it, but the dog gave no heed. And the man 
 gave no heed to the sunlight. The sun had gone down on his 
 world, the sun that had only risen clear of the mists yesterday. 
 It was the old grey prospect again, the steep rough climb, the 
 mountainous way which wound always up and up, and never 
 reached the open spaces where there were pauses of rest and 
 margins of pleasure and the far-off view of golden promise. 
 
 Why? 
 
 He threw up his head with an unconscious movement. 
 Why should he accept it ? Why throw away what he had 
 and what he might have for this this less than nothing^ 
 this which must end in failure, this cramping of mind and 
 life, and doing ill what if done well was almost nothing at 
 all ? The grey way, the hopeless, ineffectual way was before 
 him ; but the other was too. He was not compelled to 
 either, the choice was his own to make. 
 
 There was a step on the stairs ; Peter heard it, and, with an 
 animal's instinct to hide suffering, turned so that his back 
 was towards the light. 
 
 Austin burst cheerfully into the room. u Congratulations, 
 old chap ! " was his greeting. " Congratulations, and a 
 bespeak of the first good thing you have to give away ! Of 
 all the lucky devils in the world you are the luckiest ! Not 
 content with casting spells over great ladies for you, fortune 
 must needs cast 'em over great editors too !" 
 
 Peter looked up, his face, even if it could have been seen, 
 betraying him very little. " Congratulations ? " he said. 
 " Oh, you have heard of last night r " 
 
 94
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " Yes, I heard. Mason was there, you know. He didn't 
 exactly hear what was said, but he pretty well guessed, and he 
 came along and told us." 
 
 " More than there was to tell, I think," Peter said, and 
 rising, went to the window and threw it wider. "It was 
 only an offer," he said, his back that way, " and I am not 
 sure that I shall accept it." 
 
 " What ! " Austin sat down in astonishment. " Have 
 you come into a fortune, or achieved fame in a musical 
 comedy, and modestly withheld your name ? " 
 
 " No," Peter answered, still looking out of the window ; 
 " but I'm not sure I shan't throw the whole thing up and go 
 back to my people." 
 
 Austin stared at his back. " Well, I'll be damned ! " he 
 said. Next moment he added inquisitively, " When did she 
 refuse you ? " 
 
 " She ? who ? " 
 
 There was no mistaking the genuineness of Peter's tone. 
 He had for the minute completely forgotten the existence of 
 Desire. Austin saw that, though he answered, " Queen of 
 hearts, Miss Quebell though I suppose you will say she 
 has nothing to do with it. Well, well, well, all I can say is 
 your people must be an extremely fascinating lot wish mine 
 were." 
 
 He rose as he spoke, and turned Paddy over with his foot. 
 " Ugh ! Brute ! " he said to the depressed dog; " is this the 
 way you greet your master ? " 
 
 The dog took no notice of him, only moved nearer to 
 Peter. 
 
 " What's the matter with the beast ? He looks as if he 
 had had the thrashing he deserves for desertion." 
 
 " I think he wants to stay with me," Peter said. " You 
 might leave him for the present." 
 
 95
 
 DESIRE 
 
 Austin left him, it suited his arrangements. " Bye-bye," 
 he said, " and don't forget I've bespoke the first good thing, 
 Mr. Editor." 
 
 From which it is clear he did not now believe in Peter's 
 doubt about taking the offer ; in his opinion it was bluff, 
 show-off, youth's vanity pretending to hesitate about accept- 
 ing what it was in reality ready to jump at. He was very 
 far from realizing that the words held less than the truth, 
 rather than more, and that the battle was more than half 
 over. Peter hardly knew it himself when he spoke ; after- 
 wards he did. Afterwards he felt as if he had subconsciously 
 known all along that this would be the end, no matter how 
 he struggled. Whatever the reasons for his not going, in 
 the end he would go. Why ? It was useless to ask why, 
 the thing would not defend itself, did not defend itself, but 
 like most of the motives that really matter, it was as impera- 
 tive as it was unanswering. A man may struggle with it 
 even though he foresees the end, but the end is the same. 
 Peter struggled all day ; not giving way from a sense of 
 duty, from any motive high or low that he knew of, but all 
 along knowing quite well that he would give way, and yet 
 struggling in spite of the knowledge. Throughout his work 
 the thing haunted him, filling in pauses, making itself an 
 accompaniment, everything going to the tune of struggle, 
 the struggle incessant, the end inevitable. 
 
 At the end of the day he went to see Desire. He had 
 no appointment with her, but in his assumed role he often 
 went when he could spare time without that. He would 
 probably have gone anyhow that day to tell her of last 
 night's interview and offer ; it was necessary he should go 
 now to hear when he could get his discharge. 
 
 But when he was shown into Desire's boudoir, where she 
 sat alone, he quickly became aware that she had affairs of 
 
 96
 
 DESIRE 
 
 her own on her mind. Instinctively his affairs shrank away 
 before them ; they could wait, they mattered nothing to her, 
 to any one but himself. He had lived so solitary and starved 
 a life that he never dreamed of demanding a hearing, let 
 alone sympathy. 
 
 " Are you busy ? " he said. " Shall I go ? " 
 
 She turned a curiously hard face, with eyes glitteringly 
 bright. " No," she said, " better stay. Have you come to 
 talk of wages r " 
 
 " Wages ? What for ? " 
 
 " For playing the part of Romeo, a distasteful part well 
 played, to the much wasting of your time." 
 
 "That was paid for beforehand. You have done more 
 for me and my book than can ever be wiped off that way." 
 
 Some of the hard lines on Desire's face smoothed a little, 
 perhaps because she was glad that he had not learnt any of 
 the language of compliment. 
 
 " That's nothing, and cost me nothing," she said, then 
 announced abruptly, " My engagement's broken off ; have 
 you heard ? " 
 
 He had not, and he knew it must be a very recent doing 
 for him not to have done so, seeing that he had seen her or 
 Gore or both almost every day since the latter's return. 
 
 " You've not heard ? Well, I tell you now, it's a fact 
 accomplished." 
 
 " I am glad," he said. 
 
 " Why ? " 
 
 " It is what you wanted, I imagine." 
 
 She laughed, rather a mirthless laugh. "I told you I 
 always got what I wanted, didn't I r " she said. " So I do. 
 Of course the breaking of the engagement was what I 
 wanted, I contracted with you to play Romeo for that 
 purpose." 
 
 7 97
 
 DESIRE 
 
 He nodded. "I see," he said, avoiding her eyes. 
 
 Desire moved uneasily. " What do you see ? " she asked. 
 She would have no avoidance. 
 
 He hesitated, then answered truthfully, "That you thought 
 for some reason your engagement ought to be broken, though 
 it," he paused for a word, then concluded " though it hurt 
 to do it." 
 
 Desire flushed. Even to herself she had not admitted so 
 much. " What a complicated person you make me ! " she 
 commented lightly. 
 
 " I am sorry," he said. " I ought not to have said that." 
 
 She turned round on him with one of her sudden trans- 
 formations. " Why not ? " she demanded almost fiercely. 
 " Why should you not say what you think true ? You at 
 least can deal in what you take to be truth, even though it 
 is miles away from other people's idea of it. You are one 
 of the few, too, to whom one can tell the truth I will tell 
 you the truth of this matter." 
 
 " Don't," he said. " I mean, don't if you don't want to. 
 There isn't a bit of need to explain anything to me. I 
 knew all along that you had some sufficient reason which 
 was no concern of mine ; it does not matter to me, it 
 never did." 
 
 Desire's curious red-brown eyes softened for a moment. 
 " What a strange creature you are," she said. " All the 
 same, I think I'll tell you." 
 
 And straightway she told him the whole thing, from the 
 first coming of the other woman to her. She told it, of 
 course, with lightness and almost flippancy, anything else 
 would have been impossible in her state of mind. 
 
 "There, my friend," she concluded, "you have the 
 episode ; and the moral is vanity. ' Vanity of vanities, all 
 is vanity.' I was so vain a fool that I thought, having pleased 
 
 98
 
 DESIRE 
 
 a man's eye that, I am told, is what I did I had the whole 
 of him. She was so vain a fool that she thought, having 
 pleased a man's brain and helped him in need, she was enough 
 for the whole of him. And he was such a vain fool that he 
 thought half of him was enough for any woman. But my 
 vanity was the biggest and the one which came out top, for 
 I declined to understudy any woman or be understudied by 
 her and, thanks to you, I have won." 
 
 Peter looked up, but before he could speak she said quickly, 
 " How does the incident strike your literary soul ? Your 
 literary soul, mind j don't tell me about anything else." 
 
 He answered her obediently, and she was grateful to him. 
 
 " To my literary soul the end is wrong : the one who did 
 the wrong is the only one who has got off free." 
 
 " And who is that ? " 
 
 Gore." 
 
 She laughed, but with a little shiver. " How rude of 
 you ! " she said. " He has been jilted by me, isn't that 
 misfortune ? Besides, how can you know what retribution 
 will be eventually appointed to him ? If he marries Edith 
 he may be fool enough to regret it as a mesalliance. If he 
 does not he will certainly regret it sooner or later as an 
 actual loss. A thousand things may happen undoubtedly 
 will happen. In this kind of farce we don't leave off at the 
 denouement, we get up next morning." 
 
 Peter accepted the correction. 
 
 " But so far as you and I are concerned," she went on, 
 " the thing's concluded ; there's no more to be said." 
 
 " You don't want me any more ? " Peter said. " The 
 play is done ? " 
 
 She nodded. " The curtain's down on the act," she said, 
 "and I leave town almost immediately. But as for wanting 
 you," she spoke almost wistfully " I should like you to be 
 
 99
 
 DESIRE 
 
 my friend, if you can, in spite of this. Perhaps that's too 
 much to ask ? " 
 
 It was not, Peter said so simply and meant it more literally 
 than she knew ; but at the same time he saw little likelihood 
 of ever seeing much of her again, as he himself would have 
 left London before she returned for the winter. He told her 
 so, and of his going away. 
 
 " Going ? " she said in astonishment, " for good and all ? 
 why ? Do you mean to throw up your work here just as 
 you are beginning to succeed and be recognized ? You are 
 beginning to be recognized, too ; do you know it ? " 
 
 " I know," he said ; " it is largely thanks to you. I had an 
 offer last night which was really through you. I am very 
 grateful, but I am afraid I have got to go my father wants 
 me." 
 
 Desire for the first time began to be aware that he, too, 
 had come to some sort of crisis in his affairs. No idea of it 
 had crossed her mind until her own concerns were talked 
 out, and even now his manner deceived her into thinking 
 that he himself did not realize the importance and full mean- 
 ing of what he said, or at least that he did not care much 
 one way or the other for it. 
 
 " Explain," she said ; " tell me what you mean, what are 
 you going to do, and why ? " 
 
 He obeyed her briefly j he even showed her the two letters, 
 but without succeeding in making his decision plain and 
 reasonable to her which was not entirely surprising, seeing 
 that he did not know why he had decided himself. 
 
 " It is sheer folly ! " she exclaimed at last. " Sheer, utter 
 imbecility ! " 
 
 " Do you think so ? " he said. " I'm sorry ; I'm afraid you 
 must think me ungrateful too." 
 
 " Oh, gratitude's nothing," she returned impatiently ; 
 
 IOO
 
 DESIRE 
 
 <c there's nothing to be grateful for. What I do think is 
 that it is folly. I have no patience with your ridiculous duty 
 worshipping people who devote all your time to doing and 
 making others do if you can all the hard and unpleasant 
 things to the exclusion of everything else. Oh yes, it is 
 extremely bad to be like me, no doubt, and have no sense of 
 duty at all, but it is no better to be like you and have such 
 a sense of it as to refuse, on principle, to do everything 
 agreeable and pleasant. A lot too much has been made of 
 sacrifice, I consider. I haven't such an opinion of the self- 
 sacrificing saints ; I prefer a cheerfully selfish sinner. I 
 thought, too, there was something in the Bible on which, 
 no doubt, you were brought up about people who hid their 
 talents and wasted them. What do you think you will be 
 doing with yours ? " 
 
 " My talent isn't worth much to anybody," Peter said. 
 " I don't think any one would be the better or worse if I 
 wrote or did not write a book or two." 
 
 " There you are wrong, there is one person at least who 
 is the better for you having written a book that is myself j 
 I don't mean to suggest that matters it doesn't ; only if 
 The Dreamer has affected me you may be sure it has affected 
 other people better worth affecting. To me it is a book 
 apart, a sort of human thing impossible of course, but good 
 to have known. Do you think it is no loss if there are no 
 more such human things ? " 
 
 "Was it that to you ? " he asked. "Did it really seem 
 that ? " 
 
 He was glad, though it made his sense of what he was 
 losing greater ; yet it did not shake his determination. Far 
 down in his mind even there was a vague, almost superstitious 
 feeling that, did he stay in the present circumstances some 
 illusive thing which belonged to his craft would leave him. 
 
 101
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " Very likely I could not write another such book," he 
 told Desire. " That book grew after a fashion ; I am not sure 
 I should keep on growing them, the present one isn't growing, 
 it's being made, it isn't really so good besides," he saw 
 from her look that she either could not or would not under- 
 stand " I expect I shall have some little time to write at 
 home, not a great deal, but I probably should do it better for 
 having to do it slowly. And anyhow, it doesn't really 
 matter, there are plenty of people to write books but no one 
 to go home in my place." 
 
 She was entirely unconvinced. " That is absurd," she 
 said ; " another man can no more write your books than he 
 can go home in your place j your books are you, and if you 
 don't write them, or if you take fifteen years writing one 
 when you might take one we are that much poorer. You 
 have no business to make the sacrifice and your parents have 
 no business to ask it of you." 
 
 "They are not asking a sacrifice," Peter said, "at least 
 they don't think so." 
 
 " That adds to the preposterousness of it," Desire returned, 
 taking up Ezra Grimstone's letter which clearly demonstrated 
 the fact. " Your father," she said, " evidently thinks he is 
 giving you a great chance, at which you will jump even 
 while you feel yourself as unworthy as he thinks you. It's 
 absurd, of course, but it makes it easier for you ; you can 
 refuse without hurting him j you can say you appreciate his 
 kindness and all the rest of it, but know you can't deserve it 
 or do justice to the opportunity, so will just stay where you 
 are. You need not mention that you are earning more and 
 doing better, that his offer is penal servitude, and accepting 
 it would be an egregious waste of time, talents and 
 opportunities. You would not have to hurt his feelings at 
 all." 
 
 102
 
 DESIRE 
 
 Peter knew the Grimstone feelings, wherein they lay and 
 what affected them. "It is his pottery he thinks of, not 
 himself," he said. 
 
 "With all due deference to you," Desire retorted, "I should 
 imagine the pottery would be quite as well without you." 
 
 " It would be all right while he lives," Peter told her, 
 " afterwards " 
 
 "It and you would be a failure." 
 
 Peter thought it more than probable, but it did not alter 
 his decision. Desire perceived this and perceived for the 
 first time the real immovableness of the man she had here- 
 tofore always found diffident and ready to follow her 
 suggestions. This time it dawned on her that her words 
 made no impression. 
 
 " It amounts to this, I suppose," she said, " your mother 
 wants you to come home for yourself because she is lonely 
 and ' Alexander ' who apparently is an unpleasant person 
 has behaved unpleasantly. Your father wants you for his 
 business, of the value and success of which he has as erroneous 
 an idea as a country squire, with three hundred years of 
 pedigree and three hundred pence of credit, has of his family. 
 He wants a ' Son ' for the firm, and some one to supplant or 
 circumvent the unpleasant Alexander. And you think these 
 reasons are good enough to justify you in giving up work, 
 career, friends and duty to yourself." 
 
 " I don't know what I think," Peter said. 
 
 " But you know what you are going to do." 
 
 He smiled. "I think I do." 
 
 " Then go and do it," she said angrily ; " there is no good 
 in wasting further words." 
 
 He rose. " Good-bye," he said, " and thank you very 
 much for all you have done for me. If there is ever any- 
 thing I can do for you will you let me know ? " 
 
 103
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " No," she answered, " I will not. Our account is 
 balanced, or if there is any debt at all it is on my side. Good 
 bye. Sometimes I am ready to hate every man in the 
 world, generally for their want of virtue sometimes for their 
 possession of one of an aggressive and uncomfortable kind." 
 
 So Peter was dismissed, and so it would seem was to end 
 cloudily his curious intimacy with Desire. But two days 
 later, on the day she left town, the post brought him a letter 
 from her. 
 
 " Forgive me" it began, "for being a beast to you when you 
 came. I don't think I was quite myself that afternoon, and I do 
 think I was so personally disappointed at the loss both of the future 
 books and the writer of them that I did not judge fairly of 
 anything else. 
 
 " / have no doubt you have decided wisely ; I should hate to 
 have you degenerate into a successful author, a handy corner man 
 at a dinner-table and all the rest. In going, however, quixotic 
 as you are, you are at least true to yourself and I like you for it. 
 Also I am not going to believe that we shall be eventual losers, I 
 expect there will in time be a successor to The Dreamer, another 
 4 reaP book of sorts. Wlien there is you may be sure its warmest 
 welcome will be from 
 
 " Tour friend, 
 
 "DESIRE QUEBELL." 
 
 This letter was one of the two good things Peter took 
 with him when he left London. The other was Paddy. 
 Austin gave him the dog, partly because he found him rather 
 a nuisance, partly because he showed such a strong objection 
 to being parted from Peter. 
 
 104
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE little old town of Twycross lay rather off the track. 
 It was not far from several pottery towns noted for dirt and 
 bankruptcy, not very far from some much larger towns, 
 noted for all manner of things of commercial interest, but it 
 itself had no claim to fame. The folk who lived there were 
 mostly either retired, and they, not thinking an enormous 
 fortune necessary to happiness, retired while they were still 
 able to enjoy, or else engaged in some one of the towns to be 
 reached (in time) by an inconsequent railway. Comfortable, 
 substantial folk they were for the most part, a little like their 
 town in that they seemed to have rather dropped behind the 
 times and to have small wish to catch up. In the main they 
 were dissenters in religion, liberals in politics, good men of 
 business, or good housekeeperly women. They dined early 
 and went to bed early, read little besides the daily papers on 
 week-days and the Sunday papers on Sundays, and concerned 
 themselves not much with things beyond a twenty-mile 
 radius. 
 
 The Grimstones lived on the outskirts of Twycross, some 
 way from the town and close to where the canal crossed the 
 valley on an aqueduct. Theirs was a grey, flat-faced house, 
 built by the first Ezra, close on to the pottery. The require- 
 ments both of the work and the family were greater then 
 than at the present time ; there were rooms in the house 
 which were never used now and buildings abutting it where 
 empty benches and idle wheels spoke of work and times which 
 
 105
 
 DESIRE 
 
 were gone. Not that the place looked decayed or falling to 
 ruin ; everything was in very fair repair but very quiet and 
 still. 
 
 Beyond the house the hills rose, and it was towards the 
 hills not towards the town that most of the long, many-paned 
 windows looked. Sharp-edged hills they were, cutting 
 clearly against the sky ; boulder strewn and bare for the most 
 part, though here and there patched now with the brown of 
 dead heather and bracken, and, more rarely, the black of 
 wind-twisted pines in winter dress. These were the grey 
 hills of Peter's vision, up the nearest one went the long, steep 
 road of which he had thought. 
 
 Up that road he went on a November Sunday afternoon 
 as he had often gone that autumn when he came home- 
 Paddy went with him ; it was a fascinating country to 
 Paddy ; it abounded with wild, no man's rabbits, and 
 mysterious holes and little gaps between great stones which 
 led no one knew where. The only thing to be regretted 
 was that when he and his master went this wonderful walk 
 up the hills he could not wander and investigate with an 
 easy mind. He had an uneasy feeling that he must keep 
 coming to and from to see that all was well with the man, 
 for so often he bore with him on these walks or found and 
 took up on the way that evil thing which had first come 
 that sunny morning in town. Paddy did not know what it 
 was, something that gave him a pain and made even rabbits 
 to be disregarded, and kept him close to his master's side as 
 silently they went up the lonely path together. A long path 
 it was j at first widish and fairly good though rising fast, 
 soon narrower and rougher with bare bones of rock breaking 
 through the surface, then rising more steeply, winding 
 sometimes, sometimes going straight, or from boulder to 
 boulder, like ill-made stairs. Then, quite suddenly, when 
 
 106
 
 DESIRE 
 
 one had climbed the big boulder with the black gap beneath 
 it, the track dropped again and ran for a while quiet and 
 secret, in a curved hollow full of dark pines. The ground 
 was loose and sandy, no sound of steps was here. It was a 
 good dog's paradise, the very haunt of rabbits where the 
 loose soil smelt of them, a mysterious place where in the 
 dark shadow of the trees one fancied cotton tails innumerable 
 bobbing. But other shadows would seem to dwell here too, 
 at all events the man did not linger, he walked on with bent 
 head and clouded eyes fixed on the silent sand and the hand 
 which did not hold his stick was clenched hard. But when 
 the hollow was passed and the path rose again, the pines 
 ceased or only grew, one here and there, a gnarled tree, all 
 aslant, clinging to the boulders by horny roots or lying over- 
 thrown by some past gale. Even these had ceased before 
 one came to the last steep piece, over the grey boulder with 
 the hollowed crown where the rain collected in wet weather, 
 and so to the top. 
 
 This way did Peter and Paddy go that November after- 
 noon, not pausing until they reached the top. At the top 
 was brown heather and grey sky and a curlew crying as it 
 circled and wheeled, and beyond, an edge like the edge of 
 the world. Peter walked to the edge and stood where the 
 last tuft of heather overhung the brow, like matted hair on a 
 shelving forehead, and looked out over the wide land spread 
 below. Fields and trees and streams, isolated villages dotted 
 in the distance, and in the greater distance towns dim seen 
 in their cowls of smoke, and the shining line of the canal 
 threading the whole as it pursued its course through high 
 country and low. A great wide land, somewhat bare in this 
 autumn-time, grey and brown rather than green, except once 
 when a gleam from the low sun, hidden here, struck a far-off 
 spot and turned it to silver. 
 
 107
 
 DESIRE 
 
 The world which he had left, that it represented to Peter 
 . and for a while he stood looking out over it. Left, not 
 lost a man can in his mind carry some part of what he will, 
 especially a man who writes. Peter still wrote ; all the 
 autumn he had been doggedly going on with the second 
 novel in such scraps of time as he could give. But it did 
 not progress as he wished, it in no way satisfied him, and 
 the cloud which came to him on Sundays often owed some 
 part of its origin to the book and to his consciousness that it 
 was falling below his own standard. The long hours spent 
 at the mechanical and technical toil of the pottery, and the 
 effort given to grasping the business details, seemed to take 
 all there was of his brain, and though it made no demands 
 on the best of him still it left no margin. He was, it 
 appeared, a person who could only do one thing at a time. 
 Possibly he was aware of this characteristic but he fought 
 with it all the same. He fought this November Sunday, 
 reviewing the book's difficulties on the silent hillside, making 
 them declare themselves, going over in his head the points 
 that did not satisfy him till he thought he saw some light or 
 at least some hope. At that time it was usually hope he 
 brought back with him from the hills, literary hope ; later, 
 he was content with resignation which had nothing to do 
 with literature. 
 
 But whatever it was he brought back Paddy was always 
 aware that the homeward walk was not as the walk out. It 
 was one glorious hunt for him, his responsibilities were over, 
 and, in joyous abandonment, he chased rabbits, real and 
 imaginary, and those ghost beasts, twilight quarry, 
 unrecognized by men. Once or twice he came back to see 
 what his master did, but though he did not hunt and proclaim 
 joy aloud the dog felt it was well with him. He came from 
 boulder to boulder, from soft patch to hard, from the dark 
 
 108
 
 DESIRE 
 
 group of pines to the grey where the stones showed pale in 
 the fading light with sure step, with shoulders square, and 
 raised head and eyes which looked fearlessly before. So till 
 the end of the path was reached and the twilight was all 
 fallen and the hill behind reared a black shoulder against the 
 dark sky. Below was the wide white road and across it the 
 grey-faced house with one lighted window which showed a 
 solitary gleam in the gloom. 
 
 Sunday evenings Peter usually spent in the kiln-house, a 
 place dear to Paddy, who much appreciated the warmth and 
 the mysterious dark centres of heat where there were little 
 doors and glowing cracks not good to sniff at. Here, after 
 tea on Sundays, Peter came with a lantern and the manu- 
 script. Here he thought to come this Sunday, reinforced 
 by the walk on the hill and ready to go once again to the 
 fashioning and refashioning of the book ; but that evening 
 while they sat at tea Mrs. Grimstone said something which 
 intervened. They sat soberly in the dining-room to tea as 
 they had done evening after evening for long. Mrs. Grim- 
 stone, at the head of the table, fitted the wool-work kettle 
 holder to the handle of the old-fashioned tea-pot and poured 
 out tea on the same system that she had always followed, 
 and her mother had always followed so much water to 
 warm the cups, so much milk to break the tea, so much tea 
 in every cup water the pot, tea again, then cream. A 
 lengthy business, interrupted to-night by dropping the 
 holder as she transferred it from the handle of the tea-pot 
 to that of the kettle ; Peter, watching as he had often 
 watched before, picked up the holder and gave it to 
 her. 
 
 Mrs. Grimstone, perhaps emboldened by this break in the 
 usual routine, volunteered a remark. 
 
 " Our old minister is going to preach to-night," she said ; 
 
 109
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " it was not given out this morning, but Mrs. Harvey told 
 me after chapel." 
 
 " Is he ? " Peter said, he had no idea who the old minister 
 was. 
 
 " You remember him ? " his mother went on " oh no, 
 of course you don't ! He used to be here before Mr. 
 Williams, long ago, when I was first married. You 
 remember him, Ezra ? " 
 
 Ezra nodded without answering. He had grown, if 
 possible, more taciturn of late, Peter's home-coming had 
 made no difference to that, nor to the frost which as it 
 were locked him in a silence like to the silence of winter. 
 
 But Peter in his intercourse with Desire Quebell had 
 learnt something of those courtesies which had been left out 
 of his earlier life. It hurt something in him to hear his 
 mother's conversation ended thus. 
 
 " Did you like the old minister ? " he asked. 
 
 " Very much," she answered ; " he was such a nice man 
 and a good preacher too. He has not been here for many 
 years. I should like to have heard him to-night. I did say 
 something to Mary about coming with me." 
 
 " Will she go ? " Peter inquired. 
 
 She would not ; she and Robert belonged to a lonely sect 
 that had its meeting-room somewhere among the hills ; all 
 other sects were avoided by her with severity. Mrs. Grim- 
 stone knew this and was not surprised by the refusal, only 
 sorry. " For I should have liked to have heard him," she 
 said. " Mrs. Harvey did say, why not go and sit with them ? 
 but it's a long, dark walk home afterwards all alone." 
 
 She spoke with some regret, but still clearly accepted her 
 disappointment as a matter of course. But to Peter there 
 seemed for the first time something pathetic in her patience, 
 and her cheerful acquiescence in going without the small 
 
 no
 
 DESIRE 
 
 things she wanted. She had probably not wanted any but 
 small things all her life, her taste had been for little homely 
 things, always simple, often perhaps trivial, and she had 
 nearly always been denied them. The little matters for 
 which she cared had always been almost unconsciously 
 sacrificed to the seemingly greater ones of other people. 
 He himself was as guilty as another was he not now 
 unhesitatingly prepared to sacrifice her pleasure to his work ? 
 
 " I should rather like to hear this preacher," he said ; " I 
 remember you used to speak of him. Perhaps you and I 
 could go if you don't think the walk would be too much 
 for you." 
 
 Mrs. Grimstone smiled with pleasure. " Should you like 
 to hear him ? " she said. She never doubted him, why 
 should she ? The men of her household had never to 
 her knowledge said or done a thing purely to please her. 
 " He always was such a good preacher, I am sure you 
 would like him. We'll start in good time ; I shan't be 
 tired." 
 
 They started in good time. Paddy waited in vain near 
 the kiln-house door that night and the manuscript lay 
 untouched up-stairs. 
 
 It lay untouched most of the week that followed, they 
 were unusually busy just then at Grimstone's. They worked 
 long hours there an hour before breakfast at eight, from 
 directly after breakfast till the midday dinner when, reluct- 
 antly on the part of Ezra, a halt a trifle longer than was 
 absolutely necessary for the silent meal was made. Then on 
 again in the afternoon till tea, and often on again till supper at 
 nine. There was little waste of time there, no hour spent in 
 journeying, few minutes used in going to and fro. The 
 office was in the house itself; the sheds and buildings, 
 where the small manufacture was carried on, practically 
 
 in
 
 DESIRE 
 
 adjoined the house and bordered the yard which lay parallel 
 with the garden. Beyond the kiln at the bottom of the yard 
 was the canal, but that long and almost deserted highway 
 was not more a point of contact with the outside world 
 than the old, wide road which ran by the house front, and 
 where often an hour went by without a single wayfarer, 
 except mornings and evenings, when men from some quarry 
 in the hills passed that way. 
 
 Of workmen on the little pottery there were practically 
 none but Robert, who lived in the house as his master did, 
 and had worked always in the same place and under the 
 same conditions. There was also an oafish young man, 
 who had started as boy and still continued to be a " boy " 
 though he was approaching five-and-twenty. At one time 
 there had been two men besides Robert, but they were both 
 dead now. Ezra had not replaced them, it was not easy to 
 find workmen up to his exacting standard, especially in a 
 district from whence work was all gone. Also, the em- 
 ployment he had to give was lessening, and though he 
 would not allow this even to himself he did allow that 
 the profits he made were lessening and so it behoved him to 
 save. The men died singly and as each went his work was 
 portioned out, Ezra himself taking the lion's share. He 
 was a man of great energy and extraordinary physical 
 strength, and the work, in the cause of his heart, had not 
 been beyond him. When Peter came home there was not 
 left for him more than an ordinary man could do. 
 
 Alexander, in the spring, had believed the little old pottery 
 was holding its own ; he knew it to be small and old- 
 fashioned, but he had seen that its position was secure. Ezra 
 himself believed the same against all odds, but with Peter it 
 was different ; he had very little business faculty, but a keen 
 intuitive perception for the atmosphere of things, and he saw 
 
 112
 
 DESIRE 
 
 not only what was, but also what was likely to be. To him, 
 the end, whatever the present position, was plain ; not very 
 near but inevitable, and the recognition of it was almost a 
 consolation to him for his own unavoidable failure. It 
 mattered less that he eventually failed as a potter since the 
 pottery was failing too. That recognition, however, made 
 no difference to his method of working or his endeavour to 
 master the ways of the failing industry. He could only do 
 things one way, slowly and methodically with the whole of 
 himself. So he did this, applying himself somewhat as he 
 did to the fashioning of The Dreamer, laborious and quiet, 
 finding the right way very slowly, often going the wrong 
 and pursuing it a long time before he found it out quite 
 unable to learn by precept or example, compelled to make 
 everything his own by rediscovery. His extreme slowness 
 and ineptitude did not surprise Ezra ; sometimes, though 
 rarely, it goaded him to angry irritability, more often he 
 bore it with the stoical silence of one who expects no better. 
 Silence was the keynote of the house, the inmates seldom 
 talked unnecessarily ; Mrs. Grimstone, perhaps, originally 
 conversationally inclined, had long since ceased to speak 
 unless she had some necessary fact to communicate or un- 
 avoidable question to ask. Strangers and visitors hardly ever 
 came there. Ezra, though he had lived all his life in the 
 one place, had made no friends, he had nothing in common 
 with the people he met, so from choice he met them as little 
 as possible. Mrs. Grimstone, of course, was more genial by 
 nature, or she had been once, though she seldom saw her 
 neighbours now except in chapel on Sunday, or when she 
 made an expedition to the town for shopping. If Peter 
 missed the intercourse with his fellow-creatures which he had 
 had during the time he was in Desire's service, he did not 
 show it. Nor did he show that he missed the, to him, far 
 8 113
 
 DESIRE 
 
 more valuable intimacy with herself. He had had it, that 
 was unexpected he had lost it in fact, that was inevitable 
 sooner or later but in memory and imagination he still had 
 it, and he always would, what had been was always part of 
 himself. He accepted the return to the solitude of his youth 
 philosophically, and certainly made no attempts to supply 
 what he had lost by making new acquaintances or renewing 
 old. He had been home a good many weeks before he ex- 
 changed a couple of sentences, except on business, with any 
 but his own people, and it was with considerable reluctance 
 that he accepted the first invitation he did. 
 
 That invitation was given on the Sunday evening when 
 he accompanied his mother to chapel. It was the Harveys 
 who gave it, those same kind-hearted people who had 
 suggested Mrs. Grimstone should sit with them if she came 
 alone to evening service. Mr. Harvey, a genial old man who 
 had retired on a small sufficiency while he was still vigorous, 
 stopped to shake hands after service and pressed Peter to come 
 and see them. 
 
 " Why don't you come down to us sometimes ? " he said. 
 " Why, I don't believe you've so much as spoken to the boys 
 all this while you've been back ! Young reprobates, they're 
 always off after something on a Sunday instead of coming to 
 chapel, and you never come down our way in the week. 
 Why don't you come one night this week ? Fix a night and 
 come to tea." 
 
 A refusal was on Peter's tongue but it was not uttered. 
 Mrs. Harvey, who was talking to Mrs. Grimstone, caught 
 her husband's words and warmly seconded the invitation. 
 
 " Yes, do come," she said. " You come, too," she added, 
 turning to Mrs. Grimstone. " Which day will suit you ? 
 Thursday ? Friday ? Let's make it Friday. I'm sure you 
 can come ; you don't often go out of an evening." 
 
 114
 
 DESIRE 
 
 By the light of the gas-lamp above the chapel door Peter 
 saw his mother's face. He saw her momentary pleasure in 
 the invitation, but after a timid glance at him she began a 
 refusal. " I'm not sure, thank you ; I'm afraid " 
 
 " Don't you think you could manage it ? " he asked. 
 
 Again transparent pleasure lightened her face. " Oh yes," 
 she said. " Of course I can come ; I should like to so much, 
 but I was not sure if you about you " 
 
 And again Peter came to the rescue. " We shall be busy 
 all the week," he said, " but I think I ought to be able to 
 get away by Friday evening. I shall be very pleased." 
 
 So the Harveys' invitation was accepted, with fluttered 
 pleasure on Mrs. Grimstone's part, and an unconsciously 
 formal politeness on Peter's, which amused the two Miss 
 Harveys a good deal. And on Friday at six, the first time 
 that week there had been any leisure, Peter accompanied 
 Mrs. Grimstone to the Harveys'. And the manuscript still 
 lay untouched up-stairs, and would still lie to-morrow, for to- 
 morrow was no half-holiday at Grimstone's, there was still 
 work to be done.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 IN the early spring one of the things Ezra Grimstone had 
 foreseen as possible happened. He was not prepared for it; 
 though he had foreseen the chance of it, it was only as men 
 foresee the inevitableness of death. He was alone when the 
 blow fell, and alone when he came to the full realization of 
 it. How long there was between the two he did not know, 
 but there was an appreciable time when, in spite of his iron 
 constitution and will, he did not clearly know what had 
 happened. When he did know he sat quite still with his 
 one living hand clenched and his half-numb jaw set grimly. 
 There was no one to give him the counsel of Job's wife 
 " Curse God, and die," nor did he want it, there is an 
 emotion beyond curses, a dumb fury of the impotent who 
 have been left only the power and the pride not to cry 
 out. 
 
 Mrs. Grimstone was waiting for supper. She wondered 
 at the lateness of her husband's coming ; regularly at five 
 minutes to nine it was his habit to come in, and Robert, 
 hearing him, then went to tell Peter, who was usually either 
 finishing some work or writing in the kiln-house. To-night 
 Ezra was late, very late ; such a thing had hardly occurred 
 before within her memory. It was nine ; it was ten 
 minutes past ; it was twenty minutes past. He must be 
 very busy, some letters had come by the evening's post, they 
 must be keeping him. She took up her darning again. 
 Five minutes, ten minutes passed, then the clock struck the 
 half-hour. In the silent house it sounded loud, and though 
 
 116
 
 DESIRE 
 
 she was used to silence broken only by the clock it startled 
 her a little. She rose, perhaps Ezra had gone out without 
 her knowing, she would go to the office door and try to hear 
 if he were there. She went down the hall and standing 
 close to the door, listened. Her hearing was not very quick 
 and at first she heard nothing, then gradually she became 
 aware of a sound, an odd sort of noisy breathing he was 
 there and he must have fallen asleep. It was incredible ; she 
 could hardly believe it ; she opened the door quietly and 
 looked in. 
 
 Ezra was not asleep. He was sitting, or rather lying 
 propped, as if he had risen and fallen back, in a chair. With 
 his left hand he gripped the edge of the desk before him, 
 while his right hung limply beside him ; his mouth was 
 drawn a little aslant, but his eyes were open, conscious, very 
 fierce, and if anything more brilliant than usual. 
 
 " Ezra ! " Mrs. Grimstone began, but the name died on 
 her lips, frightened by the strange attitude and the loud, 
 difficult breathing. " What is the matter ? " she cried. 
 What is it ? " 
 
 He raised his left hand imperiously, he would have no 
 outcry made for him by her any more than by himself; he 
 tried to speak but the words trod on one another, they were 
 incomprehensible to her. 
 
 " Oh ! " she cried. Oh, Mary ! Peter ! " 
 
 She would have given way to her fear and run for help, 
 but he stopped her with a gesture. He made a second and 
 greater effort to express himself, and though she did not as 
 yet distinguish the words this time she understood his 
 meaning. 
 
 " Yes, yes," she said, gathering self-control ; " I won't 
 make a noise. You gave me such a turn, dear. I'll, I'll fetch 
 Peter." 
 
 117
 
 DESIRE 
 
 She backed towards the door as she spoke, and he making 
 no sign one way or the other, she hurried away. 
 
 Peter was in the kiln-house, writing, she could see the 
 glow of his light through the chink of the door. Quickly 
 she crossed the yard and burst in upon him. 
 
 " Peter ! " she cried, the momentary restraint she had 
 been obliged to put upon herself gone. " Oh, Peter ! Your 
 father's ill ! He's had a fit or something. Come, come at 
 once ! " 
 
 But Ezra Grimstone had not had a fit, it was a stroke of 
 paralysis that had fallen upon him, the doctor who attended 
 him last summer had warned him that such a thing might 
 befall him and had given him some advice, which he had not 
 followed. The same doctor, hastily fetched, attended now 
 and did not ask if his advice had been followed, it was point- 
 less to trouble Mrs. Grimstone with such useless questions. 
 He allayed her fears, prescribed the usual things and went 
 away. On one thing only did he insist emphatically, there 
 must be perfect quiet, no excitement, no movement, nothing 
 disturbing even to the mind : an order one might reasonably 
 expect to be carried out here. The doctor was satisfied that 
 it would be when he left his patient ; but Peter was not so 
 sure, he was not deceived by the outside stoical calm, also he 
 was partly able to understand his father's halting speech. 
 
 In obedience to the command of that halting tongue he 
 went down to the office late that night to look for the 
 letters which had come by the evening post. There were 
 only two ; both lay open on the desk ; the top one, judging 
 by its date, had been delayed in transit and should have 
 arrived in the morning. It was an order of unusual magni- 
 tude, one which required immediate execution and which, 
 even under the best circumstances, would have taxed the 
 resources of the little pottery to the uttermost and scarcely 
 
 118
 
 DESIRE 
 
 then be done within the stipulated time. The thought of it 
 would not materially add to the peace of mind of the man 
 who lay helpless up-stairs. The other was a letter, type- 
 written, expressed in business terms on business paper headed 
 with telephone number and telegraphic address and similar 
 modern things with which Grimstone's had nothing to do. 
 Peter read it to the signature at the end Alexander's 
 signature. It would seem that Alexander had got to know 
 of the order contained in the other letter. He also knew 
 the difficulty, or perhaps the impossibility, of the little 
 pottery executing it in time. He wrote to offer help. He 
 said he could let the parent firm have a certain amount of 
 stuff on moderate terms to supplement their own and so 
 enable them to execute this order. 
 
 Alexander was not a potter, he did not manufacture, he 
 bought " seconds," slightly faulty products of other manu- 
 facturers, and sold them again. It would be possible for 
 him, no doubt, to find among his purchases plenty good 
 enough to pass muster with the cheapest of Grimstone's 
 making the order was but for the cheapest this was 
 what his offer meant. And Peter, reading it, perceived 
 what the glitter in his father's eyes meant it was an anger 
 very near to hate. Peter did not know whether the anger 
 was for the standard of ethics of the writer or for the insidi- 
 ous effort to couple himself with the parent firm, or for the 
 covert insult carefully conveyed in the offer of help, and he 
 did not stop to think. Though as a novelist the motives of 
 men and the mainspring of their actions should have 
 interested him. But he was no novelist now, he was for the 
 first time really identified with the poor little dwindling firm 
 and with the stricken man up-stairs. He folded the letters 
 and put them in his pocket, and according to his orderly 
 nature set in its place the chair which had been overturned 
 
 119
 
 DESIRE 
 
 when they carried Ezra Grimstone away. Then he went 
 out to the kiln-house. Paddy, who was not supposed to 
 come indoors, had been once to investigate matters, and 
 gone back again to lie on the manuscript as he used to like 
 to in the old days in town. Peter found him there and 
 turned him off, then gathered the loose sheets and carried 
 them into the house. He might have put them into the 
 furnace for all the good they seemed likely ever to be. 
 
 Two things Peter had inherited from his father, a 
 magnificent physique, and a capacity for work, which Austin 
 and Farmer and various of his London acquaintance had 
 regarded with a mixture of surprise and amusement. Both 
 these qualities were called into play in the days which 
 followed Ezra's seizure. They worked double time at Grim- 
 stone's then ; possibly, if it was a factory within the meaning 
 of the Act, they laid themselves open to several penalties. 
 But it concerned no one what they did. Robert worked for 
 the old master's sake, and willingly would have worked ten 
 times harder if he could when he knew the reason j he was 
 a tough man, taciturn as his master, cross grained but flaw- 
 lessly loyal, of few sympathies and no interests outside the 
 pottery which was his world, as it was Ezra's. Bolt, to 
 Peter's surprise, proved of value at this pinch. He had not 
 counted on his doing more than his usual allotted task, 
 throwing down his tools and slouching away when six 
 struck ; but as it happened he did much more ; he worked 
 longer hours than Robert could, he came a good second to 
 Peter. He developed capabilities before unsuspected ; it 
 seemed when he chose he could do other and better work 
 than that which was usually his. It was he who mended 
 the brickwork of the long-disused second oven when the only 
 bricklayer in Twycross declared himself unable to attend to 
 it for a week. It was he, too, who could do without sleep 
 
 1 20
 
 DESIRE 
 
 for long stretches of time, and who did do it. But it was 
 not for the sake of the old master, or the firm, nor yet liking 
 for Peter, or pride, or a sense of duty, or emulation, or any of 
 the younger qualities of the soul. By accident he overheard 
 some words which passed between Robert and Peter relative 
 to Alexander ; not many, Peter was not communicative, and 
 had not the listening Bolt had his wits sharpened by the 
 single emotion he could strongly feel he would hardly have 
 understood. 
 
 " Is 'e trying to cut us out ? " he asked. He spoke the 
 dialect of the hills which few born far from their shadow can 
 easily understand and which Peter had had to relearn. 
 " Who do you mean ? " Peter inquired. 
 " Alexander," Bolt answered, he had no use for titles of 
 respect, few of his people had. 
 
 " No," Peter said ; then, his instinctive love of exactitude 
 getting the better of his reserve, he added, " not exactly, he 
 would be glad for us not to be able to take this order." 
 
 " Ho, would 'e ! " Bolt said. " It'd be a good turn for'm 
 if we didn't ? " 
 "He thinks so." 
 
 Bolt nodded. " All right, maister," he said, with a 
 momentary gleam in his dull eyes, " you can count 
 on me." 
 
 Peter believed him, and found the belief justified in the 
 days of breathless work which followed. 
 
 And Ezra lay helpless up-stairs ; nursed and waited upon 
 by Mrs. Grimstone, and to a certain extent following out 
 the doctor's orders with regard to keeping quiet. He was 
 quiet, very quiet in the main, certainly he seemed to have 
 little wish to use his injured powers of speech. In a little 
 he began to improve j he was a man of fine constitution and 
 temperate life ; he showed signs of a partial and comparatively 
 
 121
 
 DESIRE 
 
 rapid recovery sooner than the doctor anticipated. There 
 was every hope, he said, that eventually the patient would 
 be able to speak almost plainly again, also a likelihood that 
 he would partially regain the use of his limbs, even be able 
 to walk again in time, though probably never have much 
 power in his right hand and arm. Mrs. Grimstone was 
 much cheered when she heard this. She had herself already 
 noticed an improvement in her husband's speech which made 
 it easier to understand and wait on him though to her it 
 would never have been hard to wait, for she loved to give 
 the small personal services for which there had been little 
 demand or room in her life before. 
 
 As for Ezra, he received the hopeful news much as he 
 had received unhopeful ; to neither had he much to say. 
 For the most part he lay through the long, light March 
 afternoon in silence, eyes on the door and ears acutely 
 sharpened for any sound which might indicate word from 
 the office or yard. No word came and no sound from the 
 outer world till Mary, tapping at the door, called Mrs. 
 Grimstone out. Ezra moved slightly, but the woman 
 would be charged with no message from the yard or office, 
 and nothing else mattered. Ezra lay looking before him 
 again, listening as before. 
 
 "Wants me?" Mrs. Grimstone was saying by the door. 
 "Very well, I'll come. I won't be a minute, dear." 
 
 Ezra did not answer, it was of no importance whether she 
 was one minute or twenty ; her coming and going were as 
 the coming and going of the night and the day to him, 
 inevitable, necessary no doubt, but making no impression of 
 taste or distaste. She was not long gone this time, in a 
 little she returned bringing word that Mr. Williams, the 
 minister, was below. 
 
 Mr. Williams had been several times to inquire after the 
 122
 
 DESIRE 
 
 invalid, and had had one or two sympathetic talks with 
 Mrs. Grimstone. To-day, hearing of the great improve- 
 ment and the good hope for the future, he suggested that 
 perhaps the sick man would like a few words with his 
 pastor. Mrs. Grimstone came to ask if the invalid thought 
 it would be too much for him. 
 
 He did not think so it would make no difference ; it was 
 one of the necessary things that must happen sooner or later 
 to him as a chapel member. It might as well be now as not. 
 Mrs. Grimstone led the pastor up-stairs and left him there. 
 
 A well-meaning man, Mr. Williams, perhaps a little given 
 to the use of the set expressions of his office, but not to be 
 accused of cant on that account, for most of them had 
 become as natural to him as the lurid language of a bargee 
 is to him. With Ezra Grimstone Mr. Williams was not 
 intimately acquainted, he had supped at the grey house once 
 and talked of edification and schism and similar things, but 
 beyond that his acquaintance did not go. Mrs. Grimstone, 
 of course, he knew a little better, and he had that day been 
 talking to her of the hand of the Lord and of mercies and 
 blessings. She had listened with appreciation and wiped her 
 eyes afterwards ; but when he spoke in the same strain to 
 Ezra there was no answer. 
 
 He put that down to the invalid's weak state, and went 
 on to say a little more, concluding fervently, " How much, 
 how very much we have to be thankful for ! " 
 
 " Glad you have," the unsteady tongue answered. 
 
 " Glad r " Mr. Williams, not yet used to the speech, 
 hardly understood. "You are glad, dear friend, that your 
 tongue is given to you again to praise the Lord, that your 
 feet by and by shall bear you again to His house." 
 
 Ezra made no answer, but the expression of his] face was 
 grim. Mr. Williams did not see it. 
 
 123
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " Your hands," he went on, warming to his topic, " your 
 hands will rest awhile what a blessing He can make these 
 resting-times ! A quiet resting-time, a pause in these your 
 latter days in which to think and to gather together the 
 harvest of a busy life. Truly there is much to be thankful 
 for ! " 
 
 " There is not ! " 
 
 The words were emphatic, the clearest Ezra had spoken 
 since his seizure ; they seemed to have been jerked up from 
 some inner depths. 
 
 Mr. Williams was startled by them. " You are not 
 thankful ? No ; I misunderstand you. You are sensible 
 of the great mercies that have been shown you in your 
 affliction." 
 
 " I am not ! " the same emphasis and the same unmistakable 
 clearness. 
 
 Mr. Williams, having seen Ezra Grimstone Sunday after 
 Sunday in chapel, knowing him for a member of the 
 congregation and an austere and upright man, could hardly 
 believe his ears. 
 
 " A professing Christian," he said ; " a chapel member ! 
 My dear friend I fear your affliction has for a moment 
 turned your heart ; you do not see the hand of the 
 Lord." 
 
 " I do " Ezra retorted ; " the Lord can do as He pleases 
 but there is no reason why I should be pleased " 
 
 He hesitated as he spoke, and stumbled in spite of his 
 efforts, but the words lost nothing of point, they were 
 unmistakably clear to Mr. Williams although the speaker's 
 attitude was not. 
 
 " I believed that you had found grace " he began but 
 
 Ezra cut him short. 
 
 " That has nothing to do with it," he said. " This is my 
 124
 
 DESIRE 
 
 matter ; I have nothing to say of it but neither has another 
 I can hold my tongue, but I cannot lie I don't want 
 another to lie for me to or of my Maker. Will you offer a 
 prayer ? " 
 
 Mr Williams clasped and unclasped his hands in real 
 distress. He had often spoken of the Old Adam in his 
 sermons, but he did not know him when he met him, nor 
 did he realize that it was possible that an upright and God- 
 fearing man might still be a primal creature with the pride 
 of Lucifer and the anger of a trapped beast. There was 
 another thing he did not realize when the shutter was 
 dropped again on a momentarily exposed soul. He addressed 
 himself to this soul now, but the shutter was down and the 
 glimpse of the turmoil within gone, the words slid by as 
 the singing of Psalms on Sunday. When he ceased Ezra 
 repeated his request for prayer, as he would have repeated a 
 request for any other customary thing, grace before dinner, 
 receipt for payment. And Williams, good man, regarding 
 the repetition as an indication of softening, fulfilled it and 
 went away, not satisfied perhaps, but hopeful. 
 
 And Ezra addressed himself again to his watch of the door 
 and his listening for sounds he did not hear. 
 
 The afternoon waned, the light lingering long, at last 
 grew dim, he could hardly see the face of the clock when 
 from time to time his eyes turned to it. Mrs. Grimstone 
 had come back some while ago ; she talked sometimes and 
 sometimes read aloud scraps from the paper, but as she asked 
 for neither answer nor comment it made no appreciable 
 difference what she did. 
 
 At last Ezra roused himself to speak. " Has Peter come 
 in r " he asked. 
 
 " No," she answered ; " he said he would not have any tea 
 to-day. I wish he would ; I don't like his missing meals like 
 
 125
 
 DESIRE 
 
 this. You know he can hardly be said to have had a proper 
 dinner to-day, or yesterday either, or a good many other days. 
 He says he's too busy. He must be very busy ; he goes back 
 to work after supper every night. I do hope he won't work 
 too hard and make himself ill." 
 
 " He won't," Ezra said shortly. There was a line 
 between his brows ; he, like Alexander, disliked long 
 sentences ; experience had taught this to Mrs. Grimstone, 
 and she usually so little indulged her natural tendency this 
 way that she had almost lost the habit. It irritated him that 
 she should speak so now, he even fancied that it might be 
 an indication that he was losing his old grip on things. 
 
 The hours drew slowly on, the lamp was lighted and the 
 curtains drawn, still Peter did not come. Mrs. Grimstone, 
 seeing the watch kept on the door, suggested that she should 
 fetch him. 
 
 " Certainly not," Ezra said j " I don't want to see 
 him." 
 
 Mrs. Grimstone said no more and they settled to a silent 
 evening. When she came up after supper she announced 
 that Peter had been in to that meal though he had not stayed 
 long. " He's gone back to work," she said ; " they have all 
 gone back. Bolt is still here ; they have sent some supper out 
 to him." 
 
 Ezra grunted as if that was as it should be. 
 
 His wife, however, did not think so. "I believe they are 
 going to work all night," she ventured. 
 
 It was not entirely Ezra's fancy ; his illness, and the new 
 importance it had given her, did sometimes, quite unconsci- 
 ously, lead Mrs. Grimstone to say more perhaps than she 
 would have done before. 
 
 "I told Peter to come to you," she said. "I told him to 
 come so soon as he left off work, and he said he was afraid 
 
 126
 
 DESIRE 
 
 that would not be till too late or too early ! And Ezra, 
 do you know, I believe he has done it before ! When I 
 told him he mustn't work so late he laughed and said he 
 was quite used to it ! " 
 
 Again Ezra muttered an acquiescence, he did not seem 
 distressed by the news. Indeed, it seemed to satisfy him 
 somewhat for soon after he gave up his listening and watching 
 and submitted to being settled for the night with that curious 
 forced patience which characterized him. 
 
 He slept lightly and fitfully at times, very lightly that 
 night ; in the grey of the morning some one crossing the 
 landing woke him. He knew the step, it was Robert's. 
 Robert, ordinarily, had no business to be there, the kitchen, 
 back stairs and servants' quarters were all quite separate from 
 the front part of the house. 
 
 " Robert ! " Ezra said. 
 
 The old man opened the door ; his face looked haggard in 
 the light of the night-light and the struggling grey dawn, 
 and the rims of his eyes were red as from want of sleep, but 
 there was a certain grudging satisfaction about him. 
 
 "I was just listening to hear if you was awake, maister," 
 he said in his emotionless sing-song. " I thought maybe if 
 you was, I'd give you a call to say we're done." 
 
 " Ah ! " Ezra said, his voice, too, was motionless but his 
 eyes glittered. " Packed ? " 
 
 " 'N ready to go," Robert answered ; " they're takin' the 
 crates to the cut l side now." 
 
 " Why ? " Ezra asked sharply. " They must not be left 
 there, they might be tampered with." 
 
 " They won't," Robert said ; " the barge'll be up in less'n 
 an hour." 
 
 But Ezra was insistent, the crates must be kept under lock 
 
 1 Cut = canal. 
 127
 
 DESIRE 
 
 and key till the barge came ; Robert, unconvinced, and still 
 muttering his want of conviction, undertook to see to it. 
 
 He did not, however, go out again, he went up to his 
 room which looked out at the back, and opening the 
 window called the order to Peter, who was still in the 
 yard. 
 
 "All right," Peter said, and the old man closed the 
 window, drew down the blind and went to bed. 
 
 Peter stood a moment looking at the crates ranged on the 
 canal bank. 
 
 " We won't move them again," he said to Bolt who had 
 helped to bring them out ; " the barge will be here in half- 
 an-hour or so j I will stay with them, that will do just as 
 well, you had better go. Good-night, or rather good- 
 morning." 
 
 Bolt did not go. " I'll stop here, maister," he said. 
 " What's the good o' goin' home now ? " 
 
 " You need not come back to-day," Peter said ; he knew 
 the lonely cottage among the bleak hills where Bolt lived 
 with his old grandmother, it was a long way from here. 
 
 " I'd soonest stop," Bolt answered. 
 
 " As you like," Peter said, supposing he was too tired to 
 care for the long, rough walk. "Better go into one of the 
 sheds, you can sleep there." 
 
 Bolt hesitated. "I s'pose I'd hear if any one came it 
 anythink happened ? " 
 
 " Of course," Peter said, and Bolt slouched away. 
 
 Peter sat down by the crates wondering a little what Alex- 
 ander had done to rouse animosity in this mind of few emotions. 
 Of course it was Alexander who Bolt thought might come 
 or send for some nefarious purpose j and Alexander that the 
 sick man in the house thought of. Peter knew that it was 
 not in the least likely Alexander would do any such foolish 
 
 128
 
 DESIRE 
 
 thing, or even think of it, or know it possible : but that they 
 should have thought of it showed the kind of opinion held 
 here and the kind of hate hated. But Peter did not concern 
 himself greatly with the matter, he did not concern himself 
 with anything, he was too tired. In a few minutes he 
 was nodding to sleep as he sat, though he woke again 
 directly, stiff and chilly. The morning air was rawly cold, 
 he rubbed his hands together and felt the skin gritty from 
 the work he had been doing the work that was done. He 
 looked at the crates with a sense of ownership faintly related 
 to the feeling he had had when he first handled the bound 
 copies of The Dreamer. It was something done, not very 
 well done, perhaps, but still something, a tangible presenta- 
 tion of an idea. The idea ! What was it ? he was 
 getting very drowsy again. It was not pot-making, 
 earthenware, china clay, firing, dipping and packing. They 
 were the medium ? Yes, of course, the medium, just as 
 ink and paper and words were a medium the idea was 
 something different. It was what was it ? Was it 
 Alexander or Grimstones', perhaps ? Or a fight ? he had 
 a vague feeling of having fought a long time, though it 
 did not seem at all clear with or for what. But it was 
 interesting perhaps some day, in a book a long book or 
 another life perhaps it would be possible to work it out 
 the concreting of an idea in different forms or chapters. 
 
 His head nodded and he woke with a jerk. He rose and, 
 stretching, walked down to the water's edge to wake and 
 warm himself. 
 
 The light was coming fast now, all the low, open land 
 beyond the canal was silver pale ; a small hoar frost lay on 
 the ground and a thin mist hung in the air, though things 
 were very clear in spite of it. There were some bushes on 
 the other side of the canal, the lower branches seemed more 
 
 9 "9
 
 DESIRE 
 
 distant than the upper by reason of the mist which was 
 thickest close on the water. There was never a hint of 
 bud or sign of life in the bushes, never a gleam of green or 
 gold in the pale landscape, yet there was a feeling of spring 
 even in the cold air. The birds were singing, they had 
 been singing a long time, before it was fairly light, only 
 he had not heard them before. He heard them now and 
 wondered at the extraordinary penetrating liquidness of the 
 notes in the thin air ; in some way it intensified the silence 
 and made him feel very far away from the world, as one 
 feels on a mountain top. 
 
 The mist, lying on the water, began to rise, like some 
 ghost thing that gathers its skirts and flees at the coming of 
 the working day. Far off, carried up on the water, came 
 a human voice, a man speaking to a horse, then silence 
 again, but not the same aloofness, the world was becoming 
 man's world, the mist was gone and the hoar frost was 
 thinning, showing the green of grass here and there. By 
 and by came the sound of a horse plodding along the tow- 
 path, and afterwards, in due time, the animal came into 
 sight, his breath streaming out into the cold air as the 
 smoke from the little stove on the barge streamed out, 
 tarnishing for a minute the clearness. 
 
 It was a small matter, though to Peter unnecessarily 
 lengthy in the doing the loading of the crates, the ex- 
 change of some few words and the getting under way. 
 
 At last the barge moved again, the man by the towing 
 horse cracked his whip and called something to the man 
 by the little stove, who not troubling to answer, he began 
 to whistle. The whistle grew fainter and fainter in the 
 distance, until the quiet swallowed it up, and the ripples 
 left by the barge on the canal grew less and less till the 
 water was still again. Peter turned and went into the house. 
 
 130
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 EZRA GRIMSTONE progressed on the lines indicated by the 
 doctor as likely. By the middle of April he had to a great 
 extent recovered his speech, and spoke no more seldom and 
 little less plainly than of old ; by that time, too, he had 
 begun to get about a little. He had not been brought down- 
 stairs, but he moved about in his own room with assistance, 
 and, in spite of his helplessness, was to a certain extent 
 restored to his old position. He could not go down to the 
 yard or office, it is true, but he could and did know every- 
 thing that was done there, and practically direct affairs. 
 Daily minute accounts had to be rendered by Peter, checked 
 usually by Robert, who, with the reinstating and partial 
 recovery of the master, was also back in his former position. 
 During the earlier days of Ezra's illness, and in the time 
 when there was so much to do, Peter had assumed command, 
 and the old man had sourly but unquestioningly let him. 
 That was over now, and Peter was once more entirely sub- 
 ordinate. Bolt had also returned to his original position 
 or his original lethargy what he was paid for, that he did 
 grudgingly, and extra pay for extra work had small charm 
 for one who had few opportunities and fewer tastes for 
 spending ; there was not much to be got out of him. 
 
 The whole arrangement was unsatisfactory ; Peter knew 
 it ; the division of a director who cannot even look at the 
 work, and a lieutenant with small experience and no autho- 
 rity, is bad and bound to work badly. There was small
 
 DESIRE 
 
 satisfaction for any one ; it would have been impossible to 
 satisfy Ezra anyhow, and impossible for Peter to satisfy him- 
 self, seeing that he was trying to work on his father's plan, 
 although he was one essentially suited to work out his own 
 way only. There was little doing now at the pottery, so 
 the great waste of time entailed by the present arrange- 
 ment did not so much matter. By all being occupied 
 all the time they just got through, and the afternoon quiet 
 of slow decay settled down on the place more firmly than 
 ever. 
 
 And the novel was untouched. Sometimes, when he was 
 doing purely mechanical work, Peter thought about it and 
 planned to alter this or that. But it wanted more than 
 altering, more than he could give it now ; it had got into 
 two or three different keys ; he had lost the original theme, 
 the primary inspiring idea had become confused, he was not 
 himself any longer sure what he had to say. Once or twice 
 he took the manuscript out and looked at it, but he never 
 had any length of time to devote to it, and, besides, the thing 
 itself seemed to be gone from him. His present life, it is 
 true, did not make large demands on his intellect, but it 
 made very large ones on his patience, his energy and his slow- 
 working mind ; it seemed to leave him very little margin. 
 No doubt there was a loose* screw in his intellectual consti- 
 tution, seeing that he was unable to do two things, certainly 
 he was not one of those who storm the world's heights, only 
 a plodder on an uphill path. 
 
 On a Sunday at the end of April Peter took out the manu- 
 script for what proved to be the last time for long. He 
 looked at it a little, making a correction here and there from 
 force of habit, then he looked up and out of window. He 
 was at the time in his own room and the window was 
 towards the hills, towards a gap in them, so that one saw 
 
 132
 
 DESIRE 
 
 not only the grey rampart but also a glimpse of the open land 
 beyond. For a moment he sat thinking of the patched book, 
 of its incoherency and his own incompetency. Then by 
 chance his eye was arrested by a fluff of gold over the road, 
 a palm bush in blossom in the swampy ground at the foot of 
 the steep path. Suddenly there came to his mind the smell 
 of the tufted branches as they grew here and there in the 
 soft spots on the hillsides. It was imagination purely, but it 
 was so plain that for a minute he almost seemed to hear the 
 humming of the bees busy about the flowers. He rose and, 
 putting the manuscript into a drawer, went out. Whatever 
 else had gone these at least were left the sun and the wind 
 and the good days which befall the earth in times of man's 
 fortune and his misfortune. 
 
 Far on in the afternoon, but before Peter was back, some 
 one came to the grey house. Mrs. Grimstone, dozing over 
 a sermon in her husband's room, did not hear the knock, and 
 was quite startled when Mary came up to tell her she was 
 wanted. 
 
 " What is it ? " she asked. 
 
 Mary beckoned her out and carefully shut the door. " Mr. 
 Alexander," she said shortly. 
 
 " Alexander ! " Mrs. Grimstone exclaimed, and then 
 looked behind her as if fearful the shut door should have 
 heard. " Is he here ? Did he did he ask for the master ? 
 He is here r " 
 
 " In the parlour, waiting," Mary said, and Mrs. Grimstone 
 went hastily down-stairs. 
 
 Alexander was standing by the window when she went 
 in, looking precisely as he had looked when he last came more 
 than a year ago, and now, as then, as much at home as if he 
 had but walked out that morning. 
 
 " Alexander ! " Mrs. Grimstone exclaimed. 
 
 '33
 
 DESIRE 
 
 And " Well, Mother," he said, just as he had said the 
 last time. 
 
 " How's the old man ? " he asked, when he had kissed her 
 perfunctorily. 
 
 " Your father ? He's better. He's been very ill, you 
 know. Did you hear about it ? " 
 
 " I heard, that's why I came ; I was over in this part ot 
 the world, so I thought I'd look in arid hear about him." 
 
 Mrs. Grimstone smiled with pleasure. " I'm so glad," 
 she said, " so glad you thought of it you're so busy, too, I 
 was afraid at one time you and he had perhaps didn't agree 
 quite last year." 
 
 " We didn't, but I don't bear malice never do, for the 
 matter of that." 
 
 Mrs. Grimstone appreciated this magnanimity. " I'll go 
 and tell your father you are here," she said. She was not 
 quite sure how Ezra would receive the news or the visitor, 
 but she felt she must go and tell him at once, she had no 
 right to have her son's society clandestinely. 
 
 But Alexander was not in such a hurry. " There's plenty 
 of time," he said. " I've got a bit of time to put in here ; 
 you and I may as well have a talk first. Tell me about the 
 old man's illness, how it happened and all the rest." 
 
 Mrs. Grimstone therefore told him, explaining fully and 
 freely all that had occurred. Peter's name, of course, came 
 in more than once in her narrative. Finally Alexander, who 
 had rather the air of listening more or less, specially less, 
 picked it out. " Peter ? " he said, " I heard he was here." 
 
 "Such a good thing," his mother said. " Of course he's 
 not so clever as you, but he's quite your father's right hand 
 now. I don't know what he'd do without him." 
 
 " H'm," was Alexander's comment. " I thought Peter 
 was by way of being a poet, or something of that sort."
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " Oh, yes, he wrote a book, not poetry but a beautiful 
 book " (Mrs. Grimstone may have been thinking of the out- 
 side, as it is not certain she had read all the in), " but of 
 course when your father offered him to come here he was 
 glad to come, and, as I say, it is a very good thing he did." 
 
 " I shouldn't have thought he'd make much of a potter," 
 Alexander said. " Are they busy now ? I suppose not. 
 Peter ought to do all right if there wasn't too much on 
 hand." 
 
 " Peter works very well," Mrs. Grimstone said, and after- 
 wards, with a little questioning from Alexander, she told 
 what she could of the doing of Grimstones' in the weeks of 
 the master's illness. It was not very much, and Alexander's 
 interest soon ceased ; when it ceased he did not scruple to 
 stop his mother by another question. 
 
 " Who works here now ? " he asked. 
 
 " Robert and Bolt." 
 
 " Bolt ? Don't remember him. Oh, the boy, of course, 
 there used to be a fuddle-headed lout of some sort, I remem- 
 ber. And old Robert how's he ? At home to-day ? I 
 must have a talk with him by and by." 
 
 " He is out," Mrs. Grimstone said ; " he has gone to 
 afternoon chapel the Ark, you know, where he and Mary 
 always go. It's a long way from here ; she can't manage to 
 go for the afternoon class meeting if she goes in the morning, 
 but he always does." 
 
 It did not occur to Mrs. Grimstone to doubt if Alexander 
 were quite sincere in his wish to talk with Robert, his 
 father's loyal adherent, nor did it occur to her to think it 
 strange that Alexander should have forgotten this invariable 
 Sunday habit of the old man. Her interest was not centred 
 in these things just now, but in the grandchildren, about 
 whom there seemed so little opportunity to ask. 
 
 135
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " The kids ? " Alexander said, when at last she managed 
 to put the question " Oh, they're all right. One of 'em's 
 got the whooping cough." 
 
 " The whooping cough ! Oh, my dear ! " 
 
 " Beastly nuisance, can't go to school, nor can the other. 
 I say she had much better look sharp and get it and have it 
 over. Florence is a fool, she makes no end of a fuss, she 
 cockers the children up. Peter's not in, is he ? When do 
 you expect him ? " 
 
 Mrs. Grimstone did not know, but she thought soon, as it 
 was nearly tea-time. 
 
 It was not such a great while before Peter did come in. 
 If he was surprised to see Alexander he did not show it, and 
 if the real purpose of Alexander's visit had been to see him 
 that was not shown either. The brothers presented some- 
 thing of a contrast to one another. Alexander was the taller 
 though Peter the more powerfully built. Alexander spoke 
 and moved quickly, for one of his family he talked a good 
 deal at times, and in his movements there was an energy and 
 restlessness which was very noticeable. Peter spoke much 
 more slowly, using few words and seeming to choose them ; 
 and for his movements, he was so still and sometimes so 
 almost unready that one was liable to be unprepared for the 
 swift precision his actions occasionally showed. In type of 
 head they were opposed too, Alexander the long and narrow, 
 Peter the short and flattened. Alexander had a curiously 
 slit-like mouth, given to unbeautiful smiling ; Peter's fuller 
 and more mobile lips smiled little. Alexander's eyes were 
 light and particularly bright ; Peter's intensely grey, very 
 direct and serious. Both had inherited the father's square 
 jaw, and each seemed to possess the true Grimstone capacity 
 for keeping his own counsel. As they sat at tea and talked 
 on a variety of topics, mostly of the elder's introduction, 
 
 136
 
 DESIRE 
 
 Alexander did not fail to observe how little Peter said. He 
 put it down to caution and a fear of betraying himself. 
 
 After tea, Mrs. Grimstone was dismissed by Alexander, 
 who had a somewhat cavalier fashion of dismissing his 
 womenfolk when he wanted to be rid of them. He told 
 her now to go and tell his father that he had come, and when 
 she was gone on the errand he turned to Peter with the air 
 of one coming to business. 
 
 " Well," he said, " what are you doing ? " 
 
 "Doing?" 
 
 " Yes, what's Grimstones' doing ? " 
 
 " Much as usual," Peter said, with the polite indifference 
 of one speaking of an indifferent subject. 
 
 " Is the old man directing ? " Alexander asked. " I 
 suppose he is. How long's he going to keep it on ? " 
 
 " So long as he lives, I imagine." 
 
 " Game old cock. Still, he won't live for ever ; what's 
 going to happen when he dies ? " 
 
 "I don't know." 
 
 Alexander laughed, his short laugh which somehow 
 suggested a bark. 
 
 " You're a bit of a fool, you know, Peter," he said good- 
 naturedly ; " I suppose you think I'm trying to pump you, 
 come to see what you're up to. I've not, it's not to you I'd 
 come for that, you can make yourself easy on that score ; I 
 know all I want to about Grimstones'. I know you all tore 
 your guts out to worry through with that order, and I know, 
 though I own I didn't last year, that you aren't so flourish- 
 ing here as most think you ; I know precisely how you 
 stand." 
 
 Peter saw no reason to doubt it, and, not doubting, he 
 equally saw no reason to remark on it. 
 
 " What I'm here for," Alexander went on, leaning his 
 
 137
 
 DESIRE 
 
 back against the mantelpiece, " is to give you a leg up if you 
 want it. I've got some money idle, I should rather like to 
 have it in the old firm ; I don't go in for sentiment, but, 
 other things even, I'd sooner have it in the old concern than 
 anything. I've a notion the other things might be made 
 even, so there it is when you want it." 
 
 "Thank you," Peter said in the same entirely polite and 
 indifferent way, " but I'm afraid it's no use speaking of it to 
 me." 
 
 " You've got no say in things ? " Alexander asked, then 
 laughed ; " I suppose you wouldn't have," he said. It 
 amused him, even though it temporarily upset his plans, to 
 see how poorly Ezra thought of the son who for spite he 
 had taken to be with him ; it pleased him, too, to think 
 that, after experience, the old man saw no reason to alter 
 his opinion. 
 
 " Do you know what we fell out about, he and I ? " he 
 asked, biting his thumb nail. 
 
 " I've not heard much about it," Peter answered. 
 
 " Oh ? You don't know ? Well, as he hasn't told you 
 I won't. But I'll tell you this much, the old man's no more 
 likely to have any of my money in the business on his own 
 account than he is to fly. I came over to propose it because 
 I thought you'd be likely to have some sort of say in things 
 by this time, especially as the old chap's doubled up. I 
 reckoned that if you had you'd have the sense to see the 
 advantage of my offer and either to persuade or compel him 
 to take it." 
 
 " I see," said Peter. 
 
 "Of course, you'll come to that some day," Alexander 
 went on. " He'll get more and more dotty by degrees, and 
 though he'll hang on to every scrap of power he can to the 
 last, you'll soon have to run things on your own more or 
 
 138
 
 DESIRE 
 
 less, and shut your mouth about it. When you do, and 
 when you want help, you'd better come to me. It'd pay 
 you best to do it pay me too, of course ; I'm not a philan- 
 thropist, but you'll have to go to some one, and it had better 
 be me." He shot a glance at Peter, from which one might 
 have fancied he was not so sure of his facts as he sounded, 
 wishful rather of getting a hint as to how far they were 
 well founded. " And look here," he went on more genially, 
 " any time you get into a howling muddle and being a 
 poet and not a potter, of course you will sooner or later 
 you'd better let me know, and I'll pull you out of it if I can, 
 or at all events advise you." 
 
 " Thank you," Peter said. 
 
 Alexander looked at him with the unbeautiful smile 
 twisting the corners of his mouth and showing his yellow 
 teeth. " Does that mean you will or you won't ? " he asked, 
 with the amusement of one contemptuous of a caution he 
 can see through. 
 
 " The opportunity is not likely to occur," Peter answered. 
 
 "It is dead sure to," Alexander retorted. "And you're 
 dead sure to make a muck of it for fear of being done ! I 
 suppose you think if I once got a foot in here I'd collar the 
 lot ? " 
 
 " I have not thought about it." 
 
 " Rot ! " 
 
 " But now that you mention it," Peter went on politely, 
 " I should think such a thing very probable if you did get 
 a foot in." 
 
 Alexander laughed. If ! " he scoffed. If ! Don't 
 you know I can have the whole concern for nothing by 
 and by ? In case you don't know it I'll tell you. When 
 the old man's gone I shall inevitably be Grimstones', the 
 only Grimstones'. The most of the old concern will 
 
 '39
 
 DESIRE 
 
 naturally come over to me. The name and reputation, 
 which is all I really want, will come without my agreement 
 or purchase money or anything. I shall call myself Grim- 
 stones', and right away I shall be it. As for the connection, 
 I can have that before if I want it." 
 
 '* You think so ? " Peter said indifferently. Whether or 
 not he thought so, or even if he thought at all, did not 
 appear. Alexander, partly irritated and partly contemptuous 
 of so stolid an antagonist, went on further to explain how he 
 would become Grimstones'. 
 
 " I make you a present of the information," he concluded. 
 "I don't mind playing with you with the cards down. I 
 don't mind telling you, either, why I was willing to give 
 something for what I can have for nothing later on : it's 
 because it is later on, and I should be glad to have it, at a 
 moderate price, now. Oh, I can do without it, don't excite 
 yourself on that point. But to have it now and without 
 trouble's worth something to me. If you weren't a fool 
 you'd see it was worth a good deal more to you. As you 
 are there's an end " 
 
 He turned as he spoke, for Mrs. Grimstone had entered, 
 her face troubled and a little pale. 
 
 " What ? Won't the old man see me ? " Alexander said 
 carelessly. "Well, I'm not surprised, and anyhow I must 
 cut in a minute." 
 
 " It isn't that," Mrs. Grimstone said. " Oh, Alexander, 
 he is so angry ! He wants to see you he insists on it, and 
 he is so dreadfully upset, I have never seen him like it. I 
 ought never to have let you stay. When he heard you were 
 down-stairs talking to Peter he was terrible ! " 
 
 Alexander looked across at Peter and laughed. "He 
 doesn't seem to have much opinion of you and your dis- 
 cretion," he said. 
 
 140
 
 DESIRE 
 
 Peter did not answer, but turned to his mother urging 
 her strongly not to take Alexander up-stairs. 
 
 " Oh, but I must ! " Mrs. Grimstone said, aghast at the 
 idea of disobedience. " He said he was to come at once." 
 
 " That can't be helped," Peter told her ; " he will be 
 angry of course if Alexander does not come, but nothing 
 like so angry as if he does, that will be far worse for him. 
 You know what the doctor said about excitement." 
 
 Mrs. Grimstone did know, and Peter, seeing his advantage, 
 followed it up with further persuasions, which might have 
 brought her to the point of disobeying her husband, for about 
 the first time in her life, had not Alexander interfered. To 
 him the fact that Peter did not want him to see his father 
 was suspicious. From it he argued that the illness had 
 weakened the iron will as well as the iron constitution, and 
 Peter was afraid that the father, though angry now, would 
 be worked upon by him (Alexander) to his advantage. 
 There was something to be gained by going, or at all events 
 Peter fancied so, so Alexander would go. 
 
 " Bosh ! " he said, when he saw his mother wavering at 
 the thought of the danger of excitement. " I shan't do him 
 any harm, not half so much as the fury he would get into 
 when he found he was disobeyed. He'd never know a 
 minute's peace after, or give you one either, when once he 
 had discovered that you didn't do as he told you now he 
 can't get about to see after things himself." 
 
 "Yes " Mrs. Grimstone said doubtfully, "yes, I'm 
 afraid that is so. Perhaps " this with shamefaced hesitation, 
 for she was transparently honest " perhaps we ought to 
 tell him you had to catch a train." 
 
 "And perhaps he'd believe you," Alexander said con- 
 temptuously. " No, I'm not going to have that gammon ; 
 I came over here to see him and as he's willing to see me 
 I'm not going away without." 
 
 141
 
 DESIRE 
 
 He went to the door as he spoke and Peter followed 
 him with his eyes. There was something unnaturally rigid 
 about Peter, and a curious little ripple seemed to pass through 
 his whole powerful frame ; the knuckles of his clenched 
 hands stood out for half a second Alexander was in great 
 danger of a broken head. Then the tension relaxed, it was 
 not the time or place to try conclusions with the weapons 
 Peter best understood ; there might come a day, perhaps, 
 when the raw, natural thing in him spoke out plainly to 
 Alexander and bade him stand up to it ; but it was not 
 now, and fortunately man's wisdom checked boy's impulse. 
 Alexander, quite unconscious of his momentary danger, 
 went out, Mrs. Grimstone accompanying him as far as 
 the door of her husband's room. 
 
 " You won't upset him, will you ? " she pleaded rather 
 anxiously. 
 
 " All right," he said, and went in, shutting the door after 
 him. 
 
 The house was well built, the doors and windows, with 
 the exception of one or two altered in more recent times, 
 fitted very well. It would have been almost impossible for 
 Mrs. Grimstone to have heard anything which passed inside 
 the room even if she had tried, and she was far from any 
 thought of trying. Indeed, she only lingered up-stairs from 
 the vague instinct which keeps people near the scene of 
 their anxiety, even when the affair is quite beyond their 
 control or reach. She observed that the white dimity 
 curtain by the landing window was crooked, she went and 
 set it straight with the neat precision dear to her soul. The 
 window looked west, and the sloping beams of the evening 
 sun fell on the sober matting on the floor. She did not 
 notice the sun but she did notice a thin place in the matting, 
 and mentally decided the length must be shifted to-morrow 
 
 142
 
 DESIRE 
 
 so as to bring the worn part further along. As she stooped 
 to see how much there was to shift she heard a sound 
 Alexander laughing his short, loud laugh. It made her 
 jump, but only for a second, the father and son must be 
 getting on well if there was laughing. Experience had not 
 succeeded in teaching her that when Alexander laughed it 
 was more often at than with any one, and that other people 
 then seldom had much reason for merriment or pleasure. 
 
 She went to the other end of the strip of matting to see 
 how much was turned under there, a little new piece at 
 that end would be a help in rearranging the strips. While 
 she looked she heard Peter come into the hall below. 
 
 " Is that you, Peter ? " she asked. 
 
 He looked up to answer, coming a little way up the 
 stairs, so that the sloping sunbeams fell on him. 
 
 "I think it is a good thing Alexander went " she 
 
 began, and suddenly stopped. There came a strange sound 
 from behind the closed door, inarticulate, yet loud, for they 
 heard it plainly here, and in some way horrible rage, pain 
 and impotency blended in its inhuman note. 
 
 Peter sprang up the stairs and passed her ; but before he 
 had reached his father's door it was opened by Alexander 
 who came out rather hastily. 
 
 " Alexander ! What is it ? " Mrs. Grimstone cried. 
 
 " The old man's had a fit or something," Alexander said. 
 " Here, you'd better not go in," he caught her by the arm 
 as he spoke, and pulled her aside so that Peter could pass, 
 " he looks a bit bad." 
 
 She tried to free herself. " I must go ! " she said. 
 
 " Nonsense," he answered ; " Peter's there, that's all 
 sufficient. Come down-stairs and see about sending for a 
 doctor." 
 
 She hesitated, but the habit of obedience, and the necessity
 
 DESIRE 
 
 of sending for the doctor carried the day, and she came. 
 " Is it a bad fit ? " she asked. " Is he faint ? " 
 
 " He'll be all right after a bit," Alexander said j " you 
 know he's likely to get this sort of thing." 
 
 " Faintness ? " Mrs. Grimstone queried. 
 
 " He's not faint," Alexander said shortly. 
 
 " Another stroke ? Oh, Alexander, did you excite him ? 
 You must have excited him ! " 
 
 " No I didn't he excited himself. Choked himself with 
 a curse." 
 
 The last was scarcely addressed to Mrs. Grimstone, who 
 was busy giving directions to Mary about fetching the 
 doctor. 
 
 " Here, where does he live ? I'd better go," Alexander 
 said impatiently j "you won't have him in a month of 
 Sundays at this rate." 
 
 And he went and brought the doctor back with what 
 speed he could. 
 
 Not that it was much use, no doctor could do much for 
 Ezra Grimstone now. Another stroke, such as he, even in 
 his most clear-sighted moments had not foreseen, had fallen 
 upon him. Speechless, motionless he lay, with distorted 
 face and fierce fixed eyes that appeared to recognize no one. 
 Everything but just the bare breath of life was gone. The 
 mind was gone, gone never to return the doctor thought, 
 though in such a case, he said, one cannot absolutely foretell. 
 And Peter, to whom this was said, acquiesced, saying little. 
 He did not know if there was any passion of revolt left in 
 the shrouded brain, but he did suddenly know, as he had not 
 before, what there had been beneath the outside calm. He 
 also knew now, as if he had been there, the fury of rage and 
 hate which had boiled up to bring about the last over- 
 whelming catastrophe. And he found it hard to believe 
 
 144
 
 DESIRE 
 
 that this was all gone, all dead. The passion, a moment 
 ago so terribly, so astonishingly hot, must, it seemed to him, 
 be slumbering and latent if not still actually there ; to think 
 otherwise was in some way horrible, almost like the denying 
 cf the existence of soul and the reducing of humanity to 
 mere carrion. Whatever Ezra Grimstone was to others 
 to Peter he was not and never would be just an inanimate 
 heap of barely breathing flesh. Whether it was for days 
 or for months or for years, to Peter he would always be 
 an impotent, prisoned soul ; speechless, powerless to com- 
 municate, locked away from his kind, as in the heart of an 
 iceberg, but there, and supremely pitiful. 
 
 10 145
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THERE were disagreeables in the Quebell household ; not 
 exactly outspoken ones, certainly not quarrels there were 
 insurmountable difficulties in the way of quarrelling with 
 a person like Desire but there was a frigidity in the 
 atmosphere and a strainedness in the relations between the 
 two women, which even the younger of the two could not 
 fail to perceive. Nearly a year had elapsed since the 
 breaking of Desire's engagement with Edward Gore, but 
 Lady Quebell had neither forgiven or forgotten the affair. 
 It had outraged her sense of propriety, it had greatly upset 
 her arrangements, and it left Desire still on hand. The 
 circumstances had never been explained to her, they had 
 never really been explained to Gore or to any one else except 
 one totally insignificant man, who had since dropped out of 
 the Quebell circle. Lady Quebell naturally put her own 
 interpretation on the break and the interpretation was not 
 favourable to Desire who took no more trouble to palliate 
 the blow to her step-mother than she had to soften it to the 
 victim, seeing which one cannot say that the lady's feelings 
 were altogether unreasonable. 
 
 During the autumn the two women had seen little of 
 each other, they had as much as possible visited separately ; 
 in the early months indeed Desire had seen few of her own 
 set, spending her time travelling with her father. When, 
 after Christmas, she came to town again the affair of the 
 engagement was largely forgotten by a people who were too 
 
 146
 
 DESIRE 
 
 busy amusing themselves to remember much. Desire 
 herself, to all appearances, had forgotten it too, at all events 
 she seemed prepared to take up her life and circumstances 
 as before. Lady Quebell was not prepared and had not 
 forgotten, and through the winter and spring the position 
 grew more and more strained. Everything Desire did 
 aggravated it, all in her proceedings which in the past 
 annoyed her step-mother did a thousand times more so now, 
 and her previously condemned faculty for becoming absorbedly 
 interested in people principally men appeared an even 
 more heinous thing in her step-mother's eyes, though she 
 seldom said anything about it. She seldom did speak plainly 
 to Desire at that time ; it was not till Julian Lee came to 
 the fore that she gave any idea of the nature and extent of 
 her feelings. 
 
 Julian Lee was an extremely rich and quite unattached 
 American, an agreeable person in every way, who that 
 spring had come into the Quebell circle. He had interested 
 Desire, not because of his weath or eligibility, but in spite 
 of them, and for some quality or originality she found in him. 
 The consequence was the not unprecedented one that he 
 fell in love with her and proposed marriage. This in itself, 
 though distressing, did not matter tremendously ; he was 
 what Desire called a sensible person, and took his refusal 
 well. Apparently he had not much expected anything else 
 yet, and, though he announced his intention of waiting 
 indefinitely for the more favourable answer, which Desire 
 did not encourage him to expect, he did not let the incident 
 make any difference to his present unembarrassing friend- 
 liness. But unfortunately Lady Quebell discovered what had 
 occurred, and she felt it her duty to speak to Desire on the 
 subject. 
 
 She spoke very plainly indeed and after having denounced
 
 DESIRE 
 
 Desire and her doing not without some justice in the old 
 terms, she demanded sharply if she realized her age. 
 
 " You do ? " she said, when Desire readily owned to her 
 twenty-six years. " Do you realize that your chances of 
 a satisfactory settlement in life are diminishing rapidly ? " 
 
 " Do you think they are ? " Desire asked. " Well, now, 
 I don't ; I don't believe there ever was a chance of my 
 settling satisfactorily. I can't conceive of any walk in life 
 now open to me where Satan would not c find some mischief 
 still for my hands to do.' " 
 
 Lady Quebell did not mean that. " I meant, make a 
 satisfactory marriage," she said, " and you know I did. In 
 your circumstances I really cannot understand your present 
 conduct ; it is worse than folly." 
 
 " Is it ? " Desire said, with the interest of one discussing 
 a general topic. " You think so ? I expect you are 
 right." 
 
 " Of course I am," Lady Quebell said shortly ; she knew 
 what Desire's easy acquiescence was worth. "Why did you 
 refuse that man ? " she asked ; " you like him personally, he 
 interests and amuses you, and, what is of more importance, 
 he understands you and would not expect too much. He is 
 rich enough even for your extravagance ; he appears to have 
 no relations whom you could shock, and he is not likely to 
 be in any way exacting. I can't think of a match more 
 suitable to you in every way." 
 
 And she proceeded to enlarge on the suitability, without, 
 it is to be feared, producing much effect, although Desire, 
 with justice, agreed with most of what she said. 
 
 "Are you going to reconsider your refusal?" she asked 
 half deceived by the agreement. 
 I'm afraid not." 
 
 " Then why is the man still coming here ? " 
 
 148
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " I don't know, unless it is because he likes to ; perhaps 
 because he likes me and I like him." 
 
 " Like him ! You mean because you like men dangling 
 round you ! It must have been a disappointment to you " 
 she spoke spitefully now " that the impossible person, 
 Grimstone, with whom you played so disastrously last 
 summer, gave you up so completely when he got his 
 congt." 
 
 Desire did not explain that the man in question had 
 received no congl and courted none. She never felt inclined 
 to discuss Peter Grimstone in the pleasant superficial manner 
 she was ready to speak of most other people introduced into 
 conversation by her step-mother. In some way he stood to 
 her for a thing separate and apart, a ridiculous thing, perhaps, 
 but one she could not replace, and regretted with an 
 intermittent but persistent sense of loss. 
 
 Lady Quebell knew nothing of this, but she felt that her 
 remark concerning the man had touched somewhere, and she 
 went on with a maliciousness which was nearly ill-bred. 
 
 " I suppose," she said, " you rather expected Edward Gore 
 to return to you after a time r " 
 
 Desire was aware of the bad manners and the bad feeling, 
 and together they rather jarred on her. " No," she said 
 briefly, " I expected him to marry some one else ; by this 
 time no doubt he is married." 
 
 " He is nothing of the kind. Who should he marry ? " 
 
 Desire looked up, her attention arrested. " Are you sure 
 he is not married ? " she asked quickly. " How do you 
 know r " 
 
 " I heard about him the other day from the Russels," Lady 
 Quebell answered j " he is certainly not married j he has not 
 got over your treatment of him." 
 
 Desire was sure he must have. " People don't break their 
 
 149
 
 DESIRE 
 
 hearts over me," she said ; " he did not really care much, not 
 that way anyhow." 
 
 " Oh," Lady Quebell retorted, " is that how you explain 
 his non-return ? " 
 
 But the shaft missed, for Desire was thinking of something 
 else ; what it was soon appeared. " I shall go and see the 
 Russels," she announced, " and ask about him " 
 
 " Ask about him ! " Lady Quebell exclaimed ; " you 
 can't ! " 
 
 " Why not ? They can tell me all I want to know." That 
 to Desire was a more than sufficient reason. 
 
 She knew pretty well what Gore's movements had been 
 since her jilting of him last summer. He had first left 
 London for some considerable time ; then, when work 
 compelled his return, he had applied himself to it with an 
 attention which banished him from society of most sorts, and 
 in the early spring ended in another breakdown. He was 
 not very strong nervously. For that reason, if for no other, it 
 was perhaps a good thing he was not tied to Desire, whose 
 too exciting personality would undoubtedly have worn him 
 him even more than the work it would have stimulated him 
 to do. These facts Desire knew ; the thing she did not 
 know was what had happened on his recovery, whether or 
 no he was yet married to the woman of the grey eyes one 
 who, unlike herself, would have supplemented and soothed him 
 alike in struggle and success. 
 
 But she very soon found this out, at all events all that was 
 known to his friends the Russels. They, whatever their 
 opinion of her inquiries and the motive of them, gave her 
 the information she wanted. She learnt that up to the 
 present they at least believed him to be unmarried. So if 
 any ceremony had taken place they and presumably other 
 people did not know of it. If it existed it must be of a 
 
 150
 
 DESIRE 
 
 private nature, which was surely not quite what justice 
 demanded. 
 
 There was a smoulder of anger in Desire's eyes when 
 she went up-stairs after her visit to the Russels. Gore had 
 had time enough, even allowing for the difference between 
 his nature and her own headlong one ; he had had time to 
 get over the blow of her dealing ; he had lost himself in work 
 since, been ill and was better, and he had not yet married 
 the woman. He was a little afraid to take the step doubtless ; 
 afraid about his position, perhaps. Who and what she was 
 before marriage might not leak out, possibly never would, 
 but, on the other hand, it might. Desire realized now, as 
 she had not during her engagement, that he set store by these 
 things which did not count at all to her that, whatever 
 his convictions, he had a tendency to rule his life by that 
 thing unrecognized by herself, the usual standard. He was 
 just a little bit of a coward ; a brilliantly clever man, but just 
 a little lacking in physical stamina, moral stamina too, perhaps 
 at any rate lacking the fearless robustness with which she 
 had endowed him at one time, probably solely because she 
 possessed it herself. And so he had not yet married this 
 Edith. And she, poor soul, had doubtless feared to put 
 fortune to the touch she, too, lacked the headlong decisive- 
 ness. What she must have suffered during these months, 
 this woman who, in spite of her brave words, never really 
 lost sight of the world's estimate of her position ! Desire, in 
 her place, would not have given a thought to the world, but 
 she dimly realized that this other one did, and realized, too, 
 that the nervous nature, which fears to miss the opportunity 
 and fears to take it, suffers a martyrdom in waiting, watching, 
 doubting itself and others, and making a thousand abortive 
 starts unknown to those who leap without looking and 
 usually land safe on the other side.
 
 DESIRE 
 
 Desire rang the bell. Months ago now she had almost 
 forcibly discarded the whole affair, she had compelled her- 
 self to set it aside as something which could not be bettered 
 by thinking, and she had come instinctively to shrink from 
 thought of it. But now, it seemed, she had got to reopen 
 this incident. She had, it seemed, assumed a responsibility of 
 sorts, when she played the part she did ; and now she had to 
 see it through to the end. When the man answered her 
 summons she told him to call her a cab. 
 
 Soon she was driving away, and it was as well Lady 
 Quebell knew nothing about it, for her destination was 
 Gore's chambers in the Temple. 
 
 No doubt it was some one's business to ask a visitor's 
 errand at the Temple chambers, or at least his name, before 
 he was permitted to penetrate to the room where Gore sat at 
 work. But this did not befall Desire. When, as now, her 
 whole mind was bent on her object, to the exclusion of 
 everything else, other people were either, quite unconsciously, 
 swept aside by her, or swept along with her, or too surprised 
 to recollect the thing they normally did until she was 
 gone. So it happened now, and she passed through to Gore 
 unquestioned and unannounced. When he looked up on 
 the opening of the door she was already there, a completely 
 surprising and scene-filling presence. 
 
 "I am sorry to interrupt you," she said, without any 
 greeting or excuse ; " but I want ten minutes' talk with you ; 
 can I have it ? " 
 
 It was the same curiously thrilling voice, the same oddly, 
 frankly intimate manner which made one feel as if one had 
 never parted from her ; the same seductive figure, standing, 
 glowing-haired, in a shaft of sunlight. Gore recognized it, 
 as he recognized the irresistible, all-pervadingness of her, 
 with a sense of shock.
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " Anything I can do for you ? " he said formally, placing a 
 chair for her as he spoke. 
 
 She sat down without noticing the stiffness of his tone or 
 the way it strove to indicate disapproval of one who, having 
 behaved to him as she had, came to him on any pretext 
 whatever. 
 
 "It is about your marriage I want to talk to you," she 
 said without preamble. " You are not married, I suppose ? " 
 
 She flashed a searching look as she spoke, and there was a 
 momentary hope in her eyes. He saw it in some astonish- 
 ment, and perhaps he is not to be blamed for misinterpret- 
 ing it. 
 
 " No," he said briefly. 
 
 She nodded as if it was what she expected. She did not 
 say she was sorry, but Gore could not help perceiving it ; 
 and he was at once nonplussed and irritated. 
 
 " I was not aware that you took so much interest in my 
 affairs," he said stiffly. 
 
 " No," she answered, " I suppose not " she broke off as 
 if uncertain, then went on again : "I thought you would 
 have been married by this time ; I expected you would." 
 
 He could not conceal his surprise and annoyance, the 
 annoyance of one who resents an unwarranted intrusion. 
 
 " I fear I do not understand you or your interest in me," 
 he said. 
 
 " No," she answered ; she was finding it embarrassing, 
 though not, perhaps, from quite the causes which would have 
 embarrassed most women. " The fact is, you ought to be 
 married, you know; you have kept her waiting a long time." 
 
 Gore's face suddenly froze. " What do you mean ? " he 
 demanded. 
 
 Desire looked away ; she was intensely sorry for him, so 
 sorry that she felt it was impossible she could ever have been 
 
 153
 
 DESIRE 
 
 anything else. " I know about it," she said, with the awk- 
 ward shamefacedness of one who is herself discovered in 
 what is discreditable ; " I knew before you came back. I 
 chanced upon it by accident, and then went into it and 
 found out everything, and made her promise not to tell you. 
 You must not blame her for not telling you. I made her 
 promise. I thought we could manage without a scene. I 
 hate a scene." 
 
 "You knew?" He repeated the words in a stupefied 
 fashion. 
 
 "Will you please tell me with what you are charging 
 me ? " he said. " Perhaps also you will tell me why, if you 
 consider you had reason for breaking off our engagement, 
 you did not tell me of it at the time, and give me an 
 opportunity of explanation, or, at least, confession ? " 
 
 " Because I hate a scene," Desire answered ; she, too, 
 had recovered, and spoke easily now as one dealing with 
 impersonal topics. " Besides, really it would have done no 
 good ; there was that woman, Edith, there was you, and I, 
 the three of us ; we couldn't make ourselves into two, could 
 we ? " 
 
 The thing was literally sprung upon Gore, at a time, too, 
 when it would have seemed madness to dream of it. It was 
 not wonderful that he was completely taken aback and 
 mentally disorganized. Desire's method of doing it, too, and 
 her very manner, giving no clue to her motives and emotions, 
 was further calculated to produce disorder in the mind of 
 a highly strung person. 
 
 " Am I to understand," he said, " that you knew of and 
 resented my my er connection with " 
 
 " Not resented it," Desire said quickly, coming to his 
 rescue ; " it wasn't exactly any business of mine to resent. 
 She had first claim on you, it was for her to resent." 
 
 154
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " I don't understand," he said helplessly. " You don't 
 
 resent you What is it then ? You think I should 
 
 have told you ? " 
 
 "Good Lord ! What difference would that have made?" 
 
 He looked at her bewildered for a second, utterly at a 
 loss to understand her attitude. He rose and went to the 
 window ; to him it was impossible they should discuss such 
 things facing one another across the writing-table. He was 
 also both embarrassed and ashamed. 
 
 " I know I did wrong," he confessed with his back turned. 
 " I was a cad, I know it ; I hadn't the courage quite to 
 break with her even after I knew you, she she was a great 
 comfort besides, she cared but I did break, you know I 
 would have if we had " 
 
 " I know." Desire spoke rather breathlessly, with a 
 quickness begotten of a desire to prevent him from uncon- 
 sciously making further rents in the character with which 
 she had endowed him. " I know just what happened, I can 
 understand. People have cared for me like that before. It's 
 my fault, there's something queer about me. I can quite 
 see how it was that you really cared for her all the time, and 
 just got momentarily fascinated by me." 
 
 He turned sharply. " You think," he said, " that I cared 
 more for her than for you ? " 
 
 Desire straightened suddenly and the pity left her eyes. 
 " If I did not think it," she said, and her voice thrilled with 
 anger, " if I did not know it, I should move heaven and earth 
 to prevent you marrying her or marrying any other decent 
 woman." 
 
 She rose in her turn and went and stood with her back to 
 the mantelpiece. " Look here," she said, and though she 
 spoke pleasantly and easily again, she had lost the manner of 
 the one who pleads, " we understand all about it, there isn't 
 
 155
 
 DESIRE 
 
 any need to go into how it happened or why it happened 
 and all that, it's all quite simple and straightforward and no 
 real harm done ; you and I found out our mistake and you 
 and she will marry." 
 
 A light at last broke on Gore, the object of the visit was 
 at last explained. It was, then, to bring about his marriage 
 with Edith, the other woman. He found it a very surprising 
 reason. 
 
 <c Of course," Desire went on, turning to the mantelpiece 
 as she did so, " marriage means a good deal to her. I don't 
 suppose I should bother in her place, though there's the child, 
 that might make a difference but she's a proper kind of 
 woman, a good woman, a real, true, good woman, just the 
 
 wife for you, though " and she looked round and spoke 
 
 half jestingly, her mercurial temperament rising, "she's 
 rather too good for you, my friend." 
 
 Gore was essentially a person of codes and traditions. Right 
 and wrong, moral and immoral, were things of accumulated 
 precedent, not private notions to be arrived at by individual 
 thinking. He may therefore be excused for not understand- 
 ing Desire, even, perhaps, for being a little shocked by her. 
 
 "Am I to understand," he said, "that the object of this 
 visit is to point out to me what you consider my duty ? " 
 
 The light died out of Desire's eyes and her lips drooped, 
 but she did not deny it, and irritation arose in his overstrung 
 nerves. 
 
 " Thank you," he said, " I am obliged to you, but I assure 
 you I am able both to see my duty and to do it." 
 
 " Oh, Teddy ! " she cried, almost wailed ; " oh, Teddy, 
 don't ! " For a moment she hid her face he might have 
 left her something, some shadow of her old estimate ! 
 
 He stared in blank astonishment. " What am I to under- 
 stand, then ? " he asked. 
 
 156
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " Understand anything you like ! " She flashed round on 
 him in sudden anger. " You can never understand the 
 facts, it seems ! Your duty ! Why, man, it is your 
 fortune, your happiness, your high honour to win for your 
 life companion the best woman you have met ! To give 
 the gift she wants to her one who has stood by you in bad 
 times, waited your good pleasure in good who is worth a 
 thousand of you ! " 
 
 She went to the door. " But, of course, you were going 
 to marry her all along," she said, with a sudden drop to 
 conventional tones " I know that. But if I were you I 
 should let it be soon, the facts are so likely to become known. 
 Things do leak out so, don't they ? I shouldn't be a 
 bit surprised if these did " 
 
 Her eyes met his for a moment with an uncompromising 
 directness. He could not mistake the threat, and his pale face 
 crimsoned. But she went out looking neither to right nor 
 left, nor able to meet any one's glance for very shame, and 
 scarcely seeing the door for a mist of tears.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 IT was in early June that Sir Joseph Quebell died, so 
 suddenly as to be inconvenient to those whose business is 
 the writing of obituary notices. The suddenness of Sir 
 Joseph's death was inconvenient to others besides newspaper 
 men, indeed it left what his lawyer characterized as " a very 
 much to be regretted state of affairs." Sir Joseph was the 
 sort of man whose affairs are expected to be in the most 
 perfect order, and the main block of his personality justified 
 such expectations, but there were a few curious stars and 
 flaws in his character. It was one such, of course, which had 
 brought Desire into existence. The condition of his affairs 
 was exactly on a level with his character. In the main 
 they were in good order, everything touching his official 
 capacity perfect ; but in his private matters there was 
 one glaring lack ; it was this which really made the lawyer 
 speak of the suddenness of his death as so much to be 
 regretted. 
 
 Desire mourned her father's death with a depth of affection 
 and reality which might have surprised some, seeing the 
 semi-detached nature of the family life and feelings. She 
 was grieved for the loss to the world of a very clever man 
 still in his prime, and for the loss to herself of an indulgent 
 parent whom she sincerely liked. But there was more in it 
 to her than that, for Sir Joseph's death occurred within a 
 week of her visit to Gore, at a time when she was scarcely 
 ready for another blow. She felt somehow as if she were 
 
 158
 
 DESIRE 
 
 losing things rather fast, as if the pillars which propped her 
 pleasant house of life were being shaken, and as if her agree- 
 able world-fabric which her innermost self realized was 
 only a woven dream fabric was in danger of being pulled 
 down, and leaving her face to face with unknown real things 
 outside. 
 
 To Lady Quebell her husband's death came as a shock ; 
 she was very sincerely shocked by the ill-timed intrusion of 
 death into her crowded engagements. Concerning her 
 personal feelings it was impossible to judge ; so far as any 
 one could perceive she had none to speak of except dislike 
 for Desire, and that, one might almost say, had become 
 the single paramount emotion of her life. How strong it 
 was Desire had an opportunity of judging soon after her 
 father's death. 
 
 The funeral was over, the time in which convention 
 demanded that the widow and daughter should not be 
 troubled with mundane considerations other than millinery 
 was fulfilled. Mr. Whitehead, Sir Joseph's solicitor, had 
 an interview with Lady Quebell. What transpired Desire 
 did not know she was not told and she did not ask. The 
 next day he had another interview with Lady Quebell and 
 afterwards sought one with Desire. She was always easily 
 accessible and she readily received him in her boudoir. He 
 came to her, a polite, formal person, so formal that Desire 
 quickly perceived that the interview with Lady Quebell 
 had been unpleasant and had left unpleasant things to be 
 said or done or thought. Consequently she strove to make 
 it up to him, and to make him welcome in her genial 
 way. 
 
 But he would not be made welcome, would not smoke 
 her cigarettes or allow her or himself to forget that he was 
 come on business solely. It was as if he felt that to do so 
 
 159
 
 DESIRE 
 
 would only make this unpleasant task yet more unpleasant 
 still. 
 
 " I must trouble you with a few words about your 
 father's affairs," he said stiffly. 
 
 " They are in a muddle ? " she suggested. c< That's not very 
 surprising ; the dear old man, for all his wonderful ability, 
 had some weaknesses that's why one could love him, I 
 expect." 
 
 The lawyer bowed, then made his first statement with 
 brevity. " He made no will subsequent to his marriage with 
 Lady Quebell," he said. 
 
 " Indeed ? " 
 
 She raised her eyebrows slightly ; they were finely 
 pencilled brows, dark-coloured, like the long lashes which 
 gave part of their charm to her glowing eyes. The lawyer 
 observed them, though he was chiefly interested in the fact 
 that she showed no other sign of surprise, no sign at all of 
 consternation. Plainly, he thought, she did not understand 
 what his news entailed. 
 
 " There is a will made prior to the marriage," he explained, 
 " by which you are amply provided for. But the marriage, 
 I must tell you, cancels that j it cancels any previous testa- 
 mentary document j the estate of a deceased person who has 
 made no will subsequent to marriage is administered precisely 
 as if he had died intestate." 
 
 " I see," Desire said. 
 
 But he was not at all sure that she did really see. 
 " Under these circumstances," he went on, " you are very 
 unpleasantly situated. You are not now legally entitled to the 
 sum your father originally bequeathed to you. Indeed, you 
 are your position " 
 
 He hesitated, and she came to his rescue, and also at the 
 same time cleared up any doubts he had as to the under- 
 
 160
 
 DESIRE 
 
 standing of the situation. " As I am illegitimate," she said, 
 " I am in the present circumstances entitled to nothing. Is 
 that it ? How tiresome, isn't it ? " 
 
 "The bulk of the property goes to Lady Quebell," Mr. 
 Whitehead said. " There is very little real estate, land and so 
 on ; what there is goes to the male heir-at-law, a poor man ; 
 but, as I say, it amounts almost to nothing, Lady Quebell 
 practically takes everything." 
 
 Desire nodded. " She'll be really very comfortably off," 
 she said in a conversational tone, which once again made the 
 lawyer doubt her ability to understand the situation. 
 
 " I have been urging on her the necessity of making some 
 suitable provision for you," he went on ; "some separate 
 provision such as it is evident, from Sir Joseph's early 
 will, he wished and intended." 
 
 The red-brown eyes shot a swift, keen look, which was 
 gone again before Desire asked quite lightly " And she 
 won't ? " 
 
 No." 
 
 The lawyer cleared his throat. " Of course," he observed, 
 "I do not know anything of a difference between you." 
 
 " A difference ? " Desire smiled. " A hundred ! Bless 
 you, it was all difference nearly didn't she tell you so ? " 
 
 " No." His tone was very grave. " But I advise you, for 
 your own sake, to try and sink those differences. Believe 
 me " there was meaning in the gravity now " it is most 
 advisable, most necessary that you do your best to sink those 
 differences." 
 
 Desire stretched out her hand and took a cigarette. It 
 was a large, strong, well-shaped hand, and the lawyer found 
 himself looking at it and at her as she watched the match 
 flame with which she lighted the cigarette. The flame 
 did not waver at all. Neither spoke till she threw the 
 ii 161
 
 DESIRE 
 
 match away, then she said " D'ye know, I believe there 
 are two differences people can't sink a difference in their 
 sense of humour and in their sense of decency propriety, 
 whatever you call it." 
 
 She rose and stood with her back to the mantelpiece, 
 and the lawyer, who before had been aware of her 
 alluring femininity, was suddenly struck with something 
 curiously masculine in her. 
 
 " It's awfully good of you to come and tell me about 
 this," she said. " I am no end obliged to you. I am afraid 
 it has worried you quite a good deal more than it does me, 
 I have no doubt ; things don't worry me, you know j I 
 always come through somehow right side up. I have no 
 doubt I shall this time. Must you go ? " He had risen 
 when she did. " Won't you have anything, whisky, tea, 
 something ? Do ! " 
 
 He would not, and as it was clear she did not intend to 
 discuss the matter further now he shortly took his leave, 
 wondering much what she really thought and what she 
 would do. 
 
 What she did was to stand where she was and smoke her 
 cigarette out slowly, and without moving at all. When it 
 was done she threw the end away with a curious little shrug, 
 and the only definite thought which accompanied the shrug 
 was " What a mercy I saw after that affair of the Edith 
 woman when I did ! " Then she went down-stairs to Lady 
 Quebell. 
 
 Lady Quebell was seated at an open secretaire writing, 
 she glanced round as Desire entered but did not speak. 
 
 Desire shut the door, and sitting down in an easy-chair 
 propped her head against a cushion comfortably. 
 
 a Mr. Whitehead has been talking to me," she said. 
 
 Oh ! " 
 
 162
 
 DESIRE 
 
 Lady Quebell did not leave off her writing to give the 
 answer ; Desire watched her a moment, turning her eyes but 
 not her head. 
 
 " Wasn't it rather an unnecessary formality to make him 
 the bringer of the news ? " she asked. " He found it so 
 unpleasant didn't like it at all." 
 
 Lady Quebell re-read the last sentence of her letter. " It 
 was necessary you should be told the state of affairs," she said. 
 
 " Oh, of course," Desire agreed. Lady Quebell returned 
 to her writing, and Desire watched her ; under the watch 
 the pen moved more and more slowly and with more 
 frequent pauses for erasion. 
 
 " What are you going to do ? " Desire asked at last. 
 
 "Leave London as soon as possible. After all that has 
 occurred I feel the need of rest and retirement at first, and 
 afterwards change. I don't suppose I shall come back to 
 town till well on in next year, but my plans are very 
 unsettled." 
 
 Desire acquiesced and again dropped into silence. The 
 writing, which had ceased for the answer to be given, was 
 resumed and progressed much as before until she interrupted 
 by asking 
 
 " And I ? What do you advise that I do ? " 
 
 " I do not advise," Lady Quebell answered coldly ; " you 
 are at liberty to go or to remain here if you choose, until 
 I give the house up, which, of course, I shall do so soon as 
 it can be arranged." 
 
 " Yes. And afterwards ? " 
 
 " Afterwards you will please yourself." 
 
 " Don't I always do that ? " Desire interpolated. " I 
 think I remember to have heard you say so." 
 
 Lady Quebell compressed her lips. " In the future you 
 will be able to do so quite uncriticized by me." 
 
 163
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " Thank you." Desire turned a little in her chair so as 
 more directly to face the writing-table. " I am afraid I am 
 a very stupid person," she said, " but I really never can 
 understand what is meant unless it is put plainly ; won't 
 you tell me in so many words what you propose to do ? " 
 
 " About you ? " Lady Quebell was driven into saying. 
 " I do not see that I or any one else is in a position to do 
 anything you have always chosen to follow your own 
 course. You have had every chance education, surround- 
 ings, introductions, opportunities of the best sort, and 
 forgive me quite other than those to which you have an 
 actual claim. If you have chosen to do nothing with them 
 and make nothing of them I do not feel that I, or any one 
 but yourself, is to blame. Nor do I feel called upon to 
 provide you with further opportunities, which you, if you 
 had them, would, no doubt, treat in a precisely similar way." 
 
 She paused, and Desire politely asked her to go on. 
 " Won't you tell me what you do intend to do ? " she said. 
 " That is what you don't, please tell me what you do." 
 
 " Nothing," Lady Quebell answered sharply, a faint 
 colour mounting under her skin as she spoke ; she lacked 
 the courage to enjoy the doing of what both in thought and 
 retrospect she thoroughly enjoyed. " You have no claim on 
 me," she said, her voice rising a little with annoyance at the 
 way she had been forced into the answer. " I am not 
 compelled to do anything, and, as I say, your past conduct 
 is not of the sort to incline me to give you a further chance 
 of wasting opportunities." 
 
 " Thank you," Desire said j " now I understand." 
 
 She rose, and Lady Quebell turned round with the 
 cautious inclination of persons of her sort, to palliate in 
 words what they have no thought of softening in action. 
 
 " Of course," she said, " I have no wish to inconvenience 
 
 164
 
 DESIRE 
 
 you, you can remain here a month or two if you find it 
 necessary. Indeed, I should rather advise you to do so ; it 
 will give you some chance of arranging something, of seeing 
 your friends, and so on. Mr. Lee called to-day " 
 
 " Thanks so much," Desire interrupted ; " I quite 
 understand." 
 
 " And are quite determined not to be advised," Lady 
 Quebell said shortly. " You must please yourself, fortun- 
 ately I am not concerned with your marrying or not 
 marrying. You are entirely your own mistress now ; I do 
 not pretend to have even a nominal interest in your 
 proceedings." 
 
 Desire nodded. " Thanks for explaining," she said ; 
 " so much better to speak plainly about things, isn't it ? 
 We know where we are then." 
 
 And undoubtedly Lady Quebell did feel that she knew 
 where she was. She did not know where Desire was nor 
 what she would do ; but she felt that did not matter, she 
 was about to be quit of that irritating surprise for good and 
 all. She was a woman of very little imagination, and 
 seldom realized more than her own immediate concern in an 
 affair, and only a limited part of that. In this she realized 
 scarcely anything besides her own interest ; what became of 
 Desire bulked little if any more in her mind than did what 
 might become of a servant she dismissed for incompetency. 
 The opportunity had come to be rid of an unsatisfactory, a 
 more than unpleasing person, she had availed herself of it as 
 it was within her right as well as her power to do. The 
 very real personal dislike she had for the individual made her 
 quite impervious to anything the lawyer or another might 
 urge in favour of generosity. The dead man's daughter 
 could claim nothing and she would have nothing but her 
 personal effects. 
 
 165
 
 DESIRE 
 
 And the daughter realized it perfectly as she went up-stairs ; 
 she had had more than a suspicion when she went down, 
 but now she realized it plainly. And the strongest feeling 
 in her was a sense of shame for herself, curiously enough, 
 as well as for the older woman. Her uppermost instinct 
 and it was a most rare one with her was to pretend, even 
 to herself, that it was all quite right. She would not for the 
 world have admitted that there was anything amiss with 
 Lady Quebell's attitude or conduct. It hurt something in 
 her to find another woman behaving so, to find this standard 
 of conduct among her own people ; it hurt her joyous 
 estimate of humanity and other things so much so that she 
 was too great a coward to face it. It was a shock, too, to 
 find she was so disliked. She, so she would have reasoned, 
 no doubt deserved dislike, only she herself did not dislike 
 thus, and under no circumstances would ever have acted 
 thus. The revelation of this thing in her own immediate 
 surroundings, in the person of her entirely cool and well-bred 
 step-mother was rather stunning to her. She carried up to 
 her room a sense of loss and shame ; but the loss was more 
 of agreeable illusions than of property and income ; and the 
 shame had nothing whatever to do with her own birth and 
 position but entirely with the discovery of a code of honour 
 which did not at all jump with her previous ideas. No one 
 must know it, that was her predominant feeling, curious, 
 perhaps, for one who before had troubled so little, known 
 so little even, about public opinion. None of her friends or 
 acquaintances must know it ; she could not stand the thought 
 of its being canvassed and discussed, kindly or unkindly, the 
 hurt was too near and personal, she would always be ashamed 
 for it to be dragged into the light of day. And her secondary 
 feeling it arose probably out of the first was that she must 
 end well. She could at least do that, she would leave a gay 
 
 1 66
 
 DESIRE 
 
 impression behind and not add one to the world's objects of 
 pity. With the child's instinct to hide her hurt she also had 
 the brave braggart's instinct for a good retreat. No one 
 should know anything, not her step-mother, not even herself. 
 
 Thus it came about that in the days which followed she 
 was in the cheerfullest mood ; she and Lady Quebell 
 continued on terms as polite as could be desired, almost 
 more polite, perhaps, than the older lady liked. Practically 
 nothing more was said on either side about the end which 
 was approaching. It is doubtful if Lady Quebell wished to 
 re-open the subject, but even if she did she had no opportunity 
 for doing so. She was, of course, well occupied with her own 
 concerns during these days ; she had a business-like mind in 
 small matters and reduced her affairs to wonderful order, 
 settling details down to the proportion of wages due to a 
 discharged kitchen-maid. Desire did not, to her step- 
 mother's knowledge, make any arrangements at all, or do 
 anything different from usual, except attend when requested 
 to receive what of her books and properties were collected 
 when an inventory was made of the contents of the house. 
 She smoked a good deal, more than was wholesome though 
 it was not likely to affect one of her strong constitution 
 much ; and she did not sleep very much, though that again 
 produced little visible effect on her, nature having given her 
 an outside well calculated to stand such liberties. 
 
 At length the last day of Lady Quebell's present 
 residence in town came : the last of her affairs was disposed 
 of, the last of her things packed. The two women met 
 at breakfast for the last time, Lady Quebell exactly 
 punctual, Desire late, but bringing with her into the: 
 room when she did come, a pleasant gust of gaiety rare 
 at morning meals. A few remarks were made about Lady 
 Quebell's journey, the chances of the train keeping time, 
 
 167
 
 DESIRE 
 
 and her catching a connection at a junction, but nothing 
 whatever to indicate that her going was different from an 
 ordinary going. Desire was very pleasant and bright with 
 just that small touch of eagerness in her manner which she 
 would have shown to one who was in an awkward position 
 and who she wanted to set at ease and persuade that the 
 awkwardness was not observed. That was rather how she 
 did feel towards her step-mother ; seeing how the elder 
 woman's action impressed her, she almost unconsciously 
 assumed that it must embarrass and humiliate its perpetrator 
 even more. In Desire's parlance, " to do a rotten thing 
 made one feel such a bounder and so badly dressed " and 
 as she always did her best to set at ease those who were 
 badly dressed, and to hide the deficiencies of those who were 
 not equal to their company, she now strove to show her 
 step-mother that her deficiencies were concealed. And Lady 
 Quebell, though she did not in the least comprehend the 
 attitude, and never could have comprehended the feeling 
 which prompted it, had to submit to the power of the 
 stronger and warmer personality. 
 
 At last the hour of final departure came, Lady Quebell, 
 dressed for her journey, came down-stairs. At the bottom 
 of the stairs she turned, her suspicious eyes looking for 
 Desire. 
 
 " Do you know where Miss Quebell is ? " she began to 
 ask the butler. 
 
 But Desire herself was there before the question was fairly 
 put. 
 
 " What ! going already ? " she said. " You will have plenty 
 of time. Thomas is rather early, I think. I hope you'll 
 have a lovely time and get really rested and set up." 
 
 "Thank you," Lady Quebell said coldly, then added, 
 " Parker is in charge here until September ; most of the 
 
 168
 
 DESIRE 
 
 servants will be leaving at the end of the week, but he stays 
 on and will no doubt do what he can to make you comfort- 
 able while you stay." 
 
 " Thanks," Desire answered ; " I didn't think of staying 
 after to-morrow." 
 
 Lady Quebell raised her eyebrows slightly, it was the first 
 she had heard of any of Desire's future movements. 
 
 " Good-bye," Desire said. " Parker, I believe it would be 
 better if you put the dressing-bag on the opposite seat." 
 
 " Thank you," Lady Quebell returned ; " it is quite 
 satisfactory as it is. Good-bye ; I suppose I shall not see 
 you again ? " 
 
 The vindictive spark showed for a moment in her eyes as 
 she leaned forward to the window to say this, but Desire 
 answered lightly " Oh, I don't know, it's a small world, 
 you know ; we are sure to run up against one another some 
 time." 
 
 Then the carriage drove away. 
 
 When the hall door was shut Desire stopped a moment 
 to speak to the butler. 
 
 " I am expecting some people to-night, Parker," she said. 
 
 "Yes, miss." 
 
 " About twenty or thirty." 
 
 " Yes, miss." 
 
 The number was rather surprising seeing the deep 
 mourning of the family and the departure of the mistress of 
 the house, but the doings of Desire were always incalculable, 
 and had long ceased much to surprise the servants. Parker 
 was not even surprised that she had not mentioned the fact 
 before and left him now to make what arrangements he could. 
 She had probably forgotten, he thought. 
 
 She had not, but she had not chosen to mention it before, 
 for though she had asked her step-mother's permission to 
 
 169
 
 DESIRE 
 
 receive people at the house while she remained there, she 
 had not explained that she contemplated receiving them all 
 at once. She had all along intended to do it ; some days 
 ago now she had written notes to certain of her friends and 
 acquaintances, the people she liked, who interested or 
 amused her, and asked them to come and see her on that 
 evening. 
 
 " I am in mourning, I know," she wrote, " but that is no 
 reason why I should be shut up in solitary woe." 
 
 And most of them came. 
 
 A somewhat mixed assemblage they were that were 
 collected for the last time in the big drawing-room. They 
 did not know it was the last time ; the invitations did not 
 say so, and there was nothing whatever in the entertainment 
 to indicate it. Desire herself was as usual, even more 
 brilliant perhaps. She certainly looked very well in the 
 eyes of at least some present, in her mourning gown, and 
 the long string of pearls she wore, in defiance of the 
 convention for bereaved daughters, became her marvellously. 
 
 Lee, the man who Lady Quebell had mentioned as a 
 possible solution of the problem of how to live without an 
 income, was among those that thought thus. He had been 
 invited with the rest ; Desire, however much she might 
 dislike her step-mother's insinuation concerning him, would 
 not let it prevent her from including him in the company 
 which assembled at her invitation that night. She did not 
 bestow any large share of her favours on him, it is true ; he 
 had no more of her society than any one else. She divided 
 her favours that evening as never before, singling each out 
 in turn, giving him such undivided attention for the time 
 being, that the few minutes were cut sharp and distinct as 
 a cameo on his mind and hers ; but she was always careful 
 that none should have so much as to cut short the rest. 
 
 170
 
 DESIRE 
 
 Either because of this or because of some spirit which was 
 abroad, the gathering was a singularly successful one. It was 
 odd in several ways. There were no magnificent decorations, 
 only the ordinary summer flowers in the ordinary places ; 
 no professional entertainers, no hired musicians. There was 
 some little music, for there were among those present one or 
 two who could only really express themselves that way. 
 And since Desire would have each and all of her friends 
 express themselves to her that night, these must do it this 
 way, to her and for her the rest listening to what is usually 
 reserved for the elect to hear. But the thing which made 
 the gathering different from most others was that every one 
 present was here because he was really wanted, and because 
 he wanted to come, pleasure not duty had dictated every 
 invitation and every acceptance. All who came, came as 
 early as they could and stayed as late as they could ; it was 
 no social function sandwiched in between others to serve 
 some purpose, it was a seeking enjoyment where it was 
 expected to be found. It must be admitted men largely 
 predominated in the gathering, and the haze of smoke was 
 blue in an atmosphere where formality was not greatly 
 regarded. Desire herself was brilliant with a brilliancy 
 which was rather meteoric and which had something of 
 recklessness in its whole-hearted abandonment to the 
 moment. Not that any one noticed it, unless perhaps 
 Julian Lee did, and he, besides still being in love, had the 
 advantage of being the only person to whom she gave 
 the slightest hint of the possibility of there being aught 
 amiss. 
 
 It was to him she expounded her theory of happiness. 
 " The whole art of happiness," she told him, " lies in the 
 possession of water-tight compartments. If you are properly 
 fitted up with them you can shut away what is not neces- 
 
 171
 
 DESIRE 
 
 sary for the moment and enjoy the time being, if so be the 
 time being is enjoyable. Don't you think so ? " 
 
 " Don't know," he answered ; " I should think it depends 
 rather what it is you've got to shut away. Some things," 
 his eyes were upon her, " are rather big." 
 
 " No, they are not," she assured him. " Nothing's too big 
 or too bad, though sometimes we think it so : that's our 
 mistake. I " she pointed a fan at her own breast, " I 
 who tell you, know it." 
 
 " No you don't," he said bluntly ; " you don't know 
 anything about a thing which is too big and not to be 
 cleared out by a pleasant pastime but I can tell you 
 something." 
 
 He made a movement forward, and she held out her hand. 
 " Must you really be going ? " she said sweetly. 
 
 He looked a moment, then he laughed, there was always 
 so much of jest in Desire's rudeness that people seldom 
 resented it. 
 
 " No," he said ; c< I must not, and unless you order me to, 
 I will not yet." 
 
 " Better," she advised him, " better go while the glamour 
 is still on, glamour does not last." 
 
 There was an underlying earnestness in her light tone, he 
 observed it but he did not take the advice, he stayed to the 
 very end. Indeed, he was one of the two guests who 
 left last of all. 
 
 The hour by then was very late, or rather early, for the 
 summer dawn was beginning to filter in through the drawn 
 blinds, no one seeming in any hurry to cut short the present 
 good moment. But at last they went ; some one who had 
 an early train to catch made the first move ; others followed, 
 and at length the big drawing-room was left empty. Desire 
 went to the stairhead with her last but one guest, an elderly 
 
 172
 
 DESIRE 
 
 politician with a hard day's work before him. Lee, the last of 
 all, perforce followed them when she paused in the doorway 
 for him to do so. She shook hands with him as well as the 
 other when they came to the stairs, and reluctantly he 
 accompanied the elder man down, she standing alone look- 
 ing after them a moment somehow a gorgeous figure in 
 spite of her black dress and the merciless dawn light. 
 
 " Good-night ! " she called, leaning on the balustrade. 
 " Good-bye ! " 
 
 The white carnations in her breast tumbled to the rail 
 and were crushed against her body till she pulled them out. 
 
 " Give them to me," Lee said, looking up, and he made a 
 movement as if he would come back for them. 
 
 " Catch ! " she said, and threw them past him into the 
 hall, far down towards the doorway. 
 
 " For farewell," she said, leaning down to see him pick 
 them up. Then she turned away. 
 
 As she turned, the hair on which her pearls were threaded 
 gave way. She caught the string as it slipped so that only 
 three fell to the floor and these she found at once, but she 
 had a feeling that this too was for farewell. Like Cinder- 
 ella's slipper the pearls had fallen now that the hour was 
 passed. She gathered them all and went slowly up-stairs. 
 
 In her bed-room she found her maid, contrary to orders, 
 waiting up for her ; for a moment the woman's presence, 
 any one's presence, jarred on her. 
 
 " Barton," she said, " did I forget to tell you to go to 
 bed ? " 
 
 " No, miss," Barton answered apologetically, " but I 
 thought perhaps you might want me after all ; I'll go if you 
 don't, but I thought you might be tired, sleeping badly as 
 you have been of late." 
 
 " How do you know I have slept badly ? " 
 
 173
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " By the pillows, miss," Barton said, with a touch of 
 superiority; "they are so tumbled, and then there is the 
 cigarette ash." 
 
 Desire smiled, the woman's watchful thought for her 
 touched her, pleased her too, for at that moment it seemed 
 to indicate that after all the world was a good world and 
 the people in it more kindly disposed to one another in the 
 main than she at least deserved. 
 
 " I'm glad you have waited. Yes, I think I am tired." 
 
 But in spite of the admission, when she had her dressing- 
 gown on and her hair brushed, she changed her mind about 
 going to bed. She had suddenly come to a decision 
 somebody must be told something about affairs, and Barton 
 was perhaps the most suitable person, especially as she was 
 always liable to find out a certain amount on her own 
 account. If she was to be told there was no time like the 
 present. 
 
 " Are you sleepy ? " she inquired of the woman. 
 
 " No, miss." 
 
 " Sure ? Could you do without going to bed at all if 
 you could sleep for a week afterwards to make up ? All 
 right then, draw up the blinds ; I have got crowds of things 
 to do, and I should be glad if you would help me. First of 
 all I must tell you I am leaving here to-morrow no, to-day 
 it is, leaving for good and all, I mean." 
 
 And forthwith she proceeded to tell what she thought it 
 necessary Barton should know. It was more than she wanted 
 to tell, but not so much as the woman and the other servants 
 would be likely to discover or invent for themselves if they 
 were left completely uninformed unofficially. Needless to 
 state Lady Quebell and her action did not figure in the in- 
 formation at all, it concerned Desire alone that at her 
 father's death her income ceased, that she was not going to 
 
 174
 
 DESIRE 
 
 keep a maid or live with her step-mother in future, that she 
 was, in fact, going to strike out a line for herself. 
 
 Barton, helped as she was by sundry rumours which had 
 reached the servants' hall, could not at once realize or accept 
 all this ; it took time for her to grasp a situation so terrible 
 in her estimation. When she did, she did not at all see it 
 in the light in which Desire put it ; she only saw it as an 
 overwhelming catastrophe which had overtaken her mistress. 
 And when she grasped the news of the doing without a 
 maid she burst into tears, to the great discomfiture of 
 Desire. 
 
 " Now, Barton," Desire said, " don't ! What on earth 
 are you crying for ? I'm sorry to give you such short notice, 
 it's mean of me, I know, but I'll get you another situation, 
 a good one ; there are plenty of women I know who'd be 
 glad to have you. What, crying because you are going to 
 leave me, or rather I you ! You shouldn't do that, you'll 
 never get another mistress who's half the plague I am. It's 
 awfully nice of you to mind leaving me. I mind, too, but it 
 can't be helped, you know." 
 
 Barton thought it could, she did not want any wages for 
 a long time, she said, she had plenty of savings, she only 
 wanted to stay on. Desire had to make plain to her that 
 she could not do that ; that, much as she herself appreciated 
 the devotion, she could not accept the service, the loan of 
 savings, or any of the other things which were offered in 
 succession. 
 
 At this Barton wept afresh, and Desire had to become 
 severe. " You know," she said, " it really is rather selfish of 
 you to go on like this, just because I'm going to have the 
 time of my life and going to set out to seek my fortune. 
 There's nothing in the world half so fine as seeking your 
 fortune." 
 
 175
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " If you'd let me stay with you, miss " Barton began. 
 
 " It'd be lovely, of course, but I can't," Desire said hastily ; 
 " besides, you'd get demoralized ; there'd be nothing for you 
 to do. I shan't have any jewelry to lock up, or any en- 
 gagements to keep, or any clothes to put away. Brush my 
 hair ? I'll brush that myself, or if that's too much bother 
 cut it off and give up brushing except on Sundays." 
 
 Barton gasped at the idea of such sacrilege. 
 
 " If you don't stop crying," Desire threatened, " I'll cut 
 it off right away and give it to you to wipe your eyes on. 
 Now, let's leave off talking nonsense and get to work. 
 First of all I want all the jewelry I have got collected 
 together and packed in a box. You have got my keys, I 
 think?" 
 
 Barton produced the keys and obediently began to collect 
 the jewels, sniffing a little at intervals. 
 
 " If it isn't a liberty, miss," she said when she was com- 
 posed, " I should like to inquire what her ladyship says to 
 this." 
 
 Her respectful manner was quite colourless again. She 
 knew better than her mistress how to hide the antagonism 
 which she felt, far more strongly than Desire, for Lady 
 Quebell. 
 
 Desire was stripping the rings from her fingers. " I'm 
 not sure it is not rather a liberty," she said without looking 
 round ; " still, I'll tell you her ladyship has nothing to say ; 
 she never does to anything on which I have set my mind." 
 
 Barton did not answer but busied herself with the jewels ; 
 however, after a minute she ventured in the same respectful 
 way. " Her ladyship has the money, I suppose, miss ? 
 Mr. Parker said she had." 
 
 " Of course," Desire said ; " what else is there for the poor 
 soul to have ? I have all the games." 
 
 176
 
 DESIRE 
 
 Barton sniffed, but it was not altogether tearfully. " I'd 
 be ashamed," she muttered to herself as she went to a 
 wardrobe for a gold belt for which Desire had asked. 
 
 " What did you say ? " Desire thought it wise to inquire. 
 '< That it is an unfair division and uncomfortable for her 
 ladyship ? So it is ; it places her in a very awkward 
 position, but it can't be helped. Is that the belt ? Thank 
 you ; now pack everything together. As soon as you can 
 I want you to find out how I can best sell these things." 
 
 " Sell them ? " Barton queried. 
 
 " Yes ; I'm not going hungry while I am seeking fortune, 
 and, great as is my belief in myself, I don't expect to find it 
 to-morrow morning." 
 
 Barton set her lips and began to pack the jewelry in a 
 wooden box, she was as nearly shocked as it was possible 
 for one who had long attended on Desire to be. Desire 
 herself was quite unaware of it, and set to getting out her 
 clothes dresses, petticoats, coats and cloaks and hats, a great 
 quantity : Barton had packed the jewels long before she had 
 done. 
 
 " What a heap they look ! " she exclaimed when at last 
 everything was out and every article of furniture and most 
 of the floor space piled with things. " I had no idea one 
 had so many clothes ; it'll take for ever to sort them. But 
 we must do it, the greater part won't be a particle of use to 
 me and will have to be sold." 
 
 Barton began to help with the sorting ; she offered no 
 remonstrances ; it was clear she felt the case beyond words. 
 Desire on her part was quite cheerful, and discarded without 
 a pang lace ball dresses, embroidered opera cloaks, and other 
 fragile sartorial triumphs. 
 
 " I shall keep a good lot of the most serviceable things," 
 she said ; " there's no telling when I shall get any more. 
 12 177
 
 DESIRE 
 
 It's as well I never followed the fashions too closely for, as 
 I shall have to wear them as they are for the next four or 
 five years, my clothes will all be of one date. Barton, I 
 ought to have learned to sew ; it has never struck me before ; 
 I shall have to darn my stockings, you know." 
 
 " I could do that, miss," Barton said almost cheerfully ; 
 
 " you can't do without some one, miss, and I " 
 
 " Am not coming," Desire said, with a sudden drop to 
 gravity. " I appreciate your still wanting to come much, 
 but it can't be done. That is already settled ; you under- 
 stand it, don't you ? " 
 
 Barton did now, at least she understood that when Desire 
 spoke like that she was the mistress and as unapproachable 
 as the most haughty lady in the land. 
 
 The sorting took long and the necessary packing longer. 
 Breakfast-time had come before they had finished, lunch 
 before Desire was ready to go. 
 
 It was not till the afternoon that she took her final 
 departure and then her destination was of Barton's 
 suggesting. 
 
 " My eldest sister lets rooms, miss," the woman ventured ; 
 " you'd be as comfortable there as anywhere for a night or 
 two, till you have made your plans." 
 
 Making plans had not heretofore been much in Desire's 
 line ; she had usually rather taken things as they happened 
 and let the next happening take care of itself. However, it 
 was necessary to have a temporary address and a place for 
 things to be sent, somewhere to tell the cabman to drive to. 
 As it evidently pleased Barton to be able to do this much, 
 she thanked her and agreed to go to the sister's, on condition 
 that she went unheralded, and also that Barton kept the 
 secret of her whereabouts from unsuitable persons. 
 
 A cab was fetched, the luggage loaded on the roof, 
 
 178
 
 DESIRE 
 
 and Desire, after a painful parting with Barton, went 
 out. 
 
 "Good-bye," Desire said to Parker, who was superin- 
 tending the placing of the luggage ; " I'm afraid I shan't see 
 you again for a good while." 
 
 "Good-bye, miss," Parker replied, with a solemnity 
 befitting his position. 
 
 But there was that in Desire that upset position, some- 
 times actually a person's notion of his own, and reduced even 
 a first-class butler to mere man. Desire, with outstretched 
 hand and full, deep voice bidding farewell, got at the man in 
 Parker. He put her into the cab, he said good-bye to her as 
 if he were human and she were human, and he minded that 
 she was going. 
 
 " Good-bye," she cried ; " you'll find it blissfully peaceful 
 without me," and she leaned forward to nod to him with her 
 expressive smile. 
 
 Then the cab started, and she leaned back, the smile 
 fading from her lips, but lingering bravely in her eyes. She 
 did not look back, she would not indulge even herself in any 
 effective or affecting scenes, possibly she was less ready to 
 indulge herself than any one else. She felt for her cigarette 
 case and lighted a cigarette with a curious concentration of 
 attention. Then slowly she smoked it, a thing she rarely 
 did in so public a place as a cab. Perhaps it was as much 
 with a view to the cigarette as the quantity of luggage that 
 she had ordered a four-wheeler and not a hansom. 
 
 179
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 Miss BARTON was a somewhat dreary person ; interested 
 in nothing, not even her lodgers' business, and enthusiastic 
 about nothing, not even her own. Life had been hard on 
 her ; in her early days she had had a large family of step- 
 brothers and sisters to bring up the Barton who attended 
 on Desire Quebell was one of them. In her later days she 
 let lodgings to superior people, generally the poor superior 
 who knew something about the other side of the self-same 
 struggle that was hers, but in whom, as in herself, it had 
 begotten drabness and dreariness rather than sympathy. 
 This, possibly, was small deprivation to Miss Barton, for 
 she wanted to hear nothing from them but what they 
 required to eat, to tell nothing to them but whether they 
 could or could not have it, to receive nothing from them 
 but the money which was her due, and to give nothing to 
 them but the service she was paid for. It is doubtful 
 whether among her own kin even she was more expressive 
 and reciprocal, certainly she did not feel the slightest interest 
 that Desire Quebell was recommended to her rooms by her 
 half-sister Barton, the maid ; nor yet in the fact that her 
 lodger's surname was the same as that of the family where 
 her sister served. Probably she did not remember that, 
 certainly she did not think about it if she did. 
 
 Desire found herself established in the apartments with 
 very little talk and commotion. It had taken a wonderfully 
 short time to transfer her from her old life to this new one, 
 
 1 80
 
 DESIRE 
 
 or this sort of waiting-room of the new one. In some ways 
 Miss Barton's was like a waiting-room, too, the same feature- 
 lessness, the same sense of temporary accommodation only. 
 Before tea Desire was established ; she had even unpacked 
 everything she wanted unpacked and put most of it away 
 a less congenial task to her, but one she did conscientiously 
 to-day. After that she had tea, and after that there was a 
 whole long evening before her with nothing to do and no 
 one to speak to ! When she suddenly realized that there 
 was nothing more to happen it rather startled her. Next 
 minute she laughed, possibly at herself for finding it 
 startling. 
 
 She rose and began minutely to examine the sitting- 
 room, its furniture and ornaments. She had almost always 
 found things interesting, even the things other people 
 ordinarily found dull ; this room was one of the few 
 exceptions. It was a little shabby, eminently respectable, 
 quite featureless ; the furniture was neither new nor old, it 
 had never been beautiful or very good, or gaudy or very bad, 
 it was merely sufficient. The ornaments, which did not 
 ornament, were much what a small furniture dealer would 
 have set forth on a cabinet in his show-room ; there were 
 no family groups, no portraits, no presents from anywhere, 
 not a human touch. Desire turned to the window. The 
 outlook was respectable ; a quiet, rather narrow street, 
 shabby genteel houses in need of paint opposite ; a few, a 
 very few, genteel people, some shabby, some even without 
 that characteristic, passing occasionally, nothing more. A 
 long, light summer evening, entirely without sun, the street 
 was too narrow for the sun to get there and nothing 
 further to happen. Desire sat down in the saddle-bag arm- 
 chair near the window, and in her mind she began to be 
 aware that the rock on which her ship of fortune was most 
 
 181
 
 DESIRE 
 
 likely to wreck was monotonous respectability. A horrible 
 unnamed fear shook her. Supposing she was not able to 
 stand it ? 
 
 The next morning she set out to try and find out the 
 best way of selling her jewels. To do this she went east- 
 ward, which was both new and amusing. She did not find 
 out very much about the selling of jewels that day, but that 
 did not matter, there was no immediate hurry, she still 
 having some balance at the bank. But she enjoyed the 
 expedition, it brought her in contact with people and things, 
 people jand things, too, with which she had had heretofore 
 little dealing. The afternoon, a long afternoon, she spent 
 within doors trying to teach herself to darn stockings. In 
 this she was not very successful, and after a while she threw 
 the stocking aside and smoked, and considered her position 
 and future, and she found it grimly amusing she never saw 
 things as desperate. 
 
 The next day, a Saturday, a niece came to see Miss 
 Barton. She was a girl of nineteen or twenty, wearing a 
 smart blouse and a flowery hat. She also wore a long string 
 of beads, which broke as she was coming up-stairs. Desire, 
 who was passing, saw it, and helped pick them up, reminded 
 nevitably of the breaking of her own string of pearls. Of 
 course, she became acquainted with the owner during the 
 picking up. She had not held intercourse with a human 
 being since she parted from Barton, unless one could count 
 as intercourse her interviews on the subject of jewel selling. 
 Also she had never before met a young lady of this sort, and 
 was consequently interested in her. The girl returned the 
 sentiment, though in a different form. Desire, something 
 both new and strange to her, aroused her curiosity, and 
 also a subconscious antagonism, half disapproval, half 
 jealousy. 
 
 182
 
 DESIRE 
 
 The girl, Desire learnt, was a typist in a city office ; she 
 had a satisfactory situation and a sufficient salary, and was 
 pleased with herself, her work, her liberty and everything 
 else. Desire was much struck with the happiness of this 
 frame of mind, and became greatly interested in the way it 
 was arrived at and the circumstances of its fortunate possessor 
 and her work. 
 
 " It sounds quite delightful," she said, " I think I'd better 
 become a typist." 
 
 "You!" 
 
 Miss Barton's niece looked at her in unfeigned astonish- 
 ment. She admitted to few superiors and had no recogni- 
 tion of the old-fashioned prejudice of class distinction, but 
 she felt that Desire was " different." 
 
 " You couldn't," she said shortly. 
 
 " Why not ? " Desire inquired. She had not thought of 
 the matter in a serious light, but the curtness and decision 
 of the girl's tone at once inspired it with an additional 
 interest. " How did you become one ? " she asked. 
 
 " I learnt," was the answer. 
 
 Desire of course wanted to know how ; she invited the 
 girl to come into her sitting-room and tell her about it. 
 And the girl accepted the invitation because she was curious 
 to see the photographs and ornaments and other personal 
 effects which she expected to find added to the furnishing of 
 the room. 
 
 In this, however, she was destined to disappointment ; 
 Desire kept few of these feminine appurtenances, and had 
 unpacked none. The visitor was sorry she had come, more 
 especially as Desire in her own room had the same manner 
 that she had when she was " at home " on Sundays, or at 
 any other time and place when she received company a 
 manner the very easiness of which embarrassed the typist and
 
 DESIRE 
 
 made her feel unsure of herself. But since she had come she 
 did not see how immediately to go away again, so she stayed 
 and told Desire what she wanted to know. How she 
 herself had attended classes in the city for book-keeping, 
 typewriting, shorthand and kindred things. How, when 
 she was certified proficient, she had secured her present 
 situation by answering advertisements. She told where the 
 classes were held, how much, or rather, how little they cost, 
 and the beautifully simple system on which the term was 
 arranged, so that a pupil could begin when she liked, leave 
 off when she liked, and learn what she liked. She also gave 
 further details of her present work, its advantages and 
 disadvantages. 
 
 Desire's interest was fully aroused ; this, so she decided in 
 her headlong way, was the kind of thing for her ; if she had 
 any ability at all it would be for this sort of work ; and if 
 she had any chance whatever of getting on it would be in 
 some such work as this, which was not cast among women, 
 whom she never understood, and by whom she was seldom 
 liked. She would attend the classes, become proficient, and 
 secure a situation. She had still a part of the last instalment 
 of the liberal allowance her father used to make her, there 
 were her clothes and jewels, too, still to be sold ; she could 
 easily afford to try the experiment, it would be better than 
 doing nothing, and would not, of course, interfere with any 
 future plans if she made them. No thought of unsuitability 
 or incongruity troubled Desire, nor any notion of other 
 people's opinions ; nothing did when once she had caught 
 hold of an idea except that which would help or hinder it. 
 Let her once get a thread, no matter from what unlikely 
 place, and she would follow it with enthusiasm : it was, no 
 doubt, to this faculty that she had heretofore owed much of 
 her enjoyment and some of her success. 
 
 184
 
 DESIRE 
 
 So it fell out that as soon as might be she entered herself 
 as a student at some of the classes described to her. It was 
 an easy thing to do, as easy as establishing oneself at Miss 
 Barton's rooms, requiring no more talk and little more 
 notice. There were always classes for beginners there, and 
 always beginners for the classes ; it was all coming and going 
 and no being, no more pause or stay in the pupils and no 
 more importance in individuals than in the crowd at a rail- 
 way station. It was a novelty to Desire, not altogether an 
 attractive one, but very convenient. 
 
 She began as soon as possible to attend the classes with 
 great regularity, applying herself to learning with all her 
 might. At first, it must be confessed, she found it difficult ; 
 the whole thing, the very speech and habit of mind, was new 
 to her, to learn this sort of thing and in this sort of way was 
 very troublesome to her for a little. But pretty soon she 
 grew used to it and, the difficulty of novelty once overcome, 
 she began to get on fast. There were some things, of course, 
 which she never learned. They were not among the subjects 
 which she had undertaken, but had more to do with conform- 
 ing to accepted standards and similar things. She never 
 learnt to conform, nor did she ever really become aware that 
 there was anything to conform to or that she did not do it. 
 She was in these new circumstances just herself, as she had 
 been in her former life ; and, as in her former life, the people 
 with whom she came in contact had to accept it as it was, 
 she always remaining unconscious that there was any differ- 
 ence between it and others. 
 
 What they thought of the new student at the Commercial 
 College is not recorded. They must have found her some- 
 what astonishing ; it is worthy of notice that, though she 
 was usually a friendly person, and certainly in her present 
 circumstances a lonely one, no one became intimate with her 
 
 185
 
 DESIRE 
 
 during the time she attended the classes. The students held 
 aloof from her, not because she was proud or they stand-offish, 
 or either side generally disinclined for acquaintance, but 
 simply because she was herself and utterly alien to them and 
 their experience. Some of the girls distrusted her on sight 
 without knowing why, some were unconsciously jealous of 
 her, some genuinely shocked by ways and sayings and out- 
 look which, entirely unknown to her, failed to conform to 
 their standard ; one and all knew her for a stranger. With 
 the men she got on better, though she never really established 
 her usual friendly footing with any of them. For them all 
 she had one manner, from the superintendent to the door- 
 keeper and the youngest embryo office-boy, she treated them 
 with the frank camaraderie she had for all men, from peers 
 to porters. A few took unpleasant advantage of it such 
 are to be met with in all classes but they did not transgress 
 twice. She knew how to treat that mistake, no matter by 
 whom made. For the most part, however, though they were 
 dazzled they were also puzzled by her, and felt that she did 
 not belong, that she or they were out of the right element. 
 The door-keeper, an old soldier, was the man with whom 
 she got on best, the only person completely at ease with her. 
 She talked to him always as a man and a brother, and he 
 saluted as she passed as if it had been the general under 
 whom he used to serve, opened her umbrella for her on 
 rainy days as if he had been her butler, and once by 
 accident addressed her as " my lady." The girls said he was 
 an old fool and she spoilt him ; they did not perceive that he 
 had done what they had failed to do, in a measure succeeded 
 in placing her in his scale of things. 
 
 The Commercial Classes were not an unmixed success so 
 far as Desire was concerned. She learnt what she went to 
 learn, it is true, but they depressed her, they were one of the 
 
 186
 
 DESIRE 
 
 few experiences of her life out of which she extracted little 
 amusement and no enjoyment. Also they or her loneliness 
 or something else, or all combined made her almost for the 
 first time conscious of herself. Her pleasant house of life was 
 tumbling and crumbling under the shocks of the past year ; 
 several of the old agreeable illusions were gone, and herself 
 was beginning to show plainer and more real, at times to 
 be the only real thing left. Nevertheless, she went on with 
 the classes ; she had undertaken to master several subjects and 
 she would do so even though they were small use to her 
 afterwards. Some of the girl students had assured her they 
 would be no use at all ; one, in an unusual burst of friend- 
 liness, warned her that she would never succeed in the city. 
 
 " Why not ? " Desire asked. 
 
 " Because you wouldn't," was the unenlightening answer. 
 " But you never thought really of it, did you ? Why, we 
 never thought of you and city work ! You couldn't do it 
 anyhow." 
 
 " Why not ? " Desire repeated. " Of course I came here 
 with the idea of preparing for it j what else should I come 
 for ? What does any one come for ? " 
 
 The girl did not tell her that none of them had been able 
 to imagine why she had come, and that none of them in the 
 wildest flights of fancy ever dreamed she was so absurd as to 
 think she was going to enter a city office as a clerk or typist. 
 But when she persisted in her inquiry as to why the work 
 was impossible to her, the girl was obliged to give some sort 
 of an answer. 
 
 " You're not the sort," she explained ; " you'd never do. 
 Oh, I know you've learnt typing and the rest all right, but 
 you don't look Appearances are against you." 
 
 " Appearances ? " Desire said. " Face ? Too plain, or 
 too pretty ? " 
 
 187
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " Neither," the girl answered shortly. She did not feel at 
 ease discussing appearances with Desire ; she even had a 
 suspicion that she was being made fun of, or perhaps con- 
 descended to, or something equally unpleasant. " It's the 
 whole thing," she said ; " you're altogether wrong for it, 
 dress and all." 
 
 Desire glanced at her own dress, then at her companion's ; 
 then she looked away quickly for the girl coloured a little. 
 
 " A skirt's a skirt for a' that," she said lightly. " It must 
 be the blouse which is wrong. Won't you tell me about 
 blouses ? Mine is wrong and yours is right. I might get 
 one something like yours perhaps. Where did you get it ? 
 Will you give me the address of your dressmaker ? Women 
 hate to be asked for that, I know, but the circumstances are 
 exceptional, aren't they ? And I'll promise not to steal her. 
 I'll get just one blouse as a pattern ." 
 
 " I made this myself." 
 
 The girl's voice marked several hundred leagues ot 
 difference between them, and Desire perceived she had made 
 a mistake of the worst sort. How silly of her not to have 
 remembered that the blouse was likely to have been home 
 made ! All girl students made blouses, she heard them talk 
 among themselves of gauged yokes and val. insertion and bias 
 fronts and other technicalities which were as Greek to her. 
 She complimented the ingenuity of the home dressmaker 
 now and quitted the delicate subject to return to her original 
 question. 
 
 " Why do you imagine I shall not succeed as a clerk ? 
 Appearance is a thing which is easy to alter, you know,- if I 
 set that right I suppose there is no reason why I should not 
 do as well as any one else ? " 
 
 " Yes, there is," her informant answered bluntly ; " no 
 man in his senses would take you on ; for one thing he'd 
 
 188
 
 DESIRE 
 
 feel all the time you were a woman, not a machine, and that 
 you were oh, I don't know and, anyhow, he couldn't 
 give you orders." 
 
 Desire frowned. " That's rather nonsense, you know," 
 she said ; " I think I could take orders as well as any one." 
 
 " No one's ever given 'em to you, I bet ; no man, anyway. 
 Why, look at the men here !" 
 
 The conversation was getting to an unprofitable channel ; 
 Desire did not pursue it further, she only announced her 
 intention of proving the matter for herself, and trying, 
 when she was qualified, to get a situation. After that she 
 went home to her rooms. 
 
 It was a Saturday, a very wet Saturday towards the end 
 of July : there had been a lot of wet Saturdays that month. 
 It rained all the afternoon ; she stayed indoors and spent 
 the time at her typewriter. She had bought a second-hand 
 machine from a student who was in some trouble ; she had 
 paid what would have been considered at the college a 
 perfectly reckless price for it, and had conducted the trans- 
 action with a briefness and privacy unusual there. Since 
 she had had it she had spent much time practising, and by 
 now she was quite proficient so much so as to make the 
 copying of the newspaper, and the inditing of letters to no 
 one, ridiculous. Nevertheless that afternoon she went on 
 with it persistently ; it was the best thing to do ; whenever 
 she paused to choose a word or insert a fresh sheet of paper 
 she heard the rain pattering on the window pane ; there was 
 not very much else to be heard, hardly any one passed along 
 the street except a milkman, and once a coal cart. Some- 
 times one heard distant sounds from the less genteel side 
 street not far off. In the side street there was a shop which 
 sold sweets and tinned things inside and vegetables out, and 
 which did nearly as much trade in bad weather as in good. 
 
 189
 
 DESIRE 
 
 In that street, too, people sometimes exchanged opinions in 
 shrill voices from doorsteps. Desire had more than once 
 found herself wishing her window looked that way. She 
 would not have minded the talking from the doorsteps, she 
 would have liked it, even possibly joined in ; she would have 
 been interested in the trouble the talkers appeared to have 
 with their husbands, the rent collector and the children j and 
 have sympathized with the satisfaction they seemed to find in 
 an occasional glass in the public-house at the corner. 
 
 The wish came to her again that wet afternoon. It came, 
 as it nearly always did, with the accompaniment of a 
 humiliating fear that she would not be able to hold out, 
 would not be able to keep on enduring the colourless 
 monotony of the present. She had been so used to move- 
 ment, variety, vivid interests, that she found the monotony 
 and narrowness and lack of human outlet in her present life 
 almost terrible. She missed the luxury, and money spending 
 she had lost very little ; she missed the change and interests 
 and eager human spending acutely. She fought the feeling 
 and would not give way to it ; she was vaguely conscious, 
 though without actual recognition, that monotony is 
 necessary discipline, that nothing is achieved without it. 
 She was very fully aware that it is the lot of at least nine- 
 tenths of the human race, and that she, who had had many 
 years of sunshine and champagne, had small right to com- 
 plain at receiving a share of grey weather and wholesome 
 but unexciting milk and water. She was also aware that it 
 was of her own choosing ; but that last was not a good thing 
 to be aware of for it entailed the other fact that she could 
 also choose to throw it up if it became unendurable, a 
 humiliating remedy. That wet afternoon these thoughts, all 
 familiar company by this time, passed through her mind in 
 some shape or another j her fingers were busy with the 
 
 190
 
 DESIRE 
 
 typewriter but her attention was elsewhere, and in a little 
 she was brought up with a jerk by running beyond the line. 
 She stopped in some self-contempt ; she was like a young 
 servant whose head is too full of the holiday she has had for 
 her to be able to attend to what she is doing. Desire had 
 always felt sympathetic with such young servants, but she 
 
 was rather ashamed to find herself like them. And yet 
 
 Oh, for just ten minutes with some one from the old world ! 
 Even ten minutes' talk about the old things ! Not better 
 things or a better world, but the ones she knew. To speak 
 again to one who meant what she meant by what he said, to 
 hear again of what she used to hear, to strike something 
 which would respond at once ! She would not wish for the 
 entertainments of the past, to tell the truth, they had lost 
 something of their savour, and, anyhow, they matched ill with 
 a working life. But for the talk ! Ten minutes, just ten 
 minutes with some one or other of the men she used 
 almost daily to meet ! She clasped her hands behind her 
 head and gave herself up to recollections. 
 
 But in a little a question forced itself upon her notice. 
 Supposing one such were here ? Supposing Bamfield, 
 obliging, useful Bamfield whom she had known for years, who 
 had served her for years supposing he were here, brought 
 by her thought as he easily could be by her written word 
 what then ? It would be quite unendurable. Neither he 
 nor any of the others would understand her position or the 
 real inside of what had befallen. And she certainly did not 
 want them to try : it was the last thing she wanted. She had 
 gone out from among them cheerfully and left them with a 
 gay recollection. Rather a theatrical ending, perhaps, but 
 her mother was of the theatres she was not of the sort to 
 commit an anti-climax and appear after " positively the last 
 appearance." For a moment she recalled that last appearance, 
 
 191
 
 DESIRE 
 
 and Julian Lee, the persistent, who would stay to the end, 
 who even then tried to come back. Now possibly he was 
 looking forward to the winter when he would expect her to 
 re-appear in town. He would certainly come at her bidding, 
 come to this genteel little room and probably ask her to marry 
 him. There was always the alternative of marriage if this 
 was unendurable she shivered just a little for, inevitably, 
 the thought of marriage recalled another man from the old 
 life, Edward Gore. He was married now : she had taken 
 pains to keep herself informed on that point ; at last he had 
 married Edith and she, poor soul, was she happy ? Did 
 she know how it had come about ? He would never tell her 
 that ; his pride would keep it back, and so spare her. Desire 
 shivered again, there were things in the old life not good to 
 recall. But one thing she saw plainly, it was not only her 
 step-mother's act and her father's want of forethought that 
 had ended the old life, Gore had done his part, perhaps the 
 biggest part of all. A wonderful loneliness in which her 
 soul felt for a moment like one naked and alone, had come 
 pressing upon her at times before ever she was banished from 
 the old world. A feeling as of one not filled and satisfied 
 had entered once or twice into the play while she still played. 
 Yes, the thing was ended she dropped her arms from behind 
 her head ended. Peace be to its ashes ! And prosperity to 
 the somewhat ashy prospect which was all that at present 
 came to hand ! 
 
 She lighted a cigarette and afterwards applied herself to 
 inditing a correspondence between firms of Rockefellerian 
 magnitude for the purchase and consignment of fifteen 
 million tons of ashes. 
 
 192
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 " A GENTLEMAN to see you, miss." 
 
 When Vera, the maid of all work, brought this informa- 
 tion to Desire, the clock marked only ten minutes past four ; 
 the wet afternoon; was not nearly spent, though the fictitious 
 correspondence on the subject of ashes had become as 
 voluminous as if the War Office were a party to it. 
 
 Desire looked up from her typewriter. " To see me ? " 
 
 she said. " Are you sure ? I think you must be mistaken." 
 
 Vera was quite sure, she said so decidedly. 
 
 " Who is he ? " Desire asked. " What name ? " 
 
 " I didn't ast," Vera answered. "Do you want to know ? " 
 
 <c Oh, no ; it doesn't matter. Ask him to come up, please." 
 
 After all, Desire reflected, she might as well see him since 
 
 he had found her, whoever it was. She wondered who it 
 
 could be. Her father's lawyer ? Parker ? Vera would not 
 
 discriminate. Either of the two might want to see her on 
 
 some matter of business, and Barton would have given the 
 
 address if applied to for that purpose ; she would not be 
 
 applied to for any other. Desire had told some few people 
 
 on the night of her entertainment that she was leaving town 
 
 soon ; so she was, their part of it. They had accepted it, 
 
 and would not be surprised to see no more of her before the 
 
 winter ; and when the winter came they would not be very 
 
 surprised not to see her ; they were all busy living, they had 
 
 not so very much time for feeling. They might miss her 
 
 perhaps ; a few might ask one another where she had gone, 
 
 13 193
 
 DESIRE 
 
 and when she was coming back, but in a little while the gap 
 she had left would close as does a gap in water. Some 
 would remember her as they remembered a fashion for big 
 sleeves or an operatic star who had been the rage. They 
 would be pleased to see her back when or if she came ; for 
 the rest, she had gone, and no one is indispensable. She 
 knew that quite well, she herself in similar circumstances 
 would likely have done not dissimilarly ; she did not feel in 
 the least bitter about it, but she understood. 
 
 Vera opened the door, and, having by now satisfied 
 her curiosity on the point of name, announced, " Mr. 
 Grimstone." 
 
 Desire sprang to her feet. "Oh ! " she said, " I am glad 
 to see you ! " 
 
 " I'm glad I came," Peter answered. He did not in the 
 least know why she was so glad, but he did not mistake her 
 sincerity. " What is the matter ? " he asked simply. 
 " Nothing," she answered. 
 
 In the time which had elapsed since she last saw him she 
 had forgotten his embarrassing direct way of looking. It 
 came upon her with almost a little shock now, it took away 
 some of her self-possession and made her feel that she would 
 soon be telling him her affairs, as she had not told any one 
 else. Accordingly, from perversity probably, she began to 
 talk of his, asking about himself and his work with her usual 
 eagerness. 
 
 " What have you been doing ? " she said. " How's The 
 Dreamer's younger brother. It's more than a year since I 
 have heard of him. A whole year ! " 
 
 Peter did not remind her that had she been interested to 
 hear she could have written to ask. He had not expected 
 her to write, in spite of the curious closeness of their intimacy 
 at one time. He did not expect much of people, so he, 
 
 194
 
 DESIRE 
 
 unlike most who knew Desire well, was never hurt or 
 disappointed by any of her rather conspicuous short-comings. 
 
 " The Dreamer has no younger brother," he told her. 
 
 " No ? Is the second book not finished yet ? " 
 
 " It never will be. I have given up writing." 
 
 " But ," she began and stopped, conscious anew of 
 
 the difference in him, conscious, too, that he arrived at his 
 conclusions a different way from what she arrived at hers ; 
 impressed now, as she had not been a year ago, that there 
 might perhaps be more in his way than hers ; " Why," she 
 asked, " why have you given up ? " 
 
 " Because it's no good," he said. " I tried on and off for 
 a year, or nearly a year, and it came to nothing ; it was no 
 use." 
 
 c< And so you gave up ? " 
 
 " Not exactly because of that," he admitted. " My father 
 is ill and I have his work as well as my own to do, so I 
 could not do anything else if I would. But it does not 
 make much difference. I did little real good before when I 
 had the opportunity or, at least, as much opportunity as 
 many men. So, you see, either way the thing has come to 
 an end." 
 
 She nodded. " I see," she said, but she was not really 
 sure of it. It was hard to realize that the peculiar ability, 
 which had fought its slow, persistent way out before, was 
 gone now, killed by adverse circumstances. Rather one 
 would think it in abeyance, working unseen in the dark, 
 throttled, perhaps temporarily, by duty, but still there, as 
 life is there in the trees that die outwardly in the winter and 
 wait to be recalled by the spring. For the first time Desire 
 felt that there was something about Peter which reminded 
 her of the slow inevitableness and ununderstandableness of 
 the ways of nature. 
 
 195
 
 DESIRE 
 
 "I'm afraid I'm a failure," he was saying, with more 
 apology than regret. 
 
 " I wonder if you are ? " she speculated ; " I doubt if you 
 are in a position to judge, and I am sure I am not." 
 
 She regarded him curiously, chin propped on hands and 
 eyes studying him in undisguised fashion ; she found him 
 much harder to place than before. 
 
 " Do you know," she said, " I used to consider that you 
 belonged to the-world-of-things-as-they-never-were, but I 
 
 am not sure now that I was right, I'm not sure it isn't 
 
 Oh, well, never mind, anyhow it is not the old world I 
 used to know, or the new one I am trying to. That is 
 why I am glad it is you and not any one else who came 
 this afternoon why, you are about the only person who 
 could have come. By the way, why did you come ? " 
 
 " I heard you were in trouble." 
 
 " How did you hear ? " she put the question quickly. 
 
 " From Austin, a man I used to know. When I left 
 London last year he gave me his dog, so last night, after I 
 had done the business I came up about, I went to see him 
 and tell him the dog was all right. He told me of your 
 father's death." 
 
 " Did he tell you anything else ? " 
 
 " No, he didn't know you or Lady Quebell, or anything 
 about you, more than just that which I might have seen 
 in the papers myself, by the way, only I didn't ; I don't read 
 them much." 
 
 Desire nodded. "Tell me," she inquired with some 
 interest, " how did you find me ? " 
 
 " I went to the house where you used to live, and they 
 told me you were gone, but that Barton, your maid, would 
 know your address. So I found Barton." 
 
 It sounded simple, but Desire knew it really would not 
 
 196
 
 DESIRE 
 
 have been so easy. Barton, at last convinced that her 
 mistress would not have her services, had fulfilled an off- 
 and-on engagement of long standing, and was married. 
 The ceremony had taken place about a week ago, and 
 Desire herself did not know where the bride and bridegroom 
 were at present to be found. Parker, to whom Peter must 
 have applied in the first instance, was not very likely to be 
 quite sure either. However, Peter had traced them quickly 
 persuaded the woman that he was not one of those to whom 
 she was forbidden to give her mistress' address, and here 
 he was. 
 
 "Did Barton tell you anything besides my address?" 
 Desire asked. 
 
 She had not Peter was not the kind to seek information 
 from a third party. " She said a letter sent here would find 
 you," he said ; " but I thought I would come myself, perhaps 
 if you were here you would not mind me coming. You 
 remember we made a pact once, that you could say what 
 you liked, and be what you liked, and so on to me, and if 
 there was anything I could do I would do it without bother- 
 ing you to explain why. I thought perhaps there might be 
 
 something for me to do now. If there isn't- 
 
 " There is- 
 
 She spoke abruptly, then broke off. This that she had 
 called the-world-of-things-as-they-never-were was a strange 
 world, a literal, simple world ; at least this man would seem 
 literally to mean and simply do what he said. 
 
 " There is something. You can listen to me. You can 
 let me tell you what has happened. I think you will 
 understand." 
 
 And she told, as once before she had told him, what she 
 had not told another. She did not mind his knowing of 
 her step-mother's act and her own position, it was possible 
 
 197
 
 DESIRE 
 
 and natural to tell him. In the-world-of-things-as-they- 
 never-were, the world from whence The Dreamer came, 
 one could, curiously enough, state truths and acknowledge 
 bare facts. Of course, long before she had done the telling 
 she had got back her usual composure and her old way, and 
 laughed at that for which she would not weep. But Peter 
 understood, and because he did he made no obvious com- 
 ments, expressed no condemnatory opinions and showed no 
 surprise. 
 
 Once he did ask, " Does no one know that you are 
 here?" 
 
 And she answered, " No one but Barton, and she promised 
 not to betray me, and, in spite of your evidence to the 
 contrary, I believe she will keep her word, even if she should 
 be asked for my address, which, I think, is very unlikely to 
 happen." 
 
 " What about your people ? " Peter inquired. 
 
 "I haven't any. My father's people are not my people, 
 and such as they are I don't know much of them, nor they 
 of me, except they don't approve of me ; they are not likely 
 to be concerned about me. There is an elderly cousin, a 
 Miss Phoebe Quebell, whose sense of duty may some day 
 give Lady Quebell a bad quarter-of-an-hour ; I shouldn't be 
 surprised if it did, otherwise nothing will happen. Of my 
 mother's people, if she had any and was not placed similarly 
 to myself, I know nothing." 
 
 " Your friends will want to know where you are," Peter 
 said. 
 
 She shook her head. " You don't know people," she said. 
 
 " But they must want to know where you are," he per- 
 sisted ; " they will want to know what has become of you." 
 
 " They think I have left town early, and later they will 
 think I am coming back late, and then they will forget ; a 
 
 198
 
 DESIRE 
 
 few, with a thirst for information and a taste for being dis- 
 agreeable, may ask Lady Ouebell about me when she reap- 
 pears next spring ; what she will say I do not know, but I 
 do know that it won't in the least matter to any one." 
 
 Peter found it hard to believe that she would so soon be 
 forgotten. " Did you say good-bye to no one ? " he asked. 
 
 "I had a little party," she answered. "I made each one 
 show me himself at the best, and I tried to show myself at 
 the best to them all, and then I 'slipit awa'.' I hope I left a 
 pleasant memory, I know I left no gap. The world's so busy 
 with amusing live people, it can't be bothered with the dead 
 I'm a deader now. If you were a real live ordinary man 
 you would not have bothered about me, and I would not let 
 you, but being as you are " her voice deepened suddenly 
 " you are here." 
 
 " What are you going to do ? " Peter asked. " I mean, do 
 you mind telling me ? " 
 
 " Of course not," she answered ; " I should have been 
 disappointed in you if you had not asked. Oh, cautious 
 man ! The future would naturally interest you as much as 
 the past ; you shall have it." 
 
 And forthwith she told him of her more recent doings 
 and immediate plans. 
 
 "Behold me," so she concluded, "an embryo clerk, an 
 expert typist, a master, or at least on the way to being one, 
 of the mystery of book-keeping by double entry. In Sep- 
 tember I get me a situation if I can. I am told on 
 unimpeachable authority that nothing can be done before, 
 for in August the city fathers sun themselves by the sad sea 
 waves, or follow the giddy golf ball for the furtherance of 
 their figures." 
 
 " What made you think of this ? " Peter asked. 
 
 " What ? The devil ' Needs must,' to be sure ; I can't do 
 
 199
 
 DESIRE 
 
 anything else. Listen to my list of * can'ts ' : I can't teach, 
 I know nothing to teach that I'm aware of ; I can't paint, 
 I can't draw, sing, write, or follow any other art, if there 
 be any ; I can act a bit, it is true, dance and sing, and that 
 sort of thing, but I'm not going on the stage even if I could 
 get there, which is unlikely. One sees "there too much of 
 the wrong side of the life I used to know on the right ; 
 besides, I always had such a gluttonous appetite for amuse- 
 ment, I should hate to have to work at making it. What 
 other professions are there ? ah ! domestic service. I can't 
 cook, so I can't be a cook ; I can't be a maid, I'm too untidy ; 
 besides, I should have conscientious objections to lacing fat 
 women into tight corsets, and helping nice old grandmothers 
 to turn their silver locks gold. Dressmaking and millinery ? 
 my friend, I can't sew. It's humiliating to confess it, but 
 I can't even mend my own stockings ; I've tried since I've 
 been here, but I'd be ashamed to show the result. I called 
 Vera in for advice once ; I thought, as she had been educated 
 at the board school, she'd be sure to know - y she didn't, she 
 was worse than I. I am seriously thinking of walking down 
 the side street there's a nice one here and spotting some 
 hopeful-looking woman and asking for instructions. I simply 
 dare not ask the girls at the classes I attend, though I'm sure 
 some of them know ; they petrify me somehow, especially 
 when they talk chiffons. I never before realized how 
 appallingly ignorant I am." 
 
 " There certainly does not seem much left for you to 
 choose from," Peter admitted. 
 
 " There isn't," she answered. " Matrimony, of course. 
 At desperate times I have thought of that desperate remedy, 
 and if I could marry half-a-dozen men at once I might 
 perhaps be tempted to it. But one alone ! to put up with 
 one for the rest of one's natural life ! It would be too boring." 
 
 200
 
 DESIRE 
 
 At that moment Vera bumped against the door with the 
 tea-tray, and followed up the bump with a noisy entry. She 
 set the table with great care, covertly glancing at Peter as 
 she did so. She did not think highly of his appearance, but 
 he was the first visitor this unusual lady lodger had had, so 
 he deserved some attention. 
 
 " I got you a pot of bloater paste," she informed Desire in 
 a loud whisper ; " I thought you'd like something with your 
 tea as you'd got comp'ny." 
 
 " Thank you," Desire answered in the same confidential 
 tone. She would not for the world have destroyed the girl's 
 illusion of gentility. " Thanks awfully, that's capital." 
 
 " Mr. Grimstone," she said, when Vera had withdrawn, 
 " I hope you like bloater paste ; you have got to eat a great 
 deal." 
 
 After tea the fire was lit, the evening had turned chilly, 
 and Desire's economy could not hold out against the 
 temptation of its cheering company. For a while they sat 
 in silence, watching the damp wood catch and the sparks fly 
 up. Suddenly Desire asked 
 
 " Do you think I shall do any good with this sort of 
 thing ? Do you see any reason why I should fail ? " 
 
 Peter considered a moment before he answered, then 
 " No," he said, " I see no sufficient reason." 
 
 " The students at the classes think there is," Desire told 
 him; "it's their opinion no city man would employ me, I 
 believe, because I am not the right sort, whatever that is." 
 
 "You are not the usual sort," Peter admitted, "but then 
 you could hardly be usual anywhere; I don't see that that 
 matters." 
 
 " It can't," she said emphatically ; " it stands to reason 
 that the only thing which matters is whether you can do 
 what you undertake, type and book-keep and so on, and I'm 
 
 201
 
 DESIRE 
 
 not an utter fool at that ; you can examine me if you 
 like." 
 
 Peter declined. He had no doubt she knew more than he 
 did. 
 
 For a little Desire sat looking at the slow smoke curling 
 up ; the fire was but feebly burning, making a poor attempt 
 to brighten the gloomy little room. The shadow in her eyes 
 and on her face deepened ; for once it seemed that her 
 exuberant vitality had dropped low, for a minute she let slip 
 even a pretence of her usual gay pluck. 
 
 " I'm a poor thing," she said, with self-contempt ; " do 
 you know, I feel sometimes as if I shouldn't be able to stand 
 it ! It's a mercy I'm a woman, and have got enough sense 
 to know I must stick to the respectable ! If I were a man 
 I should not stop here two days. I should sell what I have 
 and go off somewhere, the high seas or the high road 
 probably the high road, with a barrow. I believe I have 
 got a taste for the less reputable side of life. Once or twice, 
 when I have got very desperate, I have been down to the 
 side street after dark, and stood among the people there, and 
 listened to them bargaining and talking. I have had the 
 greatest ado in the world not to get mixed up in things. I 
 expect I shall if I go often. It is the awful respectable 
 monotony that I can't stand. Week in, week out, the same 
 thing ; the future the same, the way the same, the goal the 
 same ; the more successful the more respectable, the more 
 monotonous the more successful. Why, respectable 
 
 monotony is what I am aiming at ! It's ghastly ! 
 
 She broke off, then laughed : " I'm a weak fool, am I not ? 
 A couple of months' work, and I am sick of it ! " 
 
 " It isn't that," Peter said. 
 
 " What is it, then ? " she asked. " You ought not to know 
 anything about it, yet I feel as if you did. I wonder why ? 
 
 202
 
 DESIRE 
 
 You can endure monotony look at the long, slow work 
 you put into The Dreamer, look at your throwing up your 
 life and interests in town, and going home. Is it respectable 
 monotony there ? Do you sometimes find it pretty awful ? " 
 
 "Sometimes," Peter admitted, then added, "But there 
 are always the hills. On Sundays I go to the hills." 
 
 In The Dreamer nature had played a curious part, not 
 descriptive or exactly obvious, but unconsciously interwoven 
 with the emotions of the primitive human beings of the tale. 
 It suddenly occurred to Desire now, and for the first time 
 she began to understand it. 
 
 " Tell me," she said, " about the hills." 
 
 He hesitated. There did not seem anything exactly that 
 could be told, and yet, because she asked him, and because 
 he was so intensely sorry for her, he tried to describe to her 
 the lonely upward path, the brown hill-top, and the refresh- 
 ment that was there. He did not speak well, yet better 
 than he knew ; she saw it plainly as she listened, and saw, 
 more dimly, what it was to him, might be to a lonely soul, 
 and her eyes grew misty. "If only I had hills," she said at 
 last. " Oh, Peter, if we could go right away into a large, 
 lonely place ! " 
 
 She had never called him by his Christian name before. It 
 came naturally now, without her noticing or thinking. If 
 Peter noticed it, which is possible, he did not reveal the 
 fact. 
 
 "There are several things which make my life easier 
 than yours," he said. " The work is really a bit interesting ; 
 at first, I own, I couldn't find it so, but now I do. It 
 begins, too, to matter to me to make good jugs, as it used to 
 matter to choose the right words. I shouldn't be surprised 
 if after a time it got to be the only thing that did matter, 
 that and similar things." 
 
 203
 
 DESIRE 
 
 A year ago she would have enthusiastically condemned 
 such a thing as waste, now she only asked, "Is that a 
 pity?" 
 
 cc It makes it easier," he answered, " though in a way I 
 suppose it is a pity because, when it has gone, there will be 
 nothing left." 
 
 " Do you expect it to go ? " 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. " It is a fight between my 
 brother Alexander and me," he said. " I shall make a fight, 
 of course, but I am afraid the end is sure." 
 
 She looked up with interest, momentarily forgetting her 
 affairs in his. " You like a fight," she observed. " Oh, you 
 don't know that you do, perhaps, even, you think you don't, 
 but you do ; it's that which really gave you interest in the 
 work, I believe. I should like to be there when you and 
 Alexander close for the last grip ! " 
 
 " I'm not sure there will be any last grip," Peter told her. 
 " I'm not sure ; indeed, I'm beginning to be afraid the thing 
 will just melt away. Maybe Alexander has something to 
 do with the melting, I don't know ; I don't understand how 
 these things happen, but I know our position is not what it 
 used to be." 
 
 Desire's interest increased. ~" Tell me about it," she said ; 
 "and tell me about Alexander. Have you seen him often 
 since you have been back ? " 
 
 Peter had only seen him once. " But he is coming to live 
 at Twycross this autumn," he said. 
 
 " Is he ? Have he and your father made it up, then ? " 
 
 " No ; my father is ill, as I told you ; he can do nothing 
 either way now." 
 
 " He can do nothing ? Now I understand ! Of course 
 you cannot write. Tell me, are you trying to do his work 
 as well as your own ? " 
 
 204
 
 DESIRE 
 
 It was then that the idea came to Peter. He had felt all 
 along that there must be an idea somewhere, though he did 
 not know where or what. Arriving at mental things was 
 to him like climbing hills ; he got at the end so slowly, and 
 by such winding and unhandy ways, and often without being 
 able to see, that, when it was reached, it seemed almost 
 sudden. He had not quite reached this yet, but by the time 
 Desire had finished giving her opinion he had. 
 
 " You ought to have help," she declared. " It is perfectly 
 ridiculous for you to try to do two men's work, and work 
 with which you are not very familiar, too. It must handicap 
 you in the fight with Alexander." 
 
 " It does," he said ; " it makes it very difficult. I do want 
 help of some sort ; I believe we might do better, at least for a 
 little time, if I had some one to do the business part, so that I 
 was free to manage and improve the mechanical. My 
 father did both before I came, but he was a cleverer man 
 than I, also the circumstances were not quite the same. If 
 I had some one to do the business some one like like you." 
 
 Like me ? " 
 
 Peter hesitated a second ; it was a difficult thing to suggest. 
 The idea had come to him at the last with such suddenness 
 that he had spoken before he was fully aware of it ; but it 
 still was the idea. 
 
 " Yes," he said rather awkwardly. " It is not much of a 
 job certainly, though not worse, I suppose, than some city 
 ones. It might not last very long, but of course if it was 
 only for a month or two it might be some use as a reference 
 if you thought of going on with this sort of thing." 
 
 It was not very clear whether he was making an offer or 
 merely explaining a hypothetical idea. Desire did not know ; 
 she was completely astonished, and for some reason moved. 
 
 " Of course, if you don't think " he began diffidently. 
 
 205
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " I think you are the most extraordinary person alive," 
 she said. " Do you know, since you have been here you have 
 not given me one word of advice ? You have not told me 
 I have made a great mistake, committed rank folly, or done 
 everything else stupid ; you have not suggested any panaceas 
 of your own ; you have just listened to my plans as if you 
 thought me sane, and now you speak as if you thought them 
 sensible, and I well qualified to carry them out. I almost 
 believe you would help me with them ! " 
 
 " Any one would, any one who knew you wanted help ; 
 you must remember you have not let any one else know 
 that." 
 
 Desire laughed. "I know them and you don't," she 
 assured him ; " some of them, had I told them before I left, 
 would have offered me help of sorts, as well as condolences ; 
 some women would have asked me to stay with them awhile 
 * till things blew over ' ; some men would have offered to 
 marry me, or lend me money, or something of that sort. 
 Not one of them, had they come to me here and heard what 
 you have, would have seriously entered into things, con- 
 sidering the plan as if it were their own, and offered to help 
 me in my way, not theirs. Without doubt you do belong to 
 the world of things-as-they-never-were." 
 
 u I don't," Peter said ; " you are quite wrong. But per- 
 haps you consider this idea belongs to that world. You 
 think it impossible ? " 
 
 Then it was a real suggestion, a real offer, not a hypo- 
 thetical idea. She might have known Peter better than to 
 have ever thought of that. 
 
 " I don't think I ought to let you do it," she said. 
 
 Why not ? " 
 
 " Because you must have enough on your hands already." 
 
 " Too much ; I want help," he told her. 
 
 206
 
 DESIRE 
 
 And when she laughed he asked, " Do you think you 
 could not do what is wanted ? You must have a very 
 erroneous idea of Grimstones', I'm afraid ; even if you 
 were just an ordinary woman clerk you would be too good 
 for the job. The only thing which might make it tolerable 
 to you is that it would not be quite the usual routine, and 
 it would be away, near the hills. As to the work quantity 
 and quality, too why, I could do it myself if I were not 
 a fool at business details. I am that, you know ; the 
 technical part I am beginning to understand, it interests 
 me, too ; the other " 
 
 " Does not," she concluded for him ; " but it would me. 
 And if I were to come and bring the typewriter business 
 letters should always be typed, and I'm sure your father 
 never had one, he wrote the letters himself as the Merchant 
 Princes did I'd manage all the business part as soon as I 
 could get the hang of it. I really believe I could in time 
 do that, for though I'm an idiot my father was a genius : 
 I've inherited a few of his characteristics. You'd be free 
 to give all your time to the other part, and then we'd see 
 where Alexander came in." 
 
 Her spirits had risen under the stimulus of her imagination, 
 she was once more the virile creature that never dreamed of 
 failure and never failed. But Peter, reluctant though he 
 was to do it, felt bound to chill her anticipations. 
 
 " I ought to tell you," he said, " that we may go to pieces 
 rather soon I mean, even in spite of your efforts. You see, 
 there has not for some time been much capital in the firm, 
 there is very little indeed now, but our credit has always 
 been good, until lately. Lately, for some reason, it has 
 been shaken ; various people, who in the ordinary way would 
 have been prepared to wait, are talking about their accounts 
 and pressing for settlements. We can't meet them, not 
 
 207
 
 DESIRE 
 
 all at once, we shall have to arrange something, I don't 
 know what, but whatever it is it can't but be to our dis- 
 advantage, and we can't stand much of that. It is the chance 
 Alexander could make good use of." 
 
 " Then," Desire said, " I suppose, one may guess he 
 helped to bring it about ? " 
 
 Peter did not know. " He might have done it, of course," 
 he said ; " but it equally might have arisen from my father's 
 disablement, and the fact, which must be known, that I'm 
 not much good. Certainly Alexander told me in the spring 
 that I should want his help." 
 
 " That's the last thing you want," Desire said emphati- 
 cally; " my help would be better than that. I believe I must 
 come that is if your mother won't mind. Do you think 
 she'll mind me mixing myself up in affairs ? " 
 
 "Of course not." Peter was surprised at the idea. 
 
 " Oh, well, some women would," Desire told him; " but 
 
 if you think she won't I wonder if she would? I wonder 
 
 if I ought to come ? if the help I might be would outweigh 
 the nuisance I should certainly be. You haven't got to go 
 just yet, have you ? What time does your train leave 
 Euston ? Oh, you can spare a while longer then. Tell 
 me all you can about your business and let me see if I can 
 really be any good." 
 
 He obeyed her, and told what he could, and she listened 
 and asked questions, showing him almost entirely the man 
 side of her versatile self. There was very decidedly a man 
 side to her, a man with some of the great financial adviser's 
 characteristics, shrewd, far-seeing, accurate in perception of 
 essentials, with ajudgmentfor mass ratherthan detail: a person 
 who brought the ways of the big world to the problems of 
 Grimstones', and saw them in quite another light from what 
 Peter did. 
 
 208
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " Yes," she said at last ; " I really do believe I could do 
 some good any person, forgive me, but it's true any person 
 with average common-sense could." 
 
 " I told you I was a fool," Peter reminded her. 
 
 " You are awkwardly placed," she said, " though I own it 
 does not appear that your genius lies this way. Well, will 
 you have me to help you ? If you will, as it seems I might 
 be a teeny wee bit of use, I'll come till your mother 
 insists on me being turned out." 
 
 " She will never do that but " 
 
 " But ? Another but ? Do you retract ? " 
 
 " No, only I am not sure you will like it, the life, I mean; 
 it is very different from anything you are used to." 
 
 " Bless the man ! Isn't that the best reason in the world 
 for my liking it ? " 
 
 " It will strike you as monotonous and narrow," he warned 
 her. 
 
 " How do you know that ? " she demanded. " I don't 
 know what would strike me that way, and I certainly don't 
 believe you do. Look here, if you are sorry you asked me, 
 and think I'll interfere too much, and all the rest, I won't 
 come. It'll be all right ; I'll just say 'no thanks.' " 
 
 " I am not sorry," he said; " for myself nothing could be 
 better, but for you " 
 
 " Well, what about me ? " 
 
 " I suppose while it lasted it might be better than this," 
 Peter said doubtfully, looking round the gloomy little 
 room. 
 
 " I think it might, too," she answered. 
 
 He rose to go, for it was growing late : she rose, too. 
 
 " Do you think," she said, with a sudden earnest deepening 
 of her voice, " that I don't know it is because of that you 
 asked me ? It was for me you thought, you and your busi- 
 14 209
 
 DESIRE 
 
 ness are just an accident, an afterthought. I know that ; I 
 have known it all along, though I have behaved rather hate- 
 fully to you. I have to behave rather hatefully sometimes or 
 else or else I believe I should cry. You'd be sorry if I was 
 to do that." 
 
 "I should," Peter said hastily; "please don't. There 
 isn't any reason ; I don't see why on earth you should." 
 
 <c Of course you don't," Desire returned ; " there isn't any 
 reason ; people don't cry for reasons. You'll miss your train 
 if you don't go, and then your mother will begin to find out 
 the tryingness of having anything to do with what my step- 
 mother called ' the most impossible person in London.' ' 
 
 210
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 DESIRE was enthroned in the office at Grimstones' 
 that small room at the back of the house where the last 
 Ezra had fallen beneath the stroke, and the first Ezra, in 
 portrait, looked down with fierce dark eyes and fuller and 
 more sensitive lips than any other Grimstone had shown till 
 Peter, the inefficient, came upon the scene. It was the 
 painted lips which prevented Desire from feeling she was 
 intruding here, she believed in her heart she would have got 
 on with the first Ezra. She did not feel she was intruding, 
 nor had she any thought of being incongruous. She was 
 rather, of course, though she had already partly fitted the 
 place to herself. She had not been there quite a week yet, 
 but already the old precise appearance was gone from the 
 high desk ; the right to smoke here had also been conceded, 
 and a rule of having the window open at the bottom so 
 that the person inside could, if desirous, call to the person in 
 the yard, had been established. In the sunless room, where 
 the routine of years had settled like dust, there blew a breath 
 from outside ; and a vivid woman, with the scent of carna- 
 tions exhaling from her silk shirt, plied a typewriter with 
 capable hands where Ezra Grimstone had worked in silence 
 and solitary bitterness. 
 
 No wonder old Robert, who felt himself as much part of 
 the house and works as if he were the stones the one was 
 built of, or the name the other was known by no wonder 
 he combated the idea of such an intrusion. All thought of 
 innovation was painful to him, typewriters and outside help 
 
 211
 
 DESIRE 
 
 especially ; as for women clerks, the which he knew were 
 employed in plenty in the pottery towns lying near, such 
 were clean against all tradition. Therefore his opposition 
 at the outset was fierce. But when the idea became a fact, 
 and Desire was here, his feelings underwent something of a 
 change. He was a servant, and he came of generations of 
 servants, and, with the odd survival of the feudal spirit still 
 now and then to be found in England, he recognized Desire 
 as one who belonged by divine right to the ruling class ; 
 one who, no matter how far fate or choice might remove 
 her from that estate, still is served as a matter of course and 
 a matter of choice by the other half of the world. Of course 
 she had no business in Grimstones' ; still, since she had 
 chosen to come, Robert accepted her and put up with her, 
 as stokers might a princess who chose to visit their stokehole 
 and ask about the work they did there. He never for a 
 moment regarded her as a woman clerk ; he never, even 
 after experience of her capacity, exactly regarded her as a 
 woman of business. At first he looked upon her as a sort 
 of visitor whose questions he answered and to whom he 
 gave information because of the afore-mentioned right. 
 Later he discovered her ability, and also, it must be 
 admitted, rather fell under the spell she not all unconsciously 
 cast. She flattered him by asking information of him, not 
 Peter, of whose ability he not unnaturally shared his old 
 master's somewhat low opinion. She also pleased him by 
 her interest in the little firm and the old ways of doing 
 business, and by asking his advice on all sorts of subjects on 
 which she did not want it. By the end of the first week 
 he was already half her ally. Seeing that this was now 
 Saturday and she had only arrived on Monday night, she 
 should have been satisfied with her progress. Possibly she 
 was ; but if so she was celebrating the fact by having a 
 
 212
 
 DESIRE 
 
 difference of opinion with Peter, who had begun by giving 
 her the freest of free hands. 
 
 She sat now at the high desk, a bundle of papers in her 
 hands, watching, while Peter to satisfy himself, not her, 
 looked up some entries in a big book. 
 
 " I don't see what's the good of hunting up the details," 
 she said ; " the fact remains, the account is substantially 
 correct, and it's got to be met if we are to keep our end up, 
 I mean, keep our credit, or whatever you call it." 
 
 Peter was only too well aware of this, for the subject 
 under discussion was the demands for payment he had men- 
 tioned to her when he first suggested she should come here. 
 But he was also only too well aware of the obstacles in the 
 way of payment. 
 
 " I'm afraid we shall have to find some other solution of 
 the difficulty," he said ; " at all events, we can't meet them 
 all, not all at once." 
 
 " We've got to," she repeated, " to steady our position, 
 also to show off to Alexander." 
 
 Peter's eyes darkened at the mention of Alexander. His 
 feeling here was something quite different from what Desire 
 had encountered before, it interested her and chilled her too, 
 it was so cold, such a quiet, inside, unalterable thing, it gave 
 her a new and rather painful idea of the permanency of 
 human feeling. Peter did not know for certain whether he 
 was indebted to Alexander for this recent shaking of the 
 firm's credit, but he believed it. Desire was ready to 
 believe with him, and to her it was a dishonest and dirty 
 action, she could not understand or accept it as he did. 
 
 "Of course we could borrow from Alexander," Peter 
 said, " at a high rate, and on the security of an interest in 
 the concern but I'm not going to do it." 
 
 " Certainly not ! " 
 
 213
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " In any other way money is not very easily raised. Or 
 ready money I have myself about ^70, I got it from my 
 publishers when I was in town, fortunately I got nothing in 
 advance when The Dreamer was published, so there was some 
 to come to me ; but that's all I have, and we want at least 
 ^500 more than I can touch to see us through. As for 
 borrowing of some one else " 
 
 " It can be borrowed from me ! " Desire cried. " If it's 
 only ^500 I'm the man ! " 
 
 She pulled a cheque-book from one of the two capacious 
 pockets which had been recently added to the front of her 
 skirt. 
 
 " You ! " Peter exclaimed. u That is impossible ! " 
 
 "Don't be rude," she retorted, "it's nothing of the kind. 
 I have a balance at the bank at the present. Oh, I hadn't 
 when you saw me in town, that's quite true, I was reduced 
 to counting the change for a shilling so wholesome and 
 so unpleasant. But I've sold my string of pearls since 
 then " 
 
 " Your pearls ? " Peter's voice expressed something near 
 consternation. 
 
 " Bless the man ! " Desire said, " one would think I'd 
 sold my skin ! What do I want with pearls ? What 
 chance have I of wearing them while my complexion's 
 good enough to justify it ? If I ever do have the chance, 
 and am in circumstances to want them, I haven't the least 
 doubt I shall be in circumstances to get more j they are not 
 the only ones in the world, you know." 
 
 " You ought not to have sold them," Peter said gravely. 
 
 " I most decidedly ought," she returned, " it's extremely 
 bad business to keep all that capital locked up. I knew I 
 should want money to invest in something if I came down 
 here and got interested in money-making. Besides, I did 
 
 214
 
 DESIRE 
 
 enjoy selling them, it was worth it for that alone the one 
 decent interlude in that mouldy exile. I had quite a good 
 time selling those pearls, and one of the best glasses of old 
 cognac I have ever tasted." 
 
 Peter gave it up, he knew that she was speaking no more 
 than the truth. "I expect you know your own business 
 best," he said. "I suppose it was better to sell them, no 
 doubt the money is more use to you than the pearls. But 
 you can't lend it to me." 
 
 " Certainly not. I'm going to invest it in Grimstones'. 
 Five per cent, interest, your note of hand, and all that sort or 
 thing. Security an unlimited capacity to interfere with 
 the show." 
 
 " You can't do anything of the sort," Peter said. " Invest 
 your money in something sensible if you like, but as for 
 this " 
 
 "It's the most sensible thing I know. Oh, it wouldn't 
 be if you were running it, I grant you that. But, my friend, 
 I am ! I am here to look after my own interests. Now do 
 you observe the beauty of it ? " 
 
 Peter did not, and he said so emphatically. 
 
 " I'm sorry for that," Desire said, " because it would 
 make you easier if you saw the beauty, and it would be nicer 
 if you were easy, as I'm going to do it anyhow. If I can't 
 do it any other way I can pay the people with my cheque 
 instead of yours ; of course they would think they had found 
 out you were being backed, and who it was, which is rather 
 a pity, otherwise there is no inconvenience in it. I can help 
 myself to my interest when the time comes without troubling 
 you." 
 
 "It is altogether impossible," Peter said. "You must 
 not do it." 
 
 " I must, and I shall," she replied, " and you can't prevent 
 
 215
 
 DESIRE 
 
 me. Didn't I tell you you'd be sorry you let me in before 
 long?" 
 
 " I'm not sorry. It's for your own sake " 
 
 "Poof! My sake ! What's ^500 to make all this fuss 
 about ? Why, if I lost it, what is it ? Also, I'm not going 
 to lose it, I'm going to make a coup I and Robert," the old 
 man had entered at that moment, and she greeted him with 
 a radiant smile. " It's just as well you've come," she said, 
 " Mr. Peter really does not understand business. I want to 
 clear up these accounts, and we can't agree as to how it is to 
 be done. Tell me, am I at liberty to play the unjust steward 
 a bit ? Clearly these good people don't much expect to get 
 their money, which is very rude of them don't you think 
 by way of punishment we might knock a little off each bill ? 
 They'll be so frightfully pleased to get anything they won't 
 fuss about not getting all. And when afterwards they find 
 out every one's been paid they will observe our credit has 
 been good all the time, better than ever, and feel awfully 
 sold." 
 
 Thus Desire addressed herself to work, and Peter, not 
 convinced but unable to help himself, gave way. The 
 500 was invested in Grimstones', and Peter inly registered 
 the interest on it as the debt the firm must pay before all 
 others and under all conditions, until such time as it was 
 possible to refund the principal. 
 
 But though in the office Desire was an independent and 
 somewhat turbulent element, not readily conforming to 
 all old ways, outside she conformed in a surprising manner 
 to the totally new life and ways j more, she liked them, 
 almost hungrily and eagerly liked them. She lived in the 
 house at present. She had thought of rooms in the town at 
 first j but the town was a long way off, and rooms not easy 
 to get. Also, she quickly realized that to deal properly with 
 Grimstones' you needed to live with it, as the founder and 
 
 216
 
 DESIRE 
 
 his successors had ; she was anxious enough to do so on her 
 own account, but she was not sure of the other members of 
 the household. But it seemed no other idea had ever 
 entered their heads, to both Peter and Mrs. Grimstone 
 it was a matter of course that she should live with them. 
 So it came about that she did so, telling herself the while 
 that if it did not answer she could always go ; but at the 
 same time curiously grateful to them for expecting her, for 
 making her one with themselves a thing she somehow felt 
 to be rare with them. 
 
 It was only last Monday she came, in a wet August 
 twilight when the grey house looked curiously, yet restfully, 
 lonely among the grey hills. A silent house, she found it, 
 with the reposeful silence of deep water ; reserved too, it 
 felt to her, yet not gloomy, in spite of the prisoned life of 
 the disabled master. Essentially a place where men lived and 
 died, not merely ate and slept ; where they worked at their 
 allotted task, where things befell with the slow precision, 
 the inevitableness of nature. She had dreaded respectable 
 monotony, it never once occurred to her to think of this as 
 such ; to her there seemed a spirit informing this, a feeling 
 of a past behind, a future not necessarily a good one, 
 but a real one before. It was alive, in a still, shut-in, 
 yet intense way new to her, alive and something that 
 mattered. The very routine of the life appealed to her 
 in some odd fashion. The orderly way in which things 
 befell, as they had befallen for many years, pleased her in 
 spite of her not very orderly characteristics, and she at once 
 unconsciously fell into line with it as much as she could, 
 disliking her own unpunctuality as she would have disliked 
 picnic papers in a wood. As, on the night of her arrival, 
 she stood in the large white room allotted to her, she had 
 felt it must always be tidy. And throughout the week it 
 had been so tidy and with comparatively little effort on 
 
 217
 
 DESIRE 
 
 her part, too that Barton would hardly have known it for 
 hers. 
 
 It is questionable if before she came any one had speculated 
 at all as to what position she was to occupy in the house. 
 She herself seldom thought about such things, and unconsci- 
 ously and at once she slipped into a position which had long 
 wanted filling the position of a species of daughter to Mrs. 
 Grimstone. Rather an unusual daughter, perhaps, but then 
 she was rather an unusual person. Not that Mrs. Grimstone 
 found it out, she put down all the surprisingness she found 
 in Desire to her own ignorance. 
 
 From the very beginning Desire's heart went out to Mrs. 
 Grimstone. There was something in the simple old lady 
 which touched her hitherto-undeveloped sense of veneration ; 
 something in the welcome to herself and quiet acceptance of 
 her which roused her sense of gratitude curiously. Desire, 
 not readily given to loving her own sex, felt at once that she 
 could love Mrs. Grimstone with a love part maternal, part 
 filial, entirely willing to serve. So, from almost the outset, 
 she had taken her position, a daughter who gave a deference 
 that sat quaintly yet becomingly on a woman of her size 
 and distinction ; one who paid a hundred small attentions 
 and services, such as are not always rendered by daughters 
 now-a-days, and which Mrs. Grimstone found new and 
 pleasant, but very surprising. Desire, who had always had 
 almost more of the service, attention and dues of woman- 
 hood than she wanted, found the surprise and gratitude 
 pathetic and almost humiliating. To her it suggested a 
 somewhat bare and hard life when so little could be counted 
 for so much ; few people in the past could have been 
 attentive to Mrs. Grimstone if she thought so much of this. 
 Peter was good to her. Desire, sharply critical on the 
 point, admitted it, but it was with a different kind of 
 goodness, a sacrifice so complete that the old lady never 
 
 218
 
 DESIRE 
 
 recognized it as such. The things which she lacked, and 
 presumably had always lacked, were the thousand small 
 amenities which had been to Desire as matter of course and 
 unobserved as the air she breathed, and the man in her was 
 roused to pay them, as the woman in her was roused by 
 something else in Mrs. Grimstone. 
 
 On the first Sunday after Desire arrived she accompanied 
 Mrs. Grimstone to chapel. It was rather a bare chapel and 
 not very large, but too large now for the congregation. 
 The Dissenters of Twycross were not so numerous as they 
 used to be, less because of any increase in the church 
 following than because religion was not the important 
 factor it used to be, especially with the young people. 
 Those who attended the chapel now were mostly elderly, 
 the heads of families or the remains of them, old men or 
 widows or the unmarried daughters left at home. Desire 
 was quickly conscious of the decay which had come upon 
 the place and felt sorry for it, and moved to a sympathetic 
 attention and support. Mr. Williams, not used to the 
 glowing and obvious attention that day bestowed on his 
 discourse, may perhaps be forgiven for rather misunderstand- 
 ing its cause, and thinking that his almost-forgotten dream 
 of stirring and touching a congregation's heart was near 
 fulfilment. Many men, of a vast deal wider experience, 
 had made not dissimilar mistakes with Desire. 
 
 The congregation no doubt found Desire rather interest- 
 ing, but they would the rare advent of any stranger. She 
 did not puzzle them as she would a more sophisticated 
 gathering ; in Twycross they hardly knew enough of the 
 world to know she was of it ; and the majority knew so 
 little of the Grimstones, who were outside the life of the 
 town, as to know and care little of or for their doings. The 
 Harveys waited outside after chapel to say a few words to 
 Mrs. Grimstone, to ask after her husband, and to hear 
 
 219
 
 DESIRE 
 
 Desire's name. Otherwise no one spoke to them until they 
 had gone some little way up the sunny road, when Mr. 
 Williams caught up to them. He did so ostensively to 
 congratulate Mrs. Grimstone on the news he had recently 
 heard that Alexander and his wife were about to come and 
 settle in Twycross. 
 
 To Mrs. Grimstone this was hardly a matter of con- 
 gratulation ; in spite of her wish to see her granddaughter, 
 she could not but feel that to have the household near under 
 the present circumstances must be distressing. There was 
 no possibility of reconciliation between father and son now, 
 the time for that was past ; indeed, Alexander had helped 
 to make it so, for his father's present state was largely owing 
 to him and his visit in the spring. Mrs. Grimstone, though 
 she never spoke of it, was aware of this, and aware, too, that 
 it would not be consideration for his father's state or desire 
 to make amends which brought Alexander to Twycross. 
 Mr. Williams, no doubt, thought it was ; he also thought 
 and said that she must be pleased for family breaches to be 
 healed, and to have the support of her elder son's near 
 neighbourhood. She answered him briefly, and with some 
 little distress of manner ; Desire wondered how the good 
 man escaped perceiving it, but he did. 
 
 " They come at the end of the month, I've heard," he said, 
 " to the River House ? That is a long way from you, nearly 
 two miles it must be ; you could wish them nearer. But no 
 doubt you are thankful to have them at all, to have them 
 and their little children there is a family, is there not ? " 
 
 " One little girl," Mrs. Grimstone answered ; " there 
 were two, the other one died in the spring, after whooping- 
 cough." 
 
 The subject was so tender a one with Mrs. Grimstone 
 and the good Mr. Williams so unlikely, in Desire's opinion, 
 to deal suitably with it, that she came to the rescue. Con- 
 
 220
 
 DESIRE 
 
 sequently the conversation soon reached the sermon, the 
 bourne she was perfectly well aware the preacher had all 
 along wanted it to reach. On that subject she talked with 
 him till they reached the place where a road, by which he 
 could return to his house, branched off from the one they 
 must follow ; and though the talk dispelled Mr. Williams' 
 momentary dream of the nature of his hearer and her 
 interest, it still left him in a pleasant glow. When he 
 parted from her, dismissed courteously but frankly and in 
 a way unknown here, he had a feeling all over him as if he 
 had drunk a glass of good wine, or stood in the warmth of 
 a pleasant sun an effect which he afterwards characterized, 
 rightly, as " strange, very strange." 
 
 Desire and Mrs. Grimstone went on up the hill alone ; Mrs. 
 Grimstone went very slowly, she was a good deal upset by the 
 mention of Alexander's coming and by the revived memory 
 of the dead child she had never seen. Desire knew it and said 
 nothing, only accommodated her pace to the older woman's. 
 
 "I'm afraid I'm a dreadful creep," Mrs. Grimstone 
 apologized once, pausing for breath. 
 
 " So am I," said Desire, " especially in hot weather." 
 
 She took off Mrs. Grimstone's mantle and carried it the 
 rest of the way. 
 
 " Not take it off ? " she said, when the wearer protested. 
 " Why not, vain lady ? Do you think you don't look so 
 nice without it ? Fancy sacrificing your feelings to your 
 appearance ! Besides, you look nice anyhow, and you know 
 it. Oh, you don't think I ought to carry it ? Is that it ? 
 Well, I'll promise not to drop it in the dust, and for the rest 
 what's the good of lusty young women like me if they are 
 never to do anything for folks like you, who have spent all 
 their lives doing for other people ? " 
 
 So they went slowly on their way, and when the top of 
 the hill was reached and they were on the lonely white road 
 
 221
 
 DESIRE 
 
 which ran past the house Mrs. Grimstone began to talk of 
 the dead child. And Desire listened, sympathetic, wholly 
 pitiful, yet wondering if anywhere in her heart there could 
 be dormant a similar feeling which similar circumstances, or 
 any circumstances, could arouse. 
 
 Peter had spent the morning with his father he frequently 
 did so on Sundays. To Desire one of the strangest things 
 in the household was the place the disabled man had in it. 
 He was not thrust away and ignored, the attendance on him 
 a necessary evil to be rendered and deplored, or heroically 
 borne and not mentioned by those who must perform it ; 
 nor yet was he and his affliction an overwhelming, gloomy 
 burden, darkening all life and always before all eyes. It was 
 more like the place Death has in some of the finest Renais- 
 sance conceptions, just a fact. A solemn fact, perhaps, but 
 not an extraordinary one ; one having its share in life not 
 morbidly insisted upon, nor morbidly hidden ; neither obscur- 
 ing life by its sorrow, nor obscured by life's joy. To Desire 
 the attitude was new and somewhat beautiful too, so essenti- 
 ally sane and true. She searched for its origin and found it 
 in Peter, and at first was surprised and afterwards not, it was 
 completely unconscious and quite natural to him. 
 
 This Sunday at the Grimstones' was very unlike any 
 Sundays Desire had previously known. It was a fast-day 
 rather than a feast-day, so as to save the servants work ; it 
 was almost Puritanical in its aloofness from the rest of the 
 week, yet she liked it. She thoroughly enjoyed the cold 
 dinner with its absence of service ; she wanted herself to 
 clear the table afterwards, till it was explained to her that 
 Mary, who had an etiquette of her own, would be offended 
 thereby. So she turned her attention to selecting a suitable 
 book for Mrs. Grimstone to doze over in her husband's room, 
 and then, as Robert was not back from chapel, went out to 
 look at the oven fires. 
 
 222
 
 DESIRE 
 
 Peter followed her, so did Paddy. The dog had estab- 
 lished himself as a privileged inmate of the house during the 
 past week. He had ventured in and out ever since Ezra's 
 last illness, but somewhat surreptitiously. Since Desire's 
 coming he had done it boldly, he had recognized her as an 
 ally. When she went out to the ovens after dinner he looked 
 wistfully from her to Peter, but when it was evident Peter 
 was going too he was clearly satisfied. 
 
 Desire was not quite satisfied. " Do you think I can't 
 stoke ? " she asked. 
 
 Peter was sure she could, and handed her the shovel. 
 Whereupon she stoked with great vigour and satisfaction, 
 and failed quite to fasten the oven door after. 
 
 Beyond the ovens there was a disused shed ; an old bench 
 stood there near the doorway, and on it were lying some 
 papers. They were covered in the white dust which of 
 necessity accumulated fast on everything ; but Desire, pass- 
 ing out that way, saw that they were drawings, the design 
 for some machine. She paused to examine them. 
 
 " What are these ? " she said. 
 
 Peter had stayed to fasten the oven doors. " Those ? " 
 he said. " Only some designs, nothing. At least I'm afraid 
 they are nothing." 
 
 " Your designs ? " 
 
 She took them up and examined them. " I don't under- 
 stand," she said ; w is it a machine for doing something to 
 plates ? This looks like a press but you don't use a press 
 in plate making, at least you don't here." 
 
 " No," Peter said, " nor anywhere else either. It never has 
 been used. I just drew this to my own idea, I don't know 
 that it would really work theoretically it should. The 
 idea has been in my head for months, grinding round slowly ? 
 as things do, till it got evolved so far as this." 
 
 " Tell me about it," she said, and sat down on the bench. 
 
 223
 
 DESIRE 
 
 u Fin afraid there isn't much to tell,** he answered, " only 
 that I saw, as any one who looked at pottery remains and 
 things in museums must see, that pressure has a great effect 
 on days. Such an effect that in some few cases, where the 
 clays are suitable and the pressure suitable, it brings a 
 shininess, almost like a glaze, to the surface. 1 * 
 
 " And you have designed a machine to press plates to that 
 extent, so that I see, I see the idea so that they as it were 
 glaze themselves, and don't have to be dipped in a glaze 
 preparation as they are now ! " 
 
 a I rdon't know that I have exactly done that." Peter 
 never considered that he had done a thing which could be 
 spoken of till it was an accomplished physical fact at which 
 stage of affairs, it must be admitted, it had rather a tendency 
 to cease interesting him. 
 
 Desire, however, was different ; in her own mind she was 
 already applying the designed press. " Surely," she said, " it is 
 a thing much wanted ! It would be a considerable saving. 
 You'd do away with the dipping entirely. Would you do 
 away with the firing, too ? " 
 
 u Not the second firing, but perhaps the first." 
 
 She asked him how. She had during the past week 
 watched the process of manufacture with her usual enthusi- 
 astic attention, and she knew enough of the mechanical part 
 now to follow an explanation roughly. 
 
 " Supposing," he said, a this were a real thing, and not 
 just an idea, it would be like this The clay would be 
 mixed, but used dry, instead of wet as now. Oh yes, that can 
 be done, I have tried it. Nearly every potter has a different 
 way of mixing clay. I have tried lots, it is the only way to 
 discover what is best ; besides, it is interesting. I have found 
 that it could be used dry if one could design a press suitable 
 for pressing it into shape. And if one did that there would 
 be no need for the first firing, the biscuit fire ; the ware 
 
 224
 
 DESIRE 
 
 could be glazed and fired in the second firing, right away at 
 once. I am practically certain this could be done ; what I 
 am not so sure about is the self-producing glaze." 
 
 "But," Desire exclaimed, "surely that does not matter 
 much. If you could do this, use the clay dry, I mean, and 
 do without the first firing, the saving would be such that you 
 need hardly bother about the other ; why, time and cost, too, 
 would be reduced almost by half ? We could turn out plates 
 and dishes as no one else in the kingdom could ! Cups and 
 jugs could not be made that way, I suppose, they are the 
 wrong shape j but that would not matter, we could make a 
 speciality of plates fortunately you already seem to do more 
 in them than in anything else. We may make a fortune 
 yet ! " 
 
 Peter had not gone into the question of cost and saving ; 
 he was quite ready to admit the possibility of some of what 
 she said, but clearly his own interest was in the other matter, 
 the part she had set aside as of negligible importance. " It 
 ought to be possible," he said, with thoughtful eyes on the 
 design ; " it ought to be possible to mix the clay so that a 
 glaze is self-formed in suitable circumstances. Possibly the 
 addition of some glaze ingredients might do it. They should 
 come to the surface on pressure, that is the line on which I 
 have been working." 
 
 He turned the drawings over, and Desire saw on the back 
 his notes. She perceived also that he had gone much further 
 into the subject than his words would lead one to suppose ; 
 but at the same time she perceived that his interest was 
 more really in the speculative than the practical side. He 
 had gone into it somewhat as he had written The Dreamer. 
 Suddenly she began to understand. He had done both 
 because an idea was in him, vague but strong, because it 
 had gradually taken possession of him and had had to come 
 out and be unravelled slowly. It was his way to do things 
 15 225
 
 DESIRE 
 
 so, and it was the doing that mattered, not the thing or the 
 turning of it to pecuniary account ; and his gift was the 
 ability to work this way it might as well be applied to one 
 thing as another. He was not a novelist or an inventor 
 really, he was a man who could see things clearly, and from 
 a long way off puzzle his way to them in time, and then 
 slowly build up a fabric to the vision-seen pattern. A 
 constructor, as she herself had called him in careless speech ; 
 he did construct, and his powers, halted in one direction, had 
 naturally and inevitably found themselves another. 
 
 " Will you tell me all about it ? " she said, with a touch of 
 humility. 
 
 " Does it interest you ? " he asked. 
 
 And when she told him with unmistakable sincerity that 
 it did, he explained what he could. He made clear to her, 
 not only his experiments and the methods of his designs, but 
 also what heretofore had not been so clear to himself, the 
 possibility of the thing being used on a working scale. 
 
 " Why ! " she exclaimed at last, " don't you see, if 
 you had the machine you could begin work with it to- 
 morrow ? You could turn out plates loads of plates, crates 
 of plates ! " 
 
 Peter considered a moment. " I almost think you are 
 right," he said. 
 
 " Almost ! " She laughed at the uncertainty of his tone. 
 " You will not easily be foresworn, oh, Cautious One ! If 
 this thing is possible, practical, perfect on a small scale it is 
 on a large ! " 
 
 " I don't believe the idea of a large scale application had 
 really come to me yet," Peter confessed. 
 
 " No," she returned ; " but it would in time, though 
 it might have been a long time. That's your method. 
 You're a builder up, a very slow builder, but one who 
 builds rather remarkable things, whether they are novels or 
 
 226
 
 DESIRE 
 
 plate machines. It's odd, it never struck me you'd do these 
 sort of things though, after all, I suppose there is no real 
 reason why genius shouldn't come out another way when 
 its first way is stopped up." 
 
 " Do you call this genius ? " Peter laughed. " Why, 
 it's what any average foreman in a pottery could do ; it's 
 only seeing what any one might see and deducing from it, 
 and doing it uncommonly slowly too." 
 
 Desire nodded. "Just so," she said, "seeing and pro- 
 ducing or seeing and reproducing all art's that, and most 
 science, and most other things that are worth having. My 
 friend, your inability to observe the common facts of life 
 is as astonishing as your ability to arrive at much more 
 wonderful things by some inside process of your own. 
 But this is beside the point ; let us, as Mr. Williams 
 would say, return to the fruitful subject of our present con- 
 sideration, which is, or should be the putting of ideas on a 
 working scale, and in this, it would seem, the common 
 brain is a useful asset. It's really rather a good thing you've 
 got me. If we had that machine we could begin turning 
 out plates to-morrow. If we had it next week or next 
 month we could begin turning them out then. Clearly the 
 thing to be done is to have the machine made as quickly as 
 possible made in pieces at different places, so that no one 
 gets the whole idea two places, or at the most three, would 
 do, I should think, and the pieces could be stuck together on 
 the premises. You and I and a fat-headed local blacksmith 
 ought to be able to get it together with the aid of the 
 drawings, some bad language, arid infinite patience. It will 
 be a bother, but cheaper than patenting it and, I fancy, 
 safer in our circumstances. The question is, where shall we 
 get the bits made ? " 
 
 " The question," Peter corrected, " is how can the bits 
 be paid for ? And the answer, I'm afraid, is Nohow." 
 
 227
 
 DESIRE 
 
 "The answer make a grimace, you won't like it " 
 she made one for him " is pearls ! " 
 
 " It isn't anything of the sort, that is out of the question." 
 
 " Why ? " 
 
 " You have already spent " 
 
 Desire laughed. " Not all they fetched. Remember there 
 were quite a good lot of them, and I drove a bargain, a 
 hard bargain ; they fetched more than five hundred pounds." 
 
 " I don't know anything about their value," Peter said, 
 " it isn't that I mean you see, you you have nothing " 
 
 " Nothing ? " Desire interrupted. " Eight bracelets, three 
 diamond stars, these earrings " she took one of the pearls 
 from her ears and held it up against the other, turning, so 
 that he might see. "They match, do you see, match 
 perfectly. They're worth a lot of money. There are some 
 other things too, not to mention that.' my face is my fortune ' 
 ' a poor thing, but my own ! ' ' 
 
 "You know what I mean," Peter said ; " you have 
 already spent .500." 
 
 " No, I haven't. I've invested it in Grimstones', and 
 I'm going to invest some more." 
 
 But with Peter this way of expressing it meant nothing. 
 " It's good of you to put it like that," he said ; " like you. 
 But it doesn't really make any difference to the thing." 
 
 It did not, really. She knew suddenly that it was the 
 feeling, not the fact, that Peter was talking about, and was 
 conscious of it to the exclusion of everything else ; phrasing 
 did not matter much to one who was concerned with things 
 as they are, not as they look. he felt half angry and half 
 afraid in a way discovered. 
 
 " Does it ever strike you," she said, " that you are a 
 greedy beast ? All the obligations must be on one side with 
 you ? You have always been putting me under obligations 
 
 228
 
 DESIRE 
 
 ever since I've known you, piling up the debt by first one 
 service, then another, and now that there's a chance of my 
 supplying a few pounds for a thing wanted by me as well as 
 you you won't accept it. It's just touchy vanity and 
 gluttony ! " 
 
 " I have already accepted " Peter began, but she 
 
 interrupted. 
 
 " No, you haven't, don't flatter yourself you did anything 
 so gracious ; that's an investment and made against your will. 
 You could have got the money outside if you had tried, at 
 a higher rate I dare say, because no outsider would have had 
 such good security as I give myself. This is different, I 
 own j it isn't an investment ; it will pay me in the long run, 
 of course, but that's not the reason why I want to do it, it 
 has nothing to do with it. I want to because I want to, 
 because I believe in the thing and in you because you are, 
 you " 
 
 She broke off, finding the explanation difficult. " Won't 
 you let me ? " she asked, with a shy softening of the voice 
 and a little appealing movement of the hands. 
 
 Peter's eyes darkened suddenly, then glowed. For an 
 instant a feeling came upon Desire, a feeling that he would 
 take the hand and kiss it so strong was it that she almost 
 felt the touch of his lips. But he did not, he grasped the 
 drawings tight with his own hands and accepted her offer in 
 a word or two words, she did not know which, then went 
 out. 
 
 And she, left alone, stood a moment where she was, the 
 colour ridiculously flushing her cheeks. She was glad he 
 had not done it, glad he was still Peter of the-world-of- 
 things-as-they-never-are j angry, too, that she had imagined 
 it at least 
 
 229
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 MR. DODD of Grimstones' sat in the office. Mr. Dodd 
 was the traveller, the only one the firm possessed, but an 
 exceedingly good one, too good for his work, A small, 
 blithe person, possessed of one thing no one else in the firm 
 possessed a great respect for Peter not as a man of business 
 but as a writer. Mr. Dodd was a great admirer of the poets, 
 especially the sentimental ones ; Peter was not a poet, but as 
 a fiction writer he ranked next in the little man's estimation, 
 and so, business apart, he was seen in a sort of inky halo 
 which at times helped to reconcile the seer to things otherwise 
 unsatisfactory. 
 
 Mr. Dodd had made formal acquaintance with Desire on 
 one of his periodical visits to the works. He had been rather 
 overwhelmed by her, and described her afterwards as " a high 
 stepper " and " a regular toff"." He always addressed her as 
 " Miss," and obviously felt awkward and ill at ease in her too 
 impressive company. This September morning he was 
 making her further acquaintance, in his business capacity. 
 He did not find it easy to talk business to her, he kept 
 feeling she was on the wrong side of the counter somehow ; 
 the feeling was further complicated by the disconcerting way 
 the shadows in her hair glowed and the manner in which 
 her thick white neck curved at least he found these things 
 disconcerting, especially when his straying eye was caught 
 by hers. 
 
 Desire herself felt the interview was not progressing as 
 
 230
 
 DESIRE 
 
 it ought. She did not understand Dodd, and thought him 
 rather an odd little man, till, quite by chance, a sympathetic 
 chord was struck. Then straightway she forgot all about 
 his oddness, and he forgot the counter. 
 
 Dodd was referring to some incident. "It was when I 
 was down Pringdale way," he said. 
 
 " Pringdale ? " Desire said. " I didn't know you worked 
 so far down as that." 
 
 Dodd turned red. " I don't," he confessed ; " not usually ; 
 it wasn't exactly in the way of business I went there ; there 
 are some dorgs I know there was a match " 
 
 He spoke awkwardly and apologetically, but he need not 
 have apologized. Desire's eyes were alight. Sport, even this 
 humble form, appealed to one of the man instincts in her 
 nature. In less than five minutes they were talking like old 
 friends. Dodd was telling about dogs, wonderful dogs ; he 
 was describing matches, giving the points of the competitors 
 and, with veneration, the names of the owners. She was 
 immensely interested, and soon there was between them the 
 fraternity, which has nothing to do with equality, that sport 
 alone can bring. She offered him a cigarette, and he 
 smoked it unconcernedly in her presence as he spoke with 
 authority of what he understood. When at last they 
 returned to business he talked with a freedom and ease not 
 before possible. 
 
 " It's a blackguard trick ! " he said then. " A dam dirty 
 trick, but some one's doing it. There's an exact copy of our 
 dinner ware being put on the market at a price under ours. 
 I've seen some of the stuff, and I could hardly tell it from 
 ours." 
 
 " Who is doing it ? " Desire asked. " Alexander Grim- 
 stone ? " 
 
 Dodd shrugged his shoulders. " He don't manufacture 
 
 231
 
 DESIRE 
 
 himself," he said ; " still, he could get it made for him when 
 once he'd got our patterns." 
 
 Desire leaned out of the window and called Peter. 
 " Wait a minute," she said to Dodd j " Mr. Grimstone had 
 better hear this." 
 
 " It sounds like Alexander," she told Peter when he came. 
 " Go on, Mr. Dodd, tell us all about it." 
 
 Dodd did as requested, at the end Desire looked across at 
 Peter. 
 
 " If it is Alexander," she said, " he can't make much out 
 of it j he would have to pay for the making, a good price, 
 too, for a job of that sort and then sell under our price." 
 
 " Immediate profit is not necessarily his object," Peter said. 
 
 And Desire, remembering the credit incident, was forced 
 to admit it. 
 
 u Where did you see the things ? " Peter asked Dodd, and, 
 when he heard, he said thoughtfully, " Old customers. He 
 has a good memory ; it is more than nine years since he left, 
 but he has remembered the old people ; he'll make a bid for 
 the list of the newer names before long." 
 
 Dodd breathed hard. " I wish he'd make it to me, sir," 
 he said. 
 
 " I shouldn't be surprised if you had your wish," Peter 
 told him. "Who are making for him, do you know ? " 
 
 Dodd was not sure but fancied it was one of two firms. 
 
 " Can you find out ? Do, if you can, and let me know." 
 
 He could easily ascertain, Dodd said, and then began to 
 speak of the damage already done and likely to be done, but 
 Peter interrupted. " We'll manufacture for him," he said ; 
 " get me the name of the makers, Dodd, and I'll offer to 
 make for them under the price they are doing for him." 
 
 But Dodd looked doubtful. " Can't be done, anyhow to 
 pay," he said ; " you'd have to cut it too fine." 
 
 232
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " The hollow ware, yes," Peter said ; " we'd have to lose 
 on that, but we ought to be able to make up on the flat, 
 plates and things." 
 
 Desire fancied so, too ; the pieces of the new machine 
 which should make it possible were already on order. Dodd 
 knew nothing of this and he was still doubtful. 
 
 " You'll have to cut a good bit under, sir," he warned ; 
 " they neither of 'em are the sort to give up a job of that 
 kind unless the butter lies that side." 
 
 " That'll be all right," Desire said gaily ; " we'll do it. 
 Mr. Grimstone is Works Manager and I'm Business 
 Manager, and we will manage, you'll see." 
 
 " Oh," Dodd said, with the look of one suddenly 
 enlightened, " you're Business Manager, miss ? That's 
 another pair of shoes. Of course it'll run through then, as 
 easy as winking." 
 
 Desire laughed, the utter sincerity of the tribute left her 
 no alternative. " You think I mostly run things through 
 when I start ? " she said. " I believe I do ; people find me such 
 a nuisance otherwise. I do unless it is too long an effort 
 a monotonous strain then Mr. Grimstone comes to the 
 rescue." 
 
 Her voice dropped curiously at the last words, she was 
 remembering the grey days at the Commercial College. To 
 Dodd the drop was a new fascination, he forgot for the 
 moment to explain that he meant no pottery or other man- 
 managed institution would refuse her anything. Before he 
 had recollected it she offered him a hand in farewell, a strong, 
 warm hand, larger than his own, and with a grasp which he 
 said " made a fellow feel queer." The curl above her neck, 
 and the curve of the neck itself just below the ear by Jove ! 
 a fellow would remember them a long time they also might 
 make him feel queer. Dodd, outside, straightened up and 
 
 233
 
 DESIRE 
 
 almost physically steadied himself as if he had had a long 
 and very exciting drink. His opinion of Peter had gone up. 
 " A man who keeps his head with that at his elbow could 
 keep it in a ' 'change panic,' was the opinion he took to the 
 railway station. 
 
 A little later that same day he met Alexander Grimstone ; 
 it was in the pottery town where Alexander's business lay. 
 The meeting was a chance one, but apparently Alexander 
 was glad of it, for he crossed the road to speak to Dodd. 
 
 " The man I want," he said. " I rather wanted a word 
 with you. Got any time on your hands ? " 
 
 Dodd had, and as he expressed compliance they went into 
 a quiet bar together. 
 
 It did not take Alexander long to come to his business. 
 " I was wondering if you knew of a man," he said ; " I rather 
 want one or shall soon ; a brisk fellow, who knows the 
 trade and his way about, one who's in the business some one 
 like yourself'd do." 
 
 Dodd acknowledged the compliment and mentioned one 
 or two names. 
 
 None, however, met Alexander's requirements, he had 
 something against each. " Won't do," he said ; " not good 
 enough for my money. What about yourself, are you open 
 to a job ? " 
 
 " No, thanks," Dodd replied ; " I'm still with the old 
 firm." 
 
 " I don't know that that's much credit to you," Alexander 
 observed dryly ; " still they're hanging on, I hear, that's 
 something, seeing the old man's laid by." 
 
 " They're likely to hang on my time," was Dodd's 
 opinion. 
 
 " Think so ? So much the better for me some day. 
 Here's luck to 'em." Alexander drank the toast. " There 
 
 234
 
 DESIRE 
 
 were some queer rumours about them in the summer," he 
 said, " but they've blown over, nothing in 'em, I suppose ? " 
 
 " Nothing," Dodd answered ; he had very little knowledge, 
 none at first hand, on the subject. He also knew few details 
 of the disagreement between the Grimstone brothers, the 
 justice of Peter's suspicions of Alexander, or the truth or 
 otherwise of Alexander's insinuation that he would eventually 
 have an interest in the old firm. But he knew on which 
 side Miss Quebell was, and that is the sort of knowledge 
 which experience shows us has a tendency to bias a man's 
 judgment. 
 
 There was, however, only one bias Alexander Grimstone 
 understood. " It can't pay you ; their work isn't up to your 
 standard now." 
 
 Dodd replied that it was well enough though he would 
 not mind an improvement both in work and salary. 
 
 Alexander laughed. " Won't get it there," he said ; 
 " better chuck it before it chucks you. It'll come to that 
 sooner or later, you know, since the old man's been laid by 
 things have gone. You don't think so ? What ? You 
 believe in Peter ? " 
 
 Dodd thought of the woman who had stood at Peter 
 Grimstone's elbow, whose eyes had flashed and questioned and 
 shone for him, the scent of whose clothing must always be 
 in his nostrils, and he said, with emphatic conviction, " I've 
 a great opinion of him." 
 
 Alexander laughed again but said he was glad to hear it. 
 But the gladness did not prevent him from reiterating his 
 advice as to leaving. "You're too good for their work," he 
 said ; " a cheaper man would suit them as well, and a bigger 
 job and bigger screw suit you a deal better ; my advice 
 is chuck it." 
 
 " And come to you ? " Dodd asked. 
 235
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " If you like," Alexander answered carelessly, but he had 
 the glasses refilled. 
 
 Dodd coughed, he was not much of an actor and he had 
 some ado to hide his feelings. 
 
 " What'd you pay ? " he asked. 
 
 "Oh, we wouldn't quarrel about that," Alexander 
 answqred. 
 
 But Dodd wanted particulars and in time he got them, or 
 as near to them as Alexander would go and the magnitude 
 of the offer almost broke down his self-control. 
 
 " That's for something more than my services, I suppose ? " 
 he said, with overdone slyness. 
 
 Alexander shrugged his shoulders. " What you remember, 
 you remember," he said ; " anything you remember " 
 
 " In the way of connection and names, and so on ? " 
 
 Alexander moved impatiently. " You're not a fool, Dodd," 
 he said. 
 
 " No, nor a knave either," Dodd burst out. " You think 
 I'm a blooming rat, Mr. Alexander Grimstone, that's what 
 you think, and Grimstones' is a sinking ship ! Well, you're 
 in error ; I'm not a rat, and if I was I'd have more sense than 
 to desert what's not sinking." 
 
 But Alexander, who was by no means over-sensitive to 
 such outbursts, merely laughed. " Started a conscience ? " 
 he said. " Looks as if it were young and pretty foolish, too." 
 
 " You let my conscience alone and I'll let yours," Dodd 
 retorted, and muttered something about the latter not being 
 difficult to do. 
 
 Alexander ignored it if he heard it. " You think Grim- 
 stones' is a good going concern ? " he said. " And it'll pay 
 you best to stay there ? " 
 
 Dodd would not commit himself as to his reason. 
 " You're altogether wrong about them, that's what you are," 
 
 236
 
 DESIRE 
 
 he said ; " right off the track. Things may have been rough, 
 thanks to you as likely as not, but that's done with ; there's 
 another horse in that stable now and don't you forget it 
 Here, miss " turning to the barmaid " I'm paying for 
 mine," and tossing a coin he walked out, a proud man for all 
 that he had saved Alexander the pain of paying for what he 
 had not got. 
 
 He felt taller by several inches for this difference with 
 Alexander Grimstone, and so particularly cheerful that when 
 he reached home his half-blind old mother noticed it. The 
 old lady's existence, by the way, made any other home and 
 settlement out of the question for him on his present income ; 
 but it did not stand in the way of his being an honest man. 
 " It does a fellow good sometimes," so he told her, " to stand 
 up and show he's a chap that can keep his hands clean 
 and smash the dirty face of any one who doesn't ! " And 
 she, of course, quite agreed with him, even though she did 
 not exactly understand what he was referring to, and 
 certainly had neither the ability nor the wish to go into the 
 nice question of motives to decide how much of strict 
 honesty Mr. Dodd possessed, and how much he was swayed 
 by that subtle sex influence which makes a man decline to 
 act as "she'd think caddish," even when he knows quite 
 well the particular " she " doesn't think about him any way. 
 
 As for Alexander Grimstone he, in the tortuous but 
 mainly successful course of his life, had met with a certain 
 amount of plain speech from offended fellow-men, and so his 
 feelings were not sensitive to verbal insults. He put Dodd's 
 words down to his account, of course, to be wiped off when 
 opportunity offered ; otherwise he troubled nothing about 
 them beyond the information they conveyed that Dodd 
 was not going to sell his firm, and that firm, in his estimation 
 at least, still stood as formerly. 
 
 237
 
 DESIRE 
 
 The man himself believed in it else he would not stick to 
 it, so Alexander reasoned the question was, with what 
 justice ? Alexander was not sure on that point, but from 
 sundry things he had heard he rather fancied there was more 
 justice in the claim than he cared to admit. Dodd had 
 spoken of " another horse in the stable " and the saying gave 
 Alexander food for reflection. Some one was backing 
 Grimstones' ; the difficulties he had arranged for them in 
 the summer had been met, and profitably met ; he had 
 suspected a backer then, Dodd's words pointed emphatically 
 to one now. There must be money somewhere, but in spite 
 of all his efforts he could not find out where. There was 
 no new blood in the firm, no visible outside interest j the 
 old man would have been dead against such a thing as he 
 was dead against any innovation ; Peter was following on 
 his lines in the main with the single trivial exception of the 
 employment of a woman clerk. 
 
 Alexander had never regarded, and had never had reason 
 to regard, women as anything but a less than negligible 
 quantity in the only affairs that interested him j he certainly 
 did not regard this woman as anything more ; however, 
 when he had failed in other directions it did occur to him he 
 might learn something through her. From Peter, he knew 
 from past experience, one never heard anything ; whatever 
 he could not do Peter could hold his tongue. But women 
 all talked, especially when they got together ; this woman 
 would talk, he might get at information that way, at least, 
 he would get at what she knew, and she must know some- 
 thing even if it was only a very little. 
 
 This decision of Alexander's was come to a short time 
 before the removal of his household from the old house near 
 his business in the squalid pottery town to the more com- 
 modious River House in Twycross. The removal was an 
 
 238
 
 DESIRE 
 
 upheaval, conducted in the worst possible way and with the 
 greatest possible amount of muddle and waste that was 
 inevitable in anything managed by Mrs. Alexander Grim- 
 stone. She managed this unaided ; Alexander, who had 
 retained a room near his business, lived there during the 
 period and left her to her own devices after having stipulated 
 for the amount of money to be laid out. When, however, 
 she had spent nearly a fortnight with workmen and char- 
 women, and pastry-cook meals on carpetless floors, he 
 announced his intention of coming home for a Sunday. 
 And Mrs. Alexander, bemoaning herself, without ceasing, 
 to any one who would listen and some who did not, 
 was compelled to get part of the new house habitable, 
 for her fear of him was greater even than her general 
 incompetency. 
 
 On Saturday night Alexander came, and on Sunday 
 morning he and his wife she against her will, though she 
 knew better than to say so went to chapel. 
 
 The congregation, no doubt, were much interested in the 
 event ; Alexander felt that he was recognized by a good 
 many many of whom he knew nothing. That probably 
 was on account of his wife, who was an inveterate gossip, 
 and could not live without neighbouring, and so had already 
 made some acquaintances. When she came out of chapel 
 one or two people spoke to her and asked after her cistern, or 
 her lost hammer, or whatever tribulation had served as an 
 introduction. Alexander paid small attention to any of them 
 except the Harveys, who, as friends, after a sort, of his 
 father, deserved a little more of his attention. He was 
 speaking to Mr. Harvey when Mrs. Grimstone and Desire 
 came out of the chapel. 
 
 Mrs. Grimstone's face was faintly flushed, otherwise she 
 was as usual, more than usually self-possessed. Alexander 
 
 2 39
 
 DESIRE 
 
 came to meet her. " Well, mother," he said, " how are 
 you ? Florence ! " 
 
 Florence, in the midst of a cistern explanation, came and 
 was presented to her mother-in-law, to whom she had never 
 before spoken. Most of the congregation had gone by this 
 time; Desire and Mrs. Grimstone, according to their custom, 
 had waited late before leaving the chapel. However, there 
 were still a few people there and Mrs. Grimstone could not, 
 even if she had wished, do other than recognize her daughter- 
 in-law. She did not, however, wish anything different, she 
 received her in a simple matter-of-course fashion and began 
 to ask after the child she had forgotten about everything 
 else. 
 
 " Gladys ? " Mrs. Alexander said, " Oh, she's all right, at 
 least I think so, I haven't seen her for some time. She is 
 staying away, I packed her off, I couldn't do with her while 
 we're moving : goodness knows there was enough without 
 her I have had a time Willis's men " 
 
 No doubt she would have gone on to confide some part of 
 her troubles to Mrs. Grimstone, but Alexander unceremoni- 
 ously cut her short by asking after his father. Whereupon 
 she, by no means resenting that to which she was completely 
 used, turned to another hearer. " I never saw such a place 
 as this," she complained to Desire, " I was trying everywhere 
 on Saturday to get a shade for a clock ; Willis's men said 
 they'd get it for me from town, but I'm sure they won't. It's 
 a horrid old back number of a clock, it belonged to my 
 mother I'd put it in the attic, but Alexander will have it 
 out, and now the shade's gone " 
 
 And so on whenever Alexander did not want the attention 
 of the person to whom she spoke ; when he did she stopped 
 in whatever she was saying and began afresh when there was 
 a chance of bestowing her conversation on a listener. This 
 
 240
 
 DESIRE 
 
 till Alexander was ready to go, which he did without a word 
 to her, she having to hasten after him, her last sentence 
 unfinished. But she was quite used to such treatment 
 and made no comment on it when she caught up with 
 him. She made no comment either on her newly introduced 
 mother-in-law except to say she looked quite a granny in 
 that cloak and bonnet. Alexander did not answer, so she 
 relapsed into silence except once when she complained about 
 the state of the roads : he did not encourage conversation, in 
 fact he so actively discouraged it that she had by now learnt 
 the, to her, difficult lesson of keeping more or less quiet in 
 his company. Even to-day, when she naturally had a great 
 deal to say and to comment on, she was obliged to withhold 
 it, no doubt saving it up for the first new acquaintance she 
 should fall in with. But as it happened she did not have to 
 save it all, for, to her surprise, after dinner that day he 
 referred to the subject of his relations. 
 
 " You've got to go and see them," he announced, to her 
 great astonishment. 
 
 " Yes, you, do you understand ? It's no good me going, 
 just a waste of time, they don't want me. They think I'm 
 responsible for the old man's last fit and 'other things not 
 but what I should go all the same if I wanted to, but I 
 don't, it'd be a clear waste of my time." 
 
 " But," Mrs. Alexander began, " I can't go without you " 
 then seeing by his face that she both could and would if he 
 decreed it she altered her protest. " I can't go without an 
 invitation I'm sure I don't want to force myself where I'm 
 not wanted." 
 
 " You are wanted," he said shortly, " you and the kid ; 
 they'll ask you fast enough, and you've got to go, do you 
 hear ? " 
 
 Mrs. Alexander by this time could recognize an order 
 16 241
 
 DESIRE 
 
 when she got it , she did not gainsay this one although she 
 did not like it, she only feebly wondered why Alexander 
 gave it. 
 
 And for once he told her more or less. " You're to pal 
 up with that woman who's there," he said. " You're a bit of 
 a fool, but you're a chattering one and set others chattering ; 
 I want that woman set chattering, and when she chatters 
 you'll have to remember what she says. She's in Grimstones' 
 and she'll talk about the business, what she knows of it, I bet." 
 
 Mrs. Alexander stiffened a little. <c I suppose you refer to 
 the person who was with your mother to-day. You want to 
 know about her ? " 
 
 Alexander did not ; it was what she might be able to tell, 
 not what she was, that interested him, he said so as he felt 
 for his toothpick. But his wife for once did not heed him, 
 she was on a subject where, with her kind, zeal sometimes 
 outstrips discretion. 
 
 "She really isn't what I call respectable," she said 
 superiorly. " Look at the feather in her hat to-day, it must 
 have cost a guinea and a half if it cost a penny, that one 
 alone ! And her shoes too ! It's a perfect disgrace ! A 
 typist indeed, with that hair and that voice ! Why her 
 voice gives her away, she has only to open her mouth for 
 men to turn round ! I should like to know where she gets 
 her money ! " 
 
 The virtuous indignation of the tone a tone only to be 
 achieved by a woman who has never had a chance of being 
 anything but virtuous herself, was just waste so far as 
 Alexander was concerned. He did not heed it nor the 
 accusation either, the last words alone caught his attention 
 and so saved Mrs. Alexander from a discourteous silencing. 
 
 " Has she money ?" he said sharply. " Who says so ? If 
 she has what's she doing here ? " 
 
 242
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " That's what every one wants to know," Mrs. Alexander 
 said with meaning. 
 
 " Who ? " her husband demanded, missing the meaning 
 because it did not interest him. 
 
 " Oh, well " Mrs. Alexander was rather nonplussed by 
 the literalness of the question " not every one exactly ; you 
 see, so few people know your father and mother. It's 
 perfectly extraordinary, that any one should have lived here, 
 or near here, so long as they have, and yet know so few 
 people ; no one really knows them or talks about them much. 
 Still, of course, this Miss Quebell, or whatever her name is, 
 is such a well, I call her a showy sort of person they can't 
 help seeing her and talking about her a little " 
 
 Alexander stopped her impatiently. " I don't want your 
 stupid gossip," he said, " you can keep that. What I'm 
 trying to get at is has she money or hasn't she ? If you 
 know, tell me ; if you don't, for heaven's sake hold your 
 tongue." 
 
 " She must have money," Mrs. Alexander said decidedly, 
 
 " look at her clothes " Alexander's contempt for such 
 
 an argument was obvious, but his wife went on all the same 
 " I don't mean to-day only, but other times too. One of 
 the Harvey girls told me she saw her on an evening in the 
 summer hot weather it was, Miss Harvey was coming 
 home from somewhere, I forget where now, by the top road 
 and she saw Miss Quebell and your brother come out of the 
 house. She had her neck and arms bare, quite an evening 
 dress, of most expensive silk, and really quite indecent, cling- 
 ing so close, as if she had nothing on underneath, nothing 
 but silk stockings real silk, and you know they cost twelve 
 and sixpence a pair. It was moonlight, that's how Miss 
 Harvey saw ; she, Miss Quebell, I mean, had come out to 
 look at the moon with your brother " 
 
 243
 
 DESIRE 
 
 In spite of his impatience Alexander could not help 
 laughing. The idea of any woman being considered danger- 
 ous because she went to look at the moon with Peter Or 
 any woman, dangerous or otherwise, doing such a thing 
 at all except in the imagination of idle talkers was ludicrous 
 to him. 
 
 " You'd better shut up," he advised, " if that's all you've 
 got to say you'd better keep it for folks who swallow that 
 sort of stuff. What are these ? Willis's bills and the rest ? " 
 
 He took them up and began to look at them. Mrs. 
 Alexander flushed. " Oh well," she said bridling a little in 
 spite of the fact that her husband was not attending, " your 
 brother's not the only one, I can tell you. Mr. Williams is 
 mad about her, I've heard, she's been to tea there once if not 
 twice, and the curate" Mrs. Alexander had leanings 
 towards the Church as being more aristocratic than Dissent 
 " he knows her, some one saw them one Sunday evening in 
 the lane j she was sitting on a gate and he was standing by 
 and they were talking, so interested in what they were saying 
 they never heard steps or anything. Of course they may 
 have met by chance, I say they may, but Well, at any 
 rate no one seems to know how she picked up with him, 
 your relatives going to chapel as they do. But she picks up 
 with any one, one of the young Harveys saw her walking 
 along with a quarryman one evening. She seems to be 
 great friends with the quarrymen he, young Harvey, you 
 know, often takes his dog out before breakfast, and when he 
 goes along that road he sometimes passes the quarrymen 
 going to work. He says they, or at least some of them, 
 always look up at a window in your father's house her 
 window, if you please and if she looks out and smiles and 
 says good-morning or anything, the one who sees calls to the 
 others that the sun is shining this morning. Fancy having 
 
 244
 
 DESIRE 
 
 common working-men speaking of one like that ! It shows 
 what she is " 
 
 Possibly Mrs. Alexander would have gone on further, that 
 is if at this early stage of her residence at Twyford she had 
 further gossip to draw from but her husband interrupted 
 her to inquire about an item on one of the bills. It was 
 linoleum, and as, to his thinking, a larger quantity than 
 necessary had been used, Mrs. Alexander had shortly enough 
 affairs of her own to consider. When her husband left her 
 she was on the verge of tears. He had told her she could 
 pay for the excess linoleum out of her dress money. But 
 tears were without effect on him, and he went to write some 
 business letters in a perfectly equable frame of mind. 
 
 At the door he looked back. " You'd better get the kid 
 home this week," he said, " get her to-morrow or Tuesday ; 
 you can't start in with the old lady till you've got the kid, 
 and the sooner you do start the better, d'you understand ? " 
 
 And Mrs. Alexander understood she had got to obey. 
 
 245
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 ON a certain Thursday in October, a blacksmith from the 
 hills came to Grimstones' ; a silent man he was, a distant 
 relative of Bolt's. Like him of the hill race, a different 
 stock to the town people, darker, smaller, of greater enduring 
 capacity, of slow intelligence and a curious aloofness of mind 
 which made it hard for outsiders to penetrate through to the 
 springs of action and emotion ; a good staying stock, not 
 easily shaken in an idea, and consequently loyal in like and 
 dislike, though little given to manifesting either in words. 
 This blacksmith worked an old forge on the now little used 
 highway across the neck of the hills. Peter, who had known 
 him to say a word to for many years, felt all along that he 
 was the man when the time should come for the plate 
 machine to be put together. Desire was of the same 
 opinion when she had seen him and when she heard he was 
 related to Bolt. So the job was offered to him one did not 
 tell the hill people to do things, one asked them if they 
 would and when the last piece of the machine had been 
 delivered he came. 
 
 Bolt, under his direction, made a temporary forge in an 
 outhouse, and throughout the whole operation, as he brought 
 no assistant, acted as boy to him. No doubt he came in for 
 the abuse appertaining to the post, but it was laconic and 
 short-worded, and spoken in the dialect of the hills a 
 dialect which Desire, in spite of her linguistic skill, could 
 not follow. She had little to do with the putting together 
 of the machine ; it was; Peter's work, Peter and the man of 
 
 246
 
 DESIRE 
 
 few words and Bolt, who blew the bellows and eased a nut 
 here and shifted a weight there to order. She had nothing 
 to do but to stand back and look on, and she did that so 
 completely that the men forgot she was there in their 
 absorption in the matter in hand. Possibly, could the truth 
 be known, those few women who have held men as well as 
 charmed them have all understood that art of looking on, 
 the difficult art of effacing themselves entirely at times. 
 
 But though Desire had no part in the work, she enjoyed 
 it immensely. Skill and mastery, no matter in what dis- 
 played, always appealed to her. Peter's mastery over this 
 thing, his sure grip, thrilled something in her curiously. She 
 had known he had power of sorts, she had seen its mental 
 result before now, but it pleased the primitive in her to see 
 it physically. The sheer work, too, pleased her, the deft 
 handling of unwieldy mass, the smithy work, the roar of the 
 fire, and the cunning fashioning of metal to the accompani- 
 ment of ringing sound and curt, uncouth words. She felt 
 as if she were back in the beginning of things, as if here and 
 now were forces older and simpler than anything she had 
 dealt with in her former half-forgotten life. 
 
 When at dinner-time she and Peter came out into the 
 yard she spoke of one of the notions which had come to her. 
 
 " I believe," she said, " that I understand them now, Bolt 
 and the other, and my friends of the quarries. They are a far- 
 away people who have somehow got left behind into this 
 time ; they live close down to the earth and, being near, see 
 things large and simple and without shades. Bolt is not 
 troubled with any shades or grades, he has no complex 
 motives. He hates Alexander, that is all. Every time he 
 swings the sledge he thinks of it as coming down on 
 Alexander, and every time he blows up the fire he thinks of 
 it as heating for the burning of Alexander." 
 
 247
 
 DESIRE 
 
 Peter was not sure whether she was right. "I don't 
 know that Bolt feels quite like that," he said, " though 
 certainly I own that Alexander has a rather remarkable gift 
 for rousing people's antagonism. I don't know what he did 
 to Bolt, possibly not so very much ; Alexander has a way of 
 doing small things so that they give great offence, and Bolt 
 I have noticed before with people like him, they have a 
 different standard of things, especially offences." 
 
 " That," Desire said, " is because they are a survival a 
 survival of the time when a money payment wiped oft 
 murder, and an unpleasant death was the natural retribution 
 consequent upon taking a man's ox We are late for dinner. 
 I am not going up-stairs to wash." 
 
 There is a wonderful, some even say a dangerous, intimacy 
 when two people plunge arms bare to the elbow in the same 
 earthenware bowl and dry on the same towel ; but if they 
 are busy thinking of another matter, of great importance to 
 them, they cannot think anything of this. Desire and Peter 
 thought and talked of the machine and what it was going 
 to do. 
 
 " Dodd sent another order this morning," she said ; "just 
 such a one as the last large, but a lot under our usual price. 
 Poor little man, he is in a great way about it in spite of the 
 fact that I told him we could take such and leave ourselves 
 a fair profit more than fair, though I didn't tell him that. 
 Give me the dry end of the towel, this is wet." 
 
 Peter turned the towel round for her. " I wonder," he 
 said, " whether Alexander has anything to do with those 
 orders." 
 
 " Why should he ? " Desire asked. 
 
 " It's one way of helping a firm downhill ; I mean, to 
 advise buyers to go to them for certain things, but at prices 
 which are practically impossible. You see, a man does not 
 
 248
 
 DESIRE 
 
 like to refuse an order, especially if it is a large one from a 
 new or not regular customer. He is tempted to take it if he 
 is having a fight to keep going ; he persuades himself he can 
 manage it somehow, or if it is impossible to squeeze a margin 
 of profit, he will do it this once under cost for an advertise- 
 ment and an introduction. And, of course, if he only takes 
 enough of such orders and on such terms, the end is not 
 hard to see, though it's possible he does not himself see it 
 till too late." 
 
 " How abominable ! " Desire exclaimed. " Do you know, 
 I don't think I admire commercial fighting." 
 
 " You must not judge it all by what you have seen here," 
 Peter told her. " Of course, I may be wrong about this, 
 though I can't help thinking it is being done ; there have 
 been rather a suspicious number of those orders lately." 
 
 Desire laughed. < Isn't it excellent ? " she said. " We 
 couldn't have got many more if we had put another 
 traveller on. Oh, Alexander, how beautifully you play 
 into our hands ! I congratulate you, Alexander ; you have 
 led plates, and plates is the suit we require ! " She waved 
 a hand in what she took to be the direction of the River 
 House, then her gaiety dropped a little. " Oh, bother ! " 
 she said, " there's that woman coming this afternoon." 
 
 The woman in question was Mrs. Alexander Grimstone. 
 She and her little daughter Gladys had been invited to come 
 to tea. 
 
 As Alexander had foreseen, the grandmother's wish to see 
 the child had overruled other feelings. Not very easily, not 
 so easily as he imagined, nor without help from Desire. 
 Mrs. Grimstone wanted to see the child, but she wavered, 
 remembering her husband and the objections he would have 
 raised ; the opinions and wishes the sick man used to hold 
 were still considered and regarded in a way that, to Desire, 
 
 249
 
 DESIRE 
 
 was wonderful. However, on this occasion she combated 
 them, pointing out to Mrs. Grimstone that it could do no 
 harm to ask the mother and child, and that it was impossible 
 to decide what would have been done if Ezra had been 
 himself, as these circumstances then were not likely to have 
 arisen. So Mrs. Grimstone decided to invite them. 
 
 " I should like to have asked them to dinner and to spend 
 a long day," she said doubtfully, " but I don't know, I don't 
 feel as if I knew her at all. She looks such a smart sort of 
 person, with her bracelets and her chains and lace trimmings 
 and all ; I'm afraid she'd look down on our homely ways, 
 she'd be used to grander things. You know, she had money 
 of her own." 
 
 " I know she's a bad manager," Desire declared. " Those 
 thin-voiced, flat-chested v/omen who frizzle, their hair with 
 tongs and trim their clothes with yards of wrong-coloured, 
 machine-made trimming, never know how to order a dinner 
 or speak to a servant. I wouldn't mind betting things don't 
 often go right in her house. All the same, I don't think I 
 would ask her to dinner to begin with j have her to tea and 
 see how it goes, and see what the child is like." 
 
 And Desire carried her point, and Mrs. Alexander was 
 invited to tea on that particular Thursday. 
 
 After dinner Desire helped Mrs. Grimstone to get out 
 and dust some of the best china. She liked helping the old 
 lady, and she liked the orderly china closet where beautiful 
 plates and bowls and several generations of tea sets, each 
 with a history of its own, stood ranged on the shelves. But 
 she grudged the time to-day. Bolt and the blacksmith were at 
 work, and the wonderful machine was still being put together. 
 She went out later to see what had been done, but she could 
 not stay a great while, for Mrs. Grimstone was particularly 
 anxious she should help her receive the rather dreaded 
 
 250
 
 DESIRE 
 
 daughter-in-law. Particularly anxious, too, though she was 
 too courteous to say it, that she should be dressed for the 
 occasion. Desire guessed as much, so made a careful toilet 
 and put her pearl earrings in her ears, and, in spite of her 
 mourning, a pair of scarlet slippers on her feet. 
 
 Mrs. Grimstone was sitting in the seldom-used drawing- 
 room to receive her daughter-in-law. Desire had urged 
 nothing against this, though she knew it would add 
 formality. She thought it too much honour for that un- 
 attractive-looking person to be taken at the outset to the 
 room where they principally lived. Mrs. Grimstone started 
 a little as Desire entered she was clearly rather nervous. 
 
 U I thought perhaps they'd be here by now," she 
 said. 
 
 " They'll be late," Desire assured her. " I'm often late 
 myself, but for a variety of reasons. That kind of woman 
 is always late and always for the same reason it can't get 
 dressed in time." 
 
 She went to a window and looked out to satisfy Mrs. 
 Grimstone ; but only a short piece of the road to the town 
 could be seen, and the visitors were not yet visible. She 
 came back to the fire-place and stood, one arm on the mantel- 
 piece, looking into the fire. Mrs. Grimstone regarded her 
 in silence for a few minutes, then she said, a propos of nothing 
 but her own complete conviction 
 
 " My dear, you are a very beautiful woman." 
 Desire looked up. She was almost absurdly pleased with 
 the tribute. " Though," so she declared, laughing a little, 
 " I believe it's my frock you mean ; you don't often see me 
 in my best clothes, you know." 
 
 " No," Mrs. Grimstone answered simply, " I wasn't 
 thinking about that, I'm afraid I had forgotten to notice 
 your dress, though certainly it is very nice I was thinking 
 
 251
 
 DESIRE 
 
 I would like to see you, in just a white wrapper or anything, 
 with a little baby cuddled to your breast." 
 
 Desire flushed faintly, and for a moment her eyes grew 
 misty, though she could not have told why. " Should you, 
 little mother ? " she said. " Perhaps I should too if I could 
 ever care for the man enough to care for the baby." 
 
 , " Oh, but you would " Mrs. Grimstone's voice had 
 
 the curious softness and certainty of the mother-woman ; 
 but at that moment there came a ring at the bell and she 
 stopped in what she was going to say. 
 
 Mrs. Alexander came in with the rustling of silks, the 
 scattering of scent, and the rattling of ornaments. The 
 child, Gladys, came in with the best imitation of her mother 
 that eight years and grotesquely short skirts can give. 
 
 " Are we late ? " Mrs. Alexander said. " It's such an 
 awful way, I thought we'd never get here ! We were late 
 in starting, and we seem to have come miles and miles, and 
 the roads are too awful ! We are not fit to be seen for mud. 
 I told Alexander what it would be, but he would not let me 
 have a fly." 
 
 Mrs. Grimstone sympathized, but more with Gladys. 
 " Such a long way for such little legs," she said, drawing the 
 child to her. And the child, after offering a cool cheek to 
 her grandmother, sat down, carefully spreading out her sash 
 ends and arranging her bracelets. 
 
 Certainly Mrs. Alexander could talk, her husband was 
 not wrong there ; she could and did talk in plenty and with- 
 out much reserve. She spoke of private affairs, notably the 
 shortcomings of Alexander, with a freedom positively shock- 
 ing to Mrs. Grimstone. He was so mean, he cut her off 
 that and stopped this. He was so bad-tempered, she daren't 
 for her life cross him, he snapped off her head if she did not 
 at once understand. He was so sharp, he was one too many 
 
 252
 
 DESIRE 
 
 for this person and got even with that. He thought nothing 
 of her and her opinion, treated her like a fool ; but she took 
 him in sometimes her self-satisfaction was evident as she 
 confided it she did lots of things on the sly; it was the 
 only way to manage men, they were all bullies and selfish 
 brutes. 
 
 To all of which outpourings Desire listened with a stare 
 which was not without ultimate effect on the talker, who 
 eventually began to suspect that the tribute of surprise was 
 not altogether flattering. Certainly Desire was surprised. 
 This kind of woman was a novelty in her experience and 
 one she did not admire. Mrs. Grimstone did not admire 
 it either j more, it distressed her and shocked her old- 
 fashioned notions of seemly reserve. She did not realize that 
 her daughter-in-law was less confiding domestic troubles to a 
 comparative stranger than boasting of them as distinctions. 
 Among Mrs. Alexander's intimate friends every woman was 
 in the habit of parading the things which discretion led old- 
 fashioned ladies to wish to conceal, and to, if possible, out- 
 talk and out-brag the others in doing it. They may or 
 may not have cared for their husbands Mrs. Alexander 
 certainly, not unreasonably, did not care for hers but each 
 and all seemed anxious to create the impression that they 
 were matrimonial martyrs. 
 
 It was to Desire principally that Mrs. Alexander addressed 
 her conversation. Mrs. Grimstone was devoting herself to 
 the child ; a not very satisfactory proceeding on the whole, 
 for though Gladys was by no means shy, and answered with 
 a readiness which bordered on the pert, Mrs. Grimstone 
 did not find it easy to get on with her. Almost any other 
 kind of child would have been possible to the tender-hearted 
 grandmother ; but this mature grown-up, with her curled 
 hair, and conscious clothes, and little superior smile, was very 
 
 253
 
 DESIRE 
 
 unapproachable. Once, before tea, Mrs. Grimstone had a 
 few more intimate words with her daughter-in-law. It was 
 when she spoke, with the tentative gentleness of one fearing 
 to probe a wound, of the child who had died. But she need 
 not have feared hurting Mrs. Alexander. 
 
 " Freda ? " she said. " Yes, she was always a weakly 
 little thing, so peevish too, I never expected to rear her. 
 I spent a perfect fortune on patent foods and so on for her 
 at different times, but she never would take them. She was 
 a fearful worry, no nurse I ever had could get on with her. 
 Alexander said I gave way to her too much ; he would have 
 her turned out in all weathers and made to walk, and so on ; 
 he said I coddled her. I'm sure I didn't, I had no patience 
 with her grizzling, neither had nurse ; we were always sharp 
 with her." 
 
 Something suddenly stirred in Desire, it may have been 
 the dormant motherhood she did not believe she possessed, 
 it may have been only the large pity of the very strong. 
 But at the vision of the sickly child and its prolonged, 
 unnecessary suffering, there came a swelling in her throat, 
 and an anger which nearly choked her lit her eyes 
 fiercely. Fortunately, perhaps, she could not easily find 
 words. 
 
 " Poor little wretch ! " she said. That was all, but her 
 voice, full and deep with feeling, struck almost like the note 
 of a big bell, and for a moment brought the silence or 
 surprise. 
 
 But Mrs. Alexander was not easily impressed. " It really 
 was a mercy, her dying," she said ; "she was so dreadfully 
 delicate. I was delicate myself as a child, even now " 
 
 Mrs. Grimstone, with a little trembling of the lips, turned 
 to Gladys and began to talk gently to her about her lost 
 playmate. Gladys answered quite readily and without any 
 
 254
 
 DESIRE 
 
 trembling, her little high voice soon reaching Desire above 
 the mother's talk of her own constitution. 
 
 " Yes," she heard, " and it was such a pity, it was the 
 spring. We had to wear mourning in the summer, you 
 see fancy wearing black dresses instead of muslin ones ! 
 I had a silk dress with roses on put away it will be too 
 small for me next year." 
 
 Desire was thankful for the advent of Peter and tea. 
 
 Peter did not stay long, he had much to do, but while 
 he was there both mother and daughter gave their attention 
 exclusively to him. The mother exhibited for him the 
 kittenish manner she kept for mankind, in spite of the fact 
 that he did not respond, indeed did not perceive it, but 
 returned serious answers to her playful questions, missed all 
 her giddy overtures, and gave a disconcertingly grave and 
 courteous attention to what she said. The daughter imitated 
 her mother to a certain extent, but not entirely. The shape 
 of her forehead and the look of her eyes suggested that she 
 had some of her father's characteristics, and already she 
 showed signs of more brains than her mother. Her over- 
 tures to Peter were on the whole less foolish, but, to Desire, 
 somehow more displeasing than the elder woman's. The 
 child contrived to make Desire ashamed for her sex, a thing 
 not easy to do. She also made her grateful for Peter's 
 curious unconsciousness of such things, or at all events his 
 apparent unconsciousness, and very thankful that he went 
 back to work directly tea was over. 
 
 Mrs. Grimstone went up-stairs to her husband, and for 
 a short time Desire was left alone with the visitors. Though 
 this might be regarded as an opportunity to do her husband's 
 bidding, Mrs. Alexander evidently regretted Peter's going. 
 
 " But that's the way with the men," she said ; " one 
 really sees nothing of them except at feeding time. I'm 
 
 255
 
 DESIRE 
 
 sure when I have an evening I always say we might as well 
 be without them for all we see of them. I remember once 
 I had a married girl staying with me then, a regular 
 go-ahead, up to anything the men were such a time smoking 
 after food that she went and sneaked some cigarettes from 
 her husband's pockets, and just before they came in we 
 lighted up, and when they arrived there we were, all smoking 
 just to show that we could do it as well as they ! " 
 
 Gladys tittered. She had heard this anecdote before, and 
 it always created mirth. This time it did not. There was a 
 palpable pause, the face of the tall woman to whom it was 
 now told showed an expression new in the child's experience. 
 When she did speak, her voice again struck deep, though 
 chilly. 
 
 " Did you ? " was all she said. 
 
 Mrs. Alexander was riot displeased. "I believe you're 
 shocked," she said. 
 "I believe I am." 
 
 It seemed ridiculous in one who smoked as Desire did. 
 She felt it herself, felt that it was almost hypocritical. But 
 it was the literal truth, and at the moment she could not 
 help saying it, though directly afterwards she tried to 
 compensate by talking pleasantly of other things. 
 
 But Mrs. Alexander was not in the least offended. To 
 have shocked was almost as gratifying as to have amused 
 even more so in this case. She went on talking volubly of 
 all manner of things. 
 
 " What a frumpy old place it is ! " she said, glancing 
 round. " Look at those vases." She pointed to two slender 
 ornaments of glass, of graceful shape and beautiful gilding, in 
 the fashion of fifty years ago. " Did ever you see such back 
 numbers ? But everything's the same ; doesn't it give you 
 the jim-jams ? It would me. I'd pretty soon alter it if I 
 
 256
 
 DESIRE 
 
 were here. They've got some nice things, too. I'd have 
 them out the china we had at tea, for instance." 
 
 " They keep the tea things in the china closet." 
 
 So Desire said and again repented. 
 
 But there was no need, Mrs. Alexander perceived no snub, 
 only information. 
 
 " How ridiculous ! " she said. " They ought to be kept 
 where they can be seen ; they'd look perfectly sweet on the 
 mantelpiece. You ought to see my mantelpiece you must 
 come one day I have some lovely cups and two spiffing old 
 plates ; I'm cracked on those sort of things, aren't you ? " 
 
 " I'm afraid I don't know much about them." 
 
 Desire had dined oft specimen Sevres plates and old 
 Nankin china, had taken tea many a time from Crown 
 Derby and Worcester cups with pedigrees like prize bull- 
 dogs. But that did not occur to her now. She felt herself to 
 be ignorant of the subject from Mrs. Alexander's decorative 
 point of view, also she was finding it difficult to be civil, 
 more difficult than she had ever found it before. 
 
 Possibly Mrs. Alexander found things a little difficult too. 
 Not the talking that was always easy and, she never doubted, 
 always satisfactory to the other party but the carrying out 
 her husband's instructions. Miss Quebell did not talk, she 
 said wonderfully little ; certainly she said nothing whatevei 
 about Peter or the business. She made none of those accus- 
 ing confidences that Mrs. Alexander was used to hearing 
 about husbands, brothers and fathers ; or any of the other 
 confidences about lovers, male employers and other men 
 who were supposed to admire. As for business, it might 
 never have existed ; all she said, and that when she was 
 asked point blank, was " Yes, she worked in the office, typing 
 and so on sometimes." 
 
 "She is the most stuck-up, stand-offish creature I ever 
 17 257
 
 DESIRE 
 
 met," she told her husband when she got home. " She 
 might have been a countess at least, instead of a well, I 
 don't know what. The way she shakes hands, the way she 
 moves, the way she expects every one to be quiet when she 
 does condescend to speak." Mrs. Alexander was here mis- 
 taking the effect for the cause. The fact of herself falling 
 into silence, except under Alexander's orders, was so unusual 
 that it is not surprising she thought some one must have 
 emphatically expected if not enforced it. 
 
 Alexander was not in the least interested in his wife's 
 opinion or her abuse. She abused all the people she knew 
 in turn, even those with whom she was bosom friends. 
 The thing which mattered to him was that the bosom 
 friend phase had not here come on ; he told her peremptorily 
 that she had better look sharp and bring it about. 
 
 " But I can't," she protested. " I told you she is stand- 
 offish and stuck up." 
 
 " Oh, rot ! " Alexander retorted. " You haven't cottoned 
 to her, you mean. Ask her to tea, give her cakes and 
 cream, and gossip. She'll give herself away, and Peter too, 
 if she knows anything." 
 
 " I hate her," Gladys, who had been a silent listener, 
 here announced. 
 
 " You go to bed," her father said. 
 
 Gladys gathered her hat and gloves with a show of 
 obedience and a lingering manner. She knew precisely how 
 long to take. " She has large hands," she said, " and eyes 
 that you have to look at and look at, and Uncle Peter 
 likes her " 
 
 Alexander moved, and Gladys hastily withdrew, but her 
 mother laughed. " Even the child has found out the sort 
 of person she is," she said, " though she's wrong about your 
 brother ; he doesn't pay the slightest attention to her." 
 
 258
 
 DESIRE 
 
 Alexander did not care if he did, that side of the question 
 did not interest him ; to have his orders obeyed was all that 
 concerned him just now. "Look here," he said, "I'll have 
 no more bunkum. What if the woman is a damned sight 
 better looking than you, and pays a pound or two more for 
 her clothes ? That's neither here nor there, it isn't business, 
 and this is do you understand ? " 
 
 Mrs. Alexander sniffed a little, but made no other reply 
 except to mutter to herself something about " owing it to 
 the child to be particular, even if her own feelings were of 
 no account," and " she never could bear stuck-up people." 
 
 And about the same time or a little later Desire was 
 confessing to Peter 
 
 " I never knew I was proud before ; I never knew I had it 
 in me to feel snobbishly that any one * was not good enough.' 
 I am heartily and entirely ashamed of myself, but I believe, 
 yes, I do, that if I have to see that woman again I shall do it 
 again. I think almost I'd rather have to do with Alexander." 
 
 " You don't know him," Peter reminded her ; " though 
 certainly," he added, " one knows more where one is with 
 him. She well she seemed rather a foolish sort of person 
 to me. I believe, by the way, that was one of the reasons 
 why my father objected to the marriage." 
 
 " Your father was a wise man," Desire said ; " a real fool 
 is an awful and incurable thing ; but he would have objected 
 
 to that woman, anyhow and your mother It made me 
 
 just sick to see her with your mother. As for the child, it 
 was pitiful ! I wanted to shake her and tell her to pretend 
 a little, even if she couldn't feel decent." 
 
 " I'm sorry," Peter said. 
 
 " Sorry for your mother ? " Desire asked. " That's too 
 small a word. The child is an awful pity ; the woman of 
 course does not matter. It doesn't matter to us if she is an 
 
 259
 
 DESIRE 
 
 inferior imitation of a poor artificiality, a thing without any 
 inside, and somehow so vulgar. But no, I ought not to say 
 that ; I don't know her, no doubt she's better some other 
 way round though I haven't got at it. She is she's just 
 a woman I can't do with." 
 
 260
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE Alexander Grimstones were at last really settled at 
 Twy cross. And when the delinquencies of the moving 
 men and the difficulties with the cistern were forgotten 
 in the excitement of being called upon and calling, Mrs. 
 Alexander was not ill satisfied. As well satisfied, in fact, 
 as it is possible for one whose every domestic molehill 
 is a mountain and whose general incompetency supplies 
 plenty of small excrescences. Whether or no Alexander 
 was satisfied did not appear. When it had seemed to him 
 advisable to concede to his wife's often expressed wish to 
 live away from the pottery town and his work, he had 
 himself chosen Twycross as a place of residence. No doubt 
 he had his reason. One, possibly, was a wish to appear on 
 good terms with the parent family if not the parent firm 
 and in this he was fairly successful, for no one knew the 
 Grimstones intimately and everybody was ready to accept 
 him at his own valuation. Another reason may have been 
 a wish to annoy Peter by his proximity, and a third was 
 certainly some notion of keeping an eye on Grimstones'. 
 
 In this last he did not entirely succeed. He learnt a 
 certain amount about them it is true ; but principally he 
 learnt it in town and in pursuit of business, he did not at 
 Twycross get any nearer the inner side of their life, and he 
 knew quite well that it was the inner side that mattered to 
 him. He had begun establishing some sort of intimacy 
 between the household and his own through his mother and 
 
 261
 
 DESIRE 
 
 by means of Gladys. But somehow nothing came of it ; it 
 had had to be left to Florence and she of course muddled it ; 
 she had been invited once, but that was the beginning and 
 end of the intercourse. Mrs. Grimstone never came to the 
 River House, she said it was too far and she could not leave 
 her husband for so long ; Alexander did not believe it, but 
 he did not see how to alter it. Desire Quebell did not come 
 either, although, in pursuance of his orders, Florence invited 
 her to tea. The invitation was refused by return of post 
 and Florence was offended by the wording of the refusal, 
 Alexander did not know or care why ; the thing was quite 
 plain, Florence had made a muddle of it. She had obviously 
 made a muddle of her own first visit, too, for the invitation 
 to her and Gladys was not repeated. 
 
 " You must have made a fool of yourself, a worse fool 
 than usual," he told her one evening towards the end of 
 November ; " here's six weeks nearly gone and the old lady's 
 shown no sign of wanting the kid again." 
 
 Florence said something about Miss Quebell and spiteful- 
 ness, but Alexander was contemptuous. 
 
 " It's no affair of hers, besides, if she can scratch I suppose 
 you can too. You didn't expect they were all going to 
 receive you with open arms, did you ? I tell you what 
 you've got to do, you've got to go again without an invitation 
 since you can't get one to go with. Go to-morrow and take 
 the kid " 
 
 " Oh, Alexander ! " Mrs. Alexander protested in some 
 dismay. Indeed, she protested as much as she dared. The 
 roads were very muddy, the afternoons were short and dark, 
 she was invited out to tea that day. But Alexander was not 
 moved, rather he was the more determined that she was to 
 go to-morrow. Another day would do as well ? Perhaps 
 it might, but he wasn't going to wait for another day when 
 
 262
 
 DESIRE 
 
 it might rain or she might have an appointment with the 
 dressmaker or some other faddle. He had said to-morrow 
 and to-morrow she should go, he usually meant what he 
 said, as she knew if she thought about it. She did know it 
 very well indeed, so there was an end of the matter. 
 
 Now as it chanced some other day might have been 
 better for Alexander's purpose, for the one chosen happened 
 to be one of Ezra's bad days. The invalid's condition varied 
 very little as a rule, but now and then there were times when 
 there seemed a partial break in his lethargy and with it 
 indications of a suffering the cause and cure of which were 
 alike impossible to understand. At these times Mrs. Grim- 
 stone never left his side and Mary did not hesitate to refuse 
 her to any one if by rare chance she was asked for. When 
 Mrs. Alexander presented herself that November afternoon 
 and asked for her mother-in-law she was promptly and 
 plainly told she could not see her. 
 
 " Oh ! " she said in some dismay. " Can't I ? Can't I 
 really ? I'm sure she'd see me." 
 
 Mary was sure she would not and said so curtly. 
 
 " Oh dear ! " Mrs. Alexander exclaimed pettishly " And 
 it's such a way to come for nothing. I'm so tired ! " 
 
 Mary held the door half to, she was never hospitably 
 inclined and she would not have approved of this visitor at 
 any time. However, Mrs. Alexander was not to be refused, 
 she said she must come in and rest, and in she came. Mary 
 was for putting her in the chilly drawing-room, but in the 
 hall she asked for Peter and then for Miss Quebell. 
 
 " They're in the office," Mary answered ; " busy." 
 
 " Don't disturb them," Mrs. Alexander said. Mary had 
 shown no signs of being about to do so. " I'll go and speak 
 to them there," and she pushed past the indignant old 
 woman. She knew where the office was, she had asked on 
 
 263
 
 DESIRE 
 
 her previous visit, and now, before Mary had recovered 
 herself, she, with Gladys following closely, made her way 
 there. 
 
 " May I come in ? " she said archly, popping her head 
 round the door ; but she came as she said it. 
 
 44 We've come to hear how you all are," she announced, 
 "and as we can't see Grannie to-day we persuaded Old 
 Grumps to let us come in and rest, we're ready to drop." 
 
 Desire looked up, there was both anger and astonishment 
 in her face, it looked as if she resented this as an unwarrant- 
 able intrusion ; she did not trouble to say anything at all. 
 
 Peter rose. 4< Of course," he said, " you must be tired ; 
 please come into the dining-room and rest as long as you 
 like." 
 
 He held the door open, and before Mrs. Alexander was 
 fully aware what had happened he had taken them to the 
 dining-room. 
 
 He drew chairs to the fire for them. "You will like 
 some tea," he said j " I will tell Mary." 
 
 He went out as he spoke, and closed the door after him. 
 
 Mrs. Alexander looked round, she wondered why he had 
 not rung the bell and given the order ; it did not occur to 
 her that he had gone not to return. But he did not return ; 
 no one came except, later, Mary with the tea. It dawned 
 on Mrs. Alexander very slowly, but at last it did dawn on 
 her no one was coming. Mrs. Grimstone was up-stairs 
 with her husband, Peter and <4 the woman " were busy with 
 work ; they had supplied her with a chair and a cup of tea, 
 but they were going to do no more, they were not going to 
 leave their occupation on her account. It was abominable ! 
 It was an insult ! It was precisely the sort of thing that 
 made her more angry than anything else, far more angry 
 than many greater and juster causes of offence and more real 
 
 264
 
 DESIRE 
 
 affronts. She almost choked over her tea in her anger at the 
 realization of the fruitlessness of her coming. 
 
 She did not at once accept her humiliation, she even at 
 one time had some thought of staying on and compelling 
 Peter and Desire to see her which, no doubt, they would 
 have done when their work was finished, there being nothing 
 personal in their proceedings. But she gave that up after a 
 little, though she stuck to her position for a time. She dried 
 her boots totally inadequate ones for the occasion she took 
 the tea grudgingly provided by Mary, and waited for some 
 while. But at last her dignity and her patience gave out, 
 and she rang sharply. 
 
 " I can't wait any longer," she said sarcastically to Mary. 
 " Tell Mr. Peter and Miss Quebell that I'm sorry I couldn't 
 spend the evening here. Tell them I'm glad they didn't 
 disturb themselves on my account." 
 
 Mary grunted, there was not the least chance of the 
 message getting through in that form. But the giver did 
 not know that ; she walked to the door, with a haughty mien 
 sadly wasted on the old woman who was looking at the 
 mud on the bottom of her skirt and set out on her home- 
 ward way. The haughtiness was all gone before she reached 
 home, and, as Gladys could have testified, only the temper 
 remained and that had cooled to self-pity and a trace of 
 complacency, too, before Alexander came home. 
 
 " I told you it would be no good," she reminded him, 
 after narrating the affair. " I told you that the woman 
 was a cat and that it was madness for us to go dragging 
 up there with the roads a mass of mud and the days as 
 short as can be." 
 
 <c You'd tell any one it was madness for you to do 
 anything you don't want to," Alexander replied, " and I 
 could tell 'em it was madness to expect you to do anything 
 
 265
 
 DESIRE 
 
 at all ; I might have known better by this time. You can't 
 even make friends with a woman when you're wanted to, 
 though you can be as thick as thieves with every cackling 
 ninny when there's nothing in it but waste of time." 
 
 Mrs. Alexander sniffed a little. "I'm sure I've tried to 
 be friends," she said superiorly ; " but she's not my sort. 
 I may not be clever but I was brought up properly, and 
 I'm not used to those sort of persons ; I have nothing in 
 common with them. And, anyhow " dropping to a less 
 assertive tone at the sight of Alexander's fcce " anyhow, 
 I'm sure she wouldn't have told me anything you want 
 to know. I don't believe she knows it." 
 
 " Then, as usual, you're wrong," her husband retorted. 
 " I wouldn't mind betting a trifle she could tell one or 
 two things I want to know ; but she wouldn't, not to 
 you, you're right there. Even some women have sense 
 enough to know a fool when they see one, it seems." 
 
 Mrs. Alexander's already wounded dignity smarted, 
 principally because she thought her husband implied an 
 exaltation of Miss Quebell's intelligence above her own. 
 This she felt was too much, and she relapsed into sulks, 
 which did not matter to Alexander ; on the whole it is 
 possible he preferred her sulky, for she was quieter so. He 
 paid no further attention to her that evening but gave 
 himself up to his own concerns. 
 
 These concerns, as usual just now, had reference to 
 Grimstones'. All his leisure, all his spare thoughts and 
 extra energies, and some others besides, were centred round 
 the old firm : it was never long absent from his mind. He 
 meant to have it ; he meant to do all he had promised him- 
 self, and threatened his father and, more recently, threatened 
 Peter ; partly because he could see that he might eventually 
 profit largely, but partly also from motives of spite and sheer 
 
 266
 
 DESIRE 
 
 obstinacy. The spite had first been for his father, later, 
 when Peter refused his overtures and definitely ranged him- 
 self on the other side, a share had been transferred to him 
 a pretty large share, not unmixed with angry contempt, for 
 one so obviously inferior, who had the hardihood to oppose 
 him. Of course the ultimate end was inevitable, that was 
 plain at the time of Ezra's first stroke. It was made plainer 
 and nearer, too, when the second stroke occurred. Alexander, 
 though he would not, of course, have deliberately brought 
 that catastrophe about, did not, after the first shock, regret 
 that he had accidentally done so : it was too advantageous. 
 He had not scrupled to take advantage of it immediately 
 and fully, and of Peter's ignorance and the weak state of 
 the firm ; but some one had stepped in. Some one had 
 come between Grimstones' and the difficulties he had 
 arranged that summer ; he had not been able to find out 
 who. He had an account to settle with that some one : 
 he had spoiled a good move. There were other moves, 
 or course : Alexander was a man likely to know them j he 
 had gone into the matter thoroughly and given time and 
 trouble to it, and not spared some outlay ; it was only 
 natural he should succeed, for he also brought a not incon- 
 siderable ability, and no scruples, to bear on the matter. 
 For some while now he had been working, it was time, 
 he felt, that, to a watchful connoisseur like himself, some 
 small result should show. But so far there was none. 
 Grimstones' apparently had swallowed the bait he spread, 
 fallen into the traps he prepared, and yet held their own 
 as well, better, rather, than ever. The watchful Alexander 
 observed it and wondered, swearing. The end, of course, 
 was inevitable, but it was beginning to look as if it might 
 be longer coming than he had anticipated. With Peter 
 on one side and himself on the other it would have come 
 
 267
 
 DESIRE 
 
 quickly enough ; the delay could only mean one thing, there 
 was some one else in it. 
 
 Alexander's jaw closed down as he sat thinking, while 
 his wife, unnoticed by him, withdrew to bed in injured 
 silence. Some one else ! Dodd had hinted that there was 
 some other interest in the old concern. He at least must 
 have believed in it himself else he would have come to 
 terms. Alexander cursed Dodd heartily ; if he could have 
 bought him it would have simplified matters and hastened 
 them considerably. He cursed him again that evening, and 
 also cursed the some one unknown. No suspicion of Desire 
 as that person occurred to him, had it done so he would 
 have been far less uneasy j women, even those with more 
 sense than Florence, were always negligible factors. This 
 one, in his opinion, was less than nothing ; probably she was 
 letting Peter keep her, respectably or otherwise, it didn't 
 matter which, because she could not at the time find 
 any one better to do it. Her sole importance to him was 
 that no doubt she knew a little of what he wanted to 
 know, and could probably supply the name of the some one 
 and indicate the motive power which was holding Grim- 
 stones' together. Peter was sure to have been fool enough 
 to tell her, and she was sure to have been induced to talk 
 if Florence had been any good, as she wasn't. 
 
 " Twenty minutes in that office ! " The idea came 
 suddenly to Alexander ; it would be better than all the 
 talking in the world ; it was doing the thing first hand, and 
 there is nothing like it. Twenty minutes. One could 
 learn everything ; why, ten would do ! Twenty minutes 
 would give time to get some notion of the more recent 
 customers, too ! 
 
 For a moment Alexander turned the thought with appre- 
 ciation, but it was hazardous. Peter, it is true, was slow to 
 
 268
 
 DESIRE 
 
 act, and had a distaste for publicity ; he was not likely to 
 prove awkwardly unpleasant even if any accident did reveal 
 things to him. There was no particular danger, but 
 Alexander had a preference for keeping the right side of the 
 law ; he knew very well what scoundrelism was the right 
 side of that fine line, and what the wrong, and though he 
 may have often approached the boundary, he never actually 
 crossed it from choice. 
 
 " We'll try the other way first," was his conclusion. 
 
 The other way was James. 
 
 James was a new importation at Grimstones'. He had 
 lately been engaged to help with the extra work which in 
 these days was coming to the old firm. Desire was opposed 
 to his engagement ; with gluttonous energy she seized upon 
 anything and everything, and wanted to do it all ; she 
 resented having any taken from her. For a little Peter 
 bowed to her wishes in the matter, but subsequently he 
 changed his mind and insisted on James. 
 
 It was really owing to the American, Julian Lee ; Desire 
 considered that she owed it to him, and was proportionately 
 displeased with him. Towards the end of October Peter 
 had received a letter from him. It was forwarded by the 
 publishers of The Dreamer, for Lee did not know his address 
 or himself either. He wrote briefly to ask Peter, if he knew 
 where Desire was, to send on an enclosed letter to her. 
 There was no particular explanation of the request offered ; 
 Peter did not trouble to seek one, he simply handed the 
 letter to Desire, saying 
 
 " Some one of the name of Lee asks me to let you have 
 this if I know your address." 
 
 Desire frowned. " How tiresome people are ! " she said. 
 " I suppose he thinks he has done something clever in 
 hunting me out." 
 
 269
 
 DESIRE 
 
 He did, if the truth was known, for it had been a good 
 deal of trouble. It had cost him the friendship of Lady 
 Quebell to verify the chance aroused suspicion that Desire 
 had, in a measure, disappeared ; and there had been a con- 
 siderable outlay in time, and some in money, in finding out 
 the little he had about her. That was principally only that 
 Peter Grimstone was the one friend of former times who 
 had seen her between the coming of her trouble, whatever it 
 was, and her leaving London for good and all. 
 
 Something of the state of his knowledge, or the want of it, 
 was made plain in the letter to Desire, her brow smoothed, 
 as, re-reading, she realized it. After all, it seemed he did not 
 know much, and, anyway, it was nice of him to remember 
 her. She had always a surprised pleasure in being remembered, 
 which was rather odd in its perennial freshness, seeing how 
 much and how many emotions she aroused. Lee wrote to 
 say he had no idea when he said good-bye to her in June 
 that it was for good and all. He ventured a reproof for not 
 letting him or any one else know. He suggested that she 
 might at least have allowed some of them a chance of 
 showing their sympathy with any trouble she might be in. 
 He also asked that she would let him come and see her 
 wherever she was, not to show a sympathy which, apparently, 
 she did not want, but because he was tiring for a sight of 
 her. He concluded with a postscript 
 
 " I am still waiting for that answer, and I shall keep on 
 waiting j though if you are not ready to give it yet, don't 
 let that make any difference to your seeing me ; that's for 
 my good." 
 
 A persistent person, Desire smiled as she folded his letter, 
 a likeable person. Had the old life not melted and left her 
 face to face with other things she might have ended by 
 
 270
 
 DESIRE 
 
 marrying him. Might have done worse than marry him if, 
 as seemed probable, she must have married somebody sooner 
 or later. 
 
 Robert came in at that moment some question about an 
 invoice. Desire threw the letter aside and produced the re- 
 quired paper. There were a lot of things on the desk, a lot 
 of correspondence to be attended to ; she went to work on 
 it, and Lee's letter, having no special place, was speedily 
 buried among other things and forgotten. 
 
 At the end of a fortnight Lee wrote again to Peter, and 
 Peter appealed to Desire. 
 
 " That man, Lee," he said, " writes to ask if I sent you 
 his letter." 
 
 " Lee ? " For a minute Desire looked mystified, trying to 
 recall some customer with whom she was in correspondence. 
 
 " Julian Lee," Peter said, and she remembered. 
 
 " Oh ! " she exclaimed, " I forgot all about it ! I stuffed 
 his letter away somewhere when I was busy and never gave 
 it another thought. I wonder where it is now ? " 
 
 It was then that Peter finally decided they must have 
 more help. In vain Desire told him that she was not over- 
 worked, that this was not a case of crowding out, she was in 
 the habit of forgetting things and people when she was in- 
 terested in something else ; the letter was not, as he imagined, 
 important, it and its writer were totally unimportant, 
 and quite suitably forgotten. Peter stuck to his point, and 
 while she wrote, not quite so pleasantly as she ought, to Lee, 
 he made arrangements for the engagement of James. 
 
 James was a nephew of Robert and Mary, a painstaking, 
 timid, rather sanctimonious young man. A source of some 
 astonishment at first to Desire, who, from plays and books 
 the only places where she had before met the qualities had 
 learned to associate them with hypocrisy, cunning and un- 
 
 271
 
 DESIRE 
 
 desirable traits of that sort. James had none of these ; he 
 was, it appeared, as virtuous as he seemed, in fact, precisely 
 what he seemed, except that experience eventually proved 
 him to possess more ability than one would suspect, and more 
 dogged loyalty than usually accompanies timidity. When 
 Desire had got over her annoyance at his advent she found 
 him very useful, for certainly it was true that there was a 
 great deal to do just now. There had been ever since the 
 putting up of the plate machine. The machine, of course, 
 saved labour enormously ; but on the other hand it had in- 
 duced them to accept orders of a quite unprecedented number 
 and magnitude, and, owing to Alexander, such orders offered 
 themselves. It was a wonderful time at Grimstones', the 
 little old firm seemed to be waking to a species of new life ; 
 an inward sort of life, perhaps, of which, as of its other 
 happenings, outsiders were slow to hear, and in which they 
 did not share, but none the less real. 
 
 Desire thrilled with the feeling of it and rejoiced. She 
 had cast in her lot here utterly and entirely j she had put 
 her whole self, staked herself as it were, on success, she 
 wanted it as she had never wanted anything before. In the 
 main she was a good loser ; in the past she had been able to 
 accept failure fairly well on the few occasions when she had 
 met with it ; but in this she found the bare idea unthinkable. 
 But they were succeeding ; it was determined from the first. 
 It was always " they," she and Peter, indissolubly associated 
 in the furtherance of a thing which was not really their own. 
 They had an interest in it but no true possession, they worked 
 together, not for each other ; there was a freedom and 
 equality in this partnership for carrying on Ezra Grimstone's 
 business which may have been absurd few things seemed 
 absurd to Desire but certainly was completely new to her. 
 
 There were other things, too, which were new to her 
 
 272
 
 DESIRE 
 
 experience, a new gift among them. Many men had offered 
 her many things in the past, love and friendship, luxury and 
 jewels, entertainments, dogs, amusements, homage some she 
 had accepted, some refused, but no man before had offered 
 her work. Peter had offered her that, he had offered her a 
 share of his not noble or inspiring or fascinating work, just 
 his work, what he had. He had offered it her, called her 
 great energies into play, and set her to work beside himself 
 in a furrow. And she was glad ; for some reason she found 
 it very good so good that she asked nothing better that, 
 even, she was afraid to look it in the face for fear it should 
 melt and reveal itself to be something different ; that she told, 
 almost grudgingly, the swift passing days Shortening days, 
 busy, crammed with work and interests ; with thoughts and 
 talks too, interludes not to be forgotten, every margin of time 
 filled with things not necessarily connected with pottery or 
 buying and selling Good, good days days of wind and rain 
 often and driving clouds that swept over the grey hills as the 
 winter drew on, but always fine days to some. The wind 
 is a great friend, men who have lived with it know it ; and 
 the rain it has a thousand scents more living than the scent 
 of flowers. And the clouds, and the tempests that howl 
 intermittent, and the stripped hillsides, and the sudden sharp 
 gleams of sun they are friends a man's soul had in the time 
 before ever he came to this habitation of flesh. Peter knew 
 these things, he had had them always and shared them before 
 with none. Desire had them now. And the grey world 
 was very good. 
 
 But for all that they were not clear of difficulties ; neither 
 thought it. No one at Grimstones' made the mistake of 
 rejoicing prematurely over good fortune. They received 
 her warily there and with reservations, as the folk of those 
 parts receive sunshine in spring-time, knowing well that there 
 18 273
 
 DESIRE 
 
 are likely to be clouds below the horizon. Peter and 
 Desire did not often talk of the clouds, it was not their 
 way ; as for Robert, the other speaking part of the firm, he 
 summed up his opinion of the situation briefly. "Alex- 
 ander's not dead yet," he said, and when he had said it 
 evidently considered good fortune was qualified as much as 
 need be. 
 
 Alexander was not dead and in early December they 
 heard of him again. It was through James. One morn- 
 ing he informed Desire in the precise tones he was in the 
 habit of using, that he had had a conversation with Mr. 
 Alexander Grimstone last night. 
 
 " Oh ? " said Desire she had not the business manner 
 with any man. " Did you enjoy it ? " 
 
 James had the business manner, even Desire could not 
 make him forget it ; he said formally now, " Mr. Alexander 
 seemed desirous of entering into negotiations with me." 
 " What for ? " Desire asked. 
 " Information principally, I think, miss." 
 " Information ? " 
 
 " Yes, he wants to know who is financing us, who is 
 interested in the firm besides Mr. Ezra and Mr. Peter. 
 
 " There isn't any one interested but you and me," Desire 
 said. " What did he ask that for ? " 
 " I can't say, miss." 
 
 There were a great number of things James " could not 
 say " ; Desire had observed it before, she wondered if he had 
 been in that position to Alexander. Promptly she asked, 
 " Couldn't you say to him ? " 
 
 " No, miss, I naturally could not speak of the affairs of 
 the house to him, I told him so." 
 
 Desire was a little puzzled, James's very mild manner had 
 misled her. 
 
 274
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " Do you mean," she said, " that he was trying to buy 
 information from you, the names of our customers and that 
 sort of thing ? " 
 
 " There was no sum mentioned," James replied, " but he 
 gave me to understand that if it was a question of price there 
 need be no difficulty about it* w 
 
 Desire stared ; James certainly was an astonishing person, 
 he conveyed the most exciting intelligence and the most 
 unexciting in the same colourless way. 
 
 " What a butler's lost in him ! " she exclaimed afterwards 
 to Peter. " Nothing would surprise him, nothing make 
 him forget what was due to his position and yours. He's 
 just a wonderful person, and he is a person too, that's the 
 wonderful part ; he's something real, sterling-butler right 
 through. I suppose Alexander made the mistake I did and 
 thought that manner must cover something else. It must 
 have been a painful interview for Alexander, almost as 
 humiliating as trying to make a true-bred butler drink with 
 you or flirt with you. It is humiliating to be put in your 
 place." 
 
 " I don't suppose Alexander was humiliated," Peter said. 
 " I wonder what he will try next." 
 
 " There's not much left," Desire said $ " he's tried Dodd 
 and now James, he'll hardly try you or Robert, and I don't 
 count for much to him." 
 
 " He'll try something," Peter said with conviction, " he 
 must know I should have come to grief by this time, con- 
 sidering what he has done to help, if I had been really 
 running this alone. He is looking for some substantial 
 backer now ; he probably does not reckon you as more than 
 a clerk or a secretary, it would be a man he's looking for, a 
 man with money and experience. I expect things have not 
 gone quite as he anticipated and he wants to find out who 
 
 275
 
 DESIRE 
 
 is interfering. Lists of customers and so on are a mere 
 blind, or at all events a by-product, it's the other he wants 
 to know." 
 
 "Then I don't much fancy he'll do it," Desire said 
 cheerfully ; " you and I are the only two people who could 
 tell, and I don't think we shall. I wish he'd come and call 
 on me and try ; I haven't much taste for exchanging polite 
 nothings with scoundrels, but just for once I wouldn't mind. 
 I wish he'd come." 
 
 As it happened he did come, but not in the way Desire 
 meant. He did not come for the purpose of seeing her or, 
 indeed, any one else. That he found some one was an 
 accident and not part of his plan, for failure in other quarters 
 at length induced him to try the last resource. 
 
 Desire's room was in the front of the house. Usually she 
 slept well, better than she had done in the London days, but 
 now and again she had a restless night. One such befell in 
 mid-December. For awhile that night she smoked and read 
 and tried the various plans by which she wooed sleep ; then, 
 finding none successful, she grew impatient and gave them 
 up, put out her candle and lay on her back staring at the 
 ceiling. The room was rather dark, though light enough 
 for her to guess how light it would be on the other side or 
 the house where the moon shone in. A big moon it would 
 be, silvering the mist which always lay away beyond the 
 canal, and revealing every detail near at hand, everything in 
 the yard, the very brands on the packing-cases and the 
 numbers of the crates if there were any. She began to 
 wonder if there were any, or if they had been put under 
 shelter as they should have been. Wondering anything is 
 fatal to sleep ; the more she did so the more wide awake she 
 became. It really did not matter much about the crates 
 either way, but in a while it seemed to matter a great deal ; 
 
 276
 
 DESIRE 
 
 anything would have mattered, anything did. After a 
 quarter-of-an-hour of lying still she at last gave way 
 and, fully aware that she was weakly humouring herself, 
 got up, slipped on a white wrapper and quietly left her 
 room. 
 
 It was nearly three in the morning and the house was 
 very quiet ; she crossed the landing noiselessly, the old, well- 
 seasoned timbers not creaking beneath her feet, and, lifting 
 the curtain at the back window, looked out at the yard, all 
 black and white in the moonlight. As she did so a sound 
 caught her ear some one moving below, a door the office 
 door surely opening. She dropped the blind and listened. 
 Some one speaking ? She could not be sure, it was a quiet 
 voice, if it was one, only audible because of the sleeping 
 silence of the house. She went softly down the shorter 
 flight of stairs. Peter's was the only voice with the quiet 
 insistence, and Peter had no business to be in the office now. 
 They had made a pact that neither should work very early 
 or very late without the other's knowledge. They had made 
 it for the sake of each other, each believing for every one but 
 himself the old adage about the unwisdom of burning the 
 candle at both ends. If Peter was at work he had broken 
 faith ; and if he was not and of course he was not what 
 was going on ? 
 
 Desire paused at the head of the longer flight of stairs. 
 She could not see the office nor be seen from there, the door 
 was round the corner ; but she could tell it was open by the 
 light on the hall floor. 
 
 " Will you kindly tell me what you are doing ? " 
 
 It was Peter's voice, patient and polite, apparently repeat- 
 ing a question he had asked before. 
 
 The answer came in Alexander's more rapid tones, ofF- 
 hand, a trifle contemptuous, not at all abashed. 
 
 277
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " Paying you the visit I didn't think you'd care to receive 
 in daylight." 
 
 "In plain terms you have broken into the house to 
 ransack my desk ? " 
 
 The other laughed. His self-possession was evidently 
 restored if it had ever been lost by Peter's reception. 
 " Your desk don't hold what I want," he said. " You didn't 
 think, did you, that I wanted your petty cash ? " 
 
 " I think you had better go." 
 
 There was the smallest hesitation over the last word. 
 Desire fancied it expressed more than it said, but she thought 
 the suggestion inadequate. She did not know what she 
 wanted, or what, indeed, was possible in the embarrassing 
 circumstances of finding a blood relation in this situation, 
 but she felt that for Alexander merely to go was poor. 
 
 He evidently did not entirely favour the suggestion 
 himself. " I'll go when I'm ready," he said. 
 
 " I think that had better be now." 
 
 " Oh, do you ! " Peter's voice was still quiet. But 
 Alexander must have felt a threat in it. " Look here, 
 Master Peter," he said, " you needn't play that to me ; I've 
 done nothing but what I'd do any day in daylight if you 
 weren't such a cantankerous, suspicious brute there's no 
 getting to you or your office on any excuse whatever. I've 
 slipped in without permission now, it's true what of that ? 
 It's my father's house, I've done no damage, I want nothing 
 but a glance at some papers for the name of a fool. You 
 can't do anything, so you needn't talk big ; petty sessions 
 wouldn't give you much of a remedy, even if it was in your 
 line, which it isn't, so the best thing for you to do, my son, 
 is to put a good face on it and be civil." 
 
 Desire suddenly felt that the best thing for her to do was 
 to come down ; the presence of a third party, one with some 
 
 278
 
 DESIRE 
 
 knowledge of the world, might be an assistance. She 
 descended the stairs quickly and, quietly crossing the dense 
 shadow at the bottom, made for the doorway. There she 
 paused, a startling figure, her glowing hair loosely plaited, 
 the laces open about her throat, her splendid proportions but 
 half concealed by the unshackling garments a woman such 
 as vikings fought for in the far time. 
 
 Alexander had seated himself carelessly by the desk. 
 ;c You're a cleverer man than I took you for," he was 
 saying ; " you seem to have got some money out of your 
 lady friend generally they squeeze us, but you've managed 
 
 to squeeze her " He looked up, and even his eyes 
 
 lighted a little as they fell on the splendid figure in the 
 doorway " By Jove ! There she is ! Come to see why 
 you don't come to bed " 
 
 And then the end came. Without any warning, with 
 the seeming suddenness which characterized some few of 
 Peter's actions, it fell upon Alexander. He literally and 
 really fell upon him, bore him down with irresistible force, 
 the long pent-up feeling brought to a head and suddenly 
 breaking bonds, bringing matters to the arbitrament that 
 Peter understood. 
 
 Desire caught her breath, but she did not cry out or 
 shrink back. Possibly she had in her something of the 
 primal woman for whom the vikings fought. At all events, 
 the only movement she made was to grip the dog, who 
 apparently had followed Peter, and pull him back, stifling his 
 angry bark. 
 
 Alexander recovered quickly from his surprise ; he was 
 breathing short, his face curiously grey, with blood on the 
 lips and a light as of murder in the eyes, bad to see. But 
 Peter, very quiet and white as he had gone at Alexander's 
 last words, was by far the more terrible to Desire. She was 
 
 279
 
 DESIRE 
 
 not sure that he was aware of her presence until he spoke to 
 her over his shoulder 
 
 " Take the dog and go up-stairs," he said authoritatively. 
 
 And meekly she obeyed, closing the door after her. 
 
 She went up-stairs and sat down at the top, clasping her 
 hands round the dog's neck and ordering him to be quiet. 
 He obeyed, only panting as if the effort were great ; in the 
 dark she heard him and sympathized, for she, too, was thrill- 
 ing with excitement, her heart beating fast and the blood 
 racing in her veins. She did not know what the two down 
 below would do, she could only vaguely hear and did not 
 know what the end would be. But she was not afraid it 
 was, after all, the simplest ending, the only ending. She leaned 
 her head against the wall and gave a little shuddering laugh. 
 It was horrible, of course, to come to blows ; brutal. She had 
 never found the brute in Peter before, it was not horrible to 
 find it, she was not horrified, she was yes, she was glad it 
 was there. Ashamed that she was glad, perhaps, but not 
 very. She never analyzed her emotions, she certainly did 
 not now. She sat in the dark, thrilling as the dog thrilled, 
 and waited. 
 
 A door across the landing opened softly, the door of the 
 dressing-room leading from Ezra's room. Mrs. Grimstone, 
 who slept there now, looked out, candle in hand. Desire 
 rose at the first sound. " Lie still," she said with low-voiced 
 emphasis to Paddy, and leaving him she crossed the landing 
 swiftly, keeping in the shadow and so coming close to the 
 old lady before she was aware whence she had come or 
 hardly that she was there. 
 
 " Were you disturbed by a noise ? " she said, standing 
 out of the candle-light. " It's all right, it's only Peter 
 turning somebody some boy or some one out of the yard." 
 
 " Oh ? " Mrs. Grimstone said nervously. " Hadn't we 
 
 280
 
 DESIRE 
 
 better call Robert ? Don't you think Peter will be hurt ? I 
 thought it was some one in the house." 
 
 Desire ignored the last, but repeated her assurance. 
 
 " Peter can manage best alone," she said ; " he won't be 
 hurt ; it's nothing. Hadn't you better go back, because of 
 Mr. Grimstone ? " 
 
 And, reassured by Desire's manner, Mrs. Grimstone was, 
 after a few more words, persuaded to go in again. 
 
 Desire softly closed the door after her, then returned to 
 her post on the stair-head. She sat there till she heard Peter 
 coming up. 
 
 He came slowly, carrying no light. 
 
 " Well ? " she said, rising out of the gloom as he ap- 
 proached. She spoke softly, for fear of disturbing Mrs. 
 Grimstone again, but there was a thrill in her voice that 
 surprised even her own ears. 
 
 Peter must have heard it, but he gave no verbal answer. 
 
 " Has he gone ? " she asked. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Is he hurt ? " 
 
 " He will remember." 
 
 They ascended the second flight of stairs together. It was 
 lighter here. Desire could see that Peter was fully dressed 
 and carried a bundle of manuscript papers. He must have 
 held them in the office, for she remembered now how sheets 
 had fallen like leaves when he attacked Alexander. 
 
 " Are you hurt ? " she asked softly. 
 
 There was a square patch of light at the top of the stairs, 
 where the moonlight streamed in at a window. She paused 
 in it, searching his face. For a moment their eyes met, and 
 something leapt to life in his. 
 
 " No," he said. Then he added suddenly, with a curious 
 peremptoriness, " Go to bed." 
 
 281
 
 DESIRE 
 
 He drew into the shadow as he spoke, and the manuscript 
 he held crackled under the grip of his fingers. 
 
 Without a word Desire obeyed him. She did not run, 
 yet she had a feeling of fleeing ; her breath was coming fast 
 when she reached her room, and her heart beating in big 
 thumps. She climbed on to the bed in the dark, and sat 
 there hugging herself, her blood racing, every nerve thrilling, 
 half afraid, half ashamed, wholly glad. Night the wizard, 
 passion and combat the primal, had done it j they had thrown 
 back the trappings and covers and reserves, they had called 
 to the original things, and showed them just man and 
 woman. She knew and she shivered, laughing. She had 
 been engaged once, and had been loved a good many more 
 times than once, and always as the much loved do gone a 
 little way towards reciprocating the emotion j but she had 
 never really loved before. Never been foolish and mad and 
 glad, gladder than anything in the world, and foolishly proud 
 and foolishly shy at seeing the light spring in a man's eyes, 
 and knowing that he had drawn back and bade her go for 
 fear he should take her in his arms and kiss her. 
 
 She was also old enough to know that she would have 
 forgiven him if he had. 
 
 282
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 ' ' QCX) Brunswick Square, W. C 
 
 "Mr DEAR DESIRED 
 
 " Tour father' $ lawyers have at last succeeded in getting 
 me information as to your recent doings and present whereabouts. 
 While deploring the precipitousness of your proceedings, which I 
 must characterize as somewhat ill-judged and unsuitable, I at 
 the same time approve the independent spirit which led you to 
 seek to maintain yourself even as a typist. I cannot, however, 
 regard it as a proper course for your father's daughter. I do 
 not forget as presumably does Lady Quebell that you are, in 
 spite of the accident of your birth, Sir Joseph's only child, and 
 brought up by his wish in circumstances and surroundings suited 
 to his legitimate daughter. I therefore write to offer you a home. 
 I suggest that you terminate your present engagement and come 
 to me as soon as possible. I propose to pay you, during the time 
 that the arrangement proves satisfactory, two hundred pounds 
 a year for your private expenses, and in consideration of various 
 small services I may require. It would also be understood that 
 I made suitable, though moderate, provision for you at my death. 
 / am, 
 
 " Tours sincerely, 
 
 "PHCEZE QUEBELL" 
 
 This was the letter Desire received at the end of Decem- 
 ber, and very pleased she was to receive it. Not that she 
 had any idea of accepting the offer it contained, but because 
 
 283
 
 DESIRE 
 
 she was delighted with the remembrance of herself that it 
 showed, with the old lady's generosity and also her spirit. 
 
 " Well done, Cousin Phoebe ! " she said. " The old dear 
 has taken the field in style, and I'm not worth it a bit in the 
 world. My hat ! But she must have given the step-mother 
 a bad quarter of an hour, a very bad one and she means 
 to give her more ! " 
 
 She threw the letter over to Peter as she spoke. " Read 
 it," she said. 
 
 He read it and returned it. 
 
 " I am glad for you," he said. 
 
 " I'm glad all round," Desire returned, " except of course 
 for the step-mother. Cousin Phoebe's a brick. There was 
 good stuff in my father's family good stuff, but autocratic, 
 they don't like being contradicted. I'm afraid she won't 
 like being refused, though, if she would only realize it, it is 
 no end of a let off for her." 
 
 " You will refuse ? " Peter asked. 
 
 " Why certainly," Desire said. " You don't think I'm 
 going out of Grimstones', do you ; just as it's commencing 
 to pay and the fun's properly beginning ? " 
 
 " It's never going to pay much," Peter told her, " and 
 you know it ; it may be, I think it will be, a living, but 
 never much more. And anyhow " 
 
 Desire stopped him. " You needn't go on," she said ; 
 " I know all about that." 
 
 But Peter did go on. " It is not right you should refuse 
 such an offer on that account," he said. " This is not the 
 work or the life for you " 
 
 " Yes, it is," Desire interrupted, " a good deal more so 
 than being companion to Cousin Phoebe \ " 
 
 " It is not being companion only," Peter said, " it is 
 
 really getting back to where you came from " 
 
 284
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " Brunswick Square ? " Desire laughed. " Do you know 
 where Brunswick Square is ?" 
 
 " It does not matter to you where the house is, you could 
 have just as much of your old life as you liked wherever it 
 was." 
 
 " On two hundred a year ? Dress and gamble on two 
 hundred a year ? " 
 
 " You can match expenditure and income if you want to, 
 and as for dress does it matter what you wear ? You are 
 always you." 
 
 Desire quitted the position of argument. " Well, I'm 
 not going, anyhow," she announced with finality. 
 
 " Will you tell me why ? " Peter asked. 
 
 " Because I don't want to. By the way, do you want 
 me to ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 Desire looked him in the face. " That," she said, " is 
 the first lie I have heard you tell." 
 
 " It is not a lie," he retorted ; " I do want you to go, I 
 think it would be the best, the right thing " 
 
 " Oh," said Desire, " is that what you call wanting ? 
 When I say I want anything I mean I think I should find 
 it personally agreeable, exciting, pleasant and altogether or 
 at least somehow delicious. Now, though I'm frequently 
 an awful nuisance to you, I flatter myself you wouldn't 
 find it all that to be rid of me. When you say you want a 
 thing it appears you mean you have a sense of duty that way. 
 Well, as I never paid much attention to my own sense of 
 duty it's not likely I'm going to begin paying any to yours." 
 
 Peter, from previous experience, had some reason to 
 
 think this likely to be the case ; and his personal feelings 
 
 But he kept them severely in the background and took up 
 the argument again. 
 
 285
 
 DESIRE 
 
 '* We never intended this should be anything but a tem- 
 porary arrangement," he said ; " it couldn't under any 
 circumstances be permanent, we only meant it to last until 
 we had something suitable and definite fixed. Affairs are 
 in splendid going order now, principally thanks to you, you 
 could not leave at a better time, and, since the chance has 
 come, you ought to go. Here there is nothing ; there there 
 is everything. You see, there is the future to look to. You 
 may marry " 
 
 Desire's eyes flickered, she bent over some papers so he 
 did not see. " Yes, I may," she said quietly, " but I 
 shan't." 
 
 It was nearly two weeks now since the night when 
 Alexander came ; the night when she had sat long on her 
 bed with her new discovered secret ; but Peter had never 
 given either word or sign. She had almost begun to doubt 
 if there had been that one, if she had seen that momentary 
 ftash of revelation. Peter was exactly the same as he had 
 been before, curiously, singularly intimate with an intimacy 
 she had never known before and a friendship which was the 
 rarest of the rare, but nothing else. Perhaps the idea was 
 possible it was only her own unbridled fancy, her own 
 desire, which had in imagination seen what it was fain to 
 see. But she did not really believe that, she was perfectly 
 and inwardly sure of the reality. She could not understand. 
 It did not enter into her scheme of things that a man, 
 believing himself in every way her inferior, should not 
 quickly understand that she cared for him that way ; or 
 that, remembering the converse mistake of other men, him- 
 self mistook for friendship what was something more. 
 Certainly it did not enter into her scheme that such a man, 
 even if he thought she had some passing fancy for him, 
 would not ask her to tie herself to a narrow life burdened 
 
 286
 
 DESIRE 
 
 with poverty and failing parents. Such a solution of the 
 mystery never occurred to Desire, who herself, even if she 
 had been of the blood royal, would unhesitatingly have taken 
 the road with a tinker had it happened to be a case of love 
 and he could be induced to declare his passion. Conse- 
 quently she was restless and perplexed, at ti : mes unhappy, 
 though she did not want anything undone, and did not want 
 to go back to things as they had been. Certainly she had 
 no idea of leaving Twycross, that was not her notion of a 
 solution. At no time during the past months was Miss 
 Quebell's proposal likely to be accepted j there was not the 
 least chance of it now. 
 
 "I'm not going," so Desire announced finally, "until 
 we're done with Alexander." 
 
 Peter had his backto her, yet somehow she felt that he 
 was very glad, but all he said was, "If you stay till then 
 you'll stay a long while, for we shan't be done with him till 
 we're dead, or he is." 
 
 " Think not ? " Desire said cheerfully. " Well, you can't 
 exactly work for the furtherance of that end even to achieve 
 the getting rid of me. Alexander, in your place, might 
 perhaps." 
 
 Alexander's name had been very little mentioned between 
 them since the night that he came unbidden to the office. 
 Desire had not heard any details of what happened then. 
 She knew on her own account that it was not accumulated 
 offences against himself, his father and the firm, which 
 finally broke down Peter's control that night and led him to 
 strike, but the one insult to herself. No one told her this, 
 but she knew it quite well, though she knew little besides. 
 Peter had only explained that he had happened to be 
 re-reading the manuscript of the unfinished novel that 
 evening. He had meant to do so for some while, but never 
 
 287
 
 DESIRE 
 
 found the time ; that night she herself had gone to bed 
 early, so he had fetched the manuscript, and, becoming 
 absorbed in it, sat late. Alexander must have approached 
 the house from the back, and if he reconnoitred in front 
 first, had not seen any light by reason of the shutters. The 
 first indication Peter had of an intruder's presence was the 
 uneasiness of Paddy, who was with him. The first indica- 
 tion Alexander had of any one still up in the house was 
 Peter's appearance in the doorway. This Peter told ; what 
 happened after she left them at his bidding he did not tell 
 her. She could see for herself that Peter had sustained 
 comparatively little damage ; and she could guess that 
 Alexander had sustained a good deal, since it was reported 
 about that time that he had met with some sort of accident. 
 Mr. Williams condoled with Mrs. Grimstone on the subject 
 the following Sunday, but he was so vague as to the nature 
 of the accident, and the amount of the injuries, that Desire 
 easily managed to allay the old lady's momentary uneasiness, 
 and at the same time herself perceived that the true facts 
 were being concealed, probably from Mrs. Alexander as 
 well as every one else. 
 
 Mrs. Grimstone never heard the truth ; she accepted 
 Desire's reassurances on Sunday as she had accepted the 
 explanation she gave earlier. Indeed, the old lady was 
 curiously content to accept without question, she seemed 
 as if she were too tired to do anything else. Desire was 
 impressed with it, and at the same time suddenly perceived 
 that Mrs. Grimstone was very tired ; more, that she was 
 failing. 
 
 With a startled feeling that was almost a pang Desire 
 perceived it, and in the new light began to understand small 
 signs she had hardly seen before. It was the not unfamiliar 
 sight of the invalid life lingering on, and the unwatched life 
 
 288
 
 DESIRE 
 
 of the watcher burning quietly away. There had been 
 a difference in Mrs. Grimstone ever since she had seen her 
 hungered-for grandchild. She seldom or never spoke of the 
 child or of the mother ; she never gave any indication of 
 wishing to see them again, but since their first visit a little 
 quiet sadness had settled on her ; not diminishing her 
 patient cheerfulness exactly, or coming between her and 
 her many services, but making her silent and filling her eyes 
 with the wistful resignation of a woman who has lost a 
 young baby. It was as if she had transferred to the dead 
 child the love which she had had for both, and which the 
 living one wanted so little, as if she felt that the hungered- 
 for child was dead. It was not this exactly which had aged 
 her, but it had taken away one of the hopes and longings of 
 her life, and when one is on in years one cannot well afford 
 to lose them. Desire saw it, and it seemed to her pitiful, 
 and she longed to supply the loss from her own super- 
 abundant zest for life. But it could not be done, any more 
 than a transfer of her vitality could. She realized it, and 
 began to realize, also, other things about Mrs. Grimstone, 
 small signs but not without meaning. Things were an 
 effort now which had been no effort before, bravely borne 
 and cheerfully made, but effort still. There was a tendency 
 to doze over work, a dropping into cat-sleeps whenever the 
 stimulus of necessity was removed, as if nature were worn. 
 There were other small wearinesses and feeblenesses, indica- 
 tions all that Mrs. Grimstone had, unnoticed by them, been 
 gradually getting very frail. 
 
 On the day when Desire and Peter agreed about Miss 
 Quebell's offer, there was an example of Mrs. Grimstone's 
 increasing feebleness and an indication that she herself was 
 not unaware of it. At dinner-time Desire informed her that 
 Peter was trying to get rid of her. 
 19 289
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " He hasn't given me notice exactly," she said, " but he 
 has indicated that the sooner I go the better." 
 
 " Go ! " Mrs. Grimstone exclaimed in such dismay that 
 they both looked at her. " Oh, my dear, don't do it ! I 
 can't I mean, I don't think I can spare you ! Peter, 
 must she go ? Surely there is no reason why she should 
 go?" 
 
 The last was a plea. True to her lifelong custom Mrs. 
 Grimstone would, after the first shock, bow to the dictates 
 of the men of her house, no matter how they might press on 
 her. <c Oh, Peter, must she ? " she asked. 
 
 " Of course not," Desire said. And they both hastened 
 to reassure her, explaining that it was only a proposal from 
 some relative who wanted Desire to live with her. 
 
 " But I'm not going," Desire said decidedly. " You're 
 not going to get rid of me that way." 
 
 " I am glad," Mrs. Grimstone said ; " I am glad ! " again 
 and again. 
 
 " Of course, if you ought to go," she said tentatively 
 after a little, "I mean, if it is better for you, more 
 
 suitable " 
 
 " It isn't," Desire assured her. 
 " Is it, Peter ? " Mrs. Grimstone asked. 
 " She says it isn't," Peter answered j " and anyhow she 
 has made up her mind not to go, and you know what that 
 means." 
 
 Mrs. Grimstone looked wistfully at Desire. " Perhaps, 
 later on," she said, " after the winter I've got so to depend 
 
 on you now-a-days " 
 
 Desire took her hand and kissed it. " Flatterer ! " she 
 said. " Nobody ever depended on me before they all knew 
 better." 
 
 Afterwards, when she and Peter were alone, she said, 
 
 290
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " Do you know, your mother's just been wearing out under 
 our eyes and we never knew it." 
 
 Peter nodded, and stood silent. 
 
 Desire smoked hard ; she wanted to do something, she 
 did not know what, but she wanted to do it at once for 
 the woman who had become very dear to her. 
 
 " She isn't ill," Peter said slowly, as if he were reviewing 
 things, " she is just tired. I think so tired that soon she 
 will find it an effort to live." 
 
 " A very little thing, a cough or a cold even, would make 
 it too much effort," Desire said shortly. 
 
 Again Peter nodded. " And I never knew," he said. 
 " I never knew. I took it as a matter of course that she 
 should do things." 
 
 There was remorse in his tone, Desire felt a share in it, 
 but after a little she said, " Do you know, I really think it 
 was a matter of course. I believe if she could not serve she 
 would not want to live. It's wonderful, isn't it ? I never 
 knew before, but there are people like that. It it makes 
 me ashamed." She wiped her eyes openly. 
 
 " What can we do ? " Peter asked. 
 
 " Nothing," she answered ; " I believe just nothing. Save 
 her when we can, and take care of her without letting her 
 see but really nothing." 
 
 And she was right. There was very little more they 
 could do ; for, as she had perceived, Mrs. Grimstone was 
 of that kind who would rather be doing and serving ; who 
 so long had never considered herself that she had little self 
 left, and when the consideration for others was taken from 
 her had small wish to live. So, in spite of what they saw, 
 they largely had to let her follow her usual course and lead 
 her usual life. They saved her where they could, un- 
 ostentatiously, and without letting it appear ; they gave 
 
 291
 
 DESIRE 
 
 her much thought and gentleness, and between them made 
 the short winter days very happy for her. The last part of 
 Mrs. Grimstone's life was undoubtedly the happiest in spite 
 of the condition of her husband, and the fact that she never 
 ceased to feel it on his account. With Peter's home-coming 
 the level grey years had, as it were, budded a little for her ; 
 little tentative shoots of pleasure had come, touches of con- 
 sideration, unspoken sympathy, like gleams of sunshine. 
 And in spite of the trouble which, within the first year, had 
 fallen upon the household, the gleams grew and broadened. 
 Ezra's disablement was the shaking of the pivot of Mrs. 
 Grimstone's existence, none the less, it gave her liberty and 
 the opportunity to serve ; and in Peter's company the shoots 
 of happiness still budded. This until Desire came, when 
 somehow it seemed they came to blossom. Gaiety and 
 laughter and small joys sprang up like flowers in the genial 
 warmth of Desire's large vitality. She was glad, and this 
 grey world seemed glad because of her ; she was strong, and 
 burdens seemed small beside her ; life had given to her 
 abundantly, and she gave again, herself, her goods, her 
 emotions, spending with both hands. She had brought the 
 sunshine to the last year of Mrs. Grimstone's life, though 
 she had not the least idea of it until the end, when the old 
 lady told her told her with the simplicity which was part of 
 her nature, and which gave a curious value to what she said. 
 "Ah, my dear," she said, when Desire sat silent under her 
 words, a choke in her throat at the sudden vision she had of 
 the bareness of a life that could be thus brightened. " It is 
 a great gift you have, to make the world a brighter place by 
 just being. It was like the sun coming into our house when 
 you came we don't have such a great deal of sun here, 
 you know, the hills bring clouds, I think. You are very 
 radiant." 
 
 292
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " I ? " Desire said. No, oh no ! " 
 
 " Yes," Mrs. Grimstone persisted, " when you wish you 
 are ; you always wished to shine here, I think you knew we 
 had not had much sunshine. You never thought of yourself 
 and your troubles, only of us. You could shine in other 
 grey places, too, if you liked. It is a great gift, my dear ; 
 many people try to make the world better, some do it, but 
 not many can make it brighter by just being, by their smiles, 
 by their voice, by little words and little deeds, by just living. 
 Oh, my dear, take care of it, don't let the gift get dim ! " 
 
 Desire could not answer, she was crying quietly but 
 unreservedly. 
 
 Mrs. Grimstone herself seemed to feel little regret at the 
 approaching end, which she knew to be near ; when once 
 she was sure her place would be filled, she seemed quite 
 content to go. 
 
 " I never thought to go before Ezra," she said once, " it's 
 sad to leave him ; but it would have been sadder to stay, and 
 not to be able to do all he wants. Mary will take my place, 
 she is a good woman, a good true woman, she never fails. 
 Why, in the few days I have been lying here she has learnt 
 to do for him better than I have of late ! Think of that ! 
 It took me quite a long time to learn, but I never was 
 clever." 
 
 For the rest she seemed to have little regret. She was 
 unfeignedly glad that her illness was short, that she would 
 not be a trouble to any one. It was vain that Desire told 
 her it was no trouble, vain that her looks and words showed 
 hers was a more than willing service. Mrs. Grimstone had 
 so long been the server she could not take to being served ; 
 she had so long spent all her energy doing for others, it 
 made her uneasy to have another do for her, even though 
 that other was Desire. 
 
 293
 
 DESIRE 
 
 In these last days the office saw little of Desire. James 
 did her work, and she became nurse, the woman in her 
 suddenly come to the surface. The nurse and mother, 
 which seems to lie dormant in most women, waked to life, 
 and making her herself still but another, a gentler, a more 
 tender, perhaps a truer woman too. 
 
 " My dear," Mrs. Grimstone whispered on the last day of 
 all, " you have been very good to me not now only, but 
 
 ever since you came. You a^nd Peter " she looked 
 
 across at Peter, who was the other side of the bed. 
 
 "I have sometimes thought," she said to him, "since I 
 have been lying here thinking of things, and of all Desire 
 told me of London and your life. Sometimes I wondered if 
 you did want to come home if it was the best " 
 
 " Yes," Peter said, " it was the best, I think the best work 
 in my life, I know the best time." 
 
 His voice had a curious depth as he spoke, and Desire 
 knew he was speaking the truth, though to her there was 
 something almost tragic in it ; for the goodness he had found 
 was the goodness of renunciation, and the hard-learnt lesson 
 that work well done is better than work self-chosen, better 
 than the success which may or may not crown it. 
 
 But Mrs. Grimstone did not understand, and she was 
 reassured and content. Her hand fluttered feebly, and 
 Peter, divining what was in her mind, took it in his ; in 
 these late rare moments this expression of emotion was 
 possible, though it never had been before in all their reserved 
 lives. With Desire it was always possible, Mrs. Grimstone's 
 left hand had long lain in hers ; now with her right she held 
 Peter, and, so holding, happy in the presence of the two she 
 loved, she fell into fitful sleep. So they sat there very quiet 
 in the quiet room, a pause of peace to gather the thought 
 harvest. So till the twilight fell, and the feeble fingers grew 
 
 294
 
 DESIRE 
 
 more feeble and relaxed, and gradually, in spite of the strong 
 grasp of the younger hands, grew cold. The faint breath 
 grew fainter, fluttered, and was gone, and Mrs. Grimstone, 
 tired with a long day's work, slipped from sleep to the longer 
 rest. 
 
 295
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE funeral was over, the few crape-bound cousins who 
 had attended took their leave. Having parted with one 
 who had to wait for a down train, the rest got into an up 
 and settled themselves, the men taking off their black gloves, 
 the women throwing back their veils and criticizing the 
 funeral arrangements. 
 
 " I don't approve of innovations," said the lady with the 
 black currants in her bonnet she was one who made it a 
 point of duty to attend all the funerals she could " I don't 
 like the way things were done." 
 
 A younger woman, by name Clara, did not like them 
 either, and she said so, adding further, " And whatever was 
 right was no thanks to Peter Grimstone, I'm sure. I've 
 not seen him since he was a little boy in knickerbockers 
 until to-day, but he's not improved, any one can see 
 what he is." 
 
 She sniffed just a little as she spoke, so it is plain whatever 
 she saw Peter to be she did not admire it. She turned for 
 corroboration to the head man of the party, an elderly 
 gentleman, who last year had buried his wife with a funeral 
 which had given complete satisfaction to every one, including 
 the undertakers. He had disapproved of several things 
 to-day, though principally Peter. "Peter Grimstone," he 
 said in a beard-muffled voice, " a fool, a dreamer, wrote a 
 book or something. Stand-offish ways too doesn't know 
 time and place his mother's funeral not the time for that 
 sort of thing." 
 
 296
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " What's-his-name Alexander, was not there." 
 
 A little man with a cheerful face, and gloves which had 
 been inked at the tips, said this. He was somebody's 
 husband, a south-country man, without a proper compre- 
 hension of family feuds. The rest of the party did compre- 
 hend, and with one accord they said, " Of course Alexander 
 was not ! " One, it is true, afterwards added, and it was 
 quite correct, " He had influenza, I am told," but another 
 hastened to say, " He wouldn't have come if he hadn't 
 got it." 
 
 " Why not ? " the little man demanded, though he knew 
 the answer. " Because he happened to fall out years ago 
 with a hard-headed old chap who is laid by now ? Poof ! 
 If you were to ask me, I should say his mother's funeral 
 wasn't the time to show off that sort of thing." 
 
 They had not asked him, and perhaps it was as well that 
 she of the black currants created a diversion by inquiring, in 
 somewhat italic tones, " What I should like to know is, 
 who is the young woman ? " 
 
 Somebody said, " A companion," and the irrepressible little 
 man remarked, " Queer kind for that job Venus of what's- 
 his-name, and all that sort of thing, don't you know. And 
 manners too. She's the real thing ! " 
 
 The lady with the black currants set her lips. "If," she 
 said with seventy, "she is a companion, it would have been 
 more becoming of her to have left the house by this time. 
 Seeing that there is no one there but servants old servants, 
 certainly, but still only servants and a helpless invalid, she 
 is virtually alone with a young man. She should have left 
 directly after poor dear Susan's death ; if she had had nice 
 feelings she would have done so." 
 
 She called Clara sniffed here, she did not expect the "nice 
 feelings," evidently. "It's an extraordinary thing," she 
 
 297
 
 DESIRE 
 
 said, "that poor Susan should have left her china, even 
 grandmother's tea-set, to her ; such things ought to go to 
 relatives." 
 
 They were agreed on this point, as they had been on 
 Peter's behaviour, and the two subjects, diluted by references 
 to recent funerals attended by the older woman, served them 
 till they had to part company. 
 
 That Peter's behaviour fell short of what it should have 
 been according to custom, was not very surprising, for he 
 had no idea what was expected of him, or indeed, that any- 
 thing particular was. And Desire, totally unacquainted 
 with the rigid forms regarded here, was no help to him. 
 Robert no doubt could have told him ; but Peter's ignorance 
 on the subject extended to not knowing there were things 
 he ought to know, so he did not ask, and Robert did not 
 volunteer. The old man, as the cousins guessed, had to a 
 certain extent arranged things, at all events the things which 
 pleased them. It was to him they practically owed their 
 presence. Peter, left to himself, would certainly not have 
 remembered them, and Desire would not have thought to 
 ask if Mrs. Grimstone had any relatives near or far off. 
 Indeed, she rather objected to their presence ; it seemed to 
 her ridiculous, almost impertinent, that any one besides her 
 and Peter should be there. They two alone had known 
 and loved Mrs. Grimstone ; it was they she had loved, and 
 they, with the helpless body which had so strangely survived 
 her, formed her life and the centre of her existence. It was 
 they surely who should alone follow her to the grave. The 
 rest was mere convention, and Desire had small patience 
 with convention when it interfered with or intruded upon 
 her. 
 
 Peter, on the other hand, was indifferent to it ; she felt 
 that, and in the light of the feeling became more reconciled 
 
 298
 
 DESIRE 
 
 herself. It did not intrude with him, he was hardly aware 
 of its existence. The cousins were there, of course, Robert 
 had thought they should be, and James at his direction had 
 bidden them, but they were nothing. Since they were 
 there Peter was patiently polite to them, as he would have 
 been to any one he found in the house or met on the road, 
 but they did not count for anything, their presence was 
 little more than the presence of flies on the window pane 
 they came, they buzzed, they went. He and Desire were 
 alone in this, as formerly he had been alone in all things that 
 mattered, and as they of late had been alone together. They 
 had grown to be more and more alone together ; he had 
 not realized how much they were, nor how the original 
 single solitude of his life had come to be shared, until the 
 day his mother died. Then, when they sat in wordless 
 sympathy and knew each the other's feeling without ex- 
 pression, he realized it ; he knew then that, however material 
 circumstances altered or what corporeal facts afterwards 
 befell, they two would always have this time of oneness to 
 look back upon. They had gradually come so close together 
 in the past months of work and struggle, this sitting together 
 in the death chamber, held by the feeble hands of the simple 
 woman who had loved them, was as it were the consumma- 
 tion. What came after could not alter and could not take 
 it. And certainly the trivial present, the mere presence or 
 absence of women with crape veils and men with huskily 
 subdued voices, was of no importance at all. It matters very 
 little who comes for a while into one's house, seeing how 
 perfectly impossible it is for any one, blood-relation or bed- 
 fellow, to come unbidden into one's life, to understand and 
 share the things that really count. 
 
 So the cousins came and went away, and their coming 
 and their going was equally nothing to Peter ; and, through 
 
 299
 
 DESIRE 
 
 him, not much more to Desire after the first. Though, 
 after they had gone, she threw up the long windows to let 
 out the smell of their crape and boots. Having done this 
 she went to change her funeral dress, and Peter went up to 
 his father's room, to tell the events of the day to the inani- 
 mate figure which he still believed might some time hear and 
 understand. 
 
 Desire, when she had changed her dress, went to the 
 office ; there were several letters she rather wanted to get 
 off; moreover, she felt a restless need of doing something 
 something which which would occupy her mind. She 
 typed the letters, took copies, filed papers, gave all her 
 attention to the business in hand. Yet between whiles, 
 when she stopped for a fresh sheet of paper, when she folded 
 a letter or fastened an envelope, other thoughts would 
 intrude one other thought The end. It had come. The 
 thing was ended, the thing as it had been, as it was, had 
 come to an end, and she knew it. She had not heard the 
 strictures of the lady with the black currants, and she would 
 not have cared a snap of the fingers if she had. She would 
 not have cared for better founded strictures passed by people 
 of more importance, better able to form an opinion. She 
 would not have had the slightest compunction about living 
 on here on the present terms but Peter, she knew, would 
 not ask her to do it. More for in her regal disregard of 
 obstacles she might have got over that difficulty he would 
 not let her do it. The compromise of more or less continu- 
 ing the present work and living somewhere in the town, she 
 did not for one moment contemplate ; it would have been 
 a mere ridiculous evasion to both her and Peter. Conven- 
 tions might have been satisfied by such a thing, but then 
 neither of them thought of that, it was not a convention 
 which dictated the end which was coming. She did not 
 
 300
 
 DESIRE 
 
 know how it would come, whether he would ask her to 
 marry him. A shaking took possession of her at the thought, 
 as if she had been the youngest girl; and as if she had been 
 such a one she never pictured a point further than the 
 question, which she somehow did not feel was likely to be 
 asked. Or whether he would tell her that for some reason 
 he could not marry her. It did not matter why, she had a 
 large, tolerant incuriousness of such things, and the result, 
 whatever the reason, would be the same. Or whether he 
 would tell her she must go. This was the last thought, the 
 ever-recurring one. This had no reason either and would 
 ask none ; she would, if this came, simply accept it and go. 
 She had always kicked over barriers and stepped over 
 obstacles, often without even recognizing them ; she had not 
 the slightest regard for any conventions which were hamper- 
 ing to her, but this time she would accept another's dictate, 
 whatever it was. 
 
 But when, when would it be ? Not that evening, it 
 seemed, though they spent it together. They sat together 
 after supper, they two alone ; she noticed absurd little details 
 that night, things which had occurred before but which in 
 their intimacy struck her afresh. He carved, he knew pre- 
 cisely what she liked, he did not ask her, as if they had 
 always lived together. She helped the sweets, Mary, who 
 brought the plates, asked her some question, would she have 
 this or that dish ? as if she were the mistress of the house and 
 had forgotten to give the order. 
 
 After supper he read prayers. When she first came she 
 had found him carrying on this custom of the house, and 
 somehow, though she could not tell why, she had been glad 
 of it. She had known little of the Bible before, its splendid 
 prose and vivid, many-sided humanity appealed strongly to 
 her, and yet in some way seemed to fit with the life here. 
 
 301
 
 DESIRE 
 
 She was glad that Peter read every night, as his father and 
 grandfather and great-grandfather had before him, even 
 though he, and probably they too, doubtless had a private 
 interpretation of what was read. That night he read prayers, 
 Robert and Mary at one end of the room, she and he at the 
 other ; the old Puritan custom of family worship, as if they 
 two were the heads of the family. 
 
 After prayers they sat together by the fire. The earlier 
 part of the evening Peter had felt compelled to spend in his 
 father's room, and Desire had been alone. Now Mary was 
 up-stairs settling the invalid for the night, and they two were 
 alone. They sat one on either side of the fire, the dog 
 curled up beteen them. Desire was darning, she had learnt 
 at last under Mrs. Grimstone's tuition j it was one of the 
 fine old pillow-cases she was at work upon. She felt Peter's 
 eyes upon it and realized that here again was the same 
 intimacy. In her previous life in her father's house such 
 things had been impossible ; any two persons might be there 
 under any conditions, and even though they could outrage 
 all the proprieties they could not come into this simple 
 hearth-sharing relationship. In that hotel-like life it was the 
 butler who knew one's tastes, the housekeeper who ordered 
 the household, the sewing-maid who did the mending. The 
 members of the family knew nothing of each other's wants, 
 little of each other's sorrows, and not much of each other's 
 joys ; in that life it would have been possible to marry a man 
 and, in most particulars, never really live with or know him 
 properly. Here it was utterly and entirely different ; here 
 and now she and Peter were as she had never been with 
 another man, never could be. 
 
 Suddenly she began to talk, about anything, the first thing 
 that came to her tongue. Of course it was personal, in a 
 very short time it was bound to be ; when you share work, 
 
 302
 
 DESIRE 
 
 and interest, and almost thoughts with one person every 
 topic must be soon, but it is sometimes better to talk even 
 thus than to be silent. So the evening passed, too fast, and 
 yet not so fast but that she noted and remembered every- 
 thing. At last it was bedtime, and she rose, folding her 
 work neatly as Mrs. Grimstone used to do. 
 
 Robert and Mary had already gone up when they came 
 out into the hall, so Peter barred the front door. 
 
 "I believe we ought to get a new mat," he said, as he 
 caught his foot in a hanging thread. " Do you know where 
 they get them ? " 
 
 " No," Desire said almost sharply. " Shall I put out the 
 light ? " she asked. 
 
 " Don't bother," Peter answered. " I'll do it." 
 
 He came, but she had put it out before he got there, and 
 holding her candle low, went down the hall. They went 
 up-stairs together and parted on the landing, after stopping to 
 see if the staircase window was fastened. Peter examined the 
 window, she held the light. Then they said " good-night," 
 and went each to their room. And then suddenly, as Desire 
 shut the door, restraint dropped from her, the self-possession 
 which in all her life, through all its happenings, in company 
 and solitude, had always decently dropped her emotions, fell 
 off, and the crude woman flashed out for a moment. 
 
 " I can't stand it ! God in Heaven ! I can't do it ! " she 
 said almost aloud. " I can't sit at table with him, share the 
 house with him, bar the door with him, play at wife with 
 him, and no more ! " 
 
 She turned with almost a fury of movement, like a wild 
 animal, and like an animal flung herself across the room, 
 hands clenched, eyes blazing, scarlet lips protesting in half 
 audible outcry " I can't, I can't 1 " 
 
 At the other end of the room there was a mirror, in the 
 
 33
 
 DESIRE 
 
 half dark a face looked out of it, a face unveiled and somehow 
 terrible in its hunger and its passion and primitive unabashed 
 emotion. Desire, seeing it, recoiled, then stood still. For 
 a long minute she stood with averted eyes, and the dim face 
 changed. The eyes grew tragic, almost fearing, and the 
 mouth it was hid in shadows one only knew it twitched 
 and worked. Her breath came heavily, as one who has 
 struggled in deep waters. Then she threw up her head and, 
 though the mirrored face showed white, almost as if fingers 
 had hardly pressed it, a trace of the old smile curved the 
 wrung lips. 
 
 " Clearly," she said to it, " it is time I went." 
 She put out the light and undressed in the dark. Her 
 breath was coming evenly now, her pulse beating slow and 
 regular ; but she did not want to see herself again just 
 yet. 
 
 The next day was Sunday, and in the afternoon she and 
 Peter went up the hill together. It was a quiet, grey after- 
 noon in early February, everything still, no sign of life, no 
 promise even of the spring in this cold country. There was 
 a sense of pause in the air, of waiting for something ; it 
 might be for storms and sleet, or it might be gentle rain and 
 gleams of sunshine ; there was nothing to tell ; only the 
 earth slept, brown beneath the grey sky, very silent. They 
 went by the familiar way, by the path and past the land- 
 marks now as well known to Desire as to Peter. She 
 observed them particularly that day, each one as they came 
 to it. When the top was reached she sat down on the dead 
 heather ; there had been no rain for some time, and the 
 ground was moderately dry ; dry enough, at all events, to 
 satisfy her ; and she drew herself out full length in the way 
 she liked. Peter sat on a boulder near, his eyes on the 
 spread landscape, and for a time there was complete silence. 
 
 34
 
 DESIRE 
 
 At last Peter spoke. "When you wrote to Miss Quebel!, 
 what did you say ? Do you mind telling me ? " 
 
 " I said that I was much obliged for her proposal ; very 
 grateful for it ; thought it no end sporting, and all the rest ; 
 but I didn't see my way to accepting it or words to that 
 effect." 
 
 Desire spoke carelessly, but she rolled over as she spoke, 
 and, elbows on the ground, chin propped on hands, watched 
 Peter under her hat-brim. 
 
 " When she acknowledged your letter, was she angry ? " 
 he asked. 
 
 " Very," Desire answered. " The offer, apparently, was 
 not pure philanthropy ; there would seem to have been a 
 teeny wee bit of an idea of scoring off Lady Quebell in it 
 or, at all events, of demonstrating a superior sense of duty 
 and justice, and so on. Yes, she was annoyed, and she said 
 so. There was, however, a postscript indicating that, owing 
 to these or other reasons, the offer might still be open if I 
 came to my senses or, rather, her senses at a future date." 
 
 " I see," Peter said, and there was another pause. Then 
 he asked, " Don't you think it would be wiser if you did 
 go to her ? It would be better, don't you think, than any- 
 thing else ? " 
 
 He turned to her as he spoke, and she raised her head 
 to meet his eyes. 
 
 " Do you want me to go ? " she asked. 
 
 Yes." 
 
 He did not explain, or apologize, or palliate it ; he did 
 not thank her for what she had done, or dwell on her gain 
 in going, or his loss. He only answered the one word, and 
 looked in her eyes as he spoke it. And Desire asked no 
 more ; it was enough j all else would have been superfluous, 
 mere words. This was her order to go ; and, for all her 
 
 20 305
 
 DESIRE 
 
 strength and persistence, for all her habit of overriding 
 obstacles and gaily carrying her point, she accepted it. She 
 was a woman to the core, and such, the most wayward as 
 well as the most docile, the strongest sooner, perhaps, than 
 the weakest, will take orders from the one man who can 
 give them. So Desire took this order, and so the end came. 
 She took it in silence ; for one moment the immovable face 
 and grey eyes which looked into hers held her silent, held 
 her soul prisoned, as it were. 
 
 But she had learnt self-mastery in a good school, and 
 practised it in private and in public with one brief 
 exception most of her life, and it stood her in good stead 
 now. 
 
 " All right," she said ; " I'll write to-night." 
 
 Then she looked away. She knew that, whatever his 
 motive for sending her, it was not easy to him, and she was 
 suddenly afraid of seeing it in his face. She tore up some 
 heather roots and examined them carefully, entirely without 
 seeing. A curlew cried once overhead ; nothing else stirred 
 in the great silence. Peter looked straight before him ; his 
 face had grown grim and old ; he had no word whatever to 
 say, and she was glad of it. A word of any sort would have 
 been so utterly inadequate, so false. She was glad, savagely 
 glad, that his face was grim and old ; and next moment 
 she was ashamed, ashamed even of having seen what he 
 wished hid. She sat up and felt for her cigarette case. 
 
 " Can you give me a light ? " she said. 
 
 He gave her one, and then rose, as if he thought it time 
 they went. 
 
 They went home by the long way that day and they 
 talked very little, talk seemed somewhat impossible. The 
 path was a long and winding one, taking them some way 
 among the hills before bringing them to the level of the road. 
 
 306
 
 DESIRE 
 
 At one point it passed a deserted chapel, a little grey building 
 set on the hillside, built by some small austere sect since 
 dead or scattered, deserted now except by one solitary 
 member. He, an old bent man, a hill man by birth and at 
 one time possibly a leading light among the lost community, 
 still came. Regularly, in rain or sunshine or howling wind, 
 he came ; each Sunday afternoon he took the path, so little 
 used now as to be rough and overgrown, and came to the 
 chapel and alone he held a service there according to his 
 lights. Desire and Peter had seen him sometimes when they 
 passed that way ; to-day when they neared the chapel they 
 saw that the door stood wide. The light was failing fast 
 and the old man, having no candle or lamp, had left the 
 door open so that he might have the last of the daylight. 
 The bare interior was all revealed, the walls stained with 
 damp and disuse, the shadows in the corner, the kneeling 
 figure. An old illiterate man, a bare place, deserted and 
 forgotten in the lonely hills, and yet a temple sanctified by 
 worship. 
 
 By common impulse Desire and Peter paused ; then with- 
 out speaking went quietly in and knelt down side by side 
 among the shadows. 
 
 The old man prayed and preached. He preached aloud 
 though for years there had been no congregation but the 
 birds that sometimes, but rarely, looked in at the windows 
 he had roughly mended. He prayed quietly, sometimes in 
 silence, sometimes in a muttering voice for no earthly hearer. 
 He was growing deaf, he did not hear the rare sounds with- 
 out, would not have heard if quiet steps entered or left his 
 little sanctuary. He was absorbed and did not feel the 
 presence of human beings or guess that human hearts beat 
 for a little in the shadows. For long he had been the only 
 worshipper, he looked for no other, and that Sunday, as well 
 
 307
 
 DESIRE 
 
 as on all that had gone before, it was the same. There was 
 no one in the little building when he felt his way through 
 the dusk to the doorway, no one outside on the fast darken- 
 ing path, no sight or sound of living soul. He turned to 
 secure the door and on the cracked doorstone saw a tuft of 
 dead heather lying. None grew within a mile of the place 
 but he thought nothing of it, only picked it up and threw it 
 away, and having fastened the door took his lonely way over 
 the hills. 
 
 On the Thursday following Desire left Twycross. Pre- 
 parations with her never took long making. She wrote to 
 Miss Quebell, she received an answer ; she bundled her 
 belongings into trunks and boxes and, having arranged her 
 papers and interviewed Dodd and James, she was practically 
 ready to start. 
 
 The affairs of the firm were, largely thanks to her, in 
 good order now. Peter, too, by slow learning and painful 
 experience had at last got the grip of them ; James was an 
 able and methodical assistant ; she knew that, however much 
 they might miss her, they could do without her now. The 
 manufacturing part was also in excellent condition such 
 condition as it had not been since the early days when small 
 concerns and working masters were general. For this, too, 
 she was partly responsible, for without her financial help the 
 machine, to which the prosperity was owing, could hardly 
 have been set up. Affairs were altogether in a condition to 
 be left ; such a condition, indeed, that Mr. Dodd gave it as 
 his opinion that it would have been a sheer waste of talents 
 for her to remain. 
 
 Desire graciously accepted the somewhat laboured com- 
 pliment he paid her on the subject, and thanked him for 
 the manner in which he had worked with her and other 
 things in a way which made him happy if embarrassed. At 
 
 308
 
 DESIRE 
 
 the same time it emboldened him to ask if she would allow 
 him to present her with a small souvenir, some local photo- 
 graphs a friend of his had taken, he would like to get them 
 mounted for her if she would permit it. Of course she would 
 she was delighted and touched it was easy to touch Desire 
 her heart warmed towards Dodd for thinking of the photo- 
 graphs. But it was not to him she made the one request she 
 did make before leaving, but to Robert. She knew Robert, 
 his surly sterling stuff, and his indissoluble connection with 
 the firm and the household. 
 
 " Robert," she said, " I want you to promise to wire to 
 me if at any time things go wrong, or there is a smash up of 
 any kind, or anything particular happens." 
 
 Robert hesitated ; he was cautious in giving promises, 
 being one of those who regard them as more binding than 
 law or common sense, and always to be fulfilled to the letter. 
 However, Desire had long ago won an ascendency over him 
 and knew how to use it ; before long he had promised what 
 she wanted and she knew he would keep his word ; probably 
 without consulting Peter, who would naturally be allowed 
 nothing to do with what was a matter of conscience. 
 
 Desire's farewells did not take long to make ; she had no 
 acquaintances in the town to call upon excepting the 
 minister and his wife ; on them she paid a real leave-taking 
 call of great propriety. Notwithstanding it, however, Mr. 
 Williams came to the station to see her off, and gave her a 
 little book as a farewell present. Several people gave her 
 farewell presents, mostly of a somewhat unwieldy order. 
 Her friends the quarrymen, to whom she had called good-bye 
 from her bedroom window, left a market bunch of wall- 
 flowers and some fossils, found in their work, for her. A 
 gipsy crone, with whom she had often smoked and chatted, 
 gave her the wicker basket she was making by the roadside, 
 
 309
 
 DESIRE 
 
 when she heard that she was leaving. Robert presented her 
 with a remarkable jug she had often contemplated with 
 interest ; the seven deadly sins were stencilled on it in shiny 
 black. Mary gave a bottle of embrocation of her own 
 compounding, and three mince-pies to be eaten on the 
 journey. Dodd's photographs, which were mounted in a 
 small but highly-ornamented album, were hardly ready in 
 time. Indeed, he arrived by down train with them only 
 just before she left the station in the up. 
 
 He came breathless over the bridge, and pushed his way 
 through the little group about the carriage door. The 
 porters, who were also Desire's friends, had gathered there to 
 the annoyance of other passengers, who had rather to do 
 without them that day. 
 
 " It wasn't done in time for me to send it," Dodd 
 explained, panting a little as he put his parcel into Desire's 
 hand. Then he remembered the manners on which he 
 prided himself, and asked her to do him the honour of 
 accepting the trifle. 
 
 She accepted it with flushing face and softening eyes, just 
 as if it were a great honour ; as if he were a great man and it 
 a great gift, something wonderful. To her it was wonderful, 
 to be remembered and thought of by any one ; to have people 
 like her, care that she left, was sweet and touching ; it never 
 lost its freshness or failed to surprise her, no matter how 
 often it occurred. She always forgot the times which had 
 gone before, and only remembered that she had done little 
 to deserve it. She stood in the carriage doorway now ; the 
 seats within were littered with her coats and cloaks, and 
 things which would not go anywhere else, and also with the 
 unwieldy gifts. In her hands were the wallflowers, and now 
 Dodd's little parcel. Her eyes filled with tears as she stood 
 there tears for Dodd and Mr. Williams and the quarrymen 
 
 310
 
 DESIRE 
 
 and porters and every one except Peter. It was all " except 
 Peter," that send off. Peter brought no farewell gift ; Peter 
 won no tearful smile, no parting admonition or ridiculous 
 laughing comment which left a sunny memory. There was 
 no last handshaking for Peter, no farewells hurried by the 
 starting of the train ; they did not touch one another, they 
 scarcely spoke. Only, when the quickening train passed 
 under the bridge, it was on Peter that her eyes were eyes 
 whose memory he carried back to the lonely grey house.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 IN September, some six months and more after leaving 
 Twycross, Desire wrote the following letter. She did not 
 post it, though why is not quite clear, for it certainly had 
 the appearance of being written to Peter, and of being meant 
 to be posted 
 
 " fichy, September 15. 
 
 " This, O sole Working Representative of the Firm of 
 Grimstone this is a chronicle of small beer. I do not apologize, 
 1 write for my delectation, not yours. It is long since you have 
 heard from me, so you ought to like it or at least pretend that 
 you do. 
 
 " At present we take a cure, Cousin Phoebe and I ; she does it 
 for the good of her joints, also incidentally her physician ; I do it 
 for pleasures of experience. For long the nature of my disease has 
 troubled the curists, I somehow dont look a desperate case ; at last 
 an embassy of two has approached me. In strict confidence I told 
 them I was suffering from imaginitis / am not sure if they have 
 yet diagnosed it. 
 
 " Before this, I mean before the cure, c Miss Desire Quebell 
 was the guest of Lord and Lady Dmfield, at Dinfield Towers, 
 where a select house party was assembled ' all for to slay the little 
 grouse bird. Miss Desire Quebell did not do any slaying, but 
 she went out with the guns, which was decent enough ; and 
 gambled and talked, and went on much as usual in such circum- 
 stances in between whiles, which was rather dreary. Alas ! / do 
 
 312
 
 DESIRE 
 
 find such things a bit dreary at times something has spoiled my 
 taste for play, all sorts of play, gambling and fooling equally. 
 It's sickening to lose a faculty ', but it's what we all come to ; old 
 age and boredom are creeping upon me, in fact they have crept. 
 
 " To tell the truth I am taking the cure because of the lost 
 faculty not as a remedy^ man ami, don't be obvious and say 
 that but because duty to an ailing relative is an excellent reason 
 for not going to houses where you are bored. At two have I 
 stayed^ at two have I week-ended since the I2th no more, thank 
 you, just yet. 
 
 " Be satisfied : I have some pearls ! I told you if ever I 
 was in circumstances to want them I should have them, and I 
 was right. A short string, not a long one like my others, but 
 better pearls. They are Cousin Phoebe's ; I don't know what 
 aged relative she got them from, but she has given me the use of 
 them. She says she has given them to me to save probate at her 
 death ; but I tell her I will have the use of them only, and leave 
 them behind when I flit. I have pointed out to her that, through 
 no fault of my own, I seem to have a habit of c softly and silently 
 vanishing away ' like the people who see a boojum. 
 
 " Well, for the present I wear the pearls when I go out to 
 parties and such. I went to many parties before I left town. 
 Did I tell you when I wrote last that you were right about its 
 not mattering where I lived in town ? On the whole I prefer 
 Brunswick Square, I think, there's more variety ; I see as much 
 as I want of the old lot Not more, we're not on the telephone, 
 also whenever I don't want to go anywhere I find it too far 
 so convenient. Cousin Phcebe is heroic, she puts up with my 
 friends, and my vagaries, and my hours in a Spartan manner. 
 I'm afraid she has her reasons, she and the step-mother had a 
 row royal over me it seems ; it also seems she has always hated 
 Lady Quebell pretty considerably. I'm afraid my liberty and 
 general encouragement to go forth and shine is part of a scheme 
 
 3'3
 
 DESIRE 
 
 of spite. 1 wish it wasn't, I hate that kind of thing, it seems 
 somehow not in the least worth while. I met the step-mother of 
 course several times ; it appeared to be awkward to her, I was 
 so sorry, it really need not have been, there's no earthly reason 
 why we should not be as pleasant as anything. I fancy she gave 
 up one or two parties for fear of meeting me again ; then I gave 
 up one or two for fear of embarrassing her by my presence It 
 is all very ridiculous. 
 
 " One night at a big affair I met Edward Gore and his wife 
 she is his wife now. He has altered, altered tremendously 
 perhaps you will suggest, as I remember you did once before, that 
 it may be I and my point of view that have altered. I don't 
 know, I think it must be both, one alone could not account for the 
 difference. Still, I was glad to see the Gores, especially her. 
 It was so nice to see her with him in his proper position, recog- 
 nized and all the sort of thing she wanted. When I caught sight 
 of her I made for her right away, to tell her how awfully glad 
 I was to see her. And do you know, she coloured a little and 
 seemed almost afraid of me ! And he looked as if hid rather 
 have met any one else in the world; he was frigid, I believe, 
 with embarrassment or fear or something. She and I talked 
 weather-talk for five minutes, and then he hurried her away, 
 though they had only just come. I fancy no one but me knows 
 anything really of this affair, I suppose they were afraid of 
 something coming out through me. Or maybe it is that they 
 themselves have buried it -folks do seem able to bury things and 
 pretend they are not there and my appearance was like a bit 
 of resurrection. I dont know. It's extraordinary to me As 
 if it mattered, as if anything mattered 
 
 " That meeting with them led me to give up some other 
 functions. I didnt mind meeting them, I should not have chosen 
 iff talk much to them of course, because they disappointed me, but 
 there are always plenty of other people but it was plain they
 
 DESIRE 
 
 did not want to meet me. So I abstained from several entertain- 
 ments on their account, but I can't pretend it was pain and grief 
 to me to do it. I'm afraid, these tiresome contretemps apart, I 
 do not care for things as I used. I don't care, it's no good pre- 
 tending I do. One outgrows it, or one loses touch, or something, 
 I'm getting very old. Boys and girls are expected to outgrow 
 marbles and dolls, and in middle-class life young men and women, 
 the ones with stuff in them, are expected to outgrow games and 
 dancing and generally playing Why, I wonder, when one has 
 more money, is one expected to have less sense ? ' Le monde qut 
 s' amuse ' begins to strike me rather as a case of arrested develop- 
 ment, doesn't it you ? Well, my mother wasn't even middle- 
 class, and my father was a man who worked, I suppose I don't 
 belong, that's the truth of it. 
 
 " The Brunswick Squarers they mostly don't live in Bruns- 
 wick Square, by the way They say they are commonplace, at 
 least they say each other are, and as they all say it it follows they 
 all must be. But they are all quite different, and if they are all 
 commonplace, then it's a fascinating quality. I should not like 
 too much of them of course, but then I should not like too much 
 of any one I fear Oh, for a great great silence, a solitude you 
 can feel, a silence you can hear ! 
 
 " / had it once while I was staying in Yorkshire last month. 
 I got away on Sunday afternoon, out alone and up on to the moor, 
 a big, big place where there were curlew. But a man who was 
 staying in the house came after me or perhaps met me, anyhow 
 he turned up. He was Julian Lee, by the way, the man who 
 wrote to you for my address. I'm afraid I was not very nice to 
 him about the address, nor very nice to him that Sunday. After 
 talking to him for about ten minutes, I just asked him if he'd 
 mind going on or walking back, as I wanted to be alone. He 
 went like a lamb, he really is a good sort ; but of course the spell 
 was broken, also I repented of my nastiness all the way home,
 
 DESIRE 
 
 which was uncomfortable. I knew by his face he didn't like it, 
 and, as I say, he has been decent to me and never plagued me 
 with silly questions, 
 
 " / took the curate to the Tivoli before leaving London. I 
 dined him first and took him there afterwards, it rather took his 
 breath away, I'm not sure that the dining didn't do it most, but 
 I'm sure it was good for him. He has renounced the pomps and 
 vanities of the wicked world without knowing anything about 
 them a Saint Francis sort of person But I have told you about 
 him before. He's Cousin Phoebe's curate, but my friend. 
 
 " / have another friend, too, now, he is a draper's assistant 
 / have not mentioned this fact to Cousin Phoebe, nor have I 
 mentioned the curate and the Tivoli. She has prejudices. We 
 all have. 
 
 " My draper is a socialist and a reformer, and all manner of 
 sincere and uncomfortable things. Such an odd man, and so 
 immensely real ! I suppose he is what is called well-read, I've 
 never met it before, it rather sticks out of him at times ; but in 
 spite of it I like him, he is so earnest and so really and simply 
 spends himself for other people and the things in which he believes. 
 He comes to the boys' club, fancy working in a shop a draper's 
 shop, where tiresome women worry all day and then giving 
 your evenings to a boys' club ! It was at the club I met him ; 
 we did not get on at first, but now we are friends, and before I 
 left town he used to come sometimes on early closing days and have 
 tea with me in the minute sanctum which Cousin Phoebe has 
 given me to be untidy in. St. Francis turned up one day when 
 he was there ; they were as shy of each other as possible, though 
 they knew each other quite well, it was so odd. Fortunately 
 Julian Lee came also that afternoon, four's a much easier number 
 than three, and he really is a comfortable person. 
 
 " / invited the draper to do a theatre with me before I left 
 town a Shaw play and supper quietly after. But he wouldn't ;
 
 DESIRE 
 
 / wish he had, I'm sure it would have been as good for him as 
 the Tlvoli was for St. Francis, neither of them have any idea of 
 recreating. 
 
 " You remember the amiable Bamfield, who introduced you 
 without knowing who you were ? He has unexpectedly come 
 into property ; poor dear, it's quite embarrassing to him to know 
 where to turn for a fiver, his so long been unused to such affluence. 
 He grew really sentimental when telling me, and spoke with 
 feeling upon the loneliness of his big house. Whereupon I suggested 
 he should invite the boys' 1 club to do a fortnight's camping on his 
 estate at his expense. And he did it too, like a brick. 
 
 " The club flourishes. There is a new department added 
 Hooligans. It is mine own. One evening when I was out, 
 4 when I didn't oughter bej I met a small band. One tried to 
 bar my way, in fun solely, but I was furious for a moment. It 
 was perfectly ridiculous, but I'm ashamed to say I felt my muscles 
 all grow taut and myself sort of draw up for a felling blow ; 
 fortunately, however, the ludicrousness of it struck me in time, 
 and I laughed aloud. They looked rather astonished, and the one 
 with the stick rather sheepish ; by the way, he had raised his 
 stick on guard, so I suppose my first fury had shown in my face. 
 
 " ' You don't know much about fencing, if that's your notion 
 of guard,' I said to him. ' Why, I could disarm you in a 
 minute, I'll show you.' 
 
 " / made him come out where there was room, and borrowed 
 somebody else's stick and showed him. The others were frightfully 
 pleased. 
 
 " That was my first introduction ; since then I have got to 
 know them very well, and, as I say, have a sort of new depart- 
 ment of the boys' club. No one but me has much to do with them, 
 St. Francis can't get on with them very well, nor can the others ; 
 they say it is difficult work. It isn't, it doesn't strike me as 
 work at all. Do you know, I sometimes think I shall really and 
 
 317
 
 DESIRE 
 
 truly take to /V, I like it. I expect there are a good many of 
 those sort of youths In the pottery towns " 
 
 The writer broke off here, suddenly becoming aware 
 where her thoughts, or at least the expression of them, might 
 seem to be trending. 
 
 " We will tear off this sheet," she said. However, she did 
 not tear it then, but left the letter, which had been written 
 in sections during several days, unfinished. 
 
 Ever since her coming to town in February, Desire had 
 written such letters when she felt inclined. She did not 
 always post them, it is true ; sometimes she was ashamed of 
 their inordinate length, sometimes she decided that the 
 incident was closed, and it would be kinder, more sensible 
 and more dignified to leave it alone. At other times she 
 posted them, this was most usually when she had lately 
 heard from Peter. He had written occasionally since she 
 had left Twycross, but not very often. When he wrote he 
 answered her letters, told her what had happened, what was 
 happening, sometimes what he thought, generally rather 
 shortly but always exactly as if he had been speaking to her. 
 When the letters came she did not think the incident closed, 
 she did not think about it one way or the other. 
 
 There had not been a letter for a long time now, two 
 months or more ; and the lengthy epistle she wrote during 
 the idle days at Vichy was hardly written really to Peter. 
 It was more to amuse herself and for the sake of talking 
 freely to somebody, even if it was merely a paper person. 
 In spite of that it reflected her present life and her attitude 
 towards it well. She had left Twycross more than six 
 months, and with her joint faculty for adapting herself to 
 circumstances and circumstances to herself, she was by now 
 fitted into her present surroundings as well as she could be.
 
 DESIRE 
 
 It is true that where things rubbed at first they rubbed still, 
 and where she, or they, originally fell short, they fell still, and 
 seemed likely to. It is true also, as the long letter indicated, 
 that a good deal that had before formed the greater part of 
 her life, had lost its savour. But then there were other 
 things to take the empty place, fresh interests, different 
 people with different aims. Whatever she had lost, she had 
 not lost her capacity for extracting enjoyment out of un- 
 expected things, and momentarily losing herself in all 
 manner of interests. She was usually in a cheerful frame of 
 mind, her aptitude for fixing her attention on the lights was 
 not diminished. At Vichy it was the same with her as else- 
 where, and she contrived to enjoy herself. There were 
 several people there who amused her, one or two she liked ; 
 Julian Lee, too, came for a day or two ; he was passing 
 through to somewhere, he said, where, did not appear, and 
 she did not bother him to invent it. The fact that she had 
 not heard from Peter for two months did not keep her awake 
 at nights or interfere with her appetite ; she put it out of her 
 mind three-quarters of the time, the other quarter that 
 concerned nobody. One must be allowed to shut the door 
 on one's self and one's feelings occasionally. 
 
 ' The long letter, which related Desire's most recent 
 happenings, was broken off the day Lee came. It was left 
 neglected for a day or two ; indeed, until she chanced upon 
 it when she was turning over her writing things for an 
 address. The closely written sheets fell out then, and Lee 
 picked them up as they fluttered to the grass. 
 
 " I didn't know you were such a correspondent," he said. 
 
 " Didn't you ? " she answered, folding them together. 
 " I'm really rather a remarkable one, a merciful one ; I 
 don't send it all when I spread myself on paper." 
 
 And she tore off the last sheet as she spoke. " I always
 
 DESIRE 
 
 let people down easily if I can," she said. " Ah, the post ! " 
 This as she sighted the postman. "Let's hope somebody 
 has done the same by me." 
 
 There were several letters for her, but, so far as Lee could 
 see, no one excited her interest more than another. " Have 
 you got anything amusing to read ? " she asked. " I am sure 
 to have, and then I'm dull company." 
 
 She lighted a cigarette and proceeded to examine her 
 correspondence leisurely ; the letter she paid the compliment 
 of keeping till the last was from her newest friend, the shop- 
 assistant. That, she was sure, would be interesting, though 
 he was only likely to have written to tell her of the welfare 
 of some protege she had commended to his notice. But 
 when she opened it she experienced something of a shock ; 
 before she had more than half read it she gave an exclamation 
 of dismay. 
 
 Oh ! " she said. What have I done ? " 
 
 Lee looked up with anxious sympathy, but she did not 
 heed him ; she had returned to her letter and was scanning it 
 hastily, distress growing in her face. 
 
 " What a dreadful thing ! " she said. " How can I have 
 come to do it ? How could I ? " 
 
 " What is it ? " Lee asked. " Is anything the matter ? 
 Can I be of any help ? " 
 
 She looked at him as if she were suddenly made aware of 
 his forgotten presence. " I've done a dreadful thing ! " she 
 said, as much to herself as him. " It's my fault, of course. 
 It is always more or less a woman's fault, isn't it, when a 
 man asks her to marry him ? " 
 
 Lee's face relaxed j he had never before seen Desire 
 distressed, and he had, for the moment, feared it must be 
 some great calamity to have moved her so. The relief 
 showed in his face, also the surprise, he was far from under- 
 
 320
 
 DESIRE 
 
 standing the woman who had bewitched him. " Is that 
 all r " he said. 
 
 " All ! " she returned. " Enough, too. You don't know 
 the case. I wouldn't have had this happen for a good deal." 
 
 Lee accepted the rebuke with meekness. " I'm awfully 
 sorry it's upset you," he said sympathetically. " I had no idea 
 these things cut you up so." 
 
 In spite of herself Desire laughed a little. " They don't," 
 she confessed ; " not always, but this is exceptional. This 
 man doesn't exactly belong, it was a difficult thing for him 
 to do, clearly it was, nothing but desperation made him 
 and it's everything in the world to him, I mean it seems to 
 matter so frightfully." 
 
 She took up the letter with a little shiver. "I'm not 
 worth any one's caring like that," she said. " I shouldn't 
 satisfy any one really, certainly not one who doesn't really 
 know me. It's awful to have people care when you are 
 not worth it." 
 
 Lee wisely refrained from any comment on the disjointed 
 remarks, except an acquiescence he did not entirely feel. 
 He watched covertly as she took up the forgotten cigarette 
 and smoked hard in evident perturbation of mind. 
 
 " It'll be nasty to answer, that letter ? " he suggested, after 
 a little. 
 
 " Nasty ? It'll be almost impossible ! Whatever I say, 
 however I put it, he is bound to believe I think him 
 presumptuous, and don't think him good enough, and all 
 that." 
 
 " Well, I don't suppose he is," the American remarked 
 comfortably. 
 
 " He is," Desire retorted, forgetting that she had excluded 
 him from any knowledge of the writer's identity ; " besides, 
 what does position and that matter ? Good Lord ! " her 
 21 321
 
 DESIRE 
 
 changing voice rang suddenly as with passion. "If you 
 loved anybody it wouldn't matter who they were or what 
 they were, would it ? " 
 
 Lee looked at her meditatively. " No," he answered ; " I 
 should say not." 
 
 Fortunately she missed the personal allusion ; she was 
 turning over the letter. 
 
 "It's so humble and yet somehow so proud," she said 
 miserably. " He states his prospects and his income quite 
 frankly says we could just do on it, and then talks about 
 the gap between us ! He says he never forgot it. Just as 
 if I didn't know that, as if he wasn't making it plain all the 
 time, making it gruesomely plain now in showing that it 
 counts as anything to him. It wouldn't count a snap of the 
 fingers to me if I cared ! " 
 
 Lee looked up sharply, he suddenly guessed who the 
 writer was. That is to say he got within range of the truth 
 and decided he must be a man not in her original set, one of 
 those with whom she had been doing philanthropic or other 
 work. And in spite of his American birth he resented it, 
 it was in his eyes presumptuous for such an one to address 
 Desire. However, he had the sense not to say so, perceiving 
 that she evidently considered that, when a man asked a 
 woman to marry him, and offered her the best he had to 
 give, he was paying her the greatest compliment in his 
 power, and honouring her no matter what his position 
 might be, or hers either. 
 
 "Well," he said, "if, as he says, he didn't forget his 
 position, and misunderstand your kindness, you can't blame 
 yourself for what has happened." 
 
 "But I do," Desire said. "My step-mother told me 
 long ago that I misled men more than any woman she had 
 ever met." 
 
 322
 
 DESIRE 
 
 "That's because they want to be misled," Lee assured 
 her. 
 
 She did not agree, but he maintained that it was so. " It's 
 like this," he said, " about every second man you meet falls 
 more or less in love with you, if he has anything much to 
 do with you. Don't feel compelled to modestly deny it, it's 
 approximately true, though I may be a trifle out in the 
 figures. A few of them think you care a bit for them, they 
 mistake your way and you have got a way of going head- 
 long into a fellow's affairs that's flattering. But it isn't love, 
 and nobody in his senses thinks it is j only some few do 
 think, 'if she takes that interest in me I shall be able to 
 bamboozle her into swallowing me whole.' But most of 
 them don't think much about it, they fall in love with you 
 because they can't help it. It kind of makes a man's arm 
 ache to keep it still all evening when he's sitting next to 
 you. And to keep on hearing ' friend talk ' in your voice 
 well, it makes a man dream at nights and not dream 
 about friends. You can't help it, and we can't don't want 
 to, but it always will be so. You'll never be able to be 
 much with men, certainly not work with them, without 
 that sort of thing being liable to happen. Some fellows may 
 have the sense not to tell you, that's the main difference, the 
 feeling is the same with most of them, however the sense 
 may be." 
 
 " Thank you," Desire said ; " I'm immensely obliged to 
 you for explaining it all so clearly ; the only weak point is 
 that you're judging the rest of the world by yourself and 
 isn't that a little hard on the world ? " 
 
 Lee smiled but glanced towards the open letter. " I guess 
 there's a certain family resemblance between a good many of 
 us where you're concerned," he said. 
 
 Desire flushed a little, but next moment put a question. 
 
 3 2 3
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " You don't think a man ever cared for my sou for what 
 I'm pleased to call my mind ? " she asked. " You don't think 
 there ever was a man who liked the intangible part of me 
 only, who whose ' arm didn't ache ' when he was with me, 
 who rather wanted to see a good lot of me but never wanted 
 to touch me ? " 
 
 Lee shook his head. " No," he said ; " can't be done." 
 
 " You think not r " she smiled triumphantly. " Then 
 you're wrong, there is such an one." 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. " Did he tell you so ? " he 
 asked with significance. 
 
 " No, but I know it," she answered ; " I know his mind as 
 he knows mine, you see. Oh, I don't suspect you of that 
 sort of thing," her tone changed to lightness again 
 " you've expressed how you feel and judged the rest by 
 yourself. Fortunately time'll soon cure all that. Old age 
 approaches me and then even your gallantry won't suggest 
 
 " Time cannot change her, 
 Nor custom stale her infinite variety," 
 
 Lee quoted. " It's no good ; look your own experience 
 fairly in the face and you'll see it. You are dangerous goods 
 and you always will be." 
 
 Desire declined to look at her experiences or any one else's. 
 " Shall we talk about the weather ? " she said. " It'll be a 
 more interesting subject." 
 
 " There is no subject so interesting," he assured her j 
 " you are the most fascinating subject I know, and the most 
 dangerous and you will be till you are safely married." 
 
 She promptly and emphatically denied it. 
 
 But all the same his words struck a new note in her mind 
 the wisdom of marriage for other reasons besides worldly 
 advancement, the safety and settlement in it and the com- 
 
 324
 
 DESIRE 
 
 parative peace and satisfaction in its finality. Lady Quebell 
 had always advocated marriage for Desire's own advantage. 
 Lee, quickly perceiving the value of his opportunity, began 
 to advocate it on every other plea and for every one else's 
 advantage except her own. And Desire ridiculed everything 
 and listened. 
 
 "But," she objected at last, "supposing I were married 
 oh, we'll say to you, as it's the only person you will admit 
 into the argument do you suppose all the wonderful things 
 you described would leave off happening ? You think 
 people would leave off falling in love ? " 
 
 " They'd leave off telling you so," Lee said, " at least the 
 more decent ones, the ones you care about hurting, would. 
 And they'd all of them have less reason and less excuse for 
 mistaking your meaning, and less opportunity generally 
 for making fools of themselves. I really believe you'd be 
 happier and more comfortable married, and I'm perfectly 
 certain it'd be better for every one else." 
 
 " Including you ? Oh, my poor man, little do you know 
 what you're saying ! I like you immensely, but I don't love 
 you a scrap. I find you a most useful, a most comfortable 
 person, but I should never dream of changing my spots for 
 you or obeying you, or, on your account, going any way but 
 my own, and that, do you know what that spells in 
 matrimony for people like me ? destruction." 
 
 " I'm open to risking it," Lee said, " and I rather believe 
 you'd better. It'd be a heap better for a lot of fellows if you 
 did. Oh, not the mind man, of course it wouldn't make 
 any difference to him ! Being mind he doesn't want to 
 marry you, and you don't want to marry him, minds don't 
 marry, they're like the angels. But matter does, and well, 
 why not take me for the mundane side of things and the 
 good of your fellow-men ? " 
 
 3 2 5
 
 DESIRE 
 
 There were many reasons why not, Desire said ; she stated 
 them, mostly with a lightness which made it hard to tell how 
 much she meant. He answered them, however, and though 
 he did not apparently convince her, he believed that his cause 
 was advanced. 
 
 He left her when she told him she must answer the dis- 
 tressing letter that day. He rather fancied that re-reading 
 it and facing the difficulties of an answer would argue in his 
 favour quite as strongly as he could himself. And no doubt 
 he was right, she found refusing this proposal an extremely 
 difficult and very distressing thing ; she shrank from the 
 thought of the pain she was giving, the false impression she 
 was creating, and also from the idea that such a thing might 
 occur again. She told herself the last was impossible, but 
 past experience, honestly faced, did not bear that out. Pain- 
 ful things had befallen before, not the least painful the affair 
 of her engagement to Gore and its ending. Painful things, 
 as this unexpected passion of a man with whom she had only 
 thought to work befell now. She was a little weary, more 
 than a little weary, and perhaps a trifle afraid ; since a certain 
 Saturday night in February she had better understood the 
 power of passion. 
 
 And Peter ? She had acted lovers with him to serve her 
 own purpose, she had worked with him to serve hers and his 
 too ; he had helped her in trouble and taken her help j he 
 had shared home and life with her ; but, as Lee said, he had 
 no part nor lot in the matter. They had lived together in 
 frank intimacy, they had sat together by the dying mother, 
 they had knelt together in the lonely chapel in the hills, they 
 knew each other intimately, but physically they did not 
 touch. She had secretly wished that some man should for- 
 get her body and be drawn to her mind and soul. One had : 
 that was all. It was an interlude, no more, a dream and 
 
 326
 
 DESIRE 
 
 one does not live in dreams. It behoves one, rather, to live 
 as little ill as one may, as little hurtfully in a world where 
 there is no dream glamour, though still a good deal of 
 ordinary sunshine for those who are wise enough to pick it 
 out and not cry for the radiance of the gods' world in this 
 place of men. 
 
 How much of this Lee guessed is not certain, he probably 
 had some idea of the conclusions if not much knowledge of 
 the way they were arrived at. At all events he knew 
 enough of the trend of Desire's feelings to press his suit with 
 discretion when favourable opportunity offered . during the 
 time he was at Vichy. When he left he carried with him 
 a belief that, sooner or later, she would marry him. She had 
 not said so ; with a caution rather unusual in her she had 
 not committed herself at all, but he believed that she would 
 eventually do it if for the comfort and general sensibleness 
 and peace of the arrangement. 
 
 It is possible other people thought so too, at all events 
 Miss Quebell showed an unusual interest in Lee's going, 
 and the possible time of his coming again. 
 
 " He returns in three days," Desire told her with a smile 
 she guessed the reason of her cousin's interest. " He asks 
 me then, if he thinks the moment good, to marry him ; if he 
 thinks the moment bad, he holds his peace. He is no fool, 
 is our friend Julian, he seldom bores one inopportunely." 
 
 "Are you going to marry him ?" Miss Quebell asked in 
 her definite tones. Hers was a definite mind, and a definite 
 world, all blacks and whites and prearranged plans ; not 
 unnaturally Desire was somewhat beyond its radius. 
 
 " Am I going to marry him because he doesn't bore 
 me?" Desire said. "That's rather a good reason for 
 marrying a man, I own one of the best." 
 
 " The best reason," Miss Quebell returned rather severely, 
 
 327
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " used to be considered because you loved him, and because 
 he was in a proper position to marry you." 
 
 " Oh, that ! " Desire said, " that's asking too much, 
 you know. Love is unreason, it's glamour, romance ; you 
 can't expect to love a proper position and a goodly number 
 of thousands a year ; you like them, esteem them, admire 
 and appreciate them but love why, it's a little naked 
 thing ; it hasn't anything to do with common-sense." 
 
 " You haven't much," Miss Phcebe observed grimly. 
 " Then you don't love this man, is that what you mean ? " 
 
 " Of course not," Desire answered. " Why, I'm ap- 
 proaching twenty-eight, also I have lived, yes, considerably ; 
 one can't expect romantic emotion at my age and experience. 
 I like the man much, I know him, and he, more or less, 
 knows me ; we shouldn't have many unpleasant surprises for 
 each other if we did marry ; indeed, we should rather start 
 where lover-people arrive after six months' mixed experience, 
 so if we skipped the rapture, such as it is, we'd skip the 
 descent to earth likewise. There are very decided advantages 
 in marrying Julian Lee." 
 
 Miss Quebell nodded ; she thought so too. To marry 
 Desire to a wealthy and eminently eligible husband, be- 
 sides being a satisfactory settlement of Sir Joseph's daughter, 
 would be an occasion for triumph over Lady Quebell, who 
 had first failed in the attempt and afterwards cast out the 
 subject of failure. Lee had a strong supporter in Miss 
 Quebell, and one who knew the wisdom of not pressing his 
 claim unduly. 
 
 "Well, well," Desire conceded at last, "I shouldn't 
 wonder if I had to marry him in the end ; it looks as if I 
 should have to marry some one, and he really is a pleasant 
 person." 
 
 Miss Quebell, well satisfied, departed to her room. It 
 
 328
 
 DESIRE 
 
 was quite early, not much after eight o'clock, but part of her 
 cure, also all her inclination, was to go to bed at astonish- 
 ingly early hours. 
 
 She had been gone something more than half-an-hour, 
 and was, no doubt, in her first sleep, when a telegram was 
 brought to Desire. It had been sent, in the first instance, 
 to Brunswick Square, and repeated on from there. It was 
 for Desire herself, from Twycross ; very brief. 
 
 " There is trouble. Robert" 
 
 So Desire read, and rose up as she read. 
 
 " I shall be leaving by the night train," she said to the 
 servant who had brought the telegram. " See about a 
 conveyance for me, will you please, and send one of the 
 chambermaids to my room at once ; Miss Quebell's maid is 
 out. Yes, I shall have time half-an-hour." 
 
 3 2 9
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 MRS. ALEXANDER GRIMSTONE had a grievance ; that, in 
 itself was not uncommon, but this time it was founded on 
 fact. Alexander had allowed her to accept an invitation for 
 them both to go to Stoke, to go to the theatre with some 
 friends, and afterwards stay the night, and now he said he 
 could not get away. Mrs. Alexander wept from pure dis- 
 appointment, and said as much as she dared about the way 
 Alexander put business before everything and cared nothing for 
 her or for their friends' convenience or any one. All of which, 
 though perfectly true, was not in the least likely to affect 
 Alexander. He did not so much as trouble to contradict it, 
 he merely reminded her, somewhat curtly, that he had not 
 said she should not go to Stoke, only that he should not ; 
 that she certainly was to go, as he had no use for her here, in 
 fact, he'd be glad to have her gone if she was in that frame of 
 mind. Whereupon Mrs. Alexander dried her eyes and 
 wrote immediately to her friend, telling her to get some other 
 man in place of Alexander, who could not come. This was 
 eventually done, to the improvement of the party Alex- 
 ander was one of those people who decidedly improve a 
 party by staying away from it. 
 
 So it befell that on a certain Tuesday late in September, 
 Mrs. Alexander, with her best blouse and all her bracelets 
 packed in a dressing-bag, went to Stoke, and Alexander 
 stayed late at his office. He was busy, of course, he always 
 had plenty to do ; but not so busy, apparently, as he had led 
 
 330
 
 DESIRE 
 
 his wife to suppose. Not too busy, at all events, to sit for a 
 little with no other occupation than his toothpick and his 
 thoughts. He was thinking of Grimstones', of course ; the 
 vertical line between his brows usually meant that he was 
 thinking of the old firm and the way it had failed to do what 
 he had expected, and the way he himself had failed in this 
 matter. Here was September again, and almost a year since 
 he had come to live at Twycross ; almost eighteen months 
 since Peter had been sole master at Grimstones', and still the 
 old firm stood where it had done. No, it stood a good deal 
 better than it had done for many years, it had prospered 
 wonderfully in spite of all Alexander's efforts. 
 
 How and why ? For a long time Alexander had not been 
 able to find out, then at last he picked up a clue, Grimstones' 
 took orders for certain shaped ware at a price lower than 
 other people's ; the)* took largish orders for that, but let 
 other things go, and apparently, in spite of the price, made a 
 good profit. They must have some trick or secret process 
 for manufacturing these articles ; a trick was not in Peter's 
 line, but a secret process might be. Alexander knew some- 
 thing of the curious stupidity of inventors, he had profited by 
 it before now. Peter, stupid as he judged him to be, might 
 still have invented some good process. If he had he had not 
 patented it, Alexander easily informed himself on that point; 
 he was probably working it as a secret, a thing he could 
 very easily do seeing the nature of the men who were still all 
 he employed. 
 
 It was in July that Alexander had been finally convinced 
 of this. And no sooner was he convinced than he at once set 
 to going further into it. Nothing was to be learnt from the 
 men he knew by past experience, so, without hesitation, he 
 paid a second nocturnal visit to Grimstones' ; this time it 
 was to the yard, not the house. He remembered the old ways 
 
 33 1
 
 DESIRE 
 
 of the place perfectly well, it was not likely any one so con- 
 servative as Peter would have altered them. The gates used 
 always to be locked, certainly, but nothing else was ; one 
 might easily come by way of the canal and effect an 
 entrance pretty well anywhere though, it is true, there 
 never had been anything much worth the trouble of carrying 
 away. Alexander had naturally no thought of carrying 
 away, but a look round, he felt, would be very useful to him, 
 a careful examination was likely to give him the clue to 
 Peter's secret process. A few notes, a diagram if there 
 was much machinery in it, would enable him to go home 
 and probably work out something very similar. He had no 
 inventive genius himself, but he had a great faculty for 
 grasping another man's idea, and reconstructing it with just 
 sufficient variation as to make a thing nominally different. 
 He had done so more than once, to his own advantage, with 
 inventions which had been submitted to him j he intended 
 to do so with Peter's secret. And if it was not possible to 
 arrive at something sufficiently different from Peter's pro- 
 cess to pass, he could still " invent " that, unknown to the 
 original inventor, patent it ; and leave Peter, the original 
 inventor, the expensive business of fighting for his own 
 idea, if he could. And whichever way the case went 
 no one, not even Peter, would be able to prove the coin- 
 cidence of the identity of the two processes was other than 
 accident. 
 
 Unfortunately for him, however, he was not able to carry 
 out this plan when he made it in July. The night he went 
 to the yard was hot, and Paddy, contrary to his usual custom, 
 had chosen to sleep outside. The consequence of which 
 was that he disturbed the dog, and the dog disturbed the 
 household, and nothing was gained that night. He had, of 
 course, taken vengeance on the dog as soon afterwards as he 
 
 332
 
 DESIRE 
 
 conveniently could ; but Peter, in the mean time, got strong 
 locks for all the outhouses, and even had bars fixed to the 
 window of the one substantial shed, where it was easy to 
 guess the secret process was carried on. 
 
 Thus things had been through the summer. But Alex- 
 ander was not beaten ; he had never been beaten except once 
 his face had a way of turning curiously greyish whenever 
 he thought of that once. He was still bent on seeing what 
 Peter did, and how he did it ; but it was clear to him now 
 that the thing he wanted was the loan of the key. He did 
 not like taking other people into his plans, but needs must 
 sometimes ; it was the least risky thing, in fact, the only 
 thing, for a man who wanted to get information quietly. 
 There was one person in Grimstones' to whom he had not 
 before made overtures this because he believed him to be 
 too stupid to be any use ; but in the matter of the key he 
 was the very man. Bolt, he remembered, was stupid, but 
 he would be also cunning ; he was surly and dull, but also 
 entirely untouched by gratitude, loyalty, or any of the other 
 unreasonable sentiments which occasionally sway men to 
 their own disadvantage. Bolt was the man to borrow the 
 key for a price ; to leave it in some safe place where one 
 who knew could find it, and to take it again from that place 
 when it was done with, and before any one else was the 
 wiser. And Bolt was precisely the sort of person who need 
 be no trouble after to Alexander, who was not one to be 
 sold by an accomplice of any but extraordinary brilliancy, 
 and not lightly even by such a one. Every man had his 
 price, though, as Alexander had found out during the last 
 year ; it was not necessarily a money one. Bolt had his j it 
 would be a money one. 
 
 So Alexander sat that September evening picking his teeth 
 and thinking, but the thoughts were not altogether un- 
 
 333
 
 DESIRE 
 
 pleasant ones ; indeed, his face wore a look of some satis- 
 faction when he put away his toothpick and returned to 
 work. 
 
 It was very late when he left the office ; there was no 
 late train out to Twycross except the London mail, which 
 stopped there after two in the morning ; usually, when 
 Alexander was kept by work in the pottery town, he stayed 
 the night at the rooms he had there. To-night, however, 
 he elected to come by the mail. People at Twycross retired 
 early ; they had all long been in bed when Alexander came 
 out of the station road. There was absolutely no one 
 about ; no one saw him turn to the left when he reached 
 the main road, instead of going down-hill to the right and 
 to the town. No one saw him pass the few darkened 
 houses that bordered it, and take the elm-edged lane which 
 led steeply upward from the town and to the old high 
 road. The road, white and winding, was quite empty ; in 
 the darkness one could still see it dimly far ahead; he fol- 
 lowed it, and for some considerable way. Past the group of 
 mountain ash, whose berried branches rustled in the wind j 
 past the lonely grey house, where one lighted window told 
 where Ezra Grimstone still lay helpless and unconscious of 
 all that befell. The night was moist, yet breezy, with a 
 fitful wind that shook the hidden gorse-bushes now and 
 then ; starless, too, and overcast with clouds that threatened 
 rain before long. In spite of the dark, one could make out 
 the whiteness of the road, and even the way it became 
 rougher as it grew higher ; make out, also, a loose stone wall 
 that here bordered it, and at one point a solitary stone post 
 standing. The gate originally affixed to this had long since 
 fallen from it ; the top, too, had at some time been knocked 
 off, leaving a hollowed end on which a large stone was 
 balanced. There was a gap under the stone one could not 
 
 334
 
 DESIRE 
 
 see it to-night, but one could find it, if one knew where to 
 feel. Apparently Alexander knew. 
 
 And Peter ? What of Peter during the months that had 
 elapsed since Desire went away ? Principally he had worked ; 
 there was nothing else for him to do. There was plenty of 
 that certainly, and he did plenty. He was very strong, a 
 magnificent constitution entirely unabused ; physically he 
 was never tired, mentally he accepted life as it was and 
 said nothing. Throughout the spring and early summer, in 
 all his margins of time, in the hours he had before devoted 
 to his mother or spent with Desire, he had returned to the 
 long-abandoned novel. Slowly it had grown under his 
 hand ; slowly and with infinite difficulty taking shape and 
 becoming informed with life. Not perhaps quite the life he 
 had planned in the days of hope when he began it, or the 
 one he had striven for in the later days when hard necessity 
 was compelling him to abandon it, but still life. Writing 
 it was not at all easy to him j writing never had been easy to 
 him, at the best it was slow building, a feeling things out. 
 Now the time for it was in scraps, and the hand that wrote 
 was often stiff and tired ; now the glamour was all off, past 
 hope and past desperation alike gone, only patience and per- 
 sistence remaining. So the book was written, resurrected in 
 the dead after-time, to burn a wan taper in a lonely place. 
 Feeble at times, a little unsteady, for the writer was not sure 
 of himself; but for all that a great book, great at heart, great 
 in patience and tolerance, and the wisdom that counts. But 
 the author did not know it, and the publisher who undertook 
 to produce it did not tell him so. Indeed, he was by no 
 means sure of it himself, nor sure the book was going to 
 have a public worth mentioning ; in this doubt events after- 
 wards justified him. Even when it was all set up and ready 
 
 335
 
 DESIRE 
 
 he held it back a while, waiting a favourable opportunity for 
 publishing. Peter did not mind, he was in no hurry to see 
 it in print ; it was the making he cared about and missed, 
 though it had been nearly all suffering. That, he felt, he 
 could not replace, it seemed to him then that no further book 
 would ever be possible to him, not so much as a thought of 
 one stirred in his brain now. 
 
 But the business prospered. In the work he had set him- 
 self to do he had succeeded beyond all expectation or hope. 
 The success did not cause elation, he accepted such goods 
 cautiously at best, and now there was no one else to care ; 
 his mother was dead, his father, in spite of the daily rehearsal 
 of what took place, did not really know, and Desire was not. 
 For himself it mattered nothing. It is good to do what you 
 do as well as you can, but of that well or ill you alone 
 are judge, outside accidents of failure or success, of praise or 
 blame, fame or money, are not much. Peter did as well as 
 he could, and for the rest very little sufficed him. 
 
 And of Alexander, to whom success or failure meant much, 
 and the prosperity or reverse of the firm much more still, he 
 heard nothing. He did not imagine Alexander had forgotten 
 or grown tired, or that the personal encounter of the winter 
 had done other than point his previous impersonal enmity to 
 the firm with an additional personal enmity to himself. 
 Alexander, he knew, was only waiting, or else making 
 attempts of which he did not hear, either because they were 
 not successful or, more likely, because he himself was not 
 clever enough to discover them in their early stages. Once 
 and once only did he feel Alexander's hand, in late July 
 when Paddy died. Peter was not at first quite sure whether 
 to associate the dog's furious barking at some real or fancier 
 intruder with Alexander. Three days later he knew, for 
 the dog died. He was ill twenty-four hours, but it did not 
 
 336
 
 DESIRE 
 
 need the testimony of the veterinary surgeon to tell that it 
 was poison, and it did not need any one to tell Peter that it 
 was Alexander. Whether it was for spite, or vengeance, or 
 to further his own ends did not matter, Peter did not ask 
 himself ; the thing was done, that was all that mattered, and 
 the one living, loving thing left in his bare life was taken 
 from him. He sat with the dead dog's head where it had 
 fallen on his knee, and his heart very full and very cold 
 within him. For the first time Alexander had got a blow 
 truly home, a subsidiary blow possibly, a mere necessary 
 clearing of the ground to him perhaps, but one that touched 
 to the quick. The insult to Desire, which had roused Peter 
 to blows, had been avenged by blows, punished if not wiped 
 out ; the attack on the firm's credit and on their commer- 
 cial position, though dishonourable according to. Peter's 
 standard, were Alexander's usual methods and in a way 
 impersonal. But this 
 
 " He might have left me this ! " Peter inly cried, pro- 
 testing against fate, as men who in silence take the big things 
 and in silence choose the hard part, sometimes do protest 
 when some one thing, small to others, comes upon them. 
 Though, perhaps, it is not altogether a small thing when the 
 only eyes that brighten at your coming are closed, the only 
 thing that runs to meet you is still, the safe, silent, sym- 
 pathetic, dumb comrade of bad times and good is gone, and 
 you are alone. 
 
 Peter took the dead dog up the narrow hill path. It was 
 for the last time, and he found the once active body very 
 heavy before he reached the spot he had mentally chosen, a 
 lonely place a little off" the path. There he buried him one 
 still, grey afternoon. A curious, rather a childish thing to 
 do, perhaps, but all that he had loved and all that he had 
 suffered, all he had ever cared for seemed to belong up there, 
 22 337
 
 DESIRE 
 
 and it seemed natural to him to bury the dog there. After- 
 wards he came down again alone. Alone on the hill path 
 for the first time since he had come home two years ago ; 
 perhaps really alone for the first time in his life, for in the 
 far-off time, before he went to town, he had carried hopes 
 and ambitions to the hills, no mean company when a man 
 is young. But now he was alone ; alone in his goings out 
 and his comings in, a sober man leading a sober life. 
 
 Through August and through September nothing hap- 
 pened, nothing unusual that Peter was aware of. He had 
 had the locks all seen to the day after Paddy disturbed them, 
 and Robert had installed a young collie as watch-dog before 
 the fox terrier was cold. Peter said he did not think it was 
 much use as, no doubt, the dog would also die if it were in 
 the way. But Robert would have it, so the collie lived in 
 the yard, recognizing the old man as master, and showing 
 an amiable toleration of Peter. 
 
 Peter met him in the yard when he went round one night 
 in late September. He always went the rounds before he 
 went to bed now, making sure that everything was secure 
 and all the doors really locked, as they were supposed to be 
 when work was done. 
 
 He met Robert as he came into the house again. " Is it 
 all right ? " the old man asked. 
 
 " Yes," Peter answered, then added, " Why ? " 
 
 " I don't like the looks of things," Robert said. 
 
 Peter, who knew him and his usual outlook, was not 
 disturbed. " What things ? " he asked without curiosity. 
 
 "Bolt," Robert answered. "You can believe me or not 
 as you like, but it's true, James saw him and Alexander 
 talking together three days ago." 
 
 James, like many virtuous persons, had rather a faculty 
 for seeing and reporting disquieting things, many of which 
 
 338
 
 DESIRE 
 
 came to nothing ; this one Peter regarded as more surprising 
 than dangerous. 
 
 " Is that so ? " he said. " I shouldn't think that would 
 be much good to Alexander." 
 
 " Why not ? " Robert demanded. " Bolt's a fool but 
 Alexander isn't. I don't like the looks of it when a knave 
 gets making up to a fool there's such a thing as cat's 
 paw." 
 
 " Yes," Peter allowed, " but I don't think Bolt will be 
 applying for that situation to Alexander." 
 
 " And why not, pray ? " 
 
 " Because he hates him," Peter said. " I don't know 
 why, but he does." 
 
 "He don't like him," Robert allowed, "same as a good 
 many people don't ; but what's that ? Nothing. He don't 
 like the old master, nor you, nor anybody else. He's got 
 his own game to play, same as another." 
 
 Peter shrugged his shoulders. " Maybe," he said, though 
 he was not convinced. " Anyhow, I don't think we need 
 be uneasy, there's no harm he can do." With that he 
 turned to fasten the back door. 
 
 " Is Mary gone to bed yet ? " he asked. 
 
 She was not, she was still with her master. Since Mrs. 
 Grimstone's death she had practically taken over care of the 
 invalid ; a young girl, a relation of hers, and likely, according 
 to custom, to be affianced to James, being engaged to help 
 her in the household. Peter relieved the old woman at 
 times and spent most of his spare time in his father's room ; 
 much of the novel had been written there, the stricken man 
 never showing any consciousness of his presence or occupation. 
 He went up-stairs now. 
 
 " Master's restless to-night," Mary said, as he entered the 
 room ; " he's not himself." 
 
 339
 
 DESIRE 
 
 Peter said he would leave the door between the rooms 
 open when he went to bed. " I'll stop awhile now, if you 
 think it better," he added; "I'm not sleepy." 
 
 The old woman made a show of hesitation, then acquiesced 
 with that touch of condescension a nurse always has for 
 one who takes her place and Mary had always had for 
 Peter. " You can call me, if he wants anything," she said, 
 putting some finishing touches to the room for the night. 
 
 Peter said he would, wished her good-night, and then sat 
 down near the bed with a book. 
 
 The room, a large one, was for the most part in shadow, 
 the only strong light was within the circle of the shaded 
 lamp ; but still one could see the outline of the inanimate 
 figure. It was not quite inanimate, though, to-night ; the 
 fingers jerked feebly now and then, and there was an 
 occasional spasmodic twitching of one leg ; it was this which 
 Mary had described as restlessness. Peter noted it, but he 
 had seen it before, though he could not tell what it indicated 
 or if it indicated anything at all. 
 
 For a while he read steadily, only now and then glancing 
 towards the bed ; but after a time he lost the thread of 
 interest in what he read. For a little he sat looking 
 at the still figure, seeing it and all it meant afresh and 
 vividly, as men do occasionally re-see that to which they are 
 completely used. Ezra Grimstone had lain thus for eighteen 
 months now, alive, but to all intents and purposes dead ; 
 a strong man bound, locked in impregnable silence ; a 
 man who had not learnt to bend, broken. Peter was used 
 to the sight ; he had borne his part in Mrs. Grimstone's 
 pathetic play that the mind was not gone, and the man, as 
 man, not dead j he had helped her to try and soften the 
 blow to the thing which could no longer feel. But to-night 
 it came home to him afresh and with grim tragicness. Such 
 
 340
 
 DESIRE 
 
 a fate for a man like Ezra Grimstone, who had never asked 
 for more than to work and then die ; who would have 
 scornfully rejected leisured age or any half-gift of modified 
 life. To live on in a world to which he was dead, to lie 
 helpless where he had ruled, to know nothing where every- 
 thing had been in his control it was awful ! But far more 
 awful still if he did know, if the mind lived speechless in the 
 dead body, and to living death was added the consciousness 
 of death ! God, in His goodness, forbid it ! 
 
 But Peter was not sure not unsure of the goodness of 
 God ; far down in the quiet places of his mind was a 
 certainty of that, unshakable, inexpressible, a part of himself. 
 But he was not sure whether his own reading of " goodness " 
 was aright. He could not be the sort of writer he was 
 without being aware in himself that the creator's scheme of 
 things must be vastly greater than the creature's view of it, 
 and that it is idle for one who stands in the fog-bound 
 midst to judge of one who holds the beginnings and ends. 
 So he was not sure that the conscious mind was absolutely 
 gone, and once again that night he leaned forward to the 
 familiar face, grim still in overthrow, seeking the sign he did 
 not wish to see. But there was no change ; the eyes, half 
 hid under the lowered lids, saw nothing and told nothing, 
 lightened only when the lamp flickered, darkened only when 
 an unseen shadow swayed. 
 
 Yet Peter did not feel inclined to leave him that night, 
 but sat there reading awhile longer indeed, until he dropped 
 asleep over his book. It was an uneasy sleep, conscious of 
 any sound and troubled by dreams. He dreamt he saw the 
 sick man stir and move, and gradually, very slowly, rise 
 upright ; he was long doing it, and Peter himself seemed to 
 have no part in the affair, he merely looked on as from a 
 distance as his father slowly assumed his old position and his 
 
 341
 
 DESIRE 
 
 old authority. He would speak soon, Peter knew it sub- 
 consciously he opened his mouth. Peter was not in the least 
 surprised, he only wondered, with the same remote curiosity, 
 what he was going to say. For a second no words came, 
 the voice was rusty from want of use, then Then Peter 
 woke. 
 
 Instinctively he looked towards the bed ; the inanimate 
 figure lay as before, the silence of the room was intense, 
 unbroken, except when the wind fingered the window pane 
 and yet he felt there was something. It could not be only 
 the influence of the dream, it must be something else there 
 was, yes, there was some subtle, almost imperceptible, 
 change. He rose quickly and came to the bedside and the 
 half closed eyes followed him ! 
 
 It was no trick of lamplight, no hallucination surviving 
 from the dream ; the eyes moved and saw, living eyes in the 
 dead face that lay a wax-like mask on the pillow. 
 
 " Father ! " Peter said. 
 
 There was no speech or sign in reply, only the eyes 
 sought his with a burning eagerness, the quick imperiousness 
 of one who has little time and much to say, the impotent 
 impatience of one who fears his chance is slipping from 
 him. 
 
 " What is it ? " Peter asked, grasping suddenly that what 
 was to be said must be said now, and what done done now 
 and without delay. " What is it ? Who ? My Mother ? 
 Alexander ? " 
 
 The pupils of the dark eyes contracted at the last word, 
 and hatred, strong as a passion of strongest mankind, shot up 
 in them. The answering chord was touched, they said so 
 eloquently, somewhat awfully too, seeing what chord it was 
 that had called the conscious soul back from the shadow. 
 
 " Yes, I understand," Peter said ; " it is about Alexander. 
 
 342
 
 DESIRE 
 
 Something you want me to do or prevent him from doing ? 
 Try and tell me." 
 
 He bent down, his shadow spreading black and large 
 across the ceiling. The room was full of black shadows and 
 of a grim silence that mocked at the speechless man. The 
 muscles of the throat moved. It was like the dream, but worse 
 for now in the reality the body lay still and dead, only the 
 soul lived and looked out fierce and staring through the eyes. 
 The man swallowed as if he were getting ready to speak, 
 words almost visibly came to the surface and halted in 
 utter silence. It was as if the rage which months before had 
 smitten him down, choked him. Peter bent lower, he felt 
 that by listening he must catch some whisper from the 
 imprisoned soul ; but there was no sound, only the rustle of 
 the wind without. He put his hands on the numb hands 
 and looked deep into the shadowy eyes. They looked back 
 at him tragic in their futile eloquence, fierce with passion, 
 burning with some warning to give, some fear to share. 
 And Peter could not understand and they knew he could 
 not. Under his gaze the passion grew, the fierce emotion 
 welled up, till the sheer indomitable will of the man 
 triumphed and for a moment mastered mortality. The mask 
 face lifted three inches from the pillow, the straining throat 
 moved convulsively, and a sound came from the dumb lips 
 a beast-like, meaningless, inarticulate sound, which broke 
 despairingly and sank to silence. 
 
 Peter bent over the bed. " Father ! " he said. 
 
 But there was no response, no flicker of light in the eyes, 
 the spirit which had informed them was gone ; only the 
 breath came feeble and fluttered, telling of a semblance of 
 life that lingered. 
 
 The doctor who attended Ezra Grimstone always regarded 
 
 343
 
 DESIRE 
 
 him as an interesting case. He had given it as his opinion 
 that the patient might die in convulsions, or he might have 
 a return to incomplete consciousness and die an idiot, or 
 more likely he might slip quietly away with no change 
 from his comatose state. That there should be even a 
 momentary return to reason was the one thing he believed 
 unlikely ; yet that, it seemed, was what happened. The 
 doctor did not himself see it he wished he had but he did 
 not doubt Peter Grimstone's word, nor did he ascribe the 
 idea to fancy on his part. The Grimstones were not, in 
 his opinion, people to fancy things, and Peter's bare and 
 circumstantial account was good enough evidence to him. 
 
 " Temperament," was his judgment ; " possibly it had as 
 much to do with it as physique. He must have been a 
 tough customer when he was set on anything, not often 
 balked, till now. By Jove ! A bit gruesome to die with 
 your mouth shut, and something to be said stuck in your 
 throat ! " 
 
 This remark was made to Robert, as he led the way 
 down-stairs in the chilly dawn. 
 
 It was nearly five then, the doctor had been there three 
 hours, useless hours so far as he or another could do any- 
 thing, but he was keen on his profession, and he would 
 willingly have waited another three hours for the chance of 
 seeing the phenomenon of a momentary return of reason. 
 He had not seen it, there had been no return, no awakening, 
 no sign of pain ; the mask of silence which Ezra Grimstone 
 had often chosen to wear of himself, and which of late 
 Another had set so tightly on him, fitted close down. Self- 
 contained and dumb he passed out of the world in the chill 
 of the dawn. 
 
 Robert let the doctor out without answering his comment. 
 In his way he had cared for the dead master ; he had worked 
 
 344
 
 DESIRE 
 
 with him all his working life, withstood him at times it is 
 true, abused and contradicted him, a cross-grained man but a 
 loyal. And even though it may have been Grimstones' that 
 had been the central core of his affections, Ezra, impotent 
 and set aside as he had been, still in the old man's mind 
 stood largely for it. So he said nothing ; rather, he resented 
 the doctor's words as an intrusion ; what the dead man had 
 to say must have concerned Grimstones' and was no affair of 
 a stranger's ; to die silent were better than to die talking 
 before such. Robert shut the heavy door after the doctor as 
 if he were shutting the outside world from the silent house. 
 
 " It's Alexander that killed him," he said to Peter as they 
 stood together on the landing. 
 
 Peter knew better ; he knew that big things, and some 
 little things, usually derive their origin from wider sources 
 than one man only, and seldom from sources entirely un- 
 touched by self. He did not say so, however. 
 
 " It was Alexander," Robert repeated. " You say your- 
 self it was Alexander he tried to tell you about." 
 
 Peter nodded. " He had been restless all the evening," 
 he said ; " it was almost as if he had something on his mind, 
 something which grew till at last the effort to tell it brought 
 the end." 
 
 Robert grunted. " Well, it was about Alexander," he 
 persisted. " A warning. It's my belief he knew what we 
 don't, and saw what we can't, the dying do when the Lord 
 wills it's a warning." 
 
 He went away strong in his conviction, and Peter crossed 
 the landing and went down-stairs. There was nothing to 
 be done now, and it was useless to go to bed. It occurred 
 to him that he would go out into the yard and look across 
 the canal as he had looked in the spring dawn when he had 
 waited for the barge. He drew the bolts of the back door 
 
 345
 
 DESIRE 
 
 and went out. The wind had dropped, and the small rain 
 which had fallen earlier had ceased. It was all very still and 
 grey without. The yard looked curiously deserted in the 
 pale light ; it should have been deserted at that hour, 
 of course ; no one should have been there except the collie. 
 He was not there, it is true, but Peter did not notice, 
 he had forgotten the animal's existence. He shivered a little 
 as he stepped out, not so much with cold as with the sense 
 of the loneliness which hangs over the working- or the 
 playing-places of men in the dawn. He passed the first 
 shed and the heap of old saggers j beyond was the building 
 where the machine had been set up, the door looked towards 
 the canal, one did not see it till one stood on the canal bank. 
 Peter did not see it till he was down there, close to where 
 the white mist floated ; then he saw. The door stood open, 
 a dark space in the wall, and on the threshold, darker still, 
 something was lying so quiet, quiet as the creeping mist, 
 so still. A man who was lying face downwards, his head 
 within the building, his feet on the threshold without one 
 was doubled a little under him, one in a pool left by last 
 night's rain, and he never moved it though it was wet, the 
 boot soaked through. Peter started forward, then stopped 
 and stood quite still. His eye travelled slowly over the 
 figure from the feet upward to the head which was within 
 the building. The man was Alexander. 
 
 346
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 THE finding of Alexander Grimstone's body in one of the 
 buildings of his father's yard caused a sensation in Twycross. 
 For a while the name of Grimstone was on every tongue, 
 and the affairs of the family, usually little thought or spoken 
 of, were freely discussed. Every one knew that there was a 
 business feud between the Grimstones, although its origin 
 and extent were alike unknown, every one also knew there 
 was a family feud too ; at least there had been between the 
 brothers, though the women of the family, according to 
 Mrs. Alexander Grimstone, and as represented by herself, 
 were ready to make peace. And now on the very morning 
 that Ezra Grimstone died his son Alexander was found dead 
 near the house, and found by Peter. 
 
 Ezra Grimstone's death would have called for little 
 comment, it had been long coming, so long that by now it 
 could make little difference to any one ; its interest lay in its 
 happening when Alexander, the still unforgiven, was so near, 
 and at a time so shortly before he too had died suddenly, if 
 not violently, on the spot forbidden him by the father. 
 Alexander's death, however, was the real interest. How had 
 he died ? Who was responsible ? Was any one responsible ? 
 Was Peter implicated ? Was it accident or murder ? The 
 last word was repeated more than once, and not without 
 some natural relish to the great indignation of Dodd of 
 Grimstones', who was at Twycross at the time of the 
 inquest. 
 
 The good men and true, who very willingly served as 
 
 347
 
 DESIRE 
 
 jury on the occasion of the inquest, viewed the body care- 
 fully. They had not liked Alexander in life it was not 
 very easy to find any one who had but they were very 
 interested in him in death. They listened to the medical 
 evidence with attention, examined the only wound to be 
 seen, and asked questions pertinent and otherwise. 
 
 Some points about the death were perfectly clear. 
 Alexander Grimstone had died about four o'clock on 
 Wednesday morning, the doctor who saw the body not two 
 hours later gave that as his opinion, and there was no reason 
 against it. Death had been caused by a blow on the 
 head ; the doctor's opinion again was unimpeachable, also 
 common observation bore it out. The question was, was 
 the blow accident or design ? Evidence was rather in favour 
 of accident. There was a pulley with weights affixed to a 
 beam just over the door of the building where the body had 
 been found. Some part of the tackle had become loosened, 
 and one of the weights, which Robert deposed to having 
 been in its place when he locked the shed the previous 
 evening, had fallen, striking Alexander on the head. Could 
 such a thing have happened of itself ? The question was 
 put by the foreman. Was it not necessary for some one to 
 have touched it, either accidentally or not understanding the 
 mechanism, or maliciously and on purpose to endanger one 
 standing as Alexander was ? 
 
 Robert's answer was surly and non-committal as usual. 
 It might have happened of itself or it might not. The thing 
 had not been used for some time, he could not say what 
 condition it was in or how far it was secure. As for 
 Alexander touching it by accident, it wasn't likely he had 
 been such a fool, he mostly knew what he was about. As 
 for any one doing it maliciously, they'd have had to stand 
 close to him to do it, they would also have had to time it 
 very exactly ; it would have been a difficult thing to do with 
 
 348
 
 DESIRE 
 
 any man, very difficult with one as sharp as Alexander, who 
 was likely to have been additionally on the alert on such an 
 occasion. 
 
 After that information every one looked again at the 
 weight, the presumed cause of death. It was still dabbled 
 with blood and hair as it had been when found. One man, 
 he was the least important present, asked if these com- 
 promising signs could not have been put there after death 
 had occurred. 
 
 " Supposing," said he, " the deed had been done with some 
 other instrument I think the medical evidence supports me 
 in saying that the blow might have been struck with any 
 blunt and heavy thing ? Supposing, I say, that a fatal blow 
 had been struck from behind with something unknown, 
 could not the murderer have deliberately disarranged the 
 pulley and stained the weight as we now see it ? " 
 
 He could, of course, every one perceived that ; but, on 
 the other hand, no one thought it likely partly because the 
 ingenious idea had not originated in the first instance with 
 any of themselves, and partly because such an explanation 
 presupposed a cold-blooded callousness in the perpetrator 
 and the possession of a brutal enemy by the dead man. 
 They investigated the possibility to satisfy the unimportant 
 man, but without faith and without much result. Medical 
 evidence did not help ; the doctors pronounced it quite 
 impossible to say if the blood which adhered to the weight 
 had been deposited at the moment of death or immediately 
 after ; but they evidently inclined to the former and simpler 
 explanation. So did most other people ; but at the same 
 time they felt there were some mysteries here. Had an 
 ordinary workman, or other person with business to be on 
 the place, been found under such circumstances the verdict 
 would have been quickly given. But these circumstances 
 were exceptional. Alexander Grimstone had no business 
 
 349
 
 DESIRE 
 
 there ; he was in an unauthorized place at an unauthorized 
 time, presumably for an unauthorized purpose. His death 
 by accident in such circumstances was extraordinary ; it 
 partook rather of the nature of drastic poetic justice, and it 
 seemed necessary to inquire into several things. For instance, 
 was it possible to find out why he was in such a place at 
 such a time ? 
 
 It was, Peter knew, or at least could guess, and the jury 
 learnt. 
 
 They were much interested, and, being all more or less 
 mixed up in the pottery trade, not least in Peter's acknow- 
 ledged possession of a secret process. This, by the way, he 
 had already taken steps to patent, foreseeing that it must 
 become known. They could not, however, whatever their 
 wishes, ask him much about it ; they asked instead, with 
 some severity although to a man they were personally 
 convinced of Alexander's guilt why Peter should suspect 
 his brother of such an action. 
 
 Peter told them of the previous entry attempted by some 
 one and frustrated by the dog. 
 
 They asked if there had been no barking this time, and 
 why, under the circumstances, he should think it the same 
 person. 
 
 Peter said that the dog who barked before had been 
 poisoned two days after that attempt ; and the collie who 
 watched the yard now had been destroyed the night when 
 Alexander entered. 
 
 The jury looked wise over this and suggested several 
 theories as to how the collie died ; then, brought back to 
 the point, wanted to know if Peter had no other reason for 
 suspecting his brother. 
 
 Peter, with a reluctance he concealed, told of Alexander's 
 entrance into the house itself last year. 
 
 The jury were profoundly interested by this ; they were 
 
 350
 
 DESIRE 
 
 also impressed that the quarrel between the Grimstone 
 brothers was of a much more acute order than they had 
 ever known. Acute enough for almost anything to have 
 happened, each man thought it, but could not on that 
 account implicate Peter in the present business. Possibly, 
 fortunately for him, his doings during Tuesday night and 
 Wednesday morning could all be known, every hour accounted 
 for. Owing to his father's death he was up all night, and 
 not alone at all since midnight j up till which hour, indeed 
 after it, Alexander was known to have been alive. Peter, 
 it was clear, could have had no hand in Alexander's not 
 inconvenient death. Had any one else ? 
 
 There were footsteps about the door of the building where 
 the body was found. But the ground was soft and had 
 been for several days ; there would be prints of Alexander's 
 feet and of the men who had worked there during the 
 previous day as well as the prints of any other who came 
 after Alexander if there were such a one ; there was 
 nothing to be learnt from the prints. There was one other 
 line of inquiry and one other puzzle of considerable interest 
 and possible importance who knew that Alexander was 
 in that place at that time ? If murdered he had been, his 
 murderer must have been in possession of that piece of in- 
 formation, he would not himself have come to that unlikely 
 place by chance. Alexander was in the habit of keeping 
 his affairs very much to himself; so far as it was possible to 
 learn he had told no one of his intention that Tuesday. 
 His movements that night had been traced up to the time 
 he left Twycross Station ; from then on no one seemed to 
 have seen him. It was possible, of course, that he was 
 followed from there to his father's yard, and there struck 
 down for some reason unknown ; but it was extremely un- 
 likely, if for no other reason than that the chances were very 
 largely in favour of his discovering his follower before that, 
 
 351
 
 DESIRE 
 
 Some one, however, must have been aware that he was likely 
 to go to the yard ; some one, at all events, had supplied him 
 with the key of the building where he met his death. 
 
 But all inquiries failed to reveal who. Robert had locked 
 up as usual that evening, he swore to it, and the keys, on a 
 string, had been put just inside the office. Peter had put them 
 away some half-hour later ; he had not counted them, the 
 particular one might have been missing then, he did not 
 know ; when he went round at ten that night he did not 
 use them, the doors were all fastened, he had no occasion to 
 try the keys or to examine them minutely. 
 
 The next question was, who had been in the office 
 between the time of Robert's placing the keys there and 
 of Peter's putting them away ? 
 
 Possibly any or all of the few people connected with the 
 work, or even the household. The door leading to the 
 house, though shut, was not fastened, and the door opening 
 on to the yard stood open, Peter was not there and every one 
 was about for a little. Robert had locked up in a peremptory 
 manner before the rest were quite ready to go ; he often 
 did, he liked his own way in this as in other matters, and 
 as he locked up when he thought fit he frequently had to 
 wait to fasten the yard gate after the others. He did that 
 evening, busying himself clearing up by the canal, out of sight 
 of the office, while he waited. The yard key ? It was never 
 put with the rest, but hung on a nail in the kitchen, as it 
 always had hung the last fifty years, where it was always 
 likely to hang so long as Robert lived. In point of time and 
 opportunity any one of five people might have taken the key 
 which somehow reached Alexander that night ; the line of 
 inquiry now pursued was, who could have conveyed it to 
 him in the time ? Not either of the two women of the 
 household, their movements could all be accounted for. Nor 
 Robert, he had not left the house or spoken to an outsider 
 
 352
 
 DESIRE 
 
 till he went after midnight to fetch the doctor to his old 
 master. Not James, he went directly he left work to 
 Shurthorpe with Dodd, who had been at Twycross that day. 
 They travelled together to that small town where both lived, 
 and then each went his separate way ; Dodd spent the 
 evening at a sing-song ; James at a school of languages : 
 both returned to their homes in good time. And, thanks to 
 the railway, neither could have returned late to Twycross 
 even had they wished, except by road, a somewhat difficult 
 feat as James did not bicycle and Dodd had strained his 
 knee and could not. 
 
 There remained only Bolt,and Bolt had spent the evening 
 and night with his cousin, the hill blacksmith. He had 
 fallen out with his grandmother that morning, and so, instead 
 of going home to her after work, he went to the forge ; 
 spent the evening there, and slept there with the blacksmith 
 who, like himself, preferred a sack among the warm ashes to 
 any bed yet made. No, he had not sold Alexander the key. 
 Alexander, it is true, had sounded him about it quite lately, 
 only last week. He had likely sounded most of them some 
 time ; Bolt didn't know about the others, but for himself he 
 had no fancy for Alexander, he didn't trust him and he 
 wasn't for having any truck with him. Bolt's testimony 
 could not be shaken any more than the others' could. James 
 and Dodd had seen him start up the hill road when he left 
 work, and when they took the road to the town. His 
 cousin, the blacksmith, corroborated his statement of when 
 he arrived at the forge, and how he spent the night there. 
 
 It was curious, it was mysterious even, and more than 
 probable, though it could not be brought home, that some 
 one was lying about the key, but it was fairly clear that no 
 one in Grimstones' could actually have given it to Alex- 
 ander. And, however much one of them might have been 
 morally responsible for his somehow getting it, it was shown 
 
 23 353
 
 DESIRE 
 
 impossible that that one, or any other of them, could have 
 been near the place at the time of, or any way concerned in 
 the death, which, after all, was the sole business of the 
 inquest. The coroner, having reminded the jury of this, 
 and also that they were expected to give a verdict on facts, 
 not fancies, they, after a little deliberation, gave one ot 
 "Accidental Death." 
 
 Thus the inquest ended, and in time those concerned came 
 out. They came in twos mostly, some stood a minute to 
 talk, some, not important people, gave details to those who 
 had had to be content with waiting outside during the pro- 
 ceedings. The four men belonging to Grimstones' went their 
 ways with the stolid, impervious sort of look which they 
 always seemed to have for the outside world. An old lawyer, 
 looking after them with some admiration, speculated as to 
 which among them had done the hard swearing and who 
 had handled the affair of the key. But, he recognized it 
 plainly, that was not a thing likely ever to be known. 
 
 But there he was wrong, some one did eventually know. 
 But that some one was not a lawyer or a juryman considering 
 evidence, but a woman who jumped to a conclusion by the 
 light of her own intuitions. She was one, however, who 
 had the advantage of understanding something about the hill 
 people, their endurance in friendship and enmity, the 
 primitiveness of their code of rights and wrongs, and of their 
 clan feeling. One who not only knew Bolt, but who had 
 also seen the taciturn hill blacksmith and judged him to be a 
 man to be relied on at a pinch. Desire Quebell, when all 
 that has been told was repeated to her, guessed the perjurer. 
 But with singular reticence for her she kept the guess to 
 herself; such a suspicion, when you don't want a prosecution, 
 is not a thing to be lightly shared. And Desire guessed 
 that the man who supplied Alexander Grimstone with the 
 key did so to gratify a passion older than love of money ; 
 
 354
 
 DESIRE 
 
 and that probably he did not, evidence to the contrary not- 
 withstanding, spend the whole night among the warm ashes 
 of the forge. There was one thing and one only that 
 puzzled her, and on that she eventually got light, for she 
 asked Bolt point-blank. 
 
 " Tell me," she said to him, " do you mind telling me, 
 why you always disliked Mr. Alexander Grimstone so 
 much ? " 
 
 " 'Cause *e killed my rabbits," was the answer. 
 
 Your rabbits ? " 
 
 " Yes, long ago, 'afore 'e fell out with t'ode maister. 'E 
 'ad a lurcher, yaller mongrel, and I 'ad two rabbits, wild uns, 
 they were, but I'd made 'em tame. They lived down by 
 t'cut ; I'd a box for 'em but they come'd in an' out as they 
 liked ; they knew me, they did, they used ter run inter my 
 coat. I took 'em 'ome ter bed sometimes." 
 
 " And he killed them ? " 
 
 " Set 'is dorg at 'em when I warn't there. One was dead 
 when I corned, t'other t' brute was maulin'. I took it 
 away, but I 'ad ter kill it myself. He laughed." 
 
 The dull eyes lighted at the recollection, and Desire 
 suddenly perceived that Alexander Grimstone, who had 
 ruined some and injured many, died because ten years ago 
 he had let his dog kill two rabbits. But she perceived 
 also that it was because he had destroyed the one thing a 
 dull nature had managed to care for, and in the place of the 
 one feeble, gentle emotion had put a sense of injustice and 
 impotent anger and helpless resentment. Plants nearly in- 
 digenous to the nature, and dangerous things in a slow, 
 unforgiving mind, very ignorant, very unimaginative, without 
 sense of proportion or capacity for remorse. 
 
 But this was not till some time later. On this cold, grey 
 afternoon in late September no one knew why and how 
 Alexander Grimstone died except, of course, so far as the 
 
 355
 
 DESIRE 
 
 coroner and jury had decided and no one would seem to 
 have greatly cared, except as a matter of curiosity. 
 
 Mrs. Alexander had the appearance of caring. That is 
 to say, she was announced to be " prostrated with shock," 
 and unable to see any one, except a female cousin and the 
 friend at whose house she had been staying when the news 
 reached her, and who had kindly accompanied her home. 
 These two and the husband of one of them saw Peter when 
 he felt compelled by duty to ask for his brother's widow, 
 though he had not the least idea what he should have said 
 to her had she seen him. He was much relieved at being 
 refused, and listened with patient courtesy to the extravagant 
 descriptions of woe poured upon him. He believed them, 
 and felt very sorry for Mrs. Alexander, which was quite 
 unnecessary, as, the shock once recovered from, she would 
 find a morbid excitement and satisfaction in the interest of 
 her situation, and would most thoroughly enjoy the import- 
 ance and consideration which she would deem her due. 
 Her supporters at the River House were appreciating the 
 situation as it was. They were keeping each other up very 
 sympathetically ; they had whiskies-and-sodas and champagne 
 at odd times, and very appetizing bits of food brought to 
 them on trays in odd places. There was a general feeling 
 of importance and " anything might happen " in the darkened 
 house, a good deal of running to and fro to " the poor dear " 
 up-stairs, and a good deal of very friendly talk with the 
 servants, who, thus encouraged, naturally collected any scrap 
 of gossip there was. Peter's coming was, of course, what 
 was to be looked for, and also enjoyed. The women gave 
 him gushing details of " poor Flo's " condition ; the cousin 
 told him how she had managed to persuade her to eat a few 
 oysters and the wing of a chicken. The friend recounted 
 how she had given way when she had received the carefully- 
 worded telegram, how she herself had declared there was 
 
 356
 
 DESIRE 
 
 something awful behind, she had a premonition here some- 
 where in the region of her lungs. The man, allowing proper 
 time for these proper things, spoke aside to Peter of its being 
 fortunate that the widow would be left well provided for. 
 
 " We have to consider these things, we men of business, 
 and it makes a difference, a considerable difference ; when 
 she's got over it a bit it'll make a difference to her. 
 Luckily they only took this house by the year seems as if 
 they felt something might happen to make them flit. She 
 can get out of it before Christmas she never liked the place 
 and come and settle down somewhere cheerful, somewhere 
 near us perhaps. Em thinks it would be a comfort to her, 
 don't you, Em r " 
 
 Em, the more voluble of the two ladies, corroborated and 
 then turned to Peter with questions. There were a lot of 
 things Peter could tell better than any one else the finding 
 of the body, the details of the inquest, his own opinions and 
 suspicions ; of course he would want to talk as much as they 
 to hear. The two women were expansively sympathetic, 
 the man opened another bottle of champagne, all three 
 proposed to be melancholily, somewhat ghoulishly, convivial. 
 But Peter did not drink champagne at odd times, and he 
 was not by nature either ghoulish or convivial, and certainly 
 not expansive. His present company had the effect of 
 entirely freezing him ; he briefly answered their questions 
 without satisfying their curiosity, unconsciously and politely 
 rebuffing their morbid thirst for information, thereby earning 
 a very unfavourable opinion. Then, as soon as he could, he 
 took his leave and made his way home in the windy twilight, 
 feeling intensely lonely. Extraordinarily lonely, seeing that 
 by the two deaths which had so recently occurred he had 
 lost little beyond a burden and an enemy. But when one 
 has very little it is something perhaps to lose even those ; 
 they at least are something for which to think, if not to live. 
 
 357
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 THE trains which go to Twycross usually wait a long 
 time at Stoke ; the one by which Desire Quebell was 
 travelling did. She did not look out of window or bestow 
 any interest on her fellow-travellers, but sat, hands folded, 
 body still, with the unnatural and abnormal patience of one 
 whose impatience is far beyond expression, and who, 
 mentally, is burning coals for the furnace, hurrying 
 stragglers for the guard, almost dragging the train for the 
 laggard engine. Her whole self was concentrated on getting 
 on, her very limbs ached with it as if it was a physical thing. 
 This was the one journey of her life when she had no 
 thought or interest for fellow-travellers or humours of the 
 way, no thing that was done, no face she passed, made any 
 impression upon her. She saw them, she saw thousands of 
 things small things which she would normally have over- 
 looked, not merely the people but the number of their 
 buttons, too ; not merely the advertisements but the separate 
 letters that composed them, her nerves were preternaturally 
 alive and her mind raced like a clock with the pendulum off. 
 But nothing made an impression on her and nothing stayed ; 
 between the words she read, between any two impressions 
 she received, came the recurrent question What trouble ? 
 What trouble ? Robert's laconic telegram had not told. It 
 had given no hint of what had happened or when it had 
 happened, it had not even summoned her. Not that that 
 occurred to her, to read and to go were all one. She had 
 
 358
 
 DESIRE 
 
 travelled as fast as she could since getting it. She had 
 caught the night train at Vichy, reached Paris in the early- 
 morning, crossed by the day boat, and, late into town by 
 reason of the delayed boat train, had had no time to do any- 
 thing but drive straight from Charing Cross to Euston Station, 
 and now, four-and-twenty hours after receiving the telegram, 
 she was at Stoke waiting at Stoke ! Waiting for the engine 
 to get water, or the engine driver to get dinner, or for 
 leisurely passengers to saunter the length of that interminable 
 platform and choose some carriage where they saw a 
 friend ! 
 
 At last the train began to move again. Just as it did so 
 she glanced out of window. There was a bookstall close by 
 with newspaper placards hanging upon it, halfpenny papers 
 of more or less local circulation, with names little known in 
 London. She scanned the sensational headlines, as she had 
 scanned the advertisement boards and everything else she 
 passed, with the rapidity and unimpressionability of dream 
 consciousness. Suddenly one word broke through and 
 reached her mind " Grimstone." She saw and understood 
 the whole line "THE GRIMSTONE TRAGEDY. INQUEST 
 TO-DAY" and the next line of the next paper "THE 
 TWYCROSS MYSTERY. Is IT MURDER ? " 
 
 She sprang to her feet. 
 
 " A paper ! " she called, leaning far out of the window 
 and sending her full voice sounding down the platform, with 
 a note in it which made the paper boys start. 
 
 "A shilling for one of those ! " she waved towards the 
 placards and leaned still further out. The train was going 
 fast now and the boys had some way to run, but one reached 
 her ; she flung out the shilling and seized the flimsy sheets. 
 Then she sat back in her corner, a strange sick dizziness, 
 unlike anything she had ever felt in her life before, possessed 
 
 359
 
 DESIRE 
 
 her. For a moment she held the paper unopened, some 
 vital thing in her dropped before the shock, as springs sink 
 before an earthquake. Then she pulled herself together 
 and, with hands clammy and cold for all her magnificent 
 health, opened the paper. 
 
 Ah ! here it was " THE TWYCROSS MYSTERY." Her 
 heart thumped heavily once, then began to beat very fast as 
 she read, while her breath, before difficult, came in quite 
 audible gasps. 
 
 There were two men on the opposite side of the carriage ; 
 they looked at her curiously. They had looked curiously 
 when she had sprung up and called for a paper in a 
 voice they had before heard of normal proportions, now 
 of such vibrating power. They looked almost anxiously 
 now. 
 
 She lowered the paper suddenly, dropped it on her lap, and 
 her hands on it, then she leaned back with a long-drawn 
 breath, shaking suddenly, almost as if she had the ague. 
 
 " Excuse me," the elder man said, " but I'm afraid you're 
 not well." 
 
 She started, for the first time remembering their presence. 
 " Thank you," she said ; " I'm quite well." Her voice shook 
 a little over the last word, but she did not trouble to explain, 
 and was entirely unembarrassed. The rest of the world slips 
 down and goes out before the stress of the great emotions : 
 one is not embarrassed by it, one is oblivious. With Desire 
 it did not count, it was nothing not there. She sat quietly 
 in her corner, her mind, springing back with sudden rebound, 
 now more swiftly at work than ever. She was going over 
 a list of names well-known names they were of the most 
 famous lawyers in England. Gore's name passed among 
 greater ones, but was dismissed, not because of his one- 
 time connection with herself, but because he was not big 
 
 360
 
 DESIRE 
 
 enough to conduct the defence if defence there had 
 to be. 
 
 The newspaper did not suggest that Peter Grimstone had 
 murdered his brother, although, as the placard conveyed, it 
 inclined towards the view of murder by some one as so 
 much more picturesque. It contained comparatively little 
 real information beyond a rhume 1 of what had been in a 
 previous issue or issues, and the information that the inquest 
 was to be to-day, the day of publication. Here, evidently, 
 the news was old, it was startling- no longer, no one much 
 spoke of it. Clearly Robert had not thought it necessary 
 to telegraph to her directly after the happening had he 
 forgotten, been busy, or preoccupied ? Or was it that he 
 had thought there was no call upon his promise then, but 
 something had since arisen to demand its fulfilment ? Fear 
 sprang up at the thought. For a moment there had been 
 relief, an almost ferocious relief when it was revealed who 
 was dead in the " Twycrou Mystery" which of the Grim- 
 stone's had suffered in the " tragedy" But now fear came 
 back, a thousand fierce anxieties crowding in. Supposing 
 
 The train stopped again ! Oh, Good Lord ! Was it 
 only the station after Stoke ? They had been, it seemed, 
 several hours doing that piece and were they going to 
 stay here all night ? They were taking in milk-cans, milk 
 enough for a whole province ! Was the train never going 
 on ? A crazy idea of somehow bribing the officials to run 
 right through to Twycross, without regard for signals or 
 milk-cans or passengers or anything, occurred to Desire. 
 But she did not try it, she had not given way to any of the 
 frantic impulses which had once or twice possessed her 
 during her journey. She sat still with an enduring patience 
 which made her very feet ache while the train waited, while 
 it went on again, out into the dark country, while it stopped
 
 DESIRE 
 
 at some other grimy station it was scheduled slow beyond 
 Stoke how unutterably, indescribably, unendurably slow, 
 no onee Ise possibly ever knew. 
 
 But it was over at last ; Twycross was reached. Desire 
 was out of the train, out of the station, almost before another 
 carriage door was open. They would know here about the 
 inquest, they would tell her the verdict and the common 
 talk if she asked. But she did not, she could not have stood 
 it, she could not speak. She passed the ticket collector, who 
 recognized her, without a word, sprang into a fly and told 
 the man to drive as hard as he could with a freedom of 
 language which was entirely unwomanly and an immense 
 relief. The road was indifferent, the vehicle old, the 
 progress really not very great, but one felt it, one felt as 
 if some efforts were being made. A small gusty breeze 
 that whirled the dead leaves in eddies was blowing ; Desire 
 leaned forward and felt it on her face, and that cheated her 
 into a feeling of pace. They were slowing down now, the 
 hill she would have liked to get out and push up behind 
 if it would save time, only it would not. What a long 
 hill ; she did not remember it was so long, it never seemed 
 so long when she used to walk up with Mrs. Grimstone. 
 Ah, there were the elms at last, dimly seen against the dark 
 sky the top, they used to call them. They weren't quite, 
 but one might reckon them so. The level high road at last, 
 and the hills ! 
 
 Desire's pulses suddenly slowed as she saw the dark 
 shoulders of the hills rising on the left against the cloudy 
 sky. Almost like a palpable thing the quietness and the 
 solitude that was here fell upon her reposeful, overwhelming, 
 belittling to a man and his impatience. She grew suddenly 
 afraid, not with the sick, inward fear of what she would find 
 at the journey's end, but with a childish trembling at her 
 
 362
 
 DESIRE 
 
 boldness in coming. Peter had not bidden her come, it was 
 not he who had telegraphed to her. No one had really sent 
 for her, no one knew she was coming, maybe she would not 
 be wanted. Out here in the silence, under the shadow of 
 the great hills that were always the same, things were 
 different, she herself was different, cooler, less sure, less im- 
 petuous, much smaller. She stopped the fly a little before 
 the solitary grey house was reached. 
 
 " I will get out here," she said, and even the driver noticed 
 the curious quietness that had taken the place of her former 
 hot impatience. 
 
 She paid him and told him to take the slender luggage 
 which was all she had had time to bring, to the house. 
 Then she herself went in at a side gate which was standing 
 just ajar, as Robert had left it when he went out on some 
 errand to the town. She found her way into the yard ; the 
 buildings showed dim black outlines on her right, a mound 
 of clay and a pile of waste ghostly white near at hand. She 
 crossed quietly, picking her way with silent, familiar feet, and 
 from choice keeping close to the house wall. The office 
 window looked that way. It was lighted and unshuttered, it 
 cast a square yellow patch on the ground and illuminated a 
 space around it j she avoided the light, but when she was 
 near glanced up at the window. Peter was there, at the 
 desk which used to be her desk. His face was quite clear to 
 her, not very different from when she saw it first or saw it 
 last, not different at all or else she had known that it would 
 be thus or else she had always seen it every day and all 
 day since she left, and so knew. 
 
 She passed quickly, he had not seen her in the darkness 
 without, and came to the door. For half a moment she 
 paused, hesitancy, to which she was a stranger, holding her, 
 then without knocking she opened the door and walked in.
 
 DESIRE 
 
 To the threshold, no further ; her self-reliance, her decision, 
 everything deserted her then ; she stood in the doorway shy, 
 shrinking, just a woman who had loved and who had come 
 unbidden. 
 
 Peter turned for a second, his face went white as a man 
 who sees a ghost. 
 
 " Desire ! " 
 
 She put a hand on the door-frame, a deprecating hand, 
 and she smiled rather feebly. 
 
 And then the end came, suddenly, overwhelmingly, with- 
 out words ; a swift step that was almost a pounce, a crushing 
 grip that nearly hurt, a sense of yielding that was divine ; a 
 pressure that halted the breath in her body, and a kiss that 
 was a wordless contract which never could be broken. 
 
 Mary, the taciturn, having set the supper, left it for ten 
 minutes. At the end of that time, finding Peter had not 
 come, she went to fetch him she did not approve of un- 
 punctuality nor yet of letting food get cold. She gave a 
 perfunctory knock on the office door, opening it at the same 
 time. 
 
 " Supper's ready," she said. 
 
 She looked in as she spoke, and so saw Desire. 
 
 " Why ! " she exclaimed, with something near welcome 
 in her voice. " You here, miss ! I didn't know you'd 
 come, I didn't hear you ! " 
 
 "I came by the back way," Desire explained. "I left 
 my luggage to come by the front ; by the way, I suppose it 
 has come ? " 
 
 "Jane must have took it in," Mary said ; " the little hussy 
 don't half the time tell me what she does." 
 
 " That's all right," Desire said ; " that'll be all right." 
 
 She turned to Peter. " Let's go to supper," she said 
 
 364
 
 DESIRE 
 
 hastily, as if to prevent further parley with Mary ; " it will 
 be getting cold." 
 
 Her eyes were bright and eager, but with fear. She had 
 for a moment forgotten the grim shadow that was over the 
 house ; for that one brief, perfect moment she had forgotten 
 everything. But now, with the coming of Mary there had 
 also come remembrance ; with the jerk of reaction all the 
 fears which had possessed her before, and others born of 
 more recent emotions, swept down on her. 
 
 " Peter," she said, as he followed her to the other room, 
 " tell me about it, I can stand no more." 
 
 But Peter hardly understood what it was she asked. 
 
 " Did you ," she said desperately. " How did Alex- 
 ander die ? " 
 
 I don't know." 
 
 " You don't know ? " She looked at him for half a 
 moment. " You don't ? " then suddenly and without any 
 warning she burst into tears. 
 
 Desire was not given to displays of this sort, such a thing 
 had never occurred in her life before ; but then other things 
 which had never occurred in her life before had done so that 
 day. She wept as only physically strong women whose 
 emotions have suddenly got beyond control can weep, the 
 weeping as primitive and complete in its abandonment as the 
 kiss had been, a breaking up of the unsuspected deeps of her 
 nature, a very tornado of tears, beyond control and beyond 
 embarrassment. 
 
 And Peter wisely did not try to help or hinder her, 
 perhaps he knew that the unprecedented upheaval was 
 physical more than mental. At all events he left her to 
 herself for a time, attempting neither soothing nor sympathy 
 until the first passion had spent itself and she was recovering 
 a little of her lost self-mastery.
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " I am so sorry," she gasped unsteadily at last. " I've 
 never made such a fool of myself before : I didn't know I 
 could. I ought to have fled out of the room when I felt it 
 coming on ; I might have spared you this spectacle." 
 
 " It seems to me it is I who might have spared you," 
 Peter said remorsefully. "I didn't know it mattered so much 
 to you." 
 
 " I suppose it wouldn't matter to you if I were hung ? " 
 she returned, laughter hysterically catching up her tears. 
 " Oh, lend me your handkerchief ; mine wants wringing 
 out, and I've cried the dust of travel off my face in 
 patches." 
 
 " Peter," she looked up suddenly as she dried her eyes 
 " are you hurt at my not being sure you had no hand in 
 this ? You're not ? Some men would have been, I suppose. 
 Of course I didn't think you'd deliberately murdered 
 Alexander, but accidents do happen, you know ; one might 
 have happened that night in the winter when you thrashed 
 him. I didn't know in the least what had taken place, I 
 only knew the long quarrel and the provocation you'd had, 
 and just what the newspapers said, which, of course, is mostly 
 nonsense. You see how it came about ? " 
 
 Peter did. " What would you have done if I had had a 
 hand in it ? " he asked. 
 
 " Got you off," she answered promptly. " I thought of 
 it all the way from Stoke. I knew nothing about it till 
 then. I decided Lawton was the man you would want ; he 
 is, too, supposing anything were to turn up, anything horrible 
 was said. But, of course, it won't be now ; they've had the 
 inquest ? And the verdict ? I haven't heard it, you must 
 remember." 
 
 " Accidental death." 
 
 She repeated the words after him, " Accidental death " j 
 
 366
 
 DESIRE 
 
 then she nodded, but her lips twitched and her hands shook. 
 Her relief was immense, but with it there came an exhaus- 
 tion, sudden and temporary, but almost as great while it 
 lasted as the strained emotion had been. 
 
 " Tell me about it, about everything some other time," 
 she said weakly. " Give me something to drink. I feel as 
 if I should spread out flat. I didn't sleep much last night, 
 and it was a vile crossing." 
 
 Peter brought her some brandy ; then he put the some- 
 what cooled food down to the fire to get hot again. It did 
 not seem to him advisable to ring for Mary to take it out and 
 reheat it. When he had done that he wheeled the sofa 
 to the fire, and, without warning, carried Desire to it. 
 She was a big woman and a heavy, but he lifted her 
 easily. 
 
 " How strong you are ! " she said. " I believe you could 
 hurt me if you tried. You did nearly hurt me ; you crushed 
 
 all the breath out of me when you in the office " 
 
 The sentence was not very explicit but Peter no doubt 
 understood, for he asked, " Did you think I might have had 
 a hand in Alexander's death, then ? " 
 
 " I didn't think," she returned ; " I didn't think about 
 anything. Besides, what did it matter ? " 
 " It would not have mattered to you r " 
 " Of course not." She leaned against the cushion he 
 placed for her, her vitality coming back. " You are you, 
 whatever you do," she said. " It's what you are, not what 
 you do, that matters ; lots of doing is just accident and 
 impulse, and, anyhow, I don't care, do you ? You can't care 
 for what I do, you must care in spite of it; I do such 
 abominable things, things I'm heartily ashamed of. You 
 do uninspired things, too,' sometimes. You sent me away 
 last February. Why did you do it r " 
 
 3 6 7
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " Because I thought you ought to go. I wanted you to I 
 mean, I thought you ought to go back to your proper place 
 the reasonable part of me thinks it still." 
 
 " The artificial part of you," Desire said, " the ridiculous, 
 unnatural, conceited part." 
 
 Later, when the food was hot and Peter had brought hers 
 to the sofa and persuaded her to eat, she returned to the 
 subject. " Do you know what I think of that sending 
 away ? " she asked. " I think it was the one untrue thing I 
 have known you do. It was untrue if you if you cared, 
 you had no business to do it ; it was divorce of soul, a wilful 
 stinting and stunting of your life and mine for a conven- 
 tional idea. It is a conventional idea purely that money to 
 spend and nothing to do in the company of others similarly 
 situated must necessarily be the best thing on earth, and 
 the goal and hope of every one who has had it, and a good 
 many who have not." 
 
 But Peter only smiled, recognizing recovered energy in 
 her tone. Then the smile went. " The alternative here 
 was not much," he said gravely ; " it is not much, a poor 
 life, narrow and small and you are used to and fit for 
 something better." 
 
 " You might, before dismissing me, have passed the 
 compliment of asking my opinion," Desire observed. 
 
 "That was impossible," he said; "besides, if you had 
 thought, most likely you would have seen it, too ; it is only 
 by not thinking that anything else could come about. We 
 didn't think just now I mean, I did not ; I forgot everything 
 but you." 
 
 Desire laughed softly. " For once," she said, " no, for 
 the second third time you acted on impulse. Peter, 
 have you ever noticed that when you act so you always 
 win ? " 
 
 368
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " Yes, I have noticed," he answered ; and her laughing 
 eyes dropped shyly before his gaze. 
 
 " Do you know," she said, after a pause, "I used to want 
 a man to care with his mind only for my mind only ; at 
 one time I thought you did." 
 
 " I care for the whole of you with the whole of me mind, 
 body and soul, and it always will be so whatever you do or 
 I do, in all circumstances and at all times, till life ends." 
 
 She put a hand on his. " Thank you," she said softly, 
 and after that they sat silent for some time. 
 
 By and by Mary came to clear the supper things, or 
 rather she brought Jane to do that ; she came herself to look 
 after Desire, she considered Peter quite incapable of doing so. 
 
 " You'll be just tired out and wanting to go to bed," she 
 said. 
 
 " I'm just longing to wash my face," Desire announced ; 
 "you pottery people use the smokiest coal in the United 
 Kingdom on your trains ; one can't put one's nose out of 
 window without getting a smut on it." 
 
 She went up-stairs with the old woman, to the room which 
 used to be hers. But she did not go to bed, she had no 
 intention of doing so for several hours. She unpacked what 
 baggage she had ; Mary, totally unused to such offices, 
 assisting and talking the while also a thing to which she 
 was not usually given. But then Desire had found some 
 way of thawing her ; the old woman liked her and looked 
 upon her as in a way part of the family and, since a woman, 
 a member of the superior sex, and a capable one, in spite of 
 some eccentricities. She answered all Desire's questions, 
 gave her quite a lot of information, and altogether conversed 
 so garrulously that when Desire went down-stairs again she 
 knew a good deal about what had occurred. 
 
 Before she went down she glanced in the glass and was 
 24 3 6 9
 
 DESIRE 
 
 not pleased with her own appearance ; her face was pale and 
 there were dark circles, caused by her recent uncontrolled 
 weeping, around her eyes, her brilliancy was considerable 
 dimmed. 
 
 "You do look tired, miss," Mary said, observing her. 
 " You want a good night's rest." 
 
 " I want a little rouge," Desire corrected gaily. " You 
 haven't got that, I suppose ? I thought not. Well, I don't 
 expect Peter will mind how I look." 
 
 Mary, scandalized at the idea of rouge, was yet more sur- 
 prised at the reference to Peter ; clearly it was absurd to her 
 that any one should imagine Peter had an opinion with regard 
 to appearance, or that it mattered if he had. 
 
 And Desire laughed happily ; she knew that it was nothing 
 to Peter how she looked ; it never had been, and never 
 would be ; he saw her through all her moods and variations, 
 the becoming and unbecoming, the alluring and repellent 
 were alike to him nothing. He had seen to the core of 
 her, and it was that he had taken and held. 
 
 Down-stairs Peter was waiting for her, he evidently did not 
 expect her to go to bed yet awhile. He had drawn the 
 chairs to the fire just as they had been drawn that February 
 evening when she had realized that she could not stay, and 
 that the thing as it had been was at an end. She remem- 
 bered it now as she sat down, but was too shy to refer to it. 
 She only said, with a little contented sigh, " It's good to be 
 back." 
 
 She felt for her cigarette-case. " Let us now," she said, 
 " smoke the smoke of peace j I haven't smoked all day, 
 merely wasted tobacco. When I'm worried I smoke, also 
 when I'm not, and when I have things on my mind or 
 nerves ; but to-day there's no word for to-day. It's a poor 
 language, ours ! " 
 
 370
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " It's a poor fool that caused you all this," Peter remarked. 
 
 But Desire only looked across at him and smiled. "Give 
 me a match," she said, " and let's talk sober business." 
 
 And they talked it and talked till far on into the night ; 
 and mostly it was business, for there was a good deal to tell 
 and to explain ; and mostly it was sober enough, for shadows 
 still hung about the firm of Grimstone, although with 
 Desire's return, as with her first coming, they seemed 
 suddenly to have lightened. It was not till after midnight 
 that Desire allowed her own past concerns to come in for 
 mention, then she said cheerfully 
 
 "To-morrow I must write to cousin Phoebe, and tell her 
 that, according to custom, I have 'slippit awa'.' She doesn't 
 know where I'm gone, or why. I just wired her from Paris, 
 but I had no special information to give then, so I didn't 
 give it. She won't be pleased when she hears ; she will, I 
 am persuaded, at once destroy her will and make another, 
 cutting me off without the traditional shilling. Do you 
 mind?" 
 
 " I should mind very much if you had money," Peter said 
 emphatically ; " at least," he corrected himself, remembering 
 her early surroundings, " it's hard on you." 
 
 Desire laughed. "I have never been so happy in my life, 
 as the six months I hadn't money. I shan't want any for 
 a long time. I have most of my jewelry and stacks more 
 clothes, enough to last me for years ; and for the rest 
 you know how economical I can be." 
 
 There was another letter Desire would have to write to- 
 morrow to Julian Lee, to apologize for misleading him, if 
 she had misled him, and to tell him briefly that she was going 
 to marry Peter. It should have been difficult to write, but 
 it did not strike her that way ; everything to her was quite 
 simple and plain now, set in place by the one master emotion 
 
 37 1
 
 DESIRE 
 
 and master 'happening of her life ; all else naturally fell into 
 place beside that as inevitably as day following night. 
 
 She told Peter about Lee. " You know," she said, " I 
 had no business to abuse you for doing an untrue thing in 
 sending me away, seeing that I was more than half thinking 
 about doing a thing quite as untrue, more so, in fact. I 
 guess I should have done it, too ; it is quite likely I should 
 have married him. Made him quite a tolerable wife maybe 
 he'd have given me no end of rope and enjoyed life 
 fairly well on the whole. It seems odd, doesn't it ? I 
 should have enjoyed the small things, not knowing not 
 knowing the big." Her voice grew soft over the last 
 words. 
 
 " And you " she looked across at Peter. " I suppose if I 
 had done it you wouldn't have broken your heart ; you'd 
 have felt you'd done your duty in sending me away, that I 
 had really gone back to my place, and you would have settled 
 down in yours moderately content. It strikes me we are 
 not heroic, for the heroic, missing Paradise, put up perman- 
 ently in Hell and we should have missed Paradise. What 
 Paradise ! Oh, Peter, if we missed it now it would be 
 Hell ! " 
 
 " We can't," Peter said ; " no matter what happens now 
 we shan't have missed it. That reminds me, when will you 
 marry me ? " 
 
 The question was put simply, it was the only thing ap- 
 proaching a proposal that Peter ever made ; but Desire did 
 not notice that ; according to her somewhat unusual standards 
 they were more than half married already. 
 
 "I don't know," she said thoughtfully; "when do you 
 think ? " 
 
 " I suppose it had better not be till after the funeral," 
 Peter said ; " it hardly seems respectful to my father." 
 
 372
 
 DESIRE 
 
 " No," she agreed ; " no, I think not, we'll wait till 
 after." 
 
 " I wonder if you ought to stay here ? " Peter said 
 tentatively, as the idea suddenly occurred to him. 
 
 " Of course. I'm not going to begin bothering about that 
 sort of thing at my time of life." 
 
 And they did not bother. 
 
 Of course there were those who said a marriage between 
 Desire and Peter would not and could not answer, but that 
 did not in the least prevent it from doing so. Neither of 
 them had any one with a title to be concerned in their 
 doings which, however, never prevents some disinterested 
 people from having and giving an opinion. Mrs. Alexander 
 Grimstone was very emphatic in disapproval ; she also 
 decided that Desire was an improper person and not to be 
 recognized ; which was something of a relief, as Desire might 
 otherwise have felt it her duty to try and be civil to the 
 widow for the short time she remained in the neighbourhood. 
 Of the rest of Twycross, neither Desire nor Peter had ever 
 known much of the good folk there, and the opinion held 
 among them, if one was held, never reached them. In the 
 course of time Desire made some friends in the little town, 
 in very various ranks of life as she made some friends 
 among the hill people, the hooligans of the pottery towns 
 and in the great houses that scattered the county. And it 
 must be confessed she made the top and bottom sort first, 
 and the middle a long way last. From which it will be seen 
 she remained always herself, flashing meteor-like on social 
 horizons, accepted, in spite of every sane and sound reason 
 to the contrary, wherever and whenever she chose, herself 
 supremely unaware alike of success or singularity. But she 
 did not choose very often, never unless Peter did, for her life 
 
 373
 
 DESIRE 
 
 was his, all else was accident, by-product. All their real 
 life was in the grey house by the hills, in the work they 
 chose for themselves and the children that were born to 
 them. 
 
 Desire's people, those to whom she used to belong, 
 naturally did not approve of her marriage. Lee, it is to be 
 feared, was not so angry as he ought to have been at her 
 treatment of him ; he was bitterly disappointed but at the 
 same time not entirely surprised. He knew all along, what- 
 ever she promised, he was not sure of her until the ring was 
 fairly on. So, with a generosity she admired, he forgave 
 her men did forgive Desire a good deal and was friends 
 still, to the great scandal of Lady Quebell and the entire 
 satisfaction of Peter, who could as soon have been jealous of 
 himself as Desire. Miss Quebell, as Desire foresaw, did not 
 forgive her but left her money, and even the pearls, which 
 Desire returned, elsewhere. 
 
 They had not much money, these two ; Desire practically 
 none, Peter, though his father's heir, not much. There 
 were his books, it is true, but they never sold largely ; they 
 brought in all told, perhaps, an average of ^70 a year. 
 They gradually grew in number, though there were never 
 very many of them, for they were produced so slowly, 
 thought over and talked over and lived in, the work of scanty 
 but loving leisure. Eventually they achieved some fame, 
 in a way a curiously wide one, among rather a wide circle of 
 people, but chiefly among those who do not talk much of 
 what they read, especially when they feel it as the grip of a 
 friend's hand in a dark place. It was not literature or legacy 
 which supplied Desire and Peter with their small income, 
 when it was small, or their growing one when it grew 
 it was Grimstones'. The work they did together, the 
 improvements Peter made and the inventions he patented, 
 
 374
 
 DESIRE 
 
 gradually did build them up a good sufficiency. In the end 
 they were almost comfortably off as Desire's people count 
 wealth, quite rich as the potters count it. 
 
 But what did it matter ? Not much to them either way. 
 As Desire said, " It's a bore, of course, to be without money 
 sometimes, but one can be very comfortable without much 
 of it. One can't be more than happy, and we should be 
 that, you know, if we made brown crocks with our own 
 hands one month and took the road with them and peddled 
 them ourselves the next. Oh, Peter, we should be happy if 
 we did that ! " 
 
 She held to that opinion to her dying day, probably 
 correctly, and she announced it first on the Sunday before 
 they were married a Sunday when they went up the hill 
 together to look at the fox terrier's grave. 
 
 On that Sunday they did another thing too, one which 
 seemed like part of the marriage rite to them. They came 
 home by the way they came six months ago when they last 
 came down the hill by the path that passes the deserted 
 chapel. Now, as then, it was near twilight when they 
 reached the little grey building ; now, as then, they looked 
 in and saw the old man kneeling at his service alone. With 
 one accord they paused. 
 
 " Desire," Peter said, and he bared his head as he spoke, 
 " shall we thank God together ? " 
 
 She put her hand in his, and they went in and knelt down 
 side by side among the shadows. 
 
 When the darkness had all fallen the old man came out. 
 He was alone, as he had been every Sunday these many 
 years, as he always would be, for no one to his knowledge 
 ever shared his lonely orisons. On the doorstep something 
 glimmered in the fading light a gold coin and a woman's 
 
 375
 
 DESIRE 
 
 ring lying, placed side by side. He looked at them in 
 wondering amazement ; to him it was as if they had 
 dropped from heaven, nearly a miracle. 
 
 But below him there were two who had that day paid 
 their vows two for whom the world also yet held miracles, 
 for they walked together along a steep path on the grey 
 hillside, a path that led to where lights gleaming through 
 the gloom spoke of home. 
 
 THE END 
 
 Richard day <5r> Sons, Limited, London and B-ungay.
 
 UC SOUTHERN REG 
 
 A 000129088 1