o 
 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY JAMES 
 
 AUTHOR OF "DAISY MILLER," "THE EUROPEANS' 
 ETC., ETC. 
 
 Nefa f orfc 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. 
 1896 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1896, 
 BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
 
 Nortooofc 
 
 J. S. Gushing & Co. Berwick & Smith 
 Norwood Ma. U.S.A.
 
 College 
 Library 
 
 2.1 1 1* 
 6*1 
 
 BOOK FIRST

 
 MRS. BEEVER of Eastmead, and of "Beever 
 and Bream," was a close, though not a cruel 
 observer of what went on, as she always said, at 
 the other house. A great deal more went on 
 there, naturally, than in the great, clean, square 
 solitude in which she had practically lived since 
 the death of Mr. Beever, who had predeceased 
 by three years his friend and partner, the late 
 Paul Bream of Bounds, leaving to his only son, 
 the little godson of that trusted associate, the 
 substantial share of the business in which his 
 wonderful widow she knew and rejoiced that 
 she was wonderful now had a distinct voice. 
 Paul Beever, in the bloom of eighteen, had just 
 achieved a scramble from Winchester to Oxford: 
 it was his mother's design that he should go 
 into as many things as possible before coming 
 into the Bank. The Bank, the pride of Wilverley, 
 the high clear arch of which the two houses 
 
 3
 
 4 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 were the solid piers, was worth an expensive 
 education. It was, in the talk of town and 
 county, " hundreds of years " old, and as incal 
 culably " good " as a subject of so much infallible 
 arithmetic could very well be. That it enjoyed 
 the services of Mrs. Beever herself was at pres 
 ent enough for her and an ample contentment 
 to Paul, who inclined so little to the sedentary 
 that she foresaw she should some day be as 
 anxious at putting him into figures as she had 
 in his childhood been easy about putting him 
 into breeches. Half the ground moreover was 
 held by young Anthony Bream, the actual master 
 of Bounds, the son and successor of her husband's 
 colleague. 
 
 She was a woman indeed of many designs ; 
 another of which was that on leaving Oxford 
 the boy should travel and inform himself: she 
 belonged to the generation that regarded a foreign 
 tour not as a relief, but as an important charge. 
 Still another had for its main feature that on his 
 final return he should marry the nicest girl she 
 knew: that, too, would be an important charge, 
 but it would be a relief to his mother. It would 
 do with the question what it was Mrs. Beever's 
 inveterate household practice to do with all
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 5 
 
 loose and imarranged objects it would get it 
 out of the way. There would have been diffi 
 culty in saying whether it was a feeling for peace 
 or for war, but her constant habit was to lay 
 the ground bare for complications that as yet 
 at least had never taken place. Her life was 
 like a room prepared for a dance: the furniture 
 was all against the walls. About the young lady 
 in question she was perfectly definite ; the nicest 
 girl she knew was Jean Mar tie, whom she had 
 just sent for at Brighton to come and perform 
 in that character. The performance was to be 
 for the benefit of Paul, whose midsummer return 
 was at hand, and in whom the imagination of 
 alternatives was to be discouraged from the first. 
 It was on the whole a comfort to Mrs. Beever 
 that he had little imagination of anything. 
 
 Jean Martle, condemned to Brighton by a 
 father who was Mrs. Beever's second cousin and 
 whom the doctors, the great men in London, kept 
 there, as this lady opined, because he was too 
 precious wholly to lose and too boring often to 
 see Jean Martle would probably some day have 
 money and would possibly some day have sense : 
 even as regards a favoured candidate this marked 
 the extent of Mrs. Beever's somewhat dry expecta-
 
 6 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 tions. They were addressed in a subordinate de 
 gree to the girl's " playing," which was depended 
 on to become brilliant, and to her hair, which was 
 viewed in the light of a hope that it would with 
 the lapse of years grow darker. Wilverley, in 
 truth, would never know if she played ill ; but it 
 had an old-fashioned prejudice against loud shades 
 in the natural covering of the head. One of the 
 things his cousin had been invited for was that 
 Paul should get used to her eccentric colour a 
 colour of which, on a certain bright Sunday of 
 July, Mrs. Beever noted afresh, with some alarm, 
 the exaggerated pitch. Her young friend had 
 arrived two days before, and now during the 
 elastic interval from church to luncheon had 
 been despatched to Bounds with a message and 
 some preliminary warnings. Jean knew that she 
 should find there a house in some confusion, a 
 new-born little girl, the first, a young mother not 
 yet " up," and an odd visitor, somewhat older than 
 herself, in the person of Miss Armiger, a school- 
 friend of Mrs. Bream, who had made her appear 
 ance a month before that of the child and had 
 stayed on, as Mrs. Beever with some emphasis put 
 it, " right through everything." 
 
 This picture of the situation had filled, after the
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 7 
 
 first hour or two, much of the time of the two 
 ladies, but it had originally included for Jean no 
 particular portrait of the head of the family an 
 omission in some degree repaired, however, by the 
 chance of Mrs. Beever's having on the Saturday 
 morning taken her for a moment into the Bank. 
 They had had errands in the town, and Mrs. 
 Beever had wished to speak to Mr. Bream, a 
 brilliant, joking gentleman, who, instantly suc 
 cumbing to their invasion and turning out a con 
 fidential clerk, had received them in his beautiful 
 private room. "Shall I like him?" Jean, with 
 the sense of a widening circle, had before this 
 adventurously asked. " Oh, yes, if you notice 
 him ! " Mrs. Beever had replied in obedience to 
 an odd private prompting to mark him as insig 
 nificant. Later on, at the Bank, the girl noticed 
 him enough to feel rather afraid of him : that 
 was always with her the foremost result of being 
 noticed herself. If Mrs. Beever passed him over, 
 this was in part to be accounted for by all that at 
 Eastmead was usually taken for granted. The 
 queen-mother, as Anthony Bream kept up the 
 jest of calling her, would not have found it easy 
 to paint offhand a picture of the allied sovereign 
 whom she was apt to regard as a somewhat rest-
 
 8 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 less vassal. Though he was a dozen years older 
 than the happy young prince on whose behalf she 
 exercised her regency, she had known him from 
 his boyhood, and his strong points and his weak 
 were alike an old story to her. 
 
 His house was new he had on his marriage, 
 at a vast expense, made it quite foolishly so. 
 His wife and his child were new; new also in 
 a marked degree was the young woman who 
 had lately taken up her abode with him and 
 who had the air of intending to remain till she 
 should lose that quality. But Tony himself 
 this had always been his name to her was 
 intensely familiar. Never doubting that he was 
 a subject she had mastered, Mrs. Beever had no 
 impulse to clear up her view by distributing 
 her impressions. These impressions were as 
 neatly pigeon-holed as her correspondence and 
 her accounts neatly, at least, save in so far 
 as they were besprinkled with the dust of time. 
 One of them might have been freely rendered 
 into a hint that her young partner was a possi 
 ble source of danger to her own sex. Not to 
 her personally, of course ; for herself, somehow, 
 Mrs. Beever was not of her own sex. If she 
 had been a woman she never thought of her-
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 9 
 
 self so loosely she would, in spite of her age, 
 have doubtless been conscious of peril. She 
 now recognised none in life except that of 
 Paul's marrying wrong, against which she had 
 taken early measures. It would have been a 
 misfortune therefore to feel a flaw in a security 
 otherwise so fine. Was not perhaps the fact 
 that she had a vague sense of exposure for 
 Jean Martle a further motive for her not expa 
 tiating to that young lady on Anthony Bream ? 
 If any such sense operated, I hasten to add, it 
 operated without Jean's having mentioned that 
 at the Bank he had struck her as formidable. 
 
 Let me not fail equally to declare that Mrs. 
 Beever's general suspicion of him, as our sad 
 want of signs for shades and degrees condemns 
 me to call it, rested on nothing in the nature 
 of evidence. If she had ever really uttered it 
 she might have been brought up rather short 
 on the question of grounds. There were cer 
 tainly, at any rate, no grounds in Tony's hav 
 ing, before church, sent a word over to her on 
 the subject of their coming to luncheon. "Dear 
 Julia, this morning, is really grand," he had 
 written. "We've just managed the move to her 
 downstairs room, where they've put up a lovely
 
 10 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 bed and where the sight of all her things cheers 
 and amuses her, to say nothing of the wide 
 immediate outlook at her garden and her own 
 corner of the terrace. In short, the waves are 
 going down and we're beginning to have our 
 meals 'regular.' Luncheon may be rather late, 
 but do bring over your charming little friend. 
 How she lighted up yesterday my musty den ! 
 There will be another little friend, by-the-way 
 not of mine, but of Rose Armiger's, the young 
 man to whom, as I think you know, she's en 
 gaged to be married. He's just back from 
 China and comes down till to-morrow. Our 
 Sunday trains are such a bore that, having wired 
 him to take the other line, I'm sending to meet 
 him at Plumbury." Mrs. Beever had no need 
 to reflect on these few lines to be comfortably 
 conscious that they summarised the nature of 
 her neighbour down to the " dashed sociability," 
 as she had heard the poor fellow, in sharp re 
 actions, himself call it, that had made him scrib 
 ble them, and that always made him talk too 
 much for a man in what, more than he, she held 
 to be a "position." He was there in his pre 
 mature bustle over his wife's slow recovery; he 
 was there in his boyish impatience to improvise
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 11 
 
 a feast; he was there in the simplicity with 
 which he exposed himself to the depredations, 
 to the possible avalanche, of Miss Armiger's 
 belongings. He was there moreover in his free 
 handed way of sending six miles for a young 
 man from China, and he was most of all there 
 in his allusion to the probable lateness of 
 luncheon. Many things in these days were new 
 at the other house, but nothing was so new as 
 the hours of meals. Mrs. Beever had of old re 
 peatedly dined there on the stroke of six. It 
 will be seen that, as I began with declaring, she 
 kept her finger on the pulse of Bounds.
 
 II 
 
 WHEN Jean Martle, arriving with her message, 
 was ushered into the hall, it struck her at first as 
 empty, and during the moment that she supposed 
 herself in sole possession she perceived it to be 
 showy and indeed rather splendid. Bright, large 
 and high, richly decorated and freely used, full 
 of "corners" and communications, it evidently 
 played equally the part of a place of reunion 
 and of a place of transit. It contained so many 
 large pictures that if they hadn't looked some 
 how so recent it might have passed for a museum. 
 The shaded summer was in it now, and the odour 
 of many flowers, as well as the tick from the chim 
 ney-piece of a huge French clock, which Jean rec 
 ognised as modern. The colour of the air, the frank 
 floridity, amused and charmed her. It was not till 
 the servant had left her that she became aware she 
 was not alone a discovery that soon gave her an 
 embarrassed minute. At the other end of the place 
 
 12
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 13 
 
 appeared a young woman in a posture that, with 
 interposing objects, had made her escape notice, a 
 young woman bent low over a table at which she 
 seemed to have been writing. Her chair was 
 pushed back, her face buried in her extended and 
 supported arms, her whole person relaxed and 
 abandoned. She had heard neither the swing of 
 the muffled door nor any footfall on the deep car 
 pet, and her attitude denoted a state of mind that 
 made the messenger from Eastmead hesitate be 
 tween quickly retreating on tiptoe or still more 
 quickly letting her know that she was observed. 
 Before Jean could decide her companion looked 
 up, then rapidly and confusedly rose. She could 
 only be Miss Armiger, and she had been such a 
 figure of woe that it was a surprise not to see her 
 in tears. She was by no means in tears; but she 
 was for an instant extremely blank, an instant 
 during which Jean remembered, rather to wonder 
 at it, Mrs. Beever's having said of her that one 
 really didn't know whether she was awfully plain 
 or strikingly handsome. Jean felt that one quite 
 did know : she was awfully plain. It may imme 
 diately be mentioned that about the charm of the 
 apparition offered meanwhile to her own eyes, 
 Rose Armiger had not a particle of doubt : a slim
 
 14 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 fair girl who struck her as a light sketch for some 
 thing larger, a cluster of happy hints, with nothing 
 yet quite " put in " but the splendour of the hair 
 and the grace of the clothes clothes that were 
 not as the clothes of Wilverley. The reflection of 
 these things came back to Jean from a pair of eyes 
 as to which she judged that the extreme lightness 
 of their grey was what made them so strange as to 
 be ugly a reflection that spread into a sudden 
 smile from a wide, full-lipped mouth, whose regu 
 lar office, obviously, was to produce the second 
 impression. In a flash of small square white teeth 
 this second impression was produced and the am 
 biguity that Mrs. Beever had spoken of lighted 
 up an ambiguity worth all the plain prettiness 
 in the world. Yes, one quite did know: Miss 
 Armiger was strikingly handsome. It thus took 
 her but a few seconds to repudiate every connec 
 tion with the sombre image Jean had just en 
 countered. 
 
 "Excuse my jumping out at you," she said. 
 "I heard a sound I was expecting a friend." 
 Jean thought her attitude an odd one for the 
 purpose, but hinted a fear of being in that case 
 in the way; on which the young lady protested 
 that she was delighted to see her, that she had
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 15 
 
 already heard of her, that she guessed who she 
 was. " And I daresay you've already heard of 
 me." 
 
 Jean shyly confessed to this and, getting away 
 from the subject as quickly as possible, produced 
 on the spot her formal credentials. 
 
 " Mrs. Beever sent me over to ask if it's really 
 quite right we should come to luncheon. We 
 came out of church before the sermon, because 
 of some people who were to go home with us. 
 They're with Mrs. Beever now, but she told me to 
 come straight across the garden the short way." 
 
 Miss Armiger continued to smile. 
 
 "No way ever seems short enough for Mrs. 
 Beever ! " 
 
 There was an intention in this, as Jean faintly 
 felt, that was lost upon her; but while she was 
 wondering her companion went on 
 
 "Did Mrs. Beever direct you to inquire of 
 me?" 
 
 Jean hesitated. 
 
 " Of anyone, I think, who would be here to tell 
 me in case Mrs. Bream shouldn't be quite so 
 well." 
 
 " She isn't quite so well." 
 
 The younger girl's face showed the flicker of a
 
 16 THE OTHEK HOUSE 
 
 fear of losing her entertainment; on perceiving 
 which the elder pursued 
 
 "But we sha'n't romp or racket shall we? 
 We shall be very quiet." 
 
 " Very, very quiet," Jean eagerly echoed. 
 
 Her new friend's smile became a laugh, which 
 was followed by the abrupt question: "Do you 
 mean to be long with Mrs. Beever?" 
 
 " Till her son comes home. You know he's at 
 Oxford, and his term soon ends." 
 
 "And yours ends with it you depart as he 
 arrives ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Beever tells me I positively sha'n't," said 
 Jean. 
 
 " Then you positively won't. Everything is 
 done here exactly as Mrs. Beever tells us. Don't 
 you like her son ? " Rose Armiger asked. 
 
 " I don't know yet ; it's exactly what she wants 
 me to find out." 
 
 " Then you'll have to be very clear." 
 
 " But if I find out I don't? " Jean risked. 
 
 " I shall be very sorry for you ! " 
 
 " I think then it will be the only thing in this 
 duck of an old place that I shan't have liked." 
 
 Rose Armiger for a moment rested her eyes on 
 her visitor, who was more and more conscious that
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 17 
 
 she was strange and yet not, as Jean had always 
 supposed strange people to be, disagreeable. 
 "Do you like me?" she unexpectedly inquired. 
 
 " How can I tell at the end of three min 
 utes?" 
 
 " I can tell at the end of one ! You must try 
 to like me you must be very kind to me," Miss 
 Armiger declared. Then she added : " Do you 
 like Mr. Bream?" 
 
 Jean considered ; she felt that she must rise to 
 the occasion. " Oh, immensely ! " At this her 
 interlocutress laughed again, and it made her con 
 tinue with more reserve. " Of course I only saw 
 him for five minutes yesterday at the Bank." 
 
 " Oh, we know how long you saw him ! " Miss 
 Armiger exclaimed. " He has told us all about 
 your visit." 
 
 Jean was slightly awe-stricken: this picture 
 seemed to include so many people. " Whom has 
 he told?" 
 
 Her companion had the air of being amused at 
 everything she said; but for Jean it was an air 
 none the less with a kind of foreign charm in it. 
 " Why, the very first person was of course his 
 poor little wife." 
 
 " But I'm not to see her, am I ? " Jean rather
 
 18 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 eagerly asked, puzzled by the manner of the allu 
 sion and but half suspecting it to be a part of her 
 informant's general ease. 
 
 " You're not to see her, but even if you were 
 she wouldn't hurt you for it," this young lady re 
 plied. "She understands his friendly way and 
 likes above all his beautiful frankness." 
 
 Jean's bewilderment began to look as if she too 
 now, as she remembered, understood and liked 
 these things. It might have been in confirmation 
 of what was in her mind that she presently said : 
 " He told me I might see the wonderful baby. He 
 told me he would show it to me himself." 
 
 " I'm sure he'll be delighted to do that. He's 
 awfully proud of the wonderful baby." 
 
 "I suppose it's very lovely," Jean remarked 
 with growing confidence. 
 
 "Lovely! Do you think babies are ever lovely?" 
 
 Taken aback by this challenge, Jean reflected a 
 little ; she found, however, nothing better to say 
 than, rather timidly : " I like dear little children, 
 don't you ? " 
 
 Miss Armiger in turn considered. "Not a bit!" 
 she then replied. "It would be very sweet and 
 attractive of me to say I adore them ; but I never 
 pretend to feelings I can't keep up, don't you
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 19 
 
 know? If you'd like, all the same, to see Effie," 
 she obligingly added, " I'll so far sacrifice myself 
 as to get her for you ? " 
 
 Jean smiled as if this pleasantry were conta 
 gious. " You won't sacrifice her ? " 
 
 Rose Armiger stared. " I won't destroy her." 
 
 " Then do get her." 
 
 " Not yet, not yet ! " cried another voice that 
 of Mrs. Beever, who had just been introduced and 
 who, having heard the last words of the two girls, 
 came, accompanied by the servant, down the hall. 
 " The baby's of no importance. We've come over 
 for the mother. Is it true that Julia has had a bad 
 turn ? " she asked of Rose Armiger. 
 
 Miss Armiger had a peculiar way of looking at a 
 person before speaking, and she now, with this 
 tranquillity, delayed so long to answer Mrs. Beever 
 that Jean also rested her eyes, as if for a reason, on 
 the good lady from Eastmead. She greatly ad 
 mired her, but in that instant, the first of seeing 
 her at Bounds, she perceived once for all how the 
 difference of the setting made another thing of 
 the gem. Short and solid, with rounded corners 
 and full supports, her hair very black and very 
 flat, her eyes very small for the amount of expres 
 sion they could show, Mrs. Beever was so " early
 
 20 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 Victorian " as to be almost prehistoric was con 
 structed to move amid massive mahogany and sit 
 upon banks of Berlin-wool. She was like an odd 
 volume, "sensibly" bound, of some old magazine. 
 Jean knew that the great social event of her 
 younger years had been her going to a fancy-ball 
 in the character of an Andalusian, an incident of 
 which she still carried a memento in the shape of a 
 hideous fan. Jean was so constituted that she also 
 knew, more dimly but at the end of five minutes, 
 that the elegance at Mr. Bream's was slightly pro 
 vincial. It made none the less a medium in which 
 Mrs. Beever looked superlatively local. That in 
 deed in turn caused Jean to think the old place 
 still more of a " duck." 
 
 " I believe our poor friend feels rather down," 
 Miss Armiger finally brought out. " But I don't 
 imagine it's of the least consequence," she im 
 mediately added. 
 
 The contrary of this was, however, in some 
 degree foreshadowed in a speech directed to Jean 
 by the footman who had admitted her. He re 
 ported Mr. Bream as having been in his wife's 
 room for nearly an hour, and Dr. Ramage as having 
 arrived some time before and not yet come out. 
 Mrs. Beever decreed, upon this news, that they
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 21 
 
 must drop their idea of lunching and that Jean 
 must go straight back to the friends who had been 
 left at the other house. It was these friends who 
 on the way from church had mentioned their hav 
 ing got wind of the rumour the quick circula 
 tion of which testified to the compactness of Wil- 
 verley that there had been a sudden change 
 in Mrs. Bream since the hour at which her hus 
 band's note was written. Mrs. Beever dismissed 
 her companion to Eastmead with a message for her 
 visitors. Jean was to entertain them there in her 
 stead and to understand that she might return to 
 luncheon only in case of being sent for. At the 
 door the girl paused and exclaimed rather wistfully 
 to Rose Armiger : " Well, then, give her my love ! "
 
 Ill 
 
 " YoiJE young friend," Rose commented, " is as 
 affectionate as she's pretty: sending her love to 
 people she has never seen ! " 
 
 "She only meant the little girl. I think it's 
 rather nice of her," said Mrs. Beever. " My inter 
 est in these anxieties is always confined to the 
 mamma. I thought we were going so straight." 
 
 "I daresay we are," Miss Armiger replied. 
 " But Nurse told me an hour ago that I'm not to 
 see her at all this morning. It will be the first 
 morning for several days." 
 
 Mrs. Beever was silent a little. " You've en 
 joyed a privilege altogether denied to me" 
 
 " Ah, you must remember," said Rose, " that I'm 
 Julia's oldest friend. That's always the way she 
 treats me." 
 
 Mrs. Beever assented. " Familiarly, of course. 
 Well, you're not mine ; but that's the way / 
 treat you too," she went on. "You must wait 
 
 22
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 23 
 
 with me here for more news, and be as still as 
 a mouse." 
 
 " Dear Mrs. Beever," the girl protested, " I never 
 made a noise in all my life ! " 
 
 "You will some day you're so clever," Mrs. 
 Beever said. 
 
 "I'm clever enough to be quiet." Then Rose 
 added, less gaily : " I'm the one thing of her own 
 that dear Julia has ever had." 
 
 Mrs. Beever threw back her head. " Don't you 
 count her husband ? " 
 
 " I count Tony immensely ; but in another way." 
 
 Again Mrs. Beever considered : she might have 
 been wondering in what way even so expert a 
 young person as this could count Anthony Bream 
 except as a treasure to his wife. But what she 
 presently articulated was : " Do you call him 
 'Tony' to himself?" 
 
 Miss Armiger met her question this time 
 promptly. " He has asked me to and to do it 
 even to Julia. Don't be afraid ! " she exclaimed ; 
 "I know my place, and I sha'n't go too far. Of 
 course he's everything to her now," she continued, 
 " and the child is already almost as much ; but 
 what I mean is that if he counts for a great deal 
 more, I, at least, go back a good deal further.
 
 24 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 Though I'm three years older, we were brought 
 together as girls by one of the strongest of all ties 
 the tie of a common aversion." 
 
 " Oh, I know your common aversion ! " Mrs. 
 Beever spoke with her air of general competence. 
 
 "Perhaps, then, you know that her detestable 
 step-mother was, very little to my credit, my aunt. 
 If her father, that is, was Mrs. Grantham's second 
 husband, my uncle, my mother's brother, had been 
 the first. Julia lost her mother; I lost both my 
 mother and my father. Then Mrs. Grantham 
 took me : she had shortly before made her second 
 marriage. She put me at the horrid school at 
 Weymouth at which she had already put her 
 step-daughter." 
 
 " You ought to be obliged to her," Mrs. Beever 
 suggested, "for having made you acquainted." 
 
 "We are we've never ceased to be. It was 
 as if she had made us sisters, with the delightful 
 position for me of the elder, the protecting one. 
 But it's the only good turn she has ever done 
 us." 
 
 Mrs. Beever weighed this statement with her 
 alternative, her business manner. "Is she really 
 then such a monster ? " 
 
 Rose Armiger had a melancholy headshake.
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 25 
 
 " Don't ask me about her I dislike her too 
 much, perhaps, to be strictly fair. For me, how 
 ever, I daresay, it didn't matter so much that she 
 was narrow and hard: I wasn't an easy victim 
 I could take care of myself, I could fight. 
 But Julia bowed her head and suffered. Never 
 was a marriage more of a rescue." 
 
 Mrs. Beever took this in with unsuspended 
 criticism. " And yet Mrs. Grantham travelled 
 all the way down from town the other day sim 
 ply to make her a visit of a couple of hours." 
 
 "That wasn't a kindness," the girl returned; 
 " it was an injury, and I believe certainly 
 Julia believes that it was a calculated one. 
 Mrs. Grantham knew perfectly the effect she 
 would have, and she triumphantly had it. She 
 came, she said, at the particular crisis, to 'make 
 peace.' Why couldn't she let the poor dear 
 alone? She only stirred up the wretched past 
 and reopened old wounds." 
 
 For answer to this Mrs. Beever remarked with 
 some irrelevancy : " She abused you a good deal, 
 I think." 
 
 Her companion smiled frankly. "Shockingly, 
 I believe ; but that's of no importance to me. 
 She doesn't touch me or reach me now."
 
 26 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 "Your description of her," said Mrs. Beever, 
 "is a description of a monstrous bad woman. 
 And yet she appears to have got two honour 
 able men to give her the last proof of confi 
 dence." 
 
 " My poor uncle utterly withdrew his confi 
 dence when he saw her as she was. She killed 
 him he died of his horror of her. As for 
 Julia's father, he's honourable if you like, but 
 he's a muff. He's afraid of his wife." 
 
 "And her 'taking' you, as you say, who were 
 no real relation to her her looking after you 
 and putting you at school: wasn't that," Mrs. 
 Beever propounded, "a kindness?" 
 
 " She took me to torment me or at least to 
 make me feel her hand. She has an absolute 
 necessity to do that it was what brought her 
 down here the other day." 
 
 "You make out a wonderful case," said Mrs. 
 Beever, "and if ever I'm put on my trial for a 
 crime say for muddling the affairs of the Bank 
 I hope I shall be defended by someone with 
 your gift and your manner. I don't wonder," 
 she blandly pursued, "that your friends, even 
 the blameless ones, like this dear pair, cling to 
 you as they do."
 
 THE OTHEK HOUSE 27 
 
 "If you mean you don't wonder I stay on 
 here so long," said Rose good-humouredly, "I'm 
 greatly obliged to you for your sympathy. 
 Julia's the one thing I have of my own." 
 
 " You make light of our husbands and lovers ! " 
 laughed Mrs. Beever. "Haven't I had the pleasure 
 of hearing of a gentleman to whom you're soon to 
 be married?" 
 
 Rose Armiger opened her eyes there was per 
 haps a slight affectation in it. She looked, at any 
 rate, as if she had to make a certain effort to meet 
 the allusion. " Dennis Vidal ? " she then asked. 
 
 " Why, are there more than one ? " Mrs. Beever 
 cried ; after which, as the girl, who had coloured 
 a little, hesitated in a way that almost suggested 
 alternatives, she added: "Isn't it a definite en 
 gagement?" 
 
 Rose Armiger looked round at the clock. "Mr. 
 Vidal will be here this morning. Ask him how he 
 considers it." 
 
 One of the doors of the hall at this moment 
 opened, and Mrs. Beever exclaimed with some 
 eagerness, " Here he is, perhaps ! " Her eagerness 
 was characteristic ; it was part of a comprehensive 
 vision in which the pieces had already fallen into 
 sharp adjustment to each other. The young lady
 
 28 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 she had been talking with had in these few minutes, 
 for some reason, struck her more forcibly than ever 
 before as a possible object of interest to a youth of 
 a candour greater even than any it was incumbent 
 on a respectable mother to cultivate. Miss Armiger 
 had just given her a glimpse of the way she could 
 handle honest gentlemen as "muffs." She was 
 decidedly too unusual to be left out of account. If 
 there was the least danger of Paul's falling in love 
 with her it ought somehow to be arranged that her 
 marriage should encounter no difficulty. 
 
 The person now appearing, however, proved to 
 be only Doctor Ramage, who, having a substantial 
 wife of his own, was peculiarly unfitted to promise 
 relief to Mrs. Beever's anxiety. He was a little 
 man who moved, with a warning air, on tiptoe, as 
 if he were playing some drawing-room game of 
 surprises, and who had a face so candid and cir 
 cular that it suggested a large white pill. Mrs. 
 Beever had once said with regard to sending for 
 him: "It isn't to take his medicine, it's to take 
 Mm. I take him twice a week in a cup of tea." 
 It was his tone that did her good. He had in his 
 hand a sheet of note-paper, one side of which was 
 covered with writing and with which he immedi 
 ately addressed himself to Miss Armiger. It was
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 29 
 
 a prescription to be made up, and he begged her to 
 see that it was carried on the spot to the chemist's, 
 mentioning that on leaving Mrs. Bream's room he 
 had gone straight to the library to think it out. 
 Rose, who appeared to recognise at a glance its 
 nature, replied that as she was fidgety and wanted 
 a walk she would perform the errand herself. Her 
 bonnet and jacket were there ; she had put them 
 on to go to church, and then, on second thoughts, 
 seeing Mr. Bream give it up, had taken them 
 off. 
 
 "Excellent for you to go yourself," said the 
 Doctor. He had an instruction to add, to which, 
 lucid and prompt, already equipped, she gave full 
 attention. As she took the paper from him he 
 subjoined : " You're a very nice, sharp, obliging 
 person." 
 
 " She knows what she's about ! " said Mrs. Bee- 
 ver with much expression. "But what in the 
 world is Julia about?" 
 
 " I'll tell you when I know, my dear lady." 
 
 "Is there really anything wrong?" 
 
 " I'm waiting to find out." 
 
 Miss Armiger, before leaving them, was wait 
 ing too. She had been checked on the way to 
 the door by Mrs. Beever's question, and she stood
 
 30 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 there with her intensely clear eyes on Doctor 
 Ramage's face. 
 
 Mrs. Beever continued to study it as earnestly. 
 
 "Then you're not going yet?" 
 
 "By no means, though I've another pressing 
 call. I must have that thing from you first," he 
 said to Rose. 
 
 She went to the door, but there again she 
 paused. 
 
 "Is Mr. Bream still with her?" 
 
 "Very much with her that's why I'm here. 
 She made a particular request to be left for five 
 minutes alone with him." 
 
 "So Nurse isn't there either?" Rose asked. 
 
 " Nurse has embraced the occasion to pop down 
 for her lunch. Mrs. Bream has taken it into her 
 head that she has something very important to say." 
 
 Mrs. Beever firmly seated herself. 
 
 " And pray what may that be ? " 
 
 " She turned me out of the room precisely so 
 that I shouldn't learn." 
 
 " I think I know what it is," their companion, 
 at the door, put in. 
 
 "Then what is it?" Mrs. Beever demanded. 
 
 "Oh, I wouldn't tell you for the world!" 
 And with this Rose Armiger departed.
 
 IV 
 
 LEFT alone with the lady of Eastmead, Doctor 
 Ramage studied his watch a little absently. 
 "Our young friend's exceedingly nervous." 
 
 Mrs. Beever glanced in the direction in which 
 Rose had disappeared. " Do you allude to that 
 girl?" 
 
 "I allude to dear Mrs. Tony." 
 
 "It's equally true of Miss Armiger: she's as 
 worried as a pea on a pan. Julia, as far as that 
 goes," Mrs. Beever continued, " can never have 
 been a person to hold herself together." 
 
 "Precisely she requires to be held. Well, 
 happily she has Tony to hold her." 
 
 " Then he's not himself in one of his states ? " 
 
 Dr. Ramage hesitated. " I don't quite make 
 him out. He seems to have fifty things at once 
 in his head." 
 
 Mrs. Beever looked at the Doctor hard. 
 " When does he ever not have ? But I had a 
 
 31
 
 32 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 note from him only this morning in the highest 
 spirits." 
 
 Doctor Ramage's little eyes told nothing but 
 what he wanted. " Well, whatever happens to 
 him, he'll luckily always have them ! " 
 
 Mrs. Beever, at this, jumped up. " Robert 
 Ramage," she earnestly demanded, "what is to 
 happen to that boy ? " 
 
 Before he had time to reply there rang out a 
 sudden sound which had, oddly, much of the effect 
 of an answer and which caused them both to start. 
 It was the near vibration, from Mrs. Bream's 
 room, of one of the smart, loud electric bells which 
 were for Mrs. Beever the very voice of the new 
 ness of Bounds. They waited an instant ; then 
 the Doctor said quietly: "It's for Nurse!" 
 
 " It's not for you? " The bell sounded again as 
 she spoke. 
 
 " It's for Nurse," Doctor Ramage repeated, 
 moving nevertheless to the door he had come in 
 by. He paused again to listen, and the door, the 
 next moment thrown open, gave passage to a tall, 
 good-looking young man, dressed as if, with much 
 freshness, for church and wearing a large orchid 
 in his buttonhole. " You rang for Nurse? " the 
 Doctor immediately said.
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 33 
 
 The young man stood looking from one of his 
 friends to the other. " She's there it's all right. 
 
 But ah, my dear people ! " And he passed 
 
 his hand, with the vivid gesture of brushing away 
 an image, over a face of which the essential ra 
 diance was visible even through perturbation. 
 
 " How's Julia now ? " Mrs. Beever asked. 
 
 "Much relieved, she tells me, at having 
 spoken." 
 
 " Spoken of what, Tony ? " 
 
 " Of everything she can think of that's incon 
 ceivable that's damnable." 
 
 " If I hadn't known that she wanted to do 
 exactly that," said the Doctor, " I wouldn't have 
 given her the opportunity." 
 
 Mrs. Beever's eyes sounded her colleague of 
 the Bank. " You're upset, my poor boy you're 
 in one of your great states. Something painful 
 to you has taken place." 
 
 Tony Bream paid no attention to this remark ; 
 all his attention was for his other visitor, who 
 stood with one hand on the door of the hall 
 and an open watch, on which he still placidly 
 gazed, in the other. "Ramage," the young man 
 suddenly broke out, "are you keeping some 
 thing back ? Isn't she safe ? "
 
 34 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 The good Doctor's small, neat face seemed to 
 grow more smoothly globular. " The dear lady 
 is convinced, you mean, that her very last hour 
 is at hand ? " 
 
 " So much so," Tony replied, " that if she got 
 you and Nurse away, if she made me kneel down 
 by her bed and take her two hands in mine, what 
 do you suppose it was to say to me?" 
 
 Doctor Ramage beamed. " Why, of course, that 
 she's going to perish in her flower. I've been 
 through it so often ! " he said to Mrs. Beever. 
 
 "Before, but not after," that lady lucidly re 
 joined. "She has had her chance of perishing, 
 but now it's too late." 
 
 " Doctor," said Tony Bream, " is my wife 
 going to die ? " 
 
 His friend hesitated a moment. "When a 
 lady's only symptom of that tendency is the 
 charming volubility with which she dilates upon 
 it, that's very well as far as it goes. But it's not 
 quite enough." 
 
 " She says she knows it," Tony returned. 
 "But you surely know more than she, don't 
 you?" 
 
 " I know everything that can be known. I know 
 that when, in certain conditions, pretty young
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 35 
 
 mothers have acquitted themselves of that inevi 
 table declaration, they turn over and go comfort 
 ably to sleep." 
 
 "That's exactly," said Tony, "what Nurse must 
 make her do." 
 
 "It's exactly what she's doing." Doctor Ram- 
 age had no sooner spoken than Mrs. Bream's bell 
 sounded for the third time. " Excuse me ! " he 
 imperturbably added. "Nurse calls me." 
 
 " And doesn't she call me ? " cried Tony. 
 
 "Not in the least." The doctor raised his 
 hand with instant authority. " Stay where you 
 are ! " With this he went off to his patient. 
 
 If Mrs. Beever often produced, with prompti 
 tude, her theory that the young banker was 
 subject to "states," this habit, of which he was 
 admirably tolerant, was erected on the sense of 
 something in him of which even a passing ob 
 server might have caught a glimpse. A woman 
 of still more wit than Mrs. Beever, whom he 
 had met on the threshold of life, once explained 
 some accident to him by the words : " The reason 
 is, you know, that you're so exaggerated." This 
 had not been a manner of saying that he was 
 inclined to overshoot the truth; it had been an 
 attempt to express a certain quality of passive
 
 36 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 excess which was the note of the whole man, 
 and which, for an attentive eye, began with his 
 neckties and ended with his intonations. To 
 look at him was immediately to see that he 
 was a collection of gifts, which presented them 
 selves as such precisely by having in each case 
 slightly overflowed the measure. He could do 
 things this was all he knew about them ; and 
 he was ready-made, as it were he had not had 
 to put himself together. His dress was just 
 too fine, his colour just too high, his moustache 
 just too long, his voice just too loud, his smile 
 just too gay. His movement, his manner, his 
 tone were respectively just too free, too easy, 
 and too familiar ; his being a very handsome, 
 happy, clever, active, ambitiously local young 
 man was in short just too obvious. But the 
 result of it all was a presence that was in it 
 self a close contact, the air of immediate, un 
 conscious, unstinted life and of his doing what 
 he liked and liking to please. One of his 
 "states," for Mrs. Beever, was the state of his 
 being a boy again, and the sign of it was his talk 
 ing nonsense. It was not an example of that 
 tendency, but she noted it almost as if it were, 
 that almost as soon as the Doctor had left them
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 37 
 
 he asked her if she had not brought over that 
 awfully pretty girl. 
 
 " She has been here, but I sent her home 
 again." Then his visitor added: "Does she 
 strike you as awfully pretty?" 
 
 " As pretty as a pretty song ! I took a tre 
 mendous notion to her." 
 
 " She's only a child for mercy's sake don't 
 show your notion too much ! " Mrs. Beever 
 ejaculated. 
 
 Tony Bream gave his bright stare ; after which, 
 with his still brighter alacrity, " I see what you 
 mean : of course I won't ! " he declared. Then, 
 as if candidly and conscientiously wondering : 
 " Is it showing it too much to hope she'll come 
 back to luncheon ? " 
 
 "Decidedly if Julia's so down." 
 
 " That's only too much for Julia not for her," 
 Tony said with his nervous smile. " But Julia 
 knows about her, hopes she's coming, and wants 
 everything to be natural and pleasant." He 
 passed his hand over his eyes again, and as if at 
 the same time recognising that his tone required 
 explanation, " It's just because Julia's so down, 
 don't you see?" he subjoined. "A fellow can't 
 stand it."
 
 38 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 Mrs. Beever spoke after a pause during which 
 her companion roamed rather jerkily about. 
 
 " It's a mere accidental fluctuation. You may 
 trust Ramage to know." 
 
 "Yes, thank God, I may trust Ramage to 
 know ! " He had the accent of a man constitu 
 tionally accessible to suggestion, and could turn 
 the next instant to a quarter more cheering. " Do 
 you happen to know what has become of Rose ? " 
 
 Again Mrs. Beever, making a fresh observation, 
 waited a little before answering. " Do you now 
 call her ' Rose ' ? " 
 
 "Dear, yes talking with Julia. And with 
 her," he went on as if he couldn't quite remember 
 "do I too ? Yes," he recollected, " I think I 
 must." 
 
 " What one must one must," said Mrs. Beever 
 dryly. "'Rose,' then, has gone over to the 
 chemist's for the Doctor." 
 
 " How jolly of her ! " Tony exclaimed. " She's 
 a tremendous comfort." 
 
 Mrs. Beever committed herself to no opinion on 
 this point, but it was doubtless on account of the 
 continuity of the question that she presently 
 asked : " Who's this person who's coming to-day 
 to marry her ? "
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 39 
 
 " A very good fellow, I believe and ' rising ' : 
 a clerk in some Eastern house." 
 
 " And why hasn't he come sooner ? " 
 
 " Because he has been at Hong Kong, or some 
 such place, trying hard to pick up an income. 
 He's 'poor but pushing,' she says. They've no 
 means but her own two hundred." 
 
 " Two hundred a year ? That's quite enough 
 for them ! " Mrs. Beever opined. 
 
 " Then you had better tell him so ! " laughed 
 Tony. 
 
 " I hope you'll back me up ! " she returned ; 
 after which, before he had time to speak, she 
 broke out with irrelevance : " How is it she 
 knows what Julia wanted to say to you ? " 
 
 Tony, surprised, looked vague. "Just now? 
 Does she know? I haven't the least idea." 
 Rose appeared at this moment behind the glass 
 doors of the vestibule, and he added, " Here 
 she is." 
 
 " Then you can ask her." 
 
 " Easily," said Tony. But when the girl came 
 in he greeted her only with a lively word of 
 thanks for the service she had just rendered ; so 
 that the lady of Eastmead, after waiting a minute, 
 took the line of assuming, with a certain visible
 
 40 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 rigour, that he might have a reason for making 
 his inquiry without an auditor. Taking tempo 
 rary leave of him, she mentioned the visitors at 
 home whom she must not forget. "Then you 
 won't come back ? " he asked. 
 "Yes, in an hour or two." 
 " And bring Miss What's-her-name ? " 
 As Mrs. Beever failed to respond to this, Rose 
 Armiger added her voice. " Yes do bring Miss 
 What's-her-name." Mrs. Beever, without assent 
 ing, reached the door, which Tony had opened for 
 her. Here she paused long enough to be over 
 taken by the rest of the girl's appeal. " I delight 
 so in her clothes." 
 
 " / delight so in her hair ! " Tony laughed. 
 Mrs. Beever looked from one of them to the 
 other. " Don't you think you've delight enough 
 with what your situation here already offers?" 
 She departed with the private determination to 
 return unaccompanied.
 
 V 
 
 THREE minutes later Tony Bream put his ques 
 tion to his other visitor. " Is it true that you 
 know what Julia a while ago had the room 
 cleared in order to say to me ? " 
 
 Rose hesitated. " Mrs. Beever repeated to you 
 that I told her so ? Yes, then ; I probably do 
 know." She waited again a little. " The poor 
 darling announced to you her conviction that 
 she's dying." Then at the face with which he 
 greeted her exactitude : " I haven't needed to be 
 a monster of cunning to guess ! " she exclaimed. 
 
 He had perceptibly paled : it made a difference, 
 a kind of importance for that absurdity that it 
 was already in other ears. " She has said the 
 same to you?" 
 
 Rose gave a pitying smile. " She has done me 
 that honour." 
 
 "Do you mean to-day?" 
 
 " To-day and once before." 
 41
 
 42 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 Tony looked simple in his wonder. "Tester- 
 day?" 
 
 Rose hesitated again. " No ; before your child 
 was born. Soon after I came." 
 
 "She had made up her mind then from the 
 first?" 
 
 " Yes," said Rose, with the serenitjr of superior 
 sense ; " she had laid out for herself that pleasant 
 little prospect. She called it a presentiment, a 
 fixed idea." 
 
 Tony took this in with a frown. "And you 
 never spoke of it?" 
 
 " To you ? Why in the world should I when 
 she herself didn't ? I took it perfectly for what 
 it was an inevitable but unimportant result of 
 the nervous depression produced by her step 
 mother's visit." 
 
 Tony had fidgeted away with his hands in the 
 pockets of his trousers. " Damn her step-mother's 
 visit!" 
 
 " That's exactly what I did ! " Rose laughed. 
 
 " Damn her step-mother too ! " the young man 
 angrily pursued. 
 
 "Hush!" said the girl, soothingly: "we mustn't 
 curse our relations before the Doctor ! " Doctor 
 Ramage had come back from his patient, and she
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 43 
 
 mentioned to him that the medicine for which she 
 had gone out would immediately be delivered. 
 
 " Many thanks," he replied : " I'll pick it up 
 myself. I must run out to another case." 
 Then with a friendly hand to Tony and a nod 
 at the room he had quitted: " Things are quiet." 
 
 Tony, gratefully grasping his hand, detained 
 him by it. " And what was that loud ring that 
 called you ? " 
 
 " A stupid flurry of Nurse. I was ashamed of 
 her." 
 
 "Then why did you stay so long?" 
 
 " To have it out with your wife. She wants 
 you again." 
 
 Tony eagerly dropped his hand. " Then I 
 go!" " 
 
 The Doctor raised his liberated member. "In 
 a quarter of an hour not before. I'm most 
 reluctant, but I allow her five minutes." 
 
 "It may make her easier afterwards," Rose 
 observed. 
 
 " That's precisely the ground of my giving in. 
 Take care, you know; Nurse will time you," 
 Doctor Ramage said to Tony. 
 
 "So many thanks. And you'll come back?" 
 
 " The moment I'm free."
 
 44 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 When he had gone Tony stood there sombre. 
 "She wants to say it again that's what she 
 wants." 
 
 " Well," Rose answered, " the more she says it, 
 the less it's true. It's not she who decides it." 
 
 "No," Tony brooded; "it's not she. But it's 
 not you and I either," he soon went on. 
 
 " It's not even the Doctor," Rose remarked with 
 her conscious irony. 
 
 Her companion rested his troubled eyes on her. 
 "And yet he's as worried as if it were." She 
 protested against this imputation with a word to 
 which he paid no heed. "If anything should 
 happen" and his eyes seemed to go as far as 
 his thought "what on earth would become of 
 me?" 
 
 The girl looked down, very grave. " Men have 
 borne such things." 
 
 "Very badly the real ones." He seemed to 
 lose himself in the effort to embrace the worst, 
 to think it out. "What should I do? where 
 should I turn?" 
 
 She was silent a little. "You ask me too 
 much ! " she helplessly sighed. 
 
 " Don't say that," replied Tony, " at a moment 
 when I know so little if I mayn't have to ask
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 45 
 
 you still more!" This exclamation made her 
 meet his eyes with a turn of her own that might 
 have struck him had he not been following an 
 other train. "To you I can say it, Rose she's 
 inexpressibly dear to me." 
 
 She showed him a face intensely receptive. 
 " It's for your affection for her that I've really 
 given you mine." Then she shook her head 
 seemed to shake out, like the overflow of a cup, 
 her generous smile. " But be easy. We sha'n't 
 have loved her so much only to lose her." 
 
 " I'll be hanged if we shall ! " Tony responded. 
 "And such talk's a vile false note in the midst 
 of a joy like yours." 
 
 " Like mine ? " Rose exhibited some vagueness. 
 
 Her companion was already accessible to the 
 amusement of it. "I hope that's not the way 
 you mean to look at Mr. Vidal ! " 
 
 " Ah, Mr. Vidal ! " she ambiguously murmured. 
 
 " Sha'n't you then be glad to see him ? " 
 
 "Intensely glad. But how shall I say it?" 
 She thought a moment and then went on as if 
 she found the answer to her question in Tony's 
 exceptional intelligence and their comfortable in 
 timacy. "There's gladness and gladness. It isn't 
 love's young dream ; it's rather an old and rather
 
 46 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 a sad story. We've worried and waited we've 
 been acquainted with grief. We've come together 
 a weary way." 
 
 " I know you've had a horrid grind. But isn't 
 this the end of it?" 
 
 Rose hesitated. "That's just what he's to 
 settle." 
 
 "Happily, I see! Just look at him." 
 
 The glass doors, as Tony spoke, had been 
 thrown open by the butler. The young man 
 from China was there a short, meagre young 
 man, with a smooth face and a dark blue double- 
 breasted jacket. " Mr. Vidal ! " the butler an 
 nounced, withdrawing again, while the visitor, 
 whose entrance had been rapid, suddenly and 
 shyly faltered at the sight of his host. His 
 pause, however, lasted but just long enough to 
 enable Rose to bridge it over with the frankest 
 maidenly grace ; and Tony's quick sense of being 
 out of place at this reunion was not a bar to 
 the impression of her charming, instant action, 
 her soft " Dennis, Dennis ! " her light, fluttered 
 arms, her tenderly bent head, and the short, bright 
 stillness of her clasp of her lover. Tony shone 
 down at them with the pleasure of having helped 
 them, and the warmth of it was in his immediate
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 47 
 
 grasp of the traveller's hand. He cut short his 
 embarrassed thanks he was too delighted; and 
 leaving him with the remark that he would pres 
 ently come back to show him his room, he went 
 off again to poor Julia.
 
 VI 
 
 DENNIS VIDAL, when the door had closed on 
 his host, drew again to his breast the girl to 
 whom he was plighted, and pressed her there 
 with silent joy. She softly submitted, then still 
 more softly disengaged herself, though in his 
 flushed firmness he but partly released her. The 
 light of admiration was in his hard young face 
 a visible tribute to what she showed again his 
 disaccustomed eyes. Holding her yet, he covered 
 her with a smile that produced two strong but 
 relenting lines on either side of his dry, thin 
 lips. " My own dearest," he murmured, " you're 
 still more so than one remembered!" 
 
 She opened her clear eyes wider. " Still more 
 what?" 
 
 "Still more of a fright!" And he kissed her 
 again. 
 
 "It's you that are wonderful, Dennis," she said: 
 " you look so absurdly young." 
 
 48
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 49 
 
 He felt with his lean, fine, brown hand his 
 spare, clean, brown chin. " If I looked as old as 
 I feel, dear girl, they'd have my portrait in the 
 illustrated papers." 
 
 He had now drawn her down upon the nearest 
 sofa, and while he sat sideways, grasping the 
 wrist of which he remained in possession after she 
 had liberated her fingers, she leaned back and 
 took him in with a deep air of her own. "And 
 yet it's not that you're exactly childish or so 
 extraordinarily fresh," she went on as if to puzzle 
 out, for her satisfaction, her impression of him. 
 
 " ' Fresh,' my dear girl ! " He gave a little 
 happy jeer ; then he raised her wrist to his mouth 
 and held it there as long as she would let him, 
 looking at her hard. " That's the freshest thing 
 I've ever been conscious of ! " he exclaimed as she 
 drew away her hand and folded her arms. 
 
 "You're worn, but you're not wasted," she 
 brought out in her kind but considering way. 
 " You're awfully well, you know." 
 
 "Yes, I'm awfully well, I know" he spoke 
 with just the faintest ring of impatience. Then 
 he added: "Your voice, all the while, has been 
 in my ears. But there's something you put into 
 it that they out there, stupid things ! couldn't.
 
 50 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 Don't ' size me up ' so," he continued, smiling ; 
 "you make me nervous about what I may seem 
 to come to!" 
 
 They had both shown shyness, but Rose's was 
 already gone. She kept her inclined position and 
 her folded arms; supported by the back of the 
 sofa, her head preserved, toward the side on which 
 he sat, its charming contemplative turn. "I'm 
 only thinking," she said, "that you look young 
 just as a steel instrument of the best quality, 
 no matter how much it's handled, often looks 
 new." 
 
 "Ah, if you mean I'm kept bright by use ! " 
 
 the young man laughed. 
 
 " You're polished by life." 
 
 " ' Polished ' is delightful of you ! " 
 
 " I'm not sure you've come back handsomer than 
 you went," said Rose, " and I don't know if you've 
 come back richer." 
 
 "Then let me immediately tell you I have!" 
 Vidal broke in. 
 
 She received the announcement, for a minute, 
 in silence : a good deal more passed between this 
 pair than they uttered. " What I was going to 
 say," she then quietly resumed, "is that I'm 
 awfully pleased with myself when I see that at
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 51 
 
 any rate you're what shall I call you ? a made 
 man." 
 
 Vidal frowned a little through his happiness. 
 "With 'yourself? Aren't you a little pleased 
 with me ?" 
 
 She hesitated. "With myself first, because I 
 was sure of you first." 
 
 " Do you mean before I was of you f I'm some 
 how not sure of you yet ! " the young man 
 declared. 
 
 Rose coloured slightly ; but she gaily laughed. 
 " Then I'm ahead of you in everything ! " 
 
 Leaning toward her with all his intensified need 
 of her and holding, by his extended arm, the top 
 of the sofa-back, he worried with his other hand 
 a piece of her dress, which he had begun to finger 
 for want of something more responsive. " You're 
 as far beyond me still as all the distance I've 
 come." He had dropped his eyes upon the 
 crumple he made in her frock, and her own dur 
 ing that moment, from her superior height, de 
 scended upon him with a kind of unseen appeal. 
 When he looked up again it was gone. " What 
 do you mean by a ' made ' man? " he asked. 
 
 " Oh, not the usual thing, but the real thing. 
 A man one needn't worry about."
 
 52 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 " Thank you ! The man not worried about is 
 the man who muffs it." 
 
 " That's a horrid selfish speech," said Rose 
 Armiger. "You don't deserve I should tell you 
 what a success I now feel that you'll be." 
 
 " Well, darling," Vidal answered, " that matters 
 the less as I know exactly the occasion on which 
 I shall fully feel it for myself." 
 
 Rose manifested no further sense of this occa 
 sion than to go straight on with her idea. She 
 placed her arm with frank friendship on his 
 shoulder. It drew him closer, and he recovered 
 his grasp of her free hand. With his want of 
 stature and presence, his upward look at her, his 
 small, smooth head, his seasoned sallowness and 
 simple eyes, he might at this instant have struck 
 a spectator as a figure actually younger and 
 slighter than the ample, accomplished girl whose 
 gesture protected and even a little patronised 
 him. But in her vision of him she none the less 
 clearly found full warrant for saying, instead of 
 something he expected, something she wished and 
 had her reasons for wishing, even if they repre 
 sented but the gain of a minute's time. " You're 
 not splendid, my dear old Dennis you're not 
 dazzling, nor dangerous, nor even exactly distin-
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 53 
 
 guished. But you've a quiet little something 
 that the tiresome time has made perfect, and that 
 just here where you've come to me at last 
 makes me immensely proud of you ! " 
 
 She had, with this, so far again surrendered her 
 self that he could show her in the ways he pre 
 ferred how such a declaration touched him. The 
 place in which he had come to her at last was of 
 a nature to cause him to look about at it, just as 
 to begin to inquire was to learn from her that 
 lie had dropped upon a crisis. He had seen Mrs. 
 Bream, under Rose's wing, in her maiden days ; 
 but in his eagerness to jump at a meeting with 
 the only woman really important to him he 
 had perhaps intruded more than he supposed. 
 Though he expressed again the liveliest sense of 
 the kindness of these good people, he was unable 
 to conceal his disappointment at finding their 
 inmate agitated also by something quite distinct 
 from the joy of his arrival. "Do you really 
 think the poor lady will spoil our fun? " he rather 
 resentfully put it to her. 
 
 " It will depend on what our fun may demand 
 of her," said Rose. "If you ask me if she's in 
 danger, I think not quite that: in such a case I 
 must certainly have put you off. I daresay to-day
 
 54 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 will show the contrary. But she's so much to me 
 you know how much that I'm uneasy, quickly 
 upset ; and if I seem to you flustered and not my 
 self and not with you, I beg you to attribute it 
 simply to the situation in the house." 
 
 About this situation they had each more to say, 
 and about many matters besides, for they faced 
 each other over the deep waters of the accumu 
 lated and the undiscussed. They could keep no 
 order, and for five minutes more they rather help 
 lessly played with the flood. Dennis was rueful 
 at first, for what he seemed to have lighted upon 
 was but half his opportunity; then he had an 
 inspiration which made him say to his companion 
 that they should both, after all, be able to make 
 terms with any awkwardness by simply meeting 
 it with a consciousness that their happiness had 
 already taken form. 
 
 " Our happiness ? " Rose was all interest. 
 
 " Why, the end of our delays." 
 
 She smiled with every allowance. "Do you 
 mean we're to go out and be married this 
 minute ? " 
 
 "Well almost: as soon as I've read you a 
 letter." He produced, with the words, his 
 pocket-book.
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 55 
 
 She watched him an instant turn over its con 
 tents. "What letter?" 
 
 " The best one I ever got. What have I done 
 with it?" On his feet before her, he continued 
 his search. 
 
 "From your people?" 
 
 " From my people. It met me in town, and it 
 makes everything possible." 
 
 She waited while he fumbled in his pockets; 
 with her hands clasped in her lap she sat looking 
 up at him. " Then it's certainly a thing for me to 
 hear." 
 
 "But what the dickens have I done with it?" 
 Staring at her, embarrassed, he clapped his hands 
 on coat and waistcoat, to other receptacles ; at 
 the end of a moment in which he had become 
 aware of the proximity of the noiseless butler, 
 upright in the high detachment of the superior 
 servant who has embraced the conception of un 
 packing. 
 
 " Might I ask you for your keys, sir ? " 
 
 Dennis Vidal had a light he smote his fore 
 head. " Stupid it's in my portmanteau ! " 
 
 " Then go and get it ! " said Rose, who per 
 ceived as she spoke, by the door that faced her, 
 that Tony Bream was rejoining them. She got
 
 56 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 up, and Tony, agitated, as she could see, but 
 with complete command of his manners, immedi 
 ately and sociably said to Dennis that he was 
 ready to guide him upstairs. Rose, at this, inter 
 posed. " Do let Walker take him I want to 
 speak to you." 
 
 Tony smiled at the young man. " Will you 
 excuse me then ? " Dennis protested against the 
 trouble he was giving, and Walker led him away. 
 Rose meanwhile waited not only till they were 
 out of sight and of earshot, but till the return of 
 Tony, who, his hand on Vidal's shoulder, had 
 gone with them as far as the door. 
 
 " Has he brought you good news ? " said the 
 master of Bounds. 
 
 " Very good. He's very well ; he's all right." 
 
 Tony's flushed face gave to the laugh with 
 which he greeted this almost the effect of that of 
 a man who had been drinking. "Do you mean 
 he's quite faithful ? " 
 
 Rose always met a bold joke. " As faithful as 
 I ! But your news is the thing." 
 
 " Mine ? " He closed his eyes a moment, but 
 stood there scratching his head as if to carry off 
 with a touch of comedy his betrayal of emotion. 
 
 " Has Julia repeated her declaration ? "
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 57 
 
 Tony looked at her in silence. " She has done 
 something more extraordinary than that," he re 
 plied at last. 
 
 " What has she done ? " 
 
 Tony glanced round him, then dropped into a 
 chair. He covered his face with his hands. " I 
 must get over it a little before I tell you ! "
 
 VII 
 
 ROSE ARMIGER waited, compassionately, for 
 Tony to recover himself, dropping again, during 
 the pause, upon the sofa she had just occupied 
 with her visitor. At last as, while she watched 
 him, his silence continued, she put him a ques 
 tion. "Does she at any rate still maintain that 
 she sha'n't get well?" 
 
 Tony removed his hands from his face. " With 
 the utmost assurance or rather with the utmost 
 serenity. But she treats that now as a mere 
 detail." 
 
 Rose wondered. " You mean she really feels 
 that she's sinking?" 
 
 "So she says." 
 
 " But is she, good heavens ? Such a thing isn't 
 a matter of opinion : it's a fact or it's not a 
 fact." 
 
 "It's not a fact," said Tony Bream. " How can 
 it be when one has only to see that her strength 
 
 68
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 59 
 
 hasn't failed? She of course says it has, but she 
 has a remarkable deal of it to show. What's the 
 vehemence with which she expresses herself but a 
 sign of increasing life ? It's excitement, of course 
 partly; but it's also striking energy." 
 
 "Excitement?" Rose repeated. "I thought 
 you just said she was 'serene.'" 
 
 Tony hesitated, but he was perfectly clear. 
 " She's calm about what she calls leaving me, bless 
 her heart ; she seems to have accepted that pros 
 pect with the strangest resignation. What she's 
 uneasy, what she's in fact still more strangely tor 
 mented and exalted about, is another matter." 
 
 " I see the thing you just mentioned." 
 
 "She takes an interest," Tony went on, "she 
 asks questions, she sends messages, she speaks out 
 with all her voice. She's delighted to know that 
 Mr. Vidal has at last come to you, and she told 
 me to tell you so from her, and to tell him so 
 to tell you both, in fact, how she rejoices that 
 what you've so long waited for is now so close at 
 hand." 
 
 Rose took this in with lowered eyes. "How 
 dear of her ! " she murmured. 
 
 " She asked me particularly about Mr. Vidal," 
 Tony continued " how he looks, how he strikes
 
 60 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 me, how you met. She gave me indeed a private 
 message for him." 
 
 Rose faintly smiled. " A private one ? " 
 
 " Oh, only to spare your modesty : a word to 
 the effect that she answers for you." 
 
 "In what way? " Rose asked. 
 
 " Why, as the charmingest, cleverest, handsom 
 est, in every way most wonderful wife that ever 
 any man will have had." 
 
 " She is wound up ! " Rose laughed. Then she 
 said : " And all the while what does Nurse think ? 
 I don't mean," she added with the same slight 
 irony, " of whether I shall do for Dennis." 
 
 " Of Julia's condition ? She wants Ramage to 
 come back." 
 
 Rose thought a moment. " She's rather a 
 goose, I think she loses her head." 
 
 "So I've taken the liberty of telling her." 
 Tony sat forward, his eyes on the floor, his 
 elbows on his knees, and his hands nervously 
 rubbing each other. Presently he rose with a 
 jerk. " What do you suppose she wants me 
 to do?" 
 
 Rose tried to suppose. "Nurse wants you ?" 
 
 "No that ridiculous girl." Nodding back at 
 his wife's room, he came and stood before the sofa.
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 61 
 
 Half reclining again, Rose turned it over, 
 raising her eyes to him. " Do you really mean 
 something ridiculous ? " 
 
 " Under the circumstances grotesque." 
 
 "Well," Rose suggested, smiling, "she wants 
 you to allow her to name her successor." 
 
 " Just the contrary ! " Tony seated himself 
 where Dennis Vidal had sat. "She wants me 
 to promise her she shall have no successor." 
 
 His companion looked at him hard ; with her 
 surprise at something in his tone she had just 
 visibly coloured. " I see." She was at a mo 
 mentary loss. " Do you call that grotesque ? " 
 
 Tony, for an instant, was evidently struck by 
 her surprise ; then seeing the reason of it and 
 blushing too a little, " Not the idea, my dear Rose 
 God forbid!" he exclaimed. "What I'm speak 
 ing of is the mistake of giving that amount of 
 colour to her insistence meeting her as if one 
 accepted the situation as she represents it and 
 were really taking leave of her." 
 
 Rose appeared to understand and even to be 
 impressed. " You think that will make her 
 worse ? " 
 
 "Why, arranging everything as if she's going 
 to die ! " Tony sprang up again ; his trouble
 
 62 
 
 was obvious, and he fell again into the restless 
 pacing that had been his resource all the morning. 
 
 His interlocutress watched his agitation. 
 " Mayn't it be that, if you do just that, she'll on 
 the contrary immediately find herself better ? " 
 
 Tony wondered, scratching his head again. 
 " From the spirit of contradiction ? I'll do any 
 thing in life that will make her happy, or just 
 simply make her quiet : I'll treat her demand as 
 intensely reasonable even, if it isn't better to treat 
 it as an ado about nothing. But it stuck in my 
 crop to lend myself, that way, to a deathbed solem 
 nity. Heaven deliver us ! " Half irritated and 
 half anxious, suffering from his tenderness a two 
 fold effect, he dropped into another seat with his 
 hands in his pockets and his long legs thrust out. 
 
 " Does she want it very solemn ? " Rose asked. 
 
 " She's in dead earnest, poor darling. She wants 
 a promise on my sacred honour a vow of the most 
 portentous kind." 
 
 Rose was silent a little. " You didn't give it ? " 
 
 "I turned it off I refused to take any such 
 discussion seriously. I said : ' My own darling, 
 how can I meet you on so hateful a basis ? Wait 
 till you are dying ! ' ' He lost himself an instant ; 
 then he was again on his feet. "How in the
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 63 
 
 world can she dream I'm capable ?" He 
 
 hadn't patience even to finish his phrase. 
 
 Rose, however, finished it. " Of taking a sec 
 ond wife ? Ah, that's another affair ! " she sadly 
 exclaimed. " We've nothing to do with that," she 
 added. " Of course you understand Julia's feel- 
 ing." 
 
 " Her feeling ? " Tony once more stood in front 
 of her. 
 
 " Why, what's at the bottom of her dread of 
 your marrying again ? " 
 
 " Assuredly I do ! Mrs. Grantham naturally 
 shes at the bottom. She has filled Julia with the 
 vision of my perhaps giving our child a step 
 mother." 
 
 " Precisely," Rose said, " and if you had known, 
 as I knew it, Julia's girlhood, you would do jus 
 tice to the force of that horror. It possesses her 
 whole being she would prefer that the child 
 should die." 
 
 Tony Bream, musing, shook his head with 
 sombre decision. " Well, I would prefer that 
 they neither of them should ! " 
 
 " The simplest thing, then, is to give her your 
 word." 
 
 " My ' word ' isn't enough," Tony said ; " she
 
 64 THE OTHEK HOUSE 
 
 wants mystic rites and spells ! The simplest 
 thing, moreover, was exactly what I desired to do. 
 My objection to the performance she demands 
 was that that was just what it seemed to me not 
 to be." 
 
 "Try it," said Rose, smiling. 
 
 "To bring her round?" 
 
 " Before the Doctor returns. When he comes, 
 you know, he won't let you go back to her." 
 
 " Then I'll go now," said Tony, already at the 
 door. 
 
 Rose had risen from the sofa. "Be very brief 
 but be very strong." 
 
 " I'll swear by all the gods that or any other 
 nonsense." Rose stood there opposite to him with 
 a fine, rich urgency which operated as a detention. 
 " I see you're right," he declared. " You always 
 are, and I'm always indebted to you." Then as 
 he opened the door : " Is there anything else ? " 
 
 "Anything else?" 
 
 "I mean that you advise." 
 
 She thought a moment. " Nothing but that 
 for you to seem to enter thoroughly into her idea, 
 to show her you understand it as she understands 
 it herself." 
 
 Tony looked vague. " As she does ? "
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 65 
 
 " Why, for the lifetime of your daughter." 
 As he appeared still not fully to apprehend, she 
 risked: "If you should lose Effie the reason 
 would fail." 
 
 Tony, at this, jerked back his head with a flush. 
 " My dear Rose, you don't imagine that it's as a 
 needed vow " 
 
 " That you would give it?" she broke in. "Cer 
 tainly I don't, any more than I suppose the de 
 gree of your fidelity to be the ground on which 
 we're talking. But the thing is to convince Julia, 
 and I said that only because she'll be more con 
 vinced if you strike her as really looking at what 
 you subscribe to." 
 
 Tony gave his nervous laugh. " Don't you 
 know I always ' put down my name ' - especially 
 to ' appeals ' in the most reckless way ? " Then 
 abruptly, in a different tone, as if with a passion 
 ate need to make it plain, " I shall never, never, 
 never," he protested, "so much as look at another 
 woman ! " 
 
 The girl approved with an eager gesture. 
 "You've got it, my dear Tony. Say it to her 
 that way ! " But he had already gone, and, turn 
 ing, she found herself face to face with her lover, 
 who had come back as she spoke.
 
 VIII 
 
 WITH his letter in his hand Dennis Vidal stood 
 and smiled at her. "What in the world has 
 your dear Tony ' got,' and what is he to say ? " 
 
 " To say ? Something to his wife, who appears 
 to have fallen into an extraordinary state." 
 
 The young man's face fell. " What sort of a 
 state?" 
 
 " A strange discouragement about herself. 
 She's morbid and frightened she thinks she's 
 sinking." 
 
 Dennis looked grave. "Poor little lady 
 what a bore for us ! I remember her per 
 fectly." 
 
 " She of course remembers you," Rose said. 
 " She takes the friendliest interest in your being 
 here." 
 
 "That's most kind of her in her condition." 
 
 " Oh, her condition," Rose returned, " isn't 
 quite so bad as she thinks ! " 
 
 66
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 67 
 
 "I see." Dennis hesitated. "And that's 
 what Mr. Bream's to tell her." 
 
 "That's a part of it." Rose glanced at the 
 document he had brought to her ; it was in its 
 envelope, and he tapped it a little impatiently 
 on his left finger-tips. What she said, however, 
 had no reference to it. " She's haunted with a 
 nervous alarm on the subject, of all things, 
 of his marrying again." 
 
 " If she should die ? She wants him not to ? " 
 Dennis asked. 
 
 "She wants him not to." Rose paused a 
 moment. " She wants to have been the only one." 
 
 He reflected, slightly embarrassed with this 
 peep into a situation that but remotely concerned 
 him. " Well, I suppose that's the way women 
 often feel." 
 
 "I daresay it is." The girl's gravity gave the 
 gleam of a smile. " I daresay it's the way / 
 should." 
 
 Dennis Vidal, at this, simply seized her and 
 kissed her. "You needn't be afraid you'll be 
 the only one ! " 
 
 His embrace had been the work of a few sec 
 onds, and she had made no movement to escape 
 from it ; but she looked at him as if to convey
 
 68 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 that the extreme high spirits it betrayed were 
 perhaps just a trifle mistimed. " That's what I 
 recommended him," she dropped, "to say to 
 Julia." 
 
 "Why, I should hope so ! " Presently, as if a 
 little struck, Dennis continued : "Doesn't he want 
 to?" 
 
 "Absolutely. They're all in all to each other. 
 But he's naturally much upset and bewildered." 
 
 " And he came to you for advice ? " 
 
 " Oh, he comes to me," Rose said, " as he 
 might come to talk of her with the mother that, 
 poor darling, it's her misfortune never to have 
 known." 
 
 The young man's vivacity again played up. 
 " He treats you, you mean, as his mother-in- 
 law?" 
 
 " Very much. But I'm thoroughly nice to 
 him. People can do anything with me who are 
 nice to her." 
 
 Dennis was silent a moment ; he had slipped 
 his letter out of its cover. " Well, I hope they're 
 grateful to you for such devotion." 
 
 " Grateful to me, Dennis ? They quite adore 
 me." Then as if to remind him of something it 
 was important he should feel : " Don't you see
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 69 
 
 what it is for a poor girl to have such an anchor 
 age as this such honourable countenance, such 
 a place to fall back upon ? " 
 
 Thus challenged, her visitor, with a moment's 
 thought, did frank justice to her question. " I'm 
 certainly glad you've such jolly friends one 
 sees they're charming people. It has been a 
 great comfort to me lately to know you were 
 with them." He looked round him, conscien 
 tiously, at the bright and beautiful hall. " It 
 is a good berth, my dear, and it must be a pleas 
 ure to live with such fine things. They've given 
 me a room up there that's full of them an 
 awfully nice room." He glanced at a picture 
 or two he took in the scene. " Do they roll 
 in wealth?" 
 
 " They're like all bankers, I imagine," said 
 Rose. "Don't bankers always roll ? " 
 
 "Yes, they seem literally to wallow. What a 
 pity we ain't bankers, eh ? " 
 
 " Ah, with my friends here their money's the 
 least part of them," the girl answered. " The 
 great thing's their personal goodness." 
 
 Dennis had stopped before a large photograph, 
 a great picture in a massive frame, supported, on 
 a table, by a small gilded easel. " To say noth-
 
 70 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 ing of their personal beauty ! He's tremendously 
 good-looking." 
 
 Rose glanced with an indulgent sigh at a 
 representation of Tony Bream in all his splendour, 
 in a fine white waistcoat and a high white hat, 
 with a stick and gloves and a cigar, his orchid, his 
 stature, and his smile. " Ah, poor Julia's taste ! " 
 
 "Yes," Dennis exclaimed, "one can see how 
 he must have fetched her ! " 
 
 " I mean the style of the thing," said Rose. 
 
 "It isn't good, eh? Well, you know." Then 
 turning away from the picture the young man 
 added: "They'll be after him!" 
 
 Rose faltered. " The people she fears ? " 
 
 " The dear ladies, bless 'em if he should lose 
 her." 
 
 "I daresay," said Rose. "But he'll be proof." 
 
 " Has he told you so ? " Dennis smiled. 
 
 She met his smile with a kind of conscious 
 bravado in her own. " In so many words. But 
 he assures me he'll calm her down." 
 
 Dennis was silent a little : he had now unfolded 
 his letter and run his eyes over it. "What a 
 funny subject for him to be talking about ! " 
 
 " With me, do you mean ? " 
 
 "Yes, and with his wife."
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 71 
 
 "My dear man," Rose exclaimed, "you can 
 imagine he didn't begin it ! " 
 
 " Did you ? " her companion asked. 
 
 She hesitated again, and then, " Yes idiot ! " 
 she replied with a quiet humour that produced, 
 on his part, another demonstration of tenderness. 
 This attempt she arrested, raising her hand, as she 
 appeared to have heard a sound, with a quick 
 injunction to listen. 
 
 " What's the matter ? " 
 
 She bent her ear. " Wasn't there a cry from 
 Julia's room ? " 
 
 " I heard nothing." 
 
 Rose was relieved. " Then it's only my ner 
 vousness." 
 
 Dennis Vidal held up his letter. " Is your 
 nervousness too great to prevent your giving a 
 moment's attention to this ? " 
 
 " Ah, your letter ? " Rose's eyes rested on it 
 as if she had become conscious of it for the first 
 time. 
 
 "It very intimately concerns our future," said 
 her visitor. " I went up for it so that you should 
 do me the favour to read it." 
 
 She held out her hand promptly and frankly. 
 "Then give it to me let me keep it a little."
 
 72 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 " Certainly ; but kindly remember that I've 
 still to answer it I mean referring to points. 
 I've waited to see you because it's from the ' gov 
 ernor ' himself practically saying what he'll do 
 for me." 
 
 Rose held the letter ; her large light eyes 
 widened with her wonder and her sympathy. 
 " Is it something very good ? " 
 
 Dennis prescribed, with an emphatic but amused 
 nod at the paper, a direction to her curiosity. 
 " Read and you'll see ! " 
 
 She dropped her eyes, but after a moment, 
 while her left hand patted her heart, she raised 
 them with an odd, strained expression. " I mean 
 is it really good enough ? " 
 
 " That's exactly what I want you to tell me ! " 
 Dennis laughed out. A certain surprise at her 
 manner was in his face. 
 
 While she noted it she heard a sound again, a 
 sound this time explained by the opening of the 
 door of the vestibule. Doctor Ramage had come 
 back ; Rose put down her letter. " I'll tell you 
 as soon as I have spoken to the Doctor."
 
 IX 
 
 THE Doctor, eagerly, spoke to her first. " Our 
 friend has not come back ? " 
 
 " Mine has," said Rose with grace. " Let me 
 introduce Mr. Vidal." Doctor Ramage beamed a 
 greeting, and our young lady, with her discreet 
 gaiety, went on to Dennis : " He too thinks all 
 the world of me." 
 
 " Oh, she's a wonder she knows what to 
 do ! But you'll see that for yourself," said the 
 Doctor. 
 
 " I'm afraid you won't approve of we," Dennis 
 replied with solicitude. " You'll think me rather 
 in your patient's way." 
 
 "Doctor Ramage laughed. "No indeed I'm 
 sure Miss Armiger will keep you out of it." 
 Then looking at his watch, " Bream's not with 
 her still?" he inquired of Rose. 
 
 "He came away, but he returned to her." 
 
 "He shouldn't have done that." 
 73
 
 74 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 " It was by my advice, and I'm sure you'll find 
 it's all right," Rose replied. "But you'll send 
 him back to us." 
 
 " On the spot." And the Doctor danced off. 
 
 "He's not at all easy," Dennis pronounced 
 when he had gone. 
 
 Rose demurred. "How do you know that?" 
 
 "By looking at him. I'm not such a fool," 
 her visitor added with some emphasis, "as you 
 strike me as wishing to make of me." 
 
 Rose candidly stared. " As I strike you as 
 
 wishing ? " For a moment this young couple 
 
 looked at each other hard, and they both changed 
 colour. " My dear Dennis, what do you mean ? " 
 
 He evidently felt that he had been almost vio 
 lently abrupt; but it would have been equally 
 evident to a spectator that he was a man of cool 
 courage. "I mean, Rose, that I don't quite 
 know what's the matter with you. It's as if, 
 unexpectedly, on my eager arrival, I find some 
 thing or other between us." 
 
 She appeared immensely relieved. "Why, my 
 dear child, of course you do ! Poor Julia's be 
 tween us much between us." She faltered 
 again ; then she broke out with emotion : " I may 
 as well confess it frankly I'm miserably anxious.
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 75 
 
 Good heavens," she added with impatience, " don't 
 you see it for yourself ? " 
 
 " I certainly see that you're agitated and absent 
 as you warned me so promptly you would be. 
 But remember you've quite denied to me the 
 gravity of Mrs. Bream's condition." 
 
 Rose's impatience overflowed into a gesture. 
 "I've been doing that to deceive my own self!" 
 
 "I understand," said Dennis kindly. "Still," 
 he went on, considering, " it's either one thing or 
 the other. The poor lady's either dying, you 
 know, or she ain't ! " 
 
 His friend looked at him with a reproach too 
 fine to be uttered. " My dear Dennis you're 
 harsh ! " 
 
 He showed a face as conscientious as it was 
 blank. " I'm crude possibly coarse ? Perhaps 
 I am without intention." 
 
 "Think what these people are to me," said 
 Rose. 
 
 He was silent a little. " Is it anything so very 
 extraordinary? Oh, I know," he went on, as if 
 he feared she might again accuse him of a want 
 of feeling ; " I appreciate them perfectly I do 
 them full justice. Enjoying their hospitality 
 here, I'm conscious of all their merits." The
 
 T6 THE OTHEK HOUSE 
 
 letter she had put down was still on the table, 
 and he took it up and fingered it a moment. 
 "All I mean is that I don't want you quite 
 to sink the fact that Fin something to you 
 too." 
 
 She met this appeal with instant indulgence. 
 " Be a little patient with me," she gently said. 
 Before he could make a rejoinder, she pursued: 
 "You yourself are impressed with the Doctor's 
 being anxious. I've been trying not to think 
 so, but I daresay you're right. There, I've an 
 other worry." 
 
 " The greater your worry, then, the more press 
 ing our business." Dennis spoke with cordial 
 decision, while Rose, moving away from him, 
 reached the door by which the Doctor had gone 
 out. She stood there as if listening, and he con 
 tinued: "It's me, you know, that you've now to 
 ' fall back ' upon." 
 
 She had already raised a hand with her clear 
 " Hush ! " arid she kept her eyes on her com 
 panion while she tried to catch a sound. "The 
 Doctor said he would send him out of the room. 
 But he doesn't." 
 
 " All the better for your reading this." Den 
 nis held out the letter to her.
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 77 
 
 She quitted her place. "If he's allowed to 
 stay, there must be something wrong." 
 
 " I'm very sorry for them ; but don't you call 
 that a statement ? " 
 
 " Ah, your letter ? " Her attention came back 
 to it, and, taking it from him, she dropped again 
 upon the sofa with it. " Voyons, voyons this great 
 affair!" she had the air of trying to talk her 
 self into calmness. 
 
 Dennis stood a moment before her. " It puts 
 us on a footing that really seems to me sound." 
 
 She had turned over the leaf to take the measure 
 of the document; there were three large, close, 
 neat pages. " He's a trifle long-winded, the 
 'governor' ! " 
 
 " The longer the better," Dennis laughed, " when 
 it's all in that key ! Read it, my dear, quietly and 
 carefully; take it in it's really simple enough." 
 He spoke soothingly and tenderly, turning off to 
 give her time and not oppress her. He moved 
 slowly about the hall, whistling very faintly and 
 looking again at the pictures, and when he had 
 left her she followed him a minute with her eyes. 
 Then she transferred them to the door at which 
 she had just listened ; instead of reading she 
 watched as if for a movement of it. If there had
 
 78 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 been anyone at that moment to see her face, such 
 an observer would have found it strangely, tragi 
 cally convulsed : she had the appearance of holding 
 in with extraordinary force some passionate sob or 
 cry, some smothered impulse of anguish. This 
 appearance vanished miraculously as Dennis turned 
 at the end of the room, and what he saw, while 
 the great showy clock ticked in the scented still 
 ness, was only his friend's study of what he had put 
 before her. She studied it long, she studied it in 
 silence a silence so unbroken by inquiry or com 
 ment that, though he clearly wished not to seem 
 to hurry her, he drew nearer again at last and 
 stood as if waiting for some sign. 
 
 " Don't you call that really meeting a fellow ? " 
 "I must read it again," Rose replied without 
 looking up. She turned afresh to the beginning, 
 and he strolled away once more. She went 
 through to the end; after which she said with 
 tranquillity, folding the letter : " Yes ; it shows 
 what they think of you." She put it down where 
 she had put it before, getting up as he came back 
 to her. " It's good not only for what he says, but 
 for the way he says it." 
 
 " It's a jolly bit more than I expected." Dennis 
 picked the letter up and, restoring it to its en-
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 79 
 
 velope, slipped it almost lovingly into a breast 
 pocket. " It does show, I think, that they don't 
 want to lose me." 
 
 " They're not such fools ! " Rose had in her 
 turn moved off, but now she faced him, so intensely 
 pale that he was visibly startled ; all the more that 
 it marked still more her white grimace. " My dear 
 boy, it's a splendid future." 
 
 " I'm glad it strikes you so ! " he laughed. 
 
 " It's a great joy you're all right. As I said 
 a while ago, you're a made man." 
 
 "Then by the same token, of course, you're 
 a made woman ! " 
 
 " I'm very, very happy about you," she brightly 
 conceded. " The great thing is that there's more 
 to come." 
 
 " Rather there's more to come ! " said Dennis. 
 He stood meeting her singular smile. " I'm only 
 waiting for it." 
 
 "I mean there's a lot behind a general 
 attitude. Read between the lines ! " 
 
 "Don't you suppose I have, Miss? I didn't 
 venture, myself, to say that to you." 
 
 " Do I have so to be prompted and coached ? " 
 asked Rose. " I don't believe you even see all 
 I mean. There are hints and tacit promises
 
 80 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 glimpses of what may happen if you'll give 
 them time." 
 
 " Oh, I'll give them time ! " Dennis declared. 
 " But he's really awfully cautious. You're sharp 
 to have made out so much." 
 
 "Naturally I'm sharp." Then, after an in 
 stant, "Let me have the letter again," the girl 
 said, holding out her hand. Dennis promptly 
 drew it forth, and she took it and went over 
 it in silence once more. He turned away as he 
 had done before, to give her a chance ; he 
 hummed slowly, to himself, about the room, and 
 once more, at the end of some minutes, it 
 appeared to strike him that she prolonged her 
 perusal. But when he approached her again 
 she was ready with her clear contentment. She 
 folded the letter and handed it back to him. 
 " Oh, you'll do ! " she proclaimed. 
 
 "You're really quite satisfied?" 
 
 She hesitated a moment. "For the present 
 perfectly." Her eyes were on the precious 
 document as he fingered it, and something in 
 his way of doing so made her break into incon 
 gruous gaiety. He had opened it delicately and 
 been caught again by a passage. "You handle 
 it as if it were a thousand-pound note ! "
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 81 
 
 He looked up at her quickly. "It's much 
 more than that. Capitalise his figure." 
 
 "'Capitalise' it?" 
 
 " Find the invested sum." 
 
 Rose thought a moment. " Oh, I'll do every 
 thing for you but cipher ! But it's millions." 
 Then as he returned the letter to his pocket she 
 added : " You should have that thing mounted in 
 double glass with a little handle like a hand- 
 screen." 
 
 " There's certainly nothing too good for the 
 charter of our liberties for that's what it really 
 is," Dennis said. " But you can face the music ? " 
 he went on. 
 
 " The music ? " Rose was momentarily blank. 
 
 He looked at her hard again. " You have, my 
 dear, the most extraordinary vacuities. The figure 
 we're talking of the poor, dear little figure. 
 The five-hundred-and-forty," he a trifle sharply 
 explained. " That's about what it makes." 
 
 "Why, it seems to me a lovely little figure," 
 said the girl. " To the ' likes ' of me, how can 
 that be anything but a duck of an income ? Then," 
 she exclaimed, " think also of what's to come ! " 
 
 "Yes but I'm not speaking of anything you 
 may bring."
 
 82 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 Rose wavered, judicious, as if trying to be as 
 attentive as he desired. "I see without that. 
 But I wasn't speaking of that either," she added. 
 
 "Oh, you may count it I only mean I don't 
 touch it. And the going out you take that 
 too ? " Dennis asked. 
 
 Rose looked brave. "Why it's only for two 
 years." 
 
 He flushed suddenly, as with a flood of reassur 
 ance, putting his arms round her as round the 
 fulfilment of his dream. " Ah, my own old girl ! " 
 
 She let him clasp her again, but when she disen 
 gaged herself they were somehow nearer to the 
 door that led away to Julia Bream. She stood 
 there as she had stood before, while he still held 
 one of her hands; then she brought forth some 
 thing that betrayed an extraordinary disconnection 
 from all that had just preceded. "I can't make 
 it out why he doesn't send him back ! " 
 
 Dennis Vidal dropped her hand ; both his own 
 went into his pockets, and he gave a kick to the 
 turned-up corner of a rug. " Mr. Bream the 
 Doctor? Oh, they know what they're about!" 
 
 " The Doctor doesn't at all want him to be there. 
 Something has happened," Rose declared as she 
 left the door.
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 83 
 
 Her companion said nothing for a moment. 
 " Do you mean the poor lady's gone ? " he at last 
 demanded. 
 
 " Gone ? " Rose echoed. 
 
 "Do you mean Mrs. Bream is dead?" 
 
 His question rang out so that Rose threw her 
 self back in horror. " Dennis God forbid ! " 
 
 " God forbid too, I say. But one doesn't know 
 what you mean you're too difficult to follow. 
 One thing, at any rate, you clearly have in your 
 head that we must take it as possibly on the 
 cards. That's enough to make it remarkably to 
 the point to remind you of the great change that 
 would take place in your situation if she should 
 die." 
 
 " What else in the world but that change am I 
 thinking of ? " Rose asked. 
 
 " You're not thinking of it perhaps so much in 
 the connection I refer to. If Mrs. Bream goes, 
 your 'anchorage,' as you call it, goes." 
 
 "I see what you mean." She spoke with the 
 softest assent ; the tears had sprung into her eyes 
 and she looked away to hide them. 
 
 " One may have the highest possible opinion of 
 her husband and yet not quite see you staying 
 on here in the same manner with him"
 
 84 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 Rose was silent, with a certain dignity. " Not 
 quite," she presently said with the same gen 
 tleness. 
 
 " The way therefore to provide against every 
 thing is as I remarked to you a while ago to 
 settle with me this minute the day, the nearest 
 one possible, for our union to become a reality." 
 
 She slowly brought back her troubled eyes. 
 "The day to marry you?" 
 
 " The day to marry me, of course ! " He gave 
 a short, uneasy laugh. " What else ? " 
 
 She waited again, and there was a kind of fear 
 in her face. "I must settle it this minute?" 
 
 Dennis stared. " Why, my dear child, when in 
 the world if not now?" 
 
 " You can't give me a little more time ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 " More time?" His gathered stupefaction broke 
 out. " More time after giving you years ? " 
 
 " Ah, but just at the last here this news, this 
 rush is sudden." 
 
 " Sudden ! " Dennis repeated. " Haven't you 
 known I was coming, and haven't you known for 
 what?" 
 
 She looked at him now with an effort of resolu 
 tion in which he could see her white face harden ;
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 85 
 
 as if by a play of some inner mechanism some 
 thing dreadful had taken place in it. Then she 
 said with a painful quaver that no attempt to 
 be natural could keep down : " Let me remind 
 you, Dennis, that your coming was not at my 
 request. You've come yes; but you've come 
 because you would. You've come you've come 
 in spite of me." 
 
 He gasped, and with the mere touch of her tone 
 his own eyes filled. " You haven't wanted me ? " 
 
 "I'm delighted to see you." 
 
 " Then in God's name what do you mean ? 
 Where are we, and what are you springing on 
 me?" 
 
 " I'm only asking you again, as I've asked you 
 already, to be patient with me to let me, at 
 such a critical hour, turn round. I'm only ask 
 ing you to bear with me I'm only asking you 
 to wait." 
 
 " To wait for what ? " he snatched the word out 
 of her mouth. " It's because I have waited that I'm 
 here. What I want of you is three simple words 
 that you can utter in three simple seconds." He 
 looked about him in his helpless dismay, as if to 
 call the absent to witness. " And you look at me 
 like a stone. You open up an abyss. You give
 
 86 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 me nothing, nothing." He paused, as it were, for 
 a contradiction, but she made none ; she had low 
 ered her eyes and, supported against a table, stood 
 there rigid and passive. Dennis sank into a chair 
 with his vain hands upon his knees. " What do 
 you mean by my coming in spite of you? You 
 never asked me not to you've treated me well 
 till now. It was my idea yes ; but you perfectly 
 accepted it." He gave her time to assent to this 
 or to deny it, but she took none, and he continued : 
 " Don't you understand the one feeling that has 
 possessed me and sustained me ? Don't you under 
 stand that I've thought of nothing else every hour 
 of my way ? I arrived here with a longing for you 
 that words can't utter; and now I see though I 
 couldn't immediately be sure that I found you 
 from the first constrained and unnatural." 
 
 Rose, as he went on, had raised her eyes again ; 
 they seemed to follow his words in sombre sub 
 mission. " Yes, you must have found me strange 
 enough." 
 
 "And don't again say it's your being anx 
 ious ! " Dennis sprang up warningly. " It's 
 
 your being anxious that just makes my right." 
 
 His companion shook her head slowly and am 
 biguously, "I am glad you've come."
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 87 
 
 " To have the pleasure of not receiving me ? " 
 
 " I have received you," Rose replied. " Every 
 word I've spoken to you and every satisfaction I've 
 expressed is true, is deep. I do admire you, I do 
 respect you, I'm proud to have been your friend. 
 Haven't I assured you of my pure joy in your pro 
 motion and your prospects ? " 
 
 " What do you call assuring me ? You utterly 
 misled me for some strange moments ; you mysti 
 fied me ; I think I may say you trifled with me. 
 The only assurance I'm open to is that of your 
 putting your hand in mine as my wife. In God's 
 name," the young man panted, "what has hap 
 pened to you and what has changed you ? " 
 
 " I'll tell you to-morrow," said Rose. 
 
 "Tell me what I want?" 
 
 She cast about her. "Tell you things I can't 
 now." 
 
 He sounded her with visible despair. "You're 
 not sincere you're not straight. You've noth 
 ing to tell me, and you're afraid. You're only 
 gaining time, and you've only been doing so 
 from the first. I don't know what it's for 
 you're beyond me ; but if it's to back out, I'll 
 be hanged if I give you a moment." 
 
 Her wan face, at this, showed a faint flush;
 
 88 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 it seemed to him five years older than when he 
 came in. "You take, with your cruel accusa 
 tions, a strange way to keep me ! " the girl 
 exclaimed. "But I won't talk to you in bitter 
 ness!" she pursued in a different tone. "That 
 will drop if we do allow it a day or two." Then 
 on a sharp motion of his impatience she added: 
 " Whether you allow it or not, you know, I 
 must take the time I need." 
 
 He was angry now, as if she were not only 
 proved evasion, but almost proved insolence ; 
 and his anger deepened at her return to this 
 appeal that offered him no meaning. "No, no, 
 you must choose," he said with passion, "and 
 if you're really honest you will. I'm here for 
 you with all my soul, but I'm here for you now 
 or never." 
 
 " Dennis ! " she weakly murmured. 
 
 "You do back out?" 
 
 She put out her hand. "Good-bye." 
 
 He looked at her as over a flood; then he 
 thrust his hand behind him and glanced about 
 for his hat. He moved blindly, like a man 
 picking himself up from a violent fall flung 
 indeed suddenly from a smooth, swift vehicle. 
 " Good-bye."
 
 DENNIS VIDAL quickly remembered that he 
 had not brought in his hat, and also, the next 
 instant, that even to clap it on wouldn't under 
 the circumstances qualify him for immediate de 
 parture from Bounds. Just as it came over him 
 that the obligation he had incurred must keep 
 him at least for the day, he found himself in 
 the presence of his host, who, while his back 
 was turned, had precipitately reappeared and 
 whose vision of the place had resulted in an in 
 stant question. 
 
 "Mrs. Beever has not come back? Julia 
 wants her Julia must see her!" 
 
 Dennis was separated by the width of the hall 
 from the girl with whom he had just enjoyed 
 such an opportunity of reunion, but there was 
 for the moment no indication that Tony Bream, 
 engrossed with a graver accident, found a be 
 trayal in the space between them. He had, 
 
 89
 
 90 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 however, for Dennis the prompt effect of a re 
 minder to take care : it was a consequence of 
 the very nature of the man that to look at him 
 was to recognise the value of appearances and 
 that he couldn't have dropped out upon a scene, 
 however disordered, without, by the simple fact, 
 re-establishing a superficial harmony. His new 
 friend met him with a movement that might 
 have been that of stepping in front of some ob 
 ject to hide it, while Rose, on her side, sound 
 ing out like a touched bell, was already alert 
 with her response. "Ah," said Dennis to him 
 self, " it's for them she cares ! " 
 
 "She has not come back, but if there's a 
 hurry " Rose was all there. 
 
 " There is a hurry. Someone must go for her." 
 
 Dennis had a point to make that he must 
 make on the spot. He spoke before Rose's 
 rejoinder. "With your increasing anxieties, Mr. 
 Bream, I'm quite ashamed to be quartered on 
 you. Hadn't I really better be at the inn?" 
 
 "At the inn to go from here? My dear 
 fellow, are you mad?" Tony sociably scoffed; 
 he wouldn't hear of it. " Don't be afraid ; we've 
 plenty of use for you if only to keep this 
 young woman quiet."
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 91 
 
 " He can be of use this instant." Rose looked 
 at her suitor as if there were not the shadow 
 of a cloud between them. " The servants are 
 getting luncheon. Will you go over for Mrs. 
 Beever? " 
 
 "Ah," Tony demurred, laughing, "we mustn't 
 make him fetch and carry ! " 
 
 Dennis showed a momentary blankness and 
 then, in his private discomposure, jumped at the 
 idea of escaping from the house and into the 
 air. " Do employ me," he pleaded ; " I want to 
 stretch my legs. I'll do anything." 
 
 " Since you're so kind, then, and it's so near," 
 Tony replied. "Mrs. Beever's our best friend, 
 and always the friend of our friends, and she's 
 only across the river." 
 
 "Just six minutes," said Rose, "by the short 
 way. Bring her back with you." 
 
 " The short way," Tony pressingly explained, 
 "is through my garden and out of it by the 
 gate on the river." 
 
 "At the river you turn to the right the 
 little foot-bridge is her bridge," Rose went 
 on. 
 
 "You pass the gatehouse at the other side of 
 it, and there you are," said Tony.
 
 92 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 " In her garden it's lovely. Tell her it's for 
 Mrs. Bream, and it's important," Rose added. 
 
 " My wife's calling aloud for her ! " Tony 
 laid his hand, with his flushed laugh, on the 
 young man's shoulder. 
 
 Dennis had listened earnestly, looking at his 
 companions in turn. "It doesn't matter if she 
 doesn't know in the least who I am?" 
 
 " She knows perfectly don't be shy ! " Rose 
 familiarly exclaimed. 
 
 Tony gave him a great pat on the back which 
 sent him off. "She has even something partic 
 ular to say to you ! She takes a great interest 
 in his relations with you," he continued to Rose 
 as the door closed behind their visitor. Then 
 meeting in her face a certain impatience of any 
 supersession of the question of Julia's state, he 
 added, to justify his allusion, a word accompanied 
 by the same excited laugh that had already 
 broken from him. "Mrs. Beever deprecates the 
 idea of any further delay in your marriage, and 
 thinks you've got quite enough to 'set up' on. 
 She pronounces your means remarkably ade 
 quate." 
 
 "What does she know about our means?" 
 Rose coldly asked.
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 93 
 
 " No more, doubtless, than I ! But that needn't 
 prevent her. It's the wish that's father to the 
 thought. That's the result of her general good 
 will to you." 
 
 "She has no good will of any sort to me. 
 She doesn't like me." Rose spoke with marked 
 dryness, in which moreover a certain surprise at 
 the direction of her friend's humour was visible. 
 Tony was now completely out of his groove ; 
 they indeed both were, though Rose was for the 
 moment more successful in concealing her emo 
 tion. Still vibrating with the immense effort of 
 the morning and particularly of the last hour, 
 she could yet hold herself hard and observe 
 what was taking place in her companion. He 
 had been through something that had made his 
 nerves violently active, so that his measure of 
 security, of reality almost, was merged in the 
 mere sense of the unusual. It was precisely this 
 evidence of what he had been through that helped 
 the girl's curiosity to preserve a waiting attitude 
 the firm surface she had triumphantly pre 
 sented to each of the persons whom, from an 
 early hour, she had had to encounter. Bat Tony 
 had now the air of not intending to reward her 
 patience by a fresh communication ; it was as if
 
 94 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 some new delicacy had operated and he had struck 
 himself as too explicit. He had looked astonished 
 at her judgment of the lady of Eastmead. 
 
 " My dear Rose," he said, " I think you're 
 greatly mistaken Mrs. Beever much appreci 
 ates you." 
 
 She was silent at first, showing him a face 
 worn with the ingenuity of all that in her inter 
 view with Dennis Vidal she had had to keep out 
 of it and put into it. "My dear Tony," she 
 then blandly replied, "I've never known any 
 one like you for not having two grains of obser 
 vation. I've known people with only a little ; 
 but a little's a poor affair. You've absolutely 
 none at all, and that, for your character, is the 
 right thing: it's magnificent and perfect." 
 
 Tony greeted this with real hilarity. "I like 
 a good square one between the eyes ! " 
 
 "You can't like it as much as I like you for 
 being just as you are. Observation's a second- 
 rate thing; it's only a precaution the refuge 
 of the small and the timid. It protects our own 
 ridicules and props up our defences. You may 
 have ridicules I don't say so; but you've no 
 suspicions and no fears and no doubts; you're 
 natural and generous and easy "
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 95 
 
 " And beautifully, exquisitely stupid ! " Tony 
 broke in. "'Natural' thank you! Oh, the hor 
 rible people who are natural ! What you mean 
 only you're too charming to say it is that 
 I'm so utterly taken up with my own interests 
 and feelings that I pipe about them like a canary 
 in a cage. Not to have the things you mention, 
 and above all not to have imagination, is simply 
 not to have tact, than which nothing is more 
 unforgivable and more loathsome. What lovelier 
 proof of my selfishness could I be face to face 
 with than the fact which I immediately after 
 wards blushed for that, coming into you here 
 a while ago, in the midst of something so impor 
 tant to you, I hadn't the manners to ask you so 
 much as a question about it ? " 
 
 " Do you mean about Mr. Vidal after he had 
 gone to his room? You did ask me a question," 
 Rose said; "but you had a subject much more 
 interesting to speak of." She waited an instant 
 before adding: "You spoke of something I 
 haven't ceased to think of." This gave Tony a 
 chance for reference to his discharge of the 
 injunction she had then laid upon him; as 
 a reminder of which Rose further observed: 
 "There's plenty of time for Mr. Vidal."
 
 96 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 " I hope indeed he's going to stay. I like his 
 looks immensely," Tony responded. "I like his 
 type ; it matches so with what you've told me 
 of him. It's the real thing I wish we had him 
 here." Rose, at this, gave a small, confused cry, 
 and her host went on : " Upon my honour I do 
 I know a man when I see him. He's just the 
 sort of fellow I personally should have liked 
 to be." 
 
 "You mean you're not the real thing?" Rose 
 asked. 
 
 It was a question of a kind that Tony's good 
 nature, shining out almost splendidly even through 
 trouble, could always meet with princely extrava 
 gance. " Not a bit ! I'm bolstered up with all 
 sorts of little appearances and accidents. Your 
 friend there has his feet on the rock." This 
 picture of her friend's position moved Rose to 
 another vague sound the effect of which, in 
 turn, was to make Tony look at her more 
 sharply. But he appeared not to impute to her 
 any doubt of his assertion, and after an instant 
 he reverted, with a jump, to a matter that he 
 evidently wished not to drop. " You must really, 
 you know, do justice to Mrs. Beever. When she 
 dislikes one it's not a question of shades or de-
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 97 
 
 grees. She's not an underhand enemy she very 
 soon lets one know it." 
 
 " You mean by something she says or does ? " 
 
 Tony considered a moment. " I mean she gives 
 you her reasons she's eminently direct. ' And 
 I'm sure she has never lifted a ringer against you." 
 
 "Perhaps not. But she will," said Rose. 
 " You yourself just gave me the proof." 
 
 Tony wondered. " What proof ? " 
 
 "Why, in telling Dennis that she had told 
 you she has something special to say to him." 
 
 Tony recalled it it had already passed out 
 of his mind. " What she has to say is only what 
 I myself have already said for the rest of us 
 that she hopes with all her heart things are now 
 smooth for his marriage." 
 
 "Well, what could be more horrid than that?" 
 
 "More horrid?" Tony stared. 
 
 " What has she to do with his marriage ? Her 
 interference is in execrable taste." 
 
 The girl's tone was startling, and her com 
 panion's surprise augmented, showing itself in 
 his lighted eyes and deepened colour. " My dear 
 Rose, isn't that sort of thing, in a little circle 
 like ours, a permitted joke a friendly compli 
 ment? We're all so with you."
 
 98 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 She had turned away from him. She went 
 on, as if she had not heard him, with a sudden 
 tremor in her voice the tremor of a deep up 
 heaval: "Why does she give opinions that nobody 
 wants or asks her for? What does she know of 
 our relations or of what difficulties and mysteries 
 she touches? Why can't she leave us alone 
 at least, for the first hour?" 
 
 Embarrassment was in Tony's gasp the un 
 expected had sprung up before him. He could 
 only stammer after her as she moved away : 
 " Bless my soul, my dear child you don't 
 mean to say there are difficulties? Of course 
 it's no one's business but one hoped you were 
 in quiet waters." Across her interval, as he 
 spoke, she suddenly faced round, and his view of 
 her, with this, made him smite his forehead in his 
 penitent, expressive way. "What a brute I am 
 not to have seen you're not quite happy, and 
 not to have noticed that lie " Tony caught 
 himself up: the face offered him was the con 
 vulsed face that had not been offered Dennis 
 Vidal. Rose literally glared at him ; she stood 
 there with her two hands on her heaving breast 
 and something in all her aspect that was like 
 the first shock of a great accident. What he
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 99 
 
 saw, without understanding it, was the final 
 snap of her tremendous tension, the end of her 
 wonderful false calm. He misunderstood it in 
 fact, as he saw it give way before him : he 
 sprang at the idea that the poor girl had re 
 ceived a blow a blow which her self-control 
 up to within a moment only presented as more 
 touchingly borne. Vidal's absence was there as 
 a part of it : the situation flashed into vividness. 
 "His eagerness to leave you surprised me," he 
 exclaimed, " and yours to make him go ! " Tony 
 thought again, and before he spoke his thought 
 her eyes seemed to glitter it back. " He has 
 not brought you bad news he has not failed 
 of what we hoped?" He went to her with 
 compassion and tenderness. " You don't mean 
 to say, my poor girl, that he doesn't meet you 
 as you supposed he would?" Rose dropped, 
 as he came, into a chair ; she had burst into 
 passionate tears. She threw herself upon a small 
 table, burying her head in her arms, while Tony, 
 all wonder and pity, stood above her and felt 
 helpless as she sobbed. She seemed to have 
 sunk under her wrong and to quiver with her 
 pain. Her host, with his own recurrent pang, 
 could scarcely bear it: he felt a sharp need of
 
 100 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 making someone pay. "You don't mean to say 
 Mr. Vidal doesn't keep faith ? " 
 
 " Oh, God ! oh, God ! oh, God ! " Rose Armiger 
 wailed.
 
 XI 
 
 TONY turned away from her with a movement 
 which was a confession of incompetence ; a sense, 
 moreover, of the awkwardness of being so close 
 to a grief for which he had no direct remedy. 
 He could only assure her, in his confusion, of 
 his deep regret that she had had a distress. 
 The extremity of her collapse, however, was 
 brief, a gust of passion after which she instantly 
 showed the effort to recover. " Don't mind me," 
 she said through her tears, "I shall pull myself 
 together I shall be all right in a moment." 
 He wondered whether he oughtn't to leave her; 
 and yet to leave her was scarcely courteous. 
 She was quickly erect again, with her charac 
 teristic thought for others flowering out through 
 her pain. " Only don't let Julia know that's 
 all I ask of you. One's little bothers are one's 
 little bothers they're all in the day's work. 
 Just give me three minutes, and I sha'n't show 
 101
 
 102 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 a trace." She straightened herself and even 
 smiled, patting her eyes with her crumpled 
 handkerchief, while Tony marvelled at her cour 
 age and good-humour. 
 
 " Of one thing you must be sure, Rose," he 
 expressively answered; "that whatever happens 
 to you, now or at any time, you've friends here 
 and a home here that are yours for weal and 
 woe!" 
 
 "Ah, don't say that," she cried; "I can 
 scarcely bear it ! Disappointments ons can meet ; 
 but how in the world is one adequately to meet 
 generosity? Of one thing you, on your side, 
 must be sure, that no trouble in life shall ever 
 make me a bore. It was because I was so awfully 
 afraid to be one that I've been keeping myself 
 in and that has led, in this ridiculous way, to 
 my making a fool of myself at the last. I knew 
 a hitch was coming I knew at least something 
 was ; but I hoped it would come and go without 
 this!" She had stopped before a mirror, still 
 dealing, like an actress in the wing, with her ap 
 pearance, her make-up. She dabbed at her cheeks 
 and pressed her companion to leave her to herself. 
 " Don't mind me, don't mind me ; and, above all, 
 don't ask any questions."
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 103 
 
 "Ah," said Tony in friendly remonstrance, 
 " your bravery makes it too hard to help you ! " 
 
 " Don't try to help me don't even want to. 
 And don't tell any tales. Hush ! " she went on 
 in a different tone. " Here's Mrs. Beever ! " 
 
 The lady of Eastmead was preceded by the 
 butler, who, having formally announced her, an 
 nounced luncheon as invidiously as if it had 
 only been waiting for her. The servants at each 
 house had ways of reminding her they were not 
 the servants at the other. 
 
 "Luncheon's all very well," said Tony, "but 
 who in the world's to eat it? Before you do," 
 he continued, to Mrs. Beever, " there's something 
 I must ask of you." 
 
 " And something I must ask too," Rose added, 
 while the butler retired like a conscientious 
 minister retiring from untenable office. She ad 
 dressed herself to their neighbour with a face 
 void, to Tony's astonishment, of every vestige 
 of disorder. "Didn't Mr. Vidal come back with 
 you?" 
 
 Mrs. Beever looked incorruptible. "Indeed 
 he did ! " she sturdily replied. " Mr. Vidal is 
 in the garden of this house." 
 
 " Then I'll call him to luncheon." And Rose
 
 104 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 floated away, leaving her companions confronted 
 in a silence that ended as Tony was lost in 
 the wonder of her presence of mind only when 
 Mrs. Beever had assured herself that she was 
 out of earshot. 
 
 " She has broken it off ! " this lady then re 
 sponsibly proclaimed. 
 
 Her colleague demurred. " She ? How do you 
 know?" 
 
 "I know because he has told me so." 
 "Already in these few minutes?" 
 Mrs. Beever hung fire. " Of course I asked 
 him first. I met him at the bridge I saw he 
 had had a shock." 
 
 " It's Rose who has had the shock ! " Tony 
 returned. "It's he who has thrown her over." 
 Mrs. Beever stared. "That's her story?" 
 Tony reflected. " Practically yes." 
 Again his visitor hesitated, but only for an 
 instant. " Then one of them lies." 
 
 Tony laughed out at her lucidity. " It isn't 
 Rose Armiger ! " 
 
 " It isn't Dennis Vidal, my dear. I believe in 
 him," said Mrs. Beever. 
 
 Her companion's amusement grew. " Your 
 operations are rapid."
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 105 
 
 "Remarkably. I've asked him to come to me." 
 
 Tony raised his eyebrows. " To come to 
 you?" 
 
 " Till he can get a train to-morrow. He 
 can't stay on here." 
 
 Tony looked at it. "I see what you mean." 
 
 " That's a blessing you don't always ! I like 
 him he's my sort. And something seems to 
 tell me I'm his ! " 
 
 " I won't gracefully insult you by saying you're 
 everyone's," Tony observed. Then, after an in 
 stant, " Is he very much cut up? " he inquired. 
 
 " He's utterly staggered. He doesn't under 
 stand." 
 
 Tony thought again. " No more do I. But 
 you'll console him," he added. 
 
 " I'll feed him first," said his neighbour. " I'll 
 take him back with me to luncheon." 
 
 "Is that scarcely civil?" 
 
 " Civil to you?" Mrs. Beever interposed. 
 " That's exactly what he asked me. I told him 
 I would arrange it with you." 
 
 " And you're ' arranging ' it, I see. But how 
 can you take him if Rose is bringing him in ? " 
 
 Mrs. Beever was silent a while. " She isn't. 
 She hasn't gone to him. That was for me"
 
 106 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 Tony looked at her in wonder. "Your opera 
 tions are rapid," he repeated. "But I found 
 her under the unmistakable effect of a blow." 
 
 " I found her exactly as usual." 
 
 "Well, that also was for you," said Tony. 
 " Her disappointment's a secret." 
 
 "Then I'm much obliged to you for mention 
 ing it." 
 
 "I did so to defend her against your bad 
 account of her. But the whole thing's obscure," 
 the young man added with sudden weariness. 
 " I give it up ! " 
 
 "/ don't I shall straighten it out." Mrs. 
 Beever spoke with high decision. "But I must 
 see your wife first." 
 
 "Rather! she's waiting all this while." He 
 had already opened the door. 
 
 As she reached it she stopped again. "Shall 
 I find the Doctor with her?" 
 
 " Yes, by her request." 
 
 " Then how is she ? " 
 
 " Maddening ! " Tony exclaimed ; after which, 
 as his visitor echoed the word, he went on : " I 
 mean in her dreadful obsession, to which poor 
 Ramage has had to give way, and which is the 
 direct reason of her calling you."
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 107 
 
 Mrs. Beever's little eyes seemed to see more 
 than he told her, to have indeed the vision of 
 something formidable. "What dreadful obses 
 sion?" 
 
 " She'll tell you herself." He turned away 
 to leave her to go, and she disappeared; but 
 the next moment he heard her again on the 
 threshold. 
 
 " Only a word to say that that child may 
 turn up." 
 
 " What child ? " He had already forgotten. 
 
 " Oh, if you don't remember ! " Mrs. Bee- 
 
 ver, with feminine inconsequence, almost took it 
 ill. 
 
 Tony recovered the agreeable image. 
 
 " Oh, your niece ? Certainly I remember 
 her hair." 
 
 " She's not my niece, and her hair's hideous. 
 But if she does come, send her straight home ! " 
 
 " Very good," said Tony. This time his visitor 
 vanished.
 
 
 XII 
 
 HH moved a minute about the hall ; then he 
 dropped upon a sofa with a sense of exhaustion 
 and a sudden need of rest : he stretched himself, 
 closing his eyes, glad to be alone, glad above 
 all to make sure that he could lie still. He 
 wished to show himself he was not nervous; 
 he took up a position with the purpose not 
 to budge till Mrs. Beever should come back. 
 His house was in an odd condition, with lunch 
 eon pompously served and no one able to go to 
 it. Poor Julia was in a predicament, poor Rose 
 in another, and poor Mr. Vidal, fasting in the 
 garden, in a greater one than either. Tony 
 sighed as he thought of this dispersal, but he 
 stiffened himself resolutely on his couch. He 
 wouldn't go in alone, and he couldn't even enjoy 
 Mrs. Beever. It next occurred to him that he 
 could still less enjoy her little friend, the child 
 he had promised to turn away ; on which he gave 
 108
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 109 
 
 a sigh that represented partly privation and 
 partly resignation partly also a depressed per 
 ception of the fact that he had never in all his 
 own healthy life been less eager for a meal. 
 Meanwhile, however, the attempt to stop pac 
 ing the floor was a success ; he felt as if in 
 closing his eyes he destroyed the vision that 
 had scared him. He was cooler, he was easier, 
 and he liked the smell of flowers in the dusk. 
 What was droll, when he gave himself up to it, 
 was the sharp sense of lassitude ; it had dropped 
 on him out of the blue, and it showed him how 
 a sudden alarm such as, after all, he had had 
 could drain a fellow in an hour of half his 
 vitality. He wondered whether, if he might be 
 undisturbed a little, the result of this surrender 
 wouldn't be to make him delightfully lose con 
 sciousness. 
 
 He never knew, afterwards, whether it was in 
 the midst of his hope, or on the inner edge of a 
 doze just achieved, that he became aware of a foot 
 fall betraying an uncertain advance. He raised 
 his lids to it and saw before him the pretty girl 
 from the other house, whom, for a moment before 
 he moved, he lay there looking at. He immedi 
 ately recognised that what had roused him was
 
 110 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 the fact that, noiselessly and for a few seconds, her 
 eyes had rested on his face. She uttered a blush 
 ing " Oh ! " which deplored this effect of her pro 
 pinquity and which brought Tony straight to his 
 feet. "Ah, good morning! How d'ye do?" 
 Everything came back to him but her name. 
 " Excuse my attitude I didn't hear you come 
 in." 
 
 " When I saw you asleep I'm afraid I kept the 
 footman from speaking." Jean Martle was much 
 embarrassed, but it contributed, in the happiest 
 way, to her animation. "I came in because he 
 told me that Cousin Kate's here." 
 
 " Oh yes, she's here she thought you might 
 arrive. Do sit down," Tony added, with his 
 prompt instinct of what, in his own house, was 
 due from a man of some confidence to a girl of 
 none at all. It operated before he could check it, 
 and Jean was as passive to it as if he had tossed 
 her a command ; but as soon as she was seated, to 
 obey him, in a high-backed, wide-armed Venetian 
 chair which made a gilded cage for her flutter, 
 and he had again placed himself not in the 
 same position on the sofa opposite, he recalled 
 the request just preferred by Mrs. Beever. He 
 was to send her straight home ; yes, it was to be
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 111 
 
 invited instantly to retrace her steps that she sat 
 there panting and pink. 
 
 Meanwhile she was very upright and very seri 
 ous ; she seemed very anxious to explain. " I 
 thought it better to come, since she wasn't there. 
 I had gone off to walk home with the Marshes 
 I was gone rather long; and when I came back 
 she had left the house the servants told me she 
 must be here." 
 
 Tony could only meet with the note of hospital 
 ity so logical a plea. " Oh, it's all right Mrs. 
 Beever's with Mrs. Bream." It was apparently 
 all wrong he must tell her she couldn't stay; 
 but there was a prior complication in his memory 
 of having invited her to luncheon. "I wrote to 
 your cousin I hoped you'd come. Unfortunately 
 she's not staying herself." 
 
 " Ah, then, I mustn't ! " Jean spoke with lucid 
 ity, but without quitting her chair. 
 
 Tony hesitated. " She'll be a little while yet 
 my wife has something to say to her." 
 
 The girl had fixed her eyes on the floor ; she 
 might have been reading there the fact that for 
 the first time in her life she was regularly calling 
 on a gentleman. Since this was the singular case 
 she must at least call properly. Her manner
 
 112 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 revealed an earnest effort to that end, an effort 
 visible even in the fear of a liberty if she should 
 refer too familiarly to Mrs. Bream. She cast 
 about her, with intensity, for something that 
 would show sympathy without freedom, and, as 
 a result, presently produced: "I came an hour 
 ago, and I saw Miss Armiger. She told me she 
 would bring down the baby." 
 
 "But she didn't?" 
 
 "No, Cousin Kate thought it wouldn't do." 
 
 Tony was happily struck. "It will do it 
 shall do. Should you like to see her?" 
 
 "I thought I should like it very much. It's 
 very kind of you." 
 
 Tony jumped up. "I'll show her to you my 
 self." He went over to ring a bell ; then, as he 
 came back, he added : " I delight in showing her. 
 I think she's the wonder of the world." 
 
 " That's what babies always seem to me," said 
 Jean. " It's so absorbing to watch them." 
 
 These remarks were exchanged with great 
 gravity, with stiffish pauses, while Tony hung 
 about till his ring should be answered. 
 
 "Absorbing?" he repeated. "Isn't it, prepos 
 terously ? Wait till you've watched Erne ! " 
 
 His visitor preserved for a while a silence which
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 113 
 
 might have indicated that, with this injunction, 
 her waiting had begun ; but at last she said with 
 the same simplicity : " I've a sort of original rea 
 son for my interest in her." 
 
 "Do you mean the illness of her poor mother?" 
 He saw that she meant nothing so patronising, 
 though her countenance fell with the reminder of 
 this misfortune : she heard with awe that the un 
 conscious child was menaced. " That's a very 
 good reason," he declared, to relieve her. " But 
 so much the better if you've got another too. I 
 hope you'll never want for one to be kind to her." 
 
 She looked more assured. " I'm just the per 
 son always to be." 
 
 " Just the person ? " Tony felt that he must 
 draw her out. She was now arrested, however, by 
 the arrival of a footman, to whom he immediately 
 turned. " Please ask Gorham to be as good as to 
 bring down the child." 
 
 "Perhaps she'll think it won't do," Jean sug 
 gested as the footman went off. 
 
 " Oh, she's as proud of her as I am ! But if she 
 doesn't approve, I'll take you upstairs. That'll be 
 because, as you say, you're just the person. I 
 haven't the least doubt of it but you were 
 going to tell me why."
 
 114 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 Jean treated it as if it were almost a secret. 
 " Because she was born on my day." 
 
 "Your birthday?" 
 
 " My birthday the twenty-fourth." 
 
 " Oh, I see ; that's charming that's delight 
 ful ! " The circumstance had not quite all the 
 subtlety she had beguiled him into looking for, 
 but her amusing belief in it, which left out all 
 other sharers in the date, mingled oddly, to make 
 him quickly feel that it had enough, with his 
 growing sense that Mrs. Beever's judgment of her 
 hair was a libel. " It's a most extraordinary coin 
 cidence it makes a most interesting tie. Do, 
 therefore, I beg you, whenever you keep your 
 anniversary, keep also a little hers." 
 
 "That's just what I was thinking," said Jean. 
 Then she added, still shy, yet suddenly almost 
 radiant: "I shall always send her something!" 
 
 " She shall do the same to you ! " This idea 
 had a charm even for Tony, who determined on 
 the spot, quite sincerely, that he would, for the 
 first years at least, make it his own charge. 
 " You're her very first friend," he smiled. 
 
 "Am I?" Jean thought it wonderful news. 
 "Before she has even seen me!" 
 
 "Oh, those are the first. You're 'handed 
 down,'" said Tony, humouring her.
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 115 
 
 She evidently deprecated, however, any abate 
 ment of her rarity. " Why, I haven't seen her 
 mother, either." 
 
 " No, you haven't seen her mother. But you 
 shall. And you have seen her father." 
 
 " Yes, I have seen her father." Looking at him 
 as if to make sure of it, Jean gave this assertion 
 the assent of a gaze so unrestricted that, feeling 
 herself after an instant caught, as it were, in it, 
 she turned abruptly away. 
 
 It came back to Tony at the same moment, with 
 a sort of coarseness, that he was to have sent her 
 home ; yet now, somehow, as if half through the 
 familiarity it had taken but these minutes to es 
 tablish, and half through a perception of her 
 extreme juvenility, his reluctance to tell her so 
 had dropped. " Do you know I'm under a sort of 
 dreadful vow to Mrs. Beever ? " Then as she 
 faced him again, wondering : " She told me that 
 if you should turn up I was to pack you off." 
 
 Jean stared with a fresh alarm. " Ah, I shouldn't 
 have stayed ! " 
 
 " You didn't know it, and I couldn't show you 
 the door." 
 
 " Then I must go now." 
 
 " Not a bit. I wouldn't have mentioned it to
 
 116 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 consent to that. I mention it for just the other 
 reason to keep you here as long as possible. 
 I'll make it right with Cousin Kate," Tony con 
 tinued. " I'm not afraid of her ! " he laughed. 
 " You produce an effect on me for which I'm par 
 ticularly grateful." She was acutely sensitive ; 
 for a few seconds she looked as if she thought he 
 might be amusing himself at her expense. "I 
 mean you soothe me at a moment when I really 
 want it," he said with a gentleness from which it 
 gave him pleasure to see in her face an immediate 
 impression. "I'm worried, I'm depressed, I've 
 been threshing about in my anxiety. You keep 
 me cool you're just the right thing." He 
 nodded at her in clear kindness. " Stay with me 
 stay with me ! " 
 
 Jean had not taken the flight of expressing a 
 concern for his domestic situation, but in the pity 
 that flooded her eyes at this appeal there was an 
 instant surrender to nature. It was the sweetness 
 of her youth that had calmed him, but in the re 
 sponse his words had evoked she already, on the 
 spot, looked older. "Ah, if I could help you!" 
 she timidly murmured. 
 
 "Sit down again; sit down!" He turned 
 away. " Here's the wonder of the world ! " he
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 117 
 
 exclaimed the next instant, seeing Gorham appear 
 with her charge. His interest in the apparition 
 almost simultaneously dropped, for Mrs. Beever 
 was at the opposite door. She had come back, 
 and Ramage was with her: they stopped short 
 together, and he did the same on catching the 
 direction, as he supposed, of his sharp neighbour's 
 eyes. She had an air of singular intensity ; it 
 was peculiarly embodied in a look which, as she 
 drew herself up, she shot straight past him and 
 under the reprobation of which he glanced round 
 to see Jean Martle turn pale. What he saw, how 
 ever, was not Jean Martle at all, but that very 
 different person Rose Armiger, who, by an odd 
 chance, and with Dennis Vidal at her side, pre 
 sented herself at this very juncture at the door of 
 the vestibule. It was at Rose Mrs. Beever stared 
 stared with a significance doubtless produced 
 by this young lady's falsification of her denial that 
 Mr. Vidal had been actively pursued. She took 
 no notice of Jean, who, while the rest of them 
 stood about, testified to her prompt compliance 
 with any word of Tony's by being the only mem 
 ber of the company in a chair. The sight of Mrs. 
 Beever's face appeared to have deprived her of 
 the force to rise. Tony observed these things in
 
 118 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 a flash, and also how far the same Medusa-mask 
 was from petrifying Rose Armiger, who, with a 
 bright recovery of zeal by which he himself was 
 wonderstruck, launched without delay a conscien 
 tious reminder of luncheon. It was on the table 
 it was spoiling it was spoilt ! Tony felt that 
 he must gallantly support her. "Let us at last 
 go in, then," he said to Mrs. Beever. "Let us 
 go in," he repeated to Jean and to Dennis Vidal. 
 "Doctor, you'll come too?" 
 
 He broke Jean's spell at a touch she was on 
 her feet ; but the Doctor raised, as if for general 
 application, a deterrent, authoritative hand. " If 
 you please, Bream no banquet." He looked at 
 Jean, at Rose, at Vidal, at Gorham. " I take the 
 house in hand. We immediately subside." 
 
 Tony sprang to him. " Julia's worse? " 
 
 " No she's the same." 
 
 " Then I may go to her ? " 
 
 " Absolutely not." Doctor Ramage grasped his 
 arm, linked his own in it, and held him. "If 
 you're not a good boy I lock you up in your room. 
 We immediately subside," he said again, address 
 ing the others ; " we go our respective ways, and 
 we keep very still. The fact is, I require a hushed 
 house. But before the hush descends Mrs. Beever 
 has something to say to you."
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 119 
 
 She was on the other side of Tony, who felt, 
 between them there, like their prisoner. She 
 looked at her little audience, which consisted of 
 Jean and Rose, of Mr. Vidal and the matronly 
 Gorham. Gorham carried in her ample arms a 
 large white sacrifice, a muslin-muffled offering 
 which seemed to lead up to a ceremony. " I have 
 something to say to you because Doctor Ramage 
 allows it, and because we are both under pledges 
 to Mrs. Bream. It's a very peculiar announce 
 ment for me to have on my hands, but I've just 
 passed her my promise, in the very strictest man 
 ner, to make it, before leaving the house, to every 
 one it may concern, and to repeat it in certain 
 other quarters." She paused again, and Tony, 
 from his closeness to her, could feel the tremor 
 of her solid presence. She disliked the awkward 
 ness and the coercion, and he was sorry for her, 
 because by this time he well knew what was com 
 ing. He had guessed his wife's extraordinary pre 
 caution, which would have been almost grotesque 
 if it hadn't been so infinitely touching. It seemed 
 to him that he gave the measure of his indulgence 
 for it in overlooking the wound to his delicacy 
 conveyed in the publicity she imposed. He could 
 condone this in a tender sigh, because it meant
 
 120 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 that in consequence of it she'd now pull round. 
 " She wishes it as generally known as possible," 
 Mrs. Beever brought out, "that Mr. Bream, to 
 gratify her at a crisis which I trust she exagger 
 ates, has assured her on his sacred honour that in 
 the event of her death he will not again marry." 
 
 " In the lifetime of her daughter, that is," Doc 
 tor Ramage hastened to add. 
 
 " In the lifetime of her daughter," Mrs. Beever 
 as clearly echoed. 
 
 " In the lifetime of her daughter ! " Tony him 
 self took up with an extravagance intended to 
 offer the relief of a humorous treatment, if need 
 be, to the bewildered young people whose embar 
 rassed stare was a prompt criticism of Julia's dis 
 cretion. It might have been in the spirit of a 
 protest still more vehement that, at this instant, a 
 small shrill pipe rose from the animated parcel 
 with which Gorham, participating in the general 
 awkwardness, had possibly taken a liberty. The 
 comical little sound created a happy diversion; 
 Tony sprang straight to the child. " So it is, my 
 own," he cried, " a scandal to be talking of ' life 
 times ' ! " He caught her from the affrighted nurse 
 he put his face down to hers with passion. 
 Her wail ceased and he held her close to him ; for
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 121 
 
 a minute, in silence, as if something deep went out 
 from him, he laid his cheek to her little cheek, 
 burying his head under her veil. When he gave 
 her up again, turning round, the hall was empty of 
 every one save the Doctor, who signalled per 
 emptorily to Gorham to withdraw. Tony re 
 mained there meeting his eyes, in which, after an 
 instant, the young man saw something that led 
 him to exclaim : " How dreadfully ill she must 
 be, Ramage, to have conceived a stroke in such 
 taste ! " 
 
 His companion drew him down to the sofa, pat 
 ting, soothing, supporting him. " You must bear 
 it, my dear boy you must bear everything." 
 Doctor Ramage faltered. "Your wife's exceed- 
 ingly ill."
 
 BOOK SECOND
 
 XIII 
 
 IT continued to be, for the lady of Eastmead, 
 as the years went on, a sustaining reflection that 
 if in the matter of upholstery she yielded some 
 what stiffly to the other house, so the other house 
 was put out of all countenance by the mere breath 
 of her garden. Tony could beat her indoors at 
 every point ; but when she took her stand on her 
 lawn she could defy not only Bounds but Wilver- 
 ley. Her stand, and still more her seat, in the 
 summer days, was frequent there, as we easily 
 gather from the fortified position in which we 
 next encounter her. From May to October she 
 was out, as she said, at grass, drawing from it 
 most of the time a comfortable sense that on such 
 ground as this her young friend's love of newness 
 broke down. He might make his dinner-service 
 as new as he liked; she triumphed precisely in 
 the fact that her trees and her shrubs were old. 
 He could hang nothing on his walls like her 
 
 125
 
 126 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 creepers and clusters ; there was no velvet in his 
 carpets like the velvet of her turf. She had 
 everything, or almost everything she had space 
 and time and the river. No one at Wilverley 
 had the river as she had it ; people might say of 
 course there was little of it to have, but of what 
 ever there was she was in intimate possession. 
 It skirted her grounds and improved her property 
 and amused her guests ; she always held that her 
 free access made up for being, as people said, 
 on the wrong side of it. If she had not been on 
 the wrong side she would not have had the 
 little stone foot-bridge which was her special 
 pride and the very making of her picture, and 
 which she had heard compared she had an off 
 hand way of bringing it in to a similar feature 
 of one of the celebrated " backs " at Cambridge. 
 The other side was the side of the other house, 
 the side for the view the view as to which she 
 entertained the merely qualified respect excited 
 in us, after the first creative flush, by mysteries 
 of our own making. Mrs. Beever herself formed 
 the view, and the other house was welcome to it, 
 especially to those parts of it enjoyed through the 
 rare gaps in an interposing leafy lane. Tony had a 
 gate which he called his river-gate, but you didn't
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 127 
 
 so much as suspect the stream till you got well 
 out of it. He had, on his further quarter, a 
 closer contact with the town ; but this was just 
 what she had, on both quarters, with the country. 
 Her approach to the town was by the " long way " 
 and the big bridge, and by going on, as she liked 
 to do, past the Doctor's square red house. She 
 hated stopping there, hated it as much as she 
 liked his stopping at Eastmead; in the former 
 case she seemed to consult him and in the latter 
 to advise, which was the exercise of her wisdom 
 that she decidedly preferred. Such degrees and 
 dimensions, I hasten to add, had to do, altogether, 
 with short relations and small things ; but it was 
 just the good lady's reduced scale that hel^. her 
 little world together. So true is it thac from 
 strong compression the elements of drama spring, 
 arid that there are conditions in which they seem 
 to invite not so much the opera-glass as the 
 microscope. 
 
 Never, perhaps, at any rate, had Mrs. Beever 
 been more conscious of her advantages, or at least 
 more surrounded with her conveniences, than on 
 a beautiful afternoon of June on which we are 
 again concerned with her. These blessings were 
 partly embodied in the paraphernalia of tea, which
 
 128 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 had cropped up, with promptness and profusion, 
 in a sheltered corner of the lawn, and in the midst 
 of which, waiting for custom, she might have been 
 in charge of a refreshment-stall at a fair. Every 
 thing at the other house struck her as later and 
 later, and she only regretted that, as the protest 
 of her own tradition, she couldn't move in the 
 opposite direction without also moving from the 
 hour. She waited for it now, at any rate, in 
 the presence of a large red rug and a large white 
 tablecloth, as well as of sundry basket-chairs and 
 of a hammock that swayed in the soft west wind ; 
 and she had meanwhile been occupied with a col 
 lection of parcels and pasteboard boxes that were 
 heaped together on a bench. Of one of these 
 parcels, enveloped in several layers of tissue- 
 paper, she had just possessed herself, and, seated 
 near her tea-table, was on the point of uncovering 
 it. She became aware, at this instant, of being 
 approached from behind ; on which, looking over 
 her shoulder and seeing Doctor Ramage, she im 
 mediately stayed her hands. These friends, in a 
 long acquaintance, had dropped by the way so 
 many preliminaries that absence, in their inter 
 course, was a mere parenthesis, and conversation 
 in general scarce began with a capital. But on
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 129 
 
 this occasion the Doctor was floated to a seat not, 
 as usual, on the bosom of the previous. 
 
 " Guess whom I've just overtaken on your door 
 step. The young man you befriended four years 
 ago Mr. Vidal, Miss Armiger's flame ! " 
 
 Mrs. Beever fell back in her surprise ; it was rare 
 for Mrs. Beever to fall back. " He has turned 
 up again ! " Her eyes had already asked more 
 than her friend could tell. "For what in the 
 world ?" 
 
 " For the pleasure of seeing you. He has evi 
 dently retained a very grateful sense of what you 
 did for him." 
 
 " I did nothing, my dear man I had to let it 
 alone." 
 
 " Tony's condition of course I remember 
 again required you : you were immediately called 
 back to the other house. But you gave him a 
 shelter," said the Doctor, " that wretched day and 
 that night, and he felt (it was evidently much to 
 him) that, in his rupture with his young woman, 
 you had the right instinct of the matter and were 
 somehow on his side." 
 
 " I put him up for a few hours I saved him, 
 in time, the embarrassment of finding himself in 
 a house of death. But he took himself off the
 
 130 THE OTHER HOtTSE 
 
 next morning early bidding me good-bye only 
 in a quiet little note." 
 
 "A quiet little note which I remember you 
 afterwards showed me, and which was a model 
 of discretion and good taste. It seems to me," 
 the Doctor went on, " that he doesn't violate those 
 virtues in considering that you've given him the 
 right to reappear." 
 
 "At the very time, and the only time, in so 
 long a period, that this young woman, as you 
 call her, happens also to be again in the field ? " 
 
 " That's a coincidence," the Doctor replied, 
 " far too singular for Mr. Vidal to have had any 
 forecast of it." 
 
 "You didn't then tell him?" 
 
 " I told him nothing save that you were proba 
 bly just where I find you, and that, as Manning 
 is busy with her tea-things, I would come straight 
 out for him and announce to you that he's there." 
 
 Mrs. Beever's sense of complications evidently 
 increased as she thought. " By ' there ' do you 
 mean on the doorstep ? " 
 
 "Far from it. In the safest place in the world 
 at least when you're not in it." 
 
 "In my own room?" Mrs. Beever asked. 
 
 " In that austere monument to Domestic Method
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 131 
 
 which you're sometimes pleased to call your bou 
 doir. I took upon myself to show him into it 
 and to close the door on him there. I reflected 
 that you'd perhaps like to see him before anyone 
 else." 
 
 Mrs. Beever looked at her visitor with appreci 
 ation. " You dear sharp thing ! " 
 
 "Unless, indeed," the Doctor added, "they 
 have, in so many years, already met." 
 
 " She told me only yesterday they haven't." 
 
 " I see. However, as I believe you consider 
 that she never speaks the truth, that doesn't 
 particularly count." 
 
 "I hold, on the contrary, that a lie counts 
 double," Mrs. Beever replied with decision. 
 
 Doctor Ramage laughed. "Then why have 
 you never in your life told one? I haven't even 
 yet quite made out," he pursued, "why espe 
 cially with Miss Jean here you asked Miss 
 Armiger down." 
 
 "I asked her for Tony." 
 
 "Because he suggested it? Yes, I know 
 that." 
 
 " I mean it," said Mrs. Beever, " in a sense 
 I think you don't know." She looked at him 
 a moment; but either her profundity or his
 
 132 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 caution were too great, and he waited for her 
 to commit herself further. That was a thing 
 she could always do rapidly without doing it 
 recklessly. " I asked her exactly on account of 
 Jean." 
 
 The Doctor meditated, but this seemed to 
 deepen her depth. "I give it up. You've 
 mostly struck me as so afraid of every other 
 girl Paul looks at." 
 
 Mrs. Beever's face was grave. " Yes, I have 
 been; but I'm not so afraid of them as of those 
 at whom Tony looks." 
 
 Her interlocutor stared. "He's looking at 
 Jean?" 
 
 Mrs. Beever was silent a little. " Not for the 
 first time I " 
 
 Her visitor also hesitated. "And you think 
 Miss Armiger ? ' ' 
 
 Mrs. Beever took him up. "Miss Armiger's 
 better for him since he must have somebody ! " 
 
 "You consider she'd marry him?" 
 
 "She's insanely in love with him." 
 
 The Doctor tilted up his chin; he uttered an 
 expressive " Euh ! She is indeed, poor thing ! " 
 he said. " Since you frankly mention it, I as 
 frankly agree with you, that I've never seen
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 133 
 
 anything like it. And there isn't much I've not 
 seen! But if Tony isn't crazy too ?" 
 
 "It's a kind of craze that's catching. He 
 must think of somebody or other," said Mrs. 
 Beever. 
 
 " I don't know what you mean by ' thinking ' ! 
 Do you imply that the dear man, on what we 
 know ?" The Doctor couldn't phrase it. 
 
 His friend had greater courage. " Would 
 break his vow and marry again ? " She turned 
 it over ; but at last she brought out : " Never 
 in the world." 
 
 " Then how does the chance of his thinking 
 of Rose help her?" 
 
 "I don't say it helps her. I simply say it 
 helps we." 
 
 Doctor Ramage was still mystified. "But if 
 they can't marry ?" 
 
 " I don't care whether they many or not ! " 
 
 She faced him with the bravery of this, and 
 he broke into a happy laugh. " I don't know 
 whether most to admire your imagination or 
 your morality." 
 
 " I protect my girl," she serenely declared. 
 
 Doctor Ramage made his choice. " Oh, your 
 morality ! "
 
 134 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 "In doing so," she went on, "I also protect 
 my boy. That's the highest morality I know. 
 I'll see Mr. Vidal out here," she added. 
 
 " So as to get rid of him easier ? " 
 
 " My getting rid of him will depend on what 
 he wants. He must take, after all," Mrs. Beever 
 continued, " his chance of meeting any embarrass 
 ment. If he plumps in without feeling his 
 way " 
 
 " It's his own affair I see," the Doctor said. 
 What he saw was that his friend's diplomacy had 
 suffered a slight disturbance. Mr. Vidal was a 
 new element in her reckoning ; for if, of old, she 
 had liked and pitied him, he had since dropped 
 out of her problem. Her companion, who timed 
 his pleasures to the minute, indulged in one of 
 his frequent glances at his watch. " I'll put it 
 then to the young man more gracefully than 
 you do that you'll receive him in this place." 
 
 "I shall be much obliged to you." 
 
 " But before I go," Doctor Ramage inquired, 
 " where are all our friends ? " 
 
 "I haven't the least idea. The only ones I 
 count on are Effie and Jean." 
 
 The Doctor made a motion of remembrance. 
 "To be sure it's their birthday: that fellow
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 135 
 
 put it out of my head ! The child's to come 
 over to you to tea, and just what I stopped 
 for " 
 
 "Was to see if I had got your doll?" Mrs. 
 Beever interrupted him by holding up the muffled 
 parcel in her lap. She pulled away the papers. 
 "Allow me to introduce the young lady." 
 
 The young lady was sumptuous and ample ; 
 he took her in his hands with reverence. "She's 
 splendid she's positively human ! I feel like a 
 Turkish pasha investing in a beautiful Circassian. 
 I feel, too," the Doctor went on, "how right I 
 was to depend, in the absence of Mrs. Ramage, 
 on your infallible taste." Then restoring the 
 massive puppet : " Kindly mention how much 
 I owe you." 
 
 "Pay at the shop," said Mrs. Beever. "They 
 'trusted' me." 
 
 " With the same sense of security that / had ! " 
 The Doctor got up. " Please then present the 
 object with my love and a kiss." 
 
 "You can't come back to give it yourself?" 
 
 " What do I ever give ' myself,' dear lady, but 
 medicine ? " 
 
 "Very good," said Mrs. Beever; "the presen 
 tation shall be formal. But I ought to warn
 
 136 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 you that your beautiful Circassian will have 
 been no less than the fourth." She glanced at 
 the parcels on the bench. "I mean the fourth 
 doll the child's to receive to-day." 
 
 The Doctor followed the direction of her 
 eyes. "It's a regular slave-market a perfect 
 hareem ! " 
 
 " We've each of us given her one. Each, that 
 is, except Rose." 
 
 "And what has Rose given her?" 
 
 "Nothing at all." 
 
 The Doctor thought a moment. " Doesn't she 
 like her?" 
 
 "She seems to wish it to be marked that she 
 has nothing to do with her." 
 
 Again Doctor Ramage reflected. "I see 
 that's very clever." 
 
 Mrs. Beever, from her chair, looked up at 
 him. " What do you mean by ' clever ' ? " 
 
 " I'll tell you some other time." He still 
 stood before the bench. "There are no gifts 
 for poor Jean?" 
 
 "Oh, Jean has had most of hers." 
 
 " But nothing from me" The Doctor had 
 but just thought of her; he turned sadly away. 
 " I'm quite ashamed ! "
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 137 
 
 " You needn't be," said Mrs. Beever. " She 
 has also had nothing from Tony." 
 
 He seemed struck. " Indeed ? On Miss 
 Armiger's system ? " His friend remained silent, 
 and he went on : " That of wishing it to be 
 marked that he has nothing to do with her ? " 
 
 Mrs. Beever, for a minute, continued not to 
 reply ; but at last she exclaimed : " He doesn't 
 calculate ! " 
 
 "That's bad for a banker!" Doctor Ramage 
 laughed. "What then has she had from Paul?" 
 
 "Nothing either as yet. That's to come 
 this evening." 
 
 "And what's it to be?" 
 
 Mrs. Beever hesitated. " I haven't an idea." 
 
 " Ah, you can fib ! " joked her visitor, taking 
 leave.
 
 XIV 
 
 HE crossed on his way to the house a tall par 
 lour-maid, who had just quitted it with a tray, 
 which, a moment later, she deposited on the table 
 near her mistress. Tony Bream was accustomed 
 to say that since Frederick the Great's grenadiers 
 there had never been anything like the Queen- 
 mother's parlour-maids, who indeed on field-days 
 might, in stature, uniform, and precision of exer 
 cise, have affronted comparison with that formida 
 ble phalanx. They were at once more athletic and 
 more reserved than Tony liked to see their sex, 
 and he was always sure that the extreme length 
 of their frocks was determined by that of their 
 feet. The young woman, at any rate, who now 
 presented herself, a young woman with a large 
 nose and a straight back, stiff cap-streamers, 
 stiffer petticoats and stiffest manners, was plainly 
 the corporal of her squad. There was a murmur 
 and a twitter all around her; but she rustled 
 138
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 139 
 
 about the tea-table to a tune that quenched the 
 voice of summer. It left undisturbed, however, 
 for a while, Mrs. Beever's meditations ; that lady 
 was thoughtfully occupied in wrapping up Doctor 
 Ramage's doll. " Do you know, Manning, what has 
 become of Miss Armiger?" she at last inquired. 
 
 "She went, Ma'am, near an hour ago, to the 
 pastrycook's." 
 
 "To the pastrycook's?" 
 
 "She had heard you wonder, Ma'am, she told 
 me, that the young ladies' birthday-cake hadn't 
 yet arrived." 
 
 "And she thought she'd see about it? Un 
 commonly good of her ! " Mrs. Beever exclaimed. 
 
 " Yes, Ma'am, uncommonly good." 
 
 "Has it arrived, then, now?" 
 
 "Not yet, Ma'am." 
 
 " And Miss Armiger hasn't returned ? " 
 
 "I think not, Ma'am." 
 
 Mrs. Beever considered again. " Perhaps she's 
 waiting to bring it." 
 
 Manning indulged in a proportionate pause. 
 " Perhaps, Ma'am in a fly. And when it comes, 
 Ma'am, shall I fetch it out?" 
 
 " In a fly too ? I'm afraid," said Mrs. Beever, 
 "that with such an incubation it will really re-
 
 140 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 quire one." After a moment she added: "I'll 
 go in and look at it first." And then, as her 
 attendant was about to rustle away, she further 
 detained her. " Mr. Bream hasn't been over ? " 
 
 "Not yet, Ma'am." 
 
 Mrs. Beever consulted her watch. " Then he's 
 still at the Bank." 
 
 "He must be indeed, Ma'am." 
 
 Tony's colleague appeared for a little to ponder 
 this prompt concurrence ; after which she said : 
 " You haven't seen Miss Jean ? " 
 
 Manning bethought herself. " I believe, Ma'am, 
 Miss Jean is dressing." 
 
 "Oh, in honour " But Mrs. Beever's 
 
 idea dropped before she finished her sentence. 
 
 Manning ventured to take it up. " In honour 
 of her birthday, Ma'am." 
 
 " I see of course. And do you happen to 
 have heard if that's what also detains Miss Effie 
 that she is dressing in honour of hers?" 
 
 Manning hesitated. " I heard, Ma'am, this 
 morning that Miss Effie had a slight cold." 
 
 Her mistress looked surprised. " But not such 
 as to keep her at home?" 
 
 " They were taking extra care of her, Ma'am 
 so that she might be all right for coming."
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 141 
 
 Mrs. Beever was not pleased. "Extra care? 
 Then why didn't they send for the Doctor ? " 
 
 Again Manning hesitated. " They sent for 
 Miss Jean, Ma'am." 
 
 "To come and look after her?" 
 
 " They often do, Ma'am, yon know. This morn 
 ing I took in the message." 
 
 "And Miss Jean obeyed it?" 
 
 " She was there an hour, Ma'am." 
 
 Mrs. Beever administered a more than approv 
 ing pat to the final envelope of her doll. " She 
 said nothing about it." 
 
 Again Manning concurred. " Nothing, Ma'am." 
 The word sounded six feet high, like the figure 
 she presented. She waited a moment, and then, 
 as if to close with as sharp a snap the last open 
 door to the desirable, " Mr. Paul, Ma'am," she 
 observed, "if you were wanting to know, is out 
 in his boat on the river." 
 
 Mrs. Beever pitched her parcel back to the 
 bench. " Mr. Paul is never anywhere else ! " 
 
 "Never, Ma'am," said Manning inexorably. 
 She turned the next instant to challenge the 
 stranger who had come down from the house. 
 "A gentleman, Ma'am," she announced; and, 
 retiring while Mrs. Beever rose to meet the vis-
 
 142 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 itor, she drew, with the noise of a lawn-mower, a 
 starched tail along the grass. 
 
 Dennis Vidal, with his hat off, showed his 
 hostess a head over which not a year seemed to 
 have passed. He had still his young, sharp, 
 meagre look, and it came to her that the other 
 time as well he had been dressed in double- 
 breasted blue of a cut that made him sailorly. 
 It was only on a longer view that she saw his 
 special signs to be each a trifle intensified. He 
 was browner, leaner, harder, finer ; he even struck 
 her as more wanting in height. These facts, how 
 ever, didn't prevent another fact from striking 
 her still more: what was most distinct in his 
 face was that he was really glad to take her by 
 the hand. That had an instant effect on her : 
 she could glow with pleasure, modest matron as 
 she was, at such an intimation of her having, so 
 many years before, in a few hours, made on a 
 clever young man she liked an impression that 
 could thus abide with him. In the quick light 
 of it she liked him afresh ; it was as if their friend 
 ship put down on the spot a firm foot that was 
 the result of a single stride across the chasm of 
 time. In this indeed, to her clear sense there 
 was even something more to pity him for : it was
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 143 
 
 such a dreary little picture of his interval, such 
 an implication of what it had lacked, that there 
 had been so much room in it for an ugly old 
 woman at Wilverley. She motioned him to sit 
 down with her, but she immediately remarked 
 that before she asked him a question she had an 
 important fact to make known. She had delayed 
 too long, while he waited there, to let him under 
 stand that Rose Armiger was at Eastmead. She 
 instantly saw, at this, that he had come in com 
 plete ignorance. The range of alarm, in his face, 
 was narrow ; but he coloured, looking grave ; 
 and after a brief debate with himself he inquired 
 as to Miss Armiger's actual whereabouts. 
 
 "She has gone out, but she may reappear at 
 any moment," said Mrs. Beever. 
 
 " And if she does will she come out here ? " 
 
 "I've an impression she'll change her dress 
 first. That may take her a little time." 
 
 " Then I'm free to sit with you ten minutes ? " 
 
 " As long as you like, dear Mr. Vidal. It's for 
 you to choose whether you'll avoid her." 
 
 "I dislike dodging I dislike hiding," Dennis 
 returned; "but I daresay that if I had known 
 where she was I wouldn't have come." 
 
 "I feel hatefully rude but you took a leap
 
 144 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 in the dark. The absurd part of it," Mrs. Beever 
 went on, "is that you've stumbled on her very 
 first visit to me." 
 
 The young man showed a surprise which gave 
 her the measure of his need of illumination. 
 "For these four years?" 
 
 " For these four years. It's the only time she 
 has been at Eastmead." 
 
 Dennis hesitated. "And how often has she 
 been at the other house?" 
 
 Mrs. Beever smiled. " Not even once." Then 
 as her smile broadened to a small, dry laugh, " I 
 can quite say that for her ! " she declared. 
 
 Dennis looked at her hard. " To your certain 
 knowledge ? " 
 
 "To my certain and absolute knowledge." 
 This mutual candour continued, and presently 
 she said: "But you where do you come from?" 
 
 "From far away 'I've been out of England. 
 After my visit here I went back to my post." 
 
 " And now you've returned with your fortune ? " 
 
 He gave her a smile from which the friendliness 
 took something of the bitter quality. "Call it 
 my misfortune ! " There was nothing in this to 
 deprive Mrs. Beever of the pleasant play of a 
 professional sense that he had probably gathered
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 145 
 
 an independence that would have made him wel 
 come at the Bank. On the other hand she caught 
 the note of a tired grimness in the way he added: 
 "I've come back with that. It sticks to me!" 
 
 She spared him a minute. " You want her as 
 much as ever?" 
 
 His eyes confessed to a full and indeed to a 
 sore acceptance of that expression of the degree. 
 " I want her as much as ever. It's my constitu 
 tional obstinacy ! " 
 
 " Which her treatment of you has done nothing 
 to break down?" 
 
 "To break down? It has done everything in 
 life to build it up." 
 
 "In spite of the particular circumstance ?" 
 
 At this point even Mrs. Beever's directness failed. 
 
 That of her visitor, however, was equal to the 
 occasion. " The particular circumstance of her 
 chucking me because of the sudden glimpse given 
 her by Mrs. Bream's danger of the possibility of a 
 far better match ? " He gave a laugh drier than 
 her own had just been, the ring of an irony from 
 which long, hard thought had pressed all the 
 savour. " That ' particular circumstance,' dear 
 Madam, is every bit that's the matter with 
 me!"
 
 146 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 "You regard it with extraordinary coolness, 
 but I presumed to allude to it " 
 
 "Because," Dennis broke in with lucidity, "I 
 myself made no bones of doing so on the only 
 other occasion on which we've met." 
 
 " The fact that we both equally saw, that we 
 both equally judged," said Mrs. Beever, " was on 
 that occasion really the only thing that had time 
 to pass between us. It's a tie, but it's a slender 
 one, and I'm all the more flattered that it should 
 have had any force to make you care to see me 
 again." 
 
 " It never ceased to be my purpose to see you, 
 if you would permit it, on the first opportunity. 
 My opportunity," the young man continued, " has 
 been precipitated by an accident. I returned to 
 England only last week, and was obliged two days 
 ago to come on business to Southampton. There 
 I found I should have to go, on the same matter, 
 to Marrington. It then appeared that to get to 
 Marrington I must change at Plumbury " 
 
 " And Plumbury," said Mrs. Beever, "reminded 
 you that you changed there, that it was from 
 there you drove, on that horrible Sunday." 
 
 "It brought my opportunity home to me. 
 Without wiring you or writing you, without
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 147 
 
 sounding the ground or doing anything I ought 
 to have done, I simply embraced it. I reached 
 this place an hour ago and went to the inn." 
 
 She looked at him wof ully. " Poor dear young 
 man!" 
 
 He turned it off. " I do very well. Remember 
 the places I've come from." 
 
 "I don't care in the least where you've come 
 from ! If Rose weren't here I could put you up 
 so beautifully." 
 
 " Well, now that I know it," said Dennis after 
 a moment, " I think I'm glad she's here. It's a 
 fact the more to reckon with." 
 
 "You mean to see her then?" 
 
 He sat with his eyes fixed, turning it over. 
 "You must tell me two or three things first. 
 Then I'll choose I'll decide." 
 
 She waited for him to mention his require 
 ments, turning to her teapot, which had been 
 drawing, so that she could meanwhile hand him 
 a cup. But for some minutes, taking it and stir 
 ring it, he only gazed and mused, as if his 
 curiosities were so numerous that he scarcely 
 knew which to pick out. Mrs. Beever at last, 
 with a woman's sense for this, met him exactly 
 at the right point. " I must tell you frankly that
 
 148 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 if four years ago she was a girl most people 
 admired " 
 
 He caught straight on. "She's still more 
 wonderful now?" 
 
 Mrs. Beever distinguished. "I don't know 
 about ' wonderful ' ; but she wears really well. 
 She carries the years almost as you do, and her 
 head better than any young woman I've ever 
 seen. Life is somehow becoming to her. Every 
 one's immensely struck with her. She only needs 
 to get what she wants. She has in short a charm 
 that I recognise." 
 
 Her visitor stared at her words as if they had 
 been a framed picture ; the reflected colour of it 
 made a light in his face. " And you speak as one 
 who, I remember, doesn't like her." 
 
 The lady of Eastmead faltered, but there was 
 help in her characteristic courage. "No I don't 
 like her." 
 
 " I see," Dennis considered. " May I ask then 
 why you invited her?" 
 
 " For the most definite reason in the world. 
 Mr. Bream asked me to." 
 
 Dennis gave his hard smile. " Do you do 
 everything Mr. Bream asks?" 
 
 "He asks so little!"
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 149 
 
 "Yes," Dennis allowed -"if that's a specimen! 
 Does he like her still? " he inquired. 
 
 "Just as much as ever." 
 
 The young man was silent a little. "Do you 
 mean he's in love with her?" 
 
 " He never was in any degree." 
 
 Dennis looked doubtful. " Are you very 
 sure ? " 
 
 "Well," said his hostess, "I'm sure of the 
 present. That's quite enough. He's not in love 
 with her now I have the proof." 
 
 "The proof?" 
 
 Mrs. Beever waited a moment. "His request 
 in itself. If he were in love with her he never 
 would have made it." 
 
 There was a momentary appearance on her 
 companion's part of thinking this rather too fine ; 
 but he presently said: "You mean because he's 
 completely held by his deathbed vow to his 
 wife?" 
 
 "Completely held." 
 
 " There's no likelihood of his breaking it ? " 
 
 "Not the slightest." 
 
 Dennis Vidal exhaled a low, long breath which 
 evidently represented a certain sort of relief. 
 " You're very positive ; but I've a great respect
 
 150 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 for your judgment." He thought an instant, 
 then he pursued abruptly : " Why did he wish 
 her invited ? " 
 
 " For reasons that, as he expressed them to me, 
 struck me as natural enough. For the sake of 
 old acquaintance for the sake of his wife's 
 memory." 
 
 "He doesn't consider, then, that Mrs. Bream's 
 obsession, as you term it, had been in any degree 
 an apprehension of Rose?" 
 
 " Why should he ? " Mrs. Beever asked. 
 "Rose, for poor Julia, was on the point of 
 becoming your wife." 
 
 " Ah ! for all that was to prevent ! " Dennis 
 ruefully exclaimed. 
 
 "It was to prevent little enough, but Julia 
 never knew how little. Tony asked me a month 
 ago if I thought he might without awkwardness 
 propose to Miss Armiger a visit to the other 
 house. I said ' No, silly boy ! ' and he dropped 
 the question; but a week later he came back 
 to it. He confided to me that he was ashamed, 
 for so long, to have done so little for her; and 
 she had behaved, in a difficult situation, with such 
 discretion and delicacy that to have 'shunted' 
 her, as he said, so completely was a kind of
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 151 
 
 outrage to Julia's affection for her and a slur 
 upon hers for his wife. I said to him that if 
 it would help him a bit I would address her a 
 suggestion that she should honour me with her 
 company. He jumped at that, and I wrote. 
 She jumped and here she is." 
 
 Poor Dennis, at this, gave a spring, as if the 
 young lady had come into sight. Mrs. Beever 
 reassured him, but he was on his feet and he 
 stood before her. "This, then, is their first 
 meeting ? " 
 
 " Dear, no ! they've met in London. He often 
 goes up." 
 
 "How often?" 
 
 " Oh, irregularly. Sometimes twice a month." 
 
 "And he sees her every time?" 
 
 Mrs. Beever considered. " Every time ? I 
 should think hardly." 
 
 "Then every other?" 
 
 "I haven't the least idea." 
 
 Dennis looked round the garden. "You say 
 you're convinced that in the face of his promise 
 he has no particular interest in her. You 
 mean, however, of course, but to the extent of 
 marriage." 
 
 " I mean," said Mrs. Beever, " to the extent of
 
 152 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 anything at all." She also rose; she brought 
 out her whole story. " He's in love with another 
 person." 
 
 " Ah," Dennis murmured, " that's none of my 
 business ! " He nevertheless closed his eyes an 
 instant with the cool balm of it. " But it makes 
 a lot of difference." 
 
 She laid a kind hand on his arm. " Such a lot, 
 I hope, then, that you'll join our little party ? " 
 He looked about him again, irresolute, and 
 his eyes fell on the packages gathered hard by, 
 of which the nature was betrayed by a glimpse 
 of flaxen curls and waxen legs. She immediately 
 enlightened him. " Preparations for a birthday 
 visit from the little girl at the other house. 
 She's coming over to receive them." 
 
 Again he dropped upon a seat : she stood there 
 and he looked up at her. "At last we've got 
 to business ! It's she I've come to ask about." 
 
 "And what do you wish to ask?" 
 
 "How she goes on I mean in health." 
 
 " Not very well, I believe, just to-day ! " Mrs. 
 Beever laughed. 
 
 "Just to-day?" 
 
 " She's reported to have a slight cold. But 
 don't be alarmed. In general she's splendid."
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 153 
 
 He hesitated. " Then you call it a good 
 little life?" 
 
 " I call it a beautiful one ! " 
 
 "I mean she won't pop off?" 
 
 "I can't guarantee that," said Mrs. Beever. 
 "But till she does " 
 
 " Till she does ? " he asked as she paused. 
 
 She paused a moment longer. "Well it's a 
 comfort to see her. You'll do that for yourself." 
 
 " I shall do that for myself," Dennis repeated. 
 After a moment he went on: "To be utterly 
 frank, it was to do it I came." 
 
 " And not to see me f Thank you ! But I 
 quite understand," said Mrs. Beever; "you 
 looked to me to introduce you. Sit still where 
 you are, and I will." 
 
 "There's one thing more I must ask you. 
 You see ; you know ; you can tell me." He 
 complied but a minute with her injunction ; 
 again, nervously, he was on his feet. "Is Miss 
 Armiger in love with Mr. Bream ? " 
 
 His hostess turned away. "That's the one 
 question I can't answer." Then she faced him 
 again. "You must find out for yourself." 
 
 He stood looking at her. " How shall I find 
 out?"
 
 154 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 " By watching her." 
 
 " Oh, I didn't come to do that ! " Dennis, on 
 his side, turned away; he was visibly dissatis 
 fied. But he checked himself; before him rose 
 a young man in boating flannels, who appeared 
 to have come up from the river, who had ad 
 vanced noiselessly across the lawn, and whom 
 Mrs. Beever introduced, without ceremony, as 
 her " boy." Her boy blinked at Dennis, to whose 
 identity he received no clue ; and her visitor 
 decided on a course. " May I think over what 
 you've said to me and come back?" 
 
 " I shall be very happy to see you again. But 
 in this poor place what will you do ? " 
 
 Dennis glanced at the river, then he appealed to 
 the young man. " Will you lend me your boat? " 
 
 " It's mine" said Mrs. Beever with decision. 
 " You're welcome to it." 
 
 " I'll take a little turn." Raising his hat, 
 Dennis went rapidly down to the stream. 
 
 Paul Beever looked after him. "Hadn't I 
 better show him ? " he asked of his mother. 
 
 "You had better sit right down there." She 
 pointed with sharpness to the chair Dennis had 
 quitted, and her son submissively took posses 
 sion of it.
 
 XV 
 
 PAUL BEEVEE was tall and fat, and his eyes, 
 like his mother's, were very small; but more 
 even than to his mother nature had offered him 
 a compensation for this defect in the extension 
 of the rest of the face. He had large, bare, 
 beardless cheeks and a wide, clean, candid mouth, 
 which the length of the smooth upper lip caused 
 to look as exposed as a bald head. He had a 
 deep fold of flesh round his uncovered young 
 neck, and his white flannels showed his legs to 
 be all the way down of the same thickness. He 
 promised to become massive early in life and 
 even to attain a remarkable girth. His great 
 tastes were for cigarettes and silence; but he 
 was, in spite of his proportions, neither gross 
 nor lazy. If he was indifferent to his figure he 
 was equally so to his food, and he played cricket 
 with his young townsmen and danced hard with 
 their wives and sisters. Wilverley liked him 
 
 155
 
 156 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 and Tony Bream thought well of him: it was 
 only his mother who had not yet made up her 
 mind. He had done a good deal at Oxford 
 in not doing any harm, and he had subse 
 quently rolled round the globe in the very groove 
 with which she had belted it. But it was exactly 
 in satisfying that he a little disappointed her: 
 she had provided so against dangers that she 
 found it a trifle dull to be so completely safe. 
 It had become with her a question not of how 
 clever he was, but of how stupid. Tony had 
 expressed the view that he was distinctly deep, 
 but that might only have been, in Tony's florid 
 way, to show that he himself was so. She would 
 not have found it convenient to have to give the 
 boy an account of Mr. Vidal; but now that, 
 detached from her purposes and respectful of her 
 privacies, he sat there without making an inquiry, 
 she was disconcerted enough slightly to miss the 
 opportunity to snub him. On this occasion, how 
 ever, she could steady herself with the possibility 
 that her hour would still come. He began to eat 
 a bun his row justified that; and meanwhile 
 she helped him to his tea. As she handed him 
 the cup she challenged him with some sharpness. 
 "Pray, when are you going to give it?"
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 157 
 
 He slowly masticated while he looked at her. 
 "When do you think I had better?" 
 
 " Before dinner distinctly. One doesn't know 
 what may happen." 
 
 " Do you think anything at all will ? " he 
 placidly asked. 
 
 His mother waited before answering. "Noth 
 ing, certainly, unless you take some trouble for 
 it." His perception of what she meant by this 
 was clearly wanting, so that after a moment she 
 continued: "You don't seem to grasp that I've 
 done for you all I can do, and that the rest now 
 depends on yourself." 
 
 " Oh yes, mother, I grasp it," he said without 
 irritation. He took another bite of his bun, and 
 then he added: "Miss Armiger has made me 
 quite do that." 
 
 "Miss Armiger?" Mrs. Beever stared; she 
 even felt that her opportunity was at hand. 
 "What in the world has she to do with the 
 matter?" 
 
 "Why, I've talked to her a lot about it." 
 
 "You mean she has talked to you a lot, I sup 
 pose. It's immensely like her." 
 
 " It's like my mother that's whom it's like," 
 said Paul. " She takes just the same view as
 
 158 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 yourself. I mean the view that I've a great 
 opening and that I must make a great effort." 
 
 "And don't you see that for yourself? Do 
 you require a pair of women to tell you ? " Mrs. 
 Beever asked. 
 
 Paul, looking grave and impartial, turned her 
 question over while he stirred his tea. " No, not 
 exactly. But Miss Armiger puts everything so 
 well." 
 
 "She puts some things doubtless beautifully. 
 Still, I should like you to be conscious of some 
 better reason for making yourself acceptable to 
 Jean than that another young woman, however 
 brilliant, recommends it." 
 
 The young man continued to ruminate, and it 
 occurred to his mother, as it had occurred before, 
 that his imperturbability was perhaps a strength. 
 "I am," he said at last. "She seems to make 
 clear to me what I feel." 
 
 Mrs. Beever wondered. " You mean of course 
 Jean does." 
 
 " Dear no Miss Armiger ! " 
 
 The lady of Eastmead laughed out in her im 
 patience. "I'm delighted to hear you feel any 
 thing. You haven't often seemed to me to feel." 
 
 "I feel that Jean's very charming."
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 159 
 
 She laughed again at the way he made it 
 sound. " Is that the tone in which you think of 
 telling her so?" 
 
 " I think she'll take it from me in any tone," 
 Paul replied. "She has always been most kind 
 to me ; we're very good friends, and she knows 
 what I want." 
 
 " It's more than / do, my dear ! That's ex 
 actly what you said to me six months ago 
 when she liked you so much that she asked you 
 to let her alone." 
 
 "She asked me to give her six months for a 
 definite answer, and she likes me the more for 
 having consented to do that," said Paul. " The 
 time I've waited has improved our relations." 
 
 " Well, then, they now must have reached 
 perfection. You'll get her definite answer, there 
 fore, this very afternoon." 
 
 " When I present the ornament ? " 
 
 "When you present the ornament. You've 
 got it safe, I hope ? " 
 
 Paul hesitated; he took another bun. "I im 
 agine it's all right." 
 
 " Do you only ' imagine ' with a thing of that 
 value? What have you done with it?" 
 
 Again the young man faltered. " I've given
 
 160 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 it to Miss Armiger. She was afraid I'd lose 
 it." 
 
 "And you were not afraid she would?" his 
 mother cried. 
 
 "Not a bit. She's to give it back to me on 
 this spot. She wants me too much to succeed." 
 
 Mrs. Beever was silent a little. " And how 
 much do you want her to ? " 
 
 Paul looked blank. "In what?" 
 
 " In making a fool of you." Mrs. Beever gath 
 ered herself. " Are you in love with Rose Armi 
 ger, Paul?" 
 
 He judiciously considered the question. " Not 
 in the least. I talk with her of nobody and noth 
 ing but Jean." 
 
 "And do you talk with Jean of nobody and 
 nothing but Rose?" 
 
 Paul appeared to make an effort to remember. 
 " I scarcely talk with her at all. We're such old 
 friends that there's almost nothing to say." 
 
 " There's this to say, my dear that you take 
 too much for granted ! " 
 
 " That's just what Miss Armiger tells me. 
 Give me, please, some more tea." His mother 
 took his cup, but she looked at him hard and 
 searchingly. He bore it without meeting her
 
 THE OTHEK HOUSE 161 
 
 eyes, only turning his own pensively to the differ 
 ent dainties on the table. " If I do take a great 
 deal for granted," he went on, " you must remem 
 ber that you brought me up to it." 
 
 Mrs. Beever found only after an instant a reply. 
 Then, however, she uttered it with an air of 
 triumph. "I may have brought you up but I 
 didn't bring up Jean ! " 
 
 " Well, it's not of her I'm speaking," the young 
 man good-humouredly rejoined ; " though I might 
 remind you that she has been here again and 
 again, and month after month, and has always 
 been taught so far as you could teach her 
 to regard me as her inevitable fate. Have you 
 any real doubt," he went on, " of her recognising 
 in a satisfactory way that the time has come ? " 
 
 Mrs. Beever transferred her scrutiny to the 
 interior of her teapot. "No!" she said after a 
 moment. 
 
 "Then what's the matter?" 
 
 " The matter is that I'm nervous, and that your 
 stolidity makes me so. I want you to behave to 
 me as if you cared and I want you still more 
 to behave so to her" Paul made, in his seat, a 
 movement in which his companion caught, as she 
 supposed, the betrayal of a sense of oppression;
 
 162 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 and at this her own worst fear broke out. " Oh, 
 don't tell me you don't care for if you do I 
 don't know what I shall do to you ! " He looked 
 at her with an air he sometimes had, which 
 always aggravated her impatience, an air of 
 amused surprise, quickened to curiosity, that 
 there should be in the world organisms capable 
 of generating heat. She had thanked God, 
 through life, that she was cold-blooded, but now 
 it seemed to face her as a Nemesis that she was 
 a volcano compared with her son. This trans 
 ferred to him the advantage she had so long 
 monopolised, that of always seeing, in any relation 
 or discussion, the other party become the specta 
 cle, while, sitting back in her stall, she remained 
 the spectator and even the critic. She hated to 
 perform to Paul as she had made others perform 
 to herself; but she determined on the instant 
 that, since she was condemned to do so, she 
 would do it to some purpose. She would have 
 to leap through a hoop, but she would land on 
 her charger's back. The next moment Paul was 
 watching her while she shook her little flags at 
 him. "There's one thing, my dear, that I can 
 give you my word of honour for the fact that 
 if the influence that congeals, that paralyses you
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 163 
 
 happens by any chance to be a dream of what 
 may be open to you in any other quarter, the 
 sooner you utterly dismiss that dream the better 
 it will be not only for your happiness, but for 
 your dignity. If you entertain with no matter 
 how bad a conscience a vain fancy that you've 
 the smallest real chance of making the smallest 
 real impression on anybody else, all I can say is 
 that you prepare for yourself very nearly as 
 much discomfort as you prepare disgust for your 
 mother." She paused a moment; she felt, before 
 her son's mild gape, like a trapezist in pink tights. 
 " How much susceptibility, I should like to know, 
 has Miss Armiger at her command for your great 
 charms ? " 
 
 Paul showed her a certain respect; he didn't 
 clap her that is, he didn't smile. He felt some 
 thing, however, which was indicated, as it always 
 was, by the way his eyes grew smaller: they con 
 tracted at times, in his big, fair face, to mere little 
 conscious points. These points he now directed 
 to the region of the house. " Well, mother," he 
 quietly replied, " if you would like to know it 
 hadn't you better ask her directly? " Rose Armi 
 ger had come into view; Mrs. Beever, turning, 
 saw her approach, bareheaded, in a fresh white
 
 164 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 dress, under a showy red parasol. Paul, as she 
 drew near, left his seat and strolled to the ham 
 mock, into which he meditatively dropped. Ex 
 tended there, while the great net bulged and its 
 attachments cracked with his weight, he spoke 
 with the same plain patience. "She has come 
 to give me up the ornament."
 
 XVI 
 
 "THE great cake has at last arrived, dear 
 lady ! " Rose gaily announced to Mrs. Beever, 
 who waited, before acknowledging the news, long 
 enough to suggest to her son that she was per 
 haps about to act on his advice. 
 
 " I'm much obliged to you for having gone to 
 see about it," was, however, what, after a moment, 
 Miss Armiger's hostess elected to reply. 
 
 " It was an irresistible service. I shouldn't have 
 got over on such a day as this," said Rose, "the 
 least little disappointment to dear little Jean." 
 
 " To say nothing, of course, of dear little Erne," 
 Mrs. Beever promptly rejoined. 
 
 "It comes to the same thing the occasion so 
 mixes them up. They're interlaced 011 the cake 
 with their initials and their candles. There 
 are plenty of candles for each," Rose laughed, 
 "for their years have been added together. It 
 makes a very pretty number ! " 
 
 165
 
 166 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 " It must also make a very big cake," said Mrs. 
 Beever. 
 
 " Colossal." 
 
 "Too big to be brought out?" 
 
 The girl considered. " Not so big, you know," 
 she archly replied, "as if the candles had to be 
 yours and mine ! " Then holding up the " orna 
 ment " to Paul, she said : " I surrender you my 
 trust. Catch ! " she added, with decision, mak 
 ing a movement to toss him a small case in red 
 morocco, which, the next moment, in its flight 
 through the air, without altering his attitude, he 
 intercepted with one hand. 
 
 Mrs. Beever's excited mistrust dropped at the 
 mere audacity of this: there was something per 
 ceptibly superior in the girl who could meet half 
 way, so cleverly, a suspicion she was quite con 
 scious of and much desired to dissipate. The 
 lady of Eastmead looked at her hard, reading her 
 desire in the look she gave back. "Trust me, 
 trust me," her eyes seemed to plead ; " don't at 
 all events think me capable of any self-seeking 
 that's stupid or poor. I may be dangerous to my 
 self, but I'm not so to others ; least of all am I so 
 to you" She had a presence that was, in its way, 
 like Tony Bream's : it made, simply and directly,
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 167 
 
 a difference in any personal question exposed to 
 it. Under its action, at all events, Mrs. Beever 
 found herself suddenly feeling that she could 
 after all trust Rose if she could only trust Paul. 
 She glanced at that young man as he lay in the 
 hammock, and saw that in spite of the familiarity 
 of his posture which indeed might have been 
 assumed with a misleading purpose his dimin 
 ished pupils, fixed upon their visitor, still had 
 the expression imparted to them by her own last 
 address. She hesitated ; but while she did so 
 Rose came straight up to her and kissed her. It 
 was the very first time, and Mrs. Beever blushed 
 as if one of her secrets had been surprised. Rose 
 explained her impulse only with a smile ; but the 
 smile said vividly : " I'll polish him off ! " 
 
 This brought a response to his mother's lips. 
 " I'll go and inspect the cake ! " 
 
 Mrs. Beever took her way to the house, and as 
 soon as her back was turned her son got out of 
 the hammock. An observer of the scene would 
 not have failed to divine that, with some pro 
 fundity of calculation, he had taken refuge there 
 as a mute protest against any frustration of his 
 interview with Rose. This young lady herself 
 laughed out as she saw him rise, and her laugh
 
 168 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 would have been, for the same observer, a tribute 
 to the natural art that was mingled with his 
 obvious simplicity. Paul himself recognised its 
 bearing and, as he came and stood at the tea-table, 
 acknowledged her criticism by saying quietly: 
 "I was afraid my mother would take me away." 
 
 " On the contrary ; she has formally sur 
 rendered you." 
 
 "Then you must let me perform her office 
 and help you to some tea." 
 
 He spoke with a rigid courtesy that was not 
 without its grace, and in the rich shade of her 
 umbrella, which she twirled repeatedly on her 
 shoulder, she looked down with detachment at 
 the table. "I'll do it for myself, thank you; 
 and I should like you to return to your ham 
 mock." 
 
 "I left it on purpose," the young man said. 
 "Flat on my back, that way, I'm at a sort of 
 disadvantage in talking with you." 
 
 " That's precisely why I make the request. I 
 wish you to be flat on your back and to have 
 nothing whatever to reply." Paul immediately 
 retraced his steps, but before again extending 
 himself he asked her, with the same grave con 
 sideration, where in this case she would be
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 169 
 
 seated. " I sha'n't be seated at all," she an 
 swered; "I'll walk about and stand over you 
 and bully you." He tumbled into his net, sitting 
 up rather more than before ; and, coming close 
 to it, she put out her hand. "Let me see that 
 object again." He had in his lap the little box 
 he had received from her, and at this he passed 
 it back. She opened it, pressing on the spring, 
 and, inclining her head to one side, considered 
 afresh the mounted jewel that nestled in the 
 white velvet. Then, closing the case with a 
 loud snap, she restored it to him. "Yes, it's 
 very good ; it's a wonderful stone, and she knows. 
 But that alone, my dear, won't do it." She 
 leaned, facing him, against the tense ropes of 
 the hammock, and he looked up at her. " You 
 take too much for granted." 
 
 For a moment Paul answered nothing, but at 
 last he brought out : " That's just what I said 
 to my mother you had already said when she 
 said just the same." 
 
 Rose stared an instant; then she smiled again. 
 " It's complicated, but I follow you ! She has 
 been waking you up." 
 
 "She knows," said her companion, "that you 
 advise me in the same sense as herself."
 
 170 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 "She believes it at last her leaving us to 
 gether was a sign of that. I have at heart per 
 fectly to justify her confidence, for hitherto she 
 has been so blind to her own interest as to sup 
 pose that, in these three weeks, you had been so 
 tiresome as to fall in love with me." 
 
 "I particularly told her I haven't at all." 
 
 Paul's tone had at its moments of highest 
 gravity the gift of moving almost any interlocutor 
 to mirth. "I hope you'll be more convincing 
 than that if you ever particularly tell anyone 
 you have at all ! " the girl exclaimed. She gave 
 a slight push to the hammock, turning away, 
 and he swung there gently a minute. 
 
 " You mustn't ask too much of me, you know," 
 he finally said, watching her as she went to the 
 table and poured out a cup of tea. 
 
 She drank a little and then, putting down 
 the cup, came back to him. "I should be ask 
 ing too much of you only if you were asking 
 too much of her. You're so far from that, and 
 your position's so perfect. It's too beautiful, 
 you know, what you offer." 
 
 "I know what I offer, and I know what I 
 don't," Paul returned; "and the person we 
 speak of knows exactly as well. All the ele-
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 171 
 
 ments are before her, and if my position's so 
 fine it's there for her to see it, quite as well 
 as for you. I agree with you that I'm a decent 
 sort, and that, as things are going, my business, 
 my prospects, my guarantees of one kind and 
 another, are substantial. But just these things, 
 for years, have been made familiar to her, and 
 nothing, without a risk of greatly boring her, 
 can very well be added to the account. You 
 and my mother say I take too much for granted ; 
 but I take only that." This was a long speech 
 for our young man, and his want of accent, his 
 passionless pauses, made it seem a trifle longer. 
 It had a visible effect on Rose Armiger, whom 
 he held there with widening eyes as he talked. 
 There was an intensity in her face, a bright 
 sweetness that, when he stopped, seemed to give 
 itself out to him as if to encourage him to go on. 
 But he went on only to the extent of adding: 
 " All I mean is that if I'm good enough for her 
 she has only to take me." 
 
 " You're good enough for the best girl in the 
 world," Rose said with the tremor of sincerity. 
 "You're honest and kind; you're generous and 
 wise." She looked at him with a sort of intelli 
 gent pleasure, that of a mind fine enough to be
 
 172 THE OTHEK HOUSE 
 
 touched by an exhibition of beauty even the 
 most occult. "You're so sound you're so safe 
 that it makes any relation with you a real luxury 
 and a thing to be grateful for." She shed on 
 him her sociable approval, treating him as a 
 happy product, speaking of him as of another 
 person. " I shall always be glad and proud that 
 you've been, if only for an hour, my friend ! " 
 
 Paul's response to this demonstration consisted 
 in getting slowly and heavily on his feet. "Do 
 you think I like what you do to me ? " he abruptly 
 demanded. 
 
 It was a sudden new note, but it found her 
 quite ready. " I don't care whether you like it 
 or not ! It's my duty, and it's yours it's the 
 right thing." 
 
 He stood there in his tall awkwardness ; he 
 spoke as if he had not heard her. " It's too 
 strange to have to take it from you" 
 
 " Everything's strange and the truest things 
 are the strangest. Besides, it isn't so extraordi 
 nary as that comes to. It isn't as if you had an 
 objection to her ; it isn't as if she weren't beauti 
 ful and good really cultivated and altogether 
 charming. It isn't as if, since I first saw her 
 here, she hadn't developed in the most admirable
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 173 
 
 way, and also hadn't, by her father's death, come 
 into three thousand a year and into an oppor 
 tunity for looking, with the red gold of her 
 hair, in the deepest, daintiest, freshest mourning, 
 lovelier far, my dear boy, than, with all respect, 
 any girl who can ever have strayed before, or 
 ever will again, into any Wilverley bank. It 
 isn't as if, granting you do care for me, there 
 were the smallest chance, should you try to 
 make too much of it, of my ever doing anything 
 but listen to you with a pained ' Oh, dear ! ' pat 
 you affectionately on the back, and push you 
 promptly out of the room." Paul Beever, when 
 she thus encountered him, quitted his place, 
 moving slowly outside the wide cluster of chairs, 
 while Rose, within it, turned as he turned, press 
 ing him with deeper earnestness. He stopped 
 behind one of the chairs, holding its high back 
 and now meeting her eyes. " If you do care for 
 me," she went on with her warm voice, " there's 
 a magnificent way you can show it. You can 
 show it by putting into your appeal to Miss 
 Martle something that she can't resist." 
 
 " And what may she not be able to resist ? " 
 Paul inquired, keeping his voice steady, but 
 shaking his chair a little.
 
 174 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 " Why, you if you'll only be a bit personal, 
 a bit passionate, have some appearance of really 
 desiring her, some that your happiness really 
 depends on her." Paul looked as if he were 
 taking a lesson, and she gave it with growing 
 assurance. " Show her some tenderness, some 
 eloquence, try some touch of the sort that goes 
 home. Speak to her, for God's sake, the words 
 that women like. We all like them, and we all 
 feel them, and you can do nothing good without 
 them. Keep well in sight that what you must 
 absolutely do is please her." 
 
 Paul seemed to fix his little eyes on this aim. 
 " Please her and please you." 
 
 " It sounds odd, yes, lumping us together. But 
 that doesn't matter," said Rose. " The effect of 
 your success will be that you'll unspeakably help 
 and comfort me. It's difficult to talk about it 
 my grounds are so deep, deep down." She hesi 
 tated, casting about her, asking herself how far 
 she might go. Then she decided, growing a 
 little pale with the effort. "I've an idea that 
 has become a passion with me. There's a right 
 I must see done there's a wrong I must make 
 impossible. There's a loyalty I must cherish 
 there's a memory I must protect. That's all I
 
 THE OTHEE, HOUSE 175 
 
 can say." She stood there in her vivid meaning 
 like the priestess of a threatened altar. " If that 
 girl becomes your wife why, then I'm at last 
 at rest!" 
 
 " You get, by my achievement, what you want 
 I see. And, please, what do / get?" Paul 
 presently asked. 
 
 "You?" The blood rushed back to her face 
 with the shock of this question. "Why, you 
 get Jean Martle ! " He turned away without a 
 word, and at the same moment, in the distance, 
 she saw the person whose name she had just 
 uttered descend the great square steps. She 
 hereupon slipped through the circle of chairs and 
 rapidly met her companion, who stopped short 
 as she approached. Rose looked him straight in 
 the eyes. " If you give me the peace I pray for, 
 I'll do anything for you in life ! " She left him 
 staring and passed down to the river, where, on 
 the little bridge, Tony Bream was in sight, wav 
 ing his hat to her as he came from the other 
 house.
 
 XVII 
 
 ROSE ARMIGEE, in a few moments, was joined 
 by Tony, and they came up the lawn together to 
 where Jean Martle stood talking with Paul. 
 Here, at the approach of the master of Bounds, 
 this young lady anxiously inquired if Effie had 
 not heen well enough to accompany him. She 
 had expected to find her there; then, failing 
 that, had taken for granted he would bring her. 
 
 "I've left the question, my dear Jean, in her 
 nurse's hands," Tony said. " She had been bedi 
 zened from top to toe, and then, on some slight 
 appearance of being less well, had been despoiled, 
 denuded, and disappointed. She's a poor little 
 lamb of sacrifice. They were at her again, when 
 I came away, with the ribbons and garlands ; but 
 there was apparently much more to come, and 
 I couldn't answer for it that a single sneeze 
 wouldn't again lay everything low. It's in the 
 bosom of the gods. I couldn't wait." 
 
 176
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 177 
 
 " You were too impatient to be with MS," 
 Rose suggested. 
 
 Tony, with a successful air of very light com 
 edy, smiled and inclined himself. "I was too 
 impatient to be with you, Miss Armiger." The 
 lapse of four years still presented him in such 
 familiar mourning as might consort with a coun 
 try nook on a summer afternoon ; but it also 
 allowed undiminished relief to a manner of ad 
 dressing women which was clearly instinctive 
 and habitual, and which, at the same time, by 
 good fortune, had the grace of flattery without 
 phrases and of irony without impertinence. He 
 was a little older, but he was not heavier; he 
 was a little worn, but he was not worn dull. His 
 presence was, anywhere and at any time, as much 
 as ever the clock at the moment it strikes. Paul 
 Beever's little eyes, after he appeared, rested on 
 Rose with an expression which might have been 
 that of a man counting the waves produced on 
 a sheet of water by the plunge of a large object. 
 For any like ripple on the fine surface of the 
 younger girl he appeared to have no attention. 
 
 "I'm glad that remark's not addressed to we," 
 Jean said gaily ; " for I'm afraid I must immedi 
 ately withdraw from you the light of my society."
 
 
 178 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 "On whom then do you mean to bestow it?" 
 
 " On your daughter, this moment. I must go 
 and judge for myself of her condition." 
 
 Tony looked at her more seriously. " If you're 
 at all really troubled about her I'll go back with 
 you. You're too beautifully kind : they told me 
 of your having been with her this morning." 
 
 " Ah, you were with her this morning ? " Rose 
 asked of Jean in a manner to which there was a 
 clear effort to impart the intonation of the casual, 
 but which had in it something that made the 
 person addressed turn to her with a dim surprise. 
 Jean stood there in her black dress and her fair 
 beauty; but her wonder was not of a sort to 
 cloud the extraordinary radiance of her youth. 
 " For ever so long. Don't you know I've made 
 her my peculiar and exclusive charge ? " 
 
 " Under the pretext," Tony went on, to Rose, 
 "of saving her from perdition. I'm supposed to 
 be in danger of spoiling her, but Jean treats her 
 quite as spoiled ; which is much the greater injury 
 of the two." 
 
 " Don't go back, at any rate, please," Rose said 
 to him with soft persuasion. "I never see you, 
 you know, and I want just now particularly to 
 speak to you." Tony instantly expressed sub-
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 179 
 
 mission, and Rose, checking Jean, who, at this, 
 in silence, turned to take her way to the bridge, 
 reminded Paul Beever that she had just heard 
 from him of his having, on his side, some special 
 purpose of an interview with Miss Martle. 
 
 At this Paul grew very red. " Oh yes, I 
 should rather like to speak to you, please," he 
 said to Jean. 
 
 She had paused half-way down the little slope ; 
 she looked at him frankly and kindly. 
 
 " Do you mean immediately ? " 
 
 "As soon as you've time." 
 
 "I shall have time as soon as I've been to 
 Effie," Jean replied. " I want to bring her over. 
 There are four dolls waiting for her." 
 
 " My dear child," Rose familiarly exclaimed, 
 " at home there are about forty ! Don't you 
 give her one every day or two?" she went on 
 to Tony. 
 
 Her question didn't reach him ; he was too 
 much interested in Paul's arrangement with Jean, 
 on whom his eyes were fixed. " Go, then to 
 be the sooner restored to us. And do bring the 
 kid ! " He spoke with jollity. 
 
 " I'm going in to change perhaps I shall 
 presently find you here," Paul put in.
 
 180 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 " You'll certainly find ine, dear Paul. I shall 
 be quick ! " the girl called back. And she lightly 
 went her way, while Paul walked off to the house 
 and the two others, standing together, watched 
 her a minute. In spite of her black dress, of 
 which the thin, voluminous tissue fluttered in 
 the summer breeze, she seemed to shine in the 
 afternoon light. They saw her reach the bridge, 
 where, in the middle, she turned and tossed back 
 at them a wave of her handkerchief ; after which 
 she dipped to the other side and disappeared. 
 
 " Mayn't I give you some tea ? " Rose said to 
 her companion. She nodded at the bright display 
 of Mrs. Beever's hospitality; Tony gratefully ac 
 cepted her offer and they strolled on side by side. 
 " Why have you ceased to call me ' Rose ' ? " she 
 then suddenly demanded. 
 
 Tony started so that he practically stopped ; 
 on which she promptly halted. "Have I, my 
 
 dear woman? I didn't know " He looked 
 
 at her and, looking at her, he after a moment 
 markedly coloured: he had the air of a man 
 who sees something that operates as a warning. 
 What Tony Bream saw was a circumstance of 
 which he had already had glimpses; but for 
 some reason or other it was now written with a
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 181 
 
 largeness that made it resemble a printed poster 
 on a wall. It might have been, from the way 
 he took it in, a big yellow advertisement, to the 
 publicity of whose message no artifice of type 
 was wanting. This message was simply Rose 
 Armiger's whole face, exquisite and tragic in its 
 appeal, stamped with a sensibility that was almost 
 abject, a tenderness that was more than eager. 
 The appeal was there, for an instant, with rare 
 intensity, and what Tony felt in response to it he 
 felt without fatuity or vanity. He could meet 
 it only with a compassion as unreserved as itself. 
 He looked confused, but he looked kind, and his 
 companion's eyes lighted as with the sense of 
 something that at last even in pure pity had 
 come out to her. It was as if she let him know 
 that since she had been at Eastmead nothing 
 whatever had come out. 
 
 " When I was at Bounds, four years ago," she 
 said, " you called me ' Rose ' and you called our 
 friend there " she made a movement in the 
 direction Jean had taken " nothing at all. 
 Now you call her by her name, and you call 
 me nothing at all." 
 
 Tony obligingly turned it over. " Don't I call 
 you 'Miss Armiger'?"
 
 182 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 "Is that anything at all?" Rose effectively 
 asked. "You're conscious of some great differ 
 ence." 
 
 Tony hesitated ; he walked on. " Between you 
 and Jean?" 
 
 " Oh, the difference between me and Jean goes 
 without saying. What I mean is the difference 
 between my having been at Wilverley then and 
 my being here now." 
 
 They reached the tea-table, and Tony, dropping 
 into a chair, removed his hat. "What have I 
 called you when we've met in London?" 
 
 She stood before him, closing her parasol. 
 " Don't you even know ? You've called me noth 
 ing." She proceeded to pour out tea for him, 
 busying herself delicately with Mrs. Beever's 
 wonderful arrangements for keeping things hot. 
 " Have you by any chance been conscious of what 
 I've called you?" she said. 
 
 Tony let himself, in his place, be served. 
 " Doesn't everyone in the wide world call me 
 the inevitable 'Tony'? The name's dreadful 
 for a banker : it should have been a bar, for me, 
 to that career. It's fatal to dignity. But then 
 of course I haven't any dignity." 
 
 " I think you haven't much," Rose replied.
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 183 
 
 " But I've never seen anyone get on so well with 
 out it. And, after all, you've just enough to 
 make Miss Martle recognise it." 
 
 Tony wondered. "By calling me 'Mr. Bream'? 
 Oh, for Tier I'm a greybeard and I address her 
 as one. I address her as I addressed her as a 
 child. Of course I admit," he added with an 
 intention vaguely pacific, "that she has entirely 
 ceased to be that." 
 
 " She's wonderful," said Rose, handing him 
 something buttered and perversely cold. 
 
 He assented even to the point of submissively 
 helping himself. " She's a tremendous dear." 
 
 "I mean she's wonderful about your little 
 
 girl." 
 
 "Devoted, isn't she? That dates from long 
 ago. She has a special sentiment about her." 
 
 Rose was silent a moment. "It's a little life 
 to preserve and protect," she then said. " Of 
 course ! " 
 
 "Why, to that degree that she seems scarcely 
 to think the child safe even with its infatuated 
 daddy ! " 
 
 Still on her feet beyond the table near which 
 he sat, she had put up her parasol again, and she 
 looked across at him from under it. Their eyes
 
 184 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 met, and he again felt himself in the presence of 
 what, in them, shortly before, had been so deep, 
 so exquisite. It represented something that no 
 lapse could long quench something that gave 
 out the measureless white ray of a light steadily 
 revolving. She could sometimes turn it away, 
 but it was always somewhere ; and now it covered 
 him with a great cold lustre that made every 
 thing, for the moment, look hard and ugly 
 made him also feel the chill of a complication for 
 which he had not allowed. He had had plenty of 
 complications in life, but he had likewise had 
 ways of dealing with them that were in general 
 clever, easy, masterly indeed often really pleas 
 ant. He got up nervously : there would be 
 nothing pleasant in any way of dealing with 
 this one.
 
 XVIII 
 
 CONSCIOUS of the importance of not letting 
 his nervousness show, Tony had no sooner point- 
 lessly risen than he took possession of another 
 chair. He dropped the question of Effie's 
 security, remembering there was a prior one 
 as to which he had still to justify himself. 
 He brought it back with an air of indulgence 
 which scarcely disguised, however, its present 
 air of irrelevance. "I'll gladly call you, my 
 dear Rose, anything you like, but you mustn't 
 think I've been capricious or disloyal. I ad 
 dressed you, of old at the last in the way in 
 which it seemed most natural to address so close 
 a friend of my wife's. But I somehow think 
 of you here now rather as a friend of my own." 
 
 "And that makes me so much more distant?" 
 Rose asked, twirling her parasol. 
 
 Tony, whose plea had been quite extempo 
 rised, felt a slight confusion, which his laugh 
 
 185
 
 186 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 but inadequately covered. "I seem to have 
 uttered a betise but I haven't. I only mean 
 that a different title belongs, somehow, to a 
 different character." 
 
 "I don't admit my character to be different," 
 Rose said; "save perhaps in the sense of its 
 having become a little intensified. If I was 
 here before as Julia's friend, I'm here still more 
 as Julia's friend now." 
 
 Tony meditated, with all his candour; then 
 he gave a highly cordial, even if a slightly 
 illogical assent. " Of course you are from 
 your own point of view." He evidently only 
 wanted to meet her as far on the way to a 
 quiet life as he could manage. "Dear little 
 Julia ! " he exclaimed in a manner which, as 
 soon as he had spoken, 'he felt to be such a 
 fresh piece of pointlessness that, to carry it off, 
 he got up again. 
 
 " Dear little Julia ! " Rose echoed, speaking 
 out loud and clear, but with an expression 
 which, unlike Tony's, would have left on the 
 mind of an ignorant auditor no doubt of its 
 conveying a reference to the unforgotten dead. 
 
 Tony strolled towards the hammock. " May 
 I smoke a cigarette?" She approved with a
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 187 
 
 gesture that was almost impatient, and while 
 he lighted he pursued with friendly gaiety: 
 "I'm not going to allow you to pretend that 
 you doubt of my having dreamed for years of 
 the pleasure of seeing you here again, or of the 
 diabolical ingenuity that I exercised to enable 
 your visit to take place in the way most con 
 venient to both of us. You used to say the 
 Queen-mother disliked you. You see to-day 
 how much ! " 
 
 "She has ended by finding me useful," said 
 Rose. " That brings me exactly to what I told 
 you just now I wanted to say to you." 
 
 Tony had gathered the loose net of the 
 hammock into a single strand and, while he 
 smoked, had lowered himself upon it, sideways, 
 in a posture which made him sit as in a swing. 
 He looked surprised and even slightly discon 
 certed, like a man asked to pay twice. " Oh, 
 it isn't then what you did say ?" 
 
 " About your use of my name ? No, it isn't 
 that it's something quite different." Rose 
 waited; she stood before him as she had stood 
 before her previous interlocutor. "It's to let 
 you know the interest I take in Paul Beever. 
 I take the very greatest."
 
 188 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 "You do?" said Tony, approvingly. "Well, 
 you might go in for something worse ! " 
 
 He spoke with a cheerfulness that covered 
 all the ground ; but she repeated the words as if 
 challenging their sense. "I might 'go in' ?" 
 
 Her accent struck a light from them, put in 
 an idea that had not been Tony's own. Thus 
 presented, the idea seemed happy, and, in his 
 incontrollable restlessness, his face more vividly 
 brightening, he rose to it with a zeal that 
 brought him for a third time to his feet. He 
 smiled ever so kindly, and before he could 
 measure his words or his manner, broke out: 
 "If you only really would, you know, my dear 
 Rose ! " 
 
 In a quicker flash he became aware that, as 
 if he had dealt her a blow in the face, her eyes 
 had filled with tears. It made the taste of his 
 joke too bad. "Are you gracefully suggesting 
 that I shall carry Mr. Beever off?" she de 
 manded. 
 
 " Not from me, my dear never ! " Tony 
 blushed and felt how much there was to rectify 
 in some of his impulses. "I think a lot of him 
 and I want to keep my hand on him. But I 
 speak of him frankly, always, as a prize, and
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 189 
 
 I want something awfully good to happen to 
 him. If you like him," he hastened laughingly 
 to add, " of course it does happen I see ! " 
 
 He attenuated his meaning, but he had already 
 exposed it, and he could perceive that Rose, with 
 a kind of tragic perversity, was determined to 
 get the full benefit, whatever it might be, of her 
 impression of her grievance. She quickly did 
 her best to look collected. " You think he's 
 safe then, and solid, and not so stupid as he 
 strikes one at first?" 
 
 "Stupid? not a bit. He's a statue in the 
 block he's a sort of slumbering giant. The 
 right sort of tact will call him to life, the right 
 sort of hand will work him out of the stone." 
 
 "And it escaped you just now, in a moment 
 of unusual expansion, that the right sort are 
 mine ? " 
 
 Tony puffed away at his cigarette, smiling at 
 her resolutely through its light smoke. " You 
 do injustice to my attitude about you. There 
 isn't an hour of the day that I don't indulge in 
 some tribute or other to your great ability." 
 
 Again there came into the girl's face her 
 strange alternative look the look of being 
 made by her passion so acquainted with pain
 
 190 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 that even in the midst of it she could flower 
 into charity. Sadly and gently she shook her 
 head. " Poor Tony ! " Then she added in quite 
 a different tone: "What do you think of the 
 difference of our ages?" 
 
 "Yours and Paul's? It isn't worth speaking 
 of!" 
 
 "That's sweet of you considering that he's 
 only twenty-two. However, I'm not yet thirty," 
 she went on ; " and, of course, to gain time, one 
 might press the thing hard." She hesitated 
 again ; after which she continued : " It's awfully 
 vulgar, this way, to put the dots on the i's, but 
 as it was you, and not I, who began it, I may ask 
 if you really believe that if one should make a bit 
 
 of an effort ?" And she invitingly paused, 
 
 to leave him to complete a question as to which 
 it was natural she should feel a delicacy. 
 
 Tony's face, for an initiated observer, would 
 have shown that he was by this time watching 
 for a trap; but it would also have shown that, 
 after a moment's further reflection, he didn't 
 particularly care if the trap should catch him. 
 "If you take such an interest in Paul," he re 
 plied, with no visible abatement of his preference 
 for the standpoint of pleasantry, "you can cal-
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 191 
 
 culate better than I the natural results of draw 
 ing him out. But what I can assure you is that 
 nothing would give me greater pleasure than to 
 see you so happily ' established,' as they say so 
 honourably married, so affectionately surrounded, 
 and so thoroughly protected." 
 
 " And all alongside of you, here ? " cried Rose. 
 
 Tony faltered, but he went on. " It's precisely 
 your being ' alongside ' of one that would enable 
 one to see you." 
 
 "It would enable one to see you it would 
 have that particular merit," said Rose. " But my 
 interest in Mr. Beever hasn't at all been of a 
 kind to prompt me to turn the possibility over 
 for myself. You can readily imagine how far I 
 should have been in that case from speaking of 
 it to you. The defect of your charming picture," 
 she presently added, "is that an important figure 
 is absent from it." 
 
 "An important figure?" 
 
 "Jean Martle." 
 
 Tony looked at the tip of his cigarette. " You 
 mean because there was at one time so much 
 planning and plotting over the idea that she 
 should make a match with Paul?" 
 
 "At one time, my dear Tony?" Rose ex-
 
 192 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 claimed. "There's exactly as much as ever, and 
 I'm already in these mere three weeks in 
 the very thick of it! Did you think the ques 
 tion had been quite dropped?" she inquired. 
 
 Tony faced her serenely enough in part be 
 cause he felt the extreme importance of so doing. 
 "I simply haven't heard much about it. Mrs. 
 Beever used to talk about it. But she hasn't 
 talked of late." 
 
 " She talked, my dear man, no more than half 
 an hour ago ! " Rose replied. 
 
 Tony winced; but he stood bravely up; his 
 cigarettes were an extreme resource. "Really? 
 And what did she say to you?" 
 
 "She said nothing to me but she said every 
 thing to her son. She said to him, I mean, that 
 she'll never forgive him if she doesn't hear from 
 him an hour or two hence that he has at last 
 successfully availed himself, with Miss Martle, 
 of this auspicious day, as well as of the fact that 
 he's giving her, in honour of it, something re 
 markably beautiful." 
 
 Tony listened with marked attention, but with 
 out meeting his companion's eyes. He had again 
 seated himself in the hammock, with his feet on 
 the ground and his head thrown back; and he
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 193 
 
 smoked freely, holding it with either hand. 
 "What is he giving her?" he asked after a 
 moment. 
 
 Rose turned away ; she mechanically did some 
 thing at the table. " Shouldn't you think she'd 
 show it to you?" she threw over her shoulder. 
 
 While this shoulder, sensibly cold for the 
 instant, was presented he watched her. " I dare 
 say if she accepts it." 
 
 The girl faced him again. "And won't she 
 accept it?" 
 
 " Only I should say if she accepts him" 
 
 "And won't she do that?" 
 
 Tony made a " ring " with his cigarette. " The 
 thing will be for him to get her to." 
 
 " That's exactly," said Rose, " what I want 
 you to do." 
 
 " Me ? " He now stared at her. " How can I ? " 
 
 "I won't undertake to tell you how I'll leave 
 that to your ingenuity. Wouldn't it be a matter 
 just an easy extension of existing relations ? 
 You saw just now that he appealed to her for 
 his chance, and that she consented to give it to 
 him. What I wanted you to hear from me is 
 that I feel how much interested you'll be in 
 learning that this chance is of the highest im-
 
 194 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 portance for him, and that I know with how 
 good a conscience you'll throw your weight into 
 the scale of his success." 
 
 " My weight with the young lady ? Don't you 
 rather exaggerate my weight?" Tony asked. 
 
 " That question can only be answered by your 
 trying it. It's a situation in which not to take 
 an interest is well, not your duty, you know," 
 said Rose. 
 
 Tony gave a smile which he felt to be a little 
 pale ; but there was still good-humour in the tone 
 in which he protestingly and portentously mur 
 mured : "Oh, my 'duty' !" 
 
 "Surely; if you see no objection to poor Mrs. 
 Beever's at last gathering the fruit of the tree 
 she long ago so fondly and so carefully planted. 
 Of course, if you should frankly tell me you see 
 one that I don't know ! " She looked in 
 genuous and hard. " Do you, by chance, see one ?" 
 
 " None at all. I've never known a tree of 
 Mrs. Beever's of which the fruit hasn't been 
 sweet." 
 
 " Well, in the present case sweet or bitter ! 
 it's ready to fall. This is the hour the years 
 have pointed to. You think highly of Paul " 
 
 Tony Bream took her up. "And I think
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 195 
 
 highly of Jean, and therefore I must see them 
 through? I catch your meaning. But have you 
 in a matter composed, after all, of ticklish ele 
 ments thought of the danger of one's med 
 dling?" 
 
 "A great deal." A troubled vision of this 
 danger dawned even now in Rose's face. " But 
 I've thought still more of one's possible prudence 
 one's occasional tact." Tony, for a moment, 
 made no reply ; he quitted the hammock and 
 began to stroll about. Her anxious eyes fol 
 lowed him, and presently she brought out : 
 "Have you really been supposing that they've 
 given it up?" 
 
 Tony remained silent; but at last he stopped 
 short, and there was an effect of returning from 
 an absence in the way he abruptly demanded: 
 " That who have given up what ? " 
 
 " That Mrs. Beever and Paul have given up 
 what we're talking about the idea of his union 
 with Jean." 
 
 Tony hesitated. " I haven't been supposing 
 anything at all ! " Rose recognised the words 
 for the first he had ever uttered to her that ex 
 pressed even a shade of irritation, and she was 
 unable to conceal that she felt, on the spot, how
 
 196 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 memorable this fact was to make them. Tony's 
 immediate glance at her showed equally that he 
 had instantly become aware of their so affecting 
 her. He did, however, nothing to modify the im 
 pression : he only stood a moment looking across 
 the river ; after which he observed quietly : " Here 
 she is on the bridge." 
 
 He had walked nearer to the stream, and Rose 
 had moved back to the tea-table, from which 
 the view of the bridge was obstructed. "Has 
 she brought the child?" she asked. 
 
 " I don't make out she may have her by the 
 hand." He approached again, and as he came 
 he said: "Your idea is really that I should 
 speak to her now?" 
 
 " Before she sees Paul ? " Rose met his eyes ; 
 there was a quick anguish of uncertainty in all 
 her person. "I leave that to you since you 
 cast a doubt on the safety of your doing so. I 
 leave it," said Rose, " to your judgment I leave 
 it to your honour." 
 
 " To my honour ? " Tony wondered with a 
 showy jerk of his head what the deuce his hon 
 our had to do with it. 
 
 She went on without heeding him. " My idea 
 is only that, whether you speak to her or not,
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 197 
 
 she shall accept him. Gracious heavens, she 
 must!" Rose broke out with passion. 
 
 " You take an immense interest in it ! " Tony 
 laughed. 
 
 " Take the same, then, yourself, and the thing 
 will come off." They stood a minute looking 
 at each other, and more passed between them 
 than had ever passed before. The result of it 
 was that Rose had a drop from her strenuous 
 height to sudden and beautiful gentleness. 
 "Tony Bream, I trust you." 
 
 She had uttered the word in a way that had 
 the power to make him flush. He answered 
 peaceably, however, laughing again: "I hope so, 
 my dear Rose ! " Then in a moment he added : 
 " I will speak." He glanced again at the cir 
 cuitous path from the bridge, but Jean had not 
 yet emerged from the shrubbery by which it was 
 screened. " If she brings Effie, will you take her? " 
 
 With her ominous face the girl considered. 
 "I'm afraid I can't do that." 
 
 Tony gave a gesture of impatience. " Good God, 
 how you stand off from the poor little thing ! " 
 
 Jean at this moment came into sight without 
 the child. " I shall never take her from Tier ! " 
 And Rose Armiger turned away.
 
 XIX 
 
 TONY went toward his messenger, who, as she 
 saw Rose apparently leaving the garden, press- 
 ingly called out: "Would you, Miss Armiger, 
 very kindly go over for Effie ? She wasn't even 
 yet ready," she explained as she came back up 
 the slope with her friend, "and I was afraid to 
 wait after promising Paul to meet him." 
 
 "He's not here, you see," said Tony; "it's he 
 who, most ungallantly, makes you wait. Never 
 mind ; you'll wait with me" He looked at Rose 
 as they overtook her. " Will you go and bring 
 the child, as our friend here asks, or is such an 
 act as that also, and still more, inconsistent with 
 your mysterious principles?" 
 
 "You must kindly excuse me," Rose said di 
 rectly to Jean. "I've a letter to write in the 
 house. Now or never I must catch the post." 
 
 " Don't let us keep you, then," Tony returned. 
 " I'll go over myself as soon as Paul comes back." 
 
 198
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 199 
 
 "I'll send him straight out." And Rose Ar- 
 miger retired in good order. 
 
 Tony followed her with his eyes ; then he ex 
 claimed: "It's, upon my soul, as if she couldn't 
 
 trust herself ! " His remark, which he 
 
 checked, dropped into a snap of his fingers 
 while Jean Martle wondered. 
 
 "To do what?" she asked. 
 
 Tony hesitated. " To do nothing ! The child's 
 all right?" 
 
 "Perfectly right. It's only that the great 
 Gorham has decreed that she's to have her usual 
 little supper before she comes, and that, with 
 her ribbons and frills all covered with an enor 
 mous bib, Erne had just settled down to that 
 extremely solemn function." 
 
 Tony, in his turn, wondered. " Why shouldn't 
 she have her supper here ? " 
 
 " Ah, you must ask the great Gorham ! " 
 
 "And didn't you ask her?" 
 
 "I did better I divined her," said Jean. 
 "She doesn't trust our kitchen." 
 
 Tony laughed. "Does she apprehend poison?" 
 
 "She apprehends what she calls 'sugar and 
 spice.' " 
 
 "'And all that's nice?' Well, there's too
 
 200 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 much that's nice here, certainly ! Leave the poor 
 child, then, like the little princess you all make 
 of her, to her cook and her 'taster,' to the full 
 rigour of her royalty, and stroll with me here 
 till Paul comes out to you." He looked at his 
 watch and about at the broad garden where the 
 shadows of the trees were still and the long 
 afternoon had grown rich. " This is remarkably 
 peaceful, and there's plenty of time." Jean con 
 curred with a murmur as soft as the stir of the 
 breeze, a " Plenty, plenty," as serene as if, to 
 oblige Tony Bream, so charming a day would 
 be sure to pause in its passage. They went a 
 few steps, but he stopped again with a ques 
 tion. "Do you know what Paul wants of 
 
 you?" 
 
 Jean looked a moment at the grass by her feet. 
 "I think I do." Then raising her eyes without 
 shyness, but with unqualified gravity, "Do you 
 know, Mr. Bream?" she asked. 
 
 " Yes I've just now heard." 
 
 "From Miss Armiger?" 
 
 "From Miss Armiger. She appears to have 
 had it from Paul himself." 
 
 The girl gave out her mild surprise. " Why 
 has he told her?"
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 201 
 
 Tony hesitated. " Because she's such a good 
 person to tell things to." 
 
 " Is it her immediately telling them again that 
 makes her so?" Jean inquired with a faint 
 smile. 
 
 Faint as this smile was, Tony met it as if he had 
 been struck by it, and as if, indeed, in the midst 
 of an acquaintance which four years had now 
 consecrated, he had not quite got used to being 
 struck. That acquaintance had practically begun, 
 on an unforgettable day, with his opening his eyes 
 on her from an effort which had been already 
 then the effort to forget his suddenly taking 
 her in as he lay on the sofa in his hall. From 
 the way he sometimes looked at her it might 
 have been judged that he had even now not taken 
 her in completely that the act of slow, charmed 
 apprehension had yet to melt into accepted know 
 ledge. It had in truth been made continuous by 
 the continuous expansion of its object. If the 
 sense of lying there on the sofa still sometimes 
 came back to Tony, it was because he was in 
 terested in not interrupting by a rash motion 
 the process taking place in the figure before 
 him, the capricious rotation by which the woman 
 peeped out of the child and the child peeped
 
 202 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 out of the woman. There was no point at 
 which it had begun, and none at which it would 
 end, and it was a thing to gaze at with an at 
 tention refreshingly baffled. The frightened child 
 had become a tall, slim nymph on a cloud, and 
 yet there had been no moment of anything so 
 gross as catching her in the act of change. If 
 there had been, he would have met it with some 
 punctual change of his own ; whereas it was his 
 luxurious idea or had been up to now that 
 in the midst of the difference so delightfully am 
 biguous he was free just not to change, free to 
 remain as he was and go on liking her on trivial 
 grounds. It had seemed to him that there was no 
 one he had ever liked whom he could like quite 
 so comfortably: a man of his age had had what 
 he rather loosely called the "usual" flashes of 
 fondness. There had been no worrying question 
 of the light this particular flash might kindle ; 
 he had never had to ask himself what his appre 
 ciation of Jean Martle might lead to. It would 
 lead to exactly nothing that had been settled, 
 all round, in advance. This was a happy, lively 
 provision that kept everything down, made socia 
 bility a cool, public, out-of-door affair, without a 
 secret or a mystery confined it, as one might
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 203 
 
 say, to the breezy, sunny forecourt of the tem 
 ple of friendship, forbidding it any dream of 
 access to the obscure and comparatively stuffy 
 interior. Tony had acutely remarked to him 
 self that a thing could be led to only when there 
 was a practicable road. As present to him to 
 day as on that other day was the little hour of 
 violence so strange and sad and sweet which, 
 in his life, had effectually suppressed any thorough 
 fare, making this expanse so pathless that, had he 
 not been looking for a philosophic rather than a 
 satiric term, he might almost have compared it to 
 a desert. He answered his companion's inquiry 
 about Rose's responsibility as an informant after 
 he had satisfied himself that if she smiled ex 
 actly as she did it was only another illustration 
 of a perfect instinct. That instinct, which at 
 any time turned all talk with her away from 
 flatness, told her that the right attitude for her 
 now was the middle course between anxiety and 
 resignation. "If Miss Arniiger hadn't spoken," 
 he said, "I shouldn't have known. And of 
 course I'm interested in knowing." 
 
 " But why is she interested in your doing so ? " 
 Jean asked. 
 
 Tony walked on again. " She has several rea-
 
 204 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 sons. One of them is that she greatly likes Paul, 
 and that, greatly liking him, she wishes the high 
 est happiness conceivable for him. It occurred 
 to her that as I greatly like a certain young 
 lady, I might not unnaturally desire for that 
 young lady a corresponding chance, and that 
 with a hint," laughed Tony, "that she really is 
 about to have it, I might perhaps see my way 
 to putting in a word for the dear boy in ad 
 vance." 
 
 The girl strolled beside him, looking quietly 
 before her. "How does she know," she de 
 manded, "whom you 'greatly like'?" 
 
 The question pulled him up a little, but he 
 resisted the impulse, constantly strong in him, 
 to stop again and stand face to face with her. 
 He continued to laugh, and after an instant he 
 replied : " Why, I suppose I must have told her." 
 
 "And how many persons will she have told?" 
 
 "I don't care how many," Tony said, "and I 
 don't think you need care either. Everyone but 
 she from lots of observation knows we're good 
 friends, and it's because that's such a pleasant old 
 story with us all that I feel as if I might frankly 
 say to you what I have on my mind." 
 
 "About what Paul may have to say?"
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 205 
 
 " The first moment you let him." 
 
 Tony was going on when she broke in : " How 
 long have you had it on your mind ? " 
 
 He found himself, at this inquiry, just a trifle 
 embarrassed. " How long ? " 
 
 "As it's only since Miss Armiger has told you 
 that you've known there's anything in the air." 
 
 This inquiry gave Tony such pause that he 
 met it first with a laugh and then with a counter- 
 appeal. " You make me feel dreadfully dense ! 
 Do you mind my asking how long you yourself 
 have known that what may be in the air's on 
 the point of alighting?" 
 
 " Why, since Paul spoke to me." 
 
 " Just now before you went to Bounds ? " 
 Tony wondered. "You were immediately sure 
 that that's what he wants?" 
 
 " What else can he want ? He doesn't want 
 so much," Jean added, "that there would have 
 been many alternatives." 
 
 " I don't know what you call ' much ' ! " Again 
 Tony wondered. " And it produces no more 
 effect upon you " 
 
 "Than I'm showing to you now?" the girl 
 asked. "Do you think me dreadfully stolid?" 
 
 "No, because I know that, in general, what
 
 206 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 you show isn't at all the full measure of what 
 you feel. You're a great little mystery. Still," 
 Tony blandly continued, " you strike me as calm 
 for a young lady whose fate's about to be sealed. 
 Unless, of course, you've regarded it," he added, 
 "as sealed from far away back." 
 
 They had strolled, in the direction they had 
 followed, as far as they could go, and they nec 
 essarily stopped for a turn. Without taking up 
 his last words Jean stood there and looked ob 
 scurely happy, as it seemed to him, at his recog 
 nition of her having appeared as quiet as she 
 wished. "You haven't answered my question," 
 she simply said. "You haven't told me how 
 long you've had it on your mind that you must 
 say to me whatever it is you wish to say." 
 
 "Why is it important I should answer it?" 
 
 " Only because you seemed positively to imply 
 that the time of your carrying your idea about 
 had been of the shortest. In the case of advice, 
 if to advise is what you wish " 
 
 " It is what I wish," Tony interrupted ; " strangely 
 as it may strike you that, in regard to such a 
 matter as we refer to, one should be eager for 
 such a responsibility. The question of time 
 doesn't signify what signifies is one's sincerity.
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 207 
 
 I had an impression, I confess, that the prospect 
 I a good while ago supposed you to have accepted 
 had what shall I call it? rather faded away. 
 But at the same time I hoped " and Tony 
 invited his companion to resume their walk 
 "that it would charmingly come up again." 
 
 Jean moved beside him and spoke with a 
 colourless kindness which suggested no desire to 
 challenge or cross-question, but a thoughtful in 
 terest in anything, in the connection in which 
 they were talking, that he would be so good as 
 to tell her, and an earnest desire to be clear about 
 it. Perhaps there was also in her manner just 
 the visible tinge of a confidence that he would 
 tell her the absolute truth. "I see. You hoped 
 it would charmingly come up again." 
 
 "So that on learning that it is charmingly 
 coming up, don't you see," Tony laughed, "I'm 
 so agreeably agitated that I spill over on the 
 spot. I want without delay to be definite to 
 you about the really immense opinion I have of 
 dear Paul. It can't do any harm, and it may 
 do a little good, to mention that it has always 
 seemed to me that we've only got to give him 
 time. I mean, of course, don't you know," he 
 added, "for him quite to distinguish himself."
 
 208 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 Jean was silent a little, as if she were thor 
 oughly taking this home. " Distinguish himself 
 in what way?" she asked with all her tran 
 quillity. 
 
 "Well in every way," Tony handsomely re 
 plied. " He's full of stuff there's a great deal 
 of him: too much to come out all at once. Of 
 course you know him you've known him half 
 your life; but I see him in a strong and special 
 light, a light in which he has scarcely been shown 
 to you, and which puts him to a real test. He 
 has ability; he has ideas; he has absolute hon 
 esty; and he has moreover a good stiff back of 
 his own. He's a fellow of head; he's a fellow 
 of heart. In short he's a man of gold." 
 
 " He's a man of gold," Jean repeated with 
 punctual acceptance, yet as if it mattered much 
 more that Tony should think so than that she 
 should. "It would be odd," she went on, "to 
 be talking with you on a subject so personal to 
 myself, if it were not that I felt Paul's attitude 
 for so long past to be rather publicly taken for 
 granted. He has felt it so, too, I think, poor 
 boy, and, for good or for ill, there has been in 
 our situation very little mystery and perhaps 
 not much modesty."
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 209 
 
 "Why should there be, of the false kind, 
 when even the true has nothing to do with the 
 matter ? You and Paul are great people : he's 
 the heir-apparent, and you're the most eligible 
 princess in the Almanach de Gotha. You can't 
 be there and be hiding behind the window- 
 curtain: you must step out on the balcony to 
 be seen of the populace. Your most private 
 affairs are affairs of state. At the smallest hint 
 like the one I just mentioned, even an old dunder 
 head like me catches on he sees the strong 
 reasons for Paul's attitude. However, it's not 
 of that, so much, that I wanted to say a word. 
 I thought perhaps you'd just let me touch on 
 your own." Tony hesitated; he felt vaguely 
 disconcerted by the special quality of stillness 
 that, though she moved beside him, her atten 
 tion, her expectation put forth. It came over 
 him that for the purpose of his plea she was 
 almost too prepared, and this made him speculate. 
 He stopped short again, and, uneasily, "May I 
 light one more cigarette?" he asked. She as 
 sented with a flicker in her dim smile, and while 
 he lighted he was increasingly conscious that 
 she waited. He met the deep gentleness of her 
 eyes and reflected afresh that if she was always
 
 210 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 beautiful, she was beautiful at different times 
 from different sources. What was the source of 
 the impression she made on him at this moment 
 if not a kind of refinement of patience in which 
 she seemed actually to hold her breath? "In 
 fact," he said as he threw away his match, "I 
 have touched on it I mean on the great hope 
 we all have that you do see your way to meeting 
 our friend as he deserves." 
 
 "You 'all' have it?" Jean softly asked. 
 
 Tony hesitated again. "I'm sure I'm quite 
 right in speaking for Wilverley at large. It 
 takes the greatest interest in Paul, and I needn't, 
 at this time of day, remind you of the interest 
 it takes in yourself. But I repeat, what I meant 
 more particularly to utter was my own special 
 confidence in your decision. Now that I'm fully 
 enlightened, it comes home to me that, as regards 
 such a possibility as your taking your place here 
 as a near neighbour and a permanent friend " 
 and Tony fixedly smiled " why, I can only feel 
 the liveliest suspense. I want to make thor 
 oughly sure of you ! " 
 
 Jean took this in as she had taken the rest; 
 after which she simply said: "Then I think I 
 ought to tell you that I shall not meet Paul in
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 211 
 
 the way that what you're so good as to say seems 
 to point to." 
 
 Tony had made many speeches, both in public 
 and in private, and he had naturally been exposed 
 to replies of the incisive no less than of the 
 massive order. But no check of the current 
 had ever made him throw back his head quite 
 so far as this brief and placid announcement. 
 "You'll not meet him ?" 
 
 "I shall never marry him." 
 
 He undisguisedly gasped. "In spite of all 
 the reasons ? " 
 
 " Of course I've thought the reasons over 
 often and often. But there are reasons on the 
 other side too. I shall never marry him," she 
 repeated.
 
 
 XX 
 
 SOMETHING strange occurred for Tony Bream 
 as he listened to the words in which Jean Martle 
 dispelled such obscurity as had hitherto attached 
 to her position something consisting of the fact 
 that though half an hour before he had not felt 
 the want of the assurance he had just asked of 
 her, yet now that he saw it definitely withheld 
 it took an importance as instantly as a mirror 
 takes a reflection. This importance was so great 
 that he found himself suddenly scared by what 
 he heard. He thought an instant, with intensity. 
 " In spite of knowing that you'll disappoint " 
 he paused a little "the universal hope?" 
 
 " I know whom I shall disappoint ; but I must 
 bear that. I shall disappoint Cousin Kate." 
 
 "Horribly," said Tony. 
 
 " Horribly." 
 
 " And poor Paul to within an inch of his life." 
 
 " No, not poor Paul, Mr. Bream ; not poor Paul 
 
 212
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 213 
 
 in the least," Jean said. She spoke without a 
 hint of defiance or the faintest ring of bravado, 
 as if for mere veracity and lucidity, since an 
 opportunity quite unsought had been forced upon 
 her. "I know about poor Paul. It's all right 
 about poor Paul," she declared, smiling. 
 
 She spoke and she looked at him with a sin 
 cerity so distilled, as he felt, from something 
 deep within her, that to pretend to gainsay her 
 would be in the worst taste. He turned about, 
 not very brilliantly, as he was aware, to some 
 other resource. " You'll immensely disappoint 
 your own people." 
 
 " Yes, my mother and my grandmother they 
 both would like it. But they've never had any 
 promise from me." 
 
 Tony was silent awhile. "And Mrs. Beever 
 hasn't she had?" 
 
 " A promise ? Never. I've known how much 
 she has wanted it. But that's all." 
 
 " Ah, that's a great deal," said Tony. " If, 
 knowing how much she has wanted it, you've 
 come back again and again, hasn't that been 
 tantamount to giving it?" 
 
 Jean considered. " I shall never come back 
 again."
 
 214 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 " Ah, my dear child, what a way to treat us ! " 
 her friend broke out. 
 
 She took no notice of this ; she only went on : 
 " Months ago the last time I was here an 
 assurance, of a kind, was asked of me. But even 
 then I held off." 
 
 "And you've gone on with that intention?" 
 
 He had grown so serious now that he cross- 
 questioned her, but she met him with a prompti 
 tude that was touching in its indulgence. " I've 
 gone on without an intention. I've only waited 
 to see, to feel, to judge. The great thing seemed 
 to me to be sure I wasn't unfair to Paul. I 
 haven't been I'm not unfair. He'll never say 
 I've been I'm sure he won't. I should have 
 liked to be able to become his wife. But I 
 can't." 
 
 "You've nevertheless excited hopes," said Tony. 
 " Don't you think you ought to consider that a 
 little more?" His uneasiness, his sense of the 
 unexpected, as sharp as a physical pang, increased 
 so that he began to lose sight of the importance 
 of concealing it ; and he went on even while 
 something came into her eyes that showed he 
 had not concealed it. "If you haven't meant 
 not to do it, you've, so far as that goes, meant
 
 THE OTHEK HOUSE 215 
 
 the opposite. Therefore something has made you 
 change." 
 
 Jean hesitated. " Everything has made me 
 change." 
 
 "Well," said Tony, with a smile so strained 
 that he felt it to be almost pitiful, " we've spoken 
 of the disappointment to others, but I suppose 
 there's no use in my attempting to say anything 
 of the disappointment to me. That's not the thing 
 that, in such a case, can have much effect on you." 
 
 Again Jean hesitated ; he saw how pale she had 
 grown. "Do I understand you tell me that you 
 really desire my marriage?" 
 
 If the revelation of how he desired it had not 
 already come to him, the deep mystery of her 
 beauty at this crisis might have brought it on 
 the spot a spectacle in which he so lost him 
 self for the minute that he found no words to 
 answer till she spoke again. "Do I understand 
 that you literally ask me for it?" 
 
 "I ask you for it I ask you for it," said 
 Tony Bream. 
 
 They stood looking at each other like a pair 
 who, walking on a frozen lake, suddenly have 
 in their ears the great crack of the ice. "And 
 what are your reasons ? "
 
 216 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 "I'll tell you my reasons when you tell me 
 yours for having changed." 
 
 "I've not changed," said Jean. 
 
 It was as if their eyes were indissolubly en 
 gaged. That was the way he had been looking, 
 a while before, into another woman's, but he 
 could think at this moment how exquisitely 
 different Jean's were from those. He shook his 
 head sadly and with all the tenderness he felt 
 he might permit himself to show just this once 
 and never again. " You've changed you've 
 changed." 
 
 Then she gave up. " Wouldn't you much 
 rather I should never come back?" 
 
 "Far rather. But you will come back," said 
 Tony. 
 
 She looked away from him at last she turned 
 her eyes over the place in which she had known 
 none but emotions permitted and avowed, and 
 again she seemed to yield to the formidable 
 truth. " So you think I had better come back 
 different?" 
 
 His tenderness broke out into a smile. " As 
 different as possible. As different as that will 
 be all the difference," he added. 
 
 She appeared, with her averted face, to con-
 
 THE OTHEE HOUSE 217 
 
 sider intently how much it might in such a case 
 amount to. But " Here he comes," was what she 
 presently replied. 
 
 Paul Beever was in sight, so freshly dressed 
 that even at a distance his estimate of the re 
 quirements of the occasion was visible from his 
 necktie to his boots. Adorned as it unmis 
 takably had never been, his great featureless 
 person moved solemnly over the lawn. 
 
 " Take him, then take him ! " said Tony 
 Bream. 
 
 Jean, intensely serious, but with agitation held 
 at bay, gave him one more look, a look so in 
 finitely pacific that as, at Paul's nearer approach, 
 he turned away from her, he had the sense of 
 going off with a sign of her acceptance of his 
 solution. The light in her face was the light of 
 the compassion that had come out to him, and 
 what was that compassion but the gage of a relief, 
 of a promise? It made him walk down to the 
 river with a step quickened to exhilaration ; all 
 the more that as the girl's eyes followed him 
 he couldn't see in them the tragic intelligence 
 he had kindled, her perception from the very 
 rhythm of the easy gait she had watched so often 
 that he really thought such a virtual confession
 
 218 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 to her would be none too lavishly repaid by the 
 effort for which he had appealed. 
 
 Paul Beever had in his hand his little morocco 
 case, but his glance also rested, till it disappeared, 
 on Tony's straight and swinging back. "I've 
 driven him away," he said. 
 
 " It was time," Jean replied. " Effie, who 
 wasn't ready for me, must really come at last." 
 Then, without the least pretence of unconscious 
 ness, she looked straight at the small object Paul 
 carried. 
 
 Observing her attention to it he also dropped 
 his eyes on it, while his hands turned it round 
 and round in apparent uncertainty as to whether 
 he had better present it to her open or shut. " I 
 hope you won't be as indifferent as Effie seems 
 to be to the pretty trifle with which I've thought 
 I should like to commemorate your birthday." 
 He decided to open the case, and with its lifted 
 lid he held it out to her. "It will give me 
 great pleasure if you'll kindly accept this little 
 ornament." 
 
 Jean took it from him she seemed to study 
 it a minute. " Oh, Paul, oh, Paul! " her protest 
 was as sparing as a caress with the back of the 
 hand.
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 219 
 
 "I thought you might care for the stone," he 
 said. 
 
 "It's a rare and perfect one it's magnificent." 
 
 " Well, Miss Armiger told me you would 
 know." There was a hint of relaxed suspense 
 in Paul's tone. 
 
 Still holding the case open, his companion 
 looked at him a moment. " Did she kindly 
 select it?" 
 
 He stammered, colouring a little. " No ; mother 
 and I did. We went up to London for it; we 
 had the mounting designed and worked out. 
 They took two months. But I showed it to Miss 
 Armiger, and she said you'd spot any defect." 
 
 " Do you mean," the girl asked, smiling, " that 
 if you had not had her word for that, you would 
 have tried me with something inferior? " 
 
 Paul continued very grave. " You know well 
 enough what I mean." 
 
 Without again noticing the contents of the 
 case she softly closed it and kept it in her 
 hand. "Yes, Paul, I know well enough what 
 you mean." She looked round her ; then, as if 
 her old familiarity with him were refreshed and 
 sweetened : " Come and sit down with me." She 
 led the way to a garden bench that stood at a
 
 220 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 distance from Mrs. Beever's tea-table, an old 
 green wooden bench that was a perennial feat 
 ure of the spot. " If Miss Armiger knows that 
 I'm a judge," she pursued as they went, "it's 
 because, I think, she knows everything every 
 thing except one, which I know better than 
 she." She seated herself, glancing up and put 
 ting out her free hand to him with an air of 
 comradeship and trust. Paul let it take his own, 
 which it held there a minute. "I know you" 
 She drew him down, and he dropped her hand; 
 whereupon it returned to his little box, which, 
 with the aid of the other, it tightly and ner 
 vously clasped. " I can't take your present. It's 
 impossible," she said. 
 
 He sat leaning forward with his big red fists 
 on his knees. "Not for your birthday?" 
 
 " It's too splendid for that it's too precious. 
 And how can I take it for that when it isn't for 
 that you offer it? How can I take so much, 
 Paul, when I give you so little ? It represents 
 so much more than itself a thousand more 
 things than I've any right to let you think I 
 can accept. I can't pretend not to know I 
 must meet you half-way. I want to do that 
 so much to keep our relations happy, happy
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 221 
 
 always, without a break or a cloud. They will 
 be they'll be beautiful. We've only to be 
 frank. They are now: I feel it in the kind 
 way you listen to me. If you hadn't asked to 
 speak to me, I should have asked it myself. Six 
 months ago I promised I would tell you, and I've 
 known the time was come." 
 
 " The time is come, but don't tell me till you've 
 given me a chance," said Paul. He had listened 
 without looking at her, his little eyes pricking 
 with their intensity the remotest object they could 
 reach. " I want so to please you to make you 
 take a favourable view. There isn't a condition 
 you may make, you know, of any sort whatever, 
 that I won't grant you in advance. And if 
 there's any inducement you can name that I've 
 the least capacity to offer, please regard it as 
 offered with all my heart. You know every 
 thing you understand; but just let me repeat 
 that all I am, all I have, all I can ever be or 
 do " 
 
 She laid her hand on his arm as if to help, not 
 to stop him. " Paul, Paul you're beautiful ! " 
 She brushed him with the feather of her tact, 
 but he reddened and eontinued to avert his big 
 face, as if he were aware that the moment of such
 
 222 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 an assertion was scarcely the moment to venture 
 to show it. " You're such a gentleman ! " Jean 
 went on this time with a tremor in her voice 
 that made him turn. 
 
 " That's the sort of fine thing I wanted to say 
 to you," he said. And he was so accustomed, in 
 any talk, to see his interlocutor suddenly laugh, 
 that his look of benevolence covered even her air 
 of being amused by these words. 
 
 She smiled at him; she patted his arm. 
 "You've said to me far more than that comes 
 to. I want you oh, I want you so to be suc 
 cessful and happy ! " And her laugh, with an 
 ambiguous sob, suddenly changed into a burst 
 of tears. 
 
 She recovered herself, but she had brought 
 tears into his own eyes. "Oh, that's of no 
 consequence ! I'm to understand that you'll 
 never, never ?" 
 
 "Never, never." 
 
 Paul drew a long, low breath. " Do you know 
 that everyone has thought you probably would?" 
 
 " Certainly, I've known it, and that's why I'm 
 glad of our talk. It ought to have come sooner. 
 You thought I probably would, I think " 
 
 " Oh, yes ! " Paul artlessly broke in.
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 223 
 
 Jean laughed again while she wiped her eyes. 
 " That's why I call you beautiful. You had my 
 possible expectation to meet." 
 
 " Oh, yes ! " he said again. 
 
 "And you were to meet it like a gentleman. 
 I might have but no matter. You risked your 
 life you've been magnificent." Jean got up. 
 "And now, to make it perfect, you must take 
 this back." 
 
 She put the morocco case into his submissive 
 hand, and he sat staring at it and mechanically 
 turning it round. Unconsciously, musingly, he 
 threw it a little way into the air and caught it 
 again. Then he also got up. "They'll be tre 
 mendously down on us." 
 
 " On ' us ' ? On me, of course but why on 
 you?" 
 
 "For not having moved you." 
 
 "You've moved me immensely. Before me 
 let no one say a word about you ! " 
 
 "It's of no consequence," Paul repeated. 
 
 "Nothing is, if we go on as we are. We're 
 better friends than ever. And we're happy!" 
 Jean announced in her triumph. 
 
 He looked at her with deep wistfulness, with 
 patient envy. " You are ! " Then his eyes took
 
 224 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 the direction to which her attention at that 
 moment passed : they showed him Tony Bream 
 coming up the slope with his little girl in his 
 hand. Jean went down instantly to welcome 
 the child, and Paul turned away with a grave 
 face, giving at the same time another impulsive 
 toss to the case containing the token she had 
 declined.
 
 XXI 
 
 HE directed his face to the house, however, 
 only to find himself in the presence of his 
 mother, who had come back to her tea-table 
 and whom he saw veritably glare at the small 
 object in his hands. From this object her scru 
 tiny jumped to his own countenance, which, to 
 his great discomfort, was not conscious of very 
 successfully baffling it. He knew therefore a 
 momentary relief when her observation attached 
 itself to Jean Martle, whom Tony, planted on 
 the lawn, was also undisguisedly watching, and 
 who was already introducing Erne to the treasure 
 laid up in the shade of the tea-table. The girl 
 had caught up the child on her strong young 
 arm, where she sat robust and radiant, befrilled 
 and besashed, hugging the biggest of the dolls ; 
 and in this position erect, active, laughing, her 
 rosy burden, almost on her shoulder, mingling its 
 brightness with that of her crown of hair, and her 
 
 Q 225
 
 226 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 other hand grasping, for Effie's further delight, in 
 the form of another puppet from the pile, a still 
 rosier imitation of it anticipated quickly the 
 challenge which, as Paul saw, Mrs. Beever was 
 on the point of addressing her. 
 
 "Our wonderful cake's not coming out?" 
 
 "It's too big to transport," said Mrs. Beever: 
 "it's blazing away in the dining-room." 
 
 Jean Martle turned to Tony. "I may carry 
 her in to see it?" 
 
 Tony assented. "Only please remember she's 
 not to partake." 
 
 Jean smiled at him. " I'll eat her share ! " 
 And she passed swiftly over the lawn while the 
 three pairs of eyes followed her. 
 
 " She looks," said Tony, " like the goddess 
 Diana playing with a baby-nymph." 
 
 Mrs. Beever's attention came back to her son. 
 "That's the sort of remark one would expect to 
 hear from you! You're not going with her?" 
 
 Paul showed vacant and vast. " I'm going in." 
 
 "To the dining-room?" 
 
 He wavered. "To speak to Miss Armiger." 
 
 His mother's gaze, sharpened and scared, had 
 reverted to his morocco case. "To ask her to 
 keep that again?"
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 227 
 
 At this Paul met her with spirit. "She may 
 keep it for ever ! " Giving another toss to his 
 missile, while his companions stared at each 
 other, he took the same direction as Jean. 
 
 Mrs. Beever, disconcerted and flushed, broke 
 out on the spot to Tony. " Heaven help us all 
 she has refused him ! " 
 
 Tony's face reflected her alarm. "Pray, how 
 do you know ? " 
 
 " By his having his present to her left on his 
 hands a jewel a girl would jump at! I came 
 back to hear it was settled " 
 
 " And you haven't heard it's not ! " Tony anx 
 iously broke in. 
 
 "What I haven't heard I've seen. That it's 
 4 not ' sticks out of them ! If she won't accept the 
 gift," Mrs. Beever cried, " how can she accept the 
 giver?" 
 
 Tony's appearance, for some seconds, was an 
 echo of her question. "Why, she just promised 
 me she would! " 
 
 This only deepened his neighbour's surprise. 
 " Promised you ? " 
 
 Tony hesitated. " I mean she left me to infer 
 that I had determined her. She was so good as 
 to listen most appreciatively to what I had to say."
 
 228 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 " And, pray, what had you to say ? " Mrs. 
 Beever asked with austerity. 
 
 In the presence of a rigour so immediate he 
 found himself so embarrassed that he considered. 
 "Well everything. I took the liberty of urg 
 ing Paul's claim." 
 
 Mrs. Beever stared. " Very good of you ! 
 What did you think you had to do with it?" 
 
 "Why, whatever my great desire that she 
 should accept him gave me." 
 
 "Your great desire that she should accept him? 
 This is the first I've heard of it." 
 
 Once more Tony pondered. "Did I never 
 speak of it to you?" 
 
 " Never that I can remember. From when does 
 it date?" Mrs. Beever demanded. 
 
 "From the moment I really understood how 
 much Paul had to hope." 
 
 "How 'much'?" the lady of Eastmead deri 
 sively repeated. "It wasn't so much that you 
 need have been at such pains to make it less ! " 
 
 Tony's comprehension of his friend's discomfit 
 ure was written in the smile of determined good- 
 humour with which he met the asperity of her 
 successive inquiries ; but his own uneasiness, 
 which was not the best thing in the world for
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 229 
 
 his temper, showed through this superficial glitter. 
 He looked suddenly as blank as a man can look 
 who looks annoyed. " How in the world could I 
 have supposed I was making it less ? " 
 
 Mrs. Beever faltered in her turn. "To answer 
 that question I should need to have been present 
 at your appeal." 
 
 Tony's eyes put forth a fire. " It seems to me 
 that your answer, as it is, will do very well for a 
 charge of disloyalty. Do you imply that I didn't 
 act in good faith?" 
 
 " Not even in my sore disappointment. But I 
 imply that you made a gross mistake." 
 
 Tony lifted his shoulders ; with his hands in his 
 pockets he had begun to fidget about the lawn 
 bringing back to her as he did so the worried fig 
 ure that, in the same attitude, the day of poor 
 Julia's death, she had seen pace the hall at the 
 other house. "But what the deuce then was I to 
 do?" 
 
 "You were to let her alone." 
 
 " Ah, but I should have had to begin that ear 
 lier ! " he exclaimed with ingenuous promptitude. 
 
 Mrs. Beever gave a laugh of despair. "Years 
 and years earlier?" 
 
 "I mean," returned Tony with a blush, "that
 
 230 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 from the first of her being here I made a point of 
 giving her the impression of all the good I thought 
 of Paul." 
 
 His hostess continued sarcastic. "If it was a 
 question of making points and giving impressions, 
 perhaps then you should have begun later still ! " 
 She gathered herself a moment ; then she brought 
 out : " You should have let her alone, Tony 
 Bream, because you're madly in love with her ! " 
 
 Tony dropped into the nearest chair; he sat 
 there looking up at the Queen-mother. " Your 
 proof of that's my plea for your son?" 
 
 She took full in the face his air of pity for her 
 lapse. "Your plea was not for my son your 
 plea was for your own danger." 
 
 " My own ' danger ' ? " Tony leaped to his 
 feet again in illustration of his security. " Need 
 I inform you at this time of day that I've such 
 a thing as a conscience?" 
 
 "Far from it, my dear man. Exactly what I 
 complain of is that you've quite too much of one." 
 And she gave him, before turning away, what 
 might have been her last look and her last word. 
 " Your conscience is as big as your passion, and if 
 both had been smaller, you might perhaps have 
 held your tongue ! "
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 231 
 
 She moved off in a manner that added emphasis 
 to her words, and Tony watched her with his 
 hands still in his pockets and his long legs a little 
 apart. He could turn it over that she accused 
 him, after all, only of having been a particularly 
 injurious fool. " I was under the same impression 
 as you," he said "that Paul was safe." 
 
 This arrested and brought her sharply round. 
 "And were you under the impression that Jean 
 was?" 
 
 " On my honour as far as J'm concerned ! " 
 
 " It's of course of you we're talking," Mrs. Bee- 
 ver replied. " If you weren't her motive, are you 
 able to suggest who was?" 
 
 " Her motive for refusing Paul ? " Tony looked 
 at the sky for inspiration. "I'm afraid I'm too 
 surprised and distressed to have a theory." 
 
 "Have you one by chance as to why, if you 
 thought them both so safe, you interfered?" 
 
 " ' Interfered ' is a hard word," said Tony. " I 
 felt a wish to testify to my great sympathy with 
 Paul from the moment I heard what I didn't at 
 all know that this was the occasion on which 
 he was, in more senses than one, to present his 
 case." 
 
 " May I go so far as to ask," said Mrs. Beever,
 
 232 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 "if your sudden revelation proceeded from Paul 
 
 himself?" 
 
 "No not from Paul himself." 
 
 " And scarcely from Jean, I suppose." 
 
 " Not in the remotest degree from Jean." 
 
 " Thank you," she replied " you've told me." 
 
 She had taken her place in a chair and fixed her 
 
 eyes on the ground. " I've something to tell you 
 
 myself, though it may not interest you so much." 
 
 Then raising her eyes : " Dennis Vidal is here." 
 Tony almost jumped. " In the house ? " 
 " On the river paddling about." After which, 
 
 as his blankness grew, "He turned up an hour 
 
 ago," she explained. 
 
 "And no one has seen him?" 
 
 "The Doctor and Paul. But Paul didn't 
 
 know " 
 
 "And didn't ask?" Tony panted. 
 
 "What does Paul ever ask? He's too stupid! 
 
 Besides, with all my affairs, he sees my people 
 
 come and go. Mr. Vidal vanished when he heard 
 
 that Miss Armiger's here." 
 
 Tony went from surprise to mystification. 
 
 "Not to come back?" 
 
 " On the contrary, I hope as he took my 
 
 boat."
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 233 
 
 " But he wishes not to see her ? " 
 
 " He's thinking it over." 
 
 Tony wondered. "What then did he come 
 for?" 
 
 Mrs. Beever hung fire. "He came to see 
 Effie." 
 
 "Effie?" 
 
 "To judge if you're likely to lose her." 
 
 Tony threw back his head. "How the devil 
 does that concern him?" 
 
 Again Mrs. Beever faltered; then as she rose, 
 "Hadn't I better leave you to think it out?" she 
 demanded. 
 
 Tony, in spite of his bewildered face, thought 
 it out with such effect that in a moment he ex 
 claimed: "Then he still wants that girl?" 
 
 " Very much indeed. That's why he's afraid " 
 
 Tony took her up. "That Effie may die?" 
 
 " It's a hideous thing to be talking about," said 
 Mrs. Beever. " But you've perhaps not forgotten 
 who were present " 
 
 " I've not forgotten who were present ! I'm 
 greatly honoured by Mr. Vidal's solicitude," 
 Tony continued ; " but I beg you to tell him 
 from me that I think I can take care of my 
 child."
 
 
 THE OTHEE HOUSE 
 
 " You must take more care than ever ! " Mrs. 
 Beever pointedly observed. " But don't mention 
 him to Tier ! " she as sharply added. Rose Armi- 
 ger's white dress and red parasol had reappeared 
 on the steps of the house.
 
 XXII 
 
 AT the sight of the two persons in the garden 
 Rose came straight down to them, and Mrs. Beever, 
 sombre and sharp, still seeking relief in the oppor 
 tunity for satire, remarked to her companion, in a 
 manner at once ominous and indifferent, that her 
 guest was evidently in eager pursuit of him. Tony 
 replied with gaiety that he awaited her with forti 
 tude, and Rose, reaching them, let him know that, 
 as she had something more to say to him, she was 
 glad he had not, as she feared, quitted the garden. 
 Mrs. Beever hereupon signified her own intention 
 of taking this course : she would leave their vis 
 itor, as she said, to Rose to deal with. 
 
 Rose smiled with her best grace. " That's as I 
 leave Paul to you. I've just been with him." 
 
 Mrs. Beever testified not only to interest but to 
 approval. " In the library ? " 
 
 " In the drawing-room." Rose, the next mo 
 ment, conscientiously showed by a further remark 
 
 235
 
 286 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 her appreciation of the attitude that, on the part 
 of her hostess, she had succeeded in producing. 
 " Miss Martle's in the library." 
 
 "And Effie?" Mrs. Beever asked. 
 
 " Effie, of course, is where Miss Martle is." 
 
 Tony, during this brief colloquy, had lounged 
 away as restlessly as if, instead of beaming on the 
 lady of Eastmead, Rose were watching the master 
 of the other house. He promptly turned round. 
 " I say, dear lady, you know be kind to her ! " 
 
 " To Effie?" Mrs. Beever demanded. 
 
 " To poor Jean." 
 
 Mrs. Beever, after an instant's reflection, took a 
 humorous view of his request. "I don't know 
 why you call her ' poor ' ! She has declined an 
 excellent settlement, but she's not in misery yet." 
 Then she said to Rose : " I'll take Mm first." 
 
 Rose had put down her parasol, pricking the 
 point of it, as if with a certain shyness, into the 
 close, firm lawn. "If you like, when you take 
 Miss Martle " She paused, in deep contem 
 plation of Tony. 
 
 " When I take Miss Martle ? " There was a 
 new encouragement in Mrs. Beever's voice. 
 
 The apparent effect of this benignity was to 
 make Miss ' Armiger's eyes widen strangely at their
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 237 
 
 companion. "Why, I'll come back and take the 
 child." 
 
 Mrs. Beever met this offer with an alertness not 
 hitherto markedly characteristic of her intercourse 
 with Rose. " I'll send her out to you." Then, 
 by way of an obeisance to Tony, directing the 
 words well at him : " It won't indeed be a scene 
 for that poor lamb ! " She marched off with her 
 duty emblazoned on her square satin back. 
 
 Tony, struck by the massive characters in which 
 it was written there, broke into an indulgent 
 laugh, but even in his mirth he traced the satis 
 faction she took in letting him see that she 
 measured with some complacency the embarrass 
 ment Rose might cause him. " Does she propose 
 to tear Miss Martle limb from limb ? " he humor 
 ously inquired. 
 
 " Do you ask that," said Rose, " partly because 
 you're apprehensive that it's what I propose to do 
 to you ? " 
 
 "By no means, my dear Rose, after your just 
 giving me so marked a sign of the pacific as your 
 coming round " 
 
 "On the question," Rose broke in, "of one's 
 relation to that little image and echo of her adored 
 mother? That isn't peace, my dear Tony. You
 
 238 THE OTHEK HOUSE 
 
 give me just the occasion to let you formally know 
 that it's war." 
 
 Tony gave another laugh. " War? " 
 
 " Not on you I pity you too much." 
 
 " Then on whom ? " 
 
 Rose hesitated. " On anyone, on everyone, who 
 may be likely to find that small child small as 
 she is! inconvenient. Oh, I know," she went 
 on, " you'll say I come late in the day for this, and 
 you'll remind me of how very short a time ago it 
 was that I declined a request of yours to occupy 
 myself with her at all. Only half an hour has 
 elapsed, but what has happened in it has made all 
 the difference." 
 
 She spoke without discernible excitement, and 
 Tony had already become aware that the face she 
 actually showed him was not a thing to make him 
 estimate directly the effect wrought in her by the 
 incongruous result of the influence he had put 
 forth under pressure of her ardour. He needed 
 no great imagination to conceive that this con 
 sequence might, on the poor girl's part, well be 
 mainly lodged in such depths of her nature as not 
 to find an easy or an immediate way to the sur 
 face. That he had her to reckon with he was re 
 minded as soon as he caught across the lawn the
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 239 
 
 sheen of her white dress ; but what he most felt 
 was a lively, unreasoning hope that for the hour 
 at least, and until he should have time to turn 
 round and see what his own situation exactly con 
 tained for him, her mere incontestable cleverness 
 would achieve a revolution during which he might 
 take breath. This was not a hope that in any 
 way met his difficulties it was a hope that only 
 avoided them ; but he had lately had a vision of 
 something in which it was still obscure to him 
 whether the bitter or the sweet prevailed, and he 
 was ready to make almost any terms to be allowed 
 to surrender himself to these first quick throbs of 
 response to what was at any rate an impression of 
 perfect beauty. He was in bliss with a great chill 
 and in despair with a great lift, and confused and 
 assured and alarmed divided between the joy 
 and the pain of knowing that what Jean Martle 
 had done she had done for Am, and done full in 
 the face of all he couldn't do to repay her. That 
 Tony Bream might never marry was a simple 
 enough affair, but that this rare creature mightn't 
 suddenly figured to him as formidable and exquisite. 
 Therefore he found his nerves rather indebted to 
 Rose for her being if that was the explanation 
 too proud to be vulgarly vindictive. She knew
 
 240 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 his secret, as, even after seeing it so freely handled 
 by Mrs. Beever, he still rather artlessly called the 
 motive of his vain appeal ; knew it better than 
 before, since she could now read it in the intenser 
 light of the knowledge of it betrayed by another. 
 If on this advantage he had no reason to look to 
 her for generosity, it was at least a comfort that he 
 might look to her for good manners. Poor Tony 
 had the full consciousness of needing to think out 
 a line, but it weighed somewhat against that oppres 
 sion to feel that Rose also would have it. He 
 was only a little troubled by the idea that, ardent 
 and subtle, she would probably think faster than 
 he. He turned over a moment the revelation 
 of these qualities conveyed in her announcement 
 of a change, as he might call it, of policy. 
 
 " What you say is charming," he good-naturedly 
 replied, " so far as it represents an accession to the 
 ranks of my daughter's friends. You will never 
 remind me without touching me how nearly a 
 sister you were to her mother ; and I would rather 
 express the pleasure I take in that than the bewil 
 derment I feel at your allusion to any class of 
 persons whose interest in her may not be sincere. 
 The more friends she has, the better I welcome 
 you all. The only thing I ask of you," he went
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 241 
 
 oil, smiling, "is not to quarrel about her among 
 yourselves." 
 
 Rose, as she listened, looked almost religiously 
 calm, but as she answered there was a profane 
 quaver in her voice that told him with what an 
 effort she achieved that sacrifice to form for which 
 he was so pusillanimously grateful. " It's very 
 good of you to make the best of me ; and it's also 
 very clever of you, let me add, my dear Tony 
 and add with all deference to your goodness to 
 succeed in implying that any other course is open 
 to you. You may welcome me as a friend of the 
 child or not. I'm present for her, at any rate, and 
 present as I've never been before." 
 
 Tony's gratitude, suddenly contracting, left a 
 little edge for irritation. " You're present, as 
 suredly, my dear Rose, and your presence is to us 
 all an advantage of which, happily, we never be 
 come unconscious for an hour. But do I under 
 stand that the firm position among us that you 
 allude to is one to which you see your way to at 
 taching any possibility of permanence ? " 
 
 She waited as if scrupulously to detach from its 
 stem the flower of irony that had sprouted in this 
 speech, and while she inhaled it she gave her vis 
 ible attention only to the little hole in the lawn
 
 242 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 that she continued to prick with the point of her 
 parasol. " If that's a graceful way of asking me," 
 she returned at last, " whether the end of my visit 
 here isn't near at hand, perhaps the best satisfac 
 tion I can give you is to say that I shall probably 
 stay on at least as long as Miss Martle. What I 
 meant, however, just now," she pursued, "by saying 
 that I'm more on the spot than heretofore, is simply 
 that while I do stay I stay to be vigilant. That's 
 what I hurried out to let you definitely know, in 
 case you should be going home without our meet 
 ing again. I told you before I went into the house 
 that I trusted you I needn't recall to you for 
 what. Mr. Beever after a while came in and told 
 me that Miss Martle had refused him. Then I felt 
 that, after what had passed between us, it was only 
 fair to say to you " 
 
 " That you've ceased to trust me ? " Tony inter 
 rupted. 
 
 "By no means. I don't give and take back." 
 And though his companion's handsome head, with 
 its fixed, pale face, rose high, it became appreciably 
 handsomer and reached considerably higher, while 
 she wore once more the air of looking at his mis 
 take through the enlarging blur of tears. " As I 
 believe you did, in honour, what you could for Mr. 
 Beever, I trust you perfectly still."
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 243 
 
 Tony smiled as if he apologised, but as if also he 
 couldn't but wonder. " Then it's only fair to say 
 tome ?" 
 
 " That I don't trust Miss Martle." 
 
 " Oh, my dear woman ! " Tony precipitately 
 laughed. 
 
 But Rose went on with all deliberation and dis 
 tinctness. " That's what has made the difference 
 that's what has brought me, as you say, round 
 to a sense of my possible use, or rather of my clear 
 obligation. Half an hour ago I knew how much 
 you love her. Now I know how much she loves 
 you." 
 
 Tony's laugh suddenly dropped ; he showed the 
 face of a man for whom a joke has sharply turned 
 grave. " And what is it that, in possession of this 
 admirable knowledge, you see ?" 
 
 Rose faltered ; but she had not come so far sim 
 ply to make a botch of it. "Why, that it's the 
 obvious interest of the person we speak of not to 
 have too stupid a patience with any obstacle to her 
 marrying you." 
 
 This speech had a quiet lucidity of which the 
 odd action was, for an instant, to make him lose 
 breath so violently that, in his quick gasp, he felt 
 sick. In the indignity of the sensation he struck
 
 244 THE OTHEli HOUSE 
 
 out. " Pray, why is it the person's obvious inter 
 est any more than it's yours ? " 
 
 " Seeing that I love you quite as much as she 
 does? Because you don't love me quite as much 
 as you love her. That's exactly ' why,' dear Tony 
 Bream ! " said Rose Armiger. 
 
 She turned away from him sadly and nobly, as 
 if she had done with him and with the subject, 
 and he stood where she had left him, gazing at the 
 foolish greenness at his feet and slowly passing his 
 hand over his head. In a few seconds, however, 
 he heard her utter a strange, short cry, and, look 
 ing round, saw her face to face across the inter 
 val of sloping lawn with a gentleman whom he 
 had been sufficiently prepared to recognise on the 
 spot as Dennis Vidal.
 
 XXIII 
 
 HE had, in this preparation, the full advantage 
 of Rose, who, quite thrown for the moment off her 
 balance, was vividly unable to give any account of 
 the apparition which should be profitable to her 
 self. The violence of her surprise made her catch 
 the back of the nearest chair, on which she covertly 
 rested, directing at her old suitor from this posi 
 tion the widest eyes the master of Bounds had 
 ever seen her unwittingly open. To perceive this, 
 however, was to be almost simultaneously struck, 
 and even to be not a little charmed, with the 
 clever quickness of her recovery that of a per 
 son constitutionally averse to making unmeasured 
 displays. Rose was capable of astonishment, as 
 she was capable of other kinds of emotion; but 
 she was as little capable of giving way to it as she 
 was of giving way to other kinds ; so that both of 
 her companions immediately saw her moved by 
 the sense that a perturbing incident could at the 
 
 245
 
 246 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 worst do her no such evil turn as she might suffer 
 by taking it in the wrong way. Tony became 
 aware, in addition, that the fact communicated to 
 him by Mrs. Beever gave him an advantage even 
 over the poor fellow whose face, as he stood there, 
 showed the traces of an insufficient forecast of two 
 things : one of them the influence on all his pulses 
 of the sight again, after such an interval, and in 
 the high insolence of life and strength, of the 
 woman he had lost and still loved ; the other the 
 instant effect on his imagination of his finding her 
 intimately engaged with the man who had been, 
 however without fault, the occasion of her perver 
 sity. Vidal's marked alertness had momentarily 
 failed him ; he paused in his advance long enough 
 to give Tony, after noting and regretting his agi 
 tation, time to feel that Rose was already as 
 colourlessly bland as a sensitive woman could 
 wish to be. 
 
 All this made the silence, however brief and 
 it was much briefer than my account of it vi 
 brate to such a tune as to prompt Tony to speak 
 as soon as possible in the interest of harmony. 
 What directly concerned him was that he had last 
 seen Vidal as his own duly appreciative guest, and 
 he offered him a hand freely charged with re-
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 247 
 
 minders of that quality. He was refreshed and 
 even a little surprised to observe that the young 
 man took it, after all, without stiffness ; but the 
 strangest thing in the world was that as he cor 
 dially brought him up the bank he had a mystic 
 glimpse of the fact that Rose Armiger, with her 
 heart in her throat, was waiting for some sign as 
 to whether she might, for the benefit of her inter 
 course with himself, safely take the ground of 
 having expected what had happened having 
 perhaps even brought it about. She naturally 
 took counsel of her fears, and Tony, suddenly 
 more elated than he could have given a reason for 
 being, was ready to concur in any attempt she 
 might make to save her appearance of knowing no 
 reproach. Yet, foreseeing the awkwardness that 
 might arise from her committing herself too 
 rashly, he made haste to say to Vidal that he 
 would have been startled if he had not been fore 
 warned: Mrs. Beever had mentioned to him the 
 visit she had just received. 
 
 " Ah, she told you ? " Dennis asked. 
 
 "Me only as a great sign of confidence," Tony 
 laughed. 
 
 Rose, at this, could be amazed with superiority. 
 " What ? you've already been here ? "
 
 248 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 "An hour ago," said Dennis. "I asked Mrs. 
 Beever not to tell you." 
 
 That was a chance for positive criticism. " She 
 obeyed your request to the letter. But why in 
 the world such portentous secrecy ? " Rose spoke 
 as if there was no shade of a reason for his feel 
 ing shy, and now gave him an excellent exam 
 ple of the right tone. She had emulated Tony's 
 own gesture of welcome, and he said to himself 
 that no young woman could have stretched a 
 more elastic arm across a desert of four cold 
 years. 
 
 "I can explain to you better," Dennis replied, 
 " why I emerged than why I vanished." 
 
 " You emerged, I suppose, because you wanted 
 to see me." Rose spoke to one of her admirers, 
 but she looked, she even laughed, at the other, 
 showing him by this time an aspect completely 
 and inscrutably renewed. "You knew I was 
 here?" 
 
 " At Wilverley ? " Dennis hesitated. " I took it 
 for granted." 
 
 " I'm afraid it was really for Miss Armiger you 
 came," Tony remarked in the spirit of pleasantry. 
 It seemed to him that the spirit of pleasantry 
 would help them on.
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 249 
 
 It had its result it proved contagious. "I 
 would still say so before her even if it 
 weren't ! " Dennis returned. 
 
 Rose took up the joke. " Fortunately it's true 
 
 so it saves you a fib." 
 
 " It saves me a fib ! " Dennis said. 
 
 In this way the trick was successfully played 
 
 they found their feet; with the added amuse 
 ment, for Tony, of hearing the necessary falsehood 
 uttered neither by himself nor by Rose, but by a 
 man whose veracity, from the first, on that earlier 
 day, of looking at him, he had felt to be almost 
 incompatible with the flow of conversation. It 
 was more and more distinct while the minutes 
 elapsed that the secondary effect of her old 
 friend's reappearance was to make Rose shine 
 with a more convenient light; and she met her 
 embarrassment, every way, with so happy an art 
 that Tony was moved to deplore afresh the com 
 plication that estranged him from a woman of 
 such gifts. It made up indeed a little for this 
 that he was also never so possessed of his own 
 as when there was something to carry off or to 
 put, as the phrase was, through. His light hand, 
 his slightly florid facility were the things that in 
 managing, in presiding, had rendered him so
 
 250 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 widely popular ; and wasn't he, precisely, a little 
 presiding, wasn't he a good deal managing, just 
 now? Vidal would be a blessed diversion espe 
 cially if he should be pressed into the service as 
 one : Tony was content for the moment to see this 
 with eagerness rather than to see it whole. His 
 eagerness was justified by the circumstance that 
 the young man from China did somehow or other 
 the reasons would appear after the fact repre 
 sent relief, relief not made vain by the reflection 
 that it was perhaps only temporary. Rose her 
 self, thank Heaven, was, with all her exaltation, 
 only temporary. He could already condone the 
 officiousness of a gentleman too interested in 
 Erne's equilibrium: the grounds of that indiscre 
 tion gleamed agreeably through it as soon as he 
 had seen the visitor's fingers draw together over 
 the hand held out by Rose. It was matter to 
 whistle over, to bustle over, that, as had been cer 
 tified by Mrs. Beever, the passion betrayed by 
 that clasp had survived its shipwreck, and there 
 wasn't a rope's end Tony could throw, or a stray 
 stick he could hold out, for which he didn't imme 
 diately cast about him. He saw indeed from this 
 moment his whole comfort in the idea of an organ 
 ised rescue and of making the struggling swimmer
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 251 
 
 know, as a preliminary, how little anyone at the 
 other house was interested in preventing him to 
 land. 
 
 Vidal had, for that matter, not been three min 
 utes in touch with him before he really began to 
 see this happy perception descend. It was, in a 
 manner, to haul him ashore to invite him to dine 
 and sleep; which Tony lost as little time as pos 
 sible in doing; expressing the hope that he had 
 not gone to the inn and that even if he had he 
 would consent to the quick transfer of his effects 
 to Bounds. Dennis showed that he had still some 
 wonder for such an overture, but before he could 
 respond to it the words were taken out of his 
 mouth by Rose, whose recovery from her upset 
 was complete from the moment she could seize a 
 pretext for the extravagance of tranquillity. 
 
 " Why should you take him away from us, and 
 why should he consent to be taken? Won't Mrs. 
 Beever," Rose asked of Dennis "since you're 
 not snatching the fearful joy of a clandestine visit 
 to her expect you, if you stay anywhere, to give 
 her the preference ? " 
 
 " Allow me to remind you, and to remind Mr. 
 Vidal," Tony returned, "that when he was here 
 before he gave her the preference. Mrs. Beever
 
 252 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 made no scruple of removing him bodily from 
 under my roof. I forfeited I was obliged to 
 the pleasure of a visit to him. But that leaves 
 me with my loss to make up and my revenge to 
 take I repay Mrs. Beever in kind." To find 
 Rose disputing with him the possession of their 
 friend filled him with immediate cheer. "Don't 
 you recognise," he went on to him, " the propriety 
 of what I propose? I take you and deal with 
 Mrs. Beever, as she took you and dealt with me. 
 Besides, your things have not even been brought 
 here as they had of old been brought to Bounds. 
 I promise to share you with these ladies and not 
 to grudge you the time you may wish to spend 
 with Miss Armiger. I understand but too well 
 the number of hours I shall find you putting in. 
 You shall pay me a long visit and come over here 
 as often as you like, and your presence at Bounds 
 may even possibly have the consequence of mak 
 ing them honour me there a little oftener with 
 their own." 
 
 Vidal looked from one of his companions to the 
 other; he struck Tony as slightly mystified, but 
 not beyond the point at which curiosity was agree 
 able. "I think I had better go to Mr. Bream," he 
 after a moment sturdily said to Rose. "There's
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 253 
 
 a matter on which I wish to talk with you, but 
 I don't see that that need prevent." 
 
 "It's for you to determine. There's a matter 
 on which I find myself, to you also, particularly 
 glad of the opportunity of saying a word." 
 
 Tony glanced promptly at his watch and at Rose. 
 "Your opportunity's before you say your word 
 now. I've a little job in the town," he explained 
 to Vidal ; " I must attend to it quickly, and I can 
 easily stop at the hotel and give directions for the 
 removal of your traps. All you will have to do, 
 then, will be to take the short way, which you 
 know over the bridge there and through my 
 garden to my door. We shall dine at an easy 
 eight." 
 
 Dennis Vidal assented to this arrangement 
 without qualification and indeed almost without 
 expression : there evidently lingered in him an 
 operative sense that there were compensations 
 Mr. Bream might be allowed the luxurious con 
 sciousness of owing him. Rose, however, showed 
 she still had a communication to make to Tony, 
 who had begun to move in the quarter leading 
 straight from Eastmead to the town, so that he 
 would have to pass near the house on going out. 
 She introduced it with a question about his move-
 
 254 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 merits. " You'll stop, then, on your way and tell 
 Mrs. Beever ?" 
 
 " Of my having appropriated our friend ? Not 
 this moment," said Tony "I've to meet a man 
 on business, and I shall only just have time. I 
 shall, if possible, come back here, but meanwhile 
 perhaps you'll kindly explain. Come straight 
 over and take possession," he added, to Vidal; 
 "make yourself at home don't wait for me to 
 return to you." He offered him a hand-shake 
 again, and then, with his native impulse to accom 
 modate and to harmonise making a friendly light 
 in his face, he offered one to Rose herself. She 
 accepted it so frankly that she even, for a minute, 
 kept his hand a response that he approved with 
 a smile so encouraging that it scarcely needed 
 even the confirmation of speech. They stood 
 there while Dennis Vidal turned away as if they 
 might have matters between them, and Tony 
 yielded to the impulse to prove to Rose that, 
 though there were things he kept from her, he 
 kept nothing that was not absolutely necessary. 
 "There's something else I've got to do I've 
 got to stop at the Doctor's." 
 
 Rose raised her eyebrows. " To consult him ? " 
 
 " To ask him to come over."
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 255 
 
 " I hope you're not ill." 
 
 " Never better in my life. I want him to see 
 Effie." 
 
 " #Ae's not ill, surely?" 
 
 " She's not right with the fright Gorham had 
 this morning. So I'm not satisfied." 
 
 " Let him then by all means see her," Rose said. 
 
 Their talk had, through the action of Vidal's 
 presence, dropped from its chilly height to the 
 warmest domestic level, and what now stuck out 
 of Tony was the desire she should understand 
 that on such ground as that he was always glad 
 to meet her. Dennis Vidal faced about again in 
 time to be called, as it were, if only by the tone 
 of his host's voice, to witness this. "A bientot. 
 Let me hear from you and from him that in 
 my absence you've been extremely kind to our 
 friend here." 
 
 Rose, with a small but vivid fever-spot in her 
 cheek, looked from one of the men to the other, 
 while her kindled eyes showed a gathered purpose 
 that had the prompt and perceptible effect of ex 
 citing suspense. " I don't mind letting you know, 
 Mr. Bream, in advance exactly how kind I shall be. 
 It would be affectation on my part to pretend to 
 be unaware of your already knowing something of
 
 256 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 what has passed between this gentleman and me. 
 He suffered, at my hands, in this place, four years 
 ago, a disappointment a disappointment into the 
 rights and wrongs, into the good reasons of which 
 I won't attempt to go further than just to say that 
 an inevitable publicity then attached to it." She 
 spoke with slow and deliberate clearness, still look 
 ing from Tony to Vidal and back again; after 
 which her strange intensity fixed itself on her old 
 suitor. "People saw, Mr. Vidal," she went on, 
 " the blight that descended on our long relations, 
 and people believed and I was at the time in 
 different to their believing that it had occurred 
 by my act. I'm not indifferent now that is to 
 any appearance of having been wanting in consid 
 eration for such a man as you. I've often wished 
 I might make you some reparation some open 
 atonement. I'm sorry for the distress that I'm 
 afraid I caused you, and here, before the principal 
 witness of the indignity you so magnanimously 
 met, I very sincerely express my regret and very 
 humbly beg your forgiveness." Dennis Vidal, 
 staring at her, had turned dead white as she kept 
 it up, and the quiet nobleness of her inspired pen 
 ance had brought tears into Tony's eyes. She 
 saw them there as she looked at him once more,
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 257 
 
 and she measured the effect she produced upon 
 him. She visibly and excusably enjoyed it, and 
 after a moment's pause she handsomely and pa 
 thetically completed it. "That, Mr. Bream for 
 your injunction of kindness is the kindness I'm 
 capable of showing." 
 
 Tony turned instantly to their companion, who 
 now stood staring hard at the ground. " I change, 
 then, my appeal I make it, with confidence, to 
 you. Let me hear, Mr. Vidal, when we meet 
 again, that you've not been capable of less ! " 
 Dennis, deeply moved, it was plain, but self-con 
 scious and stiff, gave no sign of having heard him ; 
 and Rose, on her side, walked away a little, like 
 an actress who had launched her great stroke. 
 Tony, between them, hesitated ; then he laughed 
 in a manner that showed he felt safe. "Oh, 
 you're both all right ! " he declared ; and with 
 another glance at his watch he bounded off to 
 his business. He drew, as he went, a long breath 
 filled his lungs with the sense that he should 
 after all have a margin. She would take Vidal 
 back.
 
 XXIV 
 
 " WHY did you do that ? " Dennis asked as soon 
 as he was alone with Rose. 
 
 She had sunk into a seat at a distance from him, 
 all spent with her great response to her sudden 
 opportunity for justice. His challenge brought 
 her flight to earth; and after waiting a moment 
 she answered him with a question that betrayed 
 her sense of coming down. " Do you really care, 
 after all this time, what I do or don't do ? " 
 
 His rejoinder to this was in turn only another 
 demand. "What business is it of his that you 
 may have done this or that to me? What has 
 passed between us is still between us : nobody else 
 has anything to do with it." 
 
 Rose smiled at him as if to thank him for being 
 again a trifle sharp with her. " He wants me, as 
 he said, to be kind to you." 
 
 "You mean he wants you to do that sort of 
 thing?" His sharpness brought him step by step 
 258
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 259 
 
 across the lawn and nearer to her. " Do you care 
 so very much what he wants? " 
 
 Again she hesitated; then, with her pleased, 
 patient smile, she tapped the empty place on the 
 bench. " Come and sit down beside me, and I '11 
 tell you how much I care." He obeyed her, but 
 not precipitately, approaching her with a delibera 
 tion which still held her off a little, made her ob 
 jective to his inspection or his mistrust. He had 
 said to Mrs. Beever that he had not come to watch 
 her, but we are at liberty to wonder what Mrs. 
 Beever might have called the attitude in which, 
 before seating himself, he stopped before her with 
 a silent stare. She met him at any rate with a 
 face that told him there was no scrutiny she was 
 now enough in the wrong to fear, a face that was 
 all the promise of confession and submission and 
 sacrifice. She tapped again upon her bench, and 
 at this he sat down. Then she went on : " When 
 did you come back?" 
 
 "To England? The other day I don't re 
 member which of them. I think you ought to 
 answer my question," Vidal said, "before asking 
 any more of your own." 
 
 "No, no," she replied, promptly but gently; 
 "there's an inquiry it seems to me I've a right
 
 260 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 to make of you before I admit yours to make any 
 at all." She looked at him as if to give him time 
 either to assent or to object; but he only sat 
 rather stiffly back and let her see how fine and 
 firm the added years had hammered him. " What 
 are you really here for? Has it anything to do 
 with me?" 
 
 Dennis remained profoundly grave. "I didn't 
 know you were here I had no reason to," he at 
 last replied. 
 
 " Then you simply desired the pleasure of renew 
 ing your acquaintance with Mrs. Beever ? " 
 
 " I came to ask her about you." 
 
 " How beautiful of you ! " and Rose's tone, 
 untinged with irony, rang out as clear as the 
 impulse it praised. " Fancy your caring ! " she 
 added; after which she continued: "As I under 
 stand you, then, you've had your chance, you've 
 talked with her." 
 
 "A very short time. I put her a question or 
 two." 
 
 " I won't ask you what they were," said Rose : 
 " I'll only say that, since I happen to be here, it 
 may be a comfort to you not to have to content 
 yourself with information at secondhand. Ask 
 me what you like. I'll tell you everything."
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 261 
 
 Her companion considered. " You might then 
 begin by telling me what I've already asked." 
 
 She took him up before he could go on. "Oh, 
 why I attached an importance to his hearing what 
 I just now said ? Yes, yes ; you shall have it." 
 She turned it over as if with the sole thought of 
 giving it to him with the utmost lucidity; then 
 she was visibly struck with the help she would 
 derive from knowing just one thing more. " But 
 first are you at all jealous of him ? " 
 
 Dennis Vidal broke into a laugh which might 
 have been a tribute to her rare audacity, yet which 
 somehow, at the same time, made him seem only 
 more serious. " That's a thing for you to find out 
 for yourself ! " 
 
 " I see I see." She looked at him with mus 
 ing, indulgent eyes. " It would be too wonderful. 
 Yet otherwise, after all, why should you care ? " 
 
 " I don't mind telling you frankly," said Dennis, 
 while, with two fingers softly playing upon her 
 lower lip, she sat estimating the possibility she 
 had named "I don't mind telling you frankly 
 that I asked Mrs. Beever if you were still in love 
 with him." 
 
 She clasped her hands so eagerly that she almost 
 clapped them. " Then you do care ? "
 
 262 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 He was looking beyond her now at something 
 at the other end of the garden ; and he made no 
 other reply than to say: "She didn't give you 
 away." 
 
 " It was very good of her ; but I would tell you 
 myself, you know, perfectly, if I were." 
 
 " You didn't tell me perfectly four years ago," 
 Dennis returned. 
 
 Rose hesitated a minute; but this didn't pre 
 vent her speaking with an effect of great prompti 
 tude. " Oh, four years ago I was the biggest fool 
 in England ! " 
 
 Dennis, at this, met her eyes again. "Then 
 what I asked Mrs. Beever " 
 
 " Isn't true ? " Rose caught him up. " It's an 
 exquisite position," she said, " for a woman to be 
 questioned as you question me, and to have to 
 answer as I answer you. But it's your revenge, 
 and you've already seen that to your revenge 
 I minister with a certain amount of resolution." 
 She let him look at her a minute; at last she 
 said without flinching: "I'm not in love with 
 Anthony Bream." 
 
 Dennis shook his head sadly. " What does that 
 do for my revenge ? " 
 
 Rose had another quick flush. "It shows you
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 263 
 
 what I consent to discuss with you," she rather 
 proudly replied. 
 
 He turned his eyes back to the quarter to which 
 he had directed them before. " You do consent? " 
 
 " Can you ask after what I've done ? " 
 
 " Well, then ; Tie no longer cares ? " 
 
 " For me ?" said Rose. " He never cared." 
 
 "Never?" 
 
 " Never." 
 
 " Upon your honour ? " 
 
 " Upon my honour." 
 
 " But you had an idea ? " Dennis bravely 
 
 pursued. 
 
 Rose as dauntlessly met him. " I had an idea." 
 
 " And you've had to give it up ? " 
 
 " I've had to give it up." 
 
 Dennis was silent ; he slowly got upon his feet. 
 
 " Well that does something." 
 
 "For your revenge?" She sounded a bitter 
 laugh. " I should think it might ! What it does 
 is magnificent ! " 
 
 He stood looking over her head till at last he 
 exclaimed: "So, apparently, is the child !" 
 
 " She has come ? " Rose sprang up to find that 
 Effie had been borne toward them, across the 
 grass, in the arms of the muscular Manning, who,
 
 264 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 having stooped to set her down and given her a 
 vigorous impulsion from behind, recovered the 
 military stature and posture. 
 
 " You're to take her, Miss, please from Mrs. 
 Beever. And you're to keep her." 
 
 Rose had already greeted the little visitor. 
 " Please assure Mrs. Beever that I will. She's 
 with Miss Martle?" 
 
 " She is indeed, Miss." Manning always spoke 
 without emotion, and the effect of it on this occa 
 sion was to give her the air of speaking without 
 pity. 
 
 Rose, however, didn't mind that. " She may 
 trust me," she said, while Manning saluted and 
 retired. Then she stood before her old suitor with 
 Effie blooming on her shoulder. 
 
 He frankly wondered and admired. " She's 
 magnificent she's magnificent!" he repeated. 
 
 " She's magnificent ! " Rose ardently echoed. 
 " Aren't you, my very own ? " she demanded of 
 the child with a sudden passion of tenderness. 
 
 "What did he mean about her wanting the 
 Doctor ? She'll see us all through every blessed 
 one of us ! " Dennis gave himself up to his serious 
 interest, an odd, voracious manner of taking her in 
 from top to toe.
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 265 
 
 " You look at her like an ogre ! " Rose laughed, 
 moving away from him with her burden, and press 
 ing to her lips, as she went, a little plump pink 
 arm. She pretended to munch it; she covered 
 it with kisses; she gave way to the joy of her 
 renounced abstention. "See us all through? 
 I hope so ! Why shouldn't you, darling why 
 shouldn't you? You've got a real friend you 
 have, you duck ; and she sees you know what 
 you've got by the wonderful way you look at her ! " 
 This was to attribute to the little girl's solemn 
 stare a vividness of meaning which moved Dennis 
 to hilarity ; Rose's profession of confidence made 
 her immediately turn her round face, over her 
 friend's shoulder, to the gentleman who was stroll 
 ing behind and whose public criticism, as well as 
 his public mirth, appeared to arouse in her only a 
 soft sense of superiority. Rose sat down again 
 where she had sat before, keeping Effie in her lap 
 and smoothing out her fine feathers. Then their 
 companion, after a little more detached contem 
 plation, also took his former place. 
 
 " She makes me remember ! " he presently 
 observed. 
 
 " That extraordinary scene poor Julia's mes 
 sage ? You can fancy whether /forget it ! "
 
 266 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 Dennis was silent a little ; after which he said 
 quietly : " You've more to keep it in mind." 
 
 " I can assure you I've plenty ! " Rose replied. 
 
 " And the young lady who was also present : 
 isn't she the Miss Martle ?" 
 
 " Whom I spoke of to that woman ? She's the 
 Miss Martle. What about her ? " Rose asked with 
 her cheek against the child's. 
 
 " Does she also remember ? " 
 
 " Like you and me ? I haven't the least idea." 
 
 Once more Dennis paused: his pauses were 
 filled with his friendly gaze at their small compan 
 ion. " She's here again like you ? " 
 
 " And like you ? " Rose smiled. " No, not like 
 either of us. She's always here." 
 
 " And it's from her you're to keep a certain 
 little person?" 
 
 " It's from her." Rose spoke with rich brevity. 
 
 Dennis hesitated. " Would you trust the little 
 person to another little person ? " 
 
 "To you to hold?" Rose looked amused. 
 " Without a pang ! " The child, at this, pro 
 foundly meditative and imperturbably " good," sub 
 mitted serenely to the transfer and to the prompt, 
 long kiss which, as he gathered her to him, Dennis, 
 in his turn, imprinted on her arm. " I'll stay with
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 267 
 
 you!" she declared with expression; on which he 
 renewed, with finer relish, the freedom she per 
 mitted, assuring her that this settled the question 
 and that he was her appointed champion. Rose 
 watched the passage between them, which was 
 charming ; then she brought out abruptly : " What 
 I said to Mr. Bream just now I didn't say for Mr. 
 Bream." 
 
 Dennis had the little girl close to him ; his arms 
 were softly round her and, like Rose's just before, 
 his cheek, as he tenderly bent his head, was pressed 
 against her cheek. His eyes were on their com 
 panion. "You said it for Mr. Vidal? He liked 
 it, all the same, better than I," he replied in a 
 moment. 
 
 " Of course he liked it ! But it doesn't matter 
 what he likes," Rose added. "As for you I 
 don't know that your ' liking ' it was what I 
 wanted." 
 
 " What then did you want ? " 
 
 " That you should see me utterly abased and 
 all the more utterly that it was in the cruel pres 
 ence of another." 
 
 Dennis had raised his head and sunk back into 
 the angle of the bench, separated from her by such 
 space as it yielded. His face, presented to her
 
 268 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 over Effie's curls, was a lean mixture of many 
 mystifications. "Why in the world should that 
 give me pleasure?" 
 
 "Why in the world shouldn't it ?" Rose asked. 
 " What's your revenge but pleasure ? " 
 
 She had got up again in her dire restlessness ; 
 she glowed there in the perversity of her sacrifice. 
 If he hadn't come to Wilverley to watch her, his 
 wonder-stricken air much wronged him. He shook 
 his head again with his tired patience. " Oh, damn 
 pleasure ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 " Your triumph's nothing to you ? " Rose cried. 
 "Then if it isn't, perhaps you pity me?" She 
 shone at him as if with the glimpse of a new 
 hope. 
 
 He took it in, but he only after a moment echoed 
 ambiguously her word. " Pity you ? " 
 
 "I think you would, Dennis, if you under 
 stood." 
 
 He looked at her hard; he hesitated. At last 
 he returned quietly, but relentingly : " Well, Rose, 
 I don't understand." 
 
 " Then I must go through it all I must empty 
 the cup. Yes, I must tell you." 
 
 She paused so long, however, beautiful, candid, 
 and tragic, looking in the face her necessity, but
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 269 
 
 gathering herself for her effort, that, after waiting 
 awhile, he spoke. " Tell me what ? " 
 
 " That I'm simply at your feet. That I'm yours 
 to do what you will with to take or to cast away. 
 Perhaps you will care for your triumph," she said, 
 " when you see in it the grand opportunity I give 
 you. It's your turn to refuse now you can 
 treat me exactly as you were treated ! " 
 
 A deep, motionless silence followed, between 
 them, this speech, which left them confronted as if 
 it had rather widened than bridged their separa 
 tion. Before Dennis found his answer to it the 
 sharp tension snapped in a clear, glad exclamation. 
 The child threw out her arms and her voice : 
 " Auntie Jean, Auntie Jean ! "
 
 XXV 
 
 THE others had been so absorbed that they 
 had not seen Jean Martle approach, and she, on 
 her side, was close to them before appearing to 
 perceive a stranger in the gentleman who held 
 Effie in his lap and whom she had the air of 
 having assumed, at a greater distance, to be 
 Anthony Bream. Effie's reach toward her friend 
 was so effective that, with Vidal's obligation to 
 rise, it enabled her to slip from his hands and 
 rush to avail herself of the embrace offered 
 her, in spite of a momentary arrest, by Jean. 
 Rose, however, at the sight of this movement, 
 was quicker than Jean to catch her; she seized 
 her almost with violence, and, holding her as 
 she had held her before, dropped again upon 
 the bench and presented her as a yielding cap 
 tive. This act of appropriation was confirmed 
 by the flash of a fine glance a single gleam, 
 but direct which, however, producing in Jean's 
 270
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 271 
 
 fair face no retort, had only the effect of mak 
 ing her look, in gracious recognition, at Dennis. 
 He had evidently, for the moment, nothing but 
 an odd want of words to meet her with; but 
 this, precisely, gave her such a sense of having 
 disturbed a scene of intimacy that, to be doubly 
 courteous, she said : " Perhaps you remember 
 me. We were here together " 
 
 "Four years ago perfectly," Rose broke in, 
 speaking for him with an amenity that might 
 have been intended as a quick corrective of 
 any impression conveyed by her grab of the 
 child. "Mr. Vidal and I were just talking of 
 you. He has come back, for the first time since 
 then, to pay us a little visit." 
 
 " Then he has things to say to you that I've 
 rudely interrupted. Please excuse me I'm off 
 again," Jean went on to Dennis. "I only came 
 for the little girl." She turned back to Rose. 
 "I'm afraid it's time I should take her home." 
 
 Rose sat there like a queen-regent with a 
 baby sovereign on her knee. "Must I give her 
 up to you?" 
 
 "I'm responsible for her, you know, to Gor- 
 ham," Jean returned. 
 
 Rose gravely kissed her little ward, who, now
 
 272 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 that she was apparently to be offered the enter 
 tainment of a debate in which she was so 
 closely concerned, was clearly prepared to con 
 tribute to it the calmness of impartial beauty 
 at a joust. She was just old enough to be in 
 terested, but she was just young enough to be 
 judicial; the lap of her present friend had the 
 compass of a small child-world, and she perched 
 there in her loveliness as if she had been Helen 
 on the walls of Troy. " It's not to Gorham J'm 
 responsible," Rose presently answered. 
 
 Jean took it good-humouredly. "Are you to 
 Mr. Bream?" 
 
 " I'll tell you presently to whom." And Rose 
 looked intelligently at Dennis Vidal. 
 
 Smiled at in alternation by two clever young 
 women, he had yet not, sufficiently to achieve 
 a jocose manner, shaken off his sense of the 
 strange climax of his conversation with the 
 elder of them. He turned about awkwardly, 
 as he had done four years before, for the hat 
 it was one of the privileges of such a collo 
 quy to make him put down in an odd place. 
 "I'll go over to Bounds," he said to Rose. 
 And then to Jean, to take leave of her: "I'm 
 staying at the other house."
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 273 
 
 "Really? Mr. Bream didn't tell me. But I 
 must never drive you away. You've more to 
 say to Miss Armiger than I have. I've only 
 come to get Effie," Jean repeated. 
 
 Dennis at this, brushing off his recovered hat, 
 gave way to his thin laugh. "That, apparently, 
 may take you some time ! " 
 
 Rose generously helped him off. "I've more 
 to say to Miss Martle than I've now to say to 
 you. I think that what I've already said to 
 you is quite enough." 
 
 " Thanks, thanks quite enough. I'll just 
 go over." 
 
 "You won't go first to Mrs. Beever?" 
 
 " Not yet I'll come in this evening. Thanks, 
 thanks ! " Dennis repeated with a sudden dra 
 matic gaiety that was presumably intended to 
 preserve appearances to acknowledge Rose's 
 aid and, in a spirit of reciprocity, cover any 
 exposure she might herself have incurred. Rais 
 ing his hat, he passed down the slope and 
 disappeared, leaving our young ladies face to 
 face. 
 
 Their situation might still have been embar 
 rassing had Rose not taken immediate measures 
 to give it a lift. "You must let me have the
 
 274 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 pleasure of making you the first person to hear 
 of a matter that closely concerns me." She 
 hung fire, watching her companion ; then she 
 brought out: "I'm engaged to be married to 
 Mr. Vidal." 
 
 " Engaged ? " Jean almost bounded forward, 
 holding up her relief like a torch. 
 
 Rose greeted with laughter this natural note. 
 " He arrived half an hour ago, for a supreme 
 appeal and it has not, you see, taken long. 
 I've just had the honour of accepting him." 
 
 Jean's movement had brought her so close to 
 the bench that, though slightly disconcerted by 
 its action on her friend, she could only, in con 
 sistency, seat herself. "That's very charming 
 I congratulate you." 
 
 "It's charming of you to be so glad," Rose 
 returned. "However, you've the news in all 
 its freshness." 
 
 " I appreciate that too," said Jean. " But 
 fancy my dropping on a conversation of such 
 importance ! " 
 
 " Fortunately you didn't cut it short. We had 
 settled the question. He had got his answer." 
 
 "If I had known it I would have congratu 
 lated Mr. Vidal," Jean pursued.
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 275 
 
 " You would have frightened him out of his 
 wits he's so dreadfully shy ! " Rose laughed. 
 
 " Yes I could see he was dreadfully shy. 
 But the great thing," Jean candidly added, "is 
 that he was not too dreadfully shy to come 
 back to you." 
 
 Rose continued to be moved to mirth. " Oh, 
 I don't mean with me! He's as bold with me 
 as I am for instance with you." Jean had 
 not touched the child, but Rose smoothed out 
 her ribbons as if to redress some previous free 
 dom. " You'll think that says everything. I 
 can easily imagine how you judge my frank 
 ness," she added. "But of course I'm grossly 
 immodest I always was." 
 
 Jean wistfully watched her light hands play 
 here and there over Effie's adornments. "I 
 think you're a person of great courage if 
 you'll let me also be frank. There's nothing 
 in the world I admire so much for I don't 
 consider that I've, myself, a great deal. I dare 
 say, however, that I should let you know just 
 as soon if / were engaged." 
 
 "Which, unfortunately, is exactly what you're 
 not ! " Rose, having finished her titivation of 
 the child, sank comfortably back on the bench.
 
 276 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 "Do you object to my speaking to you of 
 that?" she asked. 
 
 Jean hesitated; she had only after letting 
 them escape become conscious of the reach of 
 her words, the inadvertence of which showed 
 how few waves of emotion her scene with Paul 
 Beever had left to subside. She coloured as she 
 replied : " I don't know how much you know." 
 
 "I know everything," said Rose. "Mr. Beever 
 has already told me." 
 
 Jean's flush, at this, deepened. "Mr. Beever 
 already doesn't care ! " 
 
 " That's fortunate for you, my dear ! Will you 
 let me tell you," Rose continued, "how much / 
 do?" 
 
 Jean again hesitated, looking, however, through 
 her embarrassment, very straight and sweet. " I 
 don't quite see that it's a thing you should tell me 
 or that I'm really obliged to hear. It's very good 
 of you to take an interest " 
 
 " But however good it may be, it's none of my 
 business : is that what you mean ? " Rose broke in. 
 "Such an answer is doubtless natural enough. 
 My having hoped you would accept Paul Beever, 
 and above all my having rather publicly expressed 
 that hope, is an apparent stretch of discretion that
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 277 
 
 you're perfectly free to take up. But you must 
 allow me to say that the stretch is more apparent 
 than real. There's discretion and discretion 
 and it's all a matter of motive. Perhaps you can 
 guess mine for having found a reassurance in the 
 idea of your definitely bestowing your hand. It's 
 a very small and a very pretty hand, but its possi 
 ble action is out of proportion to its size and even 
 to its beauty. It was not a question of meddling 
 in your affairs your affairs were only one side of 
 the matter. My interest was wholly in the effect 
 of your marriage on the affairs of others. Let me 
 say, moreover," Rose went smoothly and inex 
 orably on, while Jean, listening intently, drew 
 shorter breaths and looked away, as if in growing 
 pain, from the wonderful white, mobile mask that 
 supplied half the meaning of this speech " let 
 me say, moreover, that it strikes me you hardly 
 treat me with fairness in forbidding me an allusion 
 that has after all so much in common with the 
 fact, in my own situation, as to which you've no 
 scruple in showing me your exuberant joy. You 
 clap your hands over my being if you'll forgive 
 the vulgarity of my calling things by their names 
 got out of the way ; yet I must suffer in silence 
 to see you rather more in it than ever."
 
 278 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 Jean turned again upon her companion a face 
 bewildered and alarmed: unguardedly stepping 
 into water that she had believed shallow, she 
 found herself caught up in a current of fast-mov 
 ing depths a cold, full tide that set straight out 
 to sea. "Where am I?" her scared silence 
 seemed for the moment to ask. Her quick intelli 
 gence indeed, came to her aid, and she spoke in a 
 voice out of which she showed that she tried to 
 keep her heart-beats. " You call things, certainly, 
 by names that are extraordinary; but I, at any 
 rate, follow you far enough to be able to remind 
 you that what I just said about your engagement 
 was provoked by your introducing the subject." 
 
 Rose was silent a moment, but without preju 
 dice, clearly, to her firm possession of the ground 
 she stood on a power to be effectively cool in ex 
 act proportion as her interlocutress was troubled. 
 " I introduced the subject for two reasons. One 
 of them was that your eager descent upon us at 
 that particular moment seemed to present you 
 in the light of an inquirer whom it would be 
 really rude not to gratify. The other was just 
 to see if you would succeed in restraining your 
 glee." 
 
 " Then your story isn't true ? " Jean asked Avith
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 279 
 
 a promptitude that betrayed the limits of her cir 
 cumspection. 
 
 " There you are again ! " Rose laughed. " Do 
 you know your apprehensions are barely decent? 
 I haven't, however, laid a trap with a bait that's 
 all make-believe. It's perfectly true that Mr. 
 Vidal has again pressed me hard it's not true 
 that I've yet given him an answer completely 
 final. But as I mean to at the earliest moment, 
 you can say so to whomever you like." 
 
 "I can surely leave the saying so to you!'" 
 Jean returned. " But I shall be sorry to appear 
 to have treated you with a want of confidence 
 that may give you a complaint to make on the 
 score of my manners as to which you set me 
 too high an example by the rare perfection of 
 your own. Let me simply let you know, then, to 
 cover every possibility of that sort, that I intend, 
 under no circumstances ever ever to marry. 
 So far as that knowledge may satisfy you, you're 
 welcome to the satisfaction. Perhaps in consid 
 eration of it," Jean wound up, with an effect that 
 must have struck her own ear as the greatest she 
 had ever produced " perhaps in consideration of 
 it you'll kindly do what I ask you." 
 
 The poor girl was destined to see her effect
 
 280 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 reduced to her mere personal sense of it. Rose 
 made no movement save to lay her hands on 
 Effie's shoulders, while that young lady looked up 
 at the friend of other occasions in round-eyed 
 detachment, following the talk enough for curi 
 osity, but not enough either for comprehension 
 or for agitation. "You take my surrender for 
 granted, I suppose, because you've worked so 
 long to produce the impression, which no one, for 
 your good fortune, has gainsaid, that she's safe 
 only in your hands. But / gainsay it at last, for 
 her safety becomes a very different thing from the 
 moment you give such a glimpse of your open 
 field as you must excuse my still continuing to 
 hold that you do give. My ' knowledge ' to use 
 your term that you'll never marry has exactly 
 as much and as little weight as your word for it. 
 I leave it to your conscience to estimate that 
 wonderful amount. You say too much both 
 more than I ask you and more than I can oblige 
 you by prescribing to myself to take seriously. 
 You do thereby injustice to what must be always 
 on the cards for you the possible failure of the 
 great impediment. I'm. disinterested in the matter 
 I shall marry, as I've had the honour to inform 
 you, without having to think at all of impedi-
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 281 
 
 merits or failures. That's the difference between 
 us, and it seems to me that it alters everything. 
 I had a delicacy but now I've nothing in the 
 world but a fear." 
 
 Jean had got up before these remarks had gone 
 far, but even though she fell back a few steps her 
 dismay was a force that condemned her to take 
 them in. " God forbid I should understand you," 
 she panted; "I only make out that you say and 
 mean horrible things, and that you're doing your 
 best to seek a quarrel with me from which you 
 shall derive some advantage that, I'm happy to 
 feel, is beyond my conception." Both the women 
 were now as pale as death, and Rose was brought 
 to her feet by the pure passion of this retort. 
 The manner of it was such as to leave Jean noth 
 ing but to walk away, which she instantly pro 
 ceeded to do. At the end of ten paces, however, 
 she turned to look at their companion, who stood 
 beside Rose, held by the hand, and whom, as if 
 from a certain consideration for infant innocence 
 and a certain instinct of fair play, she had not 
 attempted to put on her side by a single direct 
 appeal from intimate eyes. This appeal she now 
 risked, and the way the little girl's face mutely 
 met it suddenly precipitated her to blind supplica-
 
 282 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 tion. She became weak she broke down. "I 
 beseech you to let me have her." 
 
 Rose Armiger's countenance made no secret of 
 her appreciation of this collapse. "I'll let you 
 have her on one condition," she presently replied. 
 
 " What condition ? " 
 
 " That you deny to me on the spot that you've 
 but one feeling in your soul. Oh, don't look 
 vacant and dazed," Rose derisively pursued; 
 " don't look as if you didn't know what feeling I 
 mean ! Renounce it repudiate it, and I'll never 
 touch her again ! " 
 
 Jean gazed in sombre stupefaction. "I know 
 what feeling you mean," she said at last, "and 
 I'm incapable of meeting your condition. / 
 ' deny,' I ' renounce,' I ' repudiate,' as little as I 
 hope, as I dream, or as I feel that I'm likely ever 
 
 again even to utter ! " Then she brought out 
 
 in her baffled sadness, but with so little vulgarity 
 of pride that she sounded, rather, a note of com 
 passion for a perversity so deep : " It's because of 
 that that I want her ! " 
 
 " Because you adore him and she's his ? " 
 
 Jean faltered, but she was launched. " Because 
 I adore him and she's his." 
 
 " Jwant her for another reason," Rose declared.
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 283 
 
 "I adored her poor mother and she's hers. 
 That's my ground, that's my love, that's my 
 faith." She caught Effie up again; she held her 
 in two strong arms and dealt her a kiss that was 
 a long consecration. "It's as your dear dead 
 mother's, my own, my sweet, that if it's time 
 I shall carry you to bed ! " She passed swiftly 
 down the slope with her burden and took the turn 
 which led her out of sight. Jean stood watching 
 her till she disappeared and then waited till she 
 had emerged for the usual minute on the rise in 
 the middle of the bridge. She saw her stop again 
 there, she saw her again, as if in the triumph 
 a great open-air insolence of possession, press 
 her face to the little girl's. Then they dipped 
 together to the further end and were lost, and 
 Jean, after taking a few vague steps on the lawn, 
 paused, as if sick with the after taste of her en 
 counter, and turned to the nearest seat. It was 
 close to Mrs. Beever's blighted tea-table, and 
 when she had sunk into the chair she threw her 
 arms upon this support and wearily dropped her 
 head.
 
 
 XXVI 
 
 AT the end of some minutes, with the sense of 
 being approached, she looked up and saw Paul 
 Beever. Returning to the garden, he had stopped 
 short at sight of her, and his arrival made her 
 spring to her feet with the fear of having, in the 
 belief that she was unobserved, shown him some 
 thing she had never shown. But as he bent upon 
 her his kind, ugly face there came into her own 
 the comfort of a general admission, the drop of 
 all attempt at a superfine surface : they stood 
 together without saying a word, and there passed 
 between them something sad and clear, something 
 that was in its essence a recognition of the great, 
 pleasant oddity of their being drawn closer by 
 their rupture. They knew everything about each 
 other now and, young and clean and good as they 
 were, could meet not only without attenuations, 
 but with a positive friendliness that was for each, 
 from the other, a moral help. Paul had no need 
 
 284
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 285 
 
 of speech to show Jean how he thanked her for 
 understanding why he had not besieged her with 
 a pressure more heroic, and she, on her side, could 
 enter with the tread of a nurse in a sick-room 
 into the spirit of that accommodation. They both, 
 moreover, had been closeted with his mother an 
 experience on which they could, with some dumb 
 humour, compare notes. The girl, finally, had 
 now, to this dear boy she didn't love, something 
 more to give than she had ever given ; and after 
 a little she could see the dawn of suspicion of it 
 in the eyes with which he searched her grave face. 
 
 "I knew Miss Armiger had come back here, 
 and I thought I should find her," he presently 
 explained. 
 
 " She was here a few minutes ago she has 
 just left me," Jean said. 
 
 " To go in again ? " Paul appeared to wonder 
 he had not met her on his way out. 
 
 " To go over to Bounds." 
 
 He continued to wonder. " With Mr. Bream ? " 
 
 "No with his little girl." 
 
 Paul's surprise increased. "She has taken her 
 up?" 
 
 Jean hesitated ; she uneasily laughed. " Up 
 up up : away up in her arms I '
 
 286 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 Her companion was more literal. "A young 
 woman of Effie's age must be a weight ! " 
 
 " I know what weight I've carried her. Miss 
 Armiger did it precisely to prevent that." 
 
 " To prevent your carrying her ? " 
 
 " To prevent my touching or, if possible, look 
 ing at her. She snatched her up and fled with 
 her to get her away from me." 
 
 "Why should she wish to do that?" Paul 
 inquired. 
 
 "I think you had better ask her directly." 
 Then Jean added: "As you say, she has taken 
 her up. She's Tier occupation, from this time." 
 
 "Why, suddenly, from this time?" 
 
 "Because of what has happened." 
 
 "Between you and me?" 
 
 "Yes that's one of her reasons." 
 
 "One of them?" laughed Paul. "She has 
 so many?" 
 
 "She tells me she has two." 
 
 "Two? She speaks of it?" 
 
 Jean saw, visibly, that she mystified him; but 
 she as visibly tried to let him see that this was 
 partly because she spared him. " She speaks of 
 it with perfect frankness." 
 
 " Then what's her second reason ? "
 
 THE OTHEB HOUSE 287 
 
 "That if I'm not engaged" Jean hung fire, 
 but she brought it out "at least she herself is." 
 
 "She herself? instead of you?" 
 
 Paul's blankness was so utter that his com 
 panion's sense of the comic was this time, and 
 in spite of the cruelty involved in a correction, 
 really touched. "To you? No, not to you, my 
 dear Paul. To a gentleman I found with her 
 here. To that Mr. Vidal," said Jean. 
 
 Paul gasped. "You found that Mr. Vidal 
 with her ? " He looked bewilderedly about. 
 "Where then is he?" 
 
 " He went over to Bounds." 
 
 "And she went with him?" 
 
 "No, she went after." 
 
 Still Paul stood staring. " Where the dickens 
 did he drop from ? " 
 
 " I haven't the least idea." 
 
 The young man had a sudden light. "Why, 
 I saw him with mamma! He was here when 
 I came off the river he borrowed the boat." 
 
 "But you didn't know it was he?" 
 
 "I never dreamed and mamma never told 
 me." 
 
 Jean thought a moment. "She was afraid. 
 You see I'm not."
 
 288 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 Paul Beever more pitifully wondered; he re 
 peated again the word she had left ringing in 
 his ears. " She's ' engaged ' ? " 
 
 "So she informed me." 
 
 His little eyes rested on her with a stupefaction 
 so candid as almost to amount to a challenge ; 
 then they moved away, far away, and he stood 
 lost in what he felt. She came, tenderly, nearer 
 to him, and they turned back to her; on which 
 she saw they were rilled with the tears that 
 another failure she knew of had no power to 
 draw to them. " It's awfully odd ! " he said. 
 
 " I've had to hurt you," she replied. " I'm 
 very sorry for you." 
 
 "Oh, don't mind it!" Paul smiled. 
 
 " These are things for you to hear of 
 straight." 
 
 "From her? Ah, I don't want to do that! 
 You see, of course, I sha'n't say anything." And 
 he covered, for an instant, working it clumsily, 
 one of his little eyes with the base of one of his 
 big thumbs. 
 
 Jean held out her hand to him. " Do you love 
 her?" 
 
 He took it, embarrassed, without meeting her 
 look ; then, suddenly, something of importance
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 289 
 
 seemed to occur to him, and he replied with 
 simple alertness: "I never mentioned it!" 
 
 Dimly, but ever so kindly, Jean smiled. " Be 
 cause you hadn't had your talk with me f " She 
 kept hold of his hand. " Dear Paul, I must say 
 it again you're beautiful ! " 
 
 He stared, not, as yet, taking this approval 
 home ; then with the same prompt veracity, 
 " But she knows it, you know, all the same ! " 
 he exclaimed. 
 
 Jean laughed as she released him; but it kept 
 no gravity out of the tone in which she presently 
 repeated: "I'm sorry for you." 
 
 " Oh, it's all right ! May I light a cigarette ? " 
 he asked. 
 
 " As many as you like. But I must leave you." 
 
 He had struck a match, and at this he paused. 
 "Because I'm smoking?" 
 
 "Dear, no. Because I must go over to see 
 Effie." Facing wistfully to her little friend's 
 quarter, Jean thought aloud. " I always bid 
 her good-night. I don't see why on her birth 
 day, of all evenings I should omit it." 
 
 "Well, then, bid her good-night for me too." 
 She was half-way down the slope; Paul went 
 in the same direction, puffing his cigarette hard.
 
 290 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 Then, stopping short, "Tony puts him up?" he 
 abruptly asked. 
 
 " Mr. Vidal ? So it appears." 
 
 He gazed a little, blowing his smoke, at this 
 appearance. " And she has gone over to see 
 him?" 
 
 "That may be a part of her errand." 
 
 He hesitated again. "They can't have lost 
 much time ! " 
 
 "Very little indeed." 
 
 Jean went on again ; but again he checked 
 her with a question. "What has he, what has 
 the matter you speak of, to do with her cutting 
 
 in ?" He paused as if in the presence of 
 
 things painfully obscure. 
 
 "To the interest others take in the child? 
 Ah," said Jean, " if you feel as you do " she 
 hesitated " don't ,ask me. Ask her!" 
 
 She went her 'way, and, standing there in 
 thought, he waited for her to come, after an 
 interval, into sight on the curve of the bridge. 
 Then as the minutes elapsed without her doing 
 so, he lounged, heavy and blank, up again to 
 where he had found her. Manning, while his 
 back was turned, had arrived with one of her 
 aids to carry off the tea-things ; and from a
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 291 
 
 distance, planted on the lawn, he bent on these 
 evolutions an attention unnaturally fixed. The 
 women marched and countermarched, dismantling 
 the table ; he broodingly and vacantly watched 
 them ; then, as he lighted a fresh cigarette, he 
 saw his mother come out of the house to give 
 an eye to their work. She reached the spot 
 and dropped a command or two ; after which, 
 joining him, she took in that her little company 
 had dispersed. 
 
 " What has become of everyone ? " 
 
 Paul's replies were slow; but he gave her 
 one now that was distinct. "After the talk 
 on which I lately left you, I should think you 
 would know pretty well what had become of me." 
 
 She gave him a keen look ; her face softened. 
 "What on earth's the matter with you?" 
 
 He placidly smoked. "I've had my head 
 punched." 
 
 " Nonsense for all you mind me ! " She 
 scanned him again. " Are you ill, Paul ? " 
 
 "I'm all right," he answered philosophically. 
 
 "Then kiss your old mammy." Solemnly, 
 silently he obeyed her ; but after he had done 
 so she still held him before her eyes. She gave 
 him a sharp pat. " You're worth them all ! "
 
 292 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 Paul made no acknowledgment of this tribute 
 save to remark after an instant rather awkwardly : 
 "I don't know where Tony is." 
 
 "I can do without Tony," said his mother. 
 "But where's Tony's child?" 
 
 "Miss Armiger has taken her home." 
 
 " The clever thing ! " Mrs. Beever fairly ap 
 plauded the feat. " She was here when you came 
 out?" 
 
 "No, but Jean told me." 
 
 "Jean was here?" 
 
 "Yes; but she went over." 
 
 " Over to Bounds after what has happened? " 
 Mrs. Beever looked at first incredulous; then 
 she looked stern again. " What in the name 
 of goodness possesses her?" 
 
 "The wish to bid Effie good-night." 
 
 Mrs. Beever was silent a moment. "I wish 
 to Heaven she'd leave Effie alone!" 
 
 "Aren't there different ways of looking at 
 that?" Paul indulgently asked. 
 
 " Plenty, no doubt and only one decent one." 
 The grossness of the girl's error seemed to loom 
 larger. "I'm ashamed of her!" she declared. 
 
 " Well, I'm not ! " Paul quietly returned. 
 
 " Oh, you of course you excuse her ! " In
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 293 
 
 the agitation that he had produced Mrs. Beever 
 bounced across an interval that brought her into 
 view of an object from which, as she stopped 
 short at the sight of it, her emotion drew fresh 
 sustenance. "Why, there's the boat!" 
 
 " Mr. Vidal has brought it back," said Paul. 
 
 She faced round in surprise. " You've seen 
 him?" 
 
 "No, but Jean told me." 
 
 The lady of Eastmead stared. " She has seen 
 him? Then where on earth is he?" 
 
 "He's staying at Bounds," said Paul. 
 
 His mother's wonderment deepened. " He has 
 got there already?" 
 
 Paul smoked a little ; then he explained. " It's 
 not very soon for Mr. Vidal he puts things 
 through. He's already engaged to her." 
 
 Mystified, at sea, Mrs. Beever dropped upon 
 a bench. "Engaged to Jean?" 
 
 "Engaged to Miss Armiger." 
 
 She tossed her head with impatience. " What 
 news is that ? He was engaged to her five years 
 ago!" 
 
 " Well, then he is still. They've patched it up." 
 
 Mrs. Beever was on her feet. " She has seen 
 him?"
 
 294 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 Tony Bream at this moment came rapidly down 
 the lawn and had the effect of staying Paul's 
 answer. The young man gave a jerk to the 
 stump of his cigarette and turned away with 
 marked nervousness. 
 
 o- : >-
 
 XXVII 
 
 THE lady of Eastmead fronted her neighbour 
 with a certain grimness. "She has seen him 
 they've patched it up." 
 
 Breathless with curiosity, Tony yet made but a 
 bite of her news. " It's on again it's all right? " 
 
 "It's whatever you like to call it. I only 
 know what Paul tells me." 
 
 Paul, at this, stopped in his slow retreat, wheel 
 ing about. " I only know what I had just now 
 from Jean." 
 
 Tony's expression, in the presence of his young 
 friend's, dropped almost comically into the con 
 siderate. " Oh, but I daresay it's so, old man. 
 I was there when they met," he explained to 
 Mrs. Beever, "and I saw for myself pretty well 
 how it would go." 
 
 "I confess I didn't," she replied. Then she 
 added: "It must have gone with a jump!' 
 
 "With a jump, precisely and the jump was 
 
 295
 
 296 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 hers ! " laughed Tony. " All's well that ends 
 well ! " He was heated he wiped his excited 
 brow, and Mrs. Beever looked at him as if it 
 struck her that she had helped him to more 
 emotion than she wished him. "She's a most 
 extraordinary girl," he went on, "and the effort 
 she made there, all unprepared for it" he 
 nodded at the very spot of the exploit "was 
 magnificent in its way, one of the finest things 
 I've ever seen." His appreciation of the results 
 of this effort seemed almost feverish, and his 
 elation deepened so that he turned, rather 
 blindly, to poor Paul. " Upon my honour she's 
 cleverer, she has more domestic resources, as one 
 may say, than I don't care whom ! " 
 
 " Oh, we all know how clever she is ! " Mrs. 
 Beever impatiently grunted. 
 
 Tony's enthusiasm, none the less, overflowed; 
 he was nervous for joy. "I thought I did my 
 self, but she had a lot more to show me ! " He 
 addressed himself again to Paul. " She told you 
 with her coolness?" 
 
 Paul was occupied with another cigarette; he 
 emitted no sound, and his mother, with a glance 
 at him, spoke for him. "Didn't you hear him 
 say it was Jean who told him?"
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 297 
 
 "Oh, Jean!" Tony looked graver. "She 
 told Jean?" But his gaiety, at this image, 
 quickly came back. " That was charming of her ! " 
 
 Mrs. Beever remained cold. "Why on earth 
 was it charming ? " 
 
 Tony, though he reddened, was pulled up but 
 an instant his spirits carried him on. " Oh, 
 because there hasn't been much between them, 
 and it was a pretty mark of confidence." He 
 glanced at his watch. " They're in the house ? " 
 
 "Not in mine in yours." 
 
 Tony looked surprised. "Rose and Vidal?" 
 
 Paul spoke at last. "Jean also went over 
 went after them." 
 
 Tony thought a moment. "'After them' 
 Jean? How long ago?" 
 
 " About a quarter of an hour," said Paul. 
 
 Tony continued to wonder. " Aren't you mis 
 taken? They're not there now." 
 
 "How do you know," asked Mrs. Beever, "if 
 you've not been home ? " 
 
 " I have been home I was there five minutes 
 ago." 
 
 "Then how did you get here ?" 
 
 "By the long way. I took a fly. I went 
 back to get a paper I had stupidly forgotten and
 
 298 THE OTHEK HOUSE 
 
 that I needed for a fellow with whom I had to 
 talk. Our talk was a bore for the want of it, so 
 I drove over there and got it, and, as he had his 
 train to catch, I then overtook him at the sta 
 tion. I ran it close, but I saw him off ; and here 
 I am." Tony shook his head. " There's no one 
 at Bounds." 
 
 Mrs. Beever looked at Paul. "Then where's 
 Effie?" 
 
 "Effie's not here?" Tony asked. 
 
 "Miss Armiger took her home," said Paul. 
 
 "You saw them go?" 
 
 "No, but Jean told me." 
 
 "Then where's Miss Armiger?" Tony con 
 tinued. "And where's Jean herself?" 
 
 "Where's Effie herself that's the question," 
 said Mrs. Beever. 
 
 " No," Tony laughed, " the question's Where's 
 Vidal? He's the fellow I want to catch. I 
 asked him to stay with me, and he said he'd go 
 over, and it was my finding just now he hadn't 
 come over that made me drive on here from the 
 station to pick him up." 
 
 Mrs. Beever gave ear to this statement, but 
 she gave nothing else. "Mr. Vidal can take 
 care of himself; but if Effie's not at home,
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 299 
 
 where is she?" She pressed her son. "Are 
 you sure of what Jean said to you?" 
 
 Paul bethought himself. "Perfectly, rnamma. 
 She said Miss Armiger carried off the little girl." 
 
 Tony appeared struck with this. " That's 
 exactly what Rose told me she meant to do. 
 Then they're simply in the garden they simply 
 hadn't come in." 
 
 " They've been in gardens enough ! " Mrs. 
 Beever declared. "I should like to know the 
 child's simply in bed." 
 
 " So should I," said Tony with an irritation 
 that was just perceptible ; " but I none the less 
 deprecate the time-honoured custom of a flurry 
 I may say indeed of a panic whenever she's 
 for a minute out of sight." He spoke almost as 
 if Mrs. Beever were trying to spoil for him by 
 the note of anxiety the pleasantness of the news 
 about Rose. The next moment, however, he 
 questioned Paul with an evident return of the 
 sense that toward a young man to whom such 
 a hope was lost it was a time for special tact. 
 "You, at any rate, dear boy, saw Jean go?" 
 
 "Oh, yes I saw Jean go." 
 
 " And you understood from her that Rose and 
 Effie went with Vidal?"
 
 300 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 Paul consulted his memory. "I think Mr. 
 Vidal went first." 
 
 Tony thought a moment. "Thanks so much, 
 old chap." Then with an exaggerated gaiety 
 that might have struck his companions had it 
 not been the sign of so much of his conversa 
 tion : " They're all a jolly party in the garden 
 together. I'll go over." 
 
 Mrs. Beever had been watching the bridge. 
 "Here comes Rose she'll tell us." 
 
 Tony looked, but their friend had already 
 dropped on the hither side, and he turned 
 to Paul. "You wouldn't object a to din- 
 ing ?" 
 
 "To meet Mr. Vidal?" Mrs. Beever inter 
 posed. " Poor Paul," she laughed, " you're be 
 tween two fires! You and your guest," she 
 said to her neighbour, "had better dine here." 
 
 "Both fires at once?" Tony smiled at her 
 son. "Should you like that better?" 
 
 Paul, where he stood, was lost in the act of 
 watching for Rose. He shook his head absently. 
 " I don't care a rap ! " Then he turned away 
 again, and his mother, addressing Tony, dropped 
 her voice. 
 
 "He won't show."
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 301 
 
 "Do you mean his feelings?" 
 
 " I mean for either of us." 
 
 Tony observed him a moment. "Poor lad, I'll 
 bring him round ! " After which, " Do you mind 
 if I speak to her of it ? " he abruptly inquired. 
 
 "To Rose of this news?" Mrs. Beever 
 looked at him hard, and it led her to reply with 
 severity: "Tony Bream, I don't know what to 
 make of you ! " She was apparently on the 
 point of making something rather bad, but she 
 now saw Rose at the bottom of the slope and 
 straightway hailed her. " You took Effie home ? " 
 
 Rose came quickly up. " Not I ! She isn't 
 here?" 
 
 "She's gone," said Mrs. Beever. "Where is 
 she?" 
 
 " I'm afraid I don't know. I gave her up." 
 Paul had wheeled round at her first negation; 
 Tony had not moved. Bright and handsome, 
 but a little out of breath, she looked from one 
 of her friends to the other. "You're sure she's 
 not here?" Her surprise was fine. 
 
 Mrs. Beever's, however, had greater freedom. 
 " How can she be, when Jean says you took her 
 away?" 
 
 Rose Armiger stared; she threw back her
 
 302 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 head. " ' Jean says ' ? " She looked round her. 
 "Where is 'Jean'?" 
 
 " She's nowhere about she's not in the 
 house." Mrs. Beever challenged the two men, 
 echoing the question as if it were indeed perti 
 nent. " Where is the girl ? " 
 
 " She has gone to Bounds," said Tony. " She's 
 not in my garden?" 
 
 " She wasn't five minutes ago I've just come 
 out of it." 
 
 " Then what took you there ? " asked Mrs. 
 Beever. 
 
 " Mr. Vidal." Rose smiled at Tony : " You 
 know what ! " She turned again to Mrs. Beever, 
 looking her full in the face. " I've seen him. I 
 went over with him." 
 
 " Leaving Efne with Jean precisely," said 
 Tony, in his arranging way. 
 
 "She came out she begged so hard," Rose 
 explained to Mrs. Beever. " So I gave in." 
 
 "And yet Jean says the contrary?" this lady 
 demanded in stupefaction of her son. 
 
 Rose turned, incredulous, to Paul. " She said 
 to you anything so false?" 
 
 "My dear boy, you simply didn't under 
 stand ! " Tony laughed. " Give me a cigarette."
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 303 
 
 Paul's eyes, contracted to the pin-points we 
 have already seen them become in his moments 
 of emotion, had been attached, while he smoked 
 still harder, to Rose's face. He turned very red 
 and, before answering her, held out his cigarette- 
 case. "That was what I remember she said 
 that you had gone with Erne to Bounds." 
 
 Rose stood wonderstruck. " When she had 
 taken her from me herself ?" 
 
 Mrs. Beever referred her to Paul. " But she 
 wasn't with Jean when he saw her ! " 
 
 Rose appealed to him. " You saw Miss Mar- 
 tie alone?" 
 
 " Oh yes, quite alone." Paul now was crim 
 son, and without visible sight. 
 
 "My dear boy," cried Tony, impatient, "you 
 simply don't remember." 
 
 "Yes, Tony. I remember." 
 
 Rose had turned grave she gave Paul a 
 sombre stare. "Then what on earth had she 
 done with her ? " 
 
 "What she had done was evident: she had 
 taken her home ! " Tony declared with an air 
 of incipient disgust. "They made a silly mys 
 tery of nothing." 
 
 Rose gave him a quick, strained smile. "But 
 if the child's not there ?"
 
 304 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 " You just told us yourself she isn't ! " Mrs. 
 Beever reminded him. 
 
 He hunched his shoulders as if there might 
 be many explanations. " Then she's somewhere 
 else. She's wherever Jean took her." 
 
 " But if Jean was here without her ? " 
 
 "Then Jean, my dear lady, had come back." 
 
 "Come back to lie?" asked Mrs. Beever. 
 
 Tony coloured at this, but he controlled him 
 self. "Dearest Mrs. Beever, Jean doesn't lie." 
 
 " Then somebody does ! " Mrs. Beever roundly 
 brought out. 
 
 " It's not you, Mr. Paul, I know ! " Rose de 
 clared, discomposed but still smiling. "Was it 
 you who saw her go over?" 
 
 "Yes; she left me here." 
 
 "How long ago?" 
 
 Paul looked as if fifty persons had been watch 
 ing him. " Oh, not long ! " 
 
 Rose addressed herself to the trio. "Then 
 why on earth haven't I met her? She must 
 explain her astounding statement ! " 
 
 " You'll see that she'll explain it easily ! " said 
 Tony. 
 
 "Ah, but, meanwhile, where's your daughter, 
 don't you know? " Rose demanded with resentment.
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 305 
 
 " I'm just going over to see." 
 
 " Then please go ! " she replied with a nervous 
 laugh. She presented to the others, as a criti 
 cism of his inaction, a white, uneasy face. 
 
 " I want first," said Tony, " to express to you 
 my real joy. Please believe in it." 
 
 She thought she seemed to come back from 
 a distance. " Oh, you know ? " Then to Paul : 
 " She told you ? It's a detail," she added impa 
 tiently. " The question " she thought again 
 " is the poor child." Once more she appealed to 
 Paul. " Will you go and see ? " 
 
 "Yes, go, boy." Tony patted his back. 
 
 "Go this moment," his mother put in. 
 
 He none the less lingered long enough to 
 offer Rose his blind face. "I want also to ex 
 
 press 
 
 She took him up with a wonderful laugh. 
 " Your real joy, dear Mr. Paul ? " 
 
 "Please believe in that too." And Paul, at 
 an unwonted pace, took his way. 
 
 "I believe in everything I believe in every 
 one," Rose went on. "But I don't believe " 
 
 She hesitated, then checked herself. "No mat 
 ter. Can you forgive me?" she asked of Mrs. 
 Beever.
 
 306 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 "For giving up the child?" The lady of 
 Eastmead looked at her hard. " No ! " she said 
 curtly, and, turning straight away, went and 
 dropped into a seat, from which she watched 
 the retreating figures of her two parlour-maids, 
 who carried off between them a basket contain 
 ing the paraphernalia of tea. Rose, with a queer 
 expression, but with her straight back to the 
 painful past, quietly transferred her plea to 
 Tony. "It was his coming it made the dif 
 ference. It upset me." 
 
 " Upset you ? You were splendid ! " 
 
 The light of what had happened was in her 
 face as she considered him. " You are ! " she 
 replied. Then she added: "But he's finer than 
 either of us ! " 
 
 "I told you four years ago what he is. He's 
 all right." 
 
 "Yes," said Rose "he's all right. And / 
 am now," she went on. "You've been good 
 to me." She put out her hand. "Good-bye." 
 
 "'Good-bye'? You're going?" 
 
 "He takes me away." 
 
 " But not to-night ! " Tony's native kindness, 
 expressed in his inflection, felt that it could now 
 risk almost all the forms he essentially liked.
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 307 
 
 From the depth of Rose's eyes peeped a dis 
 tracted, ironic sense of this. But she said with all 
 quietude : " To-morrow early. I may not see you." 
 
 " Don't be absurd ! " laughed Tony. 
 
 "Ah, well if you will!" She stood a mo 
 ment looking down; then raising her eyes, 
 "Don't hold my hand so long," she abruptly 
 said. " Mrs. Beever, who has dismissed the ser 
 vants, is watching us." 
 
 Tony had the appearance of having felt as if 
 he had let it go ; but at this, after a glance at the 
 person indicated, staring and smiling with a clear 
 face, he retained his grasp of it. " How in the 
 world, with your back turned, can you see that ? " 
 
 "It's with my back turned that I see most. 
 She's looking at us hard." 
 
 " I don't care a hang ! " said Tony gayly. 
 
 "Oh, I don't say it for myself!" But Rose 
 withdrew her hand. 
 
 Tony put both his own into his pockets. "I 
 hope you'll let me say to you very simply - 
 that I believe you'll be very happy." 
 
 "I shall be as happy as a woman can be who 
 has abandoned her post." 
 
 " Oh, your post ! " Tony made a joke of that 
 now. But he instantly added: "Your post will
 
 308 THE OTHEB HOUSE 
 
 be to honour us with your company at Bounds 
 again ; which, as a married woman, you see, you'll 
 be perfectly able to do." 
 
 She smiled at him. " How you arrange things ! " 
 Then with a musing headshake : " We leave Eng 
 land." 
 
 " How you arrange them ! " Tony exclaimed. 
 "He goes back to China?" 
 
 " Very soon he's doing so well." 
 
 Tony hesitated. " I hope he has made money." 
 
 " A great deal. I should look better shouldn't 
 I ? if he hadn't. But I show you enough how 
 little I care how I look. I blow hot and cold; 
 I'm all there then I'm off. No matter," she re 
 peated. In a moment she added: "I accept your 
 hopes for my happiness. It will do, no doubt, as 
 
 soon as I learn ! " Her voice dropped for 
 
 impatience; she turned to the quarter of the 
 approach from the other house. 
 
 " That Erne's all right? " Tony saw their mes 
 senger already in the shrubbery. "Here comes 
 Paul to tell us." 
 
 Mrs. Beever rejoined them as he spoke. "It 
 wasn't Paul on the bridge. It was the Doctor 
 without his hat." 
 
 " Without his hat ? " Rose murmured.
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 309 
 
 " He has it in his hand," Tony cheerfully as 
 serted as their good friend emerged from cover. 
 
 But he hadn't it in his hand, and at sight of 
 them on the top of the slope he stopped short, 
 stopped long enough to give Rose time to call 
 eagerly: "Is Effie there?" 
 
 It was long enough also to give them all time 
 to see, across the space, that his air was disor 
 dered and his look at them strange ; but they had 
 no sooner done so than he made a violent gesture 
 a motion to check the downward rush that he 
 evidently felt his aspect would provoke. It was 
 so imperative that, coming up, he was with them 
 before they had moved, showing them splashed, 
 wet clothes and a little hard white face that Wil- 
 verley had never seen. " There has been an ac 
 cident." Neither had Wilverley, gathered into 
 three pairs of ears, heard that voice. 
 
 The first effect of these things was to hold it an 
 instant while Tony cried: "She's hurt?" 
 
 "She's killed?" cried Mrs. Beever. 
 
 " Stay where you are ! " was the Doctor's stern 
 response. Tony had given a bound, but, caught 
 by the arm, found himself jerked, flaming red, 
 face to face with Rose, who had been grabbed as 
 tightly by the wrist. The Doctor closed his eyes
 
 ' 
 
 
 310 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 for a second with this effort of restraint, but in 
 the force he had put into it, which was not all 
 of the hands, his captives submissively quivered. 
 " You're not to go ! " he declared quite as if it 
 were for their own good. 
 
 "She's dead?" Tony panted. 
 
 "Who's with her who was?" cried Rose. 
 
 "Paul's with her by the water." 
 
 "By the water?" Rose shrieked. 
 
 " My child's drowned ? " Tony's shout was 
 strange. 
 
 The Doctor had been looking from one of them 
 to the other ; then he looked at Mrs. Beever, who, 
 instantly, admirably, with a strength quickly ac 
 knowledged by the mute motion of his expressive 
 little chin toward her, had stilled herself into the 
 appeal of a blanched, breathless wait. " May / 
 go?" sovereignly came from her. 
 
 " Go. There's no one else," he said as she 
 bounced down the bank. 
 
 "No one else? Then where's that girl?" 
 Rose's question was fierce. She gave, as fiercely, 
 to free herself, a great wrench of her arm, but the 
 Doctor held her as if still to spare her what he 
 himself had too dreadfully seen. He looked at 
 Tony, who said with quick quietness
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 311 
 
 "Ramage, have I lost my child?" 
 "You'll see be brave. Not yet I've told 
 Paul. Be quiet ! " the Doctor repeated ; then his 
 hand dropped on feeling that the movement he 
 had meant to check in his friend was the vibration 
 of a man stricken to weakness and sickened on 
 the spot. Tony's face had turned black ; he was 
 rooted to the ground ; he stared at Rose, to whom 
 the Doctor said : " Who, Miss Armiger, was with 
 her?" 
 
 All her lividness wondered. " When was it 
 
 " God knows ! She was there against the 
 bridge." 
 
 " Against the bridge where I passed just 
 now? I saw nothing !" Rose jerked, while Tony 
 dumbly closed his eyes. 
 
 " I came over because she wasn't at the house, 
 and from the bank there she was. I reached 
 her with the boat, with a push. She might 
 have been half an hour - " 
 
 " It was half an hour ago she took her ! " Rose 
 broke in. " She's not there ? " 
 
 The Doctor looked at her hard. " Of whom do 
 you speak ? " 
 
 " Why, of Miss Martle whose hands are never
 
 312 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 off her." Rose's mask was the mask of Medusa. 
 " What has become of Miss Martle ? " 
 
 Dr. Ramage turned with the question to Tony, 
 whose eyes, open now, were half out of his head. 
 " What has become of her ? " 
 
 "She's not there?" Tony articulated. 
 
 "There's no one there." 
 
 " Not Dennis ? " sprang bewilderedly from Rose. 
 
 The Doctor stared. " Mr. Vidal ? No, thank 
 God only Paul." Then pressing Tony : " Miss 
 Martle was with her? " 
 
 Tony's eyes rolled over all space. "No not 
 Miss Martle." 
 
 " But somebody was ! " Rose clamoured. " She 
 wasn't alone ! " 
 
 Tony fixed her an instant. " Not Miss Martle," 
 he repeated. 
 
 " But who then ? And where is she now ? " 
 
 " It's positive she's not here ? " the Doctor 
 asked of Rose. 
 
 " Positive Mrs. Beever knew. Where is she ? " 
 Rose rang out. 
 
 "Where in the name ?" passed, as with 
 
 the dawn of a deeper horror, from their companion 
 to Tony. 
 
 Tony's eyes sounded Rose's, and hers blazed
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 313 
 
 back. His silence was an anguish, his face a 
 convulsion. " It isn't half an hour," he at last 
 brought out. 
 
 " Since it happened ? " The Doctor blinked at 
 his sudden knowledge. "Then when ?" 
 
 Tony looked at him straight. " When I was 
 there." 
 
 "And when was that?" 
 
 "After I called for you." 
 
 " To leave word for me to go ? " The Doctor 
 set his face. "But you weren't going home 
 then." 
 
 "I did go I had a reason. You know it," 
 Tony said to Rose. 
 
 " When you went for your paper ? " She 
 thought. "But Effie wasn't there then." 
 
 "Why not? She was there, but Miss Martle 
 wasn't with her." 
 
 "Then, in God's name, who was?" cried the 
 Doctor. 
 
 " I was," said Tony. 
 
 Rose gave the inarticulate cry of a person who 
 has been holding her breath, and the Doctor an 
 equally loud, but more stupefied " You ? " 
 
 Tony fixed upon Rose a gaze that seemed to 
 count her respirations. "I was with her," he
 
 314 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 repeated ; " and I was with her alone. And 
 what was done / did." He paused while they 
 both gasped; then he looked at the Doctor. 
 "Now you know." They continued to gasp; 
 his confession was a blinding glare, in the shock 
 of which the Doctor staggered back from Rose 
 and she fell away with a liberated spring. " God 
 forgive me!" howled Tony he broke now into 
 a storm of sobs. He dropped upon a bench with 
 his wretched face in his hands, while Rose, with 
 a passionate wail, threw herself, appalled, on 
 the grass, and their companion, in a colder dis 
 may, looked from one prostrate figure to the other.
 
 BOOK THIRD
 
 XXVIII 
 
 THE greatest of the parlour-maids came from 
 the hall into the drawing-room at Eastmead 
 the high, square temple of mahogany and tapes 
 try in which, the last few years, Mrs. Beever 
 had spent much time in rejoicing that she had 
 never set up new gods. She had left it, from 
 the first, as it was full of the old things that, 
 on succeeding to her husband's mother, she had 
 been obliged, as a young woman of that period, 
 to accept as dolefully different from the things 
 thought beautiful by other young women whose 
 views of drawing-rooms, all about her, had also 
 been intensified by marriage. She had not un- 
 assistedly discovered the beauty of her heritage, 
 and she had not from any such subtle suspicion 
 kept her hands off it. She had never in her 
 life taken any course with regard to any object 
 for reasons that had so little to do with her 
 duty. Everything in her house stood, at an 
 317
 
 318 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 angle of its own, on the solid rock of the disci 
 pline it had cost her. She had therefore lived 
 with mere dry wistfulness through the age of 
 rosewood, and had been rewarded by finding 
 that, like those who sit still in runaway vehicles, 
 she was the only person not thrown out. Her 
 mahogany had never moved, but the way people 
 talked about it had, and the people who talked 
 were now eager to sit down with her on every 
 thing that both she and they had anciently 
 thought plainest and poorest. It was Jean above 
 all who had opened her eyes opened them in 
 particular to the great wine-dark doors, polished 
 and silver-hinged, with which the lady of East- 
 mead, arriving at the depressed formula that 
 they were "gloomy," had for thirty years, pru 
 dently, on the whole, as she considered, shut 
 out the question of taste. One of these doors 
 Manning now softly closed, standing, however, 
 with her hand on the knob and looking across 
 as if, in the stillness, to listen at another which 
 exactly balanced with it on the opposite side of 
 the room. The light of the long day had not 
 wholly faded, but what remained of it was the 
 glow of the western sky, which showed through 
 the wide, high window that was still open to
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 319 
 
 the garden. The sensible hush in which Man 
 ning waited was broken after a moment by a 
 movement, ever so gentle, of the other door. 
 Mrs. Beever put her head out of the next 
 room; then, seeing her servant, closed the door 
 with precautions and came forward. Her face, 
 hard but overcharged, had already asked a ques 
 tion. 
 
 " Yes, Ma'am Mr. Vidal. I showed him, as 
 you told me, into the library." 
 
 Mrs. Beever thought. "It may be wanted. 
 I'll see him here." But she checked the woman's 
 retreat. " Mr. Beever's in his room ? " 
 
 "No, Ma'am he went out." 
 
 " But a minute ago ? " 
 
 "Longer, Ma'am. After he had carried in " 
 
 Mrs. Beever stayed the word on Manning's 
 lips and quickly supplied her own. " The poor 
 sick little girl yes. He went to Mr. Bream?" 
 
 "No, Ma'am the other way." 
 
 Mrs. Beever thought afresh. " But Miss Armi- 
 ger's in?" 
 
 " Oh, yes in her room." 
 
 "She went straight?" 
 
 Manning, on her side, reflected. " Yes, Ma'am. 
 She always goes straight."
 
 320 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 " Not always," said Mrs. Beever. " But she's 
 quiet there?" 
 
 "Very quiet?" 
 
 " Then call Mr. Vidal." While Manning obeyed 
 she turned to the window and stared at the gath 
 ering dusk. Then the door that had been left 
 open closed again, and she faced about to Dennis 
 Vidal. 
 
 " Something dreadful has happened ? " he in 
 stantly asked. 
 
 "Something dreadful has happened. You've 
 come from Bounds ? " 
 
 " As fast as I could run. I saw Dr. Ramage." 
 
 "He's with Tony? Then what did he tell 
 you?" 
 
 " That I must come straight here." 
 
 "Nothing else?" 
 
 " That you would tell me," Vidal said. " I saw 
 the shock in his face." 
 
 "But you didn't ask?" 
 
 "Nothing. Here I am." 
 
 " Here you are, thank God ! " Mrs. Beever gave 
 a muffled moan. 
 
 She was going on, but, eagerly, he was before 
 her. "Can I help you?" 
 
 "Yes if there is help. You can do so first
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 321 
 
 by not asking me a question till I have put those 
 I wish to yourself." 
 
 " Put them put them ! " he said impatiently. 
 
 At his peremptory note she quivered, showing 
 him she was in the state in which every sound 
 startles. She locked her lips and closed her eyes 
 an instant; she held herself together with an 
 effort. "I'm in great trouble, and I venture to 
 believe that if you came back to me to-day it 
 was because " 
 
 He took her up shorter than before. " Because 
 I thought of you as a friend? For God's sake, 
 think of me as one ! " 
 
 She pressed to her lips, while she looked at 
 him, the small tight knot into which her nerves 
 had crumpled her pocket-handkerchief. She had 
 no tears only a visible terror. " I've never 
 appealed to one," she replied, "as I shall appeal 
 to you now. Effie Bream is dead." Then, as 
 instant horror was in his eyes : " She was found 
 in the water." 
 
 " The water ? " Dennis gasped. 
 
 "Under the bridge at the other side. She 
 had been caught, she was held, in the slow cur 
 rent, by some obstruction, and by the pier. Don't 
 ask me how when I arrived by the mercy of
 
 322 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 Heaven, she had been brought to the bank. But 
 she was gone." With a movement of the head 
 toward the room she had quitted, "We carried 
 her back here," she went on. Vidal's face, which 
 was terrible in the intensity of its sudden vision, 
 struck her apparently as, for an instant, an echo, 
 wild but interrogative, of what she had last said ; 
 so she explained quickly : " To think to get 
 more time." He turned straight away from her ; 
 he went, as she had done, to the window and, 
 with his back presented, stood looking out in 
 the mere rigour of dismay. 
 
 She was silent long enough to show a respect 
 for the particular consternation that her manner 
 of watching him betrayed her impression of hav 
 ing stirred ; then she pursued : " How long were 
 you at Bounds with Rose?" 
 
 Vidal turned round without meeting her eyes 
 or, at first, understanding her question. "At 
 Bounds?" 
 
 "When, on your joining her, she went over 
 with you." 
 
 He thought a moment. "She didn't go over 
 with me. I went alone after the child came 
 out." 
 
 " You were there when Manning brought her ? "
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 323 
 
 -Mrs. Beever wondered. "Manning didn't tell 
 me." 
 
 " I found Rose on the lawn with Mr. Bream 
 when I brought back your boat. He left us 
 together after inviting me to Bounds and then 
 the little girl arrived. Rose let me hold her, and 
 I was with them till Miss Martle appeared. Then 
 I rather uncivilly went off." 
 
 " You went without Rose ? " Mrs. Beever asked. 
 
 " Yes I left her with the little girl and Miss 
 Martle." The vivid effect of this statement made 
 him add : " Was it your impression I didn't? " 
 
 His companion, before answering him, dropped 
 into a seat and stared up at him ; after which she 
 brought out: "I'll tell you later. You left 
 them," she demanded, "in the garden with the 
 child?" 
 
 "In the garden with the child." 
 
 " Then you hadn't taken her ? " 
 
 Dennis had for some seconds a failure either of 
 memory or of courage ; but, whichever it was, he 
 completely overcame it. " By no means. She 
 was in Rose's arms." 
 
 Mrs. Beever, at this image, attached her eyes to 
 the carpet; after which, raising them again, she 
 continued: "You went to Bounds?"
 
 324 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 "No I turned off short. I was going, but if 
 I had a great deal to think of," he explained, 
 "after I had learned from you she was here, the 
 quantity wasn't, of course, diminished by our 
 personal encounter." He hesitated. " I had seen 
 her with him." 
 
 " Well ? " said Mrs. Beever as he paused again. 
 
 "I asked you if she was in love with him." 
 
 " And I bade you find out for yourself." 
 
 "I've found out," Dennis said. 
 
 "Well?" Mrs. Beever repeated. 
 
 It was evidently, even in this tighter tension, 
 something of an ease to all his soreness to tell her. 
 "I've never seen anything like it and there's 
 not much I've not seen." 
 
 " That's exactly what the Doctor says ! " 
 
 Dennis stared, but after a moment, " And does 
 the Doctor say Mr. Bream cares?" he artlessly 
 inquired. 
 
 "Not a farthing." 
 
 "Not a farthing. I'm bound to say I could 
 see it for myself," he declared, "that he has be 
 haved very well." Mrs. Beever, at this, turning 
 in torment on her seat, gave a smothered wail 
 which pulled him up so that he went on in sur 
 prise: "Don't you think that?"
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 325 
 
 "I'll tell you later," she answered. "In the 
 presence of this misery I don't judge him." 
 
 " No more do I. But what I was going to say 
 was that, all the same, the way he has with a 
 woman the way he had with Tier there, and his 
 damned good looks and his great happiness " 
 
 " His great happiness ? God help him ! " Mrs. 
 Beever broke out, springing up again in her emo 
 tion. She stood before him with pleading hands. 
 " Where were you then ? " 
 
 " After I left the garden ? I was upset, I was 
 dissatisfied I didn't go over. I lighted a cigar ; 
 I passed out of the gate by your little closed 
 pavilion and kept on by the river." 
 
 "By the river?" Mrs. Beever was blank. 
 " Then why didn't you see ? " 
 
 " What happened to the child ? Because, if it 
 happened near the bridge, I had left the bridge 
 behind." 
 
 " But you 'were in sight " 
 
 "For five minutes," Dennis said. "I was in 
 sight perhaps even for ten. I strolled there, 
 I turned things over, I watched the stream, 
 and, finally just at the sharp bend I sat a 
 little on the stile beyond that smart new boat- 
 house."
 
 326 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 " It's a horrid thing." Mrs. Beever considered. 
 " But you see the bridge from the boat-house." 
 
 Dennis hesitated. " Yes it's a good way, but 
 you've a glimpse." 
 
 "Which showed you nothing at all?" 
 
 " ' Nothing at all ' ? " his echo of the question 
 was interrogative, and it carried him uneasily to 
 the window, where he again, for a little, stared 
 out. The pink of the sky had faded, and dusk 
 had begun in the room. At last he faced about. 
 " No I saw something. But I'll not tell you 
 what it was, please, till I've myself asked you a 
 thing or two." 
 
 Mrs. Beever was silent at this ; they stood face 
 to face in the twilight. Then she slowly exhaled 
 a part of her anguish. " I think you'll be a help." 
 
 "How much of one," he bitterly demanded, 
 " shall I be to myself ? " But he continued before 
 she could meet the question. "I went back to 
 the bridge, and as I approached it Miss Martle 
 came down to it from your garden." 
 
 Mrs. Beever grabbed his arm. "Without the 
 child ? " He was silent so long that she repeated 
 it: "Without the child?" 
 
 He finally spoke. "Without the child." 
 
 She looked at him as she showed that she felt
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 327 
 
 she had never looked at any man. "On your 
 sacred honour ! " 
 
 " On my sacred honour." 
 
 She closed her eyes as she had closed them at 
 the beginning of their talk, and the same defeated 
 spasm passed over her face. "You are a help," 
 she said. 
 
 "Well," Dennis replied straightforwardly, "if 
 it's being one to let you know that she was with 
 me from that moment " 
 
 Breathless, she caught him up. " With you ? 
 till when?" 
 
 " Till just now, when we again separated at the 
 gatehouse: I to go over to Bounds, as I had 
 promised Mr. Bream, and Miss Martle " 
 
 Again she snatched the words from him. " To 
 come straight in ? Oh, glory be to God ! " 
 
 Dennis showed some bewilderment. " She did 
 come ?" 
 
 " Mercy, yes to meet this horror. She's with 
 Effie." She returned to it, to have it again. " She 
 was with you ? " 
 
 "A quarter of an hour perhaps more." At 
 this Mrs. Beever dropped upon her sofa again and 
 gave herself to the tears that had not sooner come. 
 She sobbed softly, controlling them, and Dennis
 
 328 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 watched her with hard, haggard pity ; after which 
 he said : " As soon as I saw her I spoke to her 
 I felt that I wanted her." 
 
 " You wanted her ? " in the clearer medium 
 through which Mrs. Beever now could look up 
 there were still obscurities. 
 
 He hesitated. " For what she might say to me. 
 I told you, when we spoke of Rose after my 
 arrival, that I had not come to watch her. But 
 while I was with them" he jerked his head at 
 the garden " something took place." 
 
 Mrs. Beever rose again. "I know what took 
 place." 
 
 He seemed struck. "You know it?" 
 
 "She told Jean." 
 
 Dennis stared. "I think not." 
 
 "Jean didn't speak of it to you?" 
 
 "Not a word." 
 
 "She spoke of it to Paul," said Mrs. Beever. 
 Then, to be more specific : " I mean your engage 
 ment." 
 
 Dennis was mute ; but at last, in the gathered 
 gloom, his voice was stranger than his silence. 
 "My engagement?" 
 
 " Didn't you, on the spot, induce her to renew 
 it?"
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 329 
 
 Again, for some time, he was dumb. " Has she 
 said so ? " he then asked. 
 
 " To everyone." 
 
 Once more he waited. "I should like to see 
 her." 
 
 " Here she is." 
 
 The door from the hall had opened as he spoke : 
 Rose Armiger stood there. She addressed him 
 straight, and as if she had not seen Mrs. Beever. 
 " I knew you'd be here I must see you." 
 
 Mrs. Beever passed quickly to the side of the 
 room at which she had entered, where her fifty 
 years of order abruptly came out to Dennis. 
 "Will you have lights?" 
 
 It was Rose who replied. " No lights, thanks." 
 But she stayed her hostess. " May I see her ? " 
 
 Mrs. Beever fixed a look through the dusk. 
 " No ! " And she slipped away.
 
 XXIX 
 
 ROSE had come for a purpose, Dennis saw, to 
 which she would make but a bound, and she 
 seemed in fact to take the spring as she instantly- 
 broke out : " For what did you come back to 
 me ? for what did you come back ? " She 
 approached him quickly, but he made, more 
 quickly, a move that gained him space and that 
 might well have been the result of two sharp 
 impressions : one of these the sense that in a 
 single hour she had so altered as to be ugly, with 
 out a trace of the charm that had haunted him ; 
 and the other the sense that, thus ravaged and dis 
 figured, wrecked in the gust that had come and 
 gone, she expected of him something that she had 
 never expected. A monstrous reality flared up 
 in their relation, the perception of which was a 
 shock that he was conscious for the moment of 
 betraying that he feared, finding no words to 
 answer her and showing her across the room, 
 330
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 331 
 
 while she repeated her question, a face blanched 
 by the change in her own. " For what did you 
 come back to me? for what did you come 
 back?" 
 
 He gaped at her; then, as if there were help 
 for him in the simple fact that, on his own side, 
 he could immediately recall, he stammered out: 
 " To you to you ? I hadn't the slightest notion 
 you were here ! " 
 
 " Didn't you come to see where I was ? Didn't 
 you come absolutely and publicly for me ? " He 
 jerked round again to the window with the vague, 
 wild gesture of a man in horrible pain, and she 
 went on without vehemence, but with clear, deep 
 intensity : " It was exactly when you found I 
 was here that you did come back. You had a 
 perfect chance, on learning it, not to show ; but 
 you didn't take the chance, you quickly put it 
 aside. You reflected, you decided, you insisted 
 we should meet." Her voice, as if in harmony 
 with the power of her plea, dropped to a vibration 
 more muffled, a soft but inexorable pressure. " I 
 hadn't called you, I hadn't troubled you, I left 
 you as perfectly alone as I've been alone. It 
 was your own passion and your own act 
 you've dropped upon me, you've overwhelmed
 
 332 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 me. You've overwhelmed me, I say, because I 
 speak from the depths of my surrender. But you 
 didn't do it, I imagine, to be cruel, and if you 
 didn't do it to be cruel you did it to take what it 
 would give you." Gradually, as she talked, he 
 faced round again ; she stood there supported by 
 the high back of a chair, either side of which she 
 held tight. " You know what I am, if any man 
 has known, and it's to the thing I am whatever 
 that is you've come back at last from so far. 
 It's the thing I am whatever that is I now 
 count on you to stand by." 
 
 " Whatever that is ? " Dennis mournfully 
 marvelled. "I feel, on the contrary, that I've 
 never, never known ! " 
 
 " It's before anything, then, a woman who has 
 such a need as no woman has ever had." Then 
 she eagerly added: "Why on earth did you 
 descend on me if you hadn't need of me?" 
 
 Dennis took, for an instant, quite as if she were 
 not there, several turns in the wide place ; mov 
 ing in the dumb distress of a man confronted with 
 the greatest danger of his life and obliged, while 
 precious minutes lapse, to snatch at a way of 
 safety. His whole air was an instinctive retreat 
 from being carried by assault, and he had the
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 333 
 
 effect both of keeping far from her and of revolv 
 ing blindly round her. At last, in his hesitation, 
 he pulled up before her. "What makes, all of 
 a sudden, the tremendous need you speak of? 
 Didn't you remind me but an hour ago of how 
 remarkably low, at our last meeting, it had 
 dropped ? " 
 
 Rose's eyes, in the dimness, widened with their 
 wonder. " You can speak to me in harshness of 
 what I did an hour ago ? You can taunt me with 
 an act of penance that might have moved you 
 that did move you? Does it mean," she con 
 tinued, "that you've none the less chosen as I 
 told you to choose ; embraced the alternative 
 that seems to you most worthy of your courage ? 
 Did I only stoop, in my deep contrition, to make 
 it easier for you to knock me down? I gave you 
 your chance to refuse me, and what you've come 
 back for, then, will have been only, most hand 
 somely, to take it. In that case you did injustice 
 there to the question of your revenge. What 
 fault have you to find with anything so splen 
 did?" 
 
 Dennis had listened with his eyes averted, and 
 he met her strained glare as if he had not heard, 
 bringing out his previous words with a harder
 
 334 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 iteration : " What makes your tremendous need? 
 what makes your tremendous need ? " He spoke 
 as if that were the one way of safety. "I don't 
 in the least see why it should have taken such a 
 jump. You must do justice, even after your act 
 of this afternoon a demonstration far greater 
 than any I dreamed of asking of you you 
 must do justice to my absolute necessity for see 
 ing everything clear. I didn't there, in the gar 
 den, see anything clear at all I was only startled 
 and wonder-struck and puzzled. Certainly I was 
 touched, as you say I was so touched that I 
 particularly suffered. But I couldn't pretend I 
 was satisfied or gratified, or even that I was par 
 ticularly convinced. You often failed, of old, I 
 know, to give me what I really wanted from 
 you, and yet it never prevented the success of 
 your effect on what shall I call it?" He 
 stopped short. " On God knows what baser, 
 obscurer part of me. I'm not such a brute as to 
 say," he quickly went on, " that that effect was 
 not produced this afternoon " 
 
 " You confine yourself to saying," Rose inter 
 rupted, "that it's not produced in our actual 
 situation ! " 
 
 He stared, through the thicker dusk ; after
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 335 
 
 which, " I don't understand you ! " he dropped. 
 "I do say," he declared, "that whatever your 
 success to-day may be admitted to have consisted 
 of, I didn't at least then make the admission. I 
 didn't at that moment understand you any more 
 than I do now ; and I don't think I said anything 
 to lead you to suppose I did. I showed you 
 simply that I was bewildered, and I couldn't 
 have shown it more than by the abrupt way I 
 left you. I don't recognise that I'm committed to 
 anything that deprives me of the right of asking 
 you for a little more light." 
 
 " Do you recognise by chance," Rose returned, 
 "the horrible blow " 
 
 "That has fallen on all this wretched place? 
 I'm unutterably shocked by it. But where does 
 it come into our relations ? " 
 
 Rose smiled in exquisite pity, which had the 
 air, however, of being more especially for herself. 
 " You say you were painfully affected ; but you 
 really invite me to go further still. Haven't I put 
 the dots on all the horrid i's ? Haven't I dragged 
 myself through the dust of enough confessions ? " 
 
 Dennis slowly and grimly shook his head; he 
 doggedly clung to his real refuge. " I don't 
 understand you I don't understand you."
 
 336 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 Rose, at this, overcame her diffidence. "It 
 would be inexpressibly horrible to me to appear 
 to be free to profit by Mr. Bream's misfortune." 
 
 Dennis thought a moment. " To appear, you 
 mean, to have an interest in the fact that the 
 death of his daughter leaves him at liberty to 
 invite you to become his wife ? " 
 
 "You express it to admiration." 
 
 He discernibly wondered. " But why should 
 you be in danger of that torment to your delicacy 
 if Mr. Bream has the best of reasons for doing 
 nothing to contribute to it?" 
 
 " The best of Mr. Bream's reasons," Rose re 
 turned, "won't be nearly so good as the worst 
 of mine ! " 
 
 "That of your making a match with someone 
 else ? I see," her companion said. " That's the 
 precaution I'm to have the privilege of putting in 
 your power." 
 
 She gave the strangest of smiles ; the whites of 
 her excited eyes shimmered in the gloom. " You 
 make my position perfect." 
 
 Dennis hesitated. "And what do I make my 
 own?" 
 
 " Exactly the one you came to take. You have 
 taken it by your startling presence ; you're up to
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 337 
 
 your neck in it, and there's nothing that will be 
 come you so as to wear it bravely and gallantly. 
 If you don't like it," Rose added, "you should 
 have thought of that before." 
 
 " You like it so much on your side," Dennis 
 returned, "that you appear to have engaged in 
 measures to create it even before the argument 
 for it had acquired the force that you give such 
 a fine account of." 
 
 " Do you mean by giving it out as a fact ? It 
 was never too soon to give it out: the right 
 moment was the moment you were there. Your 
 arrival changed everything ; it gave me on the spot 
 my advantage ; it precipitated my grasp of it." 
 
 Vidal's expression was like a thing battered 
 dead, and his voice was a sound that matched it. 
 " You call your grasp your announcement ? " 
 
 She threw back her head. " My announcement 
 has reached you ? Then you know I've cut off 
 your retreat." Again he turned away from her; 
 he flung himself on the sofa on which, shortly 
 before, Mrs. Beever had sunk down to sob, and, 
 as if with the need to hold on to something, 
 buried his face in one of the hard square cushions. 
 She came a little nearer to him ; she went on with 
 her low lucidity. "So you can't abandon me
 
 338 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 you can't. You came to me through doubts you 
 spoke to me through fears. You're mine ! " 
 
 She left him to turn this over ; she moved off 
 and approached the door at which Mrs. Beever 
 had gone out, standing there in a rigour of atten 
 tion till, in the silence, he at last raised his head. 
 " What is it then you look to me to do ? " 
 
 She came away from the door. " Simply to see 
 me through." 
 
 He was on his feet again. " Through what, in 
 the name of horror?" 
 
 " Through everything. If I count on you, it's 
 to support me if I say things, it's for you to say 
 them." 
 
 "Even when they're black lies?" Dennis 
 asked. 
 
 Her retort was immediate "What need should 
 I have of you if they were white ones ? " He was 
 unable to tell her, only meeting her mettle with 
 his stupor, and she continued, with the lightest 
 ring of reproach in her quiet pain : " I thank you 
 for giving that name to my weak boast that you 
 admire me." 
 
 He had a sense of comparative idiocy. "Do 
 you expect me on that admiration to marry 
 you?"
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 339 
 
 " Bless your innocent heart, no ! for what do 
 you take me? I expect you simply to make 
 people believe that you mean to." 
 
 "And how long will they believe it if I don't?" 
 
 " Oh, if it should come to that," said Rose, 
 " you can easily make them believe that you 
 have!" She took a step so rapid that it was 
 almost a spring ; she had him now and, with her 
 hands on his shoulders, she held him fast. " So 
 you see, after all, dearest, how little I ask ! " 
 
 He submitted, with no movement but to close 
 his eyes before the new-born dread of her caress. 
 Yet he took the caress when it came the dire 
 confession of her hard embrace, the long entreaty 
 of her icy kiss. He might still have been a 
 creature trapped in steel; after she had let him 
 go he still stood at a loss how to turn. There 
 was something, however, that he presently opened 
 his eyes to try. " That you went over with me 
 that's what you wish me to say?" 
 
 "Over to Bounds? Is that what I said? I 
 can't think." But she thought all the same. 
 " Thank you for fixing it. If it's that, stick to it ! " 
 
 "And to our having left the child with Miss 
 Martle?" 
 
 This brought her up a moment. "Don't ask
 
 340 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 me simply meet the case as it comes. I give 
 you," she added in a marvellous manner, "a 
 perfectly free hand!" 
 
 "You're very liberal," said Dennis, "but I 
 think you simplify too much." 
 
 " I can hardly do that if to simplify is to leave 
 it to your honour. It's the beauty of my position 
 that you're believed." 
 
 " That, then, gives me a certain confidence in 
 telling you that Miss Martle was the whole time 
 with me." 
 
 Rose stared. " Of what time do you speak ? " 
 
 " The time after you had gone over to Bounds 
 with Effie." 
 
 Rose thought again. "Where was she with 
 you?" 
 
 "By the river, on this side." 
 
 "On this side? You didn't go to Bounds?" 
 
 " Not when I left you for the purpose. I 
 obeyed an impulse that made me do just the 
 opposite. You see," said Dennis, "that there's 
 a flaw in my honour ! You had filled my cup too 
 full I couldn't carry it straight. I kept by the 
 stream I took a walk." 
 
 Rose gave a low, vague sound. "But Miss 
 Martle and I were there together."
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 341 
 
 "You were together till you separated. On 
 my return to the bridge I met her." 
 
 Rose hesitated. "Where was she going?" 
 
 " Over to Bounds but I prevented her." 
 
 "You mean she joined you?" 
 
 "In the kindest manner for another turn. 
 I took her the same way again." 
 
 Once more Rose thought. " But if she was 
 going over, why in the world should she have 
 let you?" 
 
 Dennis considered. "I think she pitied me." 
 
 " Because she spoke to you of me ? " 
 
 " No, because she didn't. But I spoke to her 
 of you" said Dennis. 
 
 " And what did you say ? " 
 
 He hung fire a moment. " That a short time 
 before I saw you cross to Bounds?" 
 
 Rose slowly sat down. "You saw me?" 
 
 " On the bridge, distinctly. With the child in 
 your arms." 
 
 "Where were you then?" 
 
 "Far up the stream beyond your observation." 
 
 She looked at him fixedly, her hands locked 
 together between her knees. "You were watch 
 ing me?" Ghostly and ominous, in the darker 
 room, was all their confronted estrangement.
 
 342 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 Dennis waited as if he had a choice of answers ; 
 but at last he simply said : " I saw no more." 
 
 His companion as slowly rose again and moved 
 to the window, beyond which the garden had now 
 grown vague. She stood before it awhile, then, 
 without coming away, turned her back to it, so 
 that he saw her handsome head, with the face 
 obscure, against the evening sky. "Shall I tell 
 you who did it?" she asked. 
 
 Dennis Vidal faltered. " If you feel that you're 
 prepared." 
 
 " I've been preparing. I see it's best." Again, 
 however, she was silent. 
 
 This lasted so long that Dennis finally spoke. 
 "Who did it?" 
 
 " Tony Bream to marry Jean." 
 
 A loud sound leaped from him, which was 
 thrown back by the sudden opening of the door 
 from the hall and a consequent gush of light. 
 Manning marched in with a high lamp, and 
 Doctor Ramage stood on the threshold.
 
 XXX 
 
 THE Doctor remained at the door while the 
 maid put down her lamp, and he checked her 
 as she proceeded to the blinds and the other 
 duties of the moment. 
 
 " Leave the windows, please ; it's warm. That 
 will do thanks." He closed the door on her 
 extinguished presence, and he held it a little, 
 mutely, with observing eyes, in that of Dennis 
 and Rose. 
 
 "Do you want me?" the latter promptly 
 asked, in the tone, as he liked, of readiness 
 either to meet him or to withdraw. She seemed 
 to imply that at such an hour there was no 
 knowing what anyone might want. Vidal's eyes 
 were on her as well as the Doctor's, and if the 
 lamp now lighted her consciousness of looking 
 horrible she could at least support herself with 
 the sight of the crude embarrassment of the 
 others. 
 
 343
 
 344 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 The Doctor, resorting to his inveterate practice 
 when confronted with a question, consulted his 
 watch. " I came in for Mr. Vidal, but I shall be 
 glad of a word with you after I've seen him. 
 I must ask you, therefore" and he nodded at 
 the third door of the room "kindly to pass 
 into the library." 
 
 Rose, without haste or delay, reached the point 
 he indicated. " You wish me to wait here ? " 
 
 "If you'll be so good." 
 
 " While you talk with him f " 
 
 "While I talk with 'him.'" 
 
 Her eyes held Vidal's a minute. "I'll wait." 
 And she passed out. 
 
 The Doctor immediately attacked him. "I 
 must appeal to you for a fraction of your time. 
 I've seen Mrs. Beever." 
 
 Dennis hesitated. "I've done the same." 
 
 "It's because she has told me of your talk 
 that I mention it. She sends you a message." 
 
 "A message?" Dennis looked as if it were 
 open to him to question such indirectness. 
 "Where then is she?" 
 
 "She's with that distracted girl." 
 
 " Miss Martle ? " Dennis hesitated. " Miss 
 Martle so greatly feels the shock?"
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 345 
 
 "'Feels' it, my dear sir?" the Doctor cried. 
 " She has been made so pitifully ill by it that 
 there's no saying just what turn her condition 
 may take, and that she calls for so much of my 
 attention as to force me to plead, with you, that 
 excuse for my brevity. Mrs. Beever," he rap 
 idly pursued, "requests you to regard this hur 
 ried inquiry as the sequel to what you were so 
 good as to say to her." 
 
 Dennis thought a moment; his face had 
 changed as if by the action of Rose's disappear 
 ance and the instinctive revival, in a different 
 relation, of the long, stiff habit of business, the 
 art of treating affairs and meeting men. This 
 was the art of not being surprised, and, with 
 his emotion now controlled, he was discernibly 
 on his guard. "I'm afraid," he replied, "that 
 what I said to Mrs. Beever was a very small 
 matter." 
 
 "She doesn't think it at all a small matter 
 to have said you'd help her. You can do so 
 in the cruel demands our catastrophe makes of 
 her by considering that I represent her. It's 
 in her name, therefore, that I ask you if you're 
 engaged to be married to Miss Armiger." 
 
 Dennis Vidal just visibly faltered; but it
 
 346 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 might have been quite as much at the freedom 
 of the question as at the difficulty of the an 
 swer. "Please say to her that I aw." He 
 spoke with a clearness that proved the steel 
 surface he had in a few minutes forged for his 
 despair. 
 
 The Doctor took the thing as he gave it, 
 only drawing from his pocket a key which he 
 held straight up. " Then I feel it to be only 
 right to say to you that this locks " and he 
 indicated the quarter to which Rose had re 
 tired "the other door." 
 
 Dennis, with a diffident hand out, looked at 
 him hard; but the good man showed, with 
 effect, that he was professionally used to that. 
 "You mean she's a prisoner?" 
 
 "On Mr. Vidal's honour." 
 
 " But whose prisoner ? " 
 
 "Mrs. Beever's." 
 
 Dennis took the key, which passed into his 
 pocket. " Don't you forget," he then asked with 
 his conscious coldness, " that we're here, all 
 round, on a level " 
 
 " With the garden ? " the Doctor broke in. " I 
 forget nothing. We've a friend on the terrace." 
 
 "A friend?"
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 347 
 
 "Mr. Beever. A friend of Miss Armiger's," 
 he promptly added. 
 
 Still showing nothing in his face, Dennis per 
 haps showed something in the way, that with 
 his eyes bent on the carpet and his hands inter 
 twisted behind him, he slowly walked across the 
 room. At the end of it he turned round. " If 
 I have this key, who has the other?" 
 
 "The other?" 
 
 " The key that confines Mr. Bream." 
 
 The Doctor winced, but he stood his ground. 
 "JT have it." Then he said, as if with a due 
 recognition of the weight of the circumstance: 
 "She has told you?" 
 
 Dennis turned it over. "Mrs. Beever?" 
 
 "Miss Armiger." There was a faint sharp 
 ness in the Doctor's tone. 
 
 It had evidently something to do with the 
 tone in which Dennis replied. " She has told 
 me. But if you've left him " 
 
 "I've not left him. I've brought him over." 
 
 Dennis showed himself at a loss. "To see 
 mef" 
 
 The Doctor raised a solemn, reassuring hand; 
 then, after an instant, "To see his child," he 
 colourlessly said.
 
 348 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 "He desires that?" Dennis asked with an 
 accent that emulated this detachment. 
 
 "He desires that." Dennis turned away, and 
 in the pause that followed the air seemed 
 charged with a consciousness of all that between 
 them was represented by the unspoken. It 
 lasted indeed long enough to give to an auditor, 
 had there been one, a sense of the dominant 
 unspeakable. It was as if each were waiting to 
 have something from the other first, and it was 
 eventually clear that Dennis, who had not looked 
 at his watch, was prepared to wait longest. The 
 Doctor had moreover to recognise that he him 
 self had sought the interview. He impatiently 
 summed up his sense of their common attitude. 
 "I do full justice to the difficulty created for 
 you by your engagement. That's why it was 
 important to have it from your own lips." His 
 companion said nothing, and he went on : " Mrs. 
 Beever, all the same, feels that it mustn't pre 
 vent us from putting you another question, or 
 rather from reminding you that there's one that 
 you led her just now to expect that you'll 
 answer." The Doctor paused again, but he per 
 ceived he must go all the way. " From the 
 bank of the river you saw something that bears
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 349 
 
 upon this " he hesitated ; then daintily selected 
 his words " remarkable performance. We ap 
 peal to your sense of propriety to tell us what 
 you saw." 
 
 Dennis considered. " My sense of propriety is 
 strong ; but so just now is my sense of some 
 other things. My word to Mrs. Beever was con 
 tingent. There are points I want made clear." 
 
 " I'm here," said the Doctor, " to do what I 
 can to satisfy you. Only be so good as to re 
 member that time is everything." He added, to 
 drive this home, in his neat, brisk way, " Some 
 action has to be taken." 
 
 " You mean a declaration made ? " 
 
 " Under penalty," the Doctor assented, " of 
 consequences sufficiently tremendous. There has 
 been an accident of a gravity " 
 
 Dennis took him up. " That can't be kept 
 quiet?" 
 
 The Doctor looked at his watch; then, still 
 holding it, he quickly looked up. " You want to 
 keep it so ? " 
 
 Vidal's haggard face turned red, but he in 
 stantly recovered himself. " Why do you ask, if 
 you've a duty ? " 
 
 " I haven't one worse luck. I've fifty."
 
 350 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 Dennis fixed his eyes on the watch. "Does 
 that mean you can keep the thing in hand?" 
 
 The Doctor put his talisman away. " Before I 
 say, I must know what you'll do for me." 
 
 Dennis stared at the lamp. " Hasn't it gone too 
 far?" 
 
 "I know how far. Not so far, by a peculiar 
 mercy, as it might have gone. There has been an 
 extraordinary coincidence of chances a miracle 
 of conditions. Everything appears to serve." He 
 hesitated ; then with great gravity : " We'll call it 
 a providence and have done with it." 
 
 Dennis turned this over. "Do you allude to 
 the absence of witnesses ?" 
 
 " At the moment the child was found. Only the 
 blessed three of us. And she had been there " 
 Stupefaction left him counting. 
 
 Dennis jerked out a sick protest. " Don't tell 
 
 me how long! What do /want ?" What 
 
 he wanted proved, the next moment, to be more 
 knowledge. "How do you meet the servants?" 
 
 "Here? By giving a big name to her com 
 plaint. None of them have really seen her. She 
 was carried in with a success ! " The Doc 
 tor threw up triumphant little hands. 
 
 "But the people at the other house?"
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 351 
 
 " They know nothing but that over here she 
 has had an attack which it will be one of the fifty 
 duties of mine I mentioned to you to make suffi 
 ciently remarkable. She was out of sorts this 
 morning ; this afternoon I was summoned. That 
 call of Tony's is the providence ! " Dr. Eamage 
 declared. 
 
 But still Dennis pressed him. " Hadn't she 
 some fond old nurse some devoted dragon ? " 
 
 " The great Gorham ? Yes : she didn't want 
 her to come ; she was cruelly overborne. Well," 
 the Doctor lucidly pursued, " I must face the 
 great Gorham. I'm already keeping her at bay 
 doctors are so luckily despots ! She'll be tough 
 -but it's all tough!" 
 
 Dennis, pressing his hand to his head, began 
 wearily to pace again : it was far too tough for 
 him. But he suddenly, dropped upon the sofa, all 
 but audibly moaning, falling back in the despair 
 that broke through his false pluck. Doctor 
 Ramage watched his pain as if he had something 
 to hope from it; then, abruptly, the young man 
 
 began : " I don't in the least conceive how " 
 
 He stopped short : even this he couldn't bring out. 
 
 " How was it done ? Small blame to you ! It 
 was done in one minute with the aid of a boat
 
 352 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 and the temptation (we'll call it!) of solitude. 
 The boat's an old one of Tony's own padlocked, 
 but with a long chain. To see the place," said 
 the Doctor after an instant, " is to see the deed." 
 
 Dennis threw back his head ; he covered his dis 
 torted face with his two hands. " Why in thun 
 der should I see it? " 
 
 The Doctor had moved towards him ; at this he 
 seated himself beside him and, going on with 
 quiet clearness, applied a controlling, soothing 
 grasp to his knee. " The child was taken into 
 the boat and it was tilted : that was enough 
 the trick was played." Dennis remained motion 
 less and dumb, and his companion completed the 
 picture. " She was immersed she was held un 
 der water she was made sure of. Oh, I grant 
 you it took a hand and it took a spirit! But 
 they were there. Then she was left. A pull of 
 the chain brought back the boat ; and the author 
 of the crime walked away." 
 
 Dennis slowly shifted his position, dropped his 
 head, dropped his hands, sat staring lividly at the 
 floor. " But how could she be caught ? " 
 
 The Doctor hesitated, as if in the presence of 
 an ambiguity. " The poor little girl ? You'd see 
 if you saw the place."
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 353 
 
 " I passed it to come back here," Dennis said. 
 " But I didn't look, for I didn't know." 
 
 The Doctor patted his knee. " If you had 
 known you would have looked still less. She 
 rose ; she drifted some yards ; then she washed 
 against the base of the bridge, and one of the 
 openings of her little dress hooked itself to an old 
 loose clamp. There she was kept." 
 
 " And no one came by ? " 
 
 "No one came till, by the mercy of God, I 
 came ! " 
 
 Dennis took it in as if with a long, dry gulp, 
 and the two men sat for a minute looking at each 
 other. At last the younger one got up. "And 
 yet the risk of anything but a straight course is 
 hideous." 
 
 The Doctor kept his place. "Everything's 
 hideous. I appreciate greatly," he added, "the 
 gallantry of your reminding me of my danger. 
 Don't think I don't know exactly what it is. But 
 I have to think of the danger of others. I can 
 measure mine; I can't measure theirs." 
 
 " I can return your compliment," Dennis replied. 
 " ' Theirs,' as you call it, seems to me such a fine 
 thing for you to care for." 
 
 The Doctor, with his plump hands folded on his 
 
 2A
 
 
 354 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 stomach, gave a small stony smile. " My dear 
 man, I care for my friends ! " 
 
 Dennis stood before him ; he was visibly mysti 
 fied. " There's a person whom it's very good of 
 you to take this occasion of calling by that 
 name ! " 
 
 Doctor Ramage stared; with his vision of his 
 interlocutor's mistake all his tight curves grew 
 tense. Then, as he sprang to his feet, he seemed 
 to crack in a grim little laugh. " The person you 
 have in mind is, I confess, not, my dear sir " 
 
 " One of the persons," said Dennis, " whom you 
 wish to protect? It certainly would have sur 
 prised me to hear it! But you spoke of your 
 ' friends.' Who then is your second one ? " 
 
 The Doctor looked astonished at the question. 
 "Why, sweet Jean Martle." 
 
 Dennis equally wondered. " I should have sup 
 posed her the first ! Who then is the other ? " 
 
 The Doctor lifted his shoulders. " Who but 
 poor Tony Bream?" 
 
 Dennis thought a moment. "What's Ms dan- 
 ger?" 
 
 The Doctor grew more amazed. " The danger 
 we've been talking of ! " 
 
 " Have we been talking of that ? "
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 355 
 
 "You ask me, when you told me you knew 
 
 Dennis, hesitating, recalled. " Knew that he's 
 accused ?" 
 
 His companion fairly sprang at him. " Accused 
 by her, too ? " 
 
 Dennis fell back at his onset. " Is he by any 
 body else ? " 
 
 The Doctor, turning crimson, had grabbed his 
 arm ; he blazed up at him. " You don't know it 
 all ? " 
 
 Dennis faltered. "Is there any more?" 
 
 " Tony cries on the housetops that he did it ! " 
 
 Dennis sank once more on his sofa. "He 
 cries ?" 
 
 " To cover Jean." 
 
 Dennis took it in. "But if she is covered?" 
 
 " Then to shield Miss Armiger." 
 
 Poor Dennis gazed aghast. "Who meanwhile 
 charges him ? " He was on his feet again ; again 
 he moved to the open window and stood there 
 while the Doctor, in silence, waited. Presently 
 he turned round. "May I see him?" 
 
 The Doctor, as if he had expected this, was 
 already at the door. " God bless you ! " And he 
 flashed out.
 
 356 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 Dennis, left alone, stood rigid in the middle of 
 the room, plunged apparently in a stupor of emo 
 tion ; then, as if shaken out of it by a return of 
 conscious suffering, he passed in a couple of strides 
 to the door of the library. Here, however, with 
 his hand on the knob, another impulse stayed him 
 kept him irresolute, listening, drawing his breath 
 in pain. Suddenly he turned away Tony Bream 
 had come in.
 
 XXXI 
 
 " IF in this miserable hour I've asked you for a 
 moment of your time," Dennis immediately said, 
 " I beg you to believe it's only to let you know 
 
 that anything in the world I can do for you " 
 
 Tony raised a hand that mutely discouraged as 
 well as thanked him, but he completely delivered 
 himself : " I'm ready, whatever it is, to do on the 
 spot." 
 
 With his handsome face smitten, his red eyes 
 contracted, his thick hair disordered, and his black 
 garments awry, Tony had the handled, hustled 
 look of a man just dragged through some riot or 
 some rescue and only released to take breath. 
 Like Rose, for Vidal, he was deeply disfigured, 
 but with a change more passive and tragic. His 
 bloodshot eyes fixed his interlocutor's. "I'm 
 afraid there's nothing anyone can do for me. 
 My disaster's overwhelming; but I must meet it 
 myself." 
 
 357
 
 358 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 There was courtesy in his voice ; but there was 
 something hard and dry in the way he stood there, 
 something so opposed to his usual fine overflow 
 that for a minute Dennis could only show by pity 
 ing silence the full sense of his wretchedness. He 
 was in the presence of a passionate perversity 
 an attitude in which the whole man had already 
 petrified. " Will it perhaps help you to think of 
 something," he presently said, " if I tell you that 
 your disaster is almost as much mine as yours, and 
 that what's of aid to one of us may perhaps there 
 fore be of aid to the other?" 
 
 " It's very good of you," Tony replied, " to be 
 willing to take upon you the smallest corner of 
 so big a burden. Don't do that don't do that, 
 Mr. Vidal," he repeated with a heavy headshake. 
 " Don't come near such a thing ; don't touch it ; 
 don't know it ! " He straightened himself as if 
 with a long, suppressed shudder ; and then, with 
 a sharper and more sombre vehemence, " Stand 
 from under it ! " he exclaimed. Dennis, in deeper 
 compassion, looked at him with an intensity that 
 might have suggested submission, and Tony fol 
 lowed up what he apparently took for an advan 
 tage. " You came here for an hour, for your own 
 reasons, for your relief : you came in all kindness
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 359 
 
 and trust. You've encountered an unutterable 
 horror and you've only one thing to do." 
 
 " Be so good as to name it," said Dennis. 
 
 "Turn your back on it for ever go your way 
 this minute. I've come to you simply to say 
 that." 
 
 " Leave you, in other words 
 
 " By the very first train that will take you." 
 
 Dennis appeared to turn this over; then he 
 spoke with a face that showed what he thought of 
 it. " It has been my unfortunate fate in coming to 
 this place so wrapped, as one might suppose, in 
 comfort and peace to intrude a second time on 
 obscure, unhappy things, on suffering and danger 
 and death. I should have been glad, God knows, 
 not to renew the adventure, but one's destiny kicks 
 one before it, and I seem myself not the least part 
 of the misery I speak of. You must accept that 
 as my excuse for not taking your advice. I must 
 stay at least till you understand me." On this he 
 waited a moment; then abruptly, impatiently, 
 " For God's sake, Mr. Bream, believe in me and 
 meet me ! " he broke out. 
 
 "'Meet' you?" 
 
 "Make use of the hand I hold out to you." 
 
 Tony had remained just within the closed door,
 
 360 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 as if to guard against its moving from the other 
 side. At this, with a faint flush in his dead 
 vacancy, he came a few steps further. But there 
 was something still locked in his conscious, al 
 tered eyes and coldly absent from the tone in 
 which he said: "You've come, I think, from 
 China?" 
 
 "I've come, Mr. Bream, from China." 
 "And it's open to you to go back?" 
 Dennis frowned. "I can do as I wish."* 
 "And yet you're not off like a shot?" 
 "My movements and my inclinations are my 
 own affair. You won't accept my aid ? " 
 
 Tony gave his sombre stare. " You ask me, as 
 you call it, to meet you. Excuse me if on my 
 
 side I ask you on what definite ground " 
 
 Dennis took him straight up. " On the definite 
 ground on which Dr. Ramage is good enough to 
 do so. I'm afraid there's no better ground than 
 my honour." 
 
 Tony's stare was long and deep; then he put 
 out his hand, and while Dennis held it, " I under 
 stand you," he said. " Good-bye." 
 
 Dennis kept hold of him. " ' Good-bye ' ? " 
 Tony had a supreme hesitation. " She's 
 safe."
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 361 
 
 Dennis had a shorter one. " Do you speak of 
 Miss Martle?" 
 
 "Not of Miss Martle." 
 
 " Then I can. She's safe." 
 
 "Thank you," said Tony. He drew away his 
 hand. 
 
 " As for the person you speak of, if you say 
 it " And Dennis paused. 
 
 "She's safe," Tony repeated. 
 
 "That's all I ask of you. The Doctor will 
 do the rest." 
 
 "I know what the Doctor will do." Tony 
 was silent a moment. "What will you do?" 
 
 Dennis faltered, but at last he spoke. " Every 
 thing but marry her." 
 
 A flare of admiration rose and fell in Tony's 
 eyes. " You're beyond me ! " 
 
 "I don't in the least know where I am, save 
 that I'm in a black, bloody nightmare. It's not 
 I, it's not she, it's not you, it's not anyone. I 
 shall wake up at last, I suppose, but mean 
 while " 
 
 " There's plenty more to come ? Oh, as much 
 as you like ! " Tony excitedly declared. 
 
 " For me, but not for you. For you the worst's 
 over," his companion boldly observed.
 
 362 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 "Over? with all my life made hideous?" 
 
 There was a certain sturdiness in Vidal's mo 
 mentary silence. " You think so now ! " 
 
 Then he added more gently : " I grant you it's 
 hideous enough." 
 
 Tony stood there in the agony of the actual; 
 the tears welled into his hot eyes. "She butch 
 ered she tortured my child. And she did it 
 to incriminate Jean." 
 
 He brought it all back to Dennis, who exclaimed 
 with simple solemnity : " The dear little girl 
 the sweet, kind little girl ! " With a sudden 
 impulse that in the midst of this tenderness 
 seemed almost savage, he laid on Tony's shoul 
 der a hard, conscientious hand. " She forced 
 her in. She held her down. She left her." 
 
 The men turned paler as they looked at each 
 other. " I'm infamous I'm infamous," said Tony. 
 
 There was a long pause that was like a strange 
 assent from Dennis, who at last, however, brought 
 out in a different tone : " It was her passion." 
 
 " It was her passion." 
 
 " She loves you ! " Dennis went on with 
 
 a drop, before the real, of all vain terms. 
 
 " She loves me ! " Tony's face reflected the 
 mere monstrous fact. "It has made what it has
 
 363 
 
 made her awful act and my silence. My silence 
 is a part of the crime and the cruelty I shall 
 live to be a horror to myself. But I see it, none 
 the less, as I see it, and I shall keep the word 
 I gave her in the first madness of my fear. It 
 came to me. There it is." 
 
 " I know what came to you," Dennis said. 
 
 Tony wondered. " Then you've seen her ? " 
 
 Dennis hesitated. " I know it from the 
 Doctor." 
 
 "I see " Tony thought a moment. "She, 
 
 I imagine " 
 
 " Will keep it to herself ? Leave that to me ! " 
 Dennis put out his hand again. "Good-bye." 
 
 " You take her away ? " 
 
 " To-night." 
 
 Tony kept his hand. "Will her flight help 
 Ramage ? " 
 
 " Everything falls in. Three hours ago I came 
 for her." 
 
 "So it will seem prearranged?" 
 
 "For the event she announced to you. Our 
 happy union ! " said Dennis Vidal. 
 
 He reached the door to the hall, where Tony 
 checked him. " There's nothing, then, I shall 
 do for you ? "
 
 364 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 "It's done. We've helped each other." 
 
 What was deepest in Tony stirred again. "I 
 mean when your trouble has passed." 
 
 " It will never pass. Think of that when 
 you're happy yourself." 
 
 Tony's grey face stared. "How shall I ever 
 be ?" 
 
 The door, as he spoke, opened from the room 
 to which Mrs. Beever had returned, and Jean 
 Martle appeared to them. Dennis retreated. 
 " Ask her ! " he said from the threshold.
 
 XXXII 
 
 RUSHING to Tony, she wailed under her breath : 
 " I must speak to you I must speak to you ! 
 But how can you ever look at me? how can 
 you ever forgive me?" In an instant he had 
 met her; in a flash the gulf was bridged: his 
 arms had opened wide to her and she had 
 thrown herself into them. They had only to be 
 face to face to let themselves go; he making no 
 answer but to press her close against him, she 
 pouring out her tears upon him as if the contact 
 quickened the source. He held her, she yielded, 
 with a passion no bliss could have given them ; 
 they stood locked together in their misery with 
 no sound and no motion but her sobs. Breast 
 to breast and cheek to cheek, they felt simply 
 that they had ceased to be apart. Their long 
 embrace was the extinction of all limits, all ques 
 tions swept away in a flood which tossed them 
 over the years and in which nothing remained 
 365
 
 366 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 erect but the sense and the need of each other. 
 These things had now the beauty of all the ten 
 derness that they had never spoken and that, for 
 some time, even as they clung there, was too 
 strange and too deep for speech. But what was 
 extraordinary was that, as Jean, disengaged her 
 self, there was neither wonder nor fear between 
 them ; nothing but a recognition, in which every 
 thing swam, and, on the girl's part, the still 
 higher tide of the remorse that harried her and 
 that, to see him, had made her break away from 
 the others. "They tell me I'm ill, I'm insane," 
 she went on " they want to shut me up, to 
 give me things : they tell me to lie down, to try 
 to sleep. But it's all, to me, so dreadfully as if 
 it were / who had done it, that when they ad 
 mitted to me that you were here I felt that if 
 I didn't see you it would make me as crazy as 
 they say. It's to have seen her go to have 
 seen her go: that's what I can't bear it's too 
 horrible ! " She continued to sob ; she stood 
 there before him, swayed to and fro in her grief. 
 She stirred up his own, and that added to her 
 pain ; for a minute, in their separate sorrow, they 
 moved asunder like creatures too stricken to com 
 municate. But they were quickly face to face
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 367 
 
 again, more intimate, with more understood, 
 though with the air, on either side and in the 
 very freedom of their action, of a clear vision of 
 the effect of their precipitated union the in 
 stinct of not again touching it with unconse- 
 crated hands. Tony had no idle words, no easy 
 consolations ; she only made him see more vividly 
 what had happened, and they hung over it to 
 gether while she accused and reviled herself. " I 
 let her go I let her go ; that's what's so terrible, 
 so hideous. I might have got her have kept 
 her ; I might have screamed, I might have rushed 
 for help. But how could I know or dream ? How 
 
 could the worst of my fears ? " She broke off, 
 
 she shuddered and dropped; she sat and sobbed 
 while he came and went. " I see her little face as 
 she left me she looked at me as if she knew. She 
 wondered and dreaded she knew she knew! 
 It was the last little look I was to have from 
 her, and I didn't even answer it with a kiss. 
 She sat there where I could seize her, but I 
 never raised a hand. I was close, I was there 
 she must have called for me in her terror. I 
 didn't listen I didn't come I only gave her 
 up to be murdered! And now I shall be pun 
 ished for ever : I shall see her in those arms
 
 368 THE OTHER, HOUSE 
 
 in those arms ! " Jean flung herself down and 
 hid her face; her smothered, wild lament filled 
 the room. 
 
 Tony stopped before her, seeing everything 
 she brought up, but only the more helpless in 
 his pity. "It was the only little minute in all 
 the years that you had been forced to fail her. 
 She was always more yours than mine." 
 
 Jean could only look out through her storm- 
 beaten window. "It was just because she was 
 yours that she was mine. It was because she 
 
 was yours from the first hour that I !" She 
 
 broke down again ; she tried to hold herself ; 
 she got up. " What could I do, you see ? To 
 you I couldn't be kind." She was as frank in 
 her young, pure woe as a bride might have been 
 in her joy. 
 
 Tony looked as if he were retracing the saddest 
 thing on earth. " I don't see how you could 
 have been kinder." 
 
 She wondered with her blinded eyes. " That 
 wasn't what I thought I was it couldn't be, 
 ever, ever. Didn't I try not to think of you? 
 But the child was a beautiful part of you the 
 child I could take and keep. I could take her 
 altogether, without thinking or remembering. It
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 369 
 
 was the only thing I could do for you, and you 
 let me, always, and she did. So I thought it 
 would go on, for wasn't it happiness enough? 
 But all the horrible things I didn't know them 
 till to-day. There they were so near to us ; 
 and there they closed over her, and oh ! " She 
 turned away in a fresh convulsion, inarticulate 
 and distracted. 
 
 They wandered in silence, as if it made them 
 more companions ; but at last Tony said : " She 
 was a little radiant, perfect thing. Even if she 
 had not been mine you would have loved her." 
 Then he went on, as if feeling his way through 
 his thickest darkness : " If she had not been 
 mine she wouldn't be lying there as I've seen 
 her. Yet I'm glad she was mine ! " he said. 
 
 "She lies there because I loved her and be 
 cause I so recklessly showed it. That's why it's 
 I who killed her ! " broke passionately from Jean. 
 
 He said nothing till he quietly and gently 
 said : " It was I who killed her." 
 
 She roamed to and fro, slowly controlling her 
 self, taking this at first for a mere torment like 
 her own. "We seem beautifully eager for the 
 guilt ! " 
 
 "It doesn't matter what anyone else seems.
 
 370 THE OTHEK HOUSE 
 
 I must tell you all now. I've taken the act 
 on myself." 
 
 She had stopped short, bewildered. " How 
 have you taken it?" 
 
 "To meet whatever may come." 
 
 She turned as white as ashes. "You mean 
 you've accused yourself?" 
 
 "Anyone may accuse me. Whom is it more 
 natural to accuse ? What had she to gain ? My 
 own motive is flagrant. There it is," said Tony. 
 
 Jean withered beneath this new stroke. "You'll 
 say you did it?" 
 
 "I'll say I did it." 
 
 Her face grew old with terror. "You'll lie? 
 You'll perjure yourself?" 
 
 "I'll say I did it for you" 
 
 She suddenly turned crimson. "Then what 
 do you think J'll say?" 
 
 Tony coldly considered. " Whatever you say 
 will tell against me." 
 
 "Against you?" 
 
 "If the crime was committed for you." 
 
 " ' For ' me ? " she echoed again. 
 
 " To enable us to marry." 
 
 " Marry ! we? " Jean looked at it in blighted 
 horror.
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 371 
 
 "It won't be of any consequence that we 
 sha'n't, that we can't : it will only stand out clear 
 that we can" His sombre ingenuity halted, but 
 he achieved his demonstration. " So I shall save 
 whom I wish to save." 
 
 Jean gave a fiercer wail. " You wish to save 
 hert" 
 
 " I don't wish to give her up. You can't con 
 ceive it?" 
 
 "I?" The girl looked about her for a nega 
 tion not too vile. " I wish to hunt her to death ! 
 I wish to burn her alive ! " All her emotion had 
 changed to stupefaction ; the flame in her eyes had 
 dried them. "You mean she's not to suffer?" 
 
 "You want her to suffer all?" 
 
 She was ablaze with the light of justice. 
 "How can anything be enough? I could tear 
 her limb from limb. That's what she tried to 
 do to me ! " 
 
 Tony lucidly concurred. " Yes what she 
 tried to do to you." 
 
 But she had already flashed round. " And yet 
 you condone the atrocity ? " 
 
 Tony thought a moment. " Her doom will be 
 to live." 
 
 "But how will such a fiend be suffered to
 
 372 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 live when she went to it before my eyes ? " 
 Jean stared at the mountain of evidence ; then 
 eagerly : " And Mr. Vidal her very lover, 
 who'll swear what he knows what he saw ! " 
 
 Tony stubbornly shook his head. " Oh, Mr. 
 Vidal ! " 
 
 " To make me," Jean cried, " seem the mon 
 ster " 
 
 He looked at her so strangely that she stopped. 
 " She made it for the moment possible " 
 
 She caught him up. "To suspect me ?" 
 
 " I was mad and you weren't there." With a 
 muffled moan she sank down again; she covered her 
 face with her hands. " I tell you all I tell you 
 all," he said. " He knows nothing he saw noth 
 ing he'll swear nothing. He's taking her away." 
 
 Jean started as if he had struck her. " She's 
 here ? " 
 
 Tony wondered. "You didn't know it?" 
 
 " She came back ? " -the girl panted. 
 
 "You thought she had fled?" 
 
 Jean hung there like a poised hawk. " Where 
 is she ? " 
 
 Tony gave her, with a grave gesture, a long, 
 absolute look before which, gradually, her pas 
 sion fell. "She has gone. Let her go."
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 373 
 
 She was silent a little. " But others : how 
 will they ?" 
 
 " There are no others." After a moment he 
 added : " She would have died for me." 
 
 The girl's pale wrath gave a flare. "So you 
 want to die for her?" 
 
 " I sha'n't die. But I shall remember." Then, 
 as she watched him : " I must tell you all," he 
 said once more. "I knew it I always knew it. 
 And I made her come." 
 
 " You were kind to her as you're always 
 kind." 
 
 " No ; I was more than that. And I should 
 have been less." His face showed a rift in the 
 blackness. " I remember." 
 
 She followed him in pain and at a distance. 
 " You mean you liked it ? " 
 
 "I liked it while I was safe. Then I grew 
 afraid." 
 
 "Afraid of what?" 
 
 "Afraid of everything. You don't know 
 but we're abysses. At least /'m one ! " he 
 groaned. He seemed to sound this depth. 
 "There are other things. They go back so 
 far." 
 
 " Don't tell me all," said Jean. She had evi-
 
 374 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 dently enough to turn over. " What will become 
 of her?" she asked. 
 
 " God knows. She goes forth." 
 
 "And Mr. Vidal with her?" 
 
 "Mr. Vidal with her." 
 
 Jean gazed at the tragic picture. " Because 
 he still loves her?" 
 
 "Yes," said Tony Bream. 
 
 "Then what will he do?" 
 
 " Put the globe between them. Think of her 
 torture," Tony added. 
 
 Jean looked as if she tried. "Do you mean 
 that ? " 
 
 He meant another matter. " To have only 
 made us free." 
 
 Jean protested with all her woe. "It's her 
 triumph that our freedom is horrible ! " 
 
 Tony hesitated; then his eyes distinguished in 
 the outer dusk Paul Bream, who had appeared at 
 the long window which, in the mild air, stood open 
 to the terrace. " It's horrible," he gravely replied. 
 
 Jean had not seen Paul ; she only heard Tony's 
 answer. It touched again the source of tears; 
 she broke again into choking sobs. So, blindly, 
 slowly, while the two men watched her, she 
 passed from the room by the door at which she 
 had entered.
 
 XXXIII 
 
 " YOU'RE looking for me ? " Tony quickly- 
 asked. 
 
 Paul, blinking in the lamplight, showed the 
 dismal desert of his face. " I saw you through 
 the open window, and I thought I would let 
 you know " 
 
 "That someone wants me?" Tony was all 
 ready. 
 
 " She hasn't asked for you ; but I think that 
 if you could do it " 
 
 "I can do anything," said Tony. "But of 
 whom do you speak ? " 
 
 " Of one of your servants poor Mrs. Gorham." 
 
 " Effie's nurse ? she has come over ? " 
 
 "She's in the garden," Paul explained. "I've 
 been floundering about I came upon her." 
 
 Tony wondered. "But what is she doing?" 
 
 "Crying very hard without a sound." 
 
 " And without coming in ? " 
 
 "Out of discretion." 
 
 375
 
 376 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 Tony thought a moment. " You mean because 
 Jean and the Doctor ?" 
 
 "Have taken complete charge. She bows to 
 that, but she sits there on a bench " 
 
 " Weeping and wailing ? " Tony asked. " Dear 
 thing, I'll speak to her." 
 
 He was about to leave the room in the sum 
 mary manner permitted by the long window 
 when Paul checked him with a quiet reminder. 
 "Hadn't you better have your hat?" 
 
 Tony looked about him he had not brought 
 it in. "Why? if it's a warm night?" 
 
 Paul approached him, laying on him as if to 
 stay him a heavy but friendly hand. "You never 
 go out without it. Don't be too unusual." 
 
 " I see what you mean I'll get it." And he 
 made for the door to the hall. 
 
 But Paul had not done with him. " It's much 
 better you should see her it's unnatural you 
 shouldn't. But do you mind my just thinking 
 for you the least bit asking you for instance 
 what it's your idea to say to her?" 
 
 Tony had the air of accepting this solicitude ; 
 but he met the inquiry with characteristic can 
 dour. "I think I've no idea but to talk with 
 her of Effie."
 
 THE OTHEK HOUSE 377 
 
 Paul visibly wondered. "As dangerously ill? 
 That's all she knows." 
 
 Tony considered an instant. "Yes, then as 
 dangerously ill. Whatever she's prepared for." 
 
 " But what are you prepared for ? You're not 
 afraid - ?" Paul hesitated. 
 
 "Afraid of what?" 
 
 " Of suspicions importunities ; her making 
 some noise." 
 
 Tony signified a negative. "I don't think," 
 he said very gravely, "that I'm afraid of poor 
 Gorham." 
 
 Paul looked as if he felt that his warning 
 half failed. "Everyone else is. She's tremen 
 dously devoted." 
 
 " Yes that's what I mean." 
 
 Paul sounded him a moment. " You mean to 
 
 The irony was so indulgent and all irony, 
 on this young man's part, was so rare that 
 Tony was to be excused for not perceiving it. 
 " She'll do anything. We're the best of friends." 
 
 " Then get your hat," said Paul. 
 
 "It's much the best thing. Thank you for 
 telling me." Even in a tragic hour there was 
 so much in Tony of the ingenuous that, with
 
 378 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 his habit of good-nature and his hand on the 
 door, he lingered for the comfort of his friend. 
 " She'll be a resource a fund of memory. We 
 can always talk." 
 
 " Oh, you're safe ! " Paul went on. 
 
 It had now all come to Tony. " I see my way 
 with her." 
 
 " So do I ! " said Paul. 
 
 Tony fairly brightened through his gloom. 
 " I'll keep her on ! " And he went by the 
 front. 
 
 Left alone, Paul closed the door on him, hold 
 ing it a minute and lost evidently in reflections of 
 which he was the subject. He exhaled a long 
 sigh that was burdened with many things ; then, 
 as he moved away, his eyes attached themselves, 
 as if in sympathy with a vague impulse, to the 
 door of the library. He stood a moment irreso 
 lute ; after which, deeply restless, he went to take 
 up the hat that, on coming in, he had laid on one 
 of the tables. He was in the act of doing this 
 when the door of the library opened and Rose 
 Armiger stood before him. She had, since their 
 last meeting, changed her dress, and, arrayed for a 
 journey, wore a bonnet and a long, dark mantle. 
 For some time after she appeared no word came
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 379 
 
 from either ; but at last she said : " Can you endure 
 for a minute the sight of me?" 
 
 " I was hesitating I thought of going to you," 
 Paul replied. " I knew you were there." 
 
 At this she came into the room. " I knew you 
 were here. You passed the window." 
 
 " I've passed and repassed this hour." 
 
 " I've known that too, but this time I heard you 
 stop. I've no light there," she went on, "but the 
 window, on this side, is open. I could tell that 
 you had come in." 
 
 Paul hesitated. " You ran a danger of not 
 rinding me alone." 
 
 "I took my chance of course I knew. I've 
 been in dread, but, in spite of it, I've seen nobody. 
 I've been up to my room and come down; the 
 coast was clear." 
 
 "You've not then seen Mr. Vidal?" 
 
 "Oh yes him. But he's nobody." Then, as 
 if conscious of the strange sound of this : " No 
 body, I mean, to fear." 
 
 Paul was silent a moment. "What in the 
 world is it you fear ? " 
 
 " In the sense of the awful things you know ? 
 Here on the spot nothing. About those things 
 I'm quite quiet. There may be plenty to come ;
 
 
 380 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 but what I'm afraid of now is my safety. There's 
 
 something in that !" She broke down ; there 
 
 was more in it than she could say. 
 
 " Are you so sure of your safety ? " 
 
 " You see how sure. It's in your face," said 
 Rose. " And your face for what it says is 
 terrible." 
 
 Whatever it said remained there as Paul looked 
 at her. " Is it as terrible as yours ? " he asked. 
 
 "Oh, mine mine must be hideous; unutter 
 ably hideous for ever ! Yours is beautiful. Every 
 thing, everyone here is beautiful." 
 
 " I don't understand you," said Paul. 
 
 "How should you? It isn't to ask you to do 
 that that I've come to you." 
 
 He waited in his woful wonder. "For what 
 have you come ? " 
 
 " You can endure it, then, the sight of me ? " 
 
 " Haven't I told you that I thought of going to 
 you?" 
 
 " Yes but you didn't go," said Rose. " You 
 came and went like a sentinel, and if it was to 
 watch me " 
 
 Paul interrupted her. "It wasn't to watch 
 you." 
 
 "Then what was it for?"
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 381 
 
 "It was to keep myself quiet," said Paul. 
 
 "But you're anything but quiet." 
 
 " Yes," he dismally conceded ; " I'm anything 
 but quiet." 
 
 " There's something, then, that may help you : 
 it's one of two things for which I've come to you. 
 And there's no one but you to care. You may 
 care a very little: it may give you a grain of 
 comfort. Let your comfort be that I've failed." 
 
 Paul, after a long look at her, turned away 
 with a vague, dumb gesture, and it was a part 
 of his sore trouble that, in his wasted strength, 
 he had no outlet for emotion, no channel even 
 for pain. She took in for a moment his clumsy, 
 massive misery. " No you loathe my pres 
 ence," she said. 
 
 He stood awhile in silence with his back to 
 her, as if, within him, some violence were strug 
 gling up ; then with an effort, almost with a gasp, 
 he turned round, his open watch in his hand. 
 " I saw Mr. Vidal " was all he brought out. 
 
 "And he told you too he would come back 
 for me?" 
 
 " He said there was something he had to do, 
 but that you would meanwhile get ready. He 
 would return immediately with a carriage."
 
 382 THE OTHEB HOUSE 
 
 "That's why I've waited," Rose replied. "I'm 
 ready enough. But he won't come." 
 
 " He'll come," said Paul. " But it's more than 
 time." 
 
 She drearily shook her head. " Not after get 
 ting off not back to the horror and the shame. 
 He thought so ; no doubt he has tried. But it's 
 beyond him." 
 
 "Then what are you waiting for?" 
 
 She hesitated. " Nothing now. Thank you." 
 She looked about her. " How shall I go ? " 
 
 Paul went to the window; for a moment he 
 listened. " I thought I heard wheels." 
 
 She gave ear; but once more she shook her 
 head. " There are no wheels, but I can go that 
 way." 
 
 He turned back again, heavy and uncertain ; 
 he stood wavering and wondering in her path. 
 " What will become of you ? " he asked. 
 
 "How do I know and what do I care?" 
 
 " What will become of you ? what will become 
 of you?" he went on as if he had not heard 
 her. 
 
 "You pity me too much," she answered after 
 an instant. " I've failed, but I did what I could. 
 It was all that I saw it was all that was left
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 383 
 
 me. It took hold of me, it possessed me : it was 
 the last gleam of a chance." 
 
 Paul flushed like a sick man under a new 
 wave of despair. " A chance for what ? " 
 
 "To make him hate her. You'll say my cal 
 culation was grotesque my stupidity as ignoble 
 as my crime. All I can answer is that I might, 
 none the less, have succeeded. People have 
 in worse conditions. But I don't defend myself 
 I'm face to face with my mistake. I'm face 
 to face with it for ever and that's how I wish 
 you to see me. Look at me well ! " 
 
 " I would have done anything for you ! " He 
 broke out as if all talk with her were vain. 
 
 She considered this ; her dreadful face was 
 lighted by the response it kindled. "Would 
 you do anything now?" Paul answered noth 
 ing ; he seemed lost in the vision of what was 
 carrying her through. " I saw it as I saw it," 
 she continued : " there it was and there it is. 
 There it is there it is," she repeated in a tone 
 sharp, for a flash, with all the excitement she 
 contrived to keep under. "It has nothing to do 
 now with any part of me any other possibility 
 even of what may be worst in me. It's a storm 
 that's past, it's a debt that's paid. I may liter-
 
 384 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 ally be better." At the expression this brought 
 into his face she interrupted herself. " You 
 don't understand a word I say ! " 
 
 He was following her as she showed she 
 could see only in the light of his own emo 
 tion ; not in that of any feeling that she herself 
 could present. " Why didn't you speak to me 
 why didn't you tell me what you were think 
 ing? There was nothing you couldn't have told 
 me, nothing that wouldn't have brought me 
 nearer. If I had known your abasement " 
 
 " What would you have done ? " Rose de 
 manded. 
 
 " I would have saved you." 
 
 " What would you have done ? " she pressed. 
 
 " Everything." 
 
 She was silent while he went to the window. 
 " Yes, I've lost you I've lost you," she said at 
 last. " And you were the thing I might have had. 
 He told me that, and I knew it." 
 
 " ' He ' told you ? " Paul had faced round. 
 
 " He tried to put me off on you. That was 
 what finished me. Of course they'll marry," she 
 abruptly continued. 
 
 "Oh, yes, they'll marry." 
 
 " But not soon, do you suppose ? "
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 385 
 
 "Not soon. But sooner than they think." 
 
 Rose looked surprised. " Do you already know 
 what they think?" 
 
 " Yes that it will never be." 
 
 " Never ? " 
 
 " Coming about so horribly. But some day 
 it will be." 
 
 " It will be," said Rose. " And I shall have 
 done it for him. That's more," she said, " than 
 even you would have done for we." 
 
 Strange tears had found their way between 
 Paul's close lids. " You're too horrible," he 
 breathed ; " you're too horrible." 
 
 " Oh, I talk only to you : it's all for you. Re 
 member, please, that I shall never speak again. 
 You see," she went on, " that he daren't come." 
 
 Paul looked afresh at his watch. " I'll go with 
 you." 
 
 Rose hesitated. "How far?" 
 
 " I'll go with you," he simply repeated. 
 
 She looked at him hard ; in her eyes too there 
 were tears. " My safety my safety ! " she mur 
 mured. 
 
 Paul went round for his hat, which, on his 
 entrance, he had put down. " I'll go with you," 
 he said once more. 
 
 2c
 
 386 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 Still, however, she hesitated. " Won't he need 
 you?" 
 
 "Tony? for what?" 
 
 " For help." 
 
 It took Paul a moment to understand. "He 
 wants none." 
 
 " You mean he has nothing to fear ? " 
 
 " From any suspicion ? Nothing." 
 
 "That's his advantage," said Rose. "People 
 like him too much." 
 
 "People like him too much," Paul replied. 
 Then he exclaimed: "Mr. Vidal!" to which, 
 as she looked, Rose responded with a low, deep 
 moan. 
 
 Dennis had appeared at the window ; he gave 
 signal in a short, sharp gesture and remained 
 standing in the dusk of the terrace. Paul put 
 down his hat ; he turned away to leave his com 
 panion free. She approached him while Dennis 
 waited ; she lingered desperately, she wavered, as 
 if with a last word to speak. As he only stood 
 rigid, however, she faltered, choking her impulse 
 and giving her word the form of a look. The look 
 held her a moment, held her so long that Dennis 
 spoke sternly from the darkness : " Come I " At 
 this, for as long a space, she fixed her eyes on him ;
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 387 
 
 then, while the two men stood motionless, she 
 decided and reached the window. He put out a 
 hand and seized her, and they passed quickly into 
 the night. Paul, left alone, again sounded a long 
 sigh ; this time it was the deep breath of a man 
 who has seen a great danger averted. It had 
 scarcely died away before Tony Bream returned. 
 He came in from the hall as eagerly as he had 
 gone out, and, finding Paul, gave him his news : 
 "Well I took her home." 
 
 Paul required a minute to carry his thoughts 
 back to Gorham. " Oh, she went quietly ? " 
 
 " Like a bleating lamb. She's too glad to stay 
 on." 
 
 Paul turned this over ; but as if his confidence 
 now had solid ground he asked no question. 
 " Ah, you're all right ! " he simply said. 
 
 Tony arrived at the door through which Jean 
 had left the room ; he paused there in surprise at 
 this incongruous expression. Yet there was some 
 thing absent in the way he echoed "All right?" 
 
 " I mean you have such a pull. You'll meet 
 nothing but sympathy." 
 
 Tony looked indifferent and uncertain ; but his 
 optimism finally assented. " I daresay I shall get 
 on. People perhaps won't challenge me."
 
 388 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 " They like you too much." 
 
 Tony, with his hand on the door, appeared 
 struck with this ; but it embittered again the taste 
 of his tragedy. He remembered, with all his 
 vividness, to what tune he had been " liked," and 
 he wearily bowed his head. " Oh, too much, my 
 boy," he said as he went out. 
 
 THE END
 
 Embarrassments. 
 
 By HENRY JAMES, 
 
 Author of " The Bostonians" " The Aspern Papers" "A London 
 Life" "Partial Portrait" 
 
 izmo. Cloth. $1.50. 
 
 " Mr. Henry James has produced no more clever and subtle work than is to be 
 found in his latest volume. . . . There are in these tales passages of splendid 
 realism. The portrait of Geoffrey Dowling is a masterpiece of characterization. 
 And there are sentences, unobtrusive asides, which flash with the brilliancy of 
 true wit." New York Tribune. 
 
 " Mr. James's writings are distinctively works of art. One and all of them 
 appeal most strongly to cultivated min'ls. In no instance does he descend from 
 his transcendent ideals of literature. An acquaintance with Henry James means 
 an appreciation of the finer style of written English, and an inhalation of the 
 atmosphere of purest English literature. No list of books for the summer will be 
 complete without ' Embarrassments.' " Cambridge Press. 
 
 " Four stories which serve excellently well to emphasize their peculiar char 
 acter. They are marked by that refined satire and perfection of style for which 
 the author is famous, and the study of character is close, accurate, and impres 
 sive." Boston Budget. 
 
 " Like all of his works, the book possesses a distinct charm because of choice 
 style." Des Moines News. 
 
 " After this as after each of Mr. James's books, those exquisite minatures of 
 a bit of human lives after this, one is tempted to believe that the author is 
 growing constantly finer, clearer, stronger in his work, with surer, more delicate 
 touch, bringing out the beauty that lies hidden in the quivering hearts of the 
 high-strung, sensitive humanity of this complex, self-conscious age." Kansas 
 City Star. 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, 
 
 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.
 
 WORKS BY HENRY JAMES. 
 
 THE PRINCESS CASAMASSIMA. 
 xamo, $1.35. 
 
 We find no fault with Mr. Henry James's " Princess Casamassima." It is a great 
 novel; it is his greatest, and it is incomparably the greatest novel of the year in our lan 
 guage. . . . From first to last we find no weakness in the book ; the drama works simply 
 and naturally; the causes and effects are logically related; the theme is made literature 
 without ceasing to be life. Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Editor's Study. 
 
 THE REVERBERATOR. 
 
 iamo, $1.00. 
 
 The public will be glad to find Mr. James in his best vein. One is thankful again 
 that there is so brilliant an American author to give us entertaining sketches of life. 
 Boston Herald. 
 
 THE ASPERN PAPERS, 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES. 
 
 xamo, $1.00. 
 
 The stories are told with that mastery of the art of story-telling which their writer 
 possesses in a conspicuous degree. Literary World. 
 
 It is as a short story writer that we think Mr. James appears at his best, and in this 
 volume he may be read in his most attractive and most artistic vein. Boston Saturday 
 Evening Gazette. 
 
 Mr. Henry James is at his best in " The Aspern Papers." . . . For careful finish, 
 minute analysis, and vivid description of both the scenes and the characters, " The 
 Aspern Papers " may take high rank among Mr. James's stories. Guardian. 
 
 PARTIAL PORTRAITS. 
 
 xamo, $1.75. 
 
 Henry James has never appeared to better advantage as an author than in this 
 delightful volume of critical essays. . . . No one can fail to acknowledge the exquisite 
 charm of style which pervades the book, and the kind appreciation the author evinces of 
 the finer and subtler qualities of the authors with whom he deals. Boston Saturday 
 Evening Gazette. 
 
 THE BOSTONIANS. 
 xamo, $1.35. 
 
 Unquestionably " The Bostonians " is not only the most brilliant and remarkable of 
 Mr. James's novels, but it is one of the most important of recent contributions to litera 
 ture. Boston Courier. 
 
 A LONDON LIFE, 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES. 
 
 xamo, $1.00. 
 
 His short stories, which are always bright and sparkling, are delightful. . . . Will 
 bear reading again and again. Mail and Express. 
 
 FRENCH POETS AND NOVELISTS. 
 
 iamo, $1.50. 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, 
 
 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.
 
 WORKS BY HENRY JAMES. 
 
 THE REAL THING, 
 
 AND OTHER TALES. 
 
 tamo, cloth, $1.00. 
 
 The latest volume of short stories from the pen of Henry James takes the title of 
 the first tale, " The Real Thing," a story of artist life in London, which is not in the 
 least exciting, but which is clever with that cleverness in which nobody excels the author. 
 All the five stories are excellently written, and they are all marked by the same acute 
 and refined observation, the power of analyzing human nature and human emotions 
 which is so striking in all the work of Mr. James. Boston Courier. 
 
 It is an artist's work through and through, and one feels that beneath its perfection 
 of form this little masterpiece embodies its author's earnest aesthetic convictions. 
 Philadelphia Times. 
 
 " The Real Thing, and Other Tales," by Henry James, is the best volume of short 
 stories that the author has given to the lovers of good fiction. It is distinguished by 
 marked originality in its treatment of modern life, and the grace and purity of style 
 for which Mr. James is celebrated, is a distinguished feature of this book. Boston 
 Saturday Evening Gazette. 
 
 THE LESSON OF THE MASTER, 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES. 
 
 xamo, clotb, $x.oo. 
 
 Henry James's art is unique. Whether in the novel or in the short story, he is unlike 
 any other writer of the day. The impatient reader may grow weary of his refinement of 
 the literary art, but no one who has not leisure or patience should attempt to read James. 
 San Francisco Chronicle. 
 
 There is subtle finish of perfection about the literary workmanship of Mr. James's 
 latest collection of stories "The Lesson of the Master" that has rarely been ap 
 proached and certainly never has been excelled in any of his previous essays on fiction. 
 One has only to read a page of this book to feel that the author of it has an unwavering 
 passion for art, to realize that his sole aim is to depict a sentiment, an idea, or an emotion, 
 with actual fidelity to what is actual and real. Boston Beacon. 
 
 Mr. James is too great an artist ever to preach, but no modern writer has a keener 
 or surer vision for the basic moralities of life, and this quality makes his books doubly 
 agreeable, for with all the art of the Gaul, they possess a solidity that is undreamed of 
 across the Channel. The Home Journal. 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, 
 
 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.

 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY, LOS ANGELES 
 
 COLLEGE LIBRARY 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below. 
 
 NOV 8 1966 
 
 9 UDAY 
 
 JAN 31 
 
 1 8 '91 REC CL 
 
 CL 
 
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 Book Slip-35wi-9,'62(D2218s4)4280
 
 College 
 Library 
 
 UCLA-College Library 
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