'M$i^M^':^^M^\ L I B R.AR.Y OF THE U N I VLRS ITY or ILLINOIS Sm2t v.\ Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://www.archive.org/details/twokisses01smar TWO KISSES. HAWLEY SMART, AUTHOR OF "BREEZIE LANGTON," "FALSE CARDS,"" &C., &C. MetMaks no wi-ong it were, if I should steal From those two melting rubies one poor kiss." IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 1875. The Rii^ht of Translation is reserved. r^3 CONTENTS THE FIRST VOLUME. vsX I. 1 II. 4 III. IV. V. VI. < - VII. VIII. IX. X. XI. XII. XIII. XIV. XV. XVI. Major Jenkens The Bankrupt's Widow Nottingham Goose Fair Mr. Turbottle's Story . Mrs. Paynter at Home . The Major's Business He .must Marry Money On the Verge In the Temple The Misses Stanbury Good Counsel To Wed or not to Wed The Ball at Roseneath House Will You give .me Yourself A Social Obligation A quiet Wedding Page i8 37 6+ 78 100 122 133 152 170 189 210 229 256 275 TWO KISSES. CHAPTER I. MAJOR JENKENS. THE Linford races are just over. The bulk of visitors have hied them home by the six train, and the city generally has emptied itself of the influx that the races always attract. For Linford is a meeting of some celebrity, and always freely patronised by the followers of the turf. Still, the city has not as yet settled down. The retiring VOL. I. B 2 TWO KISSES. tide has left shallows and channels behind it that yet eddy and ripple in memory of the fierce rush of waters. The billiard-room of the " Reindeer," indeed, is still bubbling with excitement. A somewhat noisy and tumultuous pool is going on there, very different from the quiet sixpenny game usual among its habi- tues. Shilling lives and much venturing of half-crowns is the order of the evening ; yet it is easy to see the players are chiefly yokels, townsfolk, or young farmers from the surrounding district, winding up their two days' outing for the most part. The sharks, with keen avid eye for the country minnow, that follow in the wake of most race meetings have taken their depart- ure. Those flashily-dressed men with their coarse, over-ringed, dirty fingers, so anxious to lay against everything and anything, who filled the room the previous night, are no longer there. Away in the whizzing special, with their foul pipes and fouler language. TWO KISSES. 3 in pursuit of fresh prey ; speeding towards London, in search of other victims with fatuous fancies for backing the favourite, solacing themselves meanwhile with flasks of strong waters, such games as may be accomplished by the dim light of the car- riage lamp, or stertorous slumbers. The billiard- room is heavy with tobacco smoke, and reeking with the steam of hot and strong potations. The babble and laughter wax louder, and vociferations to wager half- crowns are shouted incessantly as the game fluctuates. "Red upon green, black your player," calls the wizened, rat-like marker in mono- tonous tone (Did any one ever set eyes upon a fat billiard marker, by the way?) and a slight neatly-dressed man, of medium height, wearing spectacles, advances to • the table, almost mechanically chalking his cue as he does so. He hesitates a little, and seems undecided what to play for. " I'll take vour two crowns to one you B 2 4 TWO KISSES. don't hold it^ Sir/' exclaims a flushed, fresh- coloured young man from the bench that runs round the room. " If you like," replies the player, " but I don't care about betting — I only play for amusement." "Come, Sir, that won't do, you have picked up a goodish few of my half- crowns, to-night, to say nothing of other people's." " As you like," replied the player again, with a deprecatory shrug of his shoulders. " He's got to the end of his nerve, Tom," cried the young man, somewhat boisterously, " and my silver's coming back to me." " I don't know," remarked the other, " he's seemed a bit nervous all along, but he hasn't missed much." " Life off green," cried the marker, in his usual monotone, as that ball rolled gently into the pocket, and the red came slowly back down the table. " Stroke and division. Take your stroke, Sir." TWO KISSES. 5 " I don't know. Yes, I think so. I must be off to bed now, gentlemen, so I'll have the shot." The hazard he had just made was by no means a difficult one, but that which now presented itself was. To be made un- doubtedly. What is not at billiards ^ but certainly not one that anything but a fine player could expect to accomplish without much favouring of fortune. Had there been a shrewd observer pre- sent, he might have noticed that the elderly gentleman, just before playing, invariably gave his spectacles a slight hitch, and that when he struck his ball, a marvel- lously keen pair of black eyes peered forth i^elow them. But there was little chance of that being noticed in the noisy com- pany. As he again chalked his cue pre- paratory to his final stroke, his former anta- gonist exclaimed in somewhat irritable tones, " Come, Sir, you have had the best of me 6 TWO KISSES. all night. I lay you two sovereigns to one you don't hold the black." "You cannot expect me to take that," returned the other, quietly. " This is a very difficult stroke, and though I could play a little once, I can't see very well now. We won't have a bet this time." " Nonsense. You've won several times of me, and say you're going. I insist upon a last chance. I'll lay you three sovereigns to one you don't hold it. In these parts we play on the square, and always give a fellow his revenge." " Do you mean to say. Sir, that I don't play on the square ?" retorted the elderly gentleman, sharply, and bring- ing the butt of ^his cue angrily on the floor. " No, of course not," stammered his an- tagonist, considerably taken aback by this demonstration on the part of one whom he had fancied might be bullied with impunity. " I only meant — in short, you ought to TWO KISSES. 7 give me another chance for my money, you know." " Very good," replied the other quietly. " I take your three sovereigns to one, then. But, recollect, I may win, and if you can't afford to lose, you had better not bet. It is only schoolboys that cry out when they lose. What is it to be. Sir. Bet or no bet.^" The altercation had attracted some atten- tion in the room by this, and the young fellow on the bench, who was, if truth must be told, one of Messrs. Cullington's (they kept the leading drapery establishment in Linford) young men, felt ashamed to with- draw his offer. He aspired to being regarded as fast among his compeers — an ambition that o'erleaps itself in much higher circles than his. The eyes of his comrades were upon him. He felt it was impossible to go back, although he was already impressed with the conviction that the elderly gentleman in spectacles would assuredly hold that ball, and that his slender purse, on which the 8 TWO KISSES. night had already made considerable inroads, would be still further impoverished. " Of course, I stand by what I said," he at last replied, sullenly, with that dogged per- sistence so often the characteristic of men when they feel they are getting the worst of it. "Of course you do, Jack," chorused some of his friends. " A fellow always stands by his opinion who is anything like a good plucked one. Why it'd be ten to one against Cook himself holding that ball." Though slightly comforted by such friendly assurance, the somewhat crest-fallen layer of odds could but recollect that these peremptory arbiters of Cook's capabilities had never enjoyed the privilege of seeing that artist play, and what Cook could or could not do was not so much importance to him just then, as how far the talent of his spectacled opponent extended. For a minute or so the room was hushed Tiro KISSES. 9 as the elderly gentleman poised his cue. Another moment, and he had proved to the spectators that whatever odds it might be against Cook, it was no safe three to one against him. For playing with tolerable strength, he drove the black ball into the top corner pocket, and left his own spinning in its place. " Not lost my game so much as I thought," he remarked blandly, as he pushed his spectacles once more well down upon his nose, and handed over his cue to the marker. " Yes, quite right, thank you," he continued, urbanely, as that functionary handed him over the pool. " A trifle for yourself, my man. Three sovereigns, thank you, Sir. You are unlucky, I don't suppose I should make that stroke once in ten times. Your friends estimated the odds very (with con- siderable inflection on the first syllable) correctly. Good-night, gentlemen." " Who is he ? Where did he come from ^ Did you ever see him play before?" asked lo TWO KISSES. half a dozen impatient mouths as the door closed behind the triumphant pool player. " He's a Major Jenkens, as has been stay- ing here the last three days," returned the marker laconically, " and I never saw him touch a cue till to-night, but it's my belief, gents, he's had one in his hand pretty often, looking at his style — he weren't showy but he were very sure — never played a fancy shot the whole evening till the last." " He's a regular leg, that's what he is," exclaimed the victim, gulping down a por- tentous draught of hot brandy-and-water, " and if the old scoundrel hadn't slunk off to bed, I'd have told him so." Even as he spoke, the door opened, and the Major re-entered the room. '' I have left my spectacle-case on the mantel-piece. Ah, yes, that's it, thank you. Once more, good-night. I trust. Sir, you will be more fortunate in the next pool," and the Major looked very straight through TWO KISSES. II his spectacles at his utterly confounded antagonist. Mr. John Silk, of the house of Cullington and Co., did not express his private senti- ments on this occasion, but better men than he had before now failed to tell the Major their private opinion of him when it came to the point. It did not seem quite so easy to call that cool, self-possessed, gentlemanly man, clothed in the panoply of his spec- tacles, a swindler to his face ; and yet people, with considerably more experience of Major Jenkens than Mr. John Silk, had come at times very much to that opinion concerning him. The Major, meanwhile, lights his candle, and betakes himself to his bedroom, with very little anxiety as to what the company in the billiard-room may think of him. Not much wont to trouble his head about such small matter as the suffrages of his fellows is Major Jenkens — treating them indeed for the most part as sent into the world expressly to 12 TWO KISSES. minister to his wants and necessities, imbued, I am afraid, with sHght respect for the general intellectual powers of mankind, but powerfully impressed with belief in their gullibility. Having gained his chamber, the Major proceeds to wind up his watch with due deliberation, and then turning out his pockets counts their contents in a quiet business-like fashion. "Six pound eleven and six," he mutters. "Not a bad night's work for a country billiard-room, and will pay my hotel bill handsomely. I picked up a little, too, on the race-course. No ; I have not succeeded in finding the man I wanted, but fortune has been kind to me. Yes, the trip doesn't owe me anything. My eye and hand though not true enough for London, are good enough yet another half-dozen years in the provinces. But really," he continued, with a deprecatory elevation of his eyebrows, " country practise is not 'worth the candle.' Pour passer le TWO KISSES. 13 temps, perhaps^ but not as a serious avocation for a man of ability. Dear me, how spec- tacles always do bamboozle people. Because you wear glasses, they always conclude you can't see." Major Jenkens was busied, while thus reflecting, in packing up his belongings pre- paratory to an early start. It was curious how neat and precise he was in all his arrangements. He folded such garments as he placed within his portmanteau, with scrupulous care, placed his watch and purse by his bedside, and even disposed his brushes, spectacles and razor, with almost mathematical regularity on the dressing- table. It was singular to remark how deft and dexterous his supple fingers were in all these little minutias, how quick and decided he seemed to be on every point, how the nervous, diffident manner which had so characterised him in the billiard-room seemed to have disappeared. There were people who. 14 TWO KISSES. mistrusting Claxby Jenkens, declared that this nervousness of manner was assumed at will for purposes of his, Claxby Jenkens', own. But the Major always vowed that he was shy among strange company ; that it was a weakness of his boyhood, which he had never succeeded in shaking off — he sup- posed he never should now. Certain it was that this shy, hesitating manner was in- variably to be observed in the Major on first making his acquaintance, and yet it was equally worthy to be noted what cool requests this diffident gentleman sometimes proffered at short notices to people of whom he knew but little. His belongings being in what the Major would have termed due " marching order," that gentleman sought his pillow with the calm satisfaction of a man who had done his duty to himself, a matter of considerably higher import in his eyes than any exertion on that point regarding his neighbour. To tell the truth, the Major was a little apt to regard TWO KISSES. 15 his neighbour as an undeclared enemy, seek- ing to obtain some slight advantage over him, an advantage which the Major had long ago decided that his duty towards his neighbour required him to keep entirely on his own side the ledger — a conclusion which he had contrived to carry out with tolerable success. Those that could say they had been vouchsafed the best of their deahngs with Major Claxby Jenkens, were not numerous. Plausible and liberal as he had sometimes seemed in matter of help to his fellows. Wonderful as had appeared his disinterested- ness to both men and even women at times, yet it was remarkable how the quid pro quo, the return for his exertions on such occasion had come about. The recipients of his help sometimes ground their teeth hard, when the reckoning came and they discovered what it was he required of them for such assistance, but they usually did his bidding. The fact being that refusal in some cases was next i6 TWO KISSES. door to impossible. Claxby Jenkens was very fond of succouring his neighbour in the hour of trial ; but impressed with the frailty of human nature, Claxby Jenkens was wont to take stringent precautions that his neigh- bour should never fall into the sin of in- gratitude. " Men are so apt to forget those who have befriended them," quoth the Major. " I am singularly fortunate, those I have had the good luck to be of service to never forget me." He was right : they must have been much favoured of Providence, or entirely gulfed 'neath life's stormy waters if they did. Assistance from the Major, like a bill in the hands of the Israehtes, was a thing certain to have to be accounted for in due course, and likely to bear similar exorbitant interest. Meanwhile Major Claxby Jenkens, anxious even in his slumbers, not to be got the best of, takes it out of the sheets and blankets of TJVO KISSES. 17 the " Reindeer/' as if still bearing in mind that having to pay for the bed^ it behoved him to get as much sleep as he could out of it. vol . CHAPTER II. THE BANKRUPTS WIDOW. THERE are not many pleasanter situ- ations in London than Hanover Street, Hanover Square, West. More especially if you are located on its north side, and so get the advantage of what that neighbourhood regards as the morning sun. For Regent Street and its tributaries do not pretend to much necessity for sun-light till between nine and ten ; of course it is well it should be out and warming the day, taking the chill out of the night air and so on, but the TIVO KISSES. 19 people who live on those pleasant first-floors of the streets running west of the great artery are not wont to trouble themselves regarding tea and rolls much before the latter hour. Certainly you have more seclusion, magni- ficence, and are altogether more flavoured with aristocracy if you take up your abode in Belgravia or its vicinity ; but what is so delightful as a stroll down Regent Street on a sunny May morning. The throng, the shops, the broad well-swept causeway — is there anything approaching to it for an idler in all London ? It is rather soon for the Park, per- haps, and even if it were not, to your inveterate street-lounger Rotten Row is a comparatively dreary entertainment. But Regent Street, the noblest lounge of all the civilized world, to which the Grand Boule- vard of Paris, or the Broadway of New York are as nothing, there is always a romance, a picture, a story or a jest to be found there. Much food for reflection to be got out of a c 2 20 TWO KISSES. walk up that regal promenade take it when you will. In the window of a prettily furnished sitting-room in Hanover Street, are seated two ladies looking lazily out on the passers by. Striking women both of them, dressed with admirable taste and in the extreme of the fashion. One vvears a widow's weeds, but the richness of her well-fitting robe, the soft folds of her crape and the delicate coquet- tish cap half concealed in the wealth of her rich dark tresses, augur of well to do sorrow by no means incapable of con- solation. A tall shapely woman she looks, as she lies indolently back in her chair displaying a neatly turned ancle and buckled shoe. Her companion is more vivacious in appear- ance, more impetuosity visible in the very whisk she gives to her well-flounced skirts, as she settles herself more easily in her seat and observes, "So you're a widow, Lizzy. Well, my TWO KISSES, 21 dear, considering what we know your late lamented was, I don't know that I feel altogether called upon to condole with you." '^ Perhaps not. I am not going to pretend to you that I could have any love for Mr. Hemsworth. I married him as a child, and he took good care that I should form no heroic conception of him afterwards. We will not touch on that, please. Mark Hems- worth is gone, and though he never took any pains to gain my affections, yet he sheltered me for five years, and he was my husband, remember." "Yes, he was," retorted Lizzy Paynter viciously, " I am not likely to forget it, nor you either for the matter of that. I have seen him recall the fact to your recollection pretty often, my dear, in days gone bye. If I had been in your place, the lamented Mark would have found his fingers in hot water many a time, but you — '' and Mrs. Paynter shrugged her shoulders as though to say 22 TWO KISSES. there are women who will submit to any- thing. " Do please let bygones be bygones, Lizzie. How Mark treated me surely concerns only myself now. I don't know," she continued plaintively, " that there ever was anyone else it mattered to. You see from the day of my marriage I have never had a friend to appeal to. From that moment my father vanished, and I don't even know whether he is dead or alive." " No !" ejaculated Mrs. Paynter, sitting bolt upright in her chair with astonish- ment. " It is the fact though," said Cissy, sadly. " I haven't a friend in the world, unless I may call you one. You were very kind to me the year before last in Paris. I know that doesn't mean much, but you told me to come and see you if ever I came to London, and I felt so lonely when I arrived here that I scribbled you a note yesterday. I haven't to my knowledge another acquaintaince. TWO KISSES. 23 even in town, and I don't know what to do." " Do, my love !" retorted the vivacious Mrs. Paynter, although a little melted by the widow's melancholy tones. " Why you must do just as well-jointured ladies in your position do. Make the best you can of life for a year or so, and then perhaps, Cissy my dear, we may find some one to take care of you." Cissy Hemsworth paused for sonie few minutes as if lost in thought, at last raising her head, she said in a somewhat hesitating fashion. "But suppose I am not well-jointured." A slight expression of astonishment flashed across her visitor's face, and then she replied quietly, "Well, it is difficult to say, considering the establishment I last saw you at the head of, what your views may be on such a subject ; but I should imagine. Cissy, that you are left pretty comfortably off." 24 TWO KISSES. Again the widow heJtated, and as the sun shone in upon the soft girlish face, it seemed almost impossible to realize that she had been five years a wife. To Lizzie Paynter w^ho had seen somewhat of her brief married career, it seemed marvellous that she could retain such an appearance of innocence and freshness. That worldly-minded lady had seen poor Cissy in her Paris home. Mistress of a saloon frequented by roues, gamblers en the Bourse, and at times invaded by ladies with reputations not altogether un- smirched. Mrs. Paynter, Bohemian in her tastes, and bv no means scrupulous with whom she mixed, had found Madame Hems- worth's receptions amusing. That was quite sufficient for her. She liked to talk, to valse, to flirt, to be amused, and there was no house open to her during her sojourn in Paris in which she so readily attained this pleasant combination. Of course she paid great court to her hostess. In due return for her hos- pitality in the first instance ; because she TWO KISSES. 25 really grew to like her in the second. But Mrs. Paynter to the very last never could determine whether Cissy Hemsworth was the most innocent^ or most artful, woman of her years that she had ever come across, and she was still undecided on this point. That her husband treated her with almost brutal in- difference was palpable ; but that she consoled herself for his neglect was at all events not visible. Yet she had no lack of admirers to choose from. Young, graceful, mistress of a handsome establishment, with a husband at no pains to conceal his want of regard for her, and in Paris, it would have been odd if there had not been plenty of aspirants for her favour. What was odd, was her superb indifference to all these danglers. These baffled adorers declared Madame Hemsworth to be an animated iceberg, to be destitute of esprit, wit and beauty. But if Cissy shone with no peculiar brilliancy in conversation, she was eminently graceful in 26 TWO KISSES. her manner, she was always extremely well dressed and showed quite sufficiency of tact. A beauty she was not exactly, but with a mag- nificent figure, a profusion of rich dark hair, youth, and good eyes, she might very well pass for one. Deeper than any woman I ever met, or with a far-away love affair in the back ground, was Mrs. Paynter's final verdict, after much unavailing attempt to comprehend her friend's character during that Paris intimacy of some eighteen months or so ago, and great had been that lady's astonishment upon receiving a note the previous day from Cissy Hems- worth, requesting that she would call upon her. She had overlooked the notice of Mr. Hemsworth's death in the papers, and had no idea, till she arrived in Hanover Street, that Cissy was now a widow. " I think I had better tell you all," said Cissy slowly, after a lengthened pause. " I have just a thousand pounds left in the world." TWO KISSES. 27 To say that Mrs. Paynter was astonished, would convey a very feeble notion of that lady's bewilderment ; she was simply thunder- struck. That the widow of Mark Hems- worth, whose establishment in Paris not two years ago must have required something like four or five thousand a year to maintain, should assert that she had but a few hundreds left was inconceivable. " My dear Cissy, what can you mean ?" she exclaimed at last. "What I say," replied the widow quietly. " Mark was a very daring speculator it appears, and I presume had been unfortunate of late. All I know is that no sooner was his death noised abroad, than creditors sprang up from all directions. I can't understand it even now. I ought to have had a settle- ment they say, but it seems I had not. All I could make out was that everybody who had any claim upon him came before his wife. They said he had behaved disgrace- fully, and that my people must have been 28 TWO KISSES. very foolish. If he has behaved badly to me, that as I said before concerns nobody but me. All these people got their monev, and more than their money, I believe." "But are you sure, Cissy, that there was no settlement made upon you at the time of your marriage.^" inquired Mrs. Paynter. " I am told not. But I don't profess to understand it all. I don't think I ever should have got things settled at all, if it had not been for an English barrister who turned up, I still scarcely know how." " Ah ! we are coming to a man amongst all the tangle at last," thought Mrs. Paynter, " I always knew there must be a ' him' in the background somewhere. An old friend I suppose, Cissy." " No, there you mistake," returned the widow. " I never saw him till about a fort- night before poor Mark's death." " Poor Mark, indeed," muttered Mrs. Paynter to herself; "a brute, a bear, and TWO KISSES. 29 she pretends to regret him. What can she mean ? And how did you make his acquaint- ance then ?" " Really, I almost forget. Somebody brought him. You remember how people did come to my evenings. But he called afterwards, and when he saw what trouble I was in, he asked if he could be of any assistance. I v/as really so puzzled that I felt grateful for his offer, and told him so. Well he did — I don't know what he did, but at last he said if I would give him authority, he would do his best to put things straight for me, and the end of it all was he informed me that I had been grossly taken advantage of in every way, robbed in fact, that he unfortunately had interfered too late, but that there remained to me out of the scramble, about a thousand pounds." " And what do you mean to do now ?" inquired Mrs. Paynter. '' Marry the chival- rous barrister." " No," returned Mrs. Hemsworth, with 30 TWO KISSES. a faint smile. " I don't think he's likely to ask me, but I suppose I must marry some- body before very long. What else can I do ? I must have someone to take care of me." She said this in quiet matter-of-fact tones, as if marriage was to be adopted as a pro- fession. Spoke of it as a girl left in bad circumstances might talk of going out as a governess, as if there could be no difficulty about it ; as if it was an affair that would come to pass a few months hence in the usual course of things. If Hanover Street had been blocked up with suitors for her hand, she could not have alluded to taking a second husband with more complete calm.ness and assurance of its being so. A thorough woman of the world was Mrs. Paynter, conversant with not a little of the wickedness of the world to boot, given to flirtations and other amusements that straight-laced people held highly in- decorous. There was a strong dash of TWO KISSES. 31 Bohemlanism in her set— junkettings to Cremorne in the summer months, and lively dinners down the river they specially aiFected. It must not be supposed that Mrs. Paynter was a woman without the pale for one moment. That merry lady would go con- siderable lengths, and did dearly love to make society hold up its hands, raise its eyebrows, and prophecy infinite tribulation, as the final result of her ''goings on." But for all that, when society had called her a most out- rageous flirt, stigmatised her as fast, flighty, and frivolous, society had alleged all that society was strictly entitled to state concerning her. Of course society insinuated rather more, and pitied the blindness of her un- fortunate husband, but those who knew Mrs. Paynter best told a different story, and vowed that she was far too confirmed a flirt even to be capable of a grande passion. At all events her easy-going husband seemed to understand her, and though she would plunge 32 TWO KISSES. into the most audacious flirtations at times under his very nose, never manifested the slightest symptoms of jealousy. Of course, Mrs. Paynter had seen people in search of eligible matrimonial companions many times — had indeed lent assistance more than once to the rivetting of the chains called by courtesy golden ; albeit the occasional clanking of such chains on society's ear would now and then lead to reflections of tlieir being at times composed of some- what baser metal. But it did strike Mrs. Paynter that for cool deliberate assertion of such purpose, she had never heard anything to equal Cissy Hemsworth. The quiet audacity of the intention too, rather amused her. This girl of twenty-two, widow of a fraudulent bankrupt as it would seem, with just a thousand pounds left, and not an acquaintance in all London but herself announced her design of marrying again, as if she had nothing in the world to do but sit in that pretty room in Hanover Street till she TWO KISSES. 33 gave permission to somebody (somebody peculiarly indefinite at the present) to carry her to St. George's Church, close by. " Well, my dear," exclaimed Mrs. Paynter, at length. " I am not going to say you are not right ; but^ Cissy, has it ever occurred to you that husbands, to use a homely expres- sion, don't grow on every bush. You are very attractive and charming and all that, and I am sure look wonderfully pretty in your mourning. But then you see it is a mer- cenary world that we live in, and the men, the wretches, will inquire what sort of dot they are to get with their wives." " Yes, I know it is so with many ; but there are always some ready to take you for yourself — at least, I should think so. Don't you imagine, Lizzie, that as there are women who want taking care of, so there are also men who want some one to take care of?" VOL. I. D 34 TWO KISSES. "No, indeed, I don't," rejoined Mrs. Paynter, bluntly. " Oh, well we shall see. It will be so with me," replied Cissy, dreamily, as she leant her cheek upon her hand. "She's a fool — a downright fool," thought Mrs. Paynter. " She seems to think that Mrs. Hemsworth in lodgings in London, knowing nobody, occupies the same position as Madame Hemsworth at the head of one of the pleasantest houses in Paris. That Cissy Hemsworth, with a few hundreds only remaining to her, is the same woman as Cissy Hemsworth with carriages, servants, horses, and unlimited credit at Worth's. Well, it will be an awaking when it does come, and, poor thing, I shall be sorry for her. How I ever could have thought her — thought what I did think about her. Deep — I feel ashamed of myself in face of such inno- cence." " I must be going," observed Mrs. Paynter, at lengthy "but you must come and dir^^ TWO KISSES. 35 with US to-morrow. If I was not going out, I'd say to-night. I want you to know my husband. He always Hkes everyone I like, and sometimes, though not often," she con- tinued, with a Httle grimace, " some people I don't. He knows how kind you were to me in Paris, and that is quite sufficient to ensure his being particularly attentive to you. Good-bye, dear, I must endeavour to find somebody to take care of you, for I really can't see how it is to come about unless I do" " Oh, it will come time enough," re- turned Cissy, smiling, as she embraced her visitor. " I'm afraid she thinks me very foolish," mused the widow, as she gazed out of the window after Mrs. Paynter's carriage, " every- body always has. Father first, then my husband, and I wonder how many more of all those people in Paris. I am sure the men seemed to think me a perfect idiot. At all events, that I didn't know right from wrong, D 2 36 TWO KISSES. nor clap trap sentiment from genuine love- making. I don't think I do know anything about the last, though I suppose there really is such a thing." CHAPTER III. NOTTINGHAM GOOSE FAIR. IT is doubtful whether any town in England boasts of a more magnificent market-place than Nottingham. See it on an ordinary week-day, and you will own it a noble square. See it on a market-day, and you will reflect what a deal of business must be doing amongst that busy crowd. Nothing to be seen much then of the lace-makers, stocking-weavers, &c., which represent so large a portion of the industry of the mxctropolis of the Dukeries. The agricul- turists, on such occasions, seem to have it 38 TWO KISSES. all their own way, and you would deem con stock and wool the special commodities ii which Nottingham deals. No sign much o. that great manufacturing population that, after all, makes Nottingham the city that it is. A somewhat rough, out-spoken people these last when excited about election matters — not yet quite forgotten a taste for prize- fighting, and other barbaric pastimes of that nature, but withal showing rapid signs of succumbing to more gentle culture. A dis- position for the cultivation of roses, and the more peaceful relaxation of fishing, decidedly visible amongst those tempestuous weavers of late. The former in great measure attri- butable, perhaps, to a famous rose-grower of those parts, whose delightful books would make any one believe that the production of a perfect bloom is to taste unfathomable bliss. But to see Nottingham market-place in its glory, you must see it during the saturnalia of its goose-fair. When the pens are filled Tiro KISSES. 39 with the famous bird of the capitol. Small, poor, draggled geese that have been travelled there from remote parts of Ireland, are penned next to big, bumptious, corpulent birds, that are fresh from the Lincolnshire fen- lands ; stubble-fed, white-plumed, strong fellows, with a great deal to say for them- selves, casting a contemptuous eye on their poor Irish cousins. No beasts, no sheep in the market town now, nothing but geese — geese everywhere — an you carry not home a Michaelmas goose with you, well, you have not done what Nottingham expects of you. Shows there are everywhere. Fat ladies, learned pigs, giants, dwarfs, merry-go-rounds, canvas galleries wherein you shoot for nuts with a gun that must be constructed with a curve in it, so far does it project its steel- tipped dart to the right or left of the target. Theatres of the kind to which Richardson has bequeathed his immortal name, or is that vagrant Thespian still tramping it in the flesh 40 TWO KISSES like another wandering Jew. Wild beast shows, Wombwell's — the original Womb- well's — no connection with Wombwell's — with the hairless horse of the Pampas, with the three-horned rhinoceros, with the only black South American panther ever exhibited. Sound the trumpets, beat the drums, " Here you are, now's your time. All in, and agoing to begin ///^mediately. Walk up, ladies and gentlemen. This performance is unparalleled — it never was paralleled — it never can be paralleled — that it should ever be paralleled is a parabolical impossibility. What is six- pence for such an unparalleled exhibition ? Dash me, but I'd rather lend you the money than you should miss this unparalleled opportunity." Cackle, cackle, cackle, go the bipeds in feathers, gabble, gabble, gabble, go the bipeds without, and from the great market- place of Nottingham, one stupendous babble resounds through the air, and proclaims that " the Goose Fair " is in full blast. A wild TWO KISSES. 41 confusion that might drive a quiet stranger well nigh out of his senses. Nottingham, too, is all abroad — in high spirits, in every sense of the term — here with a laugh and a jest in it, there with a hiccup and a reel in it, but merry, yes, decidedly merry, whether treating its sweetheart to the shows, or treat- ing its cronies to beer or strong waters. For it is a fete day at Nottingham this, and her citizens of all kinds respond nobly to her summons to give themselves up to diversion, and let labour go hang for the present. Apt indeed to let labour go hang on this occasion, considerably longer than is good for those dependant on them. Like most such satur- nalia, it opens with feasting and finishes with fasting in many a household. At a corner of the market-place, evidently not the least dismayed by the turmoil around him, stands on the top of the bench a plump little dark man, indulging in most voluble harangue to the crowd that surrounds him. A sleek, clean -shaved, little m.an, with a keen. 42 TWO KISSES. twinkling black eye, and an expression of such imperturbable good-humour, and self- satisfaction, that a lounger with money in his pockets would have felt almost impelled to spend a trifle with him. He was of the Cheap Jack genus— dealing apparently in everything, and was vaunting his wares with a flow of language that seemed inexhaustible. " Why won't I part with this here valuable cameo .^ Why not, indeed? Now, I'll tell you — cos I've just got a telegraph from the Empress of Peru to say she'll take it on my own terms — 'Your own terms Mr. Tur- bottle,' that's what the orgust lady says, but I always have dealt straight with Notting- ham, and I always will. Spring sixpence, say four shillings and the brooch is yours. Sir. What, you won't ? well, I've a good mind to give it away. But come, I can do better with you than that. Short of money, are you ? that's what's the matter is it ? Blessed if I didn't fancy it might be so. Trade's trade, says I, and money must be TWO KISSES. 43 turned over somehow. What constitootes the prosperity of England p why trade. Block the sources of trade, and you bust up, that's what you do. Now, look here, this is a half-sovereign, this is, no nonsense about it, a genuine half-sovereign. I'm going to sell a lot of them at nine shillings apiece, just to put a little heart in you. Who'll nave the first ? What, you're afraid are you ^ Now, Sir, you look like a man with an account at your bankers, just oblige me by examining that article." The lounger addressed was a tall, dark bearded man, attired in a shooting-jacket and low-crowned hat, who, together with a companion, had been idly listening with much apparent amusement to the voluble discourse of Mr. Turbottle. Thus appealed to he stepped forward and took the proffered half- sovereign, examined it carefully, and with a laugh, said, " Good enough for me, there's your nine shillings." " Thank you. Sir," replied Mr. Turbottle, 44 TWO KISSES. gracefully lifting his hat. " It's a comfort to get someone to believe in one anyhow, in this here stiff-necked, incredulous city. Now, you scoifers and scorners, you hear what the gentleman says. Who's for the next? here you are again, a real, genuine half-sovereign for nine shillings. I'm bound to sell if I can, so let's be quick and have done with 'em. You can't expect me to waste time over a losing lot like this." Here a country-looking fellow took heart and purchased a half-sovereign, amid con- siderable interest and misgiving amongst the crowd. But this too was perfectly genuine, and readily converted into ten shillings at an adjoining shop. The demand for half- sovereigns at nine shillings apiece waxed brisk, and Mr. Turbottle had no occasion to make use of his oratory in furtherance of his trade for the present, and in every instance did the purchased coin prove a veritable half- sovereign. But that worthy after disposing of a TWO KISSES. 45 dozen on these terms, curtly announced that he had no more. "Not my fault, gentlemen," he exclaimed, " I took all they had at the Bank of England, but as the Manager says. Says he to me, Mr. Turbottle, which these are his words, you know what Nottingham Goose Fair is — you know there's nothing like it in all England; and there ain't. Well, Mr. Tur- bottle, it draws us dry, that's wot it does, and if there was any call in particklar on the nation that week — well, Mr. Turbottle, the nation would bust up, that's what it would do, unless Nottingham came to the front, which in course we both know Nottingham always has and always will." As he uttered the above, he was busied about the packages in front of him, for he had descended from his elevation while dis- posing of the half-sovereigns. At last he had apparently got things to his satisfaction, for he once more jumped up on his bench and exclaimed. 46 TWO KISSES. "Now, my independent citizens, here you are again. Talk about buying half-sovereigns at nine bob apiece, that ain't good enough for you. It ain't good enough for me^ shall I tell you why ? If I can't make my fortune quick, I ain't agoing to take twelve months to get ruined. That's where it is. Sudden death, says I, and no dying by slow con- sumption. It'd take me a year or two to get through my property at that rate. Now you see this ? What is it ? Why, a toast- ing fork, ain't it ? It's not a very good un, it ain't a very bad un. Now, I'll sell this for one shiUing, neither more nor less. Too much — wait a moment and hear me out. Who savs a shilling for the toasting-fork, and I'll give the buyer half-a-crown for luck, and if that hurts you, you are sensitive, damme. What, you'll have it ? there you are, my dear, and if the fork ain't all it should be, the half-crown '11 make up for it." The crowd flocked round the giggling, blushing country-girl who had purchased, TWO KISSES. 47 and once more were they non-plussed, what- ever you might think of the toasting-fork, the half-crown was unmistakably as genuine as the half-sovereigns. Nobody perhaps more amused at this new development of the game of humbugging your neighbours, than that black-bearded lounger, who had bought the first half-sovereign. A shrewd and rising London barrister, Montague Gore had come down to Notting- ham on professional business, and so found himself a spectator of the Goose Fair. "Stay," he exclaimed to his companion, who manifested signs of impatience. " We have nothing to do now, you know, but enjoy the humours of the fair. It's not often I get a holiday. I am curious to see how this clever scamp proposes to recoup himself. One can't suppose that he intends the crowd he has collected to go away scathe- less. You're no fisherman. Fox, or you would understand what ground -baiting a hole means. That is what this man is doing just 48 TWO KISSES. now, but, my life on it, he sticks the hook pretty sharply into some of their gills before he's done with 'em." " Think the whole thing rather a bore myself," replied Mr. Fox Brine, " most things are ; still I don't know that witnessing that sleek little ruffian, in grass green with the CTold-banded hat, consummate his elaborate villany would weary me more than anything else. Stay ! certainly by all means if it interests you — always stay when anything does that. I can't say I feel any curiosity about his fraudulent proceedings (they're sure to become fraudulent) at present, but I may. Having bought that half-sovereign below its current value, he will probably appeal to you to bail him out, when the indignant public hand him over to the police. The present public, by the way, likely, I should imagine, to pound him to a jelly, as soon as they discover his of course ultimate intention of getting the best of them." TWO KISSES. 49 " Listen to him," replied Gore, " look, he puts up a frying-pan." " Here you are again, a frying-pan that takes the change out of Nature altogether. A pan, bless you, that multiplies the rasher you put into it. An article like this wants no talking about. Going for one shilling. I'll take neither more nor less, and I've a present for whoever buys it," cried Mr. Turbottle. " What is it ? well it's not as heavy as the income tax, nor as light as most of your pockets. Who'll have the frying-pan } thank you. Sir, and there's that invaluable article, and a bright new shilling to boot in exchange for your own dirty one. Here you are again, quick, always go on when you're in luck, it's real bargains I'm selling you. Go on, yes I'm bound to go on ; who ever heard of anyone pulling up on the road to ruin. Dash it all, let me get it over. Here's half a dozen plates, who takes them at a bob with faith in my generosity. Now don't VOL. I. E 50 TWO KISSES. Stop thinking about it, I'll grow avaricious if I'm kept waiting." Again was the stipulated shilling tendered, and this time Mr. Turbottle threw in a glass bottle evidently quite worth the money. In similar manner he disposed of some half dozen more lots, but all manifestly to the buyers' advantage considerably. The crowd gathered thicker and thicker round the bench from which such good things were distributed. " Bah !" exclaims Mr. Turbottle at last, " getting monotonous ain't it. We'll change the game, eh ! " Save to win when I begin, Tommy Dodd ! Tommy Dodd ! Glasses round, cigars as well. Tommy Dodd ! Tommy Dodd ! " Now, my boys, we'll all go in, Tommy Dodd ! Tommy Dodd ! We'll clean him out — yes ! just about. Hurrah for Tommy Dodd !" It is impossible to describe the unction TWO KISSES. 51 with which Mr. Turbottle trolled out this flash music hall chorus to his hearers, or to express on paper the humorous wink he favoured them with as he concluded it. " Tommy Dodding again, my dears. Lor' wot a game it is, here's the next investment in the programme. Making your fortin ain't accomplished by looking on, and I shan't manage a ruining of myself if you don't tumble up to buy quicker than you've been doing, you know. Here you are ! What is it ? Well it's a lucifer match, and I don't warrant it to go off unless you hold it to your sweethearts' eyes, and then if he's true to you, rockets ain't nothing to it. I'm going to sell sixty of these matches in- vented by Professor Pelligrinismolensko at sixpence a piece, and I'll give you a silver thimble in. No sale till I get sixty sixpences. Money returned if there are only fifty-nine. Now, young ladies, this is your chance. If you can't trust your sweethearts don't buy, that's my advice to you; what's a silver E 2 LIBRARY "~~i',-n,<5 52 TWO KISSES. thimble compared to a sore heart? Quite right, Sir, don't let her buy one," he suddenly exclaimed, pointedly addressing a rough-look- ing country-man, with a fresh rosy-cheeked girl clinging to him. "My lucifers won't go off at such eyes as yours, they've been wandering all round the fair.'* A roar of laughter welcomed this little personality. It always does upon such occa- sions, and is one of the usual tricks of these traders. " I'm a good mind to breaak every boane in his body, Molly," growled the assailed, with all the natural urbanity of the English agriculturist. " Hush, Tom, hush !" whispered the girl nudging him. " I'm going to buy a match." " If thee does, thou'st a fule," replied her lover in a hoarse whisper. What will not woman dare in pursuit of such dangerous intelligence. Despite her lover's rough remonstrance, Molly nothing doubting and curious led the way. Both TWO KISSES. 53 men and women swarmed up to follow her example. In less than ten minutes, at least eighty people were walking away with a lucifer match and a small elaborately done up parcel, supposed to contain the silver thimble. The trade was brisk past concep- tion, and relaxing from his oratory, Mr. Turbottle gravely supplied his customers with matches. But clear of the crush Molly opened her parcels, as did many others, and it became manifest at once that these thimbles were of Brummagem manufacture, and with slight pretension to silver ; being in good sooth worth at the outside about a penny a piece. Then slowly but surely, rose a murmur of wrath against the vendor, in which those who had profited by his previous sales joined quite as readily as those who were the victims of his last exposition of the interesting game of Tommy Dodd. Did they expect that the benevolent Turbottle was never to sell except at a dead loss .? It seemed so. 54 TWO KISSES. For cries of sharper, robber, cheat, com- menced to be rife among the crowd. Still Turbottle seemed equal to the occasion. " Come, my turbulent pippins,'' cried that orator, once more mounting his bench, " you musn't cry out before you're hurt. If them thimbles ain't silver, they'd deceive the Prince of Wales himself which here's long life to him. How about the matches.^ you can't try 'em except in the dark. There's no deception about them. Mark my words, you men who's dissatisfied are afraid of your sweethearts lighting 'em, that's what you are. You can't expect to play Tommy Dodd always on your own side, can you ? Here we are again. You've had your turn, I've had mine. Now I'll tell you what I'll do with you." "And I'll show you what I'll do with you. Mister," growled an ominous voice from just below the speaker's post of vantage. It was the crossed-grained labourer, upon whom Mr. Turbottle had exercised his TWO KISSES. 55 humour, that spoke. He had a sullen savage expression in his face that boded mischief. A common type of his class, excess of beer went through an established course of fer- mentation within him — four distinct stages of intoxication invariably visible, the supply of malt not being cut off, the loquacious, the quarrelsome, the boisterous and jocular, and the maudlin. He had only attained the second phase of beer at present, and con- sequently was in the mood to resent Mr. Turbottle's jokes fiercely. Utterly ignoring his sweetheart's successful purchase of the toasting-fork, he deemed that the little dis- appointment concerning the silver thimble was due warrant for giving vent to his wrath ; and despite Molly's entreaties, had pushed his way back through the crowd for the express purpose of what he termed " having a settlement with that green-coated chap." " Nonsense, my man," retorted Mr. Tur- bottle loftily, " if you go for bargains at public auctions, you gets 'em or you doesn't, 56 TWO KISSES. • as is very well known. Your young woman anyways has no call to find fault. That'll do, I ain't going to have you coming up here." But whether Mr. Turbottle was going to have it or not, apparently did not rest with Mr. Turbottle. The countryman, with his heavy frame and brawny shoulders, was hardly to be kept at bay by the plump little pedlar. Luckily help was at hand. " Come on. Fox," exclaimed Montague Gore. "I won't see our little friend put upon by that great hulking brute," and he pushed his way rapidly towards the bench which formed Mr. Turbottle's rostrum. " Where Don Quixote leads, I suppose Sancho Panza must follow," replied Fox Brine, quietly. '^ How nice you'll look in Court with a black eye next Wednesday, philanthropically gathered too in preventing a Cheap Jack from receiving the due reward of his mendacity. Push on, when you sober riro KISSES. 57 people do make fools of yourselves you always go in a cracker, I have observed." By the time they had worked their way through the crowd to the centre of action, it was evident that the countryman was not without supporters. In vain did Mr. Tur- bottle appeal to the British spirit of fair play. There was an undeniable disposition apparent to handle him roughly and capsize his stand. It was useless for him to argue they could not expect that there should be no blanks among the prizes ; that they could hardly suppose he was always to be disposing of his wares at considerable sacrifice, that he must have his little innings at the game of Tommy Dodd as well as themselves. They did not see it, and they were not to be induced to see it. He had said he meant to ruin himself Well, they would take care he should be for the present, pretty effectually. Nottingham affected not to understand chaff in his case, and repudiated all notion that his statements should be taken otherwise 58 TWO KISSES. than en verite. It promised to go hard with Mr. Turbottle, when Montague Gore and his friend suddenly appeared by that dis- consolate trader's side. " Come, my men," exclaimed Gore, " no violence. You've nothing to complain of. If he had the best of the last venture, you had the pull of those before." " Who be you, I'd loike to know ?" retorted Tom, grimly, thrusting himself forward. " I must trouble you, my clumsy friend, to mind where you are putting your hoofs," observed Fox Brine, in his most nonchalant manner. " I'll be putting 'em on your faace, my foine fellow, if you doan'tquit that," rejoined the countryman, fiercely. " My good man, you'd really better go home. I shall be put to the trouble of knocking you down if you're insolent, and the police will most likely take you up for creating a disturbance, if you assault our little friend here." TWO KISSES. 59 All the savage instincts of the country- man's nature, were roused by Brine's con- temptuous retort. He lowered his head and rushed in on his opponent like a bull. But Fox Brine had been an athlete in his university- days, and had learned, among other diversions of that nature, to use his fists. The old training and his constitutional coolness stood him in good stead now. It all happened in a moment, but the countryman's rush was stopped by a quick one two that threw his head up, and before he'd time to recover himself, what the fancy would designate as a neat upper cut caught him just under the chin, made his teeth rattle like a box of dominoes, and stretched him half senseless on the ground. The situation still looked awkward for Mr. Turbottle and his champions, but the mob hesitated as mobs always do on receiving a prompt repulse in the first instance. Before the redoubtable Tom was reinstated on his feet the police intervened, and that hero 6o TWO KISSES. was given into custody by Fox Brine for assault. His followers disappeared with exceeding rapidity, and Mr. Turbottle and his allies were left masters of the field. " A bad business, very," exclaimed the little man shaking his head. " Confound it !" rejoined Montague Gore, " I don't think you've much cause to com- plain. If it hadn't been for my friend here, you were likely to have been in a parlous state before another five minutes had gone by." " Gentlemen, I thank you both, much. If it hadn't been for your interference, I don't deny, but it might have gone a little rough upon me. But you see my pitch is done for the day. I'll sell nothing more here this afternoon, and Vd have done a deal in duffer brooches, earrings and so on, if it hadn't been for this here unlucky misunder- standing, which it can't be helped anyway. They were rising, too, beautiful. All the salt had taken extraordinary well. Beg TWO KISSES. 6i pardon, gents, but that's what we call the bargains we always beghis with." " Well, come up to the ^ George ' and ask for me, as soon as you have packed up your traps ; there's my card. You can start again in the evening, you know," said Gore. " That's so," responded Mr. Turbottle, blythly. " They'll have forgot all about it by then. I'll look in and thank you kindly, gentlemen both." " Think our friend will turn out amusing in the social circle .^" inquired Fox Brine, as they walked away. " I can't say, but I am curious to have a talk with him. As for you. Fox, who are always about to perpetrate a novel or a drama, you ought to regard him as a study. He may prove quite a valuable character for you." Fox Brine made no reply. Gore's remark exactly described him. A clever man, whom his friends were always expecting to do something, but he had never done it. He 62 TWO KISSES. had projected novels and plays without end. but unfortunately he always stopped there. He never worked out these conceptions. He was always whispering promising plots, tremendous tableaux, and striking situations, into the ears of his intimates, but the eggs never got hatched somehow. It was said of him that he was a man of ideas, and that his nearest approach to becoming a veritable author, had been the writing of a preface for a novel which he had never commenced. Possessed of just sufficient means to scramble along on as a bachelor in chambers. Fox Brine never could harden his heart and sit down really to work. Had he been a poorer man, he might perhaps have made his mark and achieved some success in literature. As it was, he had got no further than always intending to do so. There were times when he half believed that he really was doing something — when he got out sheets of paper and sketched out wondrous stories and plays. Then he would TWO KISSES. 63 talk complacently to his friends of these, as things done, but they never were done ; never, indeed, got further than this. Still Fox Brine always considered himself affiliated to literature. Musing over his friend Gore's last re- mark, he felt now quite prepared to accept Mr. Turbottle from an artistic point of view. CHAPTER IV. MR. TURBOTTLe's STORY. SATIATED with the humours of the Goose Fair, Gore and Fox Brine were whihng away an hour over a cigar in the George Hotel, preparatory to an early dinner, when Mr. Turbottle was announced. The little man had evidently indulged in much brushing and ablution since the ad- venture of the morning, and raised his gold- banded hat with a most jaunty air, as he entered the room. There was something irresistibly comic in his appearance ; in the bright green coat with its gilt buttons, in TWO KISSES. 65 the rather high shirt-collars, in the twinkling black eyes, in his generally plump jovial figure. You felt certain that if there was nothing particularly funny in what he said, there would be in his way of saying it. We have all seen this. We have all met noted causeurs, renowned for the humour of their story telling. As a rule their stories have very little in them. It is the way they tell them. It is not till the neophyte narrates the tale he has learnt from their lips, that you see how much it owed to the original teller. " I have looked in, gentlemen both, agree- able to invitation. Mr. Gore, Sir, allow me to thank you once more for interfering in my favour, also the t'other gentleman whose name I havn't the pleasure of knowing, but who popped in his right so handily at the critical moment." " Sit down, Mr. Turbottle, and have something to wash the dust out of your throat." VOL. I. F 66 TWO KISSES. '^ Thank you, Sir, thank you. Something cooling in the shape of gin and water would be grateful. The ingratitude of the populace is still sticking in my gizzard. To think of their turning rusty over the match trick. The unruly passions of the multitude are always upsetting trade, which is the science of doing or being done by your neighbours. The great game of Tommy Dodd requires level temper on the part of all parties con- cerned." " But," rejoined Fox Brine, " it might occur to a gentleman of your powers of observation, that our mutual friend the British Public is wont to wax wrath when he finds himself done." "What business has the B. P. to do anything of the sort. They couldn't suppose I was going to lose money by 'em all day," retorted Mr. Turbottle, hotly, " I act strictly on principle. I sells 'em bargains to start with to establish a connection, and then I sells 'em precious hard bargains to make my TWO KISSES. 67 living by afterwards. They needn't buy unless they like — there's their remedy. They ain't no business to cut up lumpy cos they don't always win, that's what I say," and the little man threw himself back in his chair, with the air of a man who has propounded a regular clincher. " Were you always in your present line ?" inquired Gore, much amused at his guest's theory of trade. " By the way, what do you call yourself.^" Mr. Turbo ttle sat straight up in his chair, looked his interlocutor very direct in the face, Hke a man who felt that his statement might be challenged. " I am a travelling merchant, Sir, although the ribald multitude usuallv think fit to call me a 'cheap Jack.' That for the ribald multitude, as a rule," continued the little man, snapping his fingers, " but they had me this morning, and no mistake." It had struck Brine more than once that there was some incongruity in this man's F 2 68 TWO KISSES. talk. Sometimes, though rather inflated, his language was so much better than at others. " But you were not always a — a — cheap — ^I mean travelling merchant, were you r "No," replied Mr. Turbottle, disposing of his gin and water. "No, my noble gladiator, I wasn't. I've tried a many trades in my time. I began life on this very circuit as a boother. But I s'pose I hadn't what they call histrionic talent, for I never rose very high in that profession. My manager paid me the compliment of saying, that nobody ever learnt his words quicker or delivered them worse than I did. He said I hadn't voice enough, but thought if Vd study up for the big drum, I'd make myself heard. Well, I thought a pound a week for towelling the sheepskin wasn't a big thing to look forward to — besides it spoils your carriage you know, and I always went in for elegance in those days, so TWO KISSES. 69 I told him that wasn't good enough for me." " Might we inquire what did seem good enough in your eyes ?" asked Fox Brine, with just a touch of sarcasm in his tone. There was an angry flush on Mr. Tur- bottle's face as he repHed, "Yes, gentlemen, I don't mind telling what my life's been unless I'm a boring people." If he hadn't seen Brine develope in the morning that there was plenty of the real grit in him, the little man would have probably stopped short in his communicative- ness. Like most of his class, he had a perfect horror of being drawn out for the amusement of what he called a swell, when off his rostrum. There it was fair give and take. You drew him out then at your own risk, and required to be a past master of chaff to hold your own ; but here it was different. 70 TWO KISSES. Montague Gore saw something of this, and at once interposed. " Let me order another glass of that mixture for you, Mr Turbottle, and then, if it isn't asking too much of you, to tell us a little more of your adventurous career, you will be conferring a real favour on the pair of us." Mr. Turbottle's indignation was easily appeased, and having been supplied with a fresh jorum of his favourite beverage, he immediately continued : " Well, gentlemen, when the big drum is the only thing put before you as a career, selection is difficult. I went as assistant to a tobacconist in this very town. I knew as much of the business, at all events, as I did of the big drum. My master had two daughters, the elder, plain and practical ; the younger, a beauty, and frivolous. I fell in love with the younger, and she with a young artillery officer quartered here. She went off with him. TWO KISSES. 71 and then the elder married me, because she chose to do so, I never did quite know how it came about, but she made a real good wife as long as she lived, poor soul. Here's her health anyway," said the little man plaintively, "though she was a bit aggravating at times. But she kept me straight, gentlemen. She wouldn't have no late hours, not she. None of your 'jolly companions every one,' nor anything of that sort would she stand. Well, I went on Tommy Dodding in that line for some years, selling prime Havannahs at fourpence, which I got from Liverpool for a penny, and did well. It's a paying business is the cigar trade, if you've got a connection, and ours was not a bad un. Then the old man died, which he had got that contrarious of late years, it was getting time he took hisself off to something that suited him better, and about five years back, my old lady followed him. ' Timothy/ says she to me, at the last, 'you'll never get ^2 TWO KISSES. along in the cigar line without me, you'd better realise the business and try some- thing else.' I took her advice, and did ; but I think she was wrong, I've never settled to anything since. I've tried half a dozen trades, and have been for the last eighteen months in my present one." " Thank you," replied Gore. " I sup- pose you always travel the circuit ?" " As a rule, yes, Sir ; I'm as reg'Iar as if I belonged to the Midland Bar. War- wick, Derby, Leeds, I've a turn at 'em all at times. I've a many friends in this town, and only I missed my usual pitch, you'd not have seen 'em turn lumpy as they did this morning. They didn't quite know me at that end of the market- place. Wish you good day, gentle- men." Both his entertainers rose and shook hands with him, a compliment at which the little man was much gratified, and with TWO KISSES. 73 wishes expressed on both sides that they might meet again ere long, Mr. Turbottle and his hat, it really did seem a most important part of him, took their de- parture. "Which is he, Montie?" asked Brine, as their guest's steps died away in the distance, " most knave, or fool ?" " He's certainly no fool, and in spite of his peculiar commercial ideas, I don't think he is a knave. He's a rare study for you, my artistic friend. My belief is this, that though he would do you un- scrupulously in the way of business — he has already told us you must do or be done — you would otherwise find him a perfectly honest, conscientious man. He struck me as one of the most singular combinations of shrewdness and simplicity I have ever met." " Did he ? I only wish he had in- terested me half as much. He merely struck me as one of the most loquacious 74 TWO KISSES. gin-drinking old ruffians, I ever came across." "No wonder you don't get on in your trade, Fox, if you can't see material when you come across it." It was rather unkind. It was piercing Brine in the most sensitive part of his cuticle, to insinuate that he could over- look character in any shape — then to mix up with it the self-evident truism that he had not got on in his profession. He undoubtedly professed literature, and un- doubtedly could point to no work satis- factorily achieved in that direction ; but did not everyone know that he only did so in a dilettante way. And yet it was sometimes a sore subject with Fox Brine that he had done nothing. It was not that he had tried and failed — it was simply he had lacked energy to try. The belief in himself had not as yet been knocked out of him, and our capabilities in literature we usually rate pretty high, till failure TWO KISSES. 75 has convinced us that we are not quite the shining Hghts we once thought our- selves. "I can't quite agree with you, Montie," he rejoined, lazily, at length, speaking indeed with more than usual deliberation, as self-contained men are apt to do, when their assailant's arrow has hit the bull's eye. " He's but a type of his class — no unusual one, I fancy." " But what an eccentric class it is for one thing ; you're wrong about him, I suspect for another — he's not a common specimen. There's a story behind what we have heard, I'd lay my life. If we could have ventured to inquire the fate of the runaway sister, for instance." " He'd have known nothing," returned Brine. " Her history, probably, would be that of most young women who have run away with men socially above themselves — bad to investigate." " You'll never be a novelist, Fox, or a 76 TWO KISSES. dramatist. You are wanting in imagina- tion. I believe, I could have been both if I had ever had time to go in for it." " Most people do, and when they go in for it, they become aware that it's not quite so easy a business as they deemed it. The reviewers disabuse their souls of infatuation with small ceremony. Review- ing must be rather jolly," continued Brine meditatively, " you pitch in with no risk of being pitched into." "Pooh! the critics do their duty to the best of their ability. They have a good deal of rubbish to adjudicate upon, and can do no less than say that they think it so." " Yes, but when it happens to be your rubbish, you'd like to argue the point with them." " Of course," replied Gore, laughing, " but I am afraid the public would not care to hear that argument. At all events TWO KISSES. 77 editors don't think they would. But here's dinner, and by the time we have finished it, our train will be pretty well due." " Hum ! sole result of Nottingham goose- fair, which, you villain, you swore was amusing, is that I have ascertained I have not quite lost the art of boxing. As well, perhaps, I met a most unscientific antagonist, or I might have been much less pleased with myself" And with this philosophical reflection, Mr. Fox Brine seated himself at table. CHAPTER V. MRS. PAVNTER AT HOME. MRS. PAYNTER was mistress of a very pretty house out by the Regent's Park, and there was no pleasanter lounge in all London, vowed those privileged of the entree. The hostess had a large and heterogeneous acquaintance. There were her husband's city friends, who somehow never felt quite at their ease in her bright drawing-rooms — there were her own rather Bohemian acquaintance, composed principally of artists, authors, two or three theatrical ladies, rising barristers, &c., but TWO KISSES. 79 mostly people with something in them — with talent, if it was only that of making themselves disagreeable — either man or woman who can do that has established a footing in society. Every one abuses them, but then everyone invites them for fear of the consequences of leaving them out. Then there were stray people whom Mrs. Paynter had picked up on the Continent, and in divers places. That lady repudiated exclusiveness, and was utterly indifferent as to what public opinion might murmur regarding her receptions. She numbered, too, a few of society's creme de la creme on her • visiting list — men principally, it must be admitted; but these were rather proud of the entree of Mrs. Paynter's salon, and would often throw over very grand invitations indeed for one of Lizzie's charade parties, little dinners down the river, or gay dances. She never gave balls, but what she airily denomi- nated "just a valse or two on the carpet 8o TWO KISSES. and supper/' was worth a dozen regular balls. It is the pleasantest time of the year in London — the beginning of October — just a crackle of frost in the morning air, perhaps, to be followed by bright sunshine and a crisp atmosphere — much ozone in these early October days that quickens the blood in the veins, and makes the pulses tingle. Men are dropping back from the long vacation, bronzed and braced from moor and mountain ; refreshed, re- generated from strand and stream. Hearty hand-grips are being exchanged in street and chambers, as the busy toilers of pro- fessional London once more put their necks to the collar. Mrs. Paynter designates this the theatrical season. She is particularly fond of making up little cozy parties for an early dinner, and a box at the theatre afterwards — a quartette which her husband may join if he thinks fit, is Mrs. Paynter's idea of TWO KISSES. 8i seeing the drama. John Paynter thinks theatricals rather a bore and seldom takes advantage of such opportunity. To get up anything like a dinner for the widow was of course preposterous, her crape was as yet too deep to admit of her joining in such festivity. But just two cavaliers to take care of them to the Gaiety, she surely couldn't mind that. She could sit as far back in the box as she liked, and really she could have nothing but the proprieties to think about. It was quite impossible she could have had any regard for Mark Hemsworth, and, at all events, there had been three months to get over such regrets as might have been. Mrs. Paynter reflecting in this wise as she drove away from Hanover Street, on arriving at her own house, thought she could do no better than scribble a couple of notes. The first came glibly enough, and was directed to Captain Detfield of Her VOL. I. G 82 TWO KISSES. Majesty *s Guards. He was her favoured cavalier for the time being, and as she knew he was in town, who shall say how much that fact had to do with the programme she was making out for Cissy Hemsworth's delectation. " Now," muttered Mrs. Paynter to her- self, " comes the difficulty. Who's to be the other .f^ As far as a dangler to flirt with for the night goes, there's half a dozen I might write to, and they generally come when / send for them if they can ; but I should like to put a substantial admirer in her way at once if I could. Some one that would do for a husband if she subjugated him ; and if the way the men ran after her in Paris may be taken as a test, she'll not want adorers here. Dear me, who shall I get ? There's Mr. Bruffles, he's awfully rich and awfully stupid, but then Cissy can't expect everything. No, he won't do ; at all events for to-night. Charlie Detfield always makes such fun of him, and though he TWO KISSES. 83 don't see much, I think he does see that. Old Sir Marmaduke Rivers, dreadful old man, he's on the look-out for a third wife, but I'm not sure he's in town. Stop, I have it ! Montague Gore if I can catch him, he's the man. He is really nice, and they say making over two thousand a year now, and his practice increasing every day — not very impressible though," mused Lizzie, with some recollection of having signally failed upon one occasion to entangle that gentleman in a flirtation. A rebuff that she had always felt a little aggrieved about, although they still remained good friends ; but a woman never quite forgives a man for having been insensible to her fascinations, and Lizzie Paynter always felt she should be tempted to make another assault, if opportunity offered. Not that she was smitten with him, but he had declined to take advantage of the opening she had given him at a certain water-picnic, a year ago. Instead of flirting with her, he had been simply courteous and 84 TWO KISSES. polite. Insensibly stupid, Mrs. Paynter called it. That lady had far too good an opinion of her personal attractions, to believe a man could really refuse such a challenge from her, save on the score of great density or want of savoir vivre. " Yes, he will do. I suppose he always carries his musty old law business in his head, which accounts for his not compre- hending us. I will write to him." As Lizzie Paynter glides into her drawing- room to be in readiness to receive her guests, she certainly looks as if she had fair grounds for being wrathful with any man who mJght refuse to do homage to her charms. Tall and fair, with a lovely complexion, limpid blue eyes, and a very pretty mouth, she is decidedly a very attractive woman. Just at the age too when a woman is in the meridian of her beauty, and thoroughly understands making the very most of her personal ad- vantages. With plenty to say for herself, and spirits that rarely flag, no wonder TWO KISSES. 85 that Lizzie Paynter is popular. She is undoubtedly with men, and to a certain extent with her own sex, for she is very good-natured. But then she has terrible piratical tendencies. She is much given to lure both husbands and lovers from their allegiance. She is coquette from the crown of her head to the rosettes on her slippers, and would flirt with an archbishop if placed next him at dinner. She never got hurt herself in all this irregular warfare. She could get so sweetly sentimental, and fancy for the time being that she was really deeply interested, it was the main business of her life ; but she never lost her head, nor made the mistake of falling seriously in love. Her husband probably under- stood her, at all events he was of a phlegmatic disposition, and took her esca- pades easily. Scrapes, of course, she now and then got into. Admirers would, occa- sionally, become too much in earnest, and that was awkward. She was a clever woman 86 TWO KISSES. in her way, and rather enjoyed a scene, perhaps, than otherwise, providing there were no spectators ; but then as she would say plaintively, "Men will be so foolish sometimes, you know," and occasionally she had gone so far as to be unable to recede without some difficulty. Lizzie is musing over her programme. She has had no answer from Montague Gore, which a little troubles her. True, the invitation was so short that she could scarcely expect one. She has not heard from Charlie Detfield, but that doesn't discompose her at all. She would have had a note ere this, had he been on Her Majesty's employ, the only duty she allowed as excuse for failing in duty to herself. " But if Mr. Gore doesn't come, it will be awkward. I shall have to make John come. One gentleman to two ladies is so eminently unsatisfac- tory." At this moment the door opened, and TWO KISSES. 87 Cissy Hemsworth swept into the room, and Lizzie advanced to meet her. " So very glad to see you, dear. You are to look upon this house as you taught me to regard yours in Paris the year before last ; one where I was always welcome, come when I would." " You are very kind to me," replied Cissy softly, " but then I knew you would be." " This is my husband," continued Mrs. Paynter, " and this, John, is the Mrs. Hems- worth, who I told you made Paris Elysium for me the last time I was there." John Paynter welcomed the young widow in genuine hearty fashion. It was quite sufficient for him that anybody had been kind or even civil to his wife, to insure that much at his hands, for in his quiet un- demonstrative way, he was strongly attached to his vivacious partner. But Cissy had a further claim upon him. He knew that she was left unprotected, and also in in- different circumstances, and that appealed 88 TWO KISSES. irresistibly to a man of his generous, chivalrous nature. As a matter of course, Lizzie had taken this opportunity to run her guest over. How well she looks, and how beautifully she is dressed, she thought. I never could have imagined that widow's weeds could be so becoming. I declare I think she never looked handsomer ; but here the thread of her meditations was severed by the announce- ment of Captain Detfield. Ten minutes desultory conversation, and then Mrs. Paynter announced that she would wait no longer for Mr. Gore. With a theatrical engagement afterwards it would be absurd, she said, to say nothing of having had no answer from him. " Who's the widow ?" asked Charlie Det- field, as they ascended to the dining- room. " Didn't I tell you. Sir, I had something to show you, and isn't she worth looking at ? You're only to admire you know^ not TWO KISSES. 89 worship. You've quite enough to do in that way at present, recollect." " Is it likely that I should forget ? Is it likely that I should admire any other woman in your presence .^" whispered the guardsman, sentimentally. Mrs. Paynter looked at him for a moment, and as they entered the dining-room retorted, " Yes ; I think you're quite capable of it." Charlie Detfield laughed, that scapegrace guardsman could take very fair care of him- self. He was always engaged in a desperate flirtation with some woman or other ; perhaps rather harder hit than usual just now ; but the pair were not badly matched, though Lizzie Paynter was a cleverer practi- tioner in the art of philandering than any he had as yet encountered. " I am going to carry you off to the Gaiety Theatre, Cissy, as soon as dinner is over. You won't mind, will you?" " No, I shall be only too glad. I find go TWO KISSES. my own rooms so dreadfully lonely in the evening. It is a great change, you know, from my old life. I suppose it is very stupid of me, but I have been so used to seeing lots of people, that I can't help feeling it. I don't get on well by myself, Lizzie. Shocking, isn't it, Mr. Paynter, that a woman should have to acknowledge herself so destitute of resources ?" " Well, of course, it must come hard upon you at first, Mrs. Hemsworth," returned her host, " you will soon get used to it." " Not she, you dear stupid old John," thought Mrs. Paynter. ^* Doesn't mean to try, either." " I am afraid not," rejoined Cissy, quietly. " I have had people to amuse me all my life. I make a very bad hand of amusing myself." " Don't think so badly of London as all that, Mrs. Hemsworth," (he had got the name now) interposed the guardsman, laugh- TWO KISSES. 91 ing. " There are plenty of us will only be too happy to try our utmost in that respect. Only wait till you know us, and you will have no cause to complain." Cissy smiled, and a very sweet smile it was. She was one of those women who do great execution in silence. " Really, Captain Detfield, I must protest," cried Mrs. Paynter laughing. "I know the chivalry of your nature invariably prompts you to succour the afflicted, but, Sir, your sole mission has been to amuse me, of late," and continued Lizzie, with a little mouey "I can hardly give you a character for being successful." " I suppose not ; anxiety to succeed always mars our most strenuous efforts. The more we try, the more we don't do it. Whenever we are very keen to win, we always lose ; moral, nil admirari ; but then, Mrs. Paynter, you should not make such a point of always upsetting it." "Very pretty, how often pray have you 93 TWO KISSES. said that to us before ? But it's time to start. You will come with us^ John ?" "Yes, of course," returned Mr. Paynter, recognising and responding to the matri- monial signal, " I'll ring for the carriage at once." " Ah ! that's good of you. We really. Cissy, could hardly trust Captain Detfield to entertain the two of us between the acts." " I am sure Captain Detfield would take excellent care of us," replied Mrs. Hems- worth, "but I don't think we could do without Mr. Paynter, also. You will be sure to enjoy it." Very considerable misgivings on that point had good-humoured John Paynter, but he was loyal as an Arab to the laws of bread and salt, and little likely to let Cissy Hems- worth want a cavalier, even had he not received his wife's hint. Half an hour more, and they were all at the Gaiety listening to the pretty music, and TWO KISSES. 93 laughing at the fun of the Princess of Trebizonde. Mrs. Paynter was carrying on an appar- ently deeply interesting conversation with Charlie Detfield. Cissy gazing, with a smile on her face, at the business of the stage, while John Paynter at the back of the box, was alternately pinching himself to keep awake, and stifling a most inordinate craving for tobacco, when the door of the box quietly opened, and Montague Gore stepping in, greeted his hostess that should have been, and apologized for not having joined her party sooner, on the grounds that he did not receive her note till too late to allow of his doing so. Mrs. Paynter received his excuses gra- ciously, and then said, " Cissy, let me intro- duce you to Mr. Gore." " Mr. Gore and I are old friends, if he will allow me to call him so," replied Cissy, as she extended her hand. " If it had not been for his unwearied kindness a short 94 TWO KISSES. time back, I don't know what would have become of me." " Good gracious ! Mrs. Hemsworth !" exclaimed the barrister. " I little dreamt of meeting you to-night." " Here take my place, Gore," murmured John Paynter. "It's just charity, for I'm froze for a cigar," and vacating his seat, he slipped out of the box. " And he was your barrister was he. Cissy ?" thought Mrs. Paynter smiling. "Ah! my dear, it's a great relief to me to have come to ' the him ' at last. Now, unless you have that mysterious other that I have always dimly suspected in the far background, you two would suit admirably. You should reward the knight that rescued beauty in her difficulties with your fair but penniless hand. Those dragons of the early ages, I suspect, were only metaphorical representa- tions of the relentless creditors of the nine- teenth century." " Tell me, Captain Detfield, don't you TWO KISSES. 95 think the ogre of our childhood typical of the Jewish money-lender, the hydra of the ancients, their mythical idea of com- pound interest. I have heard it said you should be a judge of such things." Charlie started, there was a bitterness in his companion's tones, such as he had never heard before ; again, although his pecuniary difficulties were no secret among his intimates, yet he was immensely surprised to hear them thus hinted at by Mrs. Paynter. There are troubles men do not confide to the women they love, unless they are their wives. Money troubles are of this nature. " I don't know," he said, after a sHght pause, '■^ who has been good enough to tell you that I am to some extent involved with the tribes of Israel. If it was a man he's a fool, and a mischievous one, but I won't pretend to you that it is not the case. Yes, Mrs. Paynter, compound interest is very like consumption, a complaint that a man don't often get the better of" 96 TWO KISSES. " Poor Charlie, I'm so sorry to hear that it is true," murmured the lady softly. " It's well worth being in the toils, to hear you say so," he rejoined, in a low whisper. " Hush ! I want to hear this," replied Lizzie, and having flashed a quick respon- sive glance up into his face, she turned to- wards the stage. " And so you are in London, Mrs. Hemsworth, for how long?" inquired Gore. " I don't know," returned Cissy. " I never did know, you remember, anything about my own affairs. But I am settled in Han- over Street for some little time now ; where," she continued, looking gravely up at him, *^ if you will come and see me, I will try to thank you properly for all you have done for me. A very modest establishment indeed. You understand, none better, that I can afford no other now, only lodgings. It is a change after being used to a big TWO KISSES. 97 house of one's own," she concluded plain- tively. " You know, Mrs. Hemsworth, nobody could be more sincerely sorry for you than myself." "I know," replied Cissy, "that no one took half the pains to assist me that you did. There were many old friends who professed much sorrow for the tribulation I was in, but the only person who came to my succour was a comparative stranger — yourself. I am never likely to forget that." " You give me more credit than I deserve," replied Gore, quietly. "I hap- pened to be a man of business. Your friends probably were not." " Oh, yes, plenty of them were. I think, you know," she continued, slowly, " that they thought I was not worth helping — that 1 should never entertain them again. What did it matter what became of me ? I know I am not clever, but I fancy society VOL. I. H 98 TWO KISSES. don't care about you when you are in trouble." "We won't discuss that, Mrs. Hems- worth, but I did want to know where you were." Cissy raised her eyes and looked at him. " Yes," he continued, rapidly, '' I have got a clue — it is a mere thread as yet, and I don't know what may come of it. I have an idea — a wild idea, perhaps I had better call it — but still an idea that there is some property belong- ing to you in this country. I can't say how much. I can't guess as yet at how much — big or little, I can't say — but still something. I shall work it out, though, if you will give me authority to do so. It was that I wanted from you. You can trust me. can you not?" Cissy extended her hand ; and as he clasped it, replied, " Thoroughly. Come and see me, and you shall have full credentials." TWO KISSES. 99 " It's just over," exclaimed Mrs. Paynter. " Let us get away before the crush comes. Would you go and look for the carriage, Captain Detfield, please? and John, he's betaken himself to a cigar, I know." But at this moment Mr. Paynter re- entered the box, and announced that he had already accomplished that errand. " Then the sooner we depart the better," exclaimed Mrs. Paynter, as she took the guardsman's arm. " We will put you down. Cissy, on our way." " Good night, Mr. Gore, and don't forget your promise," said Cissy, once more extend- ing her little hand, as she stepped into the brougham. Montague Gore stood for a moment looking after the receding carriage, but his meditations were speedily interrupted by Charlie Detfield, who, having lit a cigar, suggested they should adjourn to " the Aluminium " for a quiet smoke. H 2 CHAPTER VI. THE major's business. MAJOR CLAXBY JENKENS had offices in John Street, Adelphi, though what business it was that the Major carried on in those two dingy, barely-furnished rooms, was still a mystery to those who had puzzled their brains concerning it. The Major's business hours were not of long duration. He arrived every morning at twelve, punctually, and left between three and four. His clients, though not numerous, were usually young and well-dressed, and although, as may TWO KISSES. loi be supposed, principally of the male sex, were not so altogether. Trailing robes of silk and satin had swept those stairs ere this, in their anxiety to persuade the Major to do his duty towards his neighbour. Claxby Jenkens was a tolerably well-known man upon town, and yet nobody ever felt very sure that they knew anything about Claxby Jenkens. He was of somewhat doubt- ful status in society. He belonged to two or three tolerable clubs, but nobody could tell you anything about his early career. He called himself late of the Indian army, but it was curious that no old Indian officer ever could remember meeting him. Colonel Prawn, late of the Bombay Fusiliers, whom the Major had offended past forgiveness by selling him one evening at pool, declared, " By G — d. Sir ! the d fellow never was in the service at all !" General Hamrice, whom the Major had handled rather severely at ecarte, stated as his opinion. T02 TWO KISSES. "Jenkens — yes, Sir — oh yes, he was in the service, but he's a long-headed fellow, Jenkens — he found he wasn't getting on so he left ; and as the Horse Guards had neglected to promote him. Gad, Sir ! he didn't bother them, but just gazetted him- self. Indian service, no, no, that won't do. Why, Prawn, there will tell you that he doesn't know the difference between a bun- galow and Bangalore." Still, when the Major took a turn in the park of an afternoon, (he was seldom seen there in the morning), there were plenty of men, well known in the fashion- able world, who nodded to him, and occa- sionally a lady bowed. He was not a man that you would expect to find at balls, routs, the opera, &c., but he turned up at mixed dinner-parties sometimes. On these occasions he usually contented him- self with a double gold-rimmed eyeglass, in lieu of spectacles, and seemed to be perfectly able to get along with that. TWO KISSES. 103 The Major's clients rarely alluded to their connection with him. They made no pretence of knowing what his business was. If you had asked them, they would pro- bably have answered you in this wise — "Oh, he's a doosid good fellow, you know old Claxby Jenkens. What does he do ? blessed if I know — whether he deals in flax or fluids, I haven't an idea. I went to him upon quite another matter alto- gether." The Major usually described himself as a general dealer, who bought upon com- mission. What did he buy ? anything ? Perhaps he might ; still you never came across any one who had employed Claxby Jenkens very much in that way. True, here and there he had conducted a negotia- tion for the purchase of a house, a pair of carriage-horses, &c., yet he hardly did suffi- cient in that way to warrant his regular attendance at his office. But it was whis- pered among the impecunious of the fashion- I04 TWO KISSES. able world that Major Jenkens was the man of all others who could put you in the way of raising money at short notice — not that he was a money-lender — nothing of the sort. Young men who had gone to him with that idea^ had often descended those dirty stairs in John Street quite overwhelmed with the Major's virtuous in- dignation at their hinting such a thing. Neophytes these, who usually came back when they had learnt their lesson better. Claxby Jenkens didn't lend money, but if you were worth, or likely to be worth anything, he could and would introduce you to those who did. The Major, in short, was simply an agent to some of the leading money-lenders, and received a handsome bonus for every in- troduction he furnished. Living much in the world, and an astute man to boot, he knew pretty well those who were likely to prove profitable to his employers — those who were not worth wasting powder and shot TWO KISSES. 105 over. The bill-discounters placed immense confidence in him. It was seldom that he estimated a borrower at his wrong value. The secret was well kept, and of the many who passed through his hands, there were few suspected that he had any interest in, or made profit out of their necessities. To those who came to him properly tutored, he was quite fatherly in his advice. " My dear boy," he would say, '' do without it if you can, ask your own people for it — anything. When you once pay over five per cent for money, it's only a matter of time. You're bound to be broke.'* But of course the Major knew they couldn't do without it, and that they could not ask " their own people " for it, or they would not have been in John Street ; so finally he furnished them with the address of one of his employers, and felt tranquilly that he had done his duty towards his neighbour and himself io6 TWO KISSES. To older and more hardened offenders, the Major naturally took a different tone. "Sorry to hear you want it," he would say, " but it's no use preaching. I should think you would find Simeon Levi, in Gray's Inn, as reasonable as any one, and he'd most likely accommodate you ; but his price is ruinous of course. They all are. I found them so to my cost, years ago, and I don't suppose you will fare better than I did." The Major, too, had other ways of work- ing out his nefarious livelihood. In spite of his gentlemanly exterior and courteous address, there was no more unscrupulous scoundrel in all London. And yet this man passed as a gentleman in society. Those within his power naturally made no protest. The secret of his inner life was well kept, and though the Colonel Prawns and General Hamrices of this world might murmur against him, and speak dubiously of his military career, yet he held his own bravely. TWO KISSES, 107 Little did those gentlemen think how very- much even their estimate of Major Claxby Jenkens was above the reality. It is always curious to reflect upon in club, life how utterlv ignorant we are of the real history of those with whom we associate. The man who you chat with, dine with, smoke with, and who generally forestalls you in the rush for the evening papers, may be miserably impecunious, and living in an adjoining garret, or he may be revelling in a luxurious house and table, with forgery as a profession. We do have an explosion every now and then, which floods the journals ; but there are a good many surprises, the story of which is only whispered with bated breath in those conventual establish- ments. The Major is setting at his desk wrapped in a brown study. A pile of letters lie be- side him, for his correspondence is usually both voluminous and varied. One is spread opened before him, and it is that, apparently, io8 TWO KISSES. which has plunged him into such deep reverie. '^ Dear Jenks," it ran, " have been away to St. Petersburg on a private errand the last four months — only got back here the night before last. The news is probably stale to you ; but as you asked me always to let you know anything about the Hems- worths, at the risk of repetition I send it. I suppose you know M. H. died three months ago, or more. I always told you he over- speculated. I was right; he did, and his widow is left penniless. What you may not know, is that she suddenly left Paris, and has gone nobody knows where. What do they think of Peruvians your side the Channel? and what, you old fox, would you discount the Prince Imperial's prospects at? He'll be worth backing before the Septennate is out. Thiers will hardly witness that, though some people vow it won't require to live very long to see the finish of it. Rouher will be the best man when the scramble comes, and that, of course, means the Empire again. TWO KISSES. 109 Bien ! we financiers never made money as quick as under Louis Napoleon, so I say Vive rEmpereur ! as for the Orleanists, they committed poHtical suicide when they made up a quarrel of forty odd years standing with the elder branch. How Monsieur le Comte de Chambord could ever have been consi- dered a political fact puzzles extremely, " Yours sincerely, " Adolphe Rayner. " Paris, October 5th, 1874." The Major twisted and twirled this epistle between his restless fingers. It so happened the intelligence of Mark Hemsworth's death was news to him. It had never been copied into the English papers. Why should it .? Mark Hemsworth, though an Englishman by birth, had been long resident in Paris. If he had relatives in his own country, he had utterly ceased to hold any communica- tion with them. He had been of the Bourse of Paris for many years, so thoroughly no TWO KISSES. identified with the French Stock Exchange, that his nationahty would hardly occur to the journalists. At all events, his decease had occasioned no comment in the English papers. There had been no scandal con- nected with his death, nothing to make it worth the notice of the correspondents of the "Times," "Telegraph," "Standard," &c., to call attention to. No wonder the Major, like Mrs. Paynter, had never heard of it, and yet Claxby Jenkens had an interest in knowing how it fared with Mark Hemsworth and his wife. " Poor child !" he murmured, " I wonder where she is. I did it for the best, and yet she must want help now," and this battered, hardened old marauder dropped his head upon his hands, and if he did not actually weep, exhibited signs of genuine emotion, such as would have shaken the confidence of his employers sadly. Indulgence in emotion is quite incompatible with the profession of money-lending. TWO KISSES. Ill "She must be found," he muttered, at length. " I will write to Rayner. If she is still in Paris, and she may be, he won't be long before he knows where. The police there keep a more stringent eye on people's movements than we do, and Madame Hemsworth was too well known to dis- appear easily. If she has left — well, even then they may have a clue as to where she left for. Penniless ! I am not so sure of that. I think not, if I could but find her. There's another man, too, I shall have to hunt up about this business, but he ought not to be difficult to put my hand on. Well, now for the rest of them," he con- tinued, turning towards his letters once more. " Hum ! ' Will call in at twelve. Yours truly, Charlie Detfield.' But Detfield must know that he has got to the length of his tether, and that the money-lenders will have no more of him. Of course, he seeks to prolong the agony — they all do just as a man who can't swim, strug- 112 TWO KISSES. gles when drowning is inevitable. What's this ?" " Dear Jenkens, " I've a young lady to dispose of, good looking, and with a tidy bit of money, say thirty thousand pounds or so. She has just made her curtsy to society. Her lamented father made his fortune in cheese, and she is living with two maiden aunts at Islington. As her guardian, I think the sooner she is married the better. With a little coaching she would be quite presentable at the West in no time, for she's a quick, clever girl. If you've an impoverished swell on hand, we might make up an eligible match. She finds the money — he position. Drop me a line. " Yours, " James Roxby. " 1 6, Fenchurch Street." " Now/' mused the Major, " if ever two TWO KISSES. 113 letters fitted in beautifully, it's these. If Charlie Detfield, when he comes here, is not prepared to take up the bills he has out, instead of wishing to do others, I shall put this strenuously before him. Why it's the very thing for him, and in his own interest as well as mine, I shall give Simmonds a hint to put on the screw if he refuses. It'd put him straight, put her into society, and put something very comfortable into Roxby's pocket, and mine no doubt. Under such cir- cumstances, we can't have any nonsense about feelings, &c., and if he has any other attachment, unless it's a very satisfactory one, well, he must just swallow it at once, and have done with it. He's too deeply dipped to indulge in sentiment. Matrimony with him must mean money, and the latter he must come by pretty quickly. His prospects of marriage won't improve by having to leave the Guards." Suddenly his clerk glided into the room with " Gentleman to see you, Sir," and VOL. I. I 114 TWO KISSES. placed in his hand the card of the subject of his meditations. "Show him in," replied the Major, throw- ing himself back in his chair, and beginning rapidly to run over in his mind the argu- ments he intended urging. " How are you, Jenkens ?" said the guardsman, as he entered the room, with a nonchalance sadly suggestive of its being neither his first visit, nor the doing of his first bill. " Good morning. Captain Detfield, charmed to see you. You've come, I suppose, about those horses of Packenham's — there's one would suit you well, perfect hack, and can jump a bit besides." The Major kept up the fiction of being a general commission agent with wonderful pertinacity, and unless you humoured him in this particular, you were little likely to get anything else out of him. But Detfield understood this thoroughly, and replied, as if the acquirement of that TWO KISSES. 115 identical hack was the sole thing wanting to complete his happiness. " Just what I wanted to talk to you about — only two questions. Is it sound in its wind ? Would he look at a hundred guineas .^" " Sound as a bell, I believe, but I think he'd want a trifle more than that." " I was afraid so — it's beyond my figure, then, for the times are hard, and in my profession we can't indulge in the luxury of strikes, although the pay of the British officer has remained stationary for hard on to a century, and the agricultural labourers' grievances are nothing to ours." " Never mind — it is sufficient that I know you want a hack — there are plenty more horses than Packenham's. I undertake I find you a hack before the month is out, that shall suit in every respect — including price." " Thanks ; and now by the way, Jenkens, do you think Simmonds would be good for I 2 ii6 TWO KISSES. another three hundred. I must have it, and it's better not to break fresh ground if one can help it." The Major put on his spectacles with great deliberation, and then commenced stabbing his desk slowly with a small pen- knife. "Excuse me, Captain Detfield," he said, at length, " but what do you suppose will be the end of this ?" The young man's face flushed, and he drew his breath hard before he replied. "What's to be the end of it. Major? Well, unless I've a turn at Newmarket, I suppose a pretty general smash will be the end of it. I shall have to realize the commission, and leave the dear old corps." " Well, why don't you pull up ?" inquired the Major, as innocently as if in ignorance of the ' why.' *' Pooh ! you know all about it. I'm going down hill with no skid on, and there's TWO KISSES. 117 no Stopping the coach then till you get to the bottom." " But if a way was pointed out to you of escaping all this," observed the Major, impaling a small wafer- box with his pen- knife. "I'd say I'd come across a conjuror," interposed Charlie Detfield, quickly. " Well, I don't claim to be that," replied the Major, smiling. " But did it never occur to you, to mend your fortunes by matrimony. Why don't you marry ?" " What a pot of money," said Charlie, after a short pause. "No, I don't think that would do," he continued slowly, as his thoughts reverted to the object of his present infatuation. " Why shouldn't it .? a man in your position has lots of opportunities." " You mistake there. If you mean that I know plenty of girls with money, you are right ; but if you think the authorities would allow them to marry a penniless devil like ii8 TWO KISSES. myself, you're pretty considerably out. I can't say I ever thought about it. It never occurred to me to get out of the wood in that way ; but I do know that it's none so easy, even if I cared to try." " But," retorted the Major, "supposing I could introduce you to a nice girl, with a very pretty fortune ; would you try then ?" " Hum ! I can't say," answered Charlie, slowly. " I don't quite like the idea. It's rather mean, marrying a girl for her money." " It's done every day, and you would give something on your side to balance it — position." "She's easily contented, if she thinks being wife to a subaltern in the Guards position," laughed Charlie. " But it would be to her," exclaimed the Major, quickly. " Your connections are good. Your people of good status in society." TWO KISSES. 119 " Rather sounds as if she and her belong- ings were very much the reverse," observed Detfield, drily. "Just so, you don't expect to get every- thing for nothing. If her people made their money in trade, what has that to do with it ? Everybody is going in for trade now-a-days, or business, as they prefer to term it. Same thing, only it sounds better in conversation. What do you say to it .'^" "I don't know. Of course, I couldn't say anything till I had seen the young lady, at all events. But on the whole, I think I'd rather not have anything to do with it" The Major said nothing, but continued lazily to stab his desk with his penknife, though ever and anon he shot a keen glance at Detfield from under his spec- tacles. "Well, do you think I had better try Simmonds again, or not.^" inquired Charlie, after a pause of some seconds. 120 TWO KISSES. "Certainly try him, but unless you can point to some forthcoming improvement in your prospects, I think he's likely to turn rusty — " " And unaccommodating, eh ? Well, it will be a bore that, because I must have the money somehow." " Why not think over what I've been saying to you ?" " Because I don't fancy it a bit. No, if I'm to go a mucker, as I suppose I am, I'll not get out of it that way," said Charlie, rising. " Good-bye," and having shook hands with the Major, Detfield took his de- parture. Claxby Jenkens stabbed his desk some- what viciously, as the door closed on his visitor. " Young idiot !" he muttered. " Salvation is offered him, and he literally turns up his nose at it. I suppose there's a woman in the case. I must find out who she is for one thing, and recommend Simmonds to be TWO KISSES. 121 tolerably hard on himj for another. When he finds the screw put on, he'll be more amenable to reason. The idea of the young fool not actually jumping at such a chance as I placed before him. Well, I suppose at five-and-twenty we haven't as yet learnt what is best for us. But I'm going to be a good friend to you, Charlie Detfield, whether you will or no, and for the best of all possible reasons, that my interest requires me to be so." CHAPTER VII. HE MUST MARRY MONEY. I REALLY can't make up my mind about her," mused Mrs. Paynter, as she sat dawdling over her tea and toast, a few days after her visit to the Gaiety Theatre. " John says she's charming, and took the earliest opportunity of going off for a cigar, but then John always does that. It was odd that Montague Gore should turn out to be the man who came to her assistance in Paris. Well, that's a great point in her favour. She's intimate with him to start with. I TWO KISSES. 123 thought it might do before; I am sure it would now. And how beautifully she carried it off last night ! how innocently she asked him to come and see her. Upon my word, I don't know at this minute whether she's the deepest woman I ever met, or next door to a fool. She speaks with a confidence about her future that can only be the result of intense reliance on her own capa- bilities, or utter ignorance of the world. Surely she's lived too much in it to be the latter. Yet there are few women who, brought up in luxury, on finding themselves thrown pretty well friendless upon their own resources, for what is a thousand pounds, who wouldn't blench at the prospect ^ and yet she does not. Poor Charlie, too, if all I hear's true, his circumstances are getting desperate. I don't quite care about him to the extent he thinks, but I'm fond of him in my way, and am very sorry to discover that he's in the hands of the Philistines. Oh dear ! I don't know how it is, but it's 124 TV/0 KISSES. one's pleasantest acquaintance that come to grief always. Bah !" she exclaimed, with a little grimace, "there are a good many- people I know, who Yd insure from trouble on those very grounds." At that instant a servant entered the room, and presenting a visiting card on a salver, said, ^^ The gentleman begs to know if you can see him, Madam, for a few minutes." " ' Major Claxby Jenkens.' I never heard of him in my life. Never mind, show him up, William." The Major was not the man to let the grass grow under his feet, when he had once decided upon anything. He had deter- mined that Charlie Detfield should marry this Islington heiress, and at once set to work to see how it was to be brought about. It was not difficult for a man like the Major to find out, in the course of a couple of days, a good deal about Detfield's life and habits. He was not long before TWO KISSES. 125 he heard that CharHe was at present epris' with that pretty Mrs. Paynter, over whom society was habituated to sigh and shake its head a good deal. The Major knew Mrs. Paynter perfectly by sight, though he had never taken any very great notice of her so far ; but the Major knew a wonderful lot of people in this fashion, and could have written slight biographical sketches of many of them, besides. It does not follow that he had any wish to make their acquaintance ; still he did quite consider it part of his business to know everybody about town by sight, and to know as much more about them as he could manage to pick up. He thought he could form a pretty correct estimate of Mrs. Paynter, and he conceived the bold design of enlisting her as an ally in his scheme. At all events he resolved to call upon her ; how far he should take her into his confidence, circumstances must decide. Lizzie gazed a Httle curiously at her 126 TWO KISSES. visitor, as she motioned him to a seat. A neatly-dressed gentlemanly-looking man, hair somewhat shot with grey, and wearing gold rimmed spectacles. "Mrs. Paynter will, I trust, excuse the liberty I have taken, but I have come to solicit her influence in a scheme that I have strongly at heart." The Major paused to give Lizzie an opportunity of reply. " Let her say anything," he thought, " it will pave the way at all events, and give me some notion if I am right in my ideas about her." But Mrs. Paynter only bowed her head slightly, in a manner which distinctly indi- cated that he should proceed. " I am given to understand that Captain Detfield is a friend of yours," observed the Major, at length. " May I go so far as to say an intimate friend of yours ?" Though much astonished, Lizzie had lived too much in the world not to be able to TWO KISSES. 127 repress any sign of such astonishment. She repHed quietly. " Yes, I know Captain Detfield very well, intimately if you like." " May I ask, if you are aware that his affairs are extremely involved ?'' "I have heard something of the kind, but you can scarcely suppose Captain Det- field would make me his confidante in matters of that sort," retorted Lizzie, a little sharply. "No, perhaps not. I am also told that you have considerable influence with Captain Detfield." " Whoever your informant may be, Sir, it strikes me that he has been taking most unwarrantable liberties with my name," exclaimed Lizzie, indignantly. " I know Captain Detfield, as I know many other people in society, very well. But I have nothing to do with Captain Detfield's affairs, and I am sure he would be the first person to tell you so." 128 TWO KISSES. " Captain Detfield is very foolish as regards his own interests, and will not listen to the advice of his friends," said the Major slowly. " Really I can see no use ni this discussion. I have nothing to say to Captain Detfield's private affairs. I have neither right nor inclination to interfere in them," replied Lizzie, settling herself with considerable demonstration in her chair. The Major quietly took the hint and rose, he had not expected that it would be all easy sailing at this first interview. " I can only apologize for this intrusion," he said. " You speak, Mrs. Paynter, as the friends of a man in difficulties generally do speak. They are always very punctilious about their right to interfere." The blood rushed into Lizzie's face at the taunt, and her eyes sparkled. Coquette she might be, but she was not the woman to turn away from a friend in need. *' Stop, Sir ! Are you aware that I am TWO KISSES. i2y neither relation nor connection of Captain Detfield?" " Perfectly/' returned the Major. " And you ! May I ask if you are a friend of his ?" " The most practical one he happens to have just now^ though perhaps he would not admit it." " And what on earth is it you suppose that I could do to assist him?" " You could give what he needs much just now, good advice," replied the Major, as he resumed his seat. " He might listen to you, although he won't to me." " This is getting interesting," thought Lizzie. " I don't think I ever set up in this line before. Giving good advice to an admirer is quite a new sensation." " And what, pray, may I ask is it that you want me to recommend to him ?" "To marry," returned the Major tersely. " Good gracious, whom !" exclaimed Mrs. Paynter, fairly surprised out of her usual VOL. I. K I30 TWO KISSES. sang froid. " Who is she ? Whom do you want him to marry ?" "That, Madam, I shall have the honour to explain to you a little later, if you will allow me. At present, I only wish you to, if possible, persuade Captain Detfield that the only way out of his present difficulties, the only way to avert the ruin that so speedily threatens him, is to marry money. It will be my business to find him a bride." "I won't move a step in the business till I know who she is. I won't say a word on the subject till I have seen the lady," retorted Mrs. Paynter, quickly. "I never thought of it before, but I daresay I could find a wife for him easily enough." "If Mrs. Paynter will undertake the mission of finding a wife for Captain Detfield with thirty thousand pounds, then I need trouble myself no further," said the Major, rising. " No, I don't know, I don't altogether TWO KISSES. 131 say that. I won't promise to do any- thing." " But you will think over what I have said, Mrs. Paynter. Remember, I only wish to pull Detfield through his difficulties, and I see nothing for him but to marry money, and that right soon. If you can manage this for him, well and good. If not, would it be too much to ask you to let me know.^ You have my card and address." " I will think over it, and you shall hear from me when I've made up my mind," replied Lizzie. " I have the honour then to wish you good morning, and success in your charitable endeavours," replied the latter, as with a low reverence he left the room. " Well," said Mrs. Paynter, throwing herself back in her chair, " this really is quite a new experience. The idea of looking out a wife for one of one's own peculiar proper- ties. If anybody but that cool clever auda- K 2 132 TWO KISSES. cious gentlemaiij who has just left, had proposed such a thing to me, I don't think they would have forgot it in a hurry. I wonder how he came to know about my intimacy with Charlie. Not that there's any thing I need fret about in that, but he evi- dently does know Charlie is a favoured adorer. Now as he is not in the least in my set, how did he come by that knowledge ? I feel just a little afraid of a man who pos- sesses so much information about one. Who is he, this Major Claxby Jenkens? I must ask Charlie that, and I wonder what he will say when I do." CHAPTER VIII. ON THE VERGE. MONTAGUE GORE has paid more than one visit to Hanover Street since he encountered Cissy Hemsworth at the ' Gaiety.' A cool shrewd barrister, and generally immersed in business, he is little given to sentiment, and yet he begins to find a strange fascination in Cissy's society. She is always unfeignedly glad to see him. She makes no secret, that in spite of Mrs. Payn- ter's kindness, and she admits that it is im- possible to be kinder than Lizzie is to her, she finds London a little triste. Much 134 TWO KISSES. occupied as his time is, he contrives to spare some of it to the following up of a suspi- cion that occurred to him in Paris. He believes that Cissy Hemsworth had a settle- ment at the time of her marriage, although he has found no trace of such a deed. Still, among the dead man's papers he had come across a mysterious memorandum, that if he had read it aright seemed to hint at such a thing. In a sort of pocket diary in which Mark Hemsworth had apparently been accustomed to roughly jot down his day's business doings, he had found the following entry : " January 28th. — Received per bill on Coutts, £S7^j half-yearly payment on C's settlement." Very vague, indeed, this. C's settlement might, of course, mean anything, but coupled with the term half-yearly payment. Gore had jumped to the conclusion that it did refer to a settlement made on Mrs. Hemsworth at her marriage. Still, if so, where was the TWO KISSES. 135 property ? Who were her trustees ? He could find not a trace of either. Carefully and patiently as he had unravelled the tangled skein of Mark Hemsworth's affairs, he could discover not another word that could possibly refer to this property. And yet it must be worth close upon twelve hun- dred a year, if it existed Had Mark Hemsworth made away with it.^ The trustees consenting rather from ignorance, or in collusion with him. That was possible, quite possible ; but still not to be taken for granted till the said trustees had been discovered. Of course, it was but too likely that Hemsworth, so terribly in- volved as his death showed him to have been, should have laid hands upon the money if he could. But except through fraud, or very great negligence on the part of the trustees, a marriage settlement holds its own pretty tightly. Gore was pushing his in- quiries in every direction, but so far had met with no success. 136 TWO KISSES. Of course, he had gone to Coutts' in the first instance. Little difficulty there in tracing the bill, but unfortunately that told nothing. The bill had been drawn by a sporting stockbroker, but for ;^500, had been presented by a gentleman, who paying in the balance of £j6 in cash, had asked the favour of another for £S7^ ^^ transmit to Hemsworth et Cie., Paris. The stockbroker was a regular customer of theirs, but about the gentleman who changed the bill they knew nothing. The stockbroker, upon being interrogated, refused to give any informa- tion in the first instance ; but, at last, ad- mitted that he had paid it away to a well known turfite in settlement of his losses over the Croydon steeple-chase. There all trace vanished when the aforesaid speculator was appealed to. He could recollect nothing. He was always paying and receiving money. Yes ; he betted pretty largely, and a betting- book didn't last him long. No, he didn't keep his old betting-books, unless he had TWO KISSES. 137 some special reason for doing so. He hadn't got that one now. He remembered he won some money from Mr. Jay, the stockbroker, at Croydon, but he couldn't say how much. He thought he was paid by a cheque. Well, yes ; it might have been on Coutts. What did he do with it ? Paid it away, and he'd be considerably dashed if he could' recollect to whom. Somewhat discouraging this ; but Mon- tague Gore knew as well as any one the patience and perseverance imperative to the solving of a problem of this nature — how when the clue seems within your hands, it often leads to nothing. A man of tough material, of dogged invincible resolution, who had made himself, who had started in his profession with small means, but great energy and capacity of work. Clever cer- tainly, but who owed his success more to toil than genius. Possessed specially of the faculty of always finding time to do [what he wanted — a faculty which is the result 138 TWO KISSES. principally of method and determination. He was a man who mixed but sparingly in society. A terrible catastrophe in early life had steeled his heart against the love of woman. Over the writing-table in his cham- bers hung the picture of a fair girl whom Montague Gore, some dozen years ago, had thought to make his bride. A light muslin dress, and a treacherous fire had shivered that dream. A few hours agony, and the original of that picture had yielded her soul to her Maker, and left her betrothed with the life crushed out of him to continue his struggle for fame and fortune alone. Gore stifled his sorrow by hard work ; as the years rolled by, the first fierce anguish mellowed down naturally to tranquil resignation ; but no woman had seemed fair to Montague Gore since that terrible day when a telegram had summoned him only just in time to receive his love's last sigh. The hapless victim of this tragedy had been Fox Brine's sister. TWO KISSES. 139 Now, once again, he was beginning to feel the fascinations of a woman. He could not deny to himself that Cissy Hemsworth's society had unwonted attraction in it. He had not at all made up his mind what was to come of it. He was of an age now when men take a wife with due consideration, or are at all events supposed to do so. Charm- ing as he thought Cissy, yet he was not bhnd to one thing — that was her extra- vagance. He knew, of course, perfectly, that she had but a few hundreds left, and yet Cissy lived as if she had no care for the future. Her cool indifference to that future staggered him. He had once hinted that the apartments she occupied were expen- sive, more than her means justified. "Ah, yes," replied -Cissy, "living is terribly expensive in London. My poor rooms do cost more than I can afford, but what would you have ^ I must live some- wherei I don't think I could get anything decent for less than I pay here, and the 140 TWO KISSES. people are very civil. I do not understand the economies." And she ; how did she regard him he wondered? She made no disguise of how pleased she was to see him. She was frank- ness itself on that point, but then it was qualified by the admission that she had so few friends, and felt so utterly lost in this big London. " Then you know/' she would say, with the sweetest smile, " you are my advocate, and it is such a comfort to have some one to talk over my miserable prospects with." And yet she was as radiant over these " miserable prospects," as if her chance of being absolutely penniless in little more than a twelvemonth was a fact that had no existence. To understand Cissy Hemsworth, it is necessary to look back upon her former life. It had been instilled into her from a child, that she must look upon a good TWO KISSES. 141 marriage as her provision in life. At six- teen she was introduced to Mark Hems- worth as her future husband. She had been for the half dozen preceding years educated in a convent in France, so that there was nothing repugnant to her in the idea. Her school-fellows were all brought up with similar notions. When her father announced to Cissy that her marriage was arranged, she accepted it as a matter of course. She felt nothing more than a little natural curiosity to see her fiance. If she was not violently struck with his appear- ance, she certainly felt no distaste for the marriage. She supposed all girls were married in this wise. She had never heard it said that marriages were made in heaven, or of love and esteem being supposed to enter into their composition. So she was wedded, and found herself at the head of a fine house in Paris. She had nothing to say to it ; her husband managed everything. From the day he took 142 TWO KISSES. her a child-wife from the altar, to the day of his death, he had treated her as a child. He alternately petted or scolded her, just as his capricious temper might dictate ; treating her at times, indeed, almost brutally, when the battle on the Bourse had gone hard with him. But she had carriages, servants, and every description of luxury at her command. On one point Mark Hems- worth was consistent ; however ill it might fare with him in the financial fray, he never stayed his lavish expenditure. Cissy had never heard the word economy even whis- pered. Her husband was always very authoritative concerning her dress. She might spend what she pleased apparently, but it was high misdemeanour that he should see the same robe too often, or find that his wife's was not one of the notable toilettes at a fashionable assembly. So far as this last went, Mark Hemsworth had little reason to complain. Nature had endowed Cissy with great taste, and a TWO KISSES. 143 superb figure. When to such gifts is added carte blanche at a Parisian modiste's, a woman is not likely to be worsted by her compeers. Madame Hemsworth had established a repu- tation in this respect, and was wont to see her toilette quoted in the journals. Our own papers after Ascot and Goodwood generally rave more or less of millinery, and no wonder. One can easily imagine with such training as this, that Cissy Hemsworth had no more conception of how to commence living economically than a child. She thought she was economising. She was living in lodgings instead of a house of her own. She had no servants but her own maid. She had no carriage, and as she said, never sent for a brougham except it was an absolute necessity. Cissy really did not see how her expenses were to be much further curtailed. Dress, well she had spent nothing on that, she insisted. The elaborate mourn- ing outfit she had ordered in Paris had so 144 TWO KISSES. far been sufficient. She was gratified by discovering that her mode was at all events scarcely to be met with in London, as yet ; but as she said to Mrs. Paynter "It will be terrible next spring, when I go into half mourning, 1 shall want such a lot of things." Cissy had borne neither love nor esteem for her husband. He had never sought to inspire the first, and far from taking pains to gain the latter, had alienated it by harsh, coarse, capricious, brutal treatment. Mark Hemsworth was by no means a faithful consort, and had taken little trouble to hide his infidelities from his wife. Cissy had regarded him with some aversion, and som.e awe. Still though she feared him, she had upon occasion shown a spirit which had, at all events, compelled Mark Hemsworth to acknowledge that there was a limit to what insult his wife would submit to. It is easy to conceive what such training had made of Cissy Hemsworth. She had TWO KISSES. 145 grown up a woman accustomed to adulation, to unlimited luxury, to unstinted means. Now she was called upon to confront the world, and to get her living as best she could. Such the view of her position as it would naturally appear to anyone con- versant of the circumstances. The only person it did not seem to strike, was Cissy herself. True, it might be said in her favour that she had conducted herself very well under considerable provocation. That with great temptation to go astray, no one could breathe an aspersion on her fair fame. That as a neglected and ill-used wife, she had been ever loyal to her husband. Yet this was hardly the woman a prudent man would select for his bride, and still a shrewd hard-headed man of the world like Montague Gore was at this moment debating this question with himself He saw it all, too, so clearly. He knew she was unfitted for his wife. He could not even flatter himself that he had gained her VOL. I. L 146 TWO KISSES. love. He was too quick not to understand that her very frankness with him was an un- favourable sign. He knew well that when a woman's heart is touched, there is a certain reticence, a slight embarrassment of manner, at times even an inclination to be almost brusque and rude to the man she favours, but has not yet admitted her passion for. He felt that if she did marry him, it would be because she was in want of a home, a pro- tector, and still in spite of all this Montague Gore continued to visit her constantly, ever turning over in his mind whether he should ask her to be his. An infatuation, no doubt, but when men verging on the forties fall in love, they usually do so with much earnestness of purpose. Montague Gore had never thought to love again. We do make such mistakes, and feel somewhat puzzled when the celibacy we have mapped out for ourselves seems liable to depend once more upon a woman's yes or no. TWO KISSES. 147 Montague Gore, as he walks down to Hanover Street, is still revolving in his mind this question that has so much disturbed him the last two or three weeks. Cissy's face has got mixed up with his business in strange fashion of late. Her lustrous eyes and dusky tresses seem to flit across his briefs in a way most unfavourable to a clear compre- hension of their contents. He feels it im- perative to see her on business, although it would scarcely occur to him that it was necessary to see any other client under the same circumstances. He has nothing to impart, but it has suddenly occurred to him that it would be advisable to learn something of Cissy's childhood, if possible. So he strides along through the thick November fog, until he arrives in Hanover Street. Yes, Mrs. Hemsworth is at home, and will see him. Gore ascends to the pretty sitting-room that he knows so well, and is greeted with great cordiality. L 2 148 TWO KISSES. " So very kind of you to come and see me such wretched weather/' observed Cissy, as she settled herself comfortably in an arm- chair. " I shall never have courage to go out such a miserable day. You know you are always welcome, but with your usual tact you have timed your visit so as to ensure both thanks and gratitude to boot. Now you shall tell me your news ; you've none, I fear, favourable to my own immediate interests." " Nothing, I regret to say," replied the barrister. " Do you know, I've come down to ask questions?" "What about .^" returned Cissy, laughing, "but remember, Mr. Gore, it must be question for question. I can't guess what you want to know, but I also have pangs of curiosity at times." " Well, I think, Mrs. Hemsworth — it struck me, in short, the other night, that it might facilitate the inquiry I am making upon your behalf, if you would not mind TWO KISSES. 149 telling me as much as you can remember of your early life. Your life, I mean, previous to your entering that convent." Cissy's face fell, and for some seconds she made no reply. At last she said slowly, "I hope it will not stand in the way of such prospects as I may have; but, Mr. Gore, I do not think I can tell you that." The barrister started ; he had no anticipa- tion of such an answer. It was not that he expected to gain much from hearing the history of Mrs. Hemsworth's childhood, but still it might afford a hint of some new direction in which to prosecute his search. What objection could she have to reveal it ? The first eleven or twelve years of her life, surely there could be nothing to conceal about. " I don't say that it will, but you will also very probably decline to tell me any- thing about your parents — that may ham- per me considerably," he observed at length. 150 TWO KISSES. " I have no recollection at all of my mother. She died when I was quite a child," replied Cissy. " But your father ! surely I understood you that it was he who arranged your marriage, and gave you away/' exclaimed Gore, in much bewilderment. "Yes," rejoined Cissy quietly. " And of him ?" "I will tell you nothing," interrupted the widow. '' I cannot, I don't wish to make any mysteries of my early years. I am sure I cannot see anything to make a mystery about, but I have promised to keep my lips sealed concerning them, and I intend to keep my word." Montague Gore felt uneasy, disconcerted. What reason could Cissy's father have for keeping so entirely in the background. He was already aware that he should commit a great imprudence if he married Mrs. Hemsworth. What she now told him was certainly not calculated to remove his mis- TWO KISSES. 151 givings, and yet so completely was he fascin- ated with her^ that it was odds had Cissy given him any encouragement, that he would have asked her to be his bride in the course of this interview. But she did not. She was simply frank and cordial, and after some further desultory conversation, Gore took his departure, the momentous words still un- spoken. CHAPTER IX. IN THE TEMPLE. MR. FOX BRINE pursued his arduous literary career in very comfortable chambers in the Temple. It was there he sketched out these thrilling romances, spark- ling comedies, tremendous dramas and smashing articles which never received em- bodiment. The nether regions are reputed paved with good intentions — Mr. Brine's chambers were carpeted with undeveloped ideas. The very walls and bookshelves bore witness to the multiplicity of his conceptions. Here hung a chart of the Mull of Cantire, TWO KISSES. 153 which he had procured with some difficulty when he had thought of that great drama on the Irish Rebellion. At the time that he was overwhelming his friends with that idea, it had been mildly suggested to him that the French did not disembark in that vicinity. To which Mr. Brine had loftily replied that art could not be trammelled by history, and that if Hoche did not know where he should have landed in a dramatic point of view, that he (Fox Brine) did, and intended to correct such mistake. There hung an ordnance map of the county of Devonshire. Mr. Brine had once conceived an elaborate notion of a novel connected with that county, and commenced collecting mate- rials accordingly. With similar view of writing articles on the French dramatists, he had got together a pretty extensive library of their works. Biographical dictionaries, dictionaries of dates, classical dictionaries, dictionaries of all kinds were strewn about the room, for with so undetermined a bent 154 TWO KISSES. of genius, Mr Brine argued he never could be certain what books of reference he might require. The nattiest of writing-tables stood in one of the windows, furnished with material of every description ; foolscap, journalist slips, note books, cahiers, pens, and pencils of all sorts, for Mr. Brine was quite as much impressed at this minute, as he had been on leaving the University, that he was just about to begin. He still sprang from his bed, lit a candle, and rushing to the writing- table, dashed off some crude idea for play or story as he was wont to do some seven years ago, with equal belief that it would develop into something that should make the town ring again. Continual failure is apt to discourage a man, but Fox Brine had never encountered that, for the best of all possible reasons, that he had never yet solicited the suffrages of the public. That his ideas always ended in dreams, never seemed to dispirit this philosopher in the TWO KISSES. 155 least. He felt quite as confident of success, whenever he could find time, as ever. What stood in the way of his finding that precious necessity, he did not condescend to explain, but his intimates were not sanguine of success ever attending his search for that requisite leisure. Mr. Fox Brine, clad in smoking jacket and slippers, and stretched at full length on his sofa, is tranquillizing his jaded mind with a cigarette and a French novel, when some- one knocks sharply at his door. " Come in," cries the literary theorist, raising his head slightly, and obedient to the command, Charlie Detfield enters the apart- ment. " Hard at work. Fox, as usual, I see," observed Charlie, grinning, and throwing his hat and gloves carelessly on the table. It is a little joke amongst Brine's friends always to afi^ect a belief that he is over- whelmed with work. "Halloa, Charlie!" returned that gentle- 156 TWO KISSES. man, making a supreme effort, and thereby attaining a sitting position. " You find me '■paresseux comme un vrai artiste.' What brings you to the East so early ? It looks bad, young man, when Her Majesty's guardsmen are doing business in the City at these, for them, abnormal hours. There is a suspicion of looking after money in unwholesome localities about it." " I don't know that I should quarrel much about the locality. Fox ; if I could but discover a Tom Tiddler's ground, I'd not be very particular as to the where," replied Detfield, as he threw himself wearily back in a chair. They were old college friends these two, and had been sworn allies ever since. Though running in very different grooves, yet both were essentially London men, and consequently they often met. The guards- man was always delighted if he could induce Brine to join his dinner on the Bank guard, and knew that his friend was TWO KISSES. 157 equally pleased whenever he hivaded his rooms in the Temple. " Financial tightness, eh, Charlie ?" replied Brine, lazily. " I tell you what it is — it's all nonsense to talk of the unpleasantness, but really there's nothing like suffering the pomp of respectable poverty. Now I put it to you. It has happened to me in the month of August to have predilections in favour of dining at Richmond, or down the river, when the state of the exchequer has compelled me devour a chop at the ' Cheshire Cheese ' instead. I really doubt whether I did not suffer as much, mentally, as dis- reputable poverty which didn't dine at all." " Yes, old fellow, but you had somev/hat the pull of them physically, you know," rejoined Detfield, helping himself to a cigar from a box on the table. " Physical suffering dulls mental," responded Fox, dogmatically. " And, therefore, if you had only abstained 158 TWO KISSES. from gratifying your unholy appetite — kept, in short, the fast which your circumstances demanded, you wouldn't have had your mind harassed and perturbed by visions of Rich- mond Park and the silvery Thames. But I want to talk to you, Fox." "Well," replied Mr. Brine, languidly, " talk. If you're going to rave about feminine attractions, don't be offended if I doze. If you're in a scrape, with a woman at the bottom of it, don't ask my advice, because I know by experience a man always goes his own way under such circumstances — if it's a financial scrape, my sympathy and name are at your service. ' I give you all, I can no more.' As regards more substantial help, imagine me as our Transatlantic friends say ^ cornered.' I presume you can't have come to grief except through love or paper." "Never mind my love affairs, they're not likely to hurt me." " I have heard that you are carrying on TWO KISSES, 159 with Mrs. Paynter, more than our grand- mothers would approve," observed Brine, meditatively. " Don't be a fool, Fox," retorted Charlie, laughing. "Do you want to know the worst? I admire Mrs. Paynter- — I like her better than any other woman in London, and just at present, she condescends to approve of me ; but, old fellow, she's not likely to lose her head, supposing even that I did ; no harm, believe me, will come of that flirtation." " God bless me ! how can you go on with it, then .^" exclaimed Brine. " It must be so very insipid. Flirtation I always understood to be '* ' A chase of idle hopes and fears, Begun in folly, closed in tears/ I never go in for it myself, and I'm glad now I don't. I always looked upon it like playing with fire ; that there was all the excitement of a possible conflagration — " i6o TWO KISSES. " Do hold your tongue. Fox. I want to ask you a question. Do you know anything about Major Claxby Jenkens ?" *' Well, 1 might say no further than that I do know him by sight, but I'm not quite clear if I thought it all out that I couldn^t tell you something about him." " Then think it all out, because he's becoming rather a prominent fact in my somewhat disordered affairs, just now, and I should like to know what I can about him. Is he a money-lender in the first place. Has he a daughter in the second, and thirdly, who the devil is Claxby Jenkens ?" " No, I don't quite think he's a money- lender, Charlie," replied Brine, as he threw his cigarette into the grate, " and as to who Claxby Jenkens is, I fancy nobody but Claxby Jenkens can inform you. As for daughters, he may have a dozen for all I know. What do you want to know for.?" TWO KISSES. i6j " Well," said Detfield, " if not of the tribes he's in alliance with them. I hap- pened to see him on business the other day, and he not only proposed matrimony as a cure for my habilities, but offered to find the lady." " The devil he did !" exclaimed Fox Brine, starting up with considerable animation ; " this becomes interesting. By Jove ! there's a drama to be got out of this. Act the First. On the road to ruin. — Act the Second. Ruined, despair, suicidal thoughts. — Act the Third. Salvation, and marriage with Rebecca, daughter of Isaac the Jew. Think of the tableaux, my boy," he continued, enthusiastically. " Epsom Downs for the fall of the drop in Act I. Waterloo Bridge by moonlight, for Act II., of course you're saved by the policeman — no, perhaps you had better go over the parapet, and be rescued by the jolly young waterman and Rebecca, who happens to be taking her pleasure on the river just then. Water scene VOL. I. M 1 62 TWO KISSES. that would beat the ^ Colleen Bawn' hollow. Act III., Tableau. A Jewess wedding, with Moorish ballet — quite permissible if not quite correct. Art, Sir, cannot be fettered by accuracy of detail ; all right, Charlie, my boy, we'll get a drama out of it any way, and pay all our debts. I've got two or three veteran creditors we shall probably kill. They dun me whenever their livers are out of order and the gout threatens them. I'm a sort of open sore that carries off their noxious humours. When they've no- body to bully, they'll probably cease to exist. "Well, now. Fox, if you have done raving," observed Detfield, who could not help laughing at seeing his friend so fairly off on that visionary hobby, that he had never ceased riding since he had commenced keeping his terms for the bar. " I should like—" " Raving, and you'd like — " interrupted Brine, with mock solemnity, "what would TWO KISSES. 163 you like. Sir ? What more would you have ? You come to me, a votary of art, with your petty worldly grievances, and I reduce them, by the inspiration of my genius to a dramatic poem, a conception calculated to make not only you but all London weep at the story of your woes. Great Heavens ! when I propose to harrow the whole metro- polis with the history of your wrongs, what more would you have, ingrate? I have done. Now, you soulless being, what's the row ?" " That which yourself has raised chiefly," replied Charlie. " I only want a quiet talk, and I should like — " " To have it all to yourself," interrupted Brine. "No, I'll not submit to the mono- logue. Do you think I also have not ideas, and that it does not occur to me to express them." " No, by Jove, I don't, nor any one else that knows you, but still I should like—" M 2 1 64 TWO KISSES. " Of course you would," again interposed Brine. " Why on earth can't you say what you would like at once, instead of beating about the bush in this manner ?" " Something to drink," replied Charlie, grinning. He knew Fox Brine thoroughly, and was not to be extinguished by his badinage. " And why couldn't you say so before ? There never is any bringing you military men to the point," rejoined Brine, with the utmost gravity. " Well, I don't think if you put that point to my company. Fox, you'll have much cause of complaint. Meanwhile, give me some claret and soda, and I'll tell you some news for it." "What's that.?" inquired Brine, as he produced the required beverage. " I think Montague Gore is in a fair way to get married." " Montague Gore married, pooh, my dear Charlie ! what put that into your head ? TWO KISSES. 165 Don't you know the story of my poor sister ?" "Yes, I have heard the history of that tragedy of his early days/' replied Detfield ; '' but you must remember that was a good while ago. He is pretty hard hit now, I fancy, and so think better judges than I." " The better judges in this case being Mrs. Paynter," observed Brine, without ever glancing at his companion. "Well, it's a thing I'd sooner have a woman's opinion on than a man's, if you're quite sure that you have really got it ; but ladies sometimes pre- dict what they wish on this point. You see, I've known Gore all my life, and although he is a dozen years my senior, intimately. He was always kind to me when I was a little beggar. We came from the same neighbourhood, and are in a way connected. Now who's the lady?" "A Mrs. Hemsworth, a widow, and further than that her late husband was in business of some kind at Paris, I can tell i66 TWO KISSES. you nothing — stay, yes, I can ; the widow- is a deuced good-looking, attractive, lady- like woman." "That's all you know, eh?" inquired Brine. " All !" replied Detfield, tersely. " Very good ; now we'll discuss your own marriage." " I say, hold on, what are you talking about .^" cried Charlie, hurriedly. "This little prescription that Doctor Jenkens has prescribed for you. He is a clever man that. I really don't see, my dear Charlie, if you're in the difficulties I deem, what you could do better. There's only one thing puzzles me, what the deuce makes him take such a fatherly interest in you ? I shouldn't have supposed, from what I have heard of him, that there was much of the philanthropist about the Major." " But you don't suppose. Fox, I'm going to undertake to marry a woman in that sort of way — a girl whom I've never seen.''" TWO KISSES. 167 " Well, why the deuce don't you see her ? She may be a vision of light, an embodiment of grace and beauty, a perfect houri, for all you can tell." " But I tell you I don't want to marry." " My dear Charlie, it's no use at your time of life talking about what you don't want to do, we're all the victims of circum- stances. The world, in the shape of your creditors, requires you to sacrifice yourself on what is usually termed the Hymeneal altar. Don't be indecorous, you've had your fling. It's quite time you were settled." " How nice you talk," said Detfield, laughing in spite of himself " I wonder how you'd Hke it?" " J might not like it, Sir ;" replied Fox, with the utmost gravity, " but if it was im- parted to me that a bride and riches were awaiting my acceptance, I should certainly display resignation, and think it my duty to society to throw no obstacles in the way of i68 TWO KISSES. what society would no doubt deem so de- sirable." " Very well, old fellow, I shall be de- lighted to resign in your favour. In the meantime, remember I want to know what you can make out about Claxby Jen kens. Now I must be going." "Yes; but Charlie, you're not in a con- dition to resign. Resignation in your case means not going to the country, but going to that most unappeasable constituency — your creditors. Bribery is the only thing that will content them. Bribery is a question of money, so go, my friend, bow to your destiny and marry." " No, Fox, ril leave that to you ;" said Charlie, gaily, as he took up his hat, " and in the meantime " " You'll probably make a further mess of it ;" observed Brine, quietly. "Play the devil with the third act, in short ; perhaps so, we shall see," and with a careless nod, Detfield took his departure. TWO KISSES. 169 " It's a rum thing ! but then rum things are always coming about," mused Mr. Brine. '^ Old Jenkens interesting himself in Charlie Detfield is what may be denominated an uncommonly rum thing. But as for the drama, Charlie's not going to spoil that. I'm not going to be confined to facts, and I'll marry him on paper in the third act, whatever he may think fit to do in reality." W^-^^ -— ^v^ CHAPTER X. THE MISSES STANBURY. BARNSBURY PARK, Islington, Is a thoroughfare of unmistakable respect- ability. The houses all look well-to-do, as if they were the homes of thriving citizens with comfortable balances at their bankers. Plenty of plate-glass to be seen in the dressing-room windows. Flowers carefully cultivated on the balconies. The gardens running up from the roadway to the front door are all neat, trim, and natty, bright with blossom in the summer time, and filled with shrubs in the winter. Barnsbury Park TWO KISSES. 171 is evidently addicted to floriculture, and makes the most of the limited ground at its command. One house in particular there seemed to pride itself upon its garden, its windows, and a small conservatory that was built over its porch. In the season it was gay past conception with roses, azaleas, and all sorts of hot-house plants ; the balconies were filled with them, the little garden was a blaze of colour, and the afore- said conservatory thronged with delicate ferns and other rare specimens. In the winter time the cunning of the gardener filled the beds with dwarf hollies all glittering with their crimson berries, with glossy-leaved Portugal laurels, and other evergreens, so that even then it did not look bare, dank, and melancholy, as gardens are wont to do at that time of year. In the house, as was well-known to the neighbourhood, resided two maiden ladies of the name of Stanbury. Of the Misses Stan- burys' antecedents Barnsbury Park knew 173 TWO KISSES. nothing, and cared less. They had taken possession of Roseneath House some ten or twelve years back, were evidently possessed of ample means, paid their bills regularly, and attended church with undeviating punc- tiliousness. Had indeed rather a penchant for clergyman's society, were thought to hold themselves somewhat high, and were vaguely reputed to be of good family. In fact, the Misses Stanbury were sometimes considered to give themselves airs on the strength of their presumed aristocratic connexions, other- wise they were two harmless elderly ladies, with a great love for gossip, cards, and rather full-flavoured religion. Of course they were not altogether alike, no two people ever are in this world, much as their tastes may assimilate. Miss Matilda was the less worldly of the two ; more given to gossip and good works than her sister. Miss Clementina had carnal inclinations with regard to cards and light suppers, in a more pronounced degree than Miss Matilda. But TWO KISSES, 173 on two points there was not a pin to choose between them, namely their extreme passion for flowers, and their preposterous admiration of their niece Bessie. It is true that there were extenuating circumstances ; but still the way these two old ladies did combine to pet and spoil Bessie Stanbury, just turned of eighteen, was a sorrowful sight to see. Bessie, with her quaint whimsical ways, had not altogether succumbed to it as yet, but who shall say how long at her age it will be before she deteriorates. There is not an atom of selfish- ness about Bessie ; and that is a considerable safeguard to her, under the circumstances. Meanwhile, in her own airy fashion, she tyrannizes over her supposed guardians to their extreme delectation. A good-looking girl one would say, re- garding her as she sits sipping her tea, this dull November afternoon. Her close-fitting riding habit shows a neat trim figure, and as she has thrown off^ her hat, the thick 174 TWO KISSES. coils of her brown hair are exposed to view. A bright quick face lit by laughing hazel eyes, straightish brows, nez retroussee, and a very pretty mouth, such is Bessie Stanbury. "Yes, Aunt Clem, I did enjoy my canter. I always do, you know, but as I said before, Barnsbury Park is a little dull." "Why, my dear child, what would you have ? I'm sure we are always going out." " Exactly, but then you see. Aunt Clem, your goings out and my goings out are not quite the same thing. You know I like dancing better than cards. Now Barnsbury Park, like that dreadful dragoon regiment, I forget which it was, don't dance." "You're a great deal too volatile, Bessie," interposed Miss Matilda, laughing. " A round game and people to talk to was considered quite dissipation enough for a puss of eighteen in my time." " But, Aunt Matilda," rejoined Bessie, TWO KISSES. 175 with mock gravity. " Things are changed since your time, and really in these days it is a slur upon a young woman not to have indulged in a little valsing. I do think you will have to give a ball upon my account.'* " A ball !" exclaimed Miss Matilda. " My dear Bessie !" ejaculated Aunt Clem. "Well, you know, it needn't be quite a ball. We'll call it a dance, and then it won't sound so tremendous." " Good gracious ! what would Mr. Hold- enough say .^" cried Miss Matilda. "And Mr. Roxby," chimed in Aunt Clem, " Say nothing, but come if we invited them. That's not the difficulty. It is much more serious. Where are we to find the young men ?" " I won't have any young men about my place," observed Miss Matilda, with a toss of her head. 176 TWO KISSES. " Oh, dear ! what's to become of me, Oh, dear! what shall I do ?" sang Bessie, with eyes brimming over with laughter. " You must, Aunt Tilda. I know they are objectionable. They will light their cigars in the hall, horrid things, as they go away ; but you see we girls can't get on without them when it comes to dancing, and they are useful in other ways, you know." " In what way. Miss, I should like to be informed?" demanded Miss Matilda austerely. " Well, Auntie, I can't say exactly ; but they get tickets for things, you see, and they tell us what is going on, and— and — and — in short there is a good deal of information to be picked up from them," concluded Bessie, with a peal of laughter. Clear, ringing, musical laughter, that spoke of youth with high hope and trust in the world before it. TWO KISSES. 177 " Mr. Roxby was saying the other day that we ought to mix more in society on Bessie's account," observed Aunt Clem, meditatively. " Never mind Mr. Roxby," returned that young lady, gaily. " Don't trouble your heads on Bessie's account, till Bessie herself begins chattering about what she wants. As you know by sad experience. Aunt Clem, she calls out pretty quick for anything she fancies. You needn't be afraid she'll leave you in ignorance. There's a kiss for you," continued Miss Stanbury, giving her aunt a hug, " and now I must run away and take off my habit." "I dare say it is rather dull for a bright young thing like her," said Miss Clementina, as the door closed on Bessie. " Our little card parties and so on can't be much fun for her." " Yes, sister, I'll admit that," returned Miss Matilda, " but we really cannot have a ball here. It's preposterous, not to be thought of." VOL. I. N 178 TWO KISSES. " I don't think Bessie quite meant that/* observed Miss Clementina, with a quiet smile. " It was only her fun." The two aunts differed very much in this. Miss Matilda never could see through her niece's badinage, but took it all quite seriously while Miss Clementina did in great measure understand it, and enjoyed it in her quiet way immensely. There is usually a suspicion of truth in most badinage, and in many cases a good deal more than that. Few of us but can recall schemes or ideas mooted in jest, which after events showed the speaker must have had very much at heart. " You see, Matilda," continued Aunt Clem, after a short pause, " although I don't think Bessie the least in earnest about a ball, I do think she would be very pleased if we gave a little dance, though I don't believe she really dreams of our doing such a thing." " But we cannot have a lot of supercilious TWO KISSES. 179 young men about here, sneering at our quiet old-fashioned arrangements, and the young men of these days are incessantly turning up their noses ; nothing ever is good enough for them, and their noses never come down. They are very inferior to the young men of our day, Clem." Alas ! it always is so, everything deteriorates as youth ebbs from us. " The cows gave then a sweeter cream, And swifter ran the miller's stream, Far larger grapes from vines were swung ; For boys were braver to all eyes. And girls did not poor youth despise. In twenty-two, when I was young." " I don't know," replied Aunt Clem, smiling. " Luckily Bessie can't compare them and see how inferior they are. Besides, Matilda, how is she ever going to get a husband if she doesn't meet with young men: " A child like her doesn't want a husband. I do hope, Clementina, you haven't been N 2 i8o TWO KISSES. putting ridiculous ideas into her head." "Oh, dear!" laughed Aunt Clem, "such ideas want no putting into a girl's head, they're implanted there by nature. But though she mayn't want a husband yet, still she will some day. Remember she's an heiress, and ought to have more opportunity of selection than our humdrum life affords her." " I don't consider our life humdrum, and have no doubt that Bessie will find a wooer quite soon enough," retorted Matilda with much asperity. " What's that about Bessie .^" exclaimed the young lady in question, as she once more entered the room. " What's Bessie done or about to do .^" " Take a book, and hold her tongue, I trust," retorted Miss Matilda, tartly. The girl opened her eyes, and glanced with mute inquiry to Miss Clementina, but that lady only shook her head, and elevated her eyebrows slightly. TWO KISSES. iSi Bessie paused for a second, then marched dehberately across to Miss Matilda's chair and knelt beside it. "Now, Aunt," she said gaily, " let's have it out at once. What have I done ? I'll not be in disgrace without knowing why. What is it?" Terrible to confront are these frank, direct people. To state in precise terms the offending of all those who incur our dis- pleasure would occasion a good deal of humming hawing, and, it is to be feared, invention on the part of most of us in the course of the twelve months. When we have wrought ourselves up to the pitch of a very pretty quarrel, it is dreadfully em- barrassing to be called on to state our grounds for it. Miss Matilda felt nonplussed. She had a vague feeling of being aggrieved, and a still more misty idea that Bessie was the culprit. She felt a Httle out of temper, and wanted a scapegoat, that was all. But here was the i82 TWO KISSES terrible scapegoat requesting an abstract of the charges preferred against her. Whoever heard of such conduct on the part of a scapegoat ? For my part, I quite feel for Miss Matilda. I don't see how ill-humour is to be vented, or how we can ever quarrel comfortably with our neighbours if an ex- planation is to be insisted on in the very first stage. We cannot humbug ourselves about the real reason then, usually entirely different from that we have taught ourselves to believe some few weeks later. "Done, child," said Miss Matilda, "no- thing, that is to say, more than I am accustomed to on your part. You've talked nonsense." "Oh, my Aunt, if that's all," laughed Bessie, " I don't think I can be in much disgrace. But what was it ?" "Well, / can't have any dancing here, sauce -box," replied Miss Matilda, melt- ing rapidly, as her niece fondled her hand. TWO KISSES. 183 " Oh, that's it is it ?" returned Bessie, springing to her feet. "Now, Aunt Clem, you will have to subdue your thirsting for a quadrille. And as for me, I must exorcise those ^ Fille de Mme. Angot valses ' from my brain. Here's the head of the house says she'll have none of such frivolities. I tell you what. Aunt Matilda, either sell or make fire-wood of the piano. We'll put away all temptation from within the gates, and give the street organs notice of legal proceedings if they come here with their jig-a-jig tunes. We're going to be good — very good — good surpassing all calculation. What would you have me wear. Aunt, during that period of repentance ?" " Sit down, and let's have a truce to your nonsense," replied Miss Matilda, smiling, and with an inward conviction that Bessie would prove too much for her, and that Roseneath House would entertain dancers after all. " Ah, yes. Aunt Clem and I must com- i84 TWO KISSES. mence reformation henceforth. Peas in their shoes is the only fit punishment for people with such dreadful ideas." '' I don't see why we shouldn't give a little dance," said Miss Clementina, musingly. " My dear Clementina !" said Aunt Matilda, in tones of expostulation, a good deal more mellowed all the same, than those in which she had met the first proposal of such a thing. "I'm shocked at you. Aunt Clem," said Bessie. " I trust the head of the house doesn't think I'm an abettor of your dis- sipated views," and the girl threw herself back in a chair, and indulged in a low gur- gling laugh, irresistibly catching. The elder ladies gradually took the in- fection and joined in it. "It's the old story, Clementina," cried Miss Matilda, at length. " I suppose this spoilt child must have her own way r TWO KISSES. 185 "No dancing on my account, please," retorted Bessie, demurely. " Life has, I am aware, higher objects than pointing your toe. Still if you insist upon giving a ball, Aunt Matilda, I know I shall do my duty, and I can valse if required." " Oh, well, Bessie, if you don't really care about it — " *' But I do care about it, you dear old Aunt," cried Miss Bessie, springing to her feet, and making a tumultuous dash at Miss Matilda. " There," she continued, kissing her, " that's settled, we're to have a dance. How big we don't know — nobody ever does, I believe, when they first contemplate taking up the carpet." " Take up the carpet, my dear Bessie, I didn't intend that." " No, but you see it would be so bad for the carpet if it was left down, we might dance holes in it — think of that. Now, if we come to the boards, we shall only dance holes in our shoes." i86 TWO KISSES. " We had better do the thhig properly while we are about it/' chimed in Aunt Clem. " Oh, yes," exclaimed Bessie, " and it won't bother you a bit. Aunt Matilda. It's only locking yourself up in your bedroom for two days, or having a couple of afternoons at the South Kensington Ex- hibition." Miss Matilda, her little fit of ill-temper now thoroughly dissipated, could not help laughing at her niece's proposition, but rejoined, " No, Bessie, I think I had better stop and help superintend the arrangements. My old head may turn out useful." " Of course you will be useful, invaluable," cried Bessie. " What fun it will be planning it all. Why, we shall have two or three days' immense amusement, contriving, before the thing comes to pass. You, I, and Aunt Clem, how busy we shall be," and then the girl stole her armx gently round Miss TWO KISSES. 187 Matilda's waist, and said softly, " and how- good you both are to me." " Go away with you, you little wheedler," rejoined Miss Stanbury, with a mock aiFec- tation of austerity. ^'I have always re- marked that concession invariably leads to further requirements where you are con- cerned — you get no more out of me to-night. Miss. Heaven only knows what you'll be wanting next ! Coote and Tinney's band, or some similar absurdity. You had best try what you can make of Aunt Clem now, and I give her warning," continued Miss Matilda, raising her voice, "that what she pledges herself to, she does upon her own responsi- bility, and at her own personal risk and expense." " I can't do anything more with her, to-night," cried the girl, laughing merrily. "She's pledged to give a ball, and that's enough for the present. If she's mean. Aunt Clem, when it comes to details, you and I will have to run our credit in the i88 TWO KISSES. neighbourhood ; for the Roseneath ball must not, shall not, and cannot prove a failure." And so came about a ball which will have something to say to the course of this history. CHAPTER XL GOOD COUNSEL. MRS. PAYNTER has thought a good deal over her interview with Major Claxby Jenkens. She has questioned CharHe Detfield pretty sharply about his relations with that gallant officer, but is fain to confess that she has not gathered much information concerning them. " Yes," Charlie said, '^ of course he knew him, one of those sort of fellows everybody knew. Who was he ? That was just what it was. Kind of fellow you never did know anything about. He had had some sort of igo TWO KISSES. business transactions with him ; was talking to him the other day about buying that horse of Packenham's, but they couldn't deal. Jenkens does a good deal on commission in the buying and selling way," remarked Charlie. "Well, but is he a friend of yours .^" in- quired Mrs. Paynter, pertinaciously. " Certainly not," replied Detfield, " an acquaintance, nothing more." " It's very odd," thought Mrs. Paynter. " It's very odd," thought Charlie Detfield, " what has put this idea into her head ?" and in his turn he inquired, " what she knew about Major Jenkens." But Mrs. Paynter had not as yet made up her mind, and she refused to tell him any- thing — laughed it off, and said that was her secret. One of these days, perhaps, he would be married, and then she would con- fess it all to his wife. To which Charlie had promptly replied, that, though he had no intention of committing matrimony just then he'd prefer that these secrets of his bachelor TWO KISSES. 191 days should be buried in oblivion, although what this particular secret might be he did not pretend to guess. Still Mrs. Paynter, working out this problem with all a woman's quiet steady persistency, did easily arrive at the certainty of what she had already sus- pected, namely, that Charlie Detfield was in desperate difficulties, in short, as one of her informants told her, " had shot his bolt." Coquette, yes she was, and could not help it. The game of flirtation was the essence of life to her, but for all that she was not a bad woman. She was not of that kind who, merciless in their hour of triumph, look with pitiless disdain upon their writhing victim. Lizzie was wont to be stricken with remorse, when her admirers were too seriously wounded. She didn't mean that, why could they not content themselves with a little sentiment as she did, instead of making the terrible mistake of getting so dreadfully in earnest. Although, as before said, she was 192 TWO KISSES. too hardened a flirt not to somewhat enjoy a scene at the time, yet she had her moments of penitence afterwards. More especially, too, was she always anxious to part friends on these occasions, and as a rule she suc- ceeded. She was a very curious combination of good and evil, a combination much more common in this world than perhaps is usually credited. People in their inexorable judg- ment of appearances will be hard of belief, that one of the most reckless flirts it is possible to conceive could in reality be true and loyal^ to her husband. And yet they will readily admit similar social problems without question. When one of our com- mercial lights has first flirted with, and finally run away with other folks monies, there are never wanting friends to discant on his domestic virtues. Still, as the coster- monger remarked, upon selling the pine- apple, " everything in this world goes by appearances;" and if you would be credited TWO KISSES. 193 with virtue, you must at all events give no occasion for scandal. Mrs. Paynter, too, is just now extremely interested in Montague Gore's palpable devotion to the fair widow, and awaits the denouement with considerable impatience. " Quite evident," thinks Lizzie, " that he will speak whenever Cissy chooses to make him. Why does she delay ? It is true that they couldn't be married for another six months. I suppose the proprieties must be observed, even when your late husband was an ill- tempered, ill-bred brute. But with her miserable prospects I should think it would be a comfort to get something definitely settled, and yet she goes on as calmly con- fident about her future, as if the whole thing was assured. Poor darling ! why she hasn't even got a parish to come down upon, for she has no idea where she was born, beyond that it was in England." And once more Mrs. Paynter's mind was exercised as to whether Cissy was deep, past all calculation, VOL. I. o 194 TWO KISSES. or next door to a fool. " And yet she can't be the latter," thought Lizzie. " I never hear people complain that she cannot talk — that they are unable to get on with her. On the contrary, wherever I have taken her, people seemed charmed with her piquante graceful manners. It is true, in consequence of her mourning, I have not been able to do much for her in that line as yet, still I know from what I have seen that society hold her quick enough." But Mrs. Paynter's attention was destined to be for a little thoroughly absorbed in Captain Detfield's affairs. Although she had boldly asserted to the Major that if Charlie's extrication from his difficulties was to be accomplished by matrimony, she was quite as capable of finding him a wife as any one ; yet, when she came to reflect upon it, she was forced to admit that she could not call to mind any eligible young lady just at present. She could not make up her mind as to whether she would ally herself with TWO KISSES. 195 the Major or not. If she could but be certain that he was honestly striving to help Charlie in the only feasible manner that occurred to him, well then she would exert all her influence to induce that impoverished guardsman to comply with Major Jenkens's wishes. " Yes," she said, with a sigh, and putting on an aspect of touching resignation, " I will sacrifice my own feelings to save him. He shall marry this red-haired, red-elbowed woman, who has been discovered for him, and I trust he will be happy and — more prudent." Why Mrs. Paynter should picture the unknown heiress as possessed of these un- prepossessing attributes one can't say, but she derived much comfort and support from having so imaged her. She had worked her- self quite up to the belief that she was about to make a stupendous sacrifice for the sake of the man she loved, and pleased herself by picturing up a most pathetic parting scene with Charlie Detfield. o 2 196 TWO KISSES. There was more imagination than heart in Lizzie's affaires de cceur always, but one thing she was in earnest about. She was wilHng to resign her admirer for his own interest ; but she kept back, even from her- self, as yet one important condition namely, that it must be to a woman whom she could not possibly regard as a rival. She had told Major Jenkens that she would see this bride he had elected for Detfield, and still held firmly to that idea as a sine qua non of giving him her support. She had said that she would write to him when she had made up her mind, but of course she had not done so, and had good grounds for refraining. It was evident from what she had gathered, that this man was no friend of Charlie's. What then made him take such an interest in this marriage } She had lived too much in the world not to suppose that he must have some scheme of his own to serve in doing so, and naturally divined that this might not tend very much TWO KISSES. 197 to Captain Detfield's advantage. Once make her clearly understand that it really was for his benefit, and Lizzie was just the woman with generosity enough to ignore herself and not stand in the way. She knew perfectly that her influence at present over Charlie was quite sufficient to crush such a design easily ; but then though she liked him, it was in her own butterfly fashion, and her feelings were by no means so deeply involved as to prevent her proving a true friend to him should cir- cumstances give opportunity. A month and more has gone by since the Major's visit, and Lizzie has almost for- gotten it, though she had thought much over it for some days after it had occurred. One morning she received a note, which brought back the afl^air vividly to her memory. Persevering as a mole this Major, and like that mysterious animal strong, pugnacious, unscrupulous, and given to underground practices. Lizzie opened her note and read, 198 TWO KISSES. " Madam, "Not having had the honour of hearing from you, it is fair to presume that you do not as yet see your way into supplying Captain Detfield with that great desideratum of all men's lives — money. I did myself the honour to point out to you in the inter- view you were so good as to accord me, that it was not only an essential, but a speedy essential to him. On the supposition that you have no scheme in hand for his relief at present, would you undertake to persuade him to accept the accompanying invitation ? It can do him no harm — it may benefit him considerably. "Trusting that you will abstain from mentioning my name at present in this matter. " I have the honour to be, " Your obliged and obedient servant, " Claxby Jenkens. " 6, Charles Street, Berkeley Square." " Well," mused Mrs. Paynter, " no harm TWO KISSES. 199 can come of his accepting an invitation to a , what is it? Let me see," and Lizzie took up the accompanying card. " ^ The Misses Stanbury's at home. Dancing at nine. Roseneath House, Barnsbury Park, Islington.' This is getting mysterious — who ever would have dreamt of seeking an heiress out IsHng- ton way. Yes ; Charlie must go. Right or wrong, we must investigate this. I am getting horribly curious to have a look at this daughter of ingots. Charlie can't come to grief in attending a dance, I think ; but to make all things safe, I'll attend it too. I'll take very good care that he don't pro- pose that night, at all events. Impudent thing, perhaps she'll ask him. Well ! if she does, I'll undertake he says no. Oh dear ! this will be tremendous fun. Whoever heard of a woman chaperoning an admirer before, and that's what I intend to do. Now for my friend the Major, I dare say he thinks I shall commit myself, more or less, but he'll be mistaken ;" and then Lizzie 200 TWO KISSES. laughed, and sitting down at her desk, po- litely informed Major Jenkens that she regretted she could be of no assistance to him in this matter. " Had I been fortunate enough myself to receive a card for the Misses Stanbury's dance, I might, perhaps, have asked Captain Detfield to accom- pany us, but as things are, I am sorry to say I can render you no help what- ever." " A clever woman," muttered the Major, when he received this note, "and determined to see evidently. Now I'd rather she didn't, for, from what Roxby tells me. Miss Stanbury's a trifle too good looking to en- list her sympathies. Well, it cuts both ways, if it makes it more difficult with Mrs. Paynter, it'll smooth matters with the Cap- tain. Hum — yes, by Jove ! I've an idea. I don't know. Madam, but I think Claxby Jenkens may prove just one too many for you all the same," and the Major chuckled to himself with considerable gusto as he en- TWO KISSES. 30I closed a card for the Roseneath dance to his fair but dubious ally. Of course, Mrs. Paynter felt pretty as- sured that this would come. The next thing to be done, was to entrap the uncon- scious victim. " Not much difficulty about it," thinks Lizzie. " If he doesn't turn up for afternoon tea to-day, he will to-morrow, most probably." Charlie is pretty regular in his devotions, and seldom allows two days to pass without doing homage at the tea-table of his fair enchantress. As Mrs. Paynter anticipates, a little after five, and Captain Detfield is ushered into her cosy drawing-room, and having made his salutations, proceeds to establish himself in an arm-chair near the fire that he particularly affects. " Yes ; you will do there very nicely," remarked Lizzie laughing. " I have no- ticed that when you are installed in that seat, you are usually too lazy to get out of it, unless either force of circumstances, or 202 TWO KISSES. peremptory commands impel you to the effort." " It is a very comfortable chair, and you know, lady fair, that I am never so happy as when basking in the sunshine of your presence." " Ah well ! you are at liberty to bask for a little, because, you see, I have something to say to you. Will you come with us to a dance Friday week .?" " Only too charmed to attend any festival in your society, as however dreary such festival may ultimately turn out, I, at least, shall be safe," replied Charlie. " Very good. Sir, then we will give you some dinner here on Friday, and afterwards you shall accompany us to the wilds of IsHngton." " Islington ! what on earth takes you to Islington. Deuced odd — I've got a card from some Strawberries, no Cranberries, to a dance up that way." " Stanbury's you mean — the very people." TWO KISSES. 203 " But how did you come to know them ?" inquired Charlie, with some Httle, curio- sity. " I don't know them as yet, but I hope to make their acquaintance by attending their dance. Very rich people, Tm told." " I never heard of them before, and have no conception what induced them to honour me with an invitation. Not likely I should have troubled them, if it had not been for the unexpected inducement you hold out." " But you know you ought to go every where," replied Mrs. Paynter gravely. " So I do," laughed Charlie, " nobody can accuse me of playing the misanthrope." " Yes," continued the lady in serious tones. " It is getting time you were settled. You know you're desperately hard up, Charlie. Marriage is the only thing to give you a fair start again, so, of course, you must marry." " This from you !" interposed Detfield. " Naturally, who should you expect good 204 TWO KISSES. advice from, if not from me. Young ladies of fortune require looking for, therefore, I repeat, your duty to yourself is to go every- where — " " And give young ladies of fortune an opportunity of selection," retorted Charlie, laughing. " Still, I never thought you would take an interest in my marriage." " A woman always takes an interest in the future of a man who has been interested in her," observed Mrs. Paynter demurely. " Oh ! you admit I have been that." " Yes ; will go further, and say you are still. Stop !" she continued, with an impe- rious gesture of her hand, as she saw he was about to speak. " I don't think you have ever been seriously epris with any woman. Of course, I admit your devotion to myself is the exception ; but I am afraid that you might manage even to get over that in a case of emergency." " And you are prepared to resign my homage at any moment." TWO KISSES. ^ 205 " I must not think of myself," rejoined the lady plaintively. " It would be for your own good, you know." Detfield paused for some minutes before he answered, gazing steadily into the fire meanwhile. He knew, in good truth, that this was no more than one of those butterfly liaisons in which his whole life had been passed, but it was a blow to his self-love to think that his devotion could be resigned so lightly. It was the first time he had encountered a woman so completely of his own calibre. A more thorough practitioner, indeed, in the science of flirtation than him- self. A clever woman too, whom he felt read him at sight. Still he had flattered himself that she would be wrath, at all events, at the bare idea of his seceding from his post of cavaliere serz^ente — and yet she herself was coolly recommending that he should marry. Women don't do that if their feelings are much involved, Charlie knew full well. He was not anxious. 2o6 TWO KISSES. perhaps, that Lizzie should arrive at that point regarding him. He had more than once encountered the difficulties of too ex- igeante a passion, and was aware that a woman's jealousy may ruffle the rose-leaves of life considerably. If you embark in illicit flirtation, you must encounter these experiences. Still he was not prepared to submit quietly to curt dismissal. " I don't know about my own good, at all," he replied at length, somewhat brusquely. " tt would seem that you, at all events, wish to get rid of me." She had been studying his face keenly. She had guessed pretty well what was run- ning through his mind, but she was bent on carrying out her whim. She had no thought as yet of aiding the Major's scheme, further than that she would satisfy her own curiosity, and see this girl it was proposed should be Detfield's bride. " Unjust ! unjust !" she murmured. " You're all alike, you always are. When TWO KISSES. 207 we stifle our own feelings in order to honestly serve you, then you call us heartless, callous, flirts." " I did not say that," replied Charlie, quickly. " As if it was necessary to be rude enough to say so," retorted Lizzie, petulantly, " as if a glance, a gesture, could not insinuate such meaning to any woman not absolutely a fool; as if. Captain Detfield, you had not in your own mind accused me of being all three during the last few minutes," concluded Mrs. Paynter, defiantly. He knew that it was so, and rejoined somewhat coolly. "Your alarming interest concerning my marriage naturally led me to think that you wished to be rid of me." " Don't be foolish," she broke in quickly. "I only wish to extricate you from your involvements, and even then, mind, I shall withhold my permission, unless she possesses one most necessary qualification." 2o8 TWO KISSES. " And that is ?" "Being tolerably plain," retorted Lizzie, laughing, " I don't want you to be able to break my chains altogether, you see. And now we are friends again, are we not ? and you will come with us to this dance on Friday next?" " Certainly, if you wish it ; though what has put it into your head to conspire to marry me to a Gorgon, I can't conceive," remarked Charlie, rising. " Your creditors, of course," retorted Mrs. Paynter, laughing, " but it's not so bad as that. I only insist on some one who shall not eclipse me. But I may make my mind easy. Wealth and beauty are not often found awaiting a wooer, and when they are — well they expect a good deal in exchange. Good-bye !" " It seems to be growing on the com- munity, generally, that I am to marry an El Dorado," mused Charlie, as he walked leisurely homewards. " Well, as the public TWO KISSES. 209 seem to have taken my case up, I shall leave the public to settle that arrangement if they can. Personally, I decline to interfere with inevitable destiny in that fashion. I have remarked that some of those I know have not become particularly light-hearted after achieving it. Not so cheery by half as they were in their old days of chronic insolvency." VOL. CHAPTER XII. TO WED OR NOT TO WED. TO vanish from the world we live in ! a thing at once so easy, so difficult of achievement. I am speaking of dis- appearance from that narrow circle which constitutes the world to most of us, not of leaving this terrestial globe of ours for the unknown land that lies beyond. You shall try to be lost to all whom you have hitherto known ; to cast behind you, to bury in oblivion, the life you have hitherto led. You shall take incredible precautions to leave no trace of where you have betaken yourself. TWO KISSES. 211 and before six weeks are over, some one or other of the most obnoxious of your acquain- tance has stumbled upon your retreat and puMished it far and wide. Your motive for such retirement matters not. Whether you had a poem to complete, a great scientific discovery to work out. Whether you had quarrelled with your wife, could no longer hit it off with your creditors, or were simply bored — veritably sick of the old jog-trot circle in which you happen to move — the fact remains the same, you wished to be lost, and you failed utterly. Again you shall depart from your home openly and avowedly for three days. Chance or caprice shall lead you to extend your holiday to six weeks. You shall take no care in the world to conceal your movements. You are simply too lazy to communicate with your friends, and you have vanished utterly from the knowledge of your own circle. Advertisements in the Times, keen- eyed policemen dragging water where you P 2 212 TWO KISSES. are not, even the famous Pollaky himself, one and all are useless. Not a trace, not a sign, not a rumour of you, till you once more cross the domestic door-sill, and send the wife of your bosom into hysterics. Why is this ? flow is it that it would seem so much easier to disappear without taking precaution against being tracked, than when we seek to obliterate our foot- steps ? It is singular, Mr. Bauer, who went to Euston Square with his portmanteau in broad daylight, telegraphing to his business friends in Manchester to advise them of his coming, is as completely lost as if the earth had opened and swallowed him, as indeed perhaps it may have done. On the other hand, those splendid criminals, the Bidwells, in spite of precautions, most elaborate plans, long before devised and carefully considered, fell one and all in the course of a few weeks into the hands of the hunters. Over anxiety to succeed is constantly fatal to success ; too great elaboration has marred many a promis- Tiro KISSES. 213 ing conception, and it may be that such excessive care to leave no trace behind is the very thing that brings detection, that gives the clue so laboriously sought to be destroyed. Major Claxby Jenkens had anticipated little difficulty in discovering Mrs. Hems- worth's retreat, after reading that letter from his correspondent in Paris. The Major had reasons of his own for wishing to know what had become of the widow, and never dreamed but such would be a very simple matter. To a man of his business habits, and somewhat dubious pursuits, the putting the necessary machinery in motion was very simple. He knew where to m.ake inquiries in numberless channels, that it is not given to most people to be acquainted with — where to lay his hand on all sorts of agents that the world generally wotted not of. He had no trouble at all in finding out that she had left Paris for England, in ascertaining the very boat in which she had crossed the 214 TWO KISSES. Channel, and that she had taken a through ticket for London. But there all trace of her was lost. The huge city had swallowed her up, and beyond that the Major could not get. It puzzled him this. " What reason could she have for conceal- ment ?" argued the Major, putting the case hypothetically to himself one morning in his office. " Clearly none — at least that I can imagine," he subjoined with habitual caution, " because one never can be sure what maggot may not have entered a woman's brain. She certainly took no trouble to conceal her movements, as again, why should she.'' Left Paris suddenly — well, after the utter smash consequent upon her husband's death, that was very natural. But why did she come to England .^^ that I can't under- stand. Her disappearance here, I take it, is a matter of accident, not design. She's probably in London this moment, and a more difficult place to find anyone you TWO KISSES. 215 may want, there doesn't happen to be in the universal globe. I don't think they'd find me in London," mused the Major, with a pleasant smile, " if ever I should take a fancy to turn hermit. But this won't do. The logic of the case is what I must attend to. Of course, I might advertise, but that's clumsy, very," and the Major shook his head deprecatingly, as if the suggestion had come from som.e neophyte in the science of doing your " duty towards your neighbour." "No! who on earth would she be likely to communicate with in this country, that is the question ^ She might — yes, by Jove! she might — no, that's not probable either, at all events, I could soon ascertain that. Stop ! Doesn't Rayner say that he understands an English barrister had a good deal to do with the winding up of her affairs ? Where's the letter.?" and the Major turned sharply to his desk. Little trouble had he in finding the letter 2i6 TWO KISSES. he sought, amid those regular, carefully- labelled pigeon holes. A man this of methodical, orderly habits, docketting his very invitations to dinner. " Yes, I thought so, but Rayner does not mention his name. Don't know it, perhaps. Still, if he was arranging her affairs, there must be plenty of Mark Hemsworth's creditors who do — there can be little diffi- culty about getting at that. I will write to Rayner, to-day, and tell him to ascertain all he can, and let me know as quickly as possible. That affair's disposed of for the present. Now, for the other," and the Major fell into a deep reverie. " Yes," he muttered, at length, " I think that will do if J can come to terms with Roxby, that sanctimonious old sinner is harder to deal with than any other man I ever came across yet. There are not many men who can say they've had the best of Claxby Jenkens since he cut his wisdom teeth, but he happens to TWO KISSES. 217 be one of them. No, if we are to be partners this time, I'll have my fair half of the stakes, or throw up my hand before the game's played out. I've put it all in training and hold the strings, but the puppets shan't dance, my dear Roxby, until you have thoroughly satisfied me. You're a most excellent man, a regular church-goer, and a man, no doubt, held in high esteem by your neighbours," continued the Major, with a low chuckle, "but your neighbours don't know you quite so well as I do. I could imagine you taking just a leetle advantage of an old friend, if you saw your way. It will be my business to put tempta- tion out of your reach. Yes, my dear Roxby, I'll tie you up pretty tight this time, you may rest assured," and the Major's eyes glittered with a brightness suggestive of spectacles being a most unnecessary ad- junct to their capacity for looking into things. " As for Captain Detfield," continued the 2i8 TWO KISSES, Major, still pursuing his vein of thought, " he is much too deep in the hands of the money-lenders to refuse to do what he is bidden. It is not putting anything very un- palatable to him, when you simply require him to marry a pretty girl with a fortune, and so discharge his liabilities. I can only say if he does give trouble, he'll find it un- pleasant," and the Major's lips tightened in an ominous way, as he reflected on the possi- bility of contumacy on the part of Charlie Detfield. *^ It's dangerous working with such an uncertain ally as Mrs. Paynter, no doubt, but, bah ! you must risk something. My interview the other day told me two things ; first, that her regard for Detfield was one of those illusive passions which women take up, as they do a new fashion ; secondly, that the excitement of intrigue is the dominant force in her character. I intend to gratify it. I could hardly have managed Detfield cleverly at this stage of the business without assistance. The next thing will be TWO KISSES. 219 to hoodwink her, or else she will spoil my game, probably. She's a clever woman, but I flatter myself when she drives home from Roseneath House next Friday, she will be committed to a little conspiracy which she will be far from comprehending. Might be awkward, indeed, if she did understand it prematurely," thought the Major. But while Major Jenkens is making such strenuous search for Mrs. Hemsworth, com- fortably located, as we know, within a mile* of him, Montague Gore is also straining every nerve to trace the antecedents of Mark Hemsworth. It is curious ! these two men have never met, although they have more than one mutual acquaintance, and yet at the present moment, each is in possession of the information for which the other is so diligently seeking. Such things occur more often in life than would be credited. Have you never anxiously sought for information in every direction, and finally discovered that the most unlikely man of your acquaintance, 220 'TWO KISSES. was perfectly competent to tell you all that you wanted to know. Have you ever spent days searching for a quotation that has caught your fancy, and after ransacking all likely writers in vain, suddenly met it again in some newspaper or periodical, with the name of the author tacked comfortably to it. There are some people whom you can never move without meeting, Piccadily or Palmyra, Ascot Heath or the Arctic seas, you know you are certain to come across them. There are others you hear about all your life and never see. All your friends know them. You are continually leaving a house forty- eight hours before their arrival, or arriving forty-eight hours after their departure. You have been asked to meet them time after time, in all sorts of ways, but you have never met. It has looked a certainty very often that you would do so, but somehow it has never come to pass. If you are of a reflective turn of mind, you know now that it never will. Your kismet is written, and Tiro KISSES. 221 among other things it is pre-ordained that you and they never clasp palms. Montague Gore has made but slight way in his inquiries as yet. Cissy can give him no information as to what part of England her husband had belonged to. She knew, indeed, nothing of his life previous to their marriage. Mark Hemsworth had treated her always as a mere child, whether she were in favour or disgrace, it made no difference. She was to him not a wife, but a plaything. When he was in good humour, he would lavish jewels and laces upon her. When things crossed him, he would spare neither gibe nor jeer at her expense. In spite of its outward luxury. Cissy's life had been no bed of roses. In all that gorgeous glitter in which her last five years had been passed, there had been a cynical worldliness that had often repelled her. She had craved, as women always will, for sympathy of some sort. She had made no friend in all that time to whom she could speak unreservedly — there was no one of her 222 TWO KISSES. own sex to whom she could open out her heart. Frank as she was in manner, yet her's was one of those self-contained natures that keep their feelings under control, and show but rarely the inner springs that move them. They yield not their confidence lightly, and make no parade of such sorrows as may befal them. It was partly the isolation of her lot, and iMrs. Paynter's caressing manner that had attracted her towards that lady, when she first made her acquaintance in Paris. Then, too, Lizzie was EngHsh, and that had some influence over her, for the set in which Cissy habitually lived English ladies were not much wont to mingle. If the society in which she mixed was wealthy, it savoured very much of the Bourse, and rather lacked refinement. It had taught her in five years two things — to dress and to spend money — a University education in our own country produces at times no more definite results. It was a good deal to the credit of Cissy's TWO KISSES. 223 natural disposition, that it had taught her no worse. Quite possible to have come out of such an ordeal vicious, instead of merely frivolous. Cissy regarded life, at present, as a scene in which it was incumbent upon her to be always well dressed and well mannered. She fears en^ui at twenty-two considerably more than she does destitution, and this in the circumstances in which we know she is placed — and yet this woman is not a fool. But she has never known so far what it is to have to think about money, and is as calmly convinced that someone will marry her and spare her all trouble upon that head, as if she were already affianced to a millionaire. Remember, she married as a portionless girl, without the slightest difficulty, that she has been feted all her life, that she has been accustomed to hear of large sums made daily by those with whom she associated, that she has constantly seen her husband's reckless speculating friends choose for their brides, pretty dowerless girls, and the thing 224 TWO KISSES. becomes not altogether so unnatural as it at first sounds. Cissy, judging by the lights of her own world, thinks that the acquire- ment of riches is a very easy and every day affair. She would perhaps sum up her ideas in this fashion, " that when a man wants money he goes into business and makes it." The going forth in search of wool and coming home shorn, is a phase of commer- cial transactions of which she has no experience. The free lances of the Stock Exchange, like '* the plungers" of the Turf, are jubilant in their hour of triumph, but mute when the battle goes against them for the most part. It is the men, too, who are always lamenting their losses that wax rich steadily. Montague Gore is busily engaged in trying to trace out Mark Hemsworth's family in England. This he thinks is the first thing to be done, in order to clear up that doubtful point, as to whether Cissy ever had a marriage settlement. Evidently no trace of such a TWO KISSES. 225 c settlement to be got out of all that Paris tangle, nothing indeed to warrant such a notion, but that one memorandum of the dead man's. What irritates him and troubles him considerably, is Cissy's resolute refusal to tell him her father's name. Where he may be, she admits, she has no conception ; but that he could determine this matter stands to reason. What can be her object in declining to tell his name ? He has pressed this more than once, pointed out that it is so obviously the most direct way to get at what they want. But Cissy is inflexible. She has her reasons, she says, is very grateful for what he has already done, but help him in that way she cannot, if that is a necessity, if he sees no other v/ay of arriving at the truth save by that channel, well then he must abandon his exertions in her behalf She is very firm on this point. Equally reticent, too, concerning her early days — of her life previous to entering the convent Cissy will say nothing. VOL. I. Q 226 TWO KISSES. The more he looks at it from the worldly and common-sense point of view, the more convinced Montague Gore is of the madness of his infatuation for Cissy Hemsworth. But it is not to be supposed that common sense is likely to be an antidote to the fatal philtre of the love-god. She is extravagant, she is half his age, and is no one knows who. If he marries, he should obtain either money, connexion, or at least congenial companionship. There are fifty reasons why he should not marry Cissy, there is but one why he should. He loves her — and in the meridian of life, is that to be deemed valid excuse for imprudent marriage. He argues the case over and over again with himself, dwelling sternly on each objection to the match as he recapitulates them ; but his going up to Hanover Street daily is that penny- worth of fact, which is ever worth all the theories in the world. When a man argues about the imprudence of becoming He with a woman, and continues to frequent TWO KISSES. 2Z7 her drawing-rooms, he can bamboozle no one but himself. He offers but another sad example of theoretical wisdom and practical folly. Still Montague Gore hesitates to speak. He has not resolution to fly temptation, though his eyes are open to the imprudence of what he half contemplates doing. He soothes himself with the idea that it is necessary that he should see Mrs. Hems- worth constantly on business, though con- sidering that the very little she has to tell she systematically refuses to open her lips about, and that his inquiries have as yet come to nothing, there does not seem much necessity for continual consultation between them. Sometimes he wonders what answer Cissy would make to him. He has the field all to himself, which is something, and she always welcomes him warmly, it is true ; but Montague Gore cannot as yet flatter himself that Cissy's feelings are involved, as far as he is concerned. Her bright smile, Q 2 228 TWO KISSES. frank out-stretched hand, and soft voice greet him with evident pleasure whenever he calls, but the voice never falters, the cheek never changes, the hand never trembles. Montague Gore read aright, when he deemed Cissy's heart still in her own keeping. CHAPTER XIII. THE BALL AT ROSENEATH HOUSE. " Time treads o'er the graves of affection 5 Sweet honey is turned into gall j Perhaps you have no recollection That ever you danced at our ball." ROSENEATH HOUSE is a blaze of light, and a perfect grove of ever- greens. Once Miss Matilda had made up her mind that dance should be, and she was just the woman to throw herself heart and soul into it. An energetic woman — not liking to be thrown out of her groove to start with, but that difficulty once overcome, one who determined that what she under- took should be carried out thoroughly. 230 TWO KISSES. Bessie's trustee, Mr. Roxby, a great autho- rity with her, had pronounced strongly in favour of the dance when consulted. That Mr. Roxby had his own ends to serve we knoWj but of course Miss Stanbury did not. He said it was only right that his ward should see a little more of the world, and hinted that it was Bessie's aunts who should afford her some opportunity of doing so. Mr. Roxby's word was law with Miss Matilda. His verdict being for a ball, Miss Stanbury made up her mind that Roseneath House should entertain on a grand scale, and led her sister and Bessie a troublous time of it. And yet they enjoyed it thoroughly. Although the preparations involved, as Bessie had laughingly predicted, picnicing at uncertain hours, bivouacking on staircases, and all those attendant sorrows inseparable from small establishments when they plunge into large entertainments, still Miss Matilda was in great force. She quite TWO KISSES. 231 harried Aunt Clem and Bessie, indeed, in her ceaseless supervision — making those two originators of the affair race up and down stairs till they declared they could do so no longer. Dashing into their bed- rooms at untimely hours with new conceptions, and accusing them of laziness and lukewarmness concerning the whole thing, in a way that made Bessie declare she knew Aunt Matilda looked forward to dancing all night. When you have infinite wealth at your disposal, you simply say : " Let there be a ball, and there is a ball." But to smaller people, a ball involves much thought, mani- pulation, worry and upsetting of the esta- blishment. However, the ball at Roseneath House is now a fact accomplished. The lamps are lit, the floors are swept, the band is tuning its instruments, and the hostesses, clad in silks and satins, are awaiting their guests. There is a considerable difference in the age and appearance of the spinsters. Aunt 232 TWO KISSES. Matildaj turned of forty, and arrayed in stately lace and velvet, awaits the coming of the multitude with serene composure. Aunt Clem, a good half dozen years her junior, is dressed more youthfully, in satin, and exhibits some tremour and nervousness. Aunt Clem does not consider her dancing days over as yet — has, perhaps indeed, a still lurking idea that she has not yet passed the marriageable age, and who shall say what to-night may bring forth. Indeed, she carries her years well, and might pass easily for somewhat less than she actually is— -a pleasant fair face, with kindly honest blue eyes shining out of it. A middle-aged man might do worse than ask Aunt Clem to tread life's path with him. But then middle- aged men have always a tendency to select a bride from the juvenile ranks, a mistake usually paid for on one side or the other. As for Bessie, arrayed in a cloud of white tarlatan, trimmed with forget-me-nots and TWO KISSES. 233 rose-buds, only an art-critic or a mysogonist would deny her title to be called a pretty girl to-night. But now begins the rumbling of wheels, and the faint rustling in the hall that heralds the arrival of the guests. Foremost among these is Mr. Roxby, a tall pompous man, with an amount of starched neckcloth round his throat, that nothing but an unusually long neck enables him to look over, exhibit- ing a most capacious white waistcoat and voluminous shirt- front, with an air of paternal condescension. He makes his obeisance in a manner that indicates he takes the whole arrangements on his shoulders from this out, that he throws the ^gis of his protection over the house for the night. Shakes hands with the elder Misses Stanbury with lofty patronage, and touches Bessie's cheek with his lips, as if he did her much honour by so doing. His whole manner indicates that really this is a frivolous affair, in which he rather protests against being mixed up, but 234 TWO KISSES. to oblige his old friends he will sec that it goes off satisfactorily. Mr. Roxby is a man of eminent respect- abihty — what men of the world sometimes call rather too respectable, having recollec- tions of what dreadful back-sHdings such extreme respectability is occasionally convicted of Mr. Roxby had started in life in a very humble way, he was not clever by any means. He had achieved success simply because he was so plausible and so respect- able, and, though it would astonish his admirers considerably to learn it, so un- scrupulous. Divested of his white waist- coat and paternal manner, Mr. Roxby was a fraudulent humbug. He had never scrupled to turn money over any transaction that passed through his hands. He was just one of those men whom people are so fond of picking out as executor, trustee, arbiter, &c. Roxby had been continually figuring in one or other of these capacities all his life, stood indeed, at this present moment, as trustee TWO KISSES. 235 to half a dozen different people. He gener- ally contrived that all such appointments should conduce more or less to his advantage. Not that he ever made away with monies that did not belong to him, he is too cautious for that ; but he did usually con- trive to have very tidy pickings out of such business as necessarily passed through his fingers. Mr. Roxby, in pursuance of that unspoken pledge which had marked his greeting, takes up his position by Miss Stanbury, and proceeds to assist in the reception of the guests. So benignantly patronizing is he in that situation, that the strange element which always turns up at a London dance, enter- tain no manner of doubt but that he is the master of the house, and do salutation accordingly. Even some of his friends who know the exact state of the case, cannot refrain from complimenting Mr. Roxby on the tasteful arrangements, so completely has he taken the house under the protection of 236 TWO KISSES. his capacious white waistcoat. Several invita- tions have indeed been sent out at his suggestion, and he has further been fur- nished at his own request with a few blank cards. Among the early arrivals is Major Claxby Jenkens. The indefatigable Major deems that the little drama he contemplates will need his immediate supervision. The Major is not wont to leave any affair, that he may take up, in other hands than his own more than is absolutely necessary. This he considers requires delicate manipula- tion, and with the distrust he entertains of Roxby it is not likely that he will take him into his confidence one iota more than he is obliged. The Major's idea is simply to throw Detfield and Miss Bessie together, and trust in the first instance to the girl's making a favourable impression. He has arrived at a pretty correct notion concerning Detfield's liaison with Mrs. Paynter, and deems that a fresh face might easily ex- TWO KISSES. 237 tlnguish that flirtation, providing Lizzie is not aroused into active opposition by jealousy of her rival. He is quite aware that her influence at present would be sufficient to hold Detfield to his allegiance, if she chose to exert it. But the Major is a born in- triguant. Such finessing as he contemplates affords him much amusement, and he is rather looking forward to his match with Mrs. Paynter than otherwise. He enters quietly, his keen restless eyes veiled beneath his delicately gold-rimmed spectacles, and says, " How do do," to Roxby, who presents him to his hostess and their niece. The Major pays a few well-turned compliments to the elder ladies, studying Aunt Clem with considerable attention, then he glances at Bessie, threading the entangle- ments of the Lancers. " A very pretty, graceful girl," he mutters, "and the aunt quite passable, and young enough for my purpose, two honours in my hand the first shuffle of the cards," and the Major rubbing 238 TWO KISSES. his hands softly, said, " he should like just a word with Mr. Roxby." " What is it, my dear friend ?" inquired the latter, as they drew a little on one side. " Be as quick as you can, please, as I am pledged to assist the Miss Stanbury's in receiving their guests." " One word only. Uon't interfere with my proceedings in any way, and don't allow Mrs. Paynter to talk with the Miss Stan- burys in the first instance. I think I see our way pretty clearly. You and I will talk things over kter." Bestowing on the Major a smiling nod of acquiescence, which almost amounted to a benediction, Mr. Roxby once more re- sumed his post near Miss Matilda. He had received his cue, and knew now that it behoved him to take charge of Mrs. Paynter as soon as she should arrive. Lizzie's entrance made rather a sensation. Not only was she a very striking woman anywhere, but her toilette always in the TWO KISSES. 239 extreme of fashion, was calculated to some- what dazzle Islington in its magnificence. Mrs. Paynter piqued herself on dressing from Paris direct. " Just a season a-head of London," she was wont to observe to her intimates. " You will all be wearing next year what I do this." Whether she was right in such pro- phecy I can't say, but certain it was that Lizzie was always somewhat original in her dress, and being gifted with excellent taste, never relapsed into the vulgarism of being outre as well as original. Mr. Roxby received her with easy assurance, and having pre- sented her to Miss Matilda — Aunt Clem being by this involved in a quadrille — offered his arm for a tour of the rooms. Mrs- Paynter was gracious in the extreme, admired everything and everybody, and honestly thought the decorations very pretty. Still this was not precisely what Mrs Paynter had come out to Islington to see, and her eyes rolled somewhat restlessly round in 240 TWO KISSES. search of the mysterious Major Jenkens. That worthy was by no means idle. He had marked her entrance, but purposely avoided her notice. No sooner had he seen her move off, under Roxby's escort, than he pounced upon Charlie Detfield and pro- posed to find him partners. Though out of his element, Charlie was quite ready to plunge into the festivities of the occasion, and at once yielded to the solicitations of the Major. " Of course you won't mind going through a quadrille with one of the ladies of the house, to begin with .^" suggested that astute veteran, " and then I'll find you metal more attractive. There are plenty of good-looking girls here to-night," and before Charlie had further time for reflection, he found himself standing up with Aunt Clem. That satisfactorily arranged, the Major hurried off in search of Mrs. Paynter. He found that lively lady already getting very tired of Mr. Roxby's ponderous con- TWO KISSES, 241 versation, and was greeted with a most gracious smile of recognition. Dismissing her former escort with a slight bow, Mrs. Paynter took the Major's arm, and without further preface said, " Of course I expected to meet you here to-night, and equally, of course, I expect to have this bride you have selected amongst you for Captain Detfield, pointed out to me. " I feel honoured by the confidence you repose in me," observed the Major, '^and have to thank you for bringing him." " Enough, Sir ; now for the lady. It was quite as much to gratify my own curiosity as anything else that I interfered in your behalf You owe me but little gratitude." Lizzie felt a little angry with herself, at having yielded to the persuasion of such an utter stranger, but the temptation of seeing this heiress with her own eyes had proved irresistible. VOL. I. R 242 TWO KISSES. " If you will step into the next room, I can point her out to you at once ;" rejoined the Major. " Captain Detiield is dancing with her now." " And does he know that she is his intended bride ?" " Most certainly not, and I must throw myself upon your mercy not to divulge a hint of any such arrangement being in contemplation. It may probably all end in nothing, and as the lady is ignorant of the design as Captain Detfield, it is only fair to her to keep it a secret. I may rely upon your silence, may I not ?" " Let me see her," replied Lizzie, curtly. As she spoke they entered the adjoining room, and Mrs. Paynter beheld Charlie gaily laughing and talking with Aunt Clem. "And that is the lady?" "That is Miss Stanbury," replied the Major, diplomatically. "Why she is much too old for him. TWO KISSES. 243 She's five-and-thirty if she's a day/' rejoined Mrs. Paynter, sharply. " You hardly do her justice, Madam. Turned of thirty, say. But what would you have — you can't have everything ?" "But he is only six-and-twenty," mur- mured Lizzie ; " and has contrived to accu- mulate any amount of debt in that period." " What are four or five years between them ?" exclaimed the Major. " More especially when the lady brings as many thousands as years to the weddmg." " That may be, but that match will never take place." *' Probably not, if you exercise your in- fluence to prevent it," rejoined the Major, with considerable intention, and stealing a keen glance beneath his spectacles at his companion. " I shall interfere neither for nor against it, Sir," retorted Mrs. Paynter haughtily. " Captain Detfield's matrimonial arrange- ments are nothing to me." K 2 244 TWO KISSES. "But I may rely on your silence concern- ing such an idea ?" " Yes," and now the quadrille being over, and Aunt Clem satisfactorily disposed of, Mrs. Paynter signalled Charlie with her fan, and prepared to indemnify herself for her researches on his behalf by a galop. There is no denying that it is a very lively ball, with a swing and go in it that many a west-end dance might envy. As for Charlie, he has plunged into the whole thing con amore, and though he has done a good deal of waltzing with Mrs. Paynter, has by no means restricted himself to one partner. The Major has been very atten- tive to him in that respect, and he now finds himself whirling round the room with Bessie. The girl dearly loved dancing, and made no scruple about showing it. Detfield, as may be supposed, was a good performer, and could not help smiling at the frank manner in which she expressed her gratification. Faster and faster goes the music of that TWO KISSES. 245 galop finale, only the most reckless dancers can keep pace with its flying time, when it suddenly ends with a tumultuous crash of brazen instruments, and the hot and thirsty guests troop down stairs to supper. " There, Miss Stanbury, I think we shall do here," said Charlie, as he ensconced his partner in a snug corner behind the door of the supper-room. " The only thing that weighs upon my mind is, whether, as the young lady of the house, you are justified in submitting to so lowly a situation. Only say the word though, and we will gain the head of the table, or perish in the attempt." " Oh, no," laughed Bessie, " I am quite content as I am, and will leave such honour to my grave and reverend seniors." " I quite agree with you. One's chicken and champagne is best consumed in shade and tranquillity. I always pity royalty, because quiet corners are things known to them only by hearsay." " And you go to all the court balls, I 246 TWO KISSES. suppose," inquired Bessie, who having dis- covered that her partner was a guardsman, looked upon him as moving with the ehte of the land. " I enjoy that privilege sometimes when on duty," replied Charlie much amused. " That is one of the sights I should Hke to see ; but unfortunately there are so many things I want to see, and apparently may want to the end of the chapter." " I don't think you need be despondent at your age," rejoined Detfield, laughing, " youVe plenty of time before you." " Oh yes ! and Fm not in the least des- pondent," replied Bessie merrily. " I dare say I shall have lots of fun, if I never see half the things I want to. Next to riding I love dancing, and I shall manage to get my share of those two amusements at all events." " Do you ride often then ?" " Yes, nearly every day. There are plenty of pleasant rides out Hampstead way, and a good canter I do think beats a good valse." TWO KISSES. 247 " Don't you ever ride in the Park ?" " Very seldom. I have no one to go with, and it is not nice riding there with only a groom. People look at you, as much as to ask who on earth you belong to. I tried it twice, but don't think I shall repeat the experiment." " But isn't it rather dull work riding alone ?" " Oh dear, no ! Velvet, that's my mare, and I get on capitally together. You see there is one advantage, I can go my own pace. Pelt along when I'm in spirits, or walk soberly when I want to think. Don't you look upon horseback as a famous place for reflection. Captain Detfield?" " No, I can't say I do, but then you see my experiences are so difl^erent from yours. When I ride in town, it is usually with other people, and I am engaged in conversa- tion. When I ride in the country, it is usually to hounds and then all my energies are absorbed in beating somebody else, 248 TWO KISSES. Striving to make up for a bad start, wonder- ing whether my horse will last another ten minutes, if it's a cracker, or some equally- important problem. Ah ! you may laugh. Miss Stanbury, but all the points 1 have mentioned are subjects of stupendous gravity to a man when hounds are running." " No, nothing more, thank you," said Bessie, as Charlie offered to replenish her wine-glass. " I will ask you to take me upstairs now. I hear the music again." Detfield complied, and begged for another dance when they regahied the ball-room. The band was playing that very Valse de Fascination, which Bessie had declared she really must try that afternoon when the idea of the ball was first mooted. Without giving her time to consult her card, Charlie whirled his fair companion into the midst of the throng. That first after supper valse is always the cream of the evening to those who really love dancing, and the guardsman, per- haps, enjoyed it almost as much as his TWO KISSES. 249 partner. But Bessie was speedily claimed when the music ceased, and as Detfield lounged leisurely to a seat, he met Mrs. Paynter. " I don't want to crush such a promising flirtation as you seem to have established with that pretty little thing in forget-me-nots and rose-buds !" exclaimed Lizzie, laughing, "but if you are disengaged for a few minutes I'll get you to find John, and tell him I am ready to go. We'll take you or not, just as you please." "I am quite at your orders, and we'll be ofF as soon as I can find the brougham." That and Mr. Paynter were quickly dis- covered, and a few minutes more saw the trio speeding rapidly westward, immersed in their own reflections. " Charlie will never be brought to marry that Miss Stanbury," mused Mrs. Paynter. " Rather nice, that little Stanbury girl," reflected Charlie. 250 TWO KISSES, " What a confounded nuisance all balls and evening parties are," thought Mr. Paynter, in his semi-moments of conscious- ness. But the gods were merciful to him, poor man, in the main, and he slept peace- fully for the most part during the homeward drive. Talk of peas in the shoes, what is that to the purgatory of tight boots, and extreme boredom to the man who is craving for a smoking-jacket, slippers, and a cigar ^ Verily matrimony hath its burdens, and escorting the wife of one's bosom into society that pleasureth us not, is by no means one of the lightest. But while Mrs. Paynter's brougham rattles gaily over the stones of the Euston Road, while the band pours out its most spirit- stirring melodies, two gentlemen are engaged in earnest conference in the well nigh deserted supper-room. "I have put the whole thing fairly in train," observed the Major, helping himself to a glass of champagne, " all I ask is that TWO KISSES. 251 you don't interfere, but let me pull the strings. The number of marriages that come to nothing annually, because one or other, or both, of the innocent victims suddenly discover that they are being thrown together with intention, is in- conceivable." " My dear Major, I have the most perfect reliance on your tact and discretion," repHed Roxby, in unctuous tones. ^^ What Claxby Jenkens undertakes to do, everyone knows is as good as done." " Hum ! what Claxby Jenkens undertakes to do, my friend, has generally some reference to his own interest. Let us waste no time beating about the bush, but come to the point at once. What benefit am I to derive from this match?" ''The gratification, my dear friend, of having promoted the union of two young people in every way suitable. I might go further and say, formed, made for 252 TWO KISSES. one another/' replied Roxby, benignantly. The Major grinned, the plausible scoundrel with whom he was conversing, he knew, even to a confederate, never altogether dropped the hypocritical veil with which he was wont to gloss over his villanies. " And what else ?" he inquired at length. "My dear Jenkens," returned the other, "my interest in my charming ward is so great that I would give five hundred pounds to see her happily married." " Lodged to my account at Herries & Go's, the day before the wedding," said the Major, laconically. " Dear, dear, you will have your joke," responded Mr. Roxby, as he nodded assent. The Major knew his man, and knew that the bargain was concluded between them, as well as if it had been couched in more direct language. But he wanted to know more. TWO KISSES. 253 " And you, what are you to get out of this affair ?" he continued, looking his com- panion steadily in the face. " A release from my trust in great measure, and the approval of my own conscience," replied the other, with a low laugh. " Another glass of wine, my dear friend. Here's the health of the young couple." " That is no answer to my question," said the Major, doggedly. " If you won't be satisfied with that, I can't help it. But, hark you !" continued Mr. Roxby, with a sudden change of tone ; " there are plenty of young men in the world besides Captain Detfield, who would be glad to take a pretty girl with a good fortune to wife, and there are plenty of other people besides Claxby Jenkens who might be induced to lend me a hand in finding her a husband. You are clever, and therefore I make choice of you ; but my dear Major, if I find you too clever I shall 254 TWO KISSES. call in somebody else. Have fresh advice, as the doctors say." «' And suppose I tell what I know ?" replied the Major, fiercely. " Suppose I make public that you wish to make capital of your ward's hand ?" " I couldn't entertain such an absurd sup- position for a moment," rejoined Mr. Roxby, once more relapsing into his usually bland moment. " Ripping up old stories is always bad taste, and what you and I might say to each other's discredit would be pretty equally balanced. No, my friend, you'll not do that when you think over it. You'll do your utmost to promote this marriage I'm sure, and nobody possesses such tact and finesse for carrying out a delicate arrange- ment of the kind, as my friend Claxby Jenkens. But it is dry work talking, let's have another glass of wine ; no more, eh ? Then let us go up-stairs." As the Major drove home to his lodgings, he ruminated much over the events of the TWO KISSES. 255 evening. He did not feel so certain of having the best of Mr. Roxby as he had done, when thinking over the affair in John Street. That pull over his neighbour, such a desideratum in the Major's eyes, was not to be obtained in this case apparently. Still the douceur was handsome, and the first act of the comedy had been most success- fully brought about. " I should like to know though," mut- tered the Major, " what Roxby expects to get out of this, and how he means to get it ?" CHAPTER XIV. WILL YOU GIVE ME YOURSELF: TO suppose that Cissy Hemsworth is blind to Gore's admiration for herself, would be absurd — a woman is never blind to that — a foolish woman will sometimes fall into the opposite extreme, and rate a man's ^/tentions higher than his mentions concerning her, but she rarely makes the mistake of over- looking the effect of her attractions on the male sex. She knows by instinct when she has achieved a success of that nature. But Cissy was very far from guessing what wild work her charms had wrought in the TWO KISSES. 257 barrister's heart. She little dreamt of the passion that he had conceived for her. Reticent by nature — reticent from pro- fessional training, Gore had so far succeeded in masking the tumult that filled his veins from her notice. If Cissy thought that he admired her, she certainly had never thought that he was likely to ask her to marry him. Indeed, considering that she openly avowed that it was a necessity for her to marry, it was surprising how very little reflection she gave concerning it. Her perfect nonchalance on this point was a source of perpetual astonishment to Mrs. Paynter. That en- ergetic lady could not understand it. Cissy would refuse her invitations, even when she came to Hanover Street herself with them, and declared that she had " some one who would be just the thing," coming to dinner. " I can't help you, my dear, if you won't help yourself;" cried Mrs. Paynter, wrath- fully, upon one of these occasions. " What VOL. I. s 258 TWO KISSES. is the use of my parading all the eligible men I can lay hands on, if you won't come and meet them ?" To which Cissy replied, " Don't be angry, but I really do not feel up to going out to-day." "Well!" mused Mrs. Paynter, as she took her departure, under the circumstances above mentioned, " I don't see what's to become of her, unless she pronounces her- self ill, and then makes les heaux yeux at her doctor ; how she is to arrive at a husband is quite beyond me. I would do my best for her if she would but let me, but she won't ; and she is so nice and so attractive, that she might really do well if there's any taste left in mankind. Mercenary wretches !" continued Mrs. Paynter, with a solemn shake of her pretty head, " they always mix up matrimony with money now-a-days. Dear old John didn't though when he took me, precious bargain as I have been to him," and a soft smile suffused her face, TWO KISSES. 359 such as not one of her many admirers had ever won from her — plead as they might. Montague Gore, still trying to disentangle that question of the settlement, for the second time has it pointed out to him that there is a family of Hemsworths settled in Nottinghanishire. Information this from the chief constable of that county. It is curious, he was told the same quite incidentally at a dinner party at which he happened to mention his quest in the very first stage of his inquiries. He made that trip down to Nottingham at the time of the Goose Fair, on purpose to investigate that state- ment, and he found that there had been Hemsworths in the neighbourhood, but were none now. It was odd, he had sent round a circular to all the chief constables in England, re- questing information on the subject, and save from Nottingham, reply there was none. Now it was not to be supposed that s 2 26o TWO KISSES. Hemsworths grew only in Nottingham- shire. Gore knew this fact well. Take the most uncommon EngHsh name you will, and you shall discover it in three or four different counties in England. Pick out any name, as striking you as peculiar that you have never heard before, keep that name in your mind, and it is astonishing how often you will meet it in the next two years. He thought it singular that the only county from which he received a reply should be the only county in which he had ascertained there were no Hemsworths. True, he admitted that his search had been but hurried and cursory. He had felt too little reliance on the accuracy of his information to waste much time upon it. As a barrister, he should have known better. The Major would never have made such a mistake. In pursuing an investigation of this nature, information can only be classified under two heads— reliable or unreliable. If deemed TWO KISSES, 261 the former, too much pains cannot be taken to sift it thoroughly : if the latter, put it away completely at once. Half measures are useless. Gore was too clever a man not to know this, but the fact was he had interested himself in luke-warm fashion in the search to start with. Now it was differ- ent ; he was working in Cissy's behalf with all the keeness and perseverance of a blood- hound. He thinks it necessary to go and see her upon the point. " She may re- member some allusion of her late husband's to that county;" argues Gore, speciously to himself When a man of mature age falls in love injudiciously, however much he may ponder over his imprudence, he is more likely to end in matrimony than if he were still young. Ways and means is a question that sometimes curbs youthful passion, but a man in his prime has gener- ally achieved an income of some sort, which may enable him to carry the affair to a 262 TWO KISSES. conclusion. In Gore^s case it was decidedly so. He was of inexpensive habits, and making a large yearly income in his profession. The idea of marriage had seldom crossed his brain since the terrible catastrophe that had ruined his life. When it had, it was to marriage of the most conventional kind that he had looked forward. Now he knew well that he had cast that idea to the winds. He would fain wed a penniless bride of whose antecedents he could learn nothing, a woman of no family ; fortunate indeed if she proved literally of no family, and that relations of the most inconvenient description should not discover themselves afterwards. Then, again, he was by no means certain that Cissy would say him yes, should he put his fortune to the test. Though she avowed her intention to marry, though he knew that her circumstances made it almost imperative on her to accept the first eligible offer she should receive, still there was that about her which made TWO KISSES. 263 him uncertain as to whether she might not say no to him. Cissy he could but own was something of an enigma. A woman likely to face desperate straits with the stoicism of an Indian, or to succumb with the passionate despair of a child. He could not make up his mind about her. He would have been in no way surprised at her taking the failure of her scanty resources in either light. Her quiet confidence that something would turn up in her favour, amazed him as much as it did Mrs. Paynter. What could she count on? Such reflections brought Montague Gore to Hanover Street. As his hostess received him with her usual frank manner, Gore thought she had never looked so handsome. Her bright face flashed and sparkled as he began to tell of this fresh information, and she murmured, " How kind you are to take so much trouble in my behalf." As he continued, she listened with evident 264 TWO KISSES. interest ; but when he mentioned Nottingham- shire as the probable county from which her husband sprung, she gave an unconcealed start of surprise. From that moment, she listened in an anxious and yet preoccupied manner, that it was impossible should escape his notice. Interested evidently to hear what he had to tell, and yet at the same time haunted with memories of bygone years. " Do you know anything of Nottingham- shire yourself?" inquired Gore in con- clusion. Cissy hesitated, and appeared troubled for a moment, as if thinking how she should frame her reply. " i am sorry," she said at length, " but I can give you no answer to that question. It seems so ungrateful too, after all the trouble you have been taking, and it grieves me dreadfully you should think me that. Why, oh why !" she continued passionately, " do you not give my affairs up ? You have been TWO KISSES. 265 SO very kind to me ; and yet when you are doing your best, I have to refuse you infor- mation which, though slight and of little account, you have a right to demand." It was the first time he had ever seen Cissy moved, and it made his pulses tingle. The sight of emotion in the woman we love is wont to occasion tumult in the system. "lam only too glad to be of assistance to you," he replied, in constrained tones. "If I ask for information on subjects painful to you to refer to, believe me it is from no idle curiosity, but simply because I think it would be useful." " Yes, I know it," interposed Cissy, hurriedly. " I should bt mad to think otherwise. But I have given my word, as I told you before, to keep silence on this past life of mine, and I will abide by that pledge. Don't pray think that there is anything I have cause to conceal. If the 266 TWO KISSES. poor history of my childhood were published at Charing Cross to-morrow, there is nothing I should feel cause to blush for." She had spoken with much earnestness, and the colour came into her cheeks as she finished. She knew this man admired her. She knew that he had taken infinite pains and trouble in her behalf She was think- ing no whit of him as a husband or lover, but she was anxious to justify herself in his eyes as far as she might. She felt that this reticence concerning her early days told against her, was liable to be misconstrued, and she wished that Montague Gore should think well of her. She had so few friends, that she could not afford to lose one lightly, and if she had no love, yet Cissy had great esteem for her adviser. His reply came at last in low tones, swift and steady. " It is a pity that you should have made such a promise, but I will not urge you to break it. I entertain no doubt whatever TWO KISSES. 267 that there is nothing in your past would shame you to speak of. One thing I may say. Do you think the person to whom you made that pledge would not absolve you from it now ? The circumstances in which you stand could never have been contemplated, and I am only stating my honest conviction, when I say that the clue I seek will be probably found, if it exist, in some trivial incident of the . past life of your- self or your husband." " I cannot see that. What could you hope to discover from my early days ?'* interposed Cissy." "Simply this ; if I knew with whom you lived and associated in England, I should very likely get a hint as to who were likely to be trustees to any marriage settlement you might have, very probably discover your father." "That is a conclusive reason for giving you no information on the subject," cried Cissy, quickly. 268 TWO KISSES. " As I thought/' murmured Gore to him- self. " It is to that father she has pledged her silence. I wonder what his object was in exacting that promise .?" and then he could not help further reflecting that a father with private reasons for courting obscurity was not calculated to make Cissy more eligible as a wife. " There is no more to be said then/' he replied at length. " I must work out this affair as best I can." " Yes, there is more to be said," exclaimed Cissy, with animation. "I have to thank you yet again, for devoting so much of your time to assisting a woman who must appear to be throwing all the impediments she can in your way. I can't help it. I counsel you to give it up. But, believe me, when I say 1 am truly grateful for all you have endeavoured to do for me. '' I shall not give it up. Keep your gratitude, Mrs. Hemsworth, until I succeed ; TWO KISSES. 269 I may perchance test it then. It is contrary to all rule, I know, and yet I might even ask some recompense at your hands should I fail,'* and he rose as he spoke, and stood facing her. " From me !" said Cissy, looking up at him. " I don't know what you could ask from me, I have so little to give." " You have that to give which any man would prize," returned Gore, in low earnest tones, his passion completely over-mastering him. " You know what I would ask. There is no need to tell you that I love you. You must have known it these weeks past. Cissy, will you give me yourself? Can you trust me to take care of you for the rest of your life.^" She was a little astonished. She had not expected this, although conscious of his admiration. She had never taken into consideration that he might ask her to marry him. She liked him very much. 270 TWO KISSES. but she was not the least in love with him. "You have taken me by surprise," she said slowly. " You offer me love instead of friendship. Are you sure that it is not pity for my loneliness makes you speak thus?" " I know that the hope of calling you my wdfe is the dearest wish of my heart at this moment !" he retorted passionately. "Cissy, can you love me?" For a few seconds her face was troubled. Then she replied, " You won't be angry, you won't think badly of me if I tell you the truth. I wish to answer you honestly, and yet I do not wish to be unkind." She paused here, and toyed nervously with her rings. " And my answer !" he exclaimed im- patiently. " Can you love me ?" " I don't know. Stay !" she exclaimed, extending her hand to him. " Don't quarrel TWO KISSES. 271 with me, don't be angry with me because I tell you the truth. I do not love you — I have never loved any man. No man has ever been such a friend to me as you ; but when you ask me can I love you, I can only reply, I don't know." He was holding her hands in his as she spoke, and when she finished, he bent down over her and said, " I will put my request in other words. Will you marry me ?" and then he released her hands, and stood silently awaiting her reply. She bowed her head for a few seconds, then raising it, looked frankly but stead- fastly up into his face, and said quietly, " Yes, if you wish it." "My darling," he replied, "I will be content with that for the present. It will be my business henceforth to teach you to love me. Cissy smiled. " I don't know," she said, " whether I 272 TWO KISSES. possess such a faculty. I like you and esteem you very much. If you are willing to take me, I will marry you ; but I warn you, I cannot simulate what I do not feel. Friendship I can promise — true and thorough friendship ; but love, I do not know whether I am capable of such a feeling. My ideal is so very different from what I have seen termed such, that perhaps it is beyond my comprehension. I am always considered stupid, you know." " You are quite wise enough for me," replied Gore, in jubilant tones, " and they who deem you otherwise, are those who cannot read aright." Half-an-hour afterwards, and Gore having made his adieux, has once more gained the street. He walks with head erect and sparkling eye, as rren do who have sped well in a love suit. To have won assent to our wooing, sufficeth most of us for the time. Whether our passion be prudent, whether the woman we have asked to tread TWO KISSES. 273 life's path with us is likely to be approved of in our maturer judgment, we reck little. She is the one woman in the world as far as we are concerned just now, and has she not pledged herself to be so always ? The plunge is over, and there can be no further debate about the wisdom of marrying Cissy Hemsworth. The word spoken never comes back, saith the proverb, and Mon- tague Gore is light of heart as he thinks that Cissy is his plighted wife. True, she has told him that she does not love him. What of that ? It was scarce likely that he could have won her love on so short an ac- quaintance. That would come. Let her but once be his wife, and he had no fear of gaining her affections. As if it is in the power of woman to bestow her affections exactly where she will ; a woman who marries without giving her love, is like one who sails on a long voyage with no anchor on board. It may be pros- perous, the winds fair, and the anchor never VOL. I. T 274 TWO KISSES. required. But should the winds prove con- trary, should treacherous currents sweep silently but swiftly toward the breakers, then they must anchor or be wrecked. When they have nothing to hold to in their extremity, God help them 1 CHAPTER XV. A SOCIAL OBLIGATION. MRS. PAYNTER sits dawdling in her drawing-room, the morning after the dance at Roseneath House, in that somewhat distrait manner we are wont to wear when a soUtary breakfast has succeeded to our night's dissipation. Her husband has departed as usual to his business, and Lizzie is musing upon the matrimonial scheme that has been confided to her. That men marry for money nobody knows better than Mrs. Paynter, but she cannot think Charlie will harden his heart and take that Miss Stanbury to wife, T 2 276 TWO KISSES. in spite of all the money he is to get with her. A passable-looking woman enough, thinks Mrs. Paynter, but old enough to be his mother. Judging poor Miss Clementina rather hardly this, for that lady is. by no means so advanced in years as that comes to. "Well," thought Mrs. Paynter, "if it is for his good, let it be so. I'll interfere about it neither way. I don't think I shall ever feel jealous of Miss Stanbury, which is a con- solation ; and if that odious Major is right, I'm like to lose an admirer in any case — whether it be by matrimony, or the effects of money troubles. Poor Charlie ! I am very sorry for him, but that he was on the verge of a crash I have suspected for some time. The nicest people always are so unfortunate, nobody ever dies opportunely and bequeaths them hand- some legacies. It is the detestable folks one is always meeting and wishing one didn't that grow rich by inheritance. Look at that little wretch, Edward Bunbury, for instance. TWO KISSES. 277 who exacts the very last yard from a cabman, and then gets out and walks to save the extra sixpence. He's as rich as Croesus already, with no idea of how to spend what he has, yet a Venerable aunt betook herself ofF the other day, and left him I don't know how many more thousands. There is some- thing very wrong in our social arrange- ments," muttered Mrs. Paynter, gravely, "though I don't know that I ought to grumble ; at all events, when we get our rights, whatever they may be, I don't mean to vote for a new distribution of property." Here her meditations were cut short by the opening of the door, and the announce- ment of Mrs. Hemsworth. "Delighted to see you. Cissy, dear," exclaimed Mrs. Paynter, as she rose to welcome her guest. " I'm ^ all in the downs' this morning, as men say, when they have sat up over night longer than is good for them. You will brighten me up, and have 278 TWO KISSES. come to pass the day, I hope. Selfish of me, very, I know, but I plead guilty to always entrapphig pleasant people when I have a chance." " Yes, I have come for a long talk," re- joined Cissy, as she sank quietly into an easy- chair. " To begin with, I have something to tell you." " Nothing disagreeable, I trust," said Mrs. Paynter, quickly. " I don't feel equal to bad news this morning." "No," replied Cissy, with a low rippling laugh. " It's not bad news, and it's not at all disagreeable. Likely to turn out very much the reverse, I hope. I am going to be married." " You are ! I am so glad, but who to ?" cried Mrs. Paynter, breathlessly. " Mr. Montague Gore. He asked me yesterday, and I said yes." " Montague Gore. My dear, I con- gratulate you with all my heart ; but how did it come about .? I had no idea you had seen much of him lately." TWO KISSES. 279 Mrs. Paynter, quick as she was about such things generally, might well be blind to this. She had no knowledge of the barrister's constant visits to Hanover Street. She had only encountered him there twice, and then with a long interval between. Cissy rarely mentioned his name, and then only as her professional adviser, regarding some property it was thought she might be entitled to in England. Mrs. Hemsworth coloured slightly as she answered, " I have seen him a good deal latterly on that business I told you of, and though I knew he admired me, yet I never thought of his wishing to marry me till yesterday. But I like him very much, and I am so entirely alone, that I can only be grateful to him for undertaking the care of me. Don't laugh, please, but,'' continued Cissy, with a slight sob, " if you had ever known what it was to stand so utterly alone as I have done the last few months, you would understand what 28o TWO KISSES, a relief it is to have someone you have a right to lean upon." " I do understand perfectly,'* replied Mrs. Paynter, gravely, " and I have often been troubled about your future, Cissy. But I think we need fret about that no more. Montague can well afford to take care of a wife, is a most agreeable man, and I have no doubt will make you an excellent husband. Why," continued Mrs. Paynter, recovering herself, '' he was one of the first eligibles I paraded for you, if you remember ; but I must say of late, I thought nothing would come of it. Why, you'll be a rich woman again. Cissy. Your betrothed is making no end of money in his pro- fession." " Shall I ?" replied Mrs. Hemsworth, simply, " I am glad of that, for I don't think I should be a good wife to a poor man ; but I can't say I ever gave his income a thought, when I agreed to marry him yesterday." TWO KISSES. • 281 " What, are you so much in love with him that you could think of nothing else?" rejoined Mrs. Paynter, laughing. "I am not in love with him the least, and told him so ; but he offered to take care of me, and I thought I could trust him." Mrs. Paynter eyed her guest narrowly. That a woman of the world, as Cissy Hems- worth, from her past life could not possibly help being, had accepted a husband without considering whether he had an income to support her, was a little beyond that lady's power of believing. Either Cissy was playing the role of the ingenue with a vengeance, or was a simpleton past all understanding. " You told him you didn't love him !" said Lizzie at last, speaking very slowly, and almost dropping out her words. " I think I would have left that out if Td been you. And you'd no idea whether he was rich or poor ?" " I told him the truth. It is best so. He has been too true a friend not to deserve that much from my hands. I never thought 282 TWO KISSES. about his income. I supposed, as he had asked me to marry him, that he had enough for us to live upon. No one can know better than he that I have nothing." Mrs. Paynter could not understand this at all. She was morally incapable of under- standing such a character as Cissy's. It was not that her disposition was false, but it was soft. Driven to bay, and Lizzie would have displayed plenty of hardihood, but she de- tested unpleasantness, she always glossed over disagreeable facts. She would not actually lie, but she would undoubtedly distort cir- cumstances that she deemed might be un- palatable to her hearers. When she confessed her sins to her husband, which she never did till necessity compelled, it was only by hint and inuendo extending over two or three days, mingled with penitent self-accusation, in a queer, bewitching fashion all her own. To tell an admirer that she didn't care about him, would have seemed to Lizzie needless brutality. TWO KISSES. 283 " He can't help it, you know," she would say, with the most perfect naivete ; " so why ill-treat him?" But to tell the man that you were about to marry that you didn't love him, was in her eyes extremely foolish. It had a savage candour about it, repugnant to Lizzie's caressing nature. There was a vein of truthfulness and chivalry in Mrs. Hemsworth that she could hardly understand. Lizzie would stand by her friends staunchly enough in difficulties, but it must be in her own indirect fashion. She had hardly moral fibre sufficient to face the world boldly in their behalf. With all her audacity and Bohemianism, Mrs. Paynter did respect the world's opinion. She rather liked astonishing society, nay, even shocking it by her proceedings, but she was specially careful not to go too far. Flirt she would, flirt she did, but she contrived to avoid that scandal should thoroughly fasten on her. She might be talked about, but she took heed that no 284 TWO KISSES. sentence of ostracism should be promulgated concerning her, though her passion for intrigue had more than once led her into grievous difficulties. Whether Cissy is deep past all conception, or innocent to an extent unheard of, puzzles Mrs. Paynter not a little, as she asks quietly, " And when is the wedding to take place ?" " Very soon," replied the widow, shading her fair face from the firelight. " Montague wishes it should be so, and I think too it would be best. I am weary of fighting the world alone, and there is no reason for delay unless he sees such. You will perhaps think I ought not to marry before my year's widowhood is out, but then I am peculiarly situated, remember/'^ " I think you have no one to take care of you at present, and the sooner you have the better," replied Mrs. Paynter, promptly. "But here is luncheon, come along, Cissy, and get something to eat, TWO KISSES. 285 and give me the opportunity of drinking your health." When Mrs. Paynter, at dinner, confided to her husband the information she had received, that gentleman received it with much astonishment. " I never thought Gore would ever marry !" he said, " and if he did, I should have thought Mrs. Hemsworth the last person he would have chosen for a wife. I have nothing to say against your friend, Lizzie — she's charming; but I don't think she's suited to him. Of course, it's a good thing for her, and I hope it will turn out happily. But " "None of your buts. Sir;" replied his wife. " Of course it will turn out well. Why shouldn't it, I should like to know .?" " Well, I've an idea that Mrs. Hemsworth has no conception about managing a house, except in rather princely fashion. Gore is making a good income, no doubt, but one that a woman with extravagant views, like 286 TWO KISSES. yourself for instance, could soon knock holes in." " I am sure I've been very good lately," retorted Lizzie, resenting the hit at herself with great promptitude. " I haven't come to you for extra money this quarter." "My telling you it wasn't to be had may have something to say to that," re- joined her husband, laughing. " However, never mind, I am very likely all wrong, and no one can wish them happiness more sincerely than I do." " They will do very well, you will see ; but, John dear, you know this will cause considerable expense to me, and therefore I shall have to come to you before long." " Why, what on earth has Cissy Hems- worth's wedding to do with your expenses.?" inquired John Paynter, brusquely. He was a most indulgent and liberal husband, but Lizzie sometimes tried him hard on this point. No matter what amount her purse TWO KISSES, 287 was furnished with, Mrs. Paynter was one of those women who are always in diffi- culties about money matters. " Why, you dear old goose, don't you see I must have a new dress for the wedding, and then, of course, I must make Cissy a wedding present, and you wouldn't like me to do that shabbily I am sure." " Oh, Lord !" returned John Paynter. " I didn't know when I wished her happiness that I was to pay for it besides. I shall preach celibacy to all our friends out of due regard for my own pocket in future. But you shall have something to buy them a present with, little woman, and you're right, I should like it to be good. As for a dress, ridiculous, you've plenty. Go in any of them. I'll find no money for that." " But you must," cried Lizzie, laughing. " Your wife attend her friend's wedding in an old gown ^ My dear John, you'd be 288 TWO KISSES. hooted out of all society. It would come under the head of cruelty, and entitle me to separate maintenance at the very least, Sir." " Ah ! you'd find separate maintenance difficult to get along on, Liz, however high it were rated. But I'm froze for a cigar. If you're not going out to-night, let's have coffee in the smoking-room," Mrs. Paynter smiled assent. When she received special invitation to that sanctuary, she knew her ends were achieved. CHAPTER XVI. A QUIET WEDDING. AT last the Major has received the intelligence, so anxiously awaited these weeks past. His Parisian correspond- ent, M. Rayner, was a man not easily baffled, but he was utterly non-plussed in the first instance. He had expected little trouble in ascertaining Mrs. Hemsworth's London address. Some of her friends were doubtless acquainted with it, probably cor- responded with her. But when he came to make inquiries, it appeared that 'none, even of those she was supposed to be most VOL. I. U 290 TWO KISSES. intimate with, were even aware that she had left for England. Some would have it that she was still in Paris, others that she had taken a small house at Versailles. In short, he already knew more than anyone else concerning her. It piqued him. He was a man who prided himself on never being beat about the unravelling of a mystery. Still, this certainly did seem a hard nut to crack, that his old friend Jenkens had given him — to ascertain the whereabouts of a woman in London, from inquiries prosecuted in Paris. M. Rayner ruminated a good deal over this problem. One evening, while smoking his cigar, sipping his coffee, and musing over it for at least the hundredth time, he had an inspiration — one of those flashes that con- stitute high detective art, or acute analysis of character. Mrs. Hemsworth, he argued, was rather celebrated for her succes de toilette. A woman who has achieved fame in that respect will never abandon the foible of TWO KISSES. 291 being well-dressed. A Parisian will never be satisfied with an English modiste, sooner or later she will send to the artiste she employed here. There is only to discover that artiste, which is simple, and pouf, it is a question of time. To discover the modiste that the fashion- able Madame Hemsworth had employed was of course a very easy matter. Some weeks elapse, and then a note from the lady in question informs M. Rayner that she has received an order from her old customer, and that when completed it is to be forwarded to No. — Hanover Street, Hanover Square, London, W. M. Rayner sends off this information to Major Jenkens in his airy swaggering manner. " Anything more that I can do for you, mon cher Major?" he asks, "the amateur detective is a favourite role of mine, com- mand me, if you seek knowledge about anyone. I will back myself to ascertain anything for you with this exception, namely, u 2 292 TWO KISSES, how many weeks our present government will last, and who will succeed M. le Marechal" The Major smiles as he peruses this letter. It astonishes the veteran intriguer little to find that the lady he sought is living within a mile of his offices. His experience teaches him, that the clue to most information you require is usually very close to your hand, if you did but know where to look for it. Curious that Montague Gore, also seeking information, should be similarly impressed with the idea that the key to his mystery of " the settlement" is not far off, though he has no conception of its whereabouts. Then again, the Major always had held that Cissy was in London, and that being the case there was nothing surprising about the locality in which he found her. Claxby Jenkens is very busy about the little pigeon holes in his desk this morning. He unties more than one neatly docketted little packet, reads, and ponders over its TWO KISSES. 293 contents. There are one or two things not working altogether to the Major's satisfaction. That his dear friend Roxby is so utterly beyond his control, troubles him not a little. He had so made up his mind to have just a trifle the best of him upon this occasion, and behold the crafty Roxby seems less within his grip than ever. Has given him indeed pretty frankly to understand, that unless he submits to play the subordinate part assigned to him in this matrimonial speculation, his services will be dispensed with. To a man like the Major, accustomed to be the prime mover in all such mysterious transactions as he may engage in, this itself is galling. We do not like to descend to Cassius after having been wont to play lago. The Major is as thoroughly addicted to intrigue as Mrs. Paynter to flirtation. It is open to question whether a hundred pounds acquired by legitimate means, would have had the same value in his eyes as a less sum obtained by very dubious finesse. 294 TWO KISSES. The Major was at heart a social marauder, and despised the legitimate trader with all the scorn of the buccaneers of days lang syne. Another thing that rather moves his wrath, is that one of his puppets in this approaching drama shows signs of much contumacy. Charlie Detfield has written a curt refusal to dine with Mr. Roxby, a dinner designed by the conspirators to throw him once more across Bessie Stanbury ; and that a man so entirely in the hands of his creditors should presume to thwart their endeavours to obtain their own again, is most grievous insubordination in the Major's eyes. " I take measures for the young sinner *s relief, and he has the audacity to throw obstacles in the way," murmurs the Major, softly. " It is always the case whenever you try to do good to your fellow-creatures, they always meet your exertions with the grossest ingratitude. Our pauper population TWO KISSES. 295 are never satisfied with those institutions which a paternal government has organised for their reception, turn up their noses at the porridge provided for them, and make outcry at being separated from the wives of their bosom ; and here is an aristocratic pauper showing equal ingratitude, refusing the baked meats we would serve up to him, and declining to take a wife to his bosom. Does he think property is acquired without some encumbrances ? to be sure he is not altogether in the secret as yet. I have been fool enough to trust to Nature as a con- federate — as if people ever did fall in love, where it was clearly their duty to do so. No, ril have recourse to human agency again. Nature is a preposterous imposition that requires to be curbed, that stimulates people to all kinds of imprudences, that rarely suggests scientific selection in mar- riage, and may be generally considered as an antediluvian humbug. Nature, in Detfield's case, has apparently suggested 296 TWO KISSES, getting your living by bills. Captain D'et- field, it is time you were made to feel the bit a little. I shall just drop Simmonds a line, to hint that he had best press for a settlement." That little transaction neatly executed in the Major's clear precise calligraphy, and that gentleman, after some further reference to his pigeon-holes, thinks he will walk up to Hanover Street and make a few inquiries concerning Mrs. Plemsworth, see her, per- haps, if it seems judicious — will be guided a little by circumstances on that point, thinks the Major. A few final directions to his clerk, and then the Major carefully adjusts his hat, draws on his gloves, grasps a good service- able umbrella, and sallies forth. A well preserved middle-aged gentleman of military bearing, but yet with a dash of the city about him. Chairman or director of half a dozen companies now, you would not be surprised to hear, though an officer in Her TWO KISSES. 297 Majesty's service in his younger days. Head erect, glaring sternly through his spectacles, and handling his umbrella as if it usurped the place of the accustomed bamboo, the Major strides up Regent Street. It is not often that he leaves that web of his in John Street, where like a dropsical spider he sits awaiting the flies, so early — but he has his reasons. He is interested concerning Mrs. Hemsworth, and wishes to know as much about her as he can. St. Martin's Church clanged half-past eleven as he went past the portico, and though the Major's gait has a touch of military deliberation, yet there is grafted on it the city man's restless activity. Claxby Jenkens combined swift- ness and dignity in his footsteps, and was not long before he turned into Hanover Street and knocked at No. — , with that imposing air of authority habitual to him. There was considerable delay in respond- ing to his summons; in fact the Major had appealed to the knocker in still more 298 TWO KISSES. authoritative fashion more than once, before the door was opened by a young woman in a state of fluster, giggle, and white rosettes, who exclaimed upon seeing him, " ^^g pardon. Sir, but I was so busy I didn't hear you before." " Mrs. Hemsworth lives here, I believe ?" inquired the Major. " Yes, Sir, at least, that is to say. I mean of course she does," replied the waiting maid, with further accession of giggle, ac- companied by confusion. " Is she at home ?" But this interrogation seemed altogether too much for the damsel, and it was only with much smirking and blushing that she blurted forth at length, " La, Sir ! don't you know ? She's gone to St. George's." "St. George's !" replied the Major blankly. "St. George's what — hospital? What the deuce do you mean ?" "No, Sir, oh, dear no!" and here the T]VO KISSES. 299 young lady's risible faculties were so exqui- sitely tickled at the idea of the hospital, that she was unable to make further res- ponse. " Confound the girl !" muttered the Major to himself " When will the grinning idiot stop laughing. Excuse me," he said blandly, " I have not met Mrs. Hems- worth for many years. Where is she gone ?" " 1 beg pardon. Sir, but it did sound so absurd. Hospital ! Oh dear, I thought you were joking. Missus has gone to St. George's Church. She's being married this morning." "How long has she been gone?" asked the Major sharply. " About ten minutes, Sir." Claxby Jenkens twisted sharp on his heel, without another word, and made the best of his way to St. George's. He entered the church, and walked quietly up the aisle. He could see there was a group in front of the altar as he did so. When he came 300 TWO KISSES. near, he stepped into a pew and gazed attentively at the scene before him. Clad in rich white silk^ and bonnet to match, he recognised Cissy Hemsworth at once. A little behind her stood Mrs. Paynter. Of the half score people present, these were all he recognised. The officiating clergyman was in the middle of the marriage service. The Major listened to it at first somewhat lazily. He had never thought of this. But he leant forward eagerly as there smote upon his ears the words, " Wilt thou have this man to be thy wedded husband, to live together after God's ordinance, in the holy estate of matrimony .?" And heard Cissy reply in clear resolute tones, " I will." A few seconds more, and he heard the bridegroom recite in dull monotonous fashion, " I, Montague Gore, take thee Cecilia Hemsworth to be my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for TWO KISSES. 301 better or worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, &c." " Montague Gore !" muttered the Major, "I shall remember that name, I think, but still it is well to be business like," and pro- ducing a memorandum-book, he made a brief entry of the marriage, names, date, &c. That done, and he watched the con- clusion of the ceremony with the cool critical eye of a connoisseur. Did such recognition to Mrs. Paynter's tasteful toilette as would have much gratified that rather mortified lady, had she but known it. For Lizzie was really quite put out at the ex- ceeding quietness of the wedding. "When she said it was to be a very quiet affair," whispered Mrs. Paynter to her husband, " I could not possibly under- stand that it was to be clandestine, you know. It is ridiculous their getting married, as if they were ashamed of it. I wonder they didn't go to a registry ofHce." 302 TWO KISSES. " Yes, it is a pity that we weren't better informed. You might have saved the expense of that new dress, for instance," retorted Mr. Paynter, with a quaint twinkle in his eyes. "Oh, a good dress is never thrown away," rejoined his wife, smiling. " Of course, it's a disappointment that there is no one to see its debut, but it will come in useful." Gore had pleaded for no fuss, and Cissy had wisely replied that she too wished a quiet wedding, albeit she felt it incum- bent to send to Madame Helders of the Rue de la Paix, Paris, for her wedding robes, due to which circumstance was Major Jenkens' attendance at her bridal. The benediction is spoken, the registry signed, and Cissy having received the con- gratulation of the Paynters, Fox Brine, and the half-dozen other people who had been present at the ceremony, walks down the aisle leaning on her husband's arm. TWO KISSES. 303 A rather solemn breakfast in Hanover Street, and then a carriage bears away the newly married couple en route for Brighton. One of the wedding party lingered behind in the church, it was the unbidden Major. No sooner had the remainder crossed the door-sill, then issuing from his pew he made his way rapidly to the vestry. The clergyman was already gone, but the clerk still lingered, and willingly allowed him to inspect the register. " Montague Gore, Hare Court, Temple,'* said the Major, as he once more had recourse to his memorandum-book. " Oh ! well, there will be very little difficulty, I imagine, in knowing all about him ; but this marriage may make a considerable difference in my plans, I must think — I must inquire. I would have given a thousand pounds to have known of this a month ago." END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. LONDON : Printed by A. Schulze, 13, Poland Street. \\\