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A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
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A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 A NOVEL 
 
 BY 
 
 ERNEST DOW SON 
 
 ARTHUR MOORE 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES 
 VOL. L 
 
 LONDON 
 WILLIAM HEINEMANN 
 
 1893 
 
 [All rights reserved] 
 

 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 S. CHAPTER I. 
 
 o 
 
 In that intricate and obscure locality which 
 stretches between the Tower and Poplar, 
 '^a tarry region, scarcely suspected by the 
 -majority of Londoners, to whom the * Port 
 of London' is an expression purely geo- 
 . :grapiiical, there is, or was not many years 
 j^ago, to be found a certain dry-dock called 
 ^Blackpool, but better known from time 
 >Ckimmcinorial to skippers and longshore- 
 omen, and all who go down to the sea in 
 ^ships, as ' Rainham's Dock.' 
 
 Many years ago, in the days of the first 
 ^Rainham and of wooden ships, it had been 
 
 VOL. I. I 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 no doubt a flourishing ship-yard ; and, In- 
 deed, models of wooden leviathans of the 
 period, which had been turned out, not a 
 few, In those palmy days, were still dusty 
 ornaments of Its somewhat antique office. 
 But as time went on and the age of Iron 
 intervened, and the advance on the Clyde 
 and the Tyne had made Thames ship- 
 building a thing of the past, Blackpool 
 Dock had ceased to be of commercial 
 importance. No more ships were built 
 there, and fewer ships put in to be over- 
 hauled and painted ; while even these 
 were for the most part of a class viewed 
 at Lloyd's with scant favour, which seemed, 
 like the yard itself, to have fallen some- 
 what behind the day. The original Rain- 
 ham had not bequeathed his energy along 
 with his hoards to his descendants; and. 
 Indeed, the last of these, Philip Ralnham, 
 a man of weak health, whose tastes, 
 although these were veiled In obscurity, 
 were supposed to trench little upon ship- 
 ping, let the business jog along so much 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 after Its own fashion that the popular 
 view hinted at its imminent dissolution. 
 A dignified, scarcely prosperous quiet 
 seemed the normal air of Blackpool Dock, 
 so that even when It was busiest, and 
 work still came In, almost by tradition, with 
 a certain steadiness — when the hammers 
 of the riveters and the shipwrights awoke 
 the echoes from sunrise to sunset, with a 
 ferocious regularity which the present pro- 
 prietor could almost deplore, there was 
 still a suggestion of mildewed antiquity 
 about It all that was, at least to the nostrils 
 of the outsider, not unpleasing. And when 
 the ships were painted, and had departed, 
 it resumed very easily Its more regular 
 aspect of picturesque dilapidation. For 
 in spite of Its sordid surroundings and its 
 occasional lapses into bustle, Blackpool 
 Dock, as Ralnham would sometimes remind 
 himself, when its commercial motive was 
 pressed upon him too forcibly, was deeply 
 permeated by the spirit of the picturesque. 
 Certainly Mj\__Ridiard^_Lightmark, a 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 young artist, in whose work some excellent 
 judges were beginning already to discern, 
 if not the hand of the master, at least a 
 touch remarkably happy, was inclined to 
 plume himself on having discovered, in his 
 search after originality, the artistic points 
 of a dockyard. 
 
 It was on his first visit to Rainham, 
 whom he had met abroad some years 
 before, and with whom he had contracted 
 an alliance that promised to be permanent, 
 that Lightmark had decided his study 
 should certainly be the river. Rainham 
 had a set of rooms in the house of his 
 foreman — an eighteenth-century house, full 
 of carved oak mantels and curious alcoves, 
 a ramshackle structure within the dock- 
 gates, with a quaint balcony staircase, like 
 the approach to a Swiss chalet, leading 
 down into the yard. In London these 
 apartments were his sole domicile ; though, 
 to his friends, none of whom lived nearer 
 to him than Bloomsbury, this seemed a 
 piece of conduct too flagrantly eccentric — 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 on a parity with his explanation of it, 
 alleging necessity of living on the spot : 
 an explanation somewhat droll, in the face 
 of his constant lengthy absences, during 
 the whole of the winter, when he handed 
 the reins of government to his manager, 
 and took care of a diseased lune in a 
 warmer climate. To LIghtmark, however, 
 dining with his friend for the first time on 
 chops burnt barbarously and an inferior 
 pudding, residence even in a less salu- 
 brious quarter than Blackpool would have 
 been amply justified, in view of the many 
 charming effects — for the most part coldly 
 sad and white — which the river offered, 
 towards evening, from the window of his 
 friend's dining-room. 
 
 After his first visit, he availed himself 
 eagerly of Rainham's invitation to make 
 his property the point of view from which 
 he could most conveniently transfer to 
 canvas his impressions ; and he worked 
 hard for months, with an industry that 
 came upon his friend as a surprise, at the 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 uneven outlines of the Thames ware- 
 houses, and the sharp-pointed masts that 
 rose so trenchantly above them. He had 
 generated a habit of coming and going, 
 as he pleased, without consideration of his 
 host's absences ; and latterly, in the early 
 spring — whose caprices in England Rain- 
 ham was never in a hurry to encounter — 
 ihe easel and painting tools of the assiduous 
 artist had become an almost constant 
 feature of the landscape. 
 
 Now, towards the close of an excep- 
 tionally brilliant day in the finish of May, 
 he was putting the last touches to a picture 
 which had occupied him for some months, 
 and which he hoped to have completed for 
 Rainham's return. As he stood on the 
 wharf, which ran down to the river-side, 
 leaning back against a crane of ancient 
 pattern, and viewing his easel from a few 
 yards' distance critically, he could not con- 
 template the result without a certain com- 
 placency. 
 
 ' It's deuced good, after all,' he said to 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 himself, with his head poised a little on 
 one side. ' Yes, old Rainham will like 
 this. And, by Jove ! what matters a good 
 deal more, the hangers will like it, and if 
 it's sold — and, confound it ! it must be sold 
 — it will be a case of three figures.' 
 
 He had one hand in his pocket, and 
 instinctively — it may have been the result 
 of his meditation — he fell to jingling some 
 coins in it. They were not very many, 
 but just then, though he was a young 
 gentleman keenly alive to the advantages 
 of a full purse, their paucity hardly troubled 
 him. He felt,, for the nonce, assured of 
 his facility, and doubtless had a vista of 
 unlimited commissions and the world at 
 his feet, for he drew himself up to his full 
 height of six feet and looked out beyond 
 the easel with a smile that had no longer 
 its origin in the fruition of the artist. 
 Indeed, as he stood there, in his light, lax 
 dress and the fulness of his youth, he had 
 (his art apart) excuse for self-complacency. 
 He was very pleasant to look upon, with 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 an air of having always been popular with 
 his fellows and the favourite of women ; 
 this, too, was borne out by his history. 
 Not a beautiful man, by any means, but 
 the best type of English comeliness : ruddy- 
 coloured, straight, and healthy ; muscular, 
 but without a suggestion of brutality. His 
 yellow moustache, a shade lighter than his 
 hair — which, although he wore it cropped, 
 showed a tendency to be curling — con- 
 cealed a mouth that was his only question- 
 able feature. It was not the sensitive 
 mouth of the through and through artist, 
 and the lines of It were vacillating. The 
 lips, had they not been hidden, would have 
 surprised by their fulness, contradicting, in 
 some part, the curious coldness of his light 
 blue eyes. All said, however, he remained 
 a singularly handsome fellow ; and the 
 slight consciousness which he occasionally 
 betrayed that his personality was pleasing 
 hardly detracted from it ; it was, after all, 
 a harmless vanity that his friends could 
 afford to overlook. Just then his thoughts, 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 which had wandered many leagues from 
 the warehouses of Blackpool, were brought 
 up sharply by the noise of an approaching 
 footstep. He started slightly, but a moment 
 later greeted the new-comer with a pleasant 
 smile of recognition. It was Rainham's 
 foreman and general manager, with whom 
 the artist, as with most persons with whom 
 he w^as often in contact, was on excellent, 
 and even familiar, terms. 
 
 ' Look here, Bullen,' he said, twisting 
 the easel round a little, ' the picture is 
 practically finished. A few more strokes 
 — I shall do them at home — and it is 
 ready for the Academy. How do you 
 like it r 
 
 Mr. Bullen bent down his burly form 
 and honoured the little canvas with a 
 respectful scrutiny. 
 
 * That is Trinidad Wharf, sir, I suppose }' 
 he suggested, pointing with a huge fore- 
 finger at the background a little un- 
 certainly. 
 
 * That is Trinidad Wharf, Bullen, cer- 
 
lo A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 tainly ! And those masts are from the 
 ships in the Commercial Docks. But the 
 river, the atmosphere — that's the point — 
 how do they strike you ?' 
 
 * Well, it's beautiful, sir,' remarked 
 Bullen cordially ; ' painted like the life, 
 you may say. But isn't it just a little 
 smudgy, sir T 
 
 * That's the beauty of it, Bullen. It's 
 impressionism, you Philistine ! — a sort of 
 modified impressionism, you know, to suit 
 the hangers. 'Gad, Bullen, you ought to 
 be a hanger yourself! Bullen, my dear 
 man, if it wasn't that you do know how to 
 paint a ship's side, I would even go so far 
 as to say that you have all the qualifications 
 of an Academician.' 
 
 * Ah, if it comes to that, Mr. Lightmark, 
 I dare say I could put them up to some 
 dodges. I am a judge of " composition." ' 
 
 ' Composition ? The devil you are ! 
 Ah, you mean that infernal compound 
 which they cover ships' bottoms with '^. 
 What an atrocious pun !' The man looked 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS ii 
 
 puzzled. ' Bullen, R.A., great at compo- 
 sition ; it sounds well/ continued Light- 
 mark gaily, just touching in the brown sail 
 of a barge. 
 
 M've a nephew in the Royal Artillery, 
 sir,' said Mr. Bullen ; ' but I fear he is a 
 bad lot.' 
 
 ' Oh, they all are !' said Lightmark, ' an 
 abandoned crew.' 
 
 His eyes wandered off to the bridge 
 over which the road ran, dividing the dry- 
 dock from the outer basin and wharf on 
 which they stood. A bevy of factory 
 girls in extensive hats stuck with brilliant 
 Whitechapel feathers were passing ; one 
 of them, who was pretty, caught Light- 
 mark's eyes and flung him a saucy com- 
 pliment, which he returned wath light 
 badinage in kind that made the foreman 
 grin. 
 
 ' They know a fine man when they see 
 one, as well as my lady,' he said. Then 
 he added, as if by an after-thought, lower- 
 ing his voice a little : ' By the way, Mr. 
 
12 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 Lightmark, there was a young lady — a 
 young person here yesterday — making in- 
 quiries.' 
 
 Lightmark bent down, frowning a little 
 at a fly which had entangled itself on his 
 palette. 
 
 ' Yes ?' he remarked tentatively, when 
 the offender had been removed. 
 
 ' It was a young lady come after some- 
 one, who, she said, had been here lately : 
 a Mr. Dighton or Crichton was the 
 name, I think. It was the dockman she 
 asked.' 
 
 * Nobody comes here of that name that 
 I know of,' said Lightmark. 
 
 * Not to my knowledge,' said Bullen. 
 
 ' Curious !' remarked Lightmark gravely. 
 
 'Very, sir!' said Bullen, with equal 
 gravity. 
 
 Lightmark looked up abruptly : the two 
 men's eyes met, and they both laughed, 
 the artist a little nervously. 
 
 ' What did you tell her, Bullen ?' 
 
 ' No such person known here, sir. I 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 13 
 
 sent her away as wise as she came. I 
 hold with minding my own business, and 
 asking no questions.' 
 
 ' An excellent maxim, Bullen !' said 
 Lightmark, preparing to pack up his 
 easel. ' I have long believed you to be 
 a man of discretion. Well, I must even 
 be moving.' 
 
 * You know the governor is back, sir T 
 Lightmark dropped the paint-brush he 
 
 was cleaning, with a movement of genuine 
 surprise. 
 
 * I never knew it,' he said ; ' I will run 
 up and have a yarn with him. I thought 
 he w^asn't expected till to-morrow at the 
 earliest ?' 
 
 ' Nor he was, Mr. Lightmark. But he 
 travelled right through from Italy, and got 
 to London late last night. He slept at 
 the Great Eastern, and I went up to him 
 in the City this morning. He hasn't been 
 here more than half an hour.' 
 
 ' Nobody told me,' said Lightmark. 
 ^ Gad ! I am glad. I will take him up 
 
14 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 the picture. Will you carry the other 
 traps into the house, Bullen ?' 
 
 He packed them up, and then stood a 
 trifle irresolutely, his hand feeling over the 
 coins in his pocket. Presently he pro- 
 duced two of them, a sovereign and a 
 shilling. 
 
 ' By the way, Bullen !' he said, 'there is 
 a little function common in your trade, the 
 gift of a new hat. It costs a guinea, I am 
 told ; though judging from the general 
 appearance of longshoremen, the result 
 seems a little inadequate. Bullen, we are 
 pretty old friends now, and I expect I 
 shall not be down here so often just at 
 present. Allow me — to give you a new 
 hat.' 
 
 The foreman's huge fist closed on the 
 artist's slender one. 
 
 ' Thank you, sir ! You are such a 
 facetious gentleman. You may depend 
 upon me.' 
 
 * I do,' said Lightmark, with a sudden 
 lapse into seriousness, and frowning a little. 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 15 
 
 If something had cast a shadow over 
 the artist for the moment, he must have 
 had a faculty of quick recovery, for there 
 was certainly no shade of constraint upon 
 his handsome face when a minute later he 
 made his way up the balcony steps and 
 into the office labelled ' Private,' and, de- 
 positing his canvas upon the floor, treated 
 his friend to a prolonged handshaking. 
 
 ' My dear Dick !' said Ralnham, ^ this is 
 a pleasant surprise. I had not the re- 
 motest notion you w^ere here.' 
 
 * I thought you were at Bordighera, till 
 Bullen told me of your arrival ten minutes 
 ago,' said Lightmark, with a frank laugh. 
 * And how well ' 
 
 Rainham held up his hand — a very 
 white, nervous hand, with one ring of 
 quaint pattern on the forefinger — depre- 
 catingly. 
 
 ' My dear fellow, I know exactly what 
 you are going to say. Don't be con- 
 ventional — don't say it. I have a fraudu- 
 lent countenance if I do look well; and I 
 
i6 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 don't, and I am not. I am as bad as I 
 ever was.' 
 
 * Well, come now, Rainham, at any rate 
 you are no worse.' 
 
 ' Oh, I am no worse !' admitted the dry- 
 dock proprietor. ' But, then, I could not 
 afford to be much worse. However, my 
 health is a subject which palls on me after 
 a time. Tell me about yourself.' 
 
 He looked up with a smile, in which an 
 onlooker might have detected a spark of 
 malice, as though Rainham were aware 
 that his suggested topic was not without 
 attraction to his friend. He was a slight 
 man of middle height, and of no apparent 
 distinction, and his face, with all its petulant 
 lines of lassitude and ill-health — the wear 
 and tear of forty years having done with 
 him the work of fifty — struck one who saw 
 Philip Rainham for the first time by 
 nothing so much as by its ugliness. And 
 yet few persons who knew him would have 
 hesitated to allow to his nervous, suffering 
 visage a certain indefinable charm. The 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 17 
 
 large head set on a figure markedly un- 
 graceful, on which the clothes seldom 
 fitted, was shapely and refined, although 
 the features were Indefensible, even gro- 
 tesque. And his mouth, with its con- 
 strained thin lips and the acrid lines about 
 it, was unmistakably a strong one. His 
 deep-set eyes, moreover, of a dark gray 
 colour, gleamed from under his thick eye- 
 brows with a pleasant directness ; while his 
 smile, which some people called cynical, as 
 his habit of speech most certainly was, 
 was found by others extraordinarily sym- 
 pathetic. 
 
 ' Yes, tell me about yourself, Dick,' he 
 said again. 
 
 ' I have done a picture, if that is what 
 you mean, besides some portraits ; I have 
 worked down here like a galley-slave for 
 the last three months.' 
 
 * And is the queer little estaminet in 
 Soho still in evidence ? Do the men of 
 to-morrow still meet there nightly and 
 weigh the claims of the men of to-day .'^' 
 
 VOL. I. 2 
 
l8 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 Lightmark smiled a trifle absently ; his 
 eyes had wandered off to his picture In the 
 corner. 
 
 ' Oh, I believe so !' he said at last ; ' I 
 dine there occasionally when I have time. 
 But I have been going out a good deal 
 lately, and I hardly ever do have time. 
 . . . May I smoke, by the way ?' 
 
 Ralnham nodded gently, and the artist 
 pulled out his case and started a fragrant 
 cigarette. 
 
 'You see, Ralnham,' he continued, send- 
 ing a blue ring sailing across the room, 
 ' I am not so young as I was last year, 
 and I have seen a good deal more of the 
 world.' 
 
 * I see, Dick,' said Ralnham. ' Well, 
 go on !' 
 
 ' I mean,' he explained, ' that those men 
 who meet at Brodonowski's are very good 
 fellows, and deuced clever, and all that ; 
 but I doubt if they are the sort of men it 
 is well to get too much mixed up with. 
 They are rather oiitrS, you know ; though. 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 19 
 
 of course, they are awfully good fellows In 
 their way.' 
 
 * Precisely !' said Ralnham, * you are 
 becoming a very Solomon, Dick !' 
 
 He sat playing Idly with the ring on his 
 forefinger, watching the artist's smoke with 
 the same curiously obscure smile. It had 
 the effect on LIghtmark now, as Ralnham's 
 smile did on many people, however inno- 
 cent It might be of satiric Intention, of In- 
 fusing his next remarks with the accent of 
 apology. 
 
 ' You see, Ralnham, one has to think of 
 what will help one on, as well as what one 
 likes. There Is a man I have come to 
 know lately — a very good man too, a 
 barrister — who is always dinning that Into 
 me. He has Introduced me to some very 
 useful people, and is always urging me not 
 to commit myself. And Brodonowskl's is 
 rather committal, you know. However, 
 we must dine there together again one day, 
 soon, and then you will understand it.' 
 
 ' Oh, I understand It, Dick !' said Rain- 
 
20 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 ham. ' But let me see the picture while 
 the light lasts.' 
 
 * Oh yes !' cried Lightmark eagerly. 
 * We must not forget the picture.' He 
 hoisted it up to a suitable light, and 
 Rainham stood by the bow-window, from 
 which one almost obtained the point of 
 view which the artist had chosen, regard- 
 ing it in a critical silence. 
 
 ' What do you call it ?' he asked at 
 last. 
 
 ' " The Gray River," ' said Lightmark ; 
 then a little impatiently : * But how do you 
 find it ? Are you waiting for a tripod T 
 
 ' I don't think I shall tell you. By 
 falling into personal criticism, unless one 
 is either dishonest or trivial, one runs the 
 risk of losing a friend.' 
 
 ' Oh, nonsense, man ! It's not such a 
 daub as that. I will risk your candour.' 
 
 Rainham shrugged his shoulder. 
 
 * If you will have it, Dick — only, don't 
 think that I am to be coaxed into compli- 
 ments.' 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 21 
 
 ' Is it bad ?' asked Lightmark sceptically. 
 
 ' On the contrary, it is surprisingly 
 good. It's clever, and pretty : sure to be 
 hung, sure to sell. Only you have come 
 down a peg. The sentiment about that 
 river is very pretty, and that mist is emi- 
 nently pictorial ; but it's not the river you 
 would have painted last year ; and that 
 mist — I have seen it in a good many pic- 
 tures now — is a mist that one can't quite 
 believe in. It's the art that pays, but it's 
 not the art you talked at Brodonowski's 
 last summer, that is all.' 
 
 Lightmark tugged at his moustache a 
 little ruefully. Rainham had an idea that 
 his ups and downs were tremendous. His 
 mind was a mountainous country, and if 
 he had elations, he had also depressions as 
 acute. Yet his elasticity was enormous, 
 and he could throw off troublesome in- 
 truders, in the shape of memories or 
 regrets, with the ease of a slow-worm 
 casting its skin. And so now his confi- 
 dence was only shaken for a moment, and 
 
22 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 he was able to reply gaily to Rainham's 
 last thrust : 
 
 ' My dear fellow, I expect I talked a 
 good deal of trash last year, after all ' — a 
 statement which the other did not find it 
 worth while to deny. 
 
 They had resumed their places at the 
 table, and Lightmark, with a half-sheet 
 of notepaper before him, was dashing off 
 profiles. They were all the same — the 
 head of a girl : a childish face with a 
 straight, small nose, and rough hair 
 gathered up high above her head in 
 a plain knot. Rainham, leaning over, 
 watched him with an amused smile. 
 
 * The current infatuation, Dick, or the 
 last but one ?' 
 
 'No,' he said; 'only a girl I know. 
 Awfully pretty, isn't she V 
 
 Rainham, who was a little short- 
 sighted, took up the paper carelessly. 
 He dropped it after a minute with a 
 slight start. 
 
 ' I think 1 know her,' he said. ' You 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 23 
 
 have a knack of catching faces. Is it 
 Miss Sylvester ?' 
 
 ' Yes ; it is Eve Sylvester,' said Light- 
 mark. ' Do you know them } I see a 
 good deal of them now.' 
 
 ' 1 have known them a good many 
 years,' said Rainham. 
 
 ' They have never spoken of you to me,' 
 said Lightmark. 
 
 ' No .'^ I dare say not. Why should 
 they ?' He was silent for a moment, 
 looking thoughtfully at his ring. Then 
 he said abruptly : ' I think I know now 
 who your friend the barrister is, Dick. I 
 recognise the style. It is Charles Syl- 
 vester, is it not ?' 
 
 ' You are a wizard,' answered the 
 other, laughing. ' Yes, it is.' Then he 
 asked : ' Don't you think she is awfully 
 pretty ?' 
 
 ' Miss Sylvester } . . . Very likely ; she 
 was a very pretty child. You know, she 
 had not come out last year. Are you 
 going ?' 
 
24 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 Lightmark had pulled out his watch 
 absently, and he leapt up as he discovered 
 the lateness of the hour. 
 
 * Heavens, yes ! I am dining out, and 
 I shall barely have time to dress. I will 
 fetch my traps to-morrow ; then we might 
 dine together afterwards.' 
 
 * As you like,' said the elder man. * I 
 have no engagements yet.' 
 
 Lightmark left him with a genial nod, 
 and a moment later Rainham saw him 
 through the window passing with long, 
 impetuous strides across the bridge. Then 
 he returned to his desk, and wrote a letter 
 or two until the light failed, when he 
 pushed his chair back, and sat, pen in 
 hand, looking meditatively, vaguely, at the 
 antiquated maps upon the walls. 
 
 Presently his eye fell on Lightmark's 
 derelict paper, with its scribble of a girl's 
 head. He considered it thoughtfully for 
 some time, starting a little, and covering 
 it with his blotting-paper, when Mrs. 
 Bullen, his housekeeper, entered with a 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 25 
 
 cup of tea — a freak of his nerves which 
 made him smile when she had gone. 
 
 Even then he left his tea for a long 
 time, cooling and untasted, while he sat 
 lethargically lolling back, and regarding 
 from time to time the pencilled profile 
 with his sad eyes. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 The period of Lightmark's boyhood had 
 not been an altogether happy one. His 
 earHest recollections carried him back to a 
 time when he lived a wandering, desolate 
 life with his father and mother, in an 
 endless series of Continental hotels and 
 pensions. He was prepared to assert, 
 with confidence, that his mother had been 
 a very beautiful person, who carried an air 
 of the most abundant affection for him on 
 the numerous occasions when she received 
 her friends. Of his father, who had, as 
 far as possible, ignored his existence, he 
 remembered very little. 
 
 During these years there had been fre- 
 quent difficulties, the nature of which he 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 27 
 
 had since learnt entirely to comprehend ; 
 controversies with white-waistcoated pro- 
 prietors of hotels and voluble tradespeople, 
 generally followed by a severance of 
 hastily-cemented friendships, and a depar- 
 ture of apparently unpremeditated abrupt- 
 ness. 
 
 When his mother died, he was sent to a 
 fairly good school in England, where his 
 father occasionally visited him, and where 
 he had been terribly bullied at first, and 
 had afterwards learned to bully in turn. 
 He spent his holidays in London, at the 
 house of his grandmother — an excellent 
 old lady, who petted and scolded him 
 almost simultaneously, who talked mysteri- 
 ously about his * poor dear father,' and 
 took care that he went to church regu- 
 larly, and had dancing-lessons three times 
 a week. 
 
 His father's death, which occurred at 
 Monaco somewhat unexpectedly, and on 
 the subject of which his grandmother 
 maintained a certain reserve, affected the 
 
28 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 boy but little ; in fact, the first real grief 
 which he could remember to have experi- 
 enced was when the old lady herself died 
 — he was then nineteen years old — leaving 
 him her blessing and a sum of Consols 
 sufficient to produce an income of about 
 ;^2 5o a year. 
 
 The boy's inclinations leaned in the 
 direction of Oxford, and in this he was 
 supported by his only-surviving relative, 
 his uncle, Colonel Lightmark, a loud- 
 voiced cavalry officer, who had been the 
 terror of Richard's juvenile existence, and 
 who, as executor of the old lady's will, was 
 fully aware of the position in which her 
 death had left him, and her desire that he 
 should go into the Church. 
 
 At one of the less fashionable colleges, 
 which he selected because he was en- 
 amoured of its picturesque inner quad- 
 rangle, and of the quaint Dutch glass in 
 the chapel windows, Lightmark was popular 
 with his peers, and, for his first term, in 
 tolerably good odour with the dons, who 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 29 
 
 decided, on his coming up to matriculate, 
 that he ought to read for honours. And 
 he did read for honours, after a fashion, 
 for nearly a scholastic year ; after which 
 an unfortunate excursion to Abingdon, and 
 a boisterous re-entry into the University 
 precincts, at the latter part of which the 
 junior proctor and his satellites were pain- 
 fully conspicuous, ended in his being ' sent 
 down' for a term. Whereupon he decided 
 to travel, a decision prompted as much by 
 a not unnatural desire to avoid avuncular 
 criticism as by a constitutional yearning for 
 the sunny South. Besides, one could live 
 for next to nothing abroad. 
 
 During the next few years his proceed- 
 ings were wrapped in a veil of mystery 
 which he never entirely threw aside. 
 Rainham, it is true, saw him occasionally 
 at this time ; for, indeed, it was soon after 
 his first arrival in Paris that Lightmark 
 made his friend's acquaintance, sealed 
 by their subsequent journey together to 
 Rome. But Rainham was discreet. Lieht- 
 
30 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 mark before long informed his uncle, with 
 whom he at first communicated through 
 the post on the subject of dividends, that 
 he was studying Art, to which his uncle 
 had replied : 
 
 ' Don't be a d d fool. Come back 
 
 and take your degree.' 
 
 This letter Dick had light-heartedly 
 ignored, and he received his next cheque 
 from his uncle's solicitors, together with a 
 polite request that he would keep them 
 informed as to his wanderings, and an in- 
 timation that his uncle found it more con- 
 venient to make them the channel of cor- 
 respondence for the future. 
 
 At Paris it was generally conceded that, 
 for an Englishman, the delicacy of Light- 
 mark's touch, and the daring of his concep- 
 tion and execution, were really marvellous ; 
 and if only he could draw ! But he was 
 too impatient for the end to spend the 
 necessary time in perfecting the means. 
 
 At Rome he tried his hand at sculpture, 
 and made a few sketches which his at- 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 31 
 
 tractive personality rather than their in- 
 trinsic merit enabled him to sell. The 
 camaraderie of the Cafe Greco welcomed 
 him with open arms ; and he was to be 
 encountered, in the season, at the most 
 fashionable studio tea-parties and diplo- 
 matic dances. Before long his talent in 
 the direction of seizing likenesses secured 
 him a well-paid post as caricaturist-in-chief 
 on the staff of a Republican journal of more 
 wit than discretion ; and it was in this 
 capacity that he gained his literary ex- 
 perience. On the eve of the suppression 
 of this enterprising organ the Minister of 
 Police thought it a favourable opportunity 
 to express to Lightmark privately his 
 opinion that he was not likely to find the 
 atmosphere of Rome particularly salubrious 
 during the next few months. Whereupon 
 our friend had shrugged his shoulders, and 
 after ironically thanking the official for his 
 disinterested advice, he had given a fare- 
 well banquet of great splendour at the 
 Grecco, packed up palettes and paint- 
 
32 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 boxes, and started for London, where his 
 friends persuaded him that his talent would 
 be recognised. And at London he had 
 arrived, travelling by ruinously easy stages, 
 and breaking the journey at Florence, 
 where he sketched and smoked pipes in- 
 numerable on the Lung Arno ; at Venice, 
 where he affected cigarettes, and indulged 
 in a desperate flirtation with a pretty black- 
 eyed marchesa ; at Monaco, where he 
 gambled ; and at Paris, where he spent 
 his winnings, and foregathered with his 
 friends of the Quartier Latin. 
 
 His empty pockets suggested the im- 
 mediate necessity for work in a manner 
 more emphatic than agreeable. His uncle, 
 upon whom he called at his club, invited 
 him to dinner, lectured him with consider- 
 able eloquence, and practically declined to 
 have any more to do with the young re- 
 probate ; which shook Lightmark's faith in 
 the teaching of parables. 
 
 However, he set to work in the two little 
 rooms beneath the tiles which he rented in 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 33 
 
 Bloomsbury, and which served him as bed- 
 room and studio ; and for a few weeks 
 he finished sketches by day, and wrote 
 sonnets for magazines, and frivolous ar- 
 ticles for dailies, by night. And, strange 
 to say, though there were times when suc- 
 cess seemed very hard to grasp, and when 
 he was obliged to forestall quarter-day, and 
 even to borrow^ money from Rainham — 
 when that bird of passage was within reach 
 — he sold sketches from time to time ; he 
 obtained commissions for portraits ; and 
 the editors occasionally read and retained 
 his contributions. 
 
 In course of time he moved further west, 
 to the then unfashionable neighbourhood 
 of Holland Park, and devoted his energies 
 to the production of a work which should 
 make an impression at the Academy. It 
 was his first large picture in oils, an anony- 
 mous portrait, treated with all the audacity 
 and chic of the modern French school, of a 
 fair-haired girl in a quaint fancy dress, 
 standing under the soft light of Japanese 
 
 vol.. I. 3 
 
34 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 lanterns, in a conservatory, with a back- 
 ground of masses of flowers. 
 
 And when it was finished, Rainham and 
 the small coterie of artists who were inti- 
 mate with Lightmark were generously en- 
 thusiastic in their expressions of approval. 
 
 ' But I don't know about the Academy, 
 old man,' said one of these critics du- 
 biously, after the first spontaneous out- 
 burst of discussion. ' Of course it's good 
 enough, but it's not exactly their style, 
 you know. The old buffers on the Hanging 
 Committee wouldn't understand it ' 
 
 And though Lightmark maintained his 
 intention in the face of this criticism, the 
 picture was never submitted to the hangers. 
 Rainham brought a wealthy American 
 shipowner to see it, and when the com- 
 mittee sat in judgment, the work was 
 already on the high seas on its way to 
 New York. 
 
 After all, Lightmark owed his nascent 
 reputation to work of a less important 
 nature — a few landscapes, which appeared 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 35 
 
 on the walls of Bond Street galleries and 
 were transferred in course of time to 
 fashionable drawing-rooms ; a few por- 
 traits, which the uninitiated thought ad- 
 mirable because they were so ' like.' 
 Moreover, he could flatter discreetly, and 
 he took care not to bore his sitter ; two 
 admirable qualities in a portrait-painter 
 who desires to succeed. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 It was to one of his sitters that Lightmark 
 owed his introduction to the Sylvesters. 
 Charles Sylvester had been told that 
 Lightmark was a man who would certainly 
 achieve greatness, and he felt that here 
 was an opportunity to add a hitherto 
 missing leaf to his laurels, by constituting 
 himself a patron of art, a position not often 
 attained by young barristers even when, 
 as in Sylvester's case, they have already 
 designs upon a snug constituency. 
 
 Sylvester began by giving his prot^^gc a 
 commission to paint his mother's portrait, 
 and before this work was finished a very 
 appreciable degree of intimacy had sprung 
 up between the Sylvester family and the 
 
A CO MED V OF MASA'S 37 
 
 young painter, who found no difficulty in 
 gratifying a woman-of the-world's passion 
 for small-talk and fashionable intelligence 
 — judiciously culled from the columns of the 
 daily newspapers with the art of a practised 
 wielder of the scissors and paste-brush. 
 
 With Miss Sylvester he had a less easy 
 task. She was a girl who had from a very 
 early age been accustomed to have her 
 impressions moulded by her self-assertive 
 elder brother ; and he, at any rate at first, 
 had been careful to show that he regarded 
 Lightmark as an object of his patronage 
 rather than as a friend who could meet 
 him on his own exalted level. He had 
 been known, in his earlier years, to speak 
 somewhat contemptuously of ' artists'; and, 
 indeed, his want of sympathy with Bohe- 
 mians in general had given Eve occasion 
 for much wondering mental comment, when 
 her brother first spoke of introducing the 
 portrait-painter to the family circle. 
 
 However, brotherly rule over a girl's 
 opinions is apt to be disestablished when 
 
38 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 she draws near the autumn of her teens ; 
 and after her emancipation from the school- 
 room and short frocks, Miss Eve began to 
 think it was time that she should be 
 allowed to entertain and express views 
 of her own. And after her first ball, an 
 occasion on which her programme had 
 speedily been besieged, and the debutante 
 marked as dangerous by the observant 
 mothers of marriao-eable sons and dauo^hters 
 — after this important function, even Charles 
 had begun to regard his pretty sister with 
 a certain amount of deference. He cer- 
 tainly had reason to congratulate himself 
 on having so attractive a young person 
 to pour out his coffee and compose 
 hia ' buttonholes ' before he started for 
 chambers in the morning. Eve was at 
 an age when the wild rose tints of a com- 
 plexion fostered by judicious walks and 
 schoolroom teas had not yet yielded to the 
 baneful influence of late dinners and the 
 other orgies which society conducts in an 
 unduly heated atmosphere. Her figure 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 39 
 
 was still almost childishly slim, but graceful, 
 and straight enough to defy criticism in the 
 ball-room or the saddle. Her eyes were 
 gray, with a curious, starry expression 
 In their depths, which always suggested 
 that the smile which was so often on her 
 lips was quite ready to exaggerate the 
 dimples in her cheeks. Her hair was 
 refractory, from her own point of view ; 
 but Lightmark found the tangled brown 
 masses, which she wore gathered into a 
 loose knot high at the back of her shapely 
 head, entirely charming, and suggestive, In 
 a way, of one of Lancret's wood nymphs. 
 
 She could never bring herself to believe 
 that her nose was pretty, although in the 
 seclusion of her chamber she had frankly 
 criticised her reflected Image ; and perhaps 
 it was a trifle too small for most critics. 
 Still, her admirers declared that, especially 
 in profile, it was delightfully piquant, and 
 vastly preferable to the uninteresting 
 aquilines which adorned the countenances 
 of her mother and brother. A provoking, 
 
40 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 childish, charming face, when all was said : 
 it was not wonderful that Lightmark would 
 fain put it upon canvas. And, indeed, 
 so far as the young girl herself was con- 
 cerned, he had already a conditional pro- 
 mise. She had no objection whatever to 
 make, provided that Charles was first con- 
 sulted ; only she had no dress that would 
 meet the occasion. And when Lightmark 
 protested that the airy white garment, with 
 here and there a suggestion of cream- 
 coloured lace and sulphur ribbons, which 
 she was wearing, was entirely right, she 
 scouted the idea with scorn. 
 
 ' This old frock, Mr. Lightmark,' she 
 exclaimed, with a pretty display of disdain 
 for his taste, ' why, I've worn the old thing 
 for months ! No ; if Charles says I may 
 have my portrait painted, I shall go straight 
 off to Madame Sophie, and then you may 
 paint me and send me to the Academy or 
 Grosvenor in all my glory.' 
 
 Lightmark had found it quite useless to 
 protest, well as he knew that the ordinary 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 41 
 
 French milliner can be warranted to succeed 
 in producing a garment almost as unpaint- 
 able as a masculine black frock-coat. 
 
 On the afternoon of the day after Rain- 
 ham's return to the dock, Lightmark was 
 caressing- his fair moustache upon the 
 doorstep of the Sylvesters' house, No. 
 137, Park Street, West, a mansion of un- 
 pretending size, glorious in its summer coat 
 of white paint, relieved only by the tur- 
 quoise - blue tiles which surrounded the 
 window-boxes, and the darker blue of the 
 railings and front-door. He was calling 
 ostensibly for the purpose of inquiring how 
 Charles Sylvester liked the frame which he 
 had selected for the recently-finished por- 
 trait ; really in order to induce her brother 
 to allow Eve to sit to him. Sounds as of 
 discussion floated down the wide staircase ; 
 and when the servant opened the drawing- 
 room door preparatory to announcing him, 
 Lightmark heard — and it startled him — a 
 well-remembered voice upraised in playful 
 protest. 
 
42 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 * No, 'pon my word, Mrs. Sylvester, my 
 young scamp of a nephew hasn't done you 
 justice, 'pon my soul he hasn't !' 
 
 At first he felt almost inclined to turn 
 tall ; though he had long been aware that 
 the Sylvesters were cognisant of his 
 relationship to the somewhat notorious 
 old Colonel, and that they knew him, as 
 everyone did, he had never contemplated 
 the possibility of meeting his uncle there. 
 
 And when he had shaken hands in a 
 bewildered manner with Mrs. Sylvester 
 and Eve, he perceived that his uncle was 
 greeting him with an almost paternal 
 cordiality. 
 
 ' Why, Dick, my boy, 'pon my soul I 
 haven't seen you for an age ! You mustn't 
 neglect your gouty old uncle, you know, 
 Dick ; when are you going to paint his 
 portrait, in review order, eh ? Not until 
 you've painted Miss Eve there, I'll be 
 bound !' 
 
 The prodigal nephew needed all his by 
 no means deficient stock of nerve to enable 
 
A CO. If ED y OF A/ ASA'S 43 
 
 him to present an unmoved countenance to 
 this unexpected attack of geniality. This, 
 he thought, as he returned the other's 
 greeting with as great a semblance of ease 
 as he could muster — this was the uncle who 
 had declined to recognise him when they 
 met a few months ago, in the broadest 
 daylight, in Pall Mall ! 
 
 Presently, while he was trying to recover 
 his equanimity by devoting himself to the 
 cult of Eve, he heard the Colonel whisper 
 in a confidential undertone to their hostess : 
 
 ' Devilish clever fellow, my nephew, 
 y'know, though perhaps I oughtn't to say 
 so. Those newspaper beggars think very 
 highly of him — the critics, y'know, and 
 all that ; why, 'pon my soul, I was reading 
 something about him only this morning at 
 the club in the what's-his-name — the Oi^^- 
 cry. Said he ought to be in the Academy.' 
 
 *Yes,' said Mrs. Sylvester sympatheti- 
 cally, ' you are quite right to be proud of 
 him. Colonel Lightmark. Charles thinks 
 he is very clever, and he is so pleased with 
 
44 A COMEDY^ OF MASKS 
 
 my portrait. We want him to paint Eve, 
 
 you know, only Oh, do let me give 
 
 you another cup of tea, Mr. Lightmark ! 
 Two lumps of sugar, I think }' 
 
 'Thank you, Mrs. Sylvester. Do you 
 know, I have discovered that we have a 
 mutual friend — that is to say, I found out 
 not long ago, quite by accident^ that my 
 very good friend, Philip Rainham, has the 
 pleasure of your acquaintance.' 
 
 * Oh, really !' said Eve delightedly ; ' do 
 you know Philip — Mr. Rainham ? And 
 have you seen him lately ? We haven't 
 heard anything of him for weeks and 
 weeks — not since Christmas, have we, 
 mamma ?* 
 
 ' Ah !' answered Lightmark, smiling, and 
 letting his eyes wander over the white 
 expanse of the Colonel's waistcoat, ' I 
 don't wonder at that. You see, he has 
 been nursing himself on the Riviera all the 
 winter, lucky dog ! He only came back 
 last night. I saw him at his dock, you 
 know, down the river — such a jolly old 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 45 
 
 place. I have been sketching there, on 
 and off, nearly all the spring. He lets me 
 make myself quite at home.' 
 
 'Take care, Dick, my boy,' said the 
 Colonel sententiously, fixing his black- 
 rimmed eyeglass under the bushy white 
 brow that shaded his right eye ; ' don't you 
 let him entice you into that business. 
 Don't pay nowadays ! All the shipping 
 goes up North, y'know. The poor old 
 Thames is only used for regattas now, and 
 penny steamers.' 
 
 * How very nice for the Thames !' cried 
 Eve. ' Why, there's nothing I like more 
 than regattas ! I do so hope we shall go 
 to Henley this year; but houseboats are 
 so expensive, and it's no fun unless you 
 have a houseboat. We had a punt last 
 year, a sort of thing like a long butler's 
 tray, and Charles got into fearful difficulties. 
 You know, it looks so easy to push a punt 
 along with a pole, but the pole has a 
 wicked way of sticking in the mud at 
 critical moments — when they are clearing 
 
46 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 the course, for instance. Oh, it was dread- 
 ful ! Everybody was looking at us, and 
 I felt like one of those horrid people who 
 always get in the way at the Oxford and 
 Cambridge boat-race !' 
 
 ' Or the Derby dog, by Jove !' suggested 
 the Colonel. 
 
 'I can sympathize with you fully, Miss 
 Sylvester,' said his nephew. * I shouldn't 
 like to say how many times in the course 
 of my first summer term at Oxford I found 
 myself sprawling ignominiously in the 
 Cherwell, instead of posing in a picturesque 
 attitude in the stern of my punt. And 
 one looked such a fool going up to college 
 in wet things. But there aren't many 
 regattas going on in the regions below 
 London Bridge nowadays. It's not much 
 like Henley or Mario w, though it's pretty 
 enough in its way at times. You ought to 
 get Rainham to invite you to the dock ; 
 you would create an impression on the 
 natives, and of course he would be 
 delighted. He's got a most amiable house- 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 47 
 
 keeper, though I don't think she has heard 
 of thin bread-and-butter ; and I have dis- 
 covered that his foreman is a judge of art 
 — a regular Ruskin.' 
 
 * And how is poor Philip, Mr. Light- 
 mark ?' asked Mrs. Sylvester tentatively. 
 ' You must bring him here very soon, and 
 make him give an account of himself.' 
 
 ' Oh,' said Lightmark vaguely, ' he's 
 looking pretty fit, though he doesn't like 
 to be told so. I really believe he would 
 be unhappy if he were in robust health. 
 He finds his damaged lung such a good 
 pretext for neglecting the dock ; and if it 
 got quite well, half the occupation of his 
 life would be gone.' 
 
 Mrs. Sylvester and Eve both protested 
 laughingly against this somewhat heartless 
 view of the case; and after declining an offer 
 of the back seats of the carriage, which 
 was already waiting at the door to take 
 Mrs. Sylvester and her daughter for their 
 anteprandial drive in the Park, and ex- 
 pressing their regret that they had not 
 
48 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 seen Charles, uncle and nephew took their 
 leave together. 
 
 ' Dick, my boy,' said the Colonel, when 
 they were safely in the street, ' you must 
 come and dine with me. Not to-night ; I 
 am going to take Lady Dulminster to the 
 French play. Let me have your address, 
 or come and look me up at the club. I'm 
 dev'lish glad you're getting on so well, my 
 boy, though you were a fool not to stay up 
 at Oxford and take your degree. After 
 all, though, perhaps you aren't quite the 
 cut for the Church or a fellowship, and^ 
 and the Sylvesters are dev'lish good people 
 to know, Dick. Ta, ta ! Don't forget to 
 come and see me.' 
 
 So saying, Dick's versatile uncle waved 
 his cheroot by way of adieu, and clambered 
 laboriously into a hansom. 
 
 ' By Jove !' said the younger man blankly, 
 ' what a ridiculous old humbug it is ! And 
 how he used to frio-hten me in the old davs 
 with his confounded cavalry bluster ! I 
 rather think I will look him up : and I'll 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 49 
 
 dine with him three times a week if he 
 likes. Meanwhile, it's time for me to go 
 and meet old Rainham, and take him 
 round to Brodonowski's. What a ripping 
 sunset !' 
 
 And he strolled light-heartedly through 
 Grosvenor Square, the smoke of his cigar- 
 ette fading away behind him. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 When Rainham pushed back the door of 
 the dim Httle restaurant in Turk Street, 
 Soho, he stood a moment, blinking his 
 eyes a little in the sudden change from the 
 bright summer sunshine, before he assured 
 himself that his friend had not yet arrived. 
 Half a dozen men were sitting about 
 smoking or discussing various drinks. The 
 faces of several were familiar to him, but 
 there were none of them whom he knew ; 
 so he took his seat at a table near the 
 door, and ordered a vermuth to occupy 
 him until LIghtmark, whose unpunctuallty 
 was notorious, should put in an appear- 
 ance. In the interim his eyes strayed 
 round the establishment, taking stock of 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 51 
 
 the walls, with their rough decorations, 
 and the clientele, and noting, not without 
 a certain pleasure, that during the six 
 months in which he had been absent 
 neither had suffered much alteration. 
 
 Indeed, to Philip Rainham, who had 
 doubtless in his blood the taint of Bohe- 
 mia, Brodonowski's and the enthusiasm of 
 its guests had a very definite charm. They 
 were almost all of them artists ; they were 
 all of them young and ardent ; and they had 
 a habit of propounding their views, which 
 were always of the most advanced nature, 
 with a vehemence which to Rainham re- 
 presented all the disinterestedness of youth. 
 Very often they were exceedingly well 
 worth knowing, though in the majority 
 of cases the world had not found it out. 
 He knew very few of them personally ; 
 he had been taken there first by Light- 
 mark, w^hen the latter was fresh from 
 Paris, and had been himself more in touch 
 with them. But he had often sat smoking 
 silently a little outside the main group, 
 
 UI^IVERSITV OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
52 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 listening, with a deferential air that sat 
 upon his age somewhat oddly, to their 
 audacious propaganda. 
 
 In his mind he would sometimes contrast 
 the coterie with certain artistic houses, more 
 socially important, which he had from time 
 to time frequented : where earnest -eyed 
 women in graceful garments — which cer- 
 tainly afforded a rest to the eye — dis- 
 pensed tea from a samovar, and discoursed 
 discreetly of the current Academy and the 
 most recent symptomatic novel. 
 
 The delight of a visible, orderly culture 
 permeating their manners and their con- 
 versation was a real one, and yet, Rainham 
 reflected, it left one at the last a trifle 
 weary, a little cold. It seemed to him 
 that this restaurant, with its perennial 
 smell of garlic, its discoloured knife- 
 handles, its frequentatlon of picturesque 
 poverty, possessed actually a horizon that 
 was somewhat less limited. 
 
 Indeed, the dingy room, its assemblage 
 apart, had many traces of an artistic 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 53 
 
 patronage. The rough walls were adorned, 
 in imitation of the familiar Roman haunt, 
 of which this was, so to speak, a colony, 
 with a host of fantastic sketches : rapid 
 silhouettes in charcoal, drawn for illustra- 
 tion or refutation in the heat of some 
 strenuous argument ; caricatures in the 
 same medium, some of them trenchantly- 
 like, of the customers as well as of certain 
 artistic celebrities, whose laurels Brodo- 
 nowski's had not approved, varied here 
 and there by an epigram or a doggerel 
 couplet, damning the Philistine. 
 
 Rainham smiled as he recognised occa- 
 sionally the grotesque travesty of a familiar 
 face. Presently his eyes were arrested by 
 a drawing which was new to him, a face of 
 striking ugliness, offering advantages to 
 the caricaturist of which, doubtless, he had 
 not omitted to avail himself. It imposed 
 itself on Rainham for the savage strength 
 which it displayed, and for an element in 
 its hideousness which suggested beauty. 
 He was still absorbed in the study of this 
 
54 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 face when Lightmark entered and took his 
 place opposite him with a brief apology 
 for his tardiness. He was dressed well, 
 with a white orchid in his button-hole, and 
 looked prosperous and rosy. Some light 
 badinaofe on this score from his various 
 acquaintances in the restaurant he parried 
 with a good-humoured nonchalance ; then 
 he betook himself to consideration of the 
 menu. 
 
 ' I have been calling on your friends 
 the Sylvesters,' he explained after awhile, 
 ' and I could not get away before. My 
 uncle was there, by the way. You have 
 heard me speak of him T 
 
 ' Your uncle, who holds such a lax view 
 of the avuncular offices ?' 
 
 Lightmark smiled a little self-congratu 
 latory smile. 
 
 ' Ah, that's changed. The old boy was 
 deuced friendly — gave me his whole hand 
 instead of two fingers, and asked me to 
 dine with him. I think,' he went on after 
 a moment, ' the Sylvesters have been 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 55 
 
 putting in a good word for me. Or 
 perhaps it was Mrs. Sylvester's portrait 
 which did the job.' 
 
 'Ah,' said Rainham, 'you have painted 
 her, have you T 
 
 Their fish occupied them in silence. 
 Lightmark, a trifle flushed from his rapid 
 walk, smiled from time to time absently, 
 as though his thoughts were pleasant ones. 
 The elder man thought he had seldom 
 seen him looking more boyishly handsome. 
 Presently his eyes again caught the head 
 which had so struck his fancy. 
 
 ' Is that yours, Dick }' he asked. 
 
 Lightmark followed the direction of his 
 eyes to the opposite wall. 
 
 ' I believe it is,' he remarked, with a 
 shade of deprecation in his manner. * It 
 is Oswyn. Don't you know him ?' 
 
 ' I don't know him,' said the other, 
 sipping his thin Medoc. ' But I think I 
 should like to. What is he ?' 
 
 ' He will be here soon, no doubt, and 
 then you will see for yourself. He is 
 
56 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 Oswyn ! I knew him in Paris better than 
 
 I do now. He was in B 's studio ; 
 
 and B swore that he had a magnificent 
 
 genius. He painted a monstrous picture 
 
 which the Salon wouldn't hang ; but B 
 
 bought it, and hung it in his studio, where 
 it frightened his models into fits. Last 
 year he came to London, where he makes 
 enough, when he is sober, by painting pot- 
 boilers for the dealers, to keep him in 
 absinthe and tobacco, which are apparently 
 his sole sustenance. In the meanwhile he 
 is painting a masterpiece ; at least, so he 
 will tell you. He is a virulent fanatic, 
 whose art is the most monstrous thing 
 imaginable. He is — but talk of the 
 
 devil ' 
 
 He broke off and nodded to a little 
 lean man of ambiguous age, in a strained 
 coat, who entered at this moment with a 
 rapid lurching gait. He sat down imme- 
 diately opposite them, under Lightmark's 
 presentment, with which Rainham curiously 
 compared him. And it struck him that 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 57 
 
 there was something in that oddly repul- 
 sive figure which Lightmark's superficial 
 crayon had missed. The long, haggard 
 face was there, with its ill-kempt hair and 
 beard ; and the lips, which, when they 
 parted in a smile that was too full of irony, 
 revealed the man's uneven, discoloured 
 teeth. Rainham lost sight of his uncouth- 
 ness in a sense of his extreme power. His 
 eyes, which were restless and extraordi- 
 narily brilliant, met Rainham's presently ; 
 and the latter was conscious of a certain 
 fascination in their sustained gaze. In 
 spite of the air of savagery which pervaded 
 the man, it was a movement of sympathy 
 which, on the whole, he experienced to- 
 wards him. And it seemed as if this senti- 
 ment were reciprocal, for when the Ger- 
 man youth, who was the cupbearer of the 
 establishment, had taken Oswyn's order, 
 and had brought him absinthe in a long 
 glass, he motioned it abruptly to the oppo- 
 site table. Then he crossed over and 
 accosted Lightmark, whom he had not 
 
58 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 hitherto appeared to recognise, with a 
 word of greeting. Lightmark murmured 
 his name and Rainham's, and the strange 
 little man nodded to him not unamiably. 
 
 ' I must smoke, if you don't mind,' he 
 said, after a moment. 
 
 They nodded assent, and he produced 
 tobacco in a screw of newspaper from the 
 pocket of his coat, and began rapidly to 
 make cigarettes. Rainham watched the 
 dexterous movements of his long nervous 
 hands — the colour of old ivory — and found 
 them noticeable. 
 
 ' You are not an artist, I think,' he 
 suggested after a moment, fixing his curi- 
 ously intent eyes on Rainham. 
 
 * No,' admitted the other, smiling, ' I am 
 afraid I am not. I am only here on suf- 
 ferance. I am a mender of ships.' 
 
 ' He is a connoisseur,' put in Lightmark 
 gaily. ' It's an accident that he happens 
 to be connected with shipping — a fortunate 
 one, though, for he owns a most picturesque 
 old shanty in the far East. But actually 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 59 
 
 he does not know a rudder post from a 
 jibboom.' 
 
 ' I suppose you have been palnthig It ?' 
 said Oswyn shortly. 
 
 LIghtmark nodded. 
 
 * I have been painting the river from 
 his wharf The picture Is just finished, 
 and on the whole I am pleased with It. 
 You should come In and give It a look, 
 Oswyn, some time. You haven't seen my 
 new studio.' 
 
 * I never go west of Regent Street,' said 
 Oswyn brusquely. 
 
 LIghtmark laughed a little nervously. 
 
 ' Oswyn doesn't believe In me, you 
 know, Philip,' he explained lightly. ' It Is 
 a humiliating thing to have to say, but I 
 may as well say it, to save him the trouble. 
 He Is so infernally frank about it, you 
 know. He thinks that I am a humbug, 
 that I don't take my art seriously, and 
 because, when I have painted my picture, 
 I begin to think about the pieces of silver, 
 he is not quite sure that I may not be a 
 
6o A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 descendant of Judas. And then, worst of 
 all, I have committed the unpardonable 
 sin : I have been hung at Burlington 
 House. Isn't that about it, Oswyn ?' 
 
 The elder man laughed his low, mirth- 
 less laugh. 
 
 ' We understand each other, Dick ; but 
 you don't quite do yourself justice — or me. 
 I have an immense respect for your talent. 
 I feel sure you will achieve greatness — in 
 Burlington House.' 
 
 * Well, it's a respectable institution,' said 
 the young man soberly. 
 
 Oswyn finished his drink at a long, 
 thirsty gulp, watching the young man 
 askance with his impressive eyes. Rain- 
 ham noticed for the first time that he had 
 a curious trick of smiling with his lips only 
 — or was it of sneering ? — while the upper 
 part of his face and his heavy brows 
 frowned. 
 
 ' By the way, Lightmark,' he observed 
 presently, ' I have to congratulate you on 
 your renown. There is quite a long pane- 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 6i 
 
 gyric on your picture in the OiUcry this 
 week. Do you know who wrote it ?' 
 
 ' Damn it, man !' broke out Lightmark, 
 with a vehemence which, to Rainham, 
 seemed uncalled-for, ' how should I know ? 
 I haven't seen the rag for an age.' 
 
 There was an angry light in his eyes, 
 but it faded immediately. 
 
 Oswyn continued apologetically : 
 
 ' I beg your pardon. It must be very 
 annoying to you to be puffed Indiscreetly. 
 But I fancied, you know ' 
 
 Lightmark, flushing a little, interrupted 
 him, laying his hand with a quick gesture, 
 that might have contained an appeal in it, 
 on the painter's frayed coat-sleeve. 
 
 ' Your glass is empty, and we are about 
 ready for our coffee. What will you take T 
 
 Oswyn repeated his order, smiling still a 
 little remotely, as he let the water trickle 
 down from a scientific height to his glass, 
 whipping the crystal green of its contents 
 into a nebulous yellow. Rainham, who 
 had listened to the little passage of arms in 
 
62 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 silence, felt troubled, uneasy. The air 
 seemed thunderous, and was heavy with 
 unspoken words. There appeared to be 
 an under-current of understanding between 
 the two painters which was the reverse of 
 sympathetic, and made conversation diffi- 
 cult and volcanic. It caused him to remind 
 himself, a trifle sadly, how little, after all, 
 one knew of even one's nearest friend — and 
 Lightmark, perhaps, occupied to him that 
 relation — how much of the country of his 
 mind remained perpetually undiscovered ; 
 and it made him wonder, as he had some- 
 times wondered before, whether the very 
 open and sunny nature of the young painter, 
 which was so large a part of his charm, 
 had not its concealed shadows — how far, 
 briefly, Lightmark's very frankness might 
 not be a refinement of secretiveness. 
 
 If, however, a word here and there, a 
 trait surprised, indefinable, led him on 
 occasion to doubt of his dominant impres- 
 sion of Lightmark's character, these doubts 
 were never of lono^ duration ; and he would 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 63 
 
 dismiss them, barely entertained, even as 
 a sort of disloyalty, to the limbo of still- 
 born fancies. And so now, with his ac- 
 customed generosity, he speedily flung 
 himself into the breach, and did his best to 
 drive the conversation into impersonal and 
 presumably safer channels. He touched 
 on the prospects of the Academy, of aca- 
 demic art, and art in general, and by-and- 
 by, as Oswyn rose to the discussion, he 
 became himself interested, and was ac- 
 tuated less by a wish to make conversation 
 than to draw his new friend out. And as 
 the artist leant forward, grew excited, with 
 his white, lean face working into strange 
 contortions — as he shot out his savagfe 
 paradoxes, expounding the gospel of the 
 new art a trifle thickly now, and rolling 
 and as rapidly smoking perpetual cigarettes, 
 he found him again strangely attractive. 
 
 He had flashes of insight, it seemed to 
 Rainham ; there was something in his 
 caustic criticism which led him to believe 
 that he could at another time have justified 
 
6+ A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 himself, defended reasonably and sanely a 
 position that was at least tenable. 
 
 But the tide of his spleen invariably 
 overtook him, and he abandoned exegesis 
 for tirade. The dou7^geois, limited scope of 
 the art in vogue — this was the burden of 
 his reiterated rabid attacks ; art watered 
 down to suit the public's insipid palate, 
 and he quoted Chamfort furiously : ' Com- 
 bien de sots faut-il pour faire un public ?' 
 — the art of simpering prettlness, without 
 root or fruit in life, the art of absolute con- 
 vention. He ran over a list of successful 
 names with an ever-growing rancour — 
 artistic hacks, the crew of them, the 
 journalists of painting — with a side-glance 
 at Lightmark, who sat pulling his flaxen 
 moustache, looking stiff and nervous — he 
 would hang the lot of them to-morrow if 
 he had his way, for corrupters of taste, or, 
 better still, condemn them to perpetual in- 
 carceration in the company of their own 
 daubs. These people — in fine, the mutual 
 admiration society of incompetents — 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 65 
 
 where was their justification, where would 
 they be in a decade or so ? The hangers- 
 on of the fashionable world, caring for 
 their art as a means of success, of ac- 
 quiring guineas or a baronetcy or a couple 
 of initials, who dropped the little technique 
 they possessed as soon as they had a com- 
 petency, and foisted their pictures most on 
 people when they had forgotten how to 
 paint. Pompiers^ fimiistes, makers of re- 
 spectable pomjfiade — as the painter's pota- 
 tions increased, his English became less 
 fluent, and he was driven back constantly 
 to the dialect of the Paris ateliers, which 
 was more familiar to him than his mother- 
 tongue. Ah ! how he hated these people 
 and their thread-paper morality, and their 
 sordid conception of art— a prettiness that 
 would sell ! ^ 
 
 Rainham had heard it all before ; it was 
 full of spleen and rancour, unnecessarily 
 violent, and, conceivably, unjust. But 
 what he could not help recognising, in 
 spite' of his repulsion, was a certain nobility 
 
 VOL. I. 5 
 
66 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 and singleness in the man, ruin as he was. 
 Virtue came out of him ; he had the saving 
 quality of genius, and it was a veritable 
 burning passion of perfection which mas- 
 queraded in his spleen. His conception 
 of art for the sake of art only might be 
 erroneous, but it was at least exalted ; and 
 the instinct which drove him always for 
 his material directly to life, rejecting 
 nothing as common or unclean — in the 
 violence of his revolt, perhaps dwelling 
 too uniformly on what was fundamentally 
 ugly — might be disputable, but was obviously 
 sincere. The last notion which Rainham 
 took away with him, when they parted 
 late in the evening (Oswyn having sud- 
 denly lapsed from the eloquence to the 
 incoherency of drunkenness), was a wish 
 to see more of him. He had given him 
 his card, and he waited until he had seen 
 him place it — after observing it for some 
 moments attentively with lack-lustre eyes 
 — In the security of his waistcoat. And 
 as the two friends walked towards Charing 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 67 
 
 Cross, Rainham observed that he hoped 
 he would call. 
 
 * He is a disreputable fellow,' said Light- 
 mark a little sullenly, ' and an unprofitable 
 acquaintance. You will find it less difificult 
 to persuade him to make you a visit than 
 to finish it.' At which Rainham had merely 
 shrugged his shoulders, finding his friend, 
 perhaps for the first time, a little banal. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 A DAY or two later, as Ralnham sat in his 
 river-bound office struggling, by way of 
 luncheon, with the most primitive of chops, 
 his eyes, wandering away from a somewhat 
 mechanic scrutiny of the Shipping Gazette, 
 fell upon the shifting calendar on the 
 mantelpiece. 
 
 The dial noted Thursday ; and he re- 
 minded himself that on that day his friend 
 Lady Garnett had a perennial habit of 
 being at home to her intimates, on the list 
 of whom Rainham could acknowledge, 
 without undue vanity, his name occurred 
 high. There was a touch of self-reproach 
 in his added reminder that a week had 
 elapsed since his return, and he had not 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 69 
 
 already hastened to clasp the excellent old 
 lady's hand. It was an unprecedented 
 postponement and an infringement of a 
 time-honoured habit ; and Rainham had 
 for his habit all the respect of a man who 
 is always indolent and often ill ; though it 
 must be admitted that to his clerks, who 
 viewed the trait complacently, and to the 
 importunate Bullen, who resented it, he 
 seemed to be only regular in his irregularity. 
 He decided that at least this occasion 
 should not be allowed to slip ; a free after- 
 noon would benefit him. He was always 
 rather lavish of those licenses ; and it 
 seemed to him that the tintinnabulation 
 •of teacups in Lady Garnett's primrose and 
 gray drawing-room would be a bearable 
 change from the din of a hundred hammers, 
 which had pelted him through the open 
 windows all the morning. They were 
 patching a little wooden barque with 
 copper, and he paused a moment in the 
 yard, leaning on his slim umbrella to 
 admire the brilliant vellow of the renewed 
 
70 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 sheets, standing out in vivid blots against 
 the tarnished verdigris of the old. To 
 pass from Blackpool to the West, however, 
 is a tardy process ; and when Rainham 
 reached the spruce little house in one of 
 the most select of the discreet and uniform 
 streets which adjoin Portman Square, he 
 found the clatter of teacups for the most 
 part over. There were, in fact, only two 
 persons in the long room, which, with its 
 open Erard, and its innumerable bibelots, 
 and its plenitude of quaint, impossible 
 chairs, seemed quite cosily exiguous. An 
 old lady with a beautiful, refined face and 
 a wealth of white hair, which was still 
 charming to look at, sat In an attitude full 
 of comfortable Indolence, with a small pug 
 in her lap, who bounced at Rainham with 
 a bark of friendly recognition. A young 
 lady at the other side of the room (she was 
 at least young by courtesy), who was pour- 
 ing out tea, stopped short In this operation 
 to greet the new visitor with a little soft 
 exclamation. In which pleasure and sur- 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 71 
 
 prise mingled equally. The old lady also 
 looked up smiling. She seemed both 
 good-natured and distinguished, and she 
 had the air — a sort of tired complacency- — 
 of a person who has been saying witly 
 things for a whole afternoon, and is at last 
 in the enjoyment of a well-deserved rest. 
 She extended both hands to Rainham, who 
 held them for a minute in his own, silently 
 smiling down at her, before he released 
 them to greet her companion. 
 
 She was a tall, pale girl in a black dress, 
 whom at first sight the impartial observer 
 might easily declare to be neither pretty 
 nor young. As a matter of fact, she was 
 younger than she seemed, for she was 
 barely five-and-twenty, although her face 
 and manner belonged to a type which, 
 even in girlhood, already forestalls some of 
 the gravity and reserve that arrive with 
 years. As for her beauty, there were 
 those who disputed it altogether ; and yet 
 even when one had gone so far as to 
 declare that Mary Masters was plain, one 
 
72 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 had, In justice, to add that she possessed 
 none the less a distinct and deHcate charm 
 of her own. It was a dalsy-Hke charm, 
 differing in kind from the charm of Eve 
 Sylvester, which was that of a violet or a 
 child, perpetually perfuming the air. It 
 could be traced at last — for she had not a 
 good feature — to the possession of a pair 
 of very soft and shy brown eyes, and of 
 a voice, simply agreeable in conversation, 
 which burgeoned out in song Into the 
 richest contralto imaginable, causing her 
 to be known widely in society as * the 
 Miss Masters who sings.' Indeed, she 
 had a wonderful musical talent, which she 
 had cultivated largely. Her playing had 
 even approved itself to the difficult Rubin- 
 stein ; and, although she had a certain 
 reputation for cleverness, the loss to 
 society when she left the music-stool to 
 mingle in it was generally felt not to be 
 met by a corresponding gain ; and, indeed, 
 as a rule, people did not consider her 
 separately. The generality were inclined 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 73 
 
 simply to accept her, In relation to her 
 aunt, Lady Garnett, with whom she had 
 lived since she was a girl of sixteen, as 
 any other of that witty old woman's im- 
 pedimenta — her pug Mefistofele, or her 
 matchless enamels, or her Watteau fans. 
 As she came towards him now with a cup 
 in her hand, her pale face a little flushed, 
 her dark hair braided very plainly and 
 neatly above her high forehead, Rainham 
 could not help thinking that she would 
 make an adorable old maid. 
 
 ' You look well, Mary,' he remarked, 
 holding her at arm's length critically, with 
 the freedom of an old friend. ' You look 
 insultingly well — I hope you don't mean it.' 
 
 ' I am afraid I do,' laughed the girl. ' I 
 wish I could say as much for you.' 
 
 Rainham shook his head with burlesque 
 solemnity, and sank down with his fragile 
 cup into the most comfortable of the Louis 
 Quinze chairs which he could select. 
 
 ' It's delightful to be back again,' he 
 remarked, letting his eyes wander round 
 
74 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 the familiar walls. ' I know your things 
 by heart, Lady Garnett ; there's not one of 
 them I could spare. Thanks, Mary, no 
 sugar ; cream, if you please. After all, I 
 don't know anyone who has such charming 
 rooms. Let me see if there is anything 
 new. Yes, those enamels ; introduce me, 
 Mary, please. Yes, they are very nice. 
 By the way, I picked up some old point 
 for you at Genoa, only I have not unpacked 
 it yet. But the Gustave Moreau, where 
 is that } Ah, I see you have shifted it 
 over the piano. Yes, it is exactly the 
 same ; you are all precisely the same ; it's 
 delightful, such constancy — delightful ! I 
 take it as a personal compliment. But 
 where are all the delightful people T 
 
 Lady Garnett smiled placidly. 
 
 ' The delightful people have gone. To 
 tell you the truth, I am just a little glad, 
 especially as you have dropped in from the 
 clouds, or the Riviera di Ponente — which 
 is it, Philip ?' 
 
 ' To be frank with you, from neither. I 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 75 
 
 have it on my conscience to tell you that I 
 have been back some days. I wanted to 
 come here before.' 
 
 ' Ah well, so long as you have come 
 now !' said the old lady. 
 
 'Your knock was mystifying, Philip,' 
 put in the girl presently ; ' we expected 
 nobody else but the Sylvesters, and when 
 we heard your solitary step our hearts 
 sank. We thought that Charles Sylvester 
 had taken it into his head to come by 
 himself.' 
 
 ' He is a terrible young man,' said Lady 
 Garnett ; ' he is almost as limited as 
 his mamma, and he takes himself more 
 seriously. When he is with his sister one 
 can tolerate him, but alone ' 
 
 She held up her thin wrinkled hands 
 with a little gesture of*elision, at which her 
 expressive shoulders assisted. She was of 
 French extraction, the last survivor of an 
 illustrious family ; and reconciled as she 
 had become to England — for years she 
 had hardly left London — a slight and 
 
76 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 very pretty accent, and this trick of her 
 shoulders, remained to remind people that 
 her point of view was still essentially 
 foreign. Rainham, who had from his boy- 
 hood found England somewhat a prison- 
 house, adored her for this trait. The 
 quaint old woman, indeed, with her smooth, 
 well-bred voice, her elaborate complexion, 
 her little dignified incongruities, had always 
 been the greatest solace to him. She had 
 the charm of all rococo things ; she repre- 
 sented so much that had passed away, ex- 
 haling a sort of elegant wickedness to find 
 a parallel to which one had to seek back 
 to the days of the Regency. Of course, 
 in society, she passed for being very 
 devout ; and, indeed, her little pieties, her 
 unfailing attendance at Mass on days of 
 Obligation, at the chapel of the French 
 Embassy hard by, struck Rainham as most 
 edifying. Really, he perceived that her 
 devout attitude was purely traditional, a 
 form of good manners. She remained the 
 same wicked, charming old Sadducee as 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 77 
 
 before : her morocco - bound paroissten 
 might appear on festivals and occasions ; 
 she still slept as often as not of nights with 
 * Candide ' under her pillow. 
 
 The knowledge of a certain sentiment 
 which they shared towards the limitations 
 of London (they were both persons strik- 
 ingly without prejudice) lent a certain 
 piquancy to their old-established relations, 
 an allusive flavour to their conversation — 
 it was always highly seasoned with badin- 
 age — that puzzled many of their common 
 acquaintance enormously. 
 
 Mary Masters, as a shy and serious 
 maiden, fresh from a country parsonage, 
 remembered well the astonishment, mingled 
 with something not unlike awe, with which 
 she had first heard them talk. Philip 
 Rainham had been calling, as it might be 
 now, when she arrived, and Lady Garnett 
 had promptly introduced him to her as her 
 godson, because, as she remarked lightly, 
 if he were not, he ought to have been. To 
 which Philip had replied, in a like humour, 
 
78 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 that It was all the same : if they hadn't 
 that relation, at any rate their behaviour 
 implied it. 
 
 It was a novelty in her small and serious 
 experience to find herself in conjunction 
 with such frivolity ; she was almost inclined 
 to be shocked. Nevertheless, in the ten 
 years during which she had made her home 
 in Parton Street, Mary Masters had sur- 
 mounted her awe, if her astonishment still 
 occasionally obtained. Neither her aunt 
 nor Rainham had altered, nor had they 
 grown perceptibly older. 
 
 Watching the latter to-day as he sat 
 lolling back lazily, balancing his teacup, 
 she was curiously reminded of her first 
 impression of him ; taking stock of her 
 humorously, silently, in almost the same 
 attitude, with the same sad eyes. And 
 since Mary, too, had remained virtually 
 unchanged, it is to the credit of the head 
 of a particularly serious little daughter of 
 the Puritans that she had ended by appre- 
 ciating them both. In fact, she had dis- 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 79 ^ 
 
 covered that neither of them was so 
 frivolous as it appeared, or, at least, that 
 there were visitors in Parton Street who 
 seemed less frivolous, and whose frivolity 
 shocked her more. Her shy brown eyes 
 were penetrative, and often saw more than 
 one would have imagined, and at last 
 they believed that they had seen through 
 the philosophic indifference of Lady Gar- 
 nett's shrug, the gentle irony of Rainham's 
 perpetual smile, the various masks of tragic 
 comedians on a stage where there is no 
 prompter, where the footlights are most 
 pitiless, and where the gallery is only too 
 lavish of its cat-calls at the smallest slip. 
 Beneath it all she saw two people who 
 understood each other as well as any two 
 persons in the world. Did they under- 
 stand each other so well that they could 
 afford to trifle ? She had an idea that 
 their silences were eloquent, and that they 
 might well be lavish of the crudity of 
 speech. Oh, they pretended very well ! 
 The young girl found something admirable 
 
8o A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 in the hard, polished surface which her 
 aunt presented to the world : her rouge 
 and her diamonds, her little bird-like air of 
 living only in the present, of being in- 
 tensely interested, of having no regrets- — a 
 manner to which Rainham responded so 
 fluently, with an assumption that she was 
 right, that things were an excellent joke. 
 After all, perhaps they pretended too 
 much ; at least, she found herself often, 
 when they were present, falling away into 
 reveries full of conjecture, from which, as 
 happened now, she only awoke with a 
 slight blush to find herself directly ad- 
 dressed. 
 
 ' Wake up, Mary ! we are talking of the 
 Sylvesters. I was telling Philip that his 
 little friend Eve has become entirely 
 charming.' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Mary slowly ; * she is charm- 
 ing, certainly. Haven't you seen her, 
 Philip } You used to be constantly there.' 
 
 Rainham assumed the air of reflection. 
 
 ' Really, I believe I used, when Eve 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 8i 
 
 was in short frocks, and Charles con- 
 spicuously absent. Like Lady Garnett, I 
 find the barrister exhausting. He is very 
 unlike his father.' 
 
 * We are going to Switzerland with them 
 this summer, you know, Philip. Will you 
 join us ?' 
 
 * Ah !' he put his cup down, not respond- 
 ing for a moment. ' It would be delight- 
 ful, but I am afraid impossible. You see, 
 there's the dock ; I have been away from 
 it six months, and I shall have to repeat 
 the process when the fogs begin. No, 
 Lady Garnett, I won't be tempted.' 
 
 She began to press him, and they fenced 
 rapidly for some minutes, laughing. Rain- 
 ham had just been induced to promise that 
 he would at least consider the proposition, 
 when the footman announced Mr. and Miss 
 Sylvester. They came in a moment later ; 
 and while the barrister, a tall well-dressed 
 man, with the shaven upper lip and neat 
 whisker of his class, and a back which 
 seemed to bend with difficulty, explained 
 
 VOL. I. 6 
 
82 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 to Lady Garnett that his mother was 
 suffering too much from neuralgia to come 
 with them, Rainham resumed his acquaint- 
 ance with the young girl. He had seen 
 little of her during the past two years, and 
 in the last of them, in which she had 
 changed most, he had not seen her at all. 
 It was with a slight shock, then, that he 
 realized how completely she had grown up. 
 He remembered her in so many phases of 
 childhood and little girlhood, ranging up 
 from a time when her speech was inco- 
 herent, and she had sat on his knee and 
 played with his watch, to the more recent 
 occasions when he had met her riding in 
 the Park with her brother, and she had 
 waved her little whip to him, looking parti- 
 cularly slim and pretty in the very trying 
 costume which fashion prescribes for little 
 ofirls who ride. 
 
 They had always been very good 
 friends ; she had been a most engaging 
 little companion, and really, he reflected, 
 he had been extremely fond of her. It 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 83 
 
 gave him a distinct pain to reflect that 
 their relation had, In the nature of things, 
 come to an end. Gradually, as they 
 talked, the young girl growing out of the 
 first restraint of her shyness, and falling 
 back Into something of her old manner, 
 the first painful Impression of her entire 
 strangeness left Ralnham. In spite of her 
 mature little society air, her engaging 
 attempts at worldjlness, she was, after all, 
 not so grown-up as she seemed. The 
 child gleamed out here and there quite 
 daintily, and as he indulged In reminis- 
 cence, and reminded her of some of their 
 more remote adventures, her merriment 
 found utterance very childishly. 
 
 ' Our most tragical encounter, though, 
 was with the monkey. Have you for- 
 gotten that .^ It was on one of your 
 birthdays — you had a good many of them 
 in Florence — I fororet which it was. You 
 must have been about ten. I had taken 
 you to the Zoological Gardens, such as 
 they were.' 
 
84 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 Her laughter rippled out softly again. 
 
 'I remember,' she nodded, 'it was 
 dreadful.' 
 
 * Yes,' he said ; ' we were at the monkey- 
 cage ; you had grown tired of feeding the 
 ostrich with centeshni! 
 
 ' Oh, Philip !' she interrupted him ; ' I 
 never, never would have done such a 
 thing. It was you who used to give the 
 poor bird centesimi. I only used to 
 watch.' 
 
 ' Ah, you connived at it, anyhow,' he 
 went on. ' Well, we were feeding the 
 monkeys, this time with melon - seeds, 
 when we somehow aroused the ire of a 
 particularly ugly brute, who must have 
 been distantly connected with a bull. 
 Anyhow, he made a grab at the scarlet 
 berret you were wearing, just missed your 
 hair, and demolished the cap.' 
 
 ' I remember,' she laughed. ' You tied 
 your handkerchief round my head, like an 
 old peasant woman, and took me back in 
 a carriage. And mamma was dreadfully 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 85 
 
 angry about the cap, because she had 
 bought It at Biarritz, and couldn't replace 
 it in Italy. She thought you ought to have 
 taken steps to get it back.' 
 
 ' Dear me !' said Rainham solemnly, 
 ' why didn't I think of it before ? I 
 wonder if it's too late to do anything 
 now.' 
 
 The girl's laughter broke out again, this 
 time attracting the attention of her brother, 
 who was discussing the projected travels, 
 with the aid of Bradshaw, at Mary Masters' 
 side. He glanced at them askance, pulling 
 at his collar in his stiff, nervous fashion a 
 little uneasily. 
 
 ' What a long time ago all that seems, 
 Philip !' she remarked after awhile. 
 
 He was silent for a moment, examining 
 his finger-nails intently. 
 
 'Yes,' he said rather sadly ; ' I suppose 
 it does. I dare say you wouldn't care 
 much for the Zoo now ?' 
 
 * Oh, I shouldn't mind,' she said gaily, 
 * if you will take me.' 
 
86 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 But a move had been made opposite, 
 and Charles Sylvester, coming up to them, 
 overheard this last remark. 
 
 ' I think we must be off,' he said, con- 
 sulting his watch. ' Where is Rainham 
 going to take you ?' 
 
 * To Florence,' she said, smiling, 'to the 
 Zoo.' 
 
 ' Ah, a eood idea,' he murmured. 'Well, 
 good-bye. Lady Garnett ; good-day. Rain- 
 ham. I am sorry to see you don't seem 
 to have benefited much by your winter 
 abroad. I almost wonder you came back 
 so soon. Was not it rather unwise } This 
 treacherous climate, you know.' 
 
 'Yes,' said Rainham ; ' I, too, think you 
 are right. I think I had much better have 
 stayed — very much better.' 
 
 'Ah, well,' he said, 'you must take care 
 of yourself, and give us a look in if you 
 have time.' 
 
 Eve looked up at him, flushing a little, 
 as though she found her brother's formal 
 politeness lacking in hospitality. She was 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 87 
 
 Struck then, as she had not been yet during 
 her visit, by a curious lassitude in her old 
 friend's face. It affected her with an un- 
 conscious pity, causing her to second her 
 brother's somewhat chilly invitation more 
 cordially. 
 
 The humour which had shone in Rain- 
 hams eyes while they had been talking- 
 seemed to have gone out suddenly, like a 
 lamp, leaving them blank and tired. It 
 shocked her to realize how old and ill he 
 had become. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Indolence and ill-health, in the opinion of 
 many the salient points in Philip Rain- 
 ham's character, had left him at forty with 
 little of the social habit. The circle of his 
 intimates had sensibly narrowed, and for 
 the rest he was becoming more and more 
 conscious that people whom one does not 
 know exceedingly well are not worth 
 knowing at all. The process of dining 
 out two or three times a week in the 
 company of two or three persons whose 
 claims on his attention were of the 
 slenderest he found a process attended 
 with less and less pleasure the older he 
 grew. There were few houses now which 
 he frequented, and this year, when he had 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 89 
 
 made an effort to devote a couple of even- 
 ings to the renewal of some acquaintance 
 of the winter, and had discovered, as he 
 discovered anew each season, that the 
 effort gave him no appreciable compensa- 
 tions for the disagreeables it involved, he 
 made fresh resolutions of abstinence, and 
 on the whole he kept them amazingly- 
 well. 
 
 For the most part, when he was not 
 routed out by Lightmark (and since the 
 young artist was in train to become a 
 social acquisition this happened less fre- 
 quently than of old), it was at Blackpool 
 that he spent his evenings. He had, it is 
 true, a standing invitation to dinner at 
 Lady Garnett's when that old lady found 
 herself at home ; but Portman Square was 
 remote, and evening dress, to a man with 
 one lung in a climate which had so fickle 
 a trick of registering itself either at the 
 extreme top or bottom of the thermometer, 
 presented various discomforts. His den 
 behind the office — a litde sitting-room 
 
90 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 with a bay - window facing Blackpool 
 Reach, a room filled with books that had 
 no relation to shipping, and hung round 
 with etchings and pictures in those curi- 
 ously low tones for which he had so un- 
 reasonable an affection — was what he 
 cherished most in London. He read 
 little now, but the mere presence of the 
 books he loved best in rough, uneven 
 cases, painted black, lining the walls, 
 caressed him. As with persons one has 
 loved and grown used to loving, it was 
 not always needful that they should speak 
 to him ; it was sufficient, simply, that they 
 should be there. Neither did he write on 
 these long, interminable evenings, which 
 were prolonged sometimes far into the 
 night. He had ended by being able to 
 smile at his literary ambitions of twenty, 
 cultivating his indolence as something 
 choice and original, finding his destiny 
 appropriate. 
 
 He spent the time in interminable 
 reveries, sitting with a volume before 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 91 
 
 him, as often as not unopened, smoking 
 incessantly, and looking out of the window. 
 The habit amused himself at times ; it was 
 so eminently symbolic of his destiny. 
 Life, after all, had been to him nothing 
 so much as that— a long looking out of 
 window, the impartial spectatorship of a 
 crowd of persons and passions from which 
 he had come at last to seem strangely 
 detached, almost as much as from this 
 chameleon river, which he had observed 
 with such satisfaction in all its manifold 
 gradations of character and colour ; its 
 curious cold grayness in the beginning of 
 an autumnal dawn ; the illusion of warmth 
 and depth which it sustained at noon, 
 bringing up its burden of leviathans on the 
 top of the flood ; its sheen on moonless 
 nights, when only little punctures, green 
 and red and orange, and its audible still- 
 ness, reminded him that down in the 
 obscurity the great polluted stream stole 
 on wearily, monotonously, everlastingly to 
 the sea. It was changeful and changeless. 
 
92 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 He thought he knew its effects by heart, 
 but it had always new ones in reserve to 
 surprise and delight him. He declared it 
 at last to be inexhaustible. It was like a 
 diamond on sunny days, flashing out light 
 in every little ripple ; in the late, sunless 
 afternoon the light lay deeply within it, 
 and it seemed jealous of giving back the 
 least particle. He compared it then to an 
 opal or a sapphire, which shine with the 
 same parsimonious radiance. 
 
 One night, while he sat smoking in his 
 wonted meditative fashion, he had a visitor 
 — the painter Oswyn. He had almost 
 forgotten his invitation, but he reminded 
 himself of his first impression, and greeted 
 him with a cordiality which the other 
 seemed to find surprising. He took him 
 into his sanctuary and found him whisky 
 and a pipe ; then he set himself to make 
 the painter talk, a task which he found by 
 no means arduous. 
 
 Oswyn was sober, and Rainham was 
 surprised after awhile at his sanity. He 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 93 
 
 decided that, though one might differ from 
 him, dissent from his premises or his con- 
 clusions, he was still a man to be taken 
 seriously. His fluency was as remarkable 
 as ever, and at first as spleenful ; by-and- 
 by his outrageous mood gave way, and, 
 in response to some of Rainham's adroit 
 thrusts, he condescended to stand on his 
 defence. He could give a reasonable 
 account of himself ; was prepared clearly, 
 and succinctly, and seriously with his justi- 
 fication. Rainham was impressed anew 
 by his singleness, the purity of his artistic 
 passion. His life might be disgraceful, 
 indescribable : his art lay apart from it ; 
 and when he took up a brush an enthu- 
 siasm, a devotion to art, almost religious, 
 steadied his hand. 
 
 'You may think me a charlatan,' he 
 said, with the same savage earnestness, 
 ' but I can tell you I am not. I may fail 
 or I may succeed, as the world counts 
 those things. It is all the same : I believe 
 in myself. It is sufficient to me if I ap- 
 
94 A COMEDY OF MASK'S 
 
 prove myself, and the world may go to 
 damnation ! What I care for is my idea ! 
 . . . yes, my idea, that's it ! They can 
 howl at me,' he went on; 'but they can 
 never say of any stroke of my brush that 
 I put it there for them. I could have 
 painted pictures like Lightmark if I had 
 cared, you know, but I did not care !' 
 
 ' And yet he has great facility,' said 
 Rainham tentatively. 
 
 ' He has more,' said Oswyn bitterly, 
 ' or, at least, he had — genius. And he 
 has deliberately chosen to go the wrong 
 way, to be conventional. He can't plead 
 "invincible ignorance" like the others; 
 he oueht to know better. Well, he has 
 his reward ; but I can't forgive him.' 
 
 Rainham shrugged his shoulders, with 
 something between a sigh and a laugh. 
 
 ' Poor boy ! he is young, you know. 
 Perhaps he will live to see the errors of 
 his ways.' 
 
 ' When he's an Academician, I suppose ?' 
 suggested the other ironically. ' Do they 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 95 
 
 ever see the errors of their ways ? If 
 they do, they don't show It. No ; he will 
 marry a rich wife, and make speeches at 
 banquets, and paint portraits of celebrities, 
 for the rest of his days. And In fifty 
 years' time people will say, " Lightmark, 
 R.A. ? Who the devil was he ?" ' 
 
 By this time the young moon had risen, 
 and its cold light shimmered on the misty 
 river. Rainham refilled his pipe, and 
 opened the window still more widely. 
 
 ' By Jove, what a night !' he said. 
 ' What a night for a painter ! I am sure 
 you are longing to be out In It. I'm 
 afraid there's nothing to show you In the 
 dock at present ; you must come down 
 again when there's a ship coming In at 
 night. I feel quite reconciled to the dock 
 on those occasions. Shall we go for a 
 stroll In the moonlight — and seek impres- 
 sions ?' 
 
 Oswyn's restless humour welcomed the 
 suggestion, and he was already waiting, 
 his soft felt hat In one ungloved hand, and 
 
96 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 a heavy, quaintly carved stick in the 
 other. 
 
 They stood for some minutes on the 
 little, square, pulpit-like landing, at the top 
 of the creaking wooden staircase which 
 led down the side of the building from 
 office to yard, listening to the faint drip of 
 the water through the sluice-gates ; the 
 wail of a child outside the walls, and the 
 pacing step of the woman who hushed it ; 
 the distant Intermittent roar of the song 
 which reached them through the often 
 opened doors of a public - house. Pre- 
 sently the night-watchman lumbered out 
 of his sentry-box by the gates, his dim 
 lantern sounding pools of mysterious dark- 
 ness, which were untouched by the solitary 
 gas-lamp In the street outside, and which 
 the faint moonlight only seemed to in- 
 tensify. 
 
 Oswyn drew in a long breath of the 
 cool, caressing air, momentarily straighten- 
 ing his bent figure. Then he gave a short 
 laugh, which startled Rainham from the 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 97 
 
 familiar state of half- smiling reverie to 
 which he was always so ready to 
 recur. 
 
 ' The last time I saw the river like this, 
 he said — ' the last time I was down here at 
 night, that is — was when I went with a 
 Malay model of mine to his favourite opium 
 den.' 
 
 ' You have not repeated the experi- 
 ment ?' asked Rainham absently. 
 
 ' No ; not yet, at any rate. It made 
 my hand shake so damnably for a week 
 afterwards that I couldn't paint. Besides, 
 I doubt if I could find the place again. I 
 couldn't get the Malay to come away at 
 all ; he is probably there still.' 
 
 ' Beg your pardon, sir,' said the night- 
 watchman hoarsely, when they reached 
 .the bottom of the difficult staircase, 
 ' there's been a young woman here ask- 
 ing for a gentleman of the name of 
 Crichton. I told her there weren't no 
 one of that name here, and Mr. Bullen, 
 sir, he saw her, and sent her away. I 
 
 VOL. I. 7 
 
98 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 thought I had better mention it to you, 
 sir.' 
 
 ' Crichton ? Crichton ?' repeated Rain- 
 ham indifferently. ' I don't know anyone 
 of that name. Some mistake, I suppose, 
 
 or Well, sailors will be sailors ! 
 
 Thank you, Andrewes, that will do. 
 Good-night — or, rather, we shall be back 
 in half an hour or so.' He turned to 
 Oswyn, who had been hanging back to 
 avoid any appearance of interest in the 
 conversation, for corroboration. ' You 
 will come back, of course ?' 
 
 ' Rather late, isn't it ? I think I had 
 better catch some train before midnight, if 
 there is one.' 
 
 ' Oh, there are plenty of trains,' said 
 Rainham vaguely. ' We can settle that 
 matter later. I can give you a bed here, 
 you know, or a berth, at any rate.' 
 
 As they stepped through the narrow 
 opening in the gate, a dark form sprang 
 forward out of the shadow, and then 
 stopped timidly. 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 99 
 
 ' Oh, Cyril !' cried a woman's plaintive 
 voice. ' Cyril ! I knew you were here, 
 
 and they wouldn't let me Ah, my 
 
 God ! it isn't Cyril after all . . . ! 
 
 The voice — and it struck Rainham that 
 it was not the voice of a woman of the 
 sort one would expect to encounter in the 
 streets at that hour — died away in a broken 
 sob, and the girl fell back a step, almost 
 dropping the child she carried in her 
 arms. 
 
 Her evident despair appealed to Rain- 
 ham's somewhat inconveniently assertive 
 sensibility. 
 
 He hesitated for a moment, glancing 
 from the girl to Oswyn, and noting that 
 the face, too, had a certain beauty which 
 was not of the order affected by the women 
 of Blackpool. 
 
 * Don't go,' he said to Oswyn, who had 
 withdrawn a few paces. ' I won't keep 
 you a moment !' 
 
 The baby in the woman's arms set up 
 a feeble wail, and it was borne in upon 
 
lOO A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 Ralnham's mind that the unhappy creature 
 with the white face and pleading dark eyes 
 had been waiting long. 
 
 * Didn't my foreman tell you that the — 
 that the gentleman you asked for is not 
 here ?' he inquired gently. ' No one here 
 has ever heard of Mr. Crichton. I'm 
 afraid you have made a mistake. . . . 
 Hadn't you better go home .^ I'm sure 
 it would be best for your child.' 
 
 * Home ?' echoed the girl bitterly. Then, 
 changing her tone, ' But I saw him here 
 with my own eyes !' she pleaded. ' I saw 
 him at the window there not a week ago 
 quite plain, and then they told me he wasn't 
 here! I'm sure he would see me if he 
 only knew — if he only knew !' 
 
 ' He may have been here,' suggested 
 Rainham doubtfully. ' There are a great 
 many people here from day to day, and 
 we don't always know their names. But 
 I assure you he isn't here now.' 
 
 The girl — for in spite of her pale 
 misery she did not look more — drew 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS loi 
 
 her dark shawl more closely round her- 
 self and the child with a little despairing 
 shudder, glancing over her shoulder. 
 Rainham let his eyes rest on the frail 
 figure pityingly, and a thought of the 
 river behind her struck him with a sudden 
 chill. 
 
 He put his hand, almost surreptitiously, 
 into his pocket. 
 
 ' Where do you live ?' he asked. ' Near 
 here T The girl mentioned a street 
 which he sometimes passed through when 
 economy of time induced him to make an 
 otherwise undesirable short - cut to the 
 railway - station. 'Well,' he said pre- 
 sently, ' I can't keep my friend here 
 waiting, you know. Come and see me 
 to-morrow morning about mid-day, and I 
 will see if I can help you. Only you 
 must promise me to go straight home 
 now ! And ' — here he dropped a coin 
 quickly into her hand — ' buy something 
 for your child ; you both look as if you 
 wanted it' 
 
I02 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 The girl looked at him dumbly for a 
 moment. 
 
 ' I will come, sir, and — and thank you !' 
 she said, with a quaver in her voice. And 
 then, in obedience to Rainham's playfully 
 threatening gesture, she turned away. 
 
 Rainham gazed after her until she had 
 turned the corner. 
 
 'I'm sorry to have treated you to this — 
 scene,' he said apologetically, as he joined 
 Oswyn, who was gazing over the narrow 
 bridge. ' I felt bound to do something 
 for the girl, after she had been wasting 
 all that time outside my gates. Did you 
 notice what a pretty, refined face she had ? 
 I wonder who the man can be — Crichton, 
 Cecil Crichton, wasn't it ? . . . I never 
 heard the name before. It doesn't sound 
 like a sailor's name.' 
 
 ' Cecil Crichton }' echoed the other. 
 ' No . . . and yet it sounds familiar. Per- 
 haps I am thinking of the Admirable, 
 though he wasn't Cecil, as far as I re- 
 member. The old story, I suppose. 
 
A COMEDY OF xMASKS 103 
 
 Cecil Crichton — ah, Cyril Crichton ?' he 
 repeated. Then, dismissing the subject 
 somewhat brutally, ' Ah, well, it's no busi- 
 ness of mine ! Will you give me a light ? 
 Thanks !' 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 At three o'clock Lightmark dismissed his 
 model — an Italian, with a wonderfully fine 
 torso and admirable capabilities for pic- 
 turesque pose, whom he had easily per- 
 suaded to abandon his ice-cream barrow 
 and to sit for him two or three times a 
 week, acting the part of studio servant in 
 the intervals. 
 
 ' That will do, Cesare,' he said, ' aspetto 
 persone ; besides, you're shivering : I shall 
 have you catching cold next, and I can't 
 paint while you're sneezing. Yes, you're 
 quite right, e tin freddo terribile, con- 
 sidering that it's July. Off with you now, 
 and come again at the same time on 
 Friday. Si conservi — that's to say, don't 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 105 
 
 get drunk in the interval ; it makes you 
 look such a brute that I can't paint 
 you.' 
 
 While the model transformed himself 
 from a scantily-attired Roman gladiator 
 into an Italian of the ordinary Saffron Hill 
 description, Lightmark hastily washed his 
 brushes, turned down his shirt - sleeves, 
 and donned the becoming velvet painting- 
 jacket which Mrs. Dollond had so much 
 admired. 
 
 ' I hope they won't notice Cesare's pipe,' 
 he said anxiously. ' Even though he 
 doesn't smoke here, it aways seems to 
 hang about. Perhaps I had better open 
 the window and burn a pastille. And 
 now, are we prepared to receive Philistia ? 
 Yes, I don't think the place looks bad, 
 and — but perhaps Mrs. Sylvester mightn't 
 like the gladiator. He certainly is deucedly 
 anatomical at present. I'll go and leave 
 him in Copal's studio, and then I can 
 borrow his tea-things at the same time.' 
 
 The studio was a lofty room on the 
 
io6 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 ground -floor, with an elaborately -devised 
 skylight, and a large window facing north, 
 through which a distant glimpse of Holland 
 Park could be obtained. Lightmark had 
 covered the floor with pale Indian mat- 
 ting, with a bit of strong colour here and 
 there, in the shape of a modern Turkish 
 rug. For furniture, he had picked up 
 some old chairs and a large straight- 
 backed settee with grotesquely - carved 
 legs, which, with the aid of a judicious 
 arrangement of drapery, looked eminently 
 attractive, and conveyed an impression 
 of comfort which closer acquaintance did 
 not altogether belie. Then there was the 
 platform, covered with dark cloth, on 
 which his models posed ; the rickety 
 table with many drawers, in which he 
 kept brushes and colours ; a lay figure, 
 disguised as a Venetian flower-girl, which 
 had collapsed tipsily into a corner ; two or 
 three easels ; and a tall, stamped leather 
 screen, which was useful for backgrounds. 
 A few sketches, mostly unframed, stood 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 107 
 
 in a row on the narrow shelf which ran 
 along the pale-green distempered walls ; 
 and more were stacked in the corners — 
 some in portfolios, and some with their 
 dusty backs exposed to view. The palette 
 which he had been using lay, like a great 
 fantastic leaf, upon the table, amid a chaos 
 of broken crayons, dingy stumps, photo- 
 graphs of sitters, pellets of bread, dis- 
 reputable colour-tubes, and small bottles 
 of linseed-oil, varnish, and turpentine. A 
 sketch for Mrs. Sylvester's portrait, in 
 crayons, was propped against the foot of 
 an easel (Lightmark hoped that her son 
 might buy it for his chambers) ; the canvas 
 which he had prepared against the much- 
 delayed sitting due from Miss Sylvester 
 exposed its blank surface on another. A 
 tall Japanese jar full of purple and yellow 
 irises, a tribute to his expected guests, 
 stood on the dusty black stove. 
 
 He had barely had time to arrange the 
 borrowed tea-things, and to set a kettle 
 on a little spirit-lamp behind the screen, 
 
io8 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 when Mrs. Dollond and her husband were 
 announced. He threw his black sombrero 
 somewhat theatrically into a corner, and 
 advanced with effusion to meet them. 
 Mrs. Dollond had taken a decided interest 
 in the young painter ever since the delight- 
 fully uncandid reflection of her by no 
 means youthful beauty which he had ex- 
 hibited at the Grosvenor had provoked so 
 much comment amonor her friends. 
 
 She was a plump little fair - haired 
 woman, with blue eyes, a very pink and 
 white complexion, small hands, and a pas- 
 sion for dress with which people who had 
 known her before her marriage, as a slim 
 maiden devoted to sage-green draperies 
 and square-toed shoes, declined to credit 
 her, until they were told that she had, to 
 put it plainly, grown fat — a development 
 which compelled her to give up sestheticism 
 and employ a modiste. 
 
 Her husband, who followed her into the 
 room, carrying her impedimenta, wore the 
 bored expression of the R.A. who is ex- 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 109 
 
 pected to admire the work of an outsider. 
 He was the abject slave of his good- 
 natured wife — she was good-natured, in 
 spite of her love of scandal — and his only 
 fault from her point of view, and his 
 greatest one in the eyes of people in 
 general, lay in an unfortunate habit of 
 thinking aloud, a dangerous characteristic, 
 which persons who are apt to find them- 
 selves in the position of critic should at 
 any cost eradicate. Luckily, his benevo- 
 lence was such that these outspoken com- 
 ments were never really virulent, and not 
 ofteil offensive. 
 
 Mrs. Dollond seated herself smilingly on 
 the least rickety chair, disposed of her veil 
 with one neatly-gloved hand, and prepared 
 a tortoiseshell eyeglass for action with the 
 other. 
 
 ' What a charming portrait !' she said, 
 pointing with her plump index-finger to 
 the sketch of Mrs. Sylvester. ' Do I know 
 the lady, I wonder } Oh ! I do believe 
 it's that Mrs. Sylvester.' 
 
no A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 'Yes,' said Lightmark. * If you remem- 
 ber, you introduced me to her at the 
 Academy soiree last year. I expect her 
 here this afternoon, with her daughter. I 
 am going to paint Miss Sylvester's por- 
 trait.' 
 
 ' Ah,' said Mrs. Dolland mischievously, 
 * and that accounts for the pastille. You 
 never made such preparations when / sat 
 to you. I suppose you thought that a 
 painter's wife could not possibly object to 
 tobacco.' 
 
 * And she certainly doesn't, judging by 
 her consumption of cigarettes !' interposed 
 her husband. 
 
 ' Hugh, I'm ashamed of you ! You 
 know I'm a martyr to asthma — and cigar- 
 ettes aren't tobacco. But how old is Miss 
 Sylvester ? Is she pretty ?' 
 
 ' Don't ask me to describe her, Mrs. 
 Dollond. Wait till you see her — she's 
 coming, you know. What do you think 
 of that river-scape, most reverend signor } 
 It's one of the little things I've been doing 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS in 
 
 down at Rainham's Dock — down at Black- 
 pool' 
 
 The Academician tried to appear in- 
 terested as he assumed the conventional 
 bird-like pose of the picture -gazer and 
 surveyed the sketch. 
 
 ' Very pretty — very pretty ! I should 
 hardly have thought it was the Thames, 
 though. It isn't muddy enough. In fact, 
 the whole scheme of colour is much too 
 clean for London. Quite absurd ! Not a 
 bit like it ! Eh, my dear, what was I 
 saying ? Oh yes, I like the effect of the 
 sunlight on that brown sail immensely. 
 It's really very clever, very clever.' 
 
 Mrs. Dollond, who never knew what 
 her husband would say next, welcomed the 
 influx of a small throng of visitors with a 
 sigh of relief. 
 
 The Sylvesters and Philip Rainham, 
 arriving at the same time, found the little 
 studio almost crowded. Besides the Dol- 
 londs there were two or three of the Turk 
 Street fraternity ; a young sculptor, newly 
 
112 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 arrived from Rome, with his wife ; Dio- 
 nysus F. Quain, an American interested in 
 petroleum, who had patronized Lightmark 
 also at Rome ; and Copal, whose studio 
 was in the same building, and who was 
 manifestly anxious about his Chelsea tea- 
 cups. 
 
 Mrs. Sylvester greeted her protdgd with 
 a flattering degree of warmth which was 
 entirely absent from the stare and conven- 
 tional smile with which she honoured Mrs. 
 Dollond, and the somewhat impertinent air 
 of patronage which she wore when one or 
 two of the young artists were introduced to 
 her. If they did not mind, Mrs. Dollond 
 was inclined to be resentful, for the 
 moment, at least ; and, as a preliminary 
 attack, she maliciously encouraged Eve, 
 who, ensconced in a corner, blissfully un- 
 conscious of the maternal anxiety which 
 the other matron had detected, was eagerly 
 turning over the contents of a portfolio 
 which she had unearthed from its lurkincr- 
 place behind her chair. 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 113 
 
 Rainham was looking over her shoulder, 
 admiring the charming poise of the girl's 
 head, and the contours of her wrists and 
 hands, as she submitted the drawings to 
 his inspection. Charles Sylvester stationed 
 himself close by, and devoted himself to 
 button-holing the American senator, to 
 the obvious discomfort of his victim, whose 
 knowledge of Pennsylvanian oil-wells was 
 infinitely greater than his acquaintance 
 with the rudiments of summary jurisdic- 
 tion, as practised in his native State, and 
 who, after hazarding a remark to the effect 
 that Judge Lynch had long since retired 
 from the Bench, had, as he would have 
 put it, 'pretty considerably petered out.' 
 
 ' I hope my daughter isn't indiscreet T 
 Mrs. Sylvester had hazarded, after catch- 
 ing Lightmark's eye on its return journey 
 from a glance in the direction of the little 
 group in the corner ; and the young man 
 had reassured her hastily, before mis- 
 givings had time to assail him, and when 
 they did, he hoped for the best. For a 
 
 VOL. I. 8 
 
114 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 painter's portfolio is, after all, hardly less 
 confidential than a diary, and may be on 
 occasion almost as compromising, in spite 
 of the fact that the records it contains are 
 written in cipher. 
 
 The sunlight, mellowed to a dull straw 
 colour by its passage through London air, 
 slanted in at the window, falling first on 
 Charles Sylvester's handsome face, with 
 its eminently professional, severely - cut 
 features, and the careful limitation of 
 whisker, which seemed so completely in 
 harmony with his shaven upper lip and 
 the unsympathetic scrutiny of his double 
 eyeglass ; then, losing some of its bright- 
 ness among the little ripples of brown hair 
 which a gracious Providence had forbidden 
 her hat to conceal, fell like a halo upon 
 the pale green wall behind Eve's head. 
 
 The young artists — the 'boys,' as they 
 would have called themselves — were cir- 
 culating busily with teacups and petits 
 fours, and the chatter of voices bore 
 testimony to the preponderance of the 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 115 
 
 Bohemian element. It is only the dwellers 
 on the confines who lose their voices in 
 the Temple of Art — a goddess who, to 
 judge by her votaries, is not wont to take 
 pleasure in silence. 
 
 ' Oh,' said Eve, in reply to one of 
 Rainham's remarks, ' is that Bordighera ? 
 What lovely blue water ! and what per- 
 fectly delicious little fishing-boats ! I 
 should like to go there. Charles is going 
 to take us to Lucerne in a week or two, 
 you know, when the Long Vacation 
 begins. But I suppose we shall hardly 
 get to Italy.' 
 
 ' Yes, that's Bordighera ' — with a sigh 
 — ' my happy hunting-ground. And the 
 water is much bluer really — only don't tell 
 Dick I said so. Yes, you ought to go 
 there. If you stayed late enough you 
 would have me dropping in on you one 
 fine day, as soon as the fogs begin here. 
 Happy thought ! Why shouldn't we all 
 winter out there ?' 
 
 ' That would be nice,' said Eve, rather 
 
Ii6 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 doubtfully ; ' but, you know, there's 
 Charles — he would have to come back 
 for the Law Courts in the autumn, and 
 he would be so lonely all by himself. 
 And — and there's my portrait. Mr. 
 Lightmark wants to get that ready for 
 next year's Academy ; and I can't sit to 
 him very often, as it is, because of cha- 
 perons, you know.' 
 
 Meanwhile Lightmark was telling Mrs. 
 Dollond, in a confidential undertone, some 
 story of a fair American sitter, who, on 
 his expressing himself dissatisfied with his 
 efforts worthily to transfer her complexion 
 to canvas, had at once offered to send 
 her maid round to his studio with an 
 assortment of her {diV ouni^ poudre de rose. 
 Dollond listened with an amused smile to 
 a recital of the sculptor's impressions of 
 the Salon, which he had taken on his way 
 from Rome. Copal was making desper- 
 ate efforts to count his precious teacups, 
 a task which their scattered positions 
 rendered distressingly difficult. Charles 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS /117 
 
 Sylvester was somewhat listlessly cross- 
 examining a P.R.A. in embryo as to the 
 exact meaning of ' breadth ' in a painting ; 
 and Mr. Quain had been making his way 
 as unostentatiously as the creakiness of 
 his boots would permit towards the door. 
 Eve had despatched one of ' the boys ' in 
 search of a portfolio to replace the one 
 which she had exhausted, and another 
 had been entrusted with the safe bestowal 
 of her empty teacup. The new portfolio, 
 when it arrived, proved to be filled, not 
 as the others, with landscapes and water- 
 scapes, but with studies from life — Capri 
 fisher - girls, groups of market people, 
 Venetian boatmen, and hasty sketches for 
 portraits. 
 
 Eve paused rather longer than usual 
 over one of these, the picture of a pretty 
 fair-haired girl, dressed as Pierrette, the 
 general lack of detail and absence of back- 
 ground only making the vigorously out- 
 lined face more distinct. 
 
 * What a pretty girl, Philip !' said the 
 
ii8 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 young critic, presently ; ' and how curiously 
 she's dressed ! What is she intended to 
 represent? Is it a fancy dress? . . . . 
 Mr. Rainham, if you don't attend, I won't 
 show you any more pictures.' 
 
 * Tyrant,' said Rainham absently, as 
 he carried his eyes from the contemplative 
 stare with which they had been regarding 
 the vagaries of a butterfly on the skylight. 
 ' What have you found now } — Kitty, by 
 Jove !' 
 
 He had no sooner uttered these last three 
 words, in a very different tone to that of 
 his previous idle remarks, than he cursed 
 his indiscretion. It was a piece of 
 gaiicherie which he would find it hard to 
 forgive in himself, and Lightmark might 
 well resent it. 
 
 ' Kitty ?' asked Eve, with some surprise, 
 'who is Kitty? Mr. Lightmark, please 
 tell us who this charming young lady, 
 whom Mr. Rainham calls Kitty, is, since 
 he won't.' 
 
 ' Kitty ?' repeated Lightmark, with only 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 119 
 
 a momentary hesitation, which the sudden- 
 ness of the query might well account for ; 
 * I'm afraid I don't quite remember. There 
 are so many Kitties, you know. All 
 models are either Kitty or Polly. But 
 if Rainham says it's Kitty, depend upon 
 it he's right. He's got a wonderful 
 memory for faces, especially pretty ones. 
 Yes,' he added mischievously, ' you ask 
 Rainham.' 
 
 Mrs. Sylvester looked uneasy, and, to 
 her subsequent disgust, began to press 
 'dear Mrs. Dollond' to come and see 
 her. 
 
 Charles, who had looked up sharply at 
 the first mention of the name which had 
 so disturbed the usually imperturbable 
 Rainham, fixed his interrogative glasses 
 first on the latter and then on Lightmark, 
 and finally let them rest, with an expres- 
 sion of inquiring censure, on Rainham, 
 whose confusion savoured to his mind so 
 unmistakably of guilt that * Gentlemen 
 of the jury ' rose almost automatically to 
 
120 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 his lips. Nor did Rainham's attempt to 
 smooth matters assist him. 
 
 ' I must have seen the girl at the 
 studio,' he said, ' when Lightmark was 
 painting her. It's certainly a striking 
 likeness, and that's what astonished me, 
 you know. Almost like seeing a ghost. 
 Ah, that little fellow used to sit for Light- 
 mark in Rome — little sunburnt ruffian. 
 We picked him up on the Ghetto, almost 
 starving, and he got quite an artistic con- 
 nection before we left. He was positively 
 growing too fat ; prosperity spoiled him as 
 a model.' 
 
 * Really ?' said Eve listlessly. * I don't 
 think I want to look at any more draw^- 
 ings ; one can have too much of a good 
 thing, and it must be time for us to go. 
 We're dining out, and Charles doesn't 
 like dressing in a hurry. Yes, mamma 
 is buttoning her gloves. Good-bye, Mr. 
 Rainham. Shall we see you again before 
 we go to Switzerland ? Ah, well, let's 
 hope so. Au revoir, Mr. Lightmark. If 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 121 
 
 you really think it's worth while for 
 me to give you a solitary sitting next 
 week ' 
 
 ' If you would be so good. You see, 
 I should have some ideas to go on with. 
 Don't I deserve some reward, too, for 
 allowing Rainham to monopolize you all 
 the afternoon ? And if you don't give me 
 a sitting now, I'm afraid you will forget all 
 about it when you come back to town ; 
 whereas, if we make a beginning, you will 
 have to see it through — you will be com- 
 promised.' 
 
 ' What a stupid expression !' thought 
 Mrs. Sylvester as the carriage rolled along 
 the Kensington highroad. 
 
 Charles was unusually silent during the 
 drive. The subject which occupied his 
 thoughts was not one which he would have 
 dreamed of ventilating even with his 
 mother, and Eve's presence seemed to 
 render the faintest allusion to it impracti- 
 cable. 
 
 He had no great affection or even 
 
122 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 regard for Philip Rainham, whom he con- 
 templated with that undefined disdain 
 which a younger man so often feels for 
 one who is too old to be on his own level, 
 and too young to inspire reverence. The 
 half-pitying regard which Mrs. Sylvester 
 bestowed on the man who had been to her 
 husband as a very dear younger brother 
 had never furthered Rainham's advance- 
 ment in her son's favour ; and the manner 
 in which Eve had centred her childish 
 affections in Philip, who had made her his 
 especial favourite, was even more preju- 
 dicial to his interests in that quarter. 
 Hitherto, indeed, Silvester's vague dislike 
 had been so undemonstrative and im- 
 material that he would hardly have owned 
 to it as such, and far less would he have 
 acknowledged that he was, however 
 unconsciously, feeling for a peg on which 
 to hang it, for ground to support it ; and 
 yet from the first moment when the man's 
 startled voice drew the questioning eyes 
 upon his embarrassment, the judicial mind 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 123 
 
 had been able to plume itself upon the 
 penetration which had enabled it to detect 
 something of doubtful odour about him 
 from the first. ' Kitty !' That word 
 might explain so much — Rainham's long 
 sojourns away from his business, for 
 example. 
 
 Charles looked at Eve and frowned. 
 Decidedly, thought the young moralist, the 
 old intimacy must be discouraged. Nor^ 
 did the fact that Rainham had been the 
 source of his first brief, as well .as of subse- 
 quent others, though it was not forgotten, 
 suggest the advisability of a compromise ; 
 he even began to take a certain pride 
 in the determination with which he was 
 bringing himself to contemplate the sacri- 
 fice of so useful a friendship. 
 
 When they reached home there was 
 barely time to dress for dinner, and 
 Charles had no opportunity for a tete-a-tete 
 discussion of the situation with his mother 
 that evening. And as he breakfasted 
 early next day and dined at the club, he 
 
124 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 had ample time in which to determine 
 that, for the present, he would avoid any- 
 thing in the shape of a family conference, 
 and would content himself with keeping 
 his eye on the mauvais sujet. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 As soon as Lightmark and Rainham were 
 left alone in the twilight of the studio, the 
 former flung himself into a chair with a 
 sigh of relief, and devoted himself to roll- 
 ing and lighting a cigarette. Rainham 
 picked up his hat, consulted his watch, 
 with a preoccupation of mind which pre- 
 vented him from noticing what the time 
 was, and, refusing the proffered tobacco- 
 pouch and the suggested whisky-and- 
 soda, seemed about to go. Then he 
 stopped, with his back turned towards his 
 host and a pretence of examining a 
 sketch. 
 
 * I'm sorry I made such an ass of myself 
 about that study — that girl, you know,' he 
 
126 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 said presently. ' The fact is, I saw her 
 the other day, and the coincidence was 
 rather startling/ 
 
 Lightmark blew a light cloud of smoke 
 from his lips before he spoke. 
 
 ' Oh, it doesn't matter in the least, old 
 man. You didn't implicate me, as it hap- 
 pened, though I'm afraid you got yourself 
 into rather hot water. A poor devil of a 
 painter must have models, and it's recog- 
 nised, but men of business ! It's 
 
 quite another thing. There's no possible 
 connection between girls and dry-docks.' 
 Then he added lightly, ' Where are you 
 going to dine to-night ? Let's go to one 
 of our Leicester Square haunts, or shall we 
 get into a hansom and drive to Richmond ? 
 I've sold old Quain a picture, and I feel 
 extravagantly inclined. What do you 
 say? Under which chef? Speak, or 
 let's toss up.' 
 
 Rainham appeared to consider for a 
 moment ; then he sat down again. 
 
 ' About that girl,' he said ; ' I suppose you 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 127 
 
 do remember something about her ? She 
 must have been very pretty when you 
 painted her, though she's nothing wonder- 
 ful now, poor thing ! I don't want to 
 pump you, Dick, but she seems to have 
 been pretty badly treated, and I want to 
 see if I can't help her.' 
 
 ' Help her !' with a shrug. * For good- 
 ness' sake tell me : is it Don Quixote or 
 Don Lothario that you are playing ?' 
 
 ' I should have thought you need hardly 
 have asked,' answered the other a little 
 sadly. ' I found the wretched creature 
 waiting, with an equally wretched baby, 
 both apparently not far from starvation, 
 outside the dock the other night ; and — well, 
 I thought she might be waiting for you.' 
 
 Lightmark threw the stump of his cigar- 
 ette into a corner viciously, with a danger- 
 ous glance at the other. 
 
 'Why the devil should she have been 
 waiting for me ? Did she say she was 
 waiting for me ? How should a model 
 know that I had been painting there ? But 
 
128 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 I don't want to quarrel with you, and, 
 after all you've done for me, I suppose 
 you've a certain right to put yourself in 
 loco parentis, and all that sort of thing. 
 Tell me all you have found out about the 
 girl — all she has told you, that is to say, 
 and then I'll see what I can do.' 
 
 This masterly suggestion seemed to 
 Rainham both plausible and practical, and 
 he proceeded to unfold the whole story of 
 his first meeting with Kitty. When he 
 reached the part of his narrative which 
 brought out the girl's explanation that she 
 was seeking to speak with a Mr. Crichton, 
 Lightmark looked at him again covertly, 
 with the same threatening light in his 
 glance. Then, apparently reassured, he 
 resigned himself again to listen, with a 
 cigarette unlighted between his fingers. 
 
 ' You say Oswyn heard the whole 
 story ?' he asked, when Rainham had 
 finished. ' Did the girl seem to know 
 him ? Or did he seem to have heard of 
 — of this Crichton before ?' 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 129 
 
 ' No,' said Rainham reflectively ; * the 
 girl didn't know Oswyn, though, on the 
 other hand, he seemed certain that he had 
 seen her face somewhere — probably in that 
 study of yours, by the way ; and he ap- 
 peared to think that I ought to have heard 
 of Crichton — Cyril Crichton. He told me 
 that the man wrote clever, scurrilous articles 
 on art and the drama for the Outcry. But 
 I don't read English papers much. You 
 see, our difficulty is that Cyril Crichton is 
 obviously a nom de plume, and no one — 
 not even the people at the Outcry office — 
 know, or will say, who the man is ; Kitty 
 has tried. I suppose the editor knows all 
 right, but he is discreet.' 
 
 ' Ah !' cried Lightmark. * Now I remem- 
 ber something about her. Have you got 
 your hat .-^ Let's get into a hansom, and 
 go and dine — I'm positively starving. Til 
 stand you a dinner at the Cavour — stand- 
 ing you a dinner will be such a new sensa- 
 tion ; and new sensations are the only 
 things worth living for. I will tell you 
 
 VOL. I. 9 
 
I30 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 about Kitty in the cab. What a beneficent 
 old beggar you are !' 
 
 As they drove rapidly eastward along 
 the High Street of Old Kensington, 
 where the pale orange of the lamplight 
 was just beginning to tell in the dusk, 
 Lightmark explained how, some two years 
 ago or more, he had been talking to a 
 stranger in a railway carriage, and lament- 
 ing the difficulty of finding really pretty 
 girls who would act as models ; how the 
 stranger had told him that he knew of 
 such an one — a dressmaker's apprentice, 
 or something of that sort, who found the 
 work and hours too hard ; and how, finally, 
 Kitty had called at his studio — the old one 
 in Bloomsbury — and had sat to him, per- 
 haps half a dozen times, before vanishing 
 from his knowledge. This account had been 
 freely interspersed with exclamations on the 
 beauty of the evening light in the Park 
 and the subtle charm of the hour after sun- 
 set, more exquisite in the clear atmosphere 
 of Paris, but still sufficiently lovely even in 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 131 
 
 London, and acknowledged by both of 
 them to be one of the few compensations 
 accorded to the dwellers in the much- 
 abused Metropolis. 
 
 ' I'm sorry,' said Rainham penitently ; ' I 
 had a stupid sort of idea that you were 
 mixed up in the business somehow. I 
 thought so even before I saw the sketch, 
 because I couldn't understand whom else 
 she could have been looking for at the 
 dock. It's very mysterious !' 
 
 * I shouldn't bother about the girl if I 
 were you,' replied the other light-heartedly. 
 ' Even if I had been mixed up with her, as 
 you gracefully express it. you wouldn't 
 have anything to do with it. I believe 
 you think I've been playing the devil 
 with her now, you old moralist ! Hear 
 
 me swear, by yon pale Dash it ! 
 
 there isn't a moon — well, bv the cresset 
 on the top of the Empire, that the 
 young person in question has been my 
 model for a brief space, and nothing more. 
 Only my model, in the strictest sense of 
 
132 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 the word. No, I'll pay the cab, for once in 
 a way.' 
 
 When they had dined, sitting at their 
 favourite table, which, from its position at 
 the end, commanded a view of the bright 
 exotic room, with its cosmopolitan con- 
 tents, their wants cared for by the head- 
 waiter, who adored Lightmark for his 
 knowledge of his mother-tongue, recog- 
 nising and being recognised by the for- 
 gotten of their acquaintance who were also 
 dining there, Lightmark proposed an ad- 
 journment to the little theatre in Dean 
 Street hard by, where ' Niniche ' was 
 being played for the last time by a clever 
 companv from across the Channel. 
 
 ' We must go to the theatre,' he said, 
 ' unless you prefer a hall ; I confess I'm 
 sick of them. I haven't satisfied my ideas 
 of extravagance nearly yet. We will go 
 and sit in the stalls at the Royalty and see 
 Jane May and the others ; it will remind 
 us of old days.' 
 
 * But, my dear fellow,' expostulated the 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 133 
 
 Other, ' it's so late, and we're in morning 
 dress. Let's go to-morrow night instead.' 
 
 ' Ah no ! to-morrow I shan't be in the 
 right mood. Never put off till to-morrow, 
 you know. Our not being in evening 
 dress won't matter a bit, they'll only think 
 we're critics ; and '' Niniche " doesn't begin 
 till nine.' 
 
 On their speedy arrival at the modest 
 portals of the little theatre, Lightmark in- 
 structed his companion, with an air of 
 mystery, to wait, and presently emerged, 
 smiling, from a triumphant encounter with 
 the gentleman presiding at the box-office. 
 
 'They had no stalls left,' he whispered ; 
 ' but they're going to put us in two chairs 
 at the side.' 
 
 The house, with the exception of the 
 more popular places, was crowded ; and 
 the boisterous absurdity of the farce was 
 at its height. Rainham at first felt quite 
 disconcerted by the proximity of the ludi- 
 crous figure in bathing dress who was 
 leaning over the footlights, and declaiming 
 
134 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 his woes with a directness of appeal to the 
 audience which alone would have marked 
 the nationality of the robust actor, who 
 was creating so much mirth out of the 
 extremely hackneyed situation. He had 
 got into the wrong bathing-machine (Light- 
 mark seemed to find it intensely amusing) 
 and the trousers of the rightful occupant 
 only came down to his knees. Rainham 
 at first was disconcerted, and then he 
 began to feel bored. He fell into a semi- 
 comatose state of contemplation, from 
 which he was only aroused by the cadence 
 on his ear of one of the most charming 
 voices he had ever heard. So he charac- 
 terized it, to Lightmark's amusement, when 
 they were discussing their cigarettes and 
 the J eune premiere in the interval between 
 the acts. 
 
 ' Oh for an epithet to describe her !' 
 said Lightmark, catching his friend's en- 
 thusiasm. ' She isn't exactly pretty — yes, 
 she is pretty, but she isn't beautiful ! She's 
 got any amount of what dramatic critics 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 135 
 
 call chic. Don't shudder — I hate the word 
 quite as much as you do, but it was in- 
 evitable. The only thing I feel sure about 
 is that she's espiegle, and altogether de- 
 lightful. And how funny that man is, or 
 would be, if the authors had only given 
 him a better chance ! The fun of the piece 
 is like those trousers — it only comes down 
 to his knees.' 
 
 'What I admire most is her voice,' said 
 the other inconsequently. ' How is it that 
 French actresses have such beautiful 
 voices ? Freedom from fogs can't be the 
 only cause. And it's got all that delicious 
 plaintiveness ' 
 
 ' Yes,' interposed Lightmark, ' it's the 
 voice of a true Parisian fe7n77ie de siecle, fin 
 de siecle. There's the bell ; let's go and 
 hear some more of it.' 
 
 After the second act Lightmark, in 
 whom the influence of the evening was 
 beginning to manifest itself in the shape 
 of a geniality which was absent in a great 
 degree from his more serious hours, and 
 
136 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 which had undoubtedly won him more 
 friends than the other slightly pugnacious 
 phase of his temperament, decided that 
 Niniche was really very like Miss Syl- 
 vester, only less beautiful, and asserted 
 that he was confident that she was younger 
 than the newspapers made out. 
 
 Later, before the two friends parted on 
 the steps of the modest club which in- 
 cluded both In Its list of town members, 
 Lightmark assumed an air of mystery, 
 sighed once or twice, and looked at his 
 friend with an expression In which forgive- 
 ness, reproach, and the lateness of the hour 
 were strangely commingled. 
 
 ' Old boy,' he said, bending his eyebrows 
 with an effort towards gravity, ' I'm really 
 rather cut up about that business — you 
 thinking that I was playing the gay de- 
 ceiver, and all that sort of thing, you know. 
 It was unworthy of you, Philip — It was, 
 really. Dash it! I've been In love forever 
 so long. All the summer, seriously ; I'm 
 going to get married — settle down, range 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 137 
 
 myself. Cut all you rips of bachelors. . . . 
 But perhaps she won't see it. Oh, Lord ! 
 . . . Damn it all ! Why don't you con- 
 gratulate me, eh ?' 
 
 Rainham was growing more and more 
 serious, and it w^as with a real heartache 
 and a curious apprehension of a moral 
 blow that he answered, as gaily as he 
 could : 
 
 * You're going a little too fast, Dick. 
 If you haven't asked the girl, it's rather too 
 early for congratulations, however irresist- 
 ible your attractions may be. Who — who 
 is it, Dick ?' 
 
 ' Oh, come, you know well enough. 
 Eve — I wonder if she'll let me call her 
 Eve ? Eve ! Isn't it a pretty name ?' 
 
 ' I wish you hadn't told me this, Dick,' 
 said the other, with more of the familiar 
 weariness in his voice. ' Are you sure you 
 mean it ? I don't believe you've thought 
 it out. Why, what do you suppose Mrs. 
 Sylvester will say, and Charles Sylvester ?' 
 
 * You think they won't have anything to 
 
138 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 do with a poor devil of an artist, I suppose? 
 Right you are, sir ; but when the poor 
 devil has a rich and gouty uncle, who is 
 disposed to be friendly. . . . See ? I 
 think that alters the complexion of the 
 case. You know, the Sylvesters are 
 awfully well connected, and so on, but 
 they haven't got much money. Mrs. Syl- 
 vester has a life annuity, and Charles — 
 whom I always want to call " Chawles," 
 because he's so pompous — has got his pro- 
 fessional income. And Eve has got a 
 little, enough to dress her, I should think. 
 *' Payable quarterly on her attaining the 
 age of twenty-one years, or marrying under 
 that age, whichever shall first happen." 
 I've looked it all up at Somerset House . 
 Last will and testament of Sylvester 
 Charles Sylvester, Esq. I know they're 
 rather ambitious, and wouldn't look at me if 
 it wasn't for the Colonel. But the Colonel 
 is a solid fact, and I've no doubt they think 
 he's richer than he is. And I am making 
 money, though you mightn't think it.' 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 139 
 
 ' I don't believe Mrs. Sylvester has 
 thought about it at all,' said Rainham 
 doubtfully. ' Eve is so young, and young 
 artists are never looked on as marrying 
 men. Take my advice and think about . 
 it.' 
 
 ' Yozc call her Eve, do you } Ah, well, I 
 won't be jealous of you, old boy. You shall 
 come to the wedding and be best man ; or 
 no, the Colonel will be best man, I sup- 
 pose ? I can imagine him returning thanks 
 for the bridesmaids in the most dazzling 
 white waistcoat that was ever starched. 
 Good-night ; see you again soon.' 
 
 ' I don't know how it is,' thought Rain- 
 ham, as he walked up Old Compton Street 
 on his way to the attic near the British 
 Museum which he rented when he was in 
 England for use on occasions of this kind, 
 ' It's very stupid of me, but I can't bear 
 the idea of Eve marrying. A species of 
 jealousy, I suppose ; not ordinary jealousy, 
 of course. And yet why not } I have 
 never thought of her as anything but a 
 
I40 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 child . . . why shouldn't Lightmark marry 
 her ? He's young, and good-looking, and 
 sure to get on ; and I'm a selfish old wreck. 
 Yes, he shall marry her, and I will buy his 
 pictures.' Still, he shook his head even as 
 he formulated this generous solution of the 
 question, and could not induce himself to 
 regard the position with equanimity, though 
 he sat up till broad daylight wrestling with 
 it. ' I wonder if I am in love,' he said, 
 with a bitter laugh, as he shook the ashes 
 out of his last pipe. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The upper end of the Park is never so 
 fashionably frequented as its southern 
 regions, and Rainham, whose want of 
 purpose had led him past gay carpet- 
 beds and under branching trees nearly 
 to the Marble Arch, was hardly surprised 
 to recognise among the heterogeneous 
 array of promenaders, tramps, and nurse- 
 maids, whom the heat of the slanting sun 
 had prompted to occupy the benches dotted 
 at intervals along the Row, a face whose 
 weary pallor caused him a pang of self- 
 reproach, Kitty ! 
 
 For the last few days, since his en- 
 counter with her portrait at Lightmark's 
 studio, he had scarcely given her troubles 
 
142 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 a thought. When the girl saw him, after 
 a startled look and movement, she seemed 
 to shrink still further into the folds of her 
 rusty black cloak, and, to avoid meeting 
 Rainham's eyes, bent her head over the 
 child who was seated at her side. He 
 found something irresistibly charming and 
 pathetically generous in the girl's spon- 
 taneous denial of any claim to his notice, 
 although, except that he had promised to 
 let her know anything he might learn of 
 the whereabouts of the father of her child, 
 he would have found it hard to establish 
 in the mind of an outside critic that any 
 such claim in fact existed. 
 
 ' Well, my poor child,' he said softly, as 
 he dropped into one of the vacant seats 
 on the same bench, ' how goes it with you 
 and the little one ?' 
 
 ' Oh, sir, you shouldn't speak to me — 
 not here. Anyone might see you. Pray 
 go. I know I shall get you into trouble, 
 and you so kind !' 
 
 These words were spoken in a rapid, 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 143 
 
 frightened whisper, and with an appre 
 hensive glance at the intermittent stream 
 of carriages passing within a few yards of 
 them. Rainham shrugged his shoulders 
 pitifully, but found it rather difficult to say 
 anything. Certainly, his reputation was 
 running a risk, and he felt that his in- 
 difference was somewhat exceptional. 
 
 ' I'm sorry to say I've got no news for 
 you,' he said presently, after a silent pause, 
 during which he had observed that the 
 wide-eyed child was really far prettier than 
 many who (as he had been assured by the 
 complacent matrons who exhibited them) 
 were 'little cherubs,' and that it was as 
 scrupulously cared for as the little cherubs, 
 even in their exhibition array. ' I haven't 
 been able to discover anything ; but you 
 mustn't despair — we shall find him sooner 
 or later.' 
 
 The girl glanced at him irresolutely, and 
 then dropped her eyes again, leaning over 
 the child. 
 
 * It's no good, sir,' she said. ' I'm only 
 
144 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 sorry to have given you so much trouble 
 already. He won't come back — he's tired 
 of me. He could find me if he wanted to, 
 and watching and hunting for him like 
 this would only set him more and more 
 against me.' 
 
 Rainham, as he listened to her, rather 
 puzzled by her sudden change of attitude 
 since their last interview, was forced to 
 admit mentally that her reasoning, if it 
 lacked spontaneity, was, at all events, indis- 
 putably sound ; and while he found himself 
 doubting whether the victim was not better 
 versed in worldliness than he had at first 
 suspected, he still felt a curious reluctance 
 which, though he was half ashamed of his 
 delicacy, prevented him from suggesting 
 that, sentimental reasons apart, the betrayer 
 still ought to be discovered, if only in 
 order to force him to provide for the main- 
 tenance of his child. It hardly, perhaps, 
 occurred to him that he, after all, would be 
 the person who would suffer most, and he 
 certainly did not for an instant credit the 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 145 
 
 girl with any ulterior designs upon his 
 purse. 
 
 * Oh, I don't know/ he said feebly. 
 
 * Perhaps he does not know where you 
 are. And I dare say, if he saw the 
 child ' 
 
 ' The child T echoed the woman bitterly. 
 
 * That's just the worst of it !' 
 
 Rainham sighed, forced again to ac- 
 knowledge his lower standing in the 
 wisdom of the world. He would have 
 given a great deal to be able to get up 
 and go. 
 
 ' Then you don't want me to employ a 
 detective, or to advertise, or — or to make 
 an appeal to the editor of the Outcry ?' 
 
 Mrs. Crichton seemed to welcome the 
 opportunity afforded by this direct ques- 
 tioning. 
 
 ' No,' she said, ' 1 think it would be 
 better not. I don't want to seem ungrate- 
 ful, sir — and I'm sure I thank you very, 
 very much for all you have done for me — 
 but I think you had better take no more 
 
 VOL. I. 10 
 
146 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 trouble about it. If I can get work I shall 
 do all right.' 
 
 In spite of the girl's evident attempt to 
 pull herself together, her voice was less 
 brave than her words, and they conveyed 
 but little assurance to the listener. He 
 shrugged his shoulders somewhat im- 
 patiently : the interview was beginning to 
 tell upon his nerves. 
 
 * Of course, it's for you to decide, and I 
 suppose you have thought it well out, and 
 have good reason for this alteration of pur- 
 pose. But when you talk about work ?' 
 
 He finished his sentence with a note of 
 inquiry and a half-apologetic glance at her 
 slight form and frail white fingers. 
 
 * I haven't alwa\'s been a model,' she 
 explained with some dignity. ' Would to 
 God I never had ! I can sew better than 
 most, and I can work a type-machine. 
 That's what I used to do before he 
 came. But type -writing work isn't so 
 easy to get as it was, and I am out of 
 practice.' 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 147 
 
 It occurred to him for a moment to ask 
 the girl whether she could remember 
 sitting for Mr. Lightmark, but he felt that 
 Dick might resent the introduction of his 
 name ; and, remembering that she had 
 told him that, for a time, before her health 
 gave way, her artist patrons had been 
 numerous, he dismissed the idea as not 
 likely to be profitable. 
 
 As they spoke, she with her mournful 
 eyes turned on Rainham's sympathetic 
 face, he absently following the movements 
 of the child as it laboriously raised a small 
 edifice of gravel-stones on the seat be- 
 tween them, neither of them noticed the 
 severely correct figure in the frock-coat 
 and immaculate hat who passed close 
 behind with observant eyeglass fixed 
 upon the little group, and with an 
 air which, after the first flush of open- 
 mouthed surprise, was eloquently expres- 
 sive of regretful indignation and the 
 hicrhest motives. 
 
 Charles Sylvester continued his walk for 
 
148 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 a distance of about fifty paces, and then 
 seated himself in a position to command a 
 view of the persons in whom he was in- 
 terested. 
 
 ' I don't Hke watching Rainham Hke 
 this,' he said to himself; 'but it's a duty 
 which I owe to society.' 
 
 That the man was Rainham was as 
 obvious as that the woman he was talking 
 to was of a far lower rank in life than his 
 own. And then there was the child ! 
 
 ' By Jove!' said Sylvester sententiously, 
 ' it's worse than I thought. People really 
 ought to be warned. I suppose it's that 
 girl he was talking about at the studio the 
 other day ; and he tried to shift her on to 
 Lightmark. What a hypocrite the man 
 must be !' 
 
 He was not, however, for long called 
 upon to maintain, in the interests of 
 society, his position of espionage ; for 
 Rainham, warned of the lapse of time by 
 the clock which adorns the Park lodge, 
 presently became aware that, if he was to 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 149 
 
 fulfil his intention of calling on Mrs. Syl- 
 vester, he had no time to spare ; and 
 when he rose from his seat Charles Syl- 
 vester thought it advisable to resume the 
 walk which his zeal had induced him to 
 interrupt. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 After all, he need not have hurried. 
 Mrs. Sylvester was out, he was told by 
 the butler, who proceeded to suggest, 
 with the freedom of an old friend, that 
 he should make his way upstairs and find 
 Miss Eve. 
 
 'Yes, I think I will, Phelps,' he said, 
 after a moment's hesitation, ' if she is dis- 
 engaged.' 
 
 * Miss Eve is in the music-room playing, 
 I think, sir. Will you go up ?' 
 
 They found the room empty, however, 
 though an open violin-case on the table 
 and a music-stand, on which leaflets of 
 Schubert fluttered fitfully in the light 
 breeze that entered through the open 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 151 
 
 window, testified to its recent occupa- 
 tion. 
 
 While the butler left Rainham, with 
 apologies, to make further search, the 
 latter stood, hat in hand, making a survey 
 of the little wainscoted room, which he 
 remembered as the school-room. Indeed, 
 though the name, in deference doubtless 
 to Eve's mature age, had been altered, it 
 still retained much of its former aspect. 
 From the little feminine trifles lying about, 
 scraps of unfinished crewel - work and 
 embroidery, and the fresh flowers in the 
 vases, he gathered that it was still an 
 apartment which Eve frequented. He 
 recognised her cage of love-birds hanging 
 in the window ; the cottage piano with its 
 frontal of faded silk, on which he could 
 remember her first painful struggles with 
 Czerny and scales ; the pictures on the 
 walls, many of them coloured reproduc- 
 tions from the Christmas numbers of the 
 illustrated papers ; the ink-stained table- 
 cloth on the round table in the centre. 
 
152 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 He examined the photographs on the 
 mantelpiece with a smile — Charles in his 
 wig and gown, and Mrs. Sylvester with 
 her pretty, faded face, gazed at each other, 
 with a curious likeness in their disparity, 
 from a double frame in the centre ; the 
 spectacled profile of the eminently respect- 
 able woman who had superintended Miss 
 Eve's studies held another place of honour ; 
 and, opposite, Rainham recognised a faded 
 photograph of himself, taken six years 
 before in Rome. He turned from these 
 to the bookshelves, which seemed to be 
 filled with relegations from the rest of the 
 house — children's story-books in tarnished 
 bright covers and dilapidated school-books. 
 He took down one of these latter and 
 examined it absently, with a half-sigh. 
 He had it still in his hand when the young 
 girl fluttered in, looking very cool and 
 fresh in her plain white dress, with a broad 
 sash of apple-green ribbon. 
 
 ' I thought you were never coming to 
 see us again, Philip,' she said reproach- 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS i53 
 
 fully, as she held out her little hand to 
 him. ' What possessed them to bring you 
 here ? It's awfully untidy.' 
 
 * Phelps had an idea you were making 
 music' he explained ; 'and, for the untidi- 
 ness, I suppose he remembered that I was 
 used to it of old.' 
 
 ' Yes, it's just the same. It is an untidi- 
 ness of years, and it is hopeless to cope 
 with it. What have you got there ?' 
 
 He turned the book round to acquaint 
 himself 
 
 ' Ollendorf's " Elementary German 
 Grammar," ' he said with a smile ; ' it's 
 an interesting work.' 
 
 She made a little 7noue expressive of 
 disapproval. 
 
 ' Ah, how nice it is to have done with 
 all that, Philip ! You can't believe how 
 glad I am to be "finished"; yes, I am 
 finished now. I don't even have masters, 
 and Miss Murison has gone away to 
 Brighton and opened a school for young 
 gentlemen. Poor little wretches ! how 
 
154 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 sorry I am for them ! Do you remember 
 Miss Murison, Philip ?' 
 
 She had sunk down into an arm-chair, 
 and Rainham stood, his stooping shoulders 
 propped against the mantelpiece, smiling 
 down at her. 
 
 * Yes, I remember Miss Murison ; and 
 so you are glad her reign has come 
 to an end. Eve ? Well, I suppose it is 
 natural.' 
 
 She nodded her pretty head. 
 
 * Just a little, Philip. But how tired 
 you look ' Will you have some tea ? I 
 suppose you have just come from Black- 
 pool ?' 
 
 His face darkened suddenly, and the 
 smile for a moment died away. 
 
 ' No,' he said shortly, ' I have been in 
 the Park.' 
 
 ' Well,' she remarked after a moment, 
 ' you must have some tea, anyhow. Of 
 course you will wait and see mamma ; she 
 has gone to the Dollonds' "at home," you 
 know. I am all alone. If you like, we 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 155 
 
 will have it in here, as we did in the old 
 days — a regular schoolroom tea.' 
 
 ' It will be charming,' said Rainham, 
 seating himself ; ' it will only want the 
 Murison to complete the illusion.' 
 
 ' Oh, it will do just as well without 
 her,' said Eve, laughing ; ' ring the bell, 
 please.' 
 
 Rainham sat back watching her with 
 far-away eyes, as she moved lightly about, 
 giving her orders with a childish im- 
 periousness, and setting out the little tea- 
 table between them. 
 
 'It is delightful,' he said again, when 
 they were once more alone and he had 
 accepted a well-creamed cup and a wafer- 
 like tartine ; ' and I feel as if I had turned 
 back several years. But how is it, by-the- 
 bye, that you have not gone to the Dol- 
 londs' ?' 
 
 She laughed up at him merrily. 
 
 ' Because I have had much more im- 
 portant things to do. I have been with 
 my dressmaker. I am going to a dance 
 
156 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 to-night, and I have had a great deal of 
 bother over my new frock. But it is all 
 right now, and I shall wear it to-night ; 
 and it is perfectly sweet. Oh, you have 
 never seen me at a party yet, Philip !' 
 
 ' Never } My dear child, I have danced 
 with you at scores.' 
 
 ' Oh yes, at children's parties ; but never 
 since I have grown up — "come out," I 
 mean. Oh, Philip, is there anything in 
 life so deliofhtful as one's first ball ? I 
 wish you would come out with us some- 
 times. I should like to dance with you 
 again now.' 
 
 *Ah,' he said, 'my dancing days are 
 over. I am a wallflower. Eve, now ; and 
 my only use at balls is to fetch and carry 
 for the chaperons.' 
 
 ' Philip !' she cried reproachfully, ' what 
 a dreadful thing to say ! Besides, you used 
 to dance so splendidly.' 
 
 ' Did I ?' he asked ; ' I expect you would 
 be less lenient now. Yes, I will have 
 another cup, please.' 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 157 
 
 She filled it, and he took it from her in 
 silence, wondering how he could least 
 obtrusively gain the knowledge of her 
 mind he sought. He had said to himself 
 that if he could find her alone, it would be 
 so easy ; just a word, an accent, would tell 
 him how far she really cared. But now 
 that she was actually with him, it had 
 become strangely difficult. Very sadly 
 he reflected that she had grown out of his 
 knowledge ; away from her, she rested in 
 his memory as a child whom he could help. 
 The actual presence of this young girl with 
 the deep eyes, in the first flush of her 
 womanhood, corrected him ; an intolerable 
 weight sealed his tongue, forbidding him 
 to utter Lightmark's name, greatly as he 
 desired. He racked himself for delicate 
 circumlocutions, and it was only at last, 
 by a gigantic effort, when he realized that 
 the afternoon waned, while he wasted a 
 unique occasion in humorous common- 
 place, that he broke almost brutally into 
 Eve's disquisitions on her various festivities 
 
158 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 to ask, blushing like a girl, if Lightmark s 
 picture progressed. 
 
 ' I have had only a few sittings,' she 
 admitted, * and I expect they will be the 
 last here. Perhaps they will be continued 
 abroad. You know, Mr. Lightmark is 
 going to meet us in Switzerland, perhaps.' 
 
 ' You will like that ?' suggested Rainham 
 gravely. 
 
 She looked into her cup, beating a tattoo 
 on the carpet with her little foot nervously. 
 
 ' Yes,' she said, after a minute, ' I think 
 so.' 
 
 There was nothing in her words, her 
 tone, to colour this bare statement of a 
 simple fact. Only a second later, as if in 
 a sudden need of confidence, a resumption 
 of her old childish habit towards him, she 
 raised her eyes to his, and in their clear, 
 gray depths, before they drooped again 
 beneath the long lashes, he read her secret. 
 No words could have told him more plainly 
 that she loved Lightmark — that Dick had 
 merely to speak. Their silence only lasted 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 159 
 
 a moment ; but it seemed to Rainham, who 
 had not shifted his position or moved a 
 muscle, that it stretched over an inter- 
 minable space of time. It was curiously 
 intangible, and yet even then he realized 
 that it would remain with its least acces- 
 sories in his mind one of those trivial, 
 indelible photographs which last a lifetime. 
 The smell of mignonette that spread in 
 from the window-box through the tur- 
 quoise-blue Venetian blinds ; the chatter- 
 ing of the love-birds ; the strains of a 
 waltz of Waldteufel's floating up from a 
 German band in the street below — they 
 ran into a single sensation that was like the 
 stab of cold steel. He sat staring blankly 
 at the tattered bookshelves, playing me- 
 chanically with his teaspoon ; and presently 
 he became aware that the young girl was 
 talking, was telling him the route they 
 should take next week, and the name of 
 the hotel they were going to at Basel. 
 
 * Yes,' he hazarded, and ' Yes,' and ' Yes,' 
 his smiling lips belying the lassitude of his 
 
i6o A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 eyes. Actually, he looked out and beyond 
 her, at another Eve, to whom he now paid 
 his adieux. It was the dainty little figure 
 of her childish self which he saw, with its 
 bright long hair, and its confiding eyes, 
 and its caressing little ways, in the deepen- 
 ing shadows between the bookshelves — 
 and for the last time. It vanished like a 
 shadow, smiling mockingly, and he knew 
 it would never return. In its place abode 
 henceforth the image of this stately maiden, 
 comely and desirable, with the profound 
 eyes which lighted up — for Dick. An 
 unaccountable sense of failure stole over 
 Rainham — unaccountable because he could 
 lay his finger upon no tangible cause of 
 his discomfiture. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 The little town was brilliant with Sep- 
 tember sunshine ; the blue smoke spired 
 almost unbroken into the bluer vault above, 
 and the cream-coloured facades of the 
 houses, with their faded blue shutters and 
 verandas, the gay striped awnings of the 
 little fleet of rowing boats, the gray of the 
 stone parapet, and the dull green of the 
 mountainous opposite shore, were mirrored 
 steeply in the bight of narrowing sunlit 
 lake. The wide dusty esplanade was 
 almost empty, except at the corners, where 
 voluble market-women gossiped over their 
 fruit-baskets, heaped with purple-brown 
 figs, little mountain - born strawberries, 
 sweet, watery grapes, green almonds, and 
 
 VOL. I. II 
 
1 62 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 Stupendous pears. At rare intervals a 
 steamboat, bright and neat as a new toy, 
 trailed a long feather of smoke from the 
 foot of the Rigi, shed a small and dusty 
 crowd into the sleepy town, and then 
 bustled back, shearing the silken flood and 
 strangely distorting its reflections. 
 
 'The worst of Lucerne,' said Mrs. 
 Sylvester — ' the worst of Lucerne is that 
 one can't escape from Mount Pilatus and 
 the Lion. The inhabitants all think that 
 Pilatus regulates the weather, and they 
 would certainly give their Lion the pre- 
 ference over the Venus of Milo.' 
 
 They were all sitting on the terrace in 
 front of the Schweitzerhof ; Lady Garnett 
 and Mary, Mrs. Sylvester and Eve. Lady 
 Garnett and her companion were but 
 newly arrived, and, as birds of passage, 
 preferred the hotel to a pe7isio7i. The 
 Sylvesters had been staying in the quaint, 
 rambling town for nearly a fortnight. It 
 was their usual summer resort, and 
 although the spring of each year found 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 163 
 
 them deciding to go elsewhere for a 
 change, in the end they nearly always 
 proved faithful to the familiar lake. Their 
 pension — they regarded it almost as a 
 country house — was such an inducement ! 
 The Pension Bungay was maintained by 
 an old servant of the family, who, when he 
 began to find the duties of butler too 
 exacting for his declining years, gave a 
 warning, which applied also to one of his 
 fellow-servants, the cook, to wit, a lady of 
 Continental origin, who had consented to 
 become Madame Bungay ; and the pair, 
 having souls above public-houses, and re- 
 lying on their not inconsiderable connec- 
 tion among the servants of Mayfair, had 
 boldly and successfully launched into an 
 independent career as sole proprietors 
 and managers of the Pension Bungay, 
 Lucerne. 
 
 * Yes,' said Lady Garnett sympatheti- 
 cally ; ' I suppose Pilatus is rather mono- 
 tonous. It's rather too near, I think. It 
 ought to be far away, and covered with 
 
1 64 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 snow, more like the Jungfrau, which we 
 have been worshipping at Interlaken — 
 where, by the way, there are positively 
 more Americans than natives.' 
 
 ' Oh,' Mrs. Sylvester chimed in, ' isn't 
 it dreadful the way they overrun Europe 
 nowadays ! There are two American 
 families staying at our pension, and you 
 see them everywhere.' 
 
 ' I think I rather like them. They 
 amuse me, you know, and somehow^ 
 though it may be disloyal for me, as a 
 naturalized Englishwoman, to say so, as 
 a rule they comport themselves much 
 better than the ordinary British tourist. 
 Of course, the country is not so accessible 
 for the Americans ; it's out of the reach 
 of their cheap excursionists. But how 
 opportune that curious tower is, and the 
 bridge ! of course, it's correct to admire 
 them ?' 
 
 Mary Masters and Eve, who had been 
 quietly discussing chiffons, got up from 
 their chairs with a preconcerted air. 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 165 
 
 'We are so tired of sitting still,' said 
 the former, balancing herself with an air 
 of indecision, and giving Mrs. Sylvester 
 time to note the admirable taste of her 
 simple maize-coloured travelling dress, 
 which did not suffer from contrast with 
 the younger girl's brighter and more 
 elaborately charming toilette. ' Miss Syl- 
 vester wants to show me the uncatchable 
 trout in the lake, and I want to go and 
 see if the salon is empty, so that I can try 
 the piano ; and we can't decide which to 
 do. I suppose, Mrs. Sylvester, that the 
 hotel is more within the bounds of pro- 
 priety ?' 
 
 'Oh, well,' said Eve, laughing, ' I don't 
 care ; anyhow, let's go and find the piano. 
 Only, there is sure to be someone there 
 already.' 
 
 ' By the way,' said Lady Garnett, when 
 the girls had vanished into the building, 
 ' of course you know that Philip Rainham's 
 friend — the young man who paints and 
 has a moustache, I mean — is here, or will 
 
1 66 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 be very shortly? He was staying at oar 
 hotel at Berne.' 
 
 ' Mr. Lightmark, I suppose ?' answered 
 the other, without showing her surprise 
 except in her eyes. ' We told him that 
 we were coming to Lucerne, and it was 
 more or less arranged.' 
 
 ' Ah, yes,' interposed Lady Garnett ; 
 ' am I indiscreet in suggesting an excep- 
 tional attraction ?' 
 
 Mrs. Sylvester merely looked myster- 
 ious, and Lady Garnett was encouraged to 
 continue : 
 
 '' Your daughter is very beautiful. This 
 Mr. Lightmark has been painting her 
 portrait, nest ce pas ? 1 should think it 
 ought to be a success. Am I to congra- 
 tulate him ?' 
 
 ' Oh,' said Mrs. Sylvester hurriedly, 
 ' dear Lady Garnett, it hasn't gone so far 
 as that.' 
 
 ' The portrait ?' murmured the other 
 innocently. 'Ah, I'm afraid you misunder- 
 stood me.' 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 167 
 
 Mrs. Sylvester cast a meaning glance 
 in the direction of Eve, who, sauntering 
 along the terrace with Mary, was now 
 behind their seat, and the conversation, 
 which promised to become interesting, 
 dropped, while Mary explained that they 
 had found the music-stool occupied by a 
 lady, who was superfluously protesting her 
 inability to sing ' the old songs ' — the 
 person who always did monopolize hotel 
 pianos, as Mary laughingly asserted. 
 
 Two days later Lightmark presented 
 himself at the Pension Bungay. He had 
 come to Lucerne with the fixed purpose 
 of definitely proposing marriage to Eve. 
 He was far too worldly-wise to fail to 
 perceive that, so far at least, Mrs. Sylves- 
 ter had certainly taken no trouble to dis- 
 courage his pretensions. His attentions, 
 he argued, had been by no means obscure ; 
 his studio had been singularly honoured 
 by the presence of Miss Sylvester and her 
 mother, for the purposes of the portrait ; 
 he had even been granted a sitting at the 
 
i68 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 house in Park Street, when a less rigid 
 supervision had been exercised, a'nd when, 
 in the absence of the mother, he had been 
 able to assure himself that the girl was 
 far from despising his adoration. Before 
 leavino- town he had dined with his uncle, 
 the Colonel, at his club, and the veteran 
 had spontaneously and strenuously urged 
 the step, and even thrown out promising 
 hints as to settlements. He broke in upon 
 the little circle at the hour of afternoon 
 tea, and Eve found his gray travelling 
 suit and the bronze of his complexion ex- 
 ceedingly becoming. He announced that 
 he had come to stay for a week or two ; 
 he was going to make some sketches, and 
 he couldn't tear himself aw^ay from that 
 delightful bridge and his lodgings ! 
 
 * My dear fellow,' he said to Charles 
 Sylvester, with an air of familiarity which 
 gave one an insight as to the advance the 
 artist had made in his relations with the 
 family, ' you must come and see my 
 diggings. The most delightful old hos- 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 169 
 
 telry In Europe. Built straight up out of 
 the lake, like the Castle of Chillon. It's 
 called the GastJiof zuni Pfistern. I could 
 fish out of my bedroom window. I assure 
 you, It's charming. You must come and 
 dine with me there. I hope you ladies 
 will so far honour me ?' 
 
 This project, however, fell through, and 
 by way of compensation Lightmark and 
 Charles enjoyed the privilege of entertain- 
 ing the party, including Lady Garnett and 
 Miss Masters, at Borghoni's ; after which 
 the younger people chartered a boat, and 
 floated idly about the star-reflecting lake, 
 while the dowagers maintained a discreet 
 surveillance from their seat on the es- 
 planade. 
 
 Of this last incident it may be said that 
 Lightmark and Eve found it altogether 
 delightful, the latter especially being struck 
 by the romance of the situation ; while 
 Charles was inclined to be ponderously 
 sentimental, and Miss Masters afterwards 
 confessed to having felt bored. 
 
17 o A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 In the course of the next day Lightmark 
 had the privilege of a confidential inter- 
 view with the mother of his adored. 
 Mrs. Sylvester had fully armed herself 
 for the occasion, and presented an edifying 
 example of matronly affection and pru- 
 dence. 
 
 ' Of course, I was not altogether unpre- 
 pared for this, Mr. Lightmark. In fact, I 
 may as well own that I have talked it over 
 with my son, and we agreed that the 
 whole question resolved itself into — ah — 
 into settlements. You must not think me 
 mercenary.' This was said with a dig- 
 nified calm, which made the idea prepos- 
 terous. * If you can' — here she seemed 
 to refer to some mental note-book — 'ah — 
 satisfy Charles on that point, I am sure 
 that it will give me great pleasure to 
 regard you as a prospective son-in-law. 
 Of course, you know, I can't answer for 
 Eve, or Charles.' 
 
 ' Ah, my dear lady,' said the other, 
 gracefully overwhelmed, ' if I may count 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 171 
 
 on your good offices I am very for- 
 tunate.' 
 
 That evening, as the two men sat dis- 
 cussing their cigars and coffee, Lightmark 
 listened with wonderful patience to a dis- 
 quisition on the subject of — he couldn't 
 afterwards remember whether it was 
 Strikes or the Sugar Bounty. He was 
 rather afraid of the necessary interview 
 with Charles. It would require some tact, 
 and he was prepared to find him unplea- 
 santly exacting as arbiter of his pecuniary 
 status. 
 
 ' You ought to be in the House, by 
 Jove! that's your line, Sylvester, with a 
 clever wife, you know, to do the canvass- 
 ing for you' — 'and write your speeches,' 
 he mentally added. 
 
 The other owned that he had thought 
 of it. 
 
 ' But the wife,' he added, with an 
 attempt at levity, ' that's the difficulty !' 
 
 And the connection of a subsequent 
 remark with this topic, though some con- 
 
172 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 versatlon intervened, did not escape his 
 astute companion, and he was careful to 
 sing Miss Masters' praises with an absence 
 of allusiveness which showed the actor. 
 Then he threw away the stump of his 
 cigar and mentally braced himself. 
 
 ' You have seen a good deal of me 
 lately,' he said. ' I want to ask you if you 
 have any objection to me as a possible 
 brother-in-law ; in fact, I want to marry 
 your sister.' 
 
 ' Yes ?' said the other encouragingly. 
 
 ' I have, as you may know, spoken to 
 Mrs. Sylvester about it, and I believe she 
 will — that is to say, I think she has no per- 
 sonal objection to me.' 
 
 ' Oh, of course, my dear fellow, my 
 mother and I are flattered, quite flattered ; 
 but you will understand our anxiety that 
 Kve should run no risk of sacrificing any 
 of the advantages she has enjoyed hitherto. 
 May I ask, er ' 
 
 ' What is my income from all sources Y 
 suggested Lightmark rather flippantly. 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 173 
 
 * Well, I have to confess that my profes- 
 sion, in which I am said to be rising, 
 brings me in about four hundred and fifty 
 a year, in addition to which I have a 
 private income, which amounts to, say, 
 three hundred ; total, seven hundred and 
 fifty.' Then, seeing that Charles looked 
 grave, he played his trump card : ' And I 
 ought to add that my uncle, the Colonel, 
 you know, has been good enough to talk 
 about making me an allowance, on my 
 marrying with his approval. In fact he is, 
 1 believe, prepared to make a settlement 
 on my marriage with your sister.' 
 
 Charles Sylvester pronounced himself 
 provisionally satisfied, and it was arranged 
 that he should communicate with Colonel 
 Lightmark, and that meanwhile the engage- 
 ment should not be made public. 
 
 Eve was standing on the little balcony 
 
 appertaining to the sitting-room which had 
 
 been dedicated to the ladies as a special 
 
 mark of favour by the proprietor of the 
 
 pension, and Lightmark hastened to join 
 
174 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 her there ; and while Charles and his 
 mother played a long game of chess, the 
 two looked out at the line of moonlit 
 Alps, and were sentimentally and absurdly 
 happy. 
 
 ' Mrs. Sylvester,' said Lightmark, when 
 that lady thought it advisable to warn her 
 daughter that there was a cold wind blow- 
 ing off the lake, ' we have arranged that a 
 certain portrait shall figure in the Academy 
 catalogue next spring as " Portrait of the 
 Artist's Wife." ' 
 
 After which Mrs. Sylvester began to 
 call him Richard, and Charles became 
 oppressively genial ; a development which 
 led the embarrassed recipient of these 
 honours to console himself by reflecting 
 that, after all, he was not going to marry 
 the entire family. 
 
 ' Ma chdrie' said Lady Garnett, as the 
 Paris train steamed out of Lucerne on the 
 afternoon of the next day but one, ' do 
 you know that I feel a sensation of posi- 
 tive relief at getting away from those 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 175 
 
 people ? Eve is very gentille, but lovers 
 are so uninteresting, when they are pro- 
 perly engaged : and the excellent Charles ! 
 My child, I am afraid you have been very 
 cruel.' 
 
 ' Cruel, aunt ?' said Mary, with a demure 
 look of astonishment. ' I like Eve very 
 much, and I suppose Mr. Lightmark must 
 be nice, because he's such a friend of 
 Philip's. But I don't quite like the way 
 he talks about Philip, and . . . he's very 
 clever.' 
 
 ' Yes,' said the old lady drowsily ; 'he's 
 cleverer than Philip.' 
 
 ' He may be cleverer, but ' Mary 
 
 began with some warmth, and paused. 
 
 Her companion opened her eyes widely, 
 and darted a keen glance at the girl. 
 Then, settling herself into her corner : 
 
 * My dear child, to whom do you 
 say it ?' 
 
 It was eminently characteristic of Lady 
 Garnett that, even when she was sleepy, 
 she understood what people were going to 
 
176 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 say long before the words were spoken, 
 and, especially with her familiars, she had 
 a habit of taking her anticipations as 
 realized. 
 
 Mary found something embarrassing in 
 the humour of the old lady's expression, 
 and devoted herself to gazing out of the 
 window at the mountain-bound landscape, 
 in which houses, trees, and cattle all seemed 
 to be in miniature, until the sound of regular 
 breathing assured her that the inquisitive 
 eyes were closed. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 During the long, hot August, which 
 variously dispersed the rest of their 
 acquaintances, the intimacy of that ill- 
 assorted couple, the bird of passage Rain- 
 ham, and Oswyn the artist, was able to 
 ripen. They met occasionally at Brodo- 
 nowski's, of which dingy restaurant they 
 had now almost a monopoly ; for its artistic 
 session had been prorogued, and the 
 ' boys ' were scattered, departing one by 
 one, as their purses and inclinations 
 prompted, to resume acquaintance with 
 their favourite ' bits ' in Cornwall, or among 
 the orchards and moors of Brittany; to 
 study mountains in sad Merioneth, or to 
 paint ocean rollers and Irish peasants in 
 
 VOL. I. 12 
 
178 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 ultimate Galway. On the occasion of their 
 second meeting, Rainham having (a trifle 
 diffidently, for the painter was not a ques- 
 tionable man) evinced a curiosity as to his 
 summer movements, Oswyn had scornfully 
 repudiated such a notion. 
 
 ' Thank God !' he cried, * I have out- 
 worn that mania of searching for pretti- 
 ness. London is big enough for me. My 
 work is here, and the studies I want are 
 here, and here I stay till the end of all 
 things. I hate the tame country faces, the 
 aggressive stillness and the silent noise, 
 the sentiment and the sheep of it. Give 
 me the streets and the yellow gas, the roar 
 of the City, smoke, haggard faces, flaming 
 omnibuses, parched London, and the river 
 rolling oilily by the embankment like Styx 
 at night when the lamps shine.' 
 
 He drew in a breath thirstily, as though 
 the picture were growing on canvas before 
 him, 
 
 ' Well, if you want river subjects you 
 must come and find them at Blackpool,' 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 179 
 
 said Rainham ; and Oswyn had replied 
 abruptly that he would. 
 
 And he kept his word, not once but 
 many times, dropping down on Rainham 
 suddenly, unexplainedly, after his fashion, 
 as it were from the clouds, in the late 
 afternoon, when the clerks had left. He 
 would chat there for an hour or two in his 
 spasmodic, half-sullen way, in which, how- 
 ever, an increasing cordiality mingled, 
 making, before he retired once more into 
 space, some colour notes of the yard or the 
 river, or at times a rough sketch, which 
 was never without its terse originality. 
 
 Rainham began to look forward to these 
 visits with a recurring pleasure. Oswyn's 
 beautiful genius and Oswyn's savage 
 humours fascinated him, and no less his 
 pleasing personal ambiguity. He seemed 
 to be a person without antecedents, as he 
 was certainly without present ties. Except 
 that he painted, and so must have a place 
 to paint in, he might have lodged pre- 
 cariously in a doss-house, or on door-steps, 
 
i8o A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 or under the Adelphi arches with those 
 outcasts of civiHzation to whom, in personal 
 appearance, one might not deny he bore a 
 certain resemblance. To no one did he 
 reveal his abiding-place, and it was the 
 merest tradition of little authority that a 
 man from Brodonowski's had once been 
 taken to his studio. By no means a 
 perspicuous man, and to be approached 
 perhaps charily ; yet Rainham, as his 
 acquaintance progressed, found himself 
 from time to time brought up with a 
 certain surprise, as he discovered, under 
 all his savage cyi*icism, his overweening 
 devotion to a depressing theory, a very 
 real vein of refinement, of delicate mundane 
 sensibility, revealed perhaps in a chance 
 phrase or diffidence, or more often in some 
 curiously fine touch to canvas of his rare, 
 audacious brush. The incongruities of the 
 man, his malice, his coarseness, his reckless 
 generosity, gave Rainham much food for 
 thought. And, indeed, that parched 
 empty August seemed full of problematical 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS i8i 
 
 issues ; and he had, on matters of more 
 import than the enigmatic mind of a new 
 friend, to be content at last to be tossed to 
 and fro on the winds of vain conjecture. 
 
 Lightmark and the Sylvesters occupied 
 him much ; but beyond a brief note from 
 Mrs. Sylvester in Lucerne, which told him 
 nothing that he would know, there came 
 to him no news from Switzerland. In the 
 matter of the girl whom he had befriended 
 — recklessly he told himself at times — diffi- 
 culties multiplied. A sort of dumb devil 
 seemed to have entered into her, and, with 
 the best will in the world, it was a merely 
 pecuniary assistance which he could give 
 her, half angry with himself the while that 
 his indolent good nature (it appeared to 
 him little else) forbad him to cast back 
 at her what seemed a curious ingratitude 
 almost passing the proverbial feminine 
 perversity, and let her go her own way as 
 she would have it. On two occasions, 
 since that chance meeting in the Park, he 
 had called at the lodging in which he had 
 
1 82 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 helped her to install herself; and from the 
 last he had come away with a distinct 
 sense of failure. Something had come 
 between them, an alien influence was in 
 the air, and the mystery which surrounded 
 the girl, he saw with disappointment, she 
 would not of her own accord assist to dis- 
 sipate. And yet there was nothing offen- 
 sive in her attitude, only it had changed, 
 lacked frankness. 
 
 One afternoon, finding that he could 
 leave the dock early, he made another effort. 
 He stopped before one in a dingy row of 
 small houses, uniformly depressing, in a 
 street that ran into the Commercial Road, 
 and rang the bell, which tinkled aggres- 
 sively. A slatternly woman, with a bandage 
 round her head and an air of drunken 
 servility, responded to his inquiry for 
 * Mrs. Crichton ' by ushering him into a 
 small back parlour, in which a pale girl in 
 black sat with her head bent over a type- 
 writer. She rose, as he came in, a little 
 nervously, and stood, her thin hands 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 183 
 
 clasped in front of her, looking up at him 
 with expectant, terrified eyes. 
 
 ' I am sorry to alarm you,' he said stiffly. 
 * I came to see if I could do nothing for 
 you, and to tell you once more that I can 
 do nothing for you unless you are open 
 with me, unless you help me.' 
 
 The woman looked away to where the 
 child sat, in a corner of the small room, 
 playing with some disused cotton reels. 
 
 ' You are very kind, sir,' she said in a 
 low, uneasy voice ; ' but I want nothing ; 
 we want very little, the child and I ; and 
 with what your kindness in getting me the 
 machine helps us to, we have enough.' 
 
 • You don't want to be reinstated, to get 
 back your lover, to have your child acknow- 
 ledged }' 
 
 The girl flushed ; her hands, which were 
 still locked together, trembled a little. 
 
 * I don't want for nothing, sir, except to 
 be left alone.' 
 
 Then she added, lookino- him straio^ht in 
 the face now, with a certain rude dignity : 
 
1 84 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 ' I wouldn't seem ungrateful, sir, for 
 your great kindness. I think you are the 
 best man I ever met. Oh, believe me, I 
 am not ungrateful, sir ! But it is no good, 
 not a scrap, though once I thought it. 
 We must get along as we can now, the 
 child and I — shame and all.' 
 
 She sighed, gazed intently for a silent 
 minute at the keys of the elaborate 
 machine before her, and then continued, 
 speaking very slowly, as if she were afraid 
 of drawing too largely on her newly-found 
 candour : 
 
 ' Why should I keep it from you ? It 
 makes me feel a liar every time I see you. I 
 will be quite plain with you, sir ; perhaps 
 the truth's best, though it's hard enough. 
 I've seen him; that's why I couldn't tell 
 you any more. And it's all over and 
 done, and God help us ! We must make 
 the best of it. You see, sir, he is married,' 
 said the girl, with a sharp intonation in her 
 voice like a sob. 
 
 Rainham had sunk into a chair wearily ; 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 185 
 
 he looked up at her now, drawing a long 
 breath, which, for some reason he could 
 not analyze, was replete with relief. 
 
 ' Married ?' he ejaculated ; * are you 
 sure ?' 
 
 ' Sure enough,' said Kitty Crichton. 
 * He told me so.' 
 
 ' Do you care for this fellow Y he asked 
 curiously after awhile. 
 
 The flush on her face had faded into 
 two hectic spots on either cheek ; there 
 was a lack of all animation in her voice, 
 whether of hope or indignation ; she had 
 the air of a person who gave up, who was 
 terribly tired of things. 
 
 ' Care ?' she echoed. ' I don't rightly 
 know, sir ; I think it's all dead together — 
 love and anger, and my good looks and 
 all. I care for the child, and I don't want 
 to harry or hunt him down for the sake of 
 what has been — that's all.' 
 
 He regarded her with the same dis- 
 interested pity which had seized him when 
 he saw her first. There were only ruins 
 
1 86 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 of a beauty that must have once been 
 striking. As he watched her a doubt 
 assailed him, whether, after all, he had not 
 been deceived by a bare resemblance ; 
 whether, in effect, she had ever been 
 actually identical with that brilliant 
 Pierrette whose likeness had so amazed 
 him in Lightmark's rooms. 
 
 * By the way,' he asked suddenly, 'you 
 told me you have been a model : did — 
 was this man a painter } Has he ever 
 painted you T 
 
 The girl fell back a step or two irreso- 
 lutely. 
 
 ' Ah ! why do you trouble so ? What 
 does it matter T Then she added faintly, 
 but hurriedly stumbling over her words : 
 'He wasn't a painter — only for amuse- 
 ment ; he didn't exhibit. He was a news- 
 paper writer. But he couldn't get work, 
 and got a place in a foreign-going steamer, 
 to keep accounts, I think. That was 
 afterwards, and that's why I looked for 
 him at your dock. They told me the 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 187 
 
 ship had been there, but it wasn't true. 
 Ah ! let me be, sir, let me be !' 
 
 She broke off hastily, clasping her hands 
 across her breast. 
 
 The story, though incoherent, was 
 possible ; Rainham could see no motive 
 for her deceiving him, and yet he believed 
 she was lying. He merely shrugged his 
 shoulders, with a rising lassitude. He 
 seemed to have been infected by her own 
 dreariness, to labour under a disability of 
 doing or saying any more ; he, too, gave 
 it up. He wanted to get away out of the 
 dingy room ; its rickety table and chairs, 
 its two vulgar vases on the stained mantel, 
 its gross upholstery, seemed too trench- 
 antly sordid in the strong August sun. 
 The child's golden head — -she was growing 
 intelligent now, and strong on her legs — 
 was the one bright spot in the room. He 
 stopped to pat it with a great pity, a sense 
 of too much pathos in things flooding him, 
 before he passed out again into the mean 
 street. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 September set in cold, with rain and east 
 winds, and Rainham, a naturally chilly 
 mortal, as he handed his coat to Lady 
 Garnett's butler, and followed him into the 
 little library, where dinner was laid for 
 three, congratulated himself that a season- 
 able fire crackled on the large hearth. 
 
 ' I hardly expected you back yet,' he 
 remarked, after the first greetings, stretch- 
 ing out his hands to the blaze ; ' and your 
 note was a welcome surprise. I almost 
 think we are the only people in town.' 
 
 Lady Garnett shrugged her shoulders 
 with a gesture of rich tolerance, as one 
 who acknowledged the respectability of all 
 tastes, whilst preferring her own. 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 189 
 
 * London has its charm, to me,* she re- 
 marked. ' We are glad to be back. I 
 am getting too old to travel — that terrible 
 crossing, and the terrible people one 
 meets !' 
 
 Rainham smiled with absent sympathy, 
 looking into the red coals. 
 
 * You must remember, I don't know 
 where you have been. Tell me your 
 adventures and your news.' 
 
 * I leave that to Mary, my dear,' said 
 the old lady. 
 
 And at that moment the girl came in, 
 looking stately and older than her age in 
 one of the dark, high-cut dresses which 
 she affected. She shook hands with 
 Rainham, smiling ; and as they went to 
 table he repeated his question. 
 
 ' It is difficult,' she said : ' we seem to 
 have been everywhere. Oh, we have 
 been very restless this year, Philip. I 
 think we were generally in the train. We 
 tried Trouville ' 
 
 ' Detestable !' put in Lady Garnett with 
 
I90 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 genial petulance ; ' it was too small. Half 
 the world was crowded into it ; and it was 
 precisely the half-world ' 
 
 ' I can imagine it,' interrupted Rainham, 
 with his grave smile ; ' and then ?' 
 
 ' Then we thought of Switzerland,' con- 
 tinued the young girl. ' We went to 
 Geneva. We were almost dead when we 
 arrived, because we had to go a very 
 roundabout way to avoid Paris ; we could 
 not go to Paris, because we were afraid of 
 seeing the Republic. It was very hot in 
 Geneva. No place ever was so hot before. 
 We lay on the sofa for three days, and then 
 we were strong enough to run away.' 
 
 ' It was purgatorial !' said the elder lady ; 
 ' it was full of English governesses and 
 Swiss pastors.' 
 
 ' Then we went to look for cool places, 
 and we had a charming week at Inter- 
 laken, and looked longingly at the Jung- 
 frau, and contemplated the ascent' 
 
 Lady Garnett laughed her quaint little 
 laugh. 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 191 
 
 ' Interlaken might have sufficed, my 
 dear ; but, unfortunately — it was one of 
 Mary's ridiculous economies — we went to 
 a pension ; and we fell into the hands of 
 an extraordinary woman with a fringe 
 and a Bible, a native of North America, 
 who endeavoured to persuade me that I 
 was a Jewess.' 
 
 'No, no !' laughed Mary, * not quite so 
 bad as that. It was one of the other 
 tribes she would have us belong to — one 
 of the lost tribes. It was not personal.' 
 
 'Ah, Dieu merci ! if they are lost,' 
 ejaculated her aunt ; ' but you are wrong ; 
 it was most personal, Mary.' 
 
 ' I will do her the justice to add that 
 she only suggested it once,' continued the 
 girl, with a smile of elision. ' However, 
 we had to flee from her ; and so we came 
 to Lucerne.' 
 
 'That was worst of all,' said Lady 
 Garnett, arching her delicate eyebrows ; 
 ' it was full of lovers. ' 
 
 The solemn butler had placed a pair of 
 
192 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 obdurate birds before Rainham, which 
 engrossed him : presently he looked up, 
 remarking quietly : 
 
 ' Did you see the Sylvesters ?' 
 
 ' Ah yes ! we saw the Sylvesters ; we 
 walked with the Sylvesters ; we drank tea 
 with the Sylvesters ; we made music with 
 the Sylvesters ; we went on the lake with 
 the Sylvesters. That handsome artist — 
 Mr. Lightmark, is it not, Mary? — was 
 there, making the running with Miss Eve. 
 The marriage seems to be arranged.' 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders ; the precise 
 shade of meaning in the gesture escaped 
 Rainham : he looked over to Mary in- 
 quiringly. 
 
 ' They seem very much attached to each 
 other,' she remarked. 
 
 ' Oh, they were imbecile !' added Lady 
 Garnett ; ' try the Moselle, my dear, and 
 leave that terrible sweet stuff to Mary. 
 Yes, I was glad to come away from 
 Lucerne. Everything is very bad now 
 except my Constant's vol-att-vent, which 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 193 
 
 you don't seem to have tried ; but lovers 
 are the worst of all. Though I like that 
 young man, Lightmark ; he is a type that 
 interests me ; he seems ' 
 
 She looked round the room vaguely, as 
 if the appropriate word might be lurking 
 in some angle of the apartment ; finally, the 
 epithet proving difficult, she abandoned 
 the search. 
 
 ' II ira loin /' she said tersely ; ' he 
 flatters me discreetly, as they did when I 
 was young, before the Republic' 
 
 The silent, well - trained man handed 
 round caviare and olives ; Mary trifled 
 with some grapes, her brow knitted a 
 little, thoughtfully. Lady Garnett poured 
 herself a glass of maraschino. When they 
 were left alone, the girl remarked abruptly: 
 
 ' I am not sure whether I quite like 
 Mr. Lightmark ; he does not seem to me 
 sincere.' 
 
 Lady Garnett lifted up her hands. 
 
 ' Why should he be, my dear ? sincerity 
 Is very trying. A decent hypocrisy is the 
 
 VOL. I. 13 
 
194 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 secret of good society. Your good, frank 
 people are very rude. If I am a wicked 
 old woman, it is nobody's business to tell 
 me so but my director's.' 
 
 Mary had risen, and had come over to 
 the old lady's side. 
 
 ' But, then, you are not a wicked old 
 woman, my aunt,' she observed gently. 
 
 ' Ah !' she threw back, ' how do you 
 judge ? Do me the justice to believe, 
 chirie, that, if I tell you a good deal, 
 there is a good deal, happily, which I 
 don't tell you.' 
 
 She pushed a box of cigarettes, which 
 the man had placed on the table, towards 
 Rainham. He took one and lit it silently, 
 absently, without his accustomed protests ; 
 the girl looked up smiling. 
 
 * That means that you want your tete-a- 
 tete. Aunt Marcelle ? I know the signal. 
 Well, I will leave you ; I want to try over 
 that new march of Liszt's ; and I expect, 
 by the time I have grappled with it, you 
 will be coming up for your coffee.' 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 195 
 
 'You are a good girl,' answered the 
 elder lady, stroking her hand. ' Yes, run 
 away and make music ! When Philip and 
 I have had enough scandal and frivolity, 
 we will come and find you ; and you shall 
 play us a little of that strange person 
 Wagner, who fascinates me, though you 
 may not believe it.' 
 
 It was a habit of the house, on occasion of 
 these triangular dinner-parties, that Lady 
 Garnett should remain with Rainham 
 in the interval which custom would have 
 made him spend solitary over his wine. 
 It was a habit which Mary sacredly re- 
 spected, although it often amused her ; 
 and she knew it was one which her aunt 
 valued. And, indeed, though the two 
 made no movement, and for awhile said 
 nothing, there was an air of increased 
 intimacy, if it were only in their silence, 
 when the door had closed on the girl and 
 left them together. Presently Lady Gar- 
 nett began, holding up her little glass of 
 crystal maraschino that vied in the light 
 
io6 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 of the candelabra with the diamonds on 
 her fingers : 
 
 ' I had a conversation with that weari- 
 some young man Charles Sylvester at 
 Lucerne, Philip ; he tried to sound me as 
 to Mary's prospects and the state of her 
 affections.' 
 
 Rainham looked up with quiet surprise. 
 
 ' Do you mean to say ?' he queried. 
 
 ' It is very obvious,' she answered 
 quickly ; ' I saw it long ago. But don't 
 imagine that he got much out of me. I 
 was as deep as a well. But what do you 
 think of it T 
 
 ' I hope they will be happy,' he answered 
 absently. She arched her expressive brows, 
 and he coloured, recollecting himself. ' I 
 beg your pardon,' he said hastily ; ' I con- 
 fess I was thinking of something else. 
 You were talking of Mary ; why should it 
 not do } Does she care about him T 
 
 His companion laughed, and her laugh 
 had more than its wonted suggestion of 
 irony. 
 
A COM ED V OF MASKS 197 
 
 * My dear Philip, for a clever man you 
 can be singularly dense ! Care for him ! 
 of course she does not.' 
 
 ' She might do worse,' he said ; ' Syl- 
 vester is not very bright, but he works 
 hard, and will succeed after a fashion. 
 His limitations dovetail conveniently with 
 his capacities. What do you intend to do ?' 
 
 ' Do I ever interfere in these things ? 
 My dear, you are remarkably dull to-night. 
 I never make marriages, nor prevent them. 
 With all my faults, match-making is not 
 one of them. I think too ill of life to try 
 and arrange it. You must admit,' she 
 added, ' that, long as I have known you, I 
 have never tried to marry you !' 
 
 ' Ah, that would have been too fatuous !' 
 he remarked lightly. 
 
 They were both silent for awhile, 
 regarding each other disinterestedly ; they 
 appeared to be following a train of 
 thought which led nowhither ; presently 
 Lady Garnett asked : 
 
 ' Are you going abroad this year ?' 
 
198 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 ' Yes,' he said, *as soon as I can — about 
 the middle of October ; to Mentone or 
 Bordighera, I suppose.' 
 
 ' Do you find them interesting ? Do 
 they do you much good ?' 
 
 He smiled rather listlessly, ignoring her 
 second question. 
 
 'I confess,' he said, * it becomes rather 
 a bore. But, I suppose, at my time of life 
 one finds nothing very interesting. The 
 mere act of living becomes rather a bore 
 after a time.' 
 
 ' I wonder what you are thinking about, 
 Philip ?' she asked meditatively ; ' some- 
 thing has annoyed you to-night ; I wonder 
 if you are going to tell me.' 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 ' Do we ever tell each other our annoy- 
 ances ? I think we sit and look at each 
 other, and discover them. That is much 
 more appropriate.' 
 
 ' You take things too seriously,' she went 
 on ; ' my dear, they are really not worth it. 
 That is my settled conviction.' 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 199 
 
 She sat and sipped her Hqueur appre- 
 ciatively, smiling good-humouredly, and 
 Philip could not help regarding her with 
 a certain admiration. /Her small, sharp, 
 subtile face, beneath its^ rnask of smiling 
 indifference, looked positively" youthful in 
 the judicious candle-light ; only the little, 
 birdlike, withered hands bore the stigmata 
 of age. And he could not conceive her 
 changing ; to the last, those tell-tale hands 
 apart, she would be comely and cynical, 
 and would die as she had lived, secure ' in 
 the high places of laughter ' — a laughter 
 that, for all its geniality, struck him at times 
 as richly sardonic — in the decent drapery 
 of her fictitious youth ; in a decorous piety, 
 yet a little complicated, in the very recep- 
 tion of the last rites, by the amiable arching 
 of her expressive eyebrows. 
 
 'You are wonderful,' he exclaimed, after 
 an interval, ' wonderful ; that was what I 
 was thinking.' 
 
 She smiled disinterestedly. 
 
 ' Because you don't understand me ? 
 
200 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 My dear, nothing is so easy as mystifica- 
 tion ; that is why 1 don't return the com- 
 pliment. Yourself, you know — you are not 
 very intelligible to-night.' 
 
 He looked away frowning, but without 
 embarrassment ; presently, throwing up 
 his hands with a little mock gesture of 
 despair, he remarked : 
 
 * I should be delighted to explain myself, 
 but I can't. I am unintelligible to myself 
 also ; we must give it up, and go and find 
 Mary.' 
 
 ' Ah no ! let us give it up, by all means ; 
 but we will not join Mary yet ; smoke 
 another cigarette.' 
 
 He took one and lit it, absently, in the blue 
 flame of the spirit-lamp, and she watched 
 him closely with her bright, curious eyes. 
 
 * You know this Mr. Lightmark very 
 well, don't you, Philip ?' 
 
 ' Intimately,' he answered, nodding. 
 
 'You must be pleased,' she said. ' It is 
 a great match for him, a struggling artist. 
 Can he paint, by the way ?' 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 201 
 
 ' He has great talent.' He held his 
 cigarette away from him, considering the 
 ash critically. ' Yes, he can certainly 
 paint. I suppose it is a good thing — and 
 for Eve, too. Why should it not be ?' 
 
 ' He is a charming young man ' — she 
 spoke judicially — ' charming ! But in 
 effect Mary was quite right ; she generally 
 is — he is not sincere.' 
 
 ' I think you are wrong,' said Rainham 
 after a moment. ' I should be sorry to 
 believe you were not, for the little girls 
 sake. And I have known him a long- 
 time ; he is a good fellow at bottom.' 
 
 ' Ah !' cried Lady Garnett with a little 
 quick gesture of her right hand, ' that is 
 precisely what he is not. He exaggerates; 
 he must be very secret ; no one ever was 
 so frank as he seems to be.' 
 
 ' Why are you saying all this to me ?' 
 the other asked after a moment. ' You 
 know I should be very sorry ; but what 
 can I do .'^ it's arranged.' 
 
 ' I think you might have prevented it, if 
 
202 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 you had cared ; but, as you say, it is too 
 late now.' 
 
 * There was no way possible in which I 
 could have prevented it,' he said slowly, 
 after an interval which seemed to strike 
 them both as ponderous. 
 
 ' That was an admission I wanted,' she 
 flashed back. ' You wotild have prevented 
 it — you would have given worlds to have 
 prevented it.' 
 
 His retort came as quickly, accented by 
 a smile : 
 
 ' Not a halfpenny. I make no admis- 
 sions ; and I have not the faintest idea of 
 what you are driving at. I am a pure 
 spectator. To quote yourself, I don't 
 make marriages, nor mar them ; I think 
 too ill of life.' 
 
 * Ah no !' she said ; ' it is that you are 
 too indolent ; you disappoint me.' 
 
 ' It is you, dear lady, who are incon- 
 sistent,' he cried, laughing. 
 
 ' No, you disappoint me,' she resumed ; 
 ' seriously, my dear, I am dissatisfied with 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 203 
 
 you. You will not assert yourself ; you do 
 nothing ; you have done nothing. There 
 never was a man who made less of his 
 life.' 
 
 He protested laughingly : 
 
 ' I have had no time ; I have been look- 
 ing after my lungs.' 
 
 ' Ah, you are Incorrigible !' she ex- 
 claimed, rising ; * let us go and find Mary. 
 I give you up ; or, rather, I give myself up, 
 as an adviser. For, after all, you are right 
 — there is nothing worth doing in this bad 
 world except looking after one's lung, or 
 whatever It may be.' 
 
 ' Perhaps not even that,' said Philip, as 
 he followed her from the room ; ' even 
 that, after a time, becomes monotonous.' 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 It occurred to LIghtmark one evening, as 
 he groped through the gloom of his studio, 
 on his way to bed, after assisting at a very 
 charming social gathering at the Sylvesters', 
 that as soon as he was married he would 
 have to cut Brodonowski's. The reasons 
 he gave himself were plausible enough, 
 and, indeed, he would have found himself 
 the only Benedict among this horde of 
 wild bachelors. The informal circle was 
 of such recent association that, so far, 
 no precedent for matrimony had occurred, 
 and it was more than doubtful how the 
 experiment might be received. In any 
 case, he told himself, he could not be 
 expected to introduce people like Oswyn 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 205 
 
 and McAllister to his wife — or, rather, 
 to Mrs. Sylvester's daughter. Oswyn 
 was plainly impossible, and McAllister's 
 devotion to tobacco so inordinate that 
 it had come to be a matter of common 
 belief that he smoked short pipes in his 
 sleep. 
 
 Then he had dismissed the subject ; the 
 long, pleasant holiday in Switzerland inter- 
 vened, and it was only on his return, late 
 in the autumn, that the question again 
 presented itself, as he turned from the 
 threshold of the house in Park Street, 
 where he had been dining, and half uncon- 
 sciously took the familiar short cut towards 
 Turk Street. He paused for a deliberate 
 instant when he had hailed the first passing 
 hansom, and then told the man to drive to 
 Piccadilly Circus. 
 
 * I 7mcst go there a few times more, if 
 only to break it off gently,' he reflected, 
 'and I want to see old Rainham. It is 
 stupid of me not to have written to him — 
 yes, stupid ! Wonder if he has heard } I 
 
2o6 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 mustn't give him up, at any rate. We'll — 
 we'll ask him to dinner, and all that sort of 
 thing. And what the deuce am I going to 
 send to the Academy ? Thank goodness, 
 I have enough Swiss sketches to work up 
 for the other galleries to last me for years. 
 But the Academy ' 
 
 Then he lost himself in contemplative 
 enjoyment of the familiar vista of Regent 
 Street, the curved dotted lines of crocus- 
 coloured lamps, fading in the evening fog, 
 the flitting ruby-eyed cabs, and the calm 
 white arc-lights, set irregularly about the 
 circus, dulling the grosser gas. He owned 
 to himself that he had secretly yearned for 
 London ; that his satisfaction on leaving 
 the vast city was never so great as his 
 joy on again setting foot upon her pave- 
 ments. 
 
 The atmosphere of the long low room, 
 with Its anomalous dark ceiling and gro- 
 tesquely-decorated walls, was heavily laden 
 with the incense of tobacco and a more 
 subtile odour, which numbered among its 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 207 
 
 factors whisky and absinthe. The slip- 
 pered, close - cropped waiter, who, by- 
 popular report, could speak five languages, 
 and usually employed a mixture of two or 
 three, was still clearing away the debris of 
 protracted dinners ; and a few men sat 
 about, in Informal groups, playing dominoes, 
 chatting, or engrossed In their Extra 
 Specials. The fire shone cheerfully be- 
 neath the high mantel, and the pleasant 
 lamplight lent a mellow glow, which was 
 vaguely suggestive of Dutch Interiors, as 
 it flickered on the dark wooden floor, and 
 glanced from the array of china on the 
 dresser in the corner. 
 
 When LIghtmark entered, closing the 
 door briskly on the foggy, chill October 
 night, he was greeted warmly and demon- 
 stratively. The fraternity which made 
 Brodonowski's its head-quarters generously 
 admired his genius, and, for the most part, 
 frankly envied his good - fortune. The 
 younger men respected him as a man who 
 had seen life ; and the narratives with 
 
2o8 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 which he occasionally favoured them pro- 
 duced in such of his hearers feelings very 
 different to those which older men, like 
 Oswyn, expressed by a turn of the eye- 
 brow or a shrug. They were always ready 
 enough to welcome him, to gather round 
 him, and to drink with him ; and this, 
 perhaps, expresses the limits of their rela- 
 tion. 
 
 ' Lightmark, by Jove !' cried one of 
 them, waving his pipe in the air, as the 
 new-comer halted in the low doorway, 
 smiline in a rather bewildered manner as 
 he unbuttoned his overcoat. * Welcome 
 to the guerilla camp ! And a dress suit ! 
 These walls haven't enclosed such a thing 
 since you went away. This is indeed an 
 
 occasion !' 
 
 Lightmark passed from group to group, 
 deftly parrying and returning the chorus 
 of friendly thrusts, and shaking hands with 
 the affability which was so characteristic a 
 feature of his attitude toward them. The 
 man he looked for, the friend whom he 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 209 
 
 Intended to honour with a somewhat tardy- 
 confidence of his happiness, was not there. 
 When he asked for Rainham, he was told 
 that ' the dry-docker,' as these flippant 
 youngsters familiarly designated the silent 
 man, whom they secretly revered, had 
 gone for an after-dinner stroll, or perchance 
 to the theatre, with Oswyn. 
 
 * With Oswyn ?' queried LIghtmark, with 
 the shadow of a frown. 
 
 ' Oh, Oswyn and he are getting very 
 thick !' said Copal. ' They are almost as 
 inseparable as you two used to be. I'm 
 afraid you will find yourself cut out. Three 
 is an awkward number, you know. But 
 when did you come back ? When are you 
 going to show us your sketches } And 
 how long did you stay in Paris ? . . . You 
 didnt stop in Paris ? This won't do, you 
 know. I say, Dupuis, here's a man who 
 didn't stop in Paris ! Ask him if he wants 
 to insult you.' 
 
 *Ah, moncher!' expostulated the French- 
 man, looking up from his game of domi- 
 
 VOL. I. 14 
 
2IO A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 noes, ' I would not stop in London if I 
 could help it.' 
 
 ' Oh, shut up. Copal !' said Lightmark 
 good-humouredly. ' I was with ladies — 
 Dupuis will sympathize with me there, eh, 
 mon vieux ? — and they wanted to stay at 
 Lucerne until the last minute. So we 
 came straight through.' 
 
 * Then you haven't seen Sarah in 
 " Cleopatra," and we were relying on you 
 for an unvarnished account. Ladies, too ! 
 See here, my boy, you won't get any good 
 out of touring about the Continent with 
 ladies. Hang it all ! I believe it'll come 
 true, after all !' 
 
 ' Very likely — what ?' 
 
 ' Oh, well, they said — I didn't believe it, 
 but they said that you were going to desert 
 the camp, and prance about with corpulent 
 R.A.'s in Hanover Square.' 
 
 ' And so would we all, if we got the 
 chance,' said McAllister cynically. 
 
 And after the general outcry which 
 followed this suggestion, the conversa- 
 
A CO MED V OF MASKS 2 1 1 
 
 tion drifted back to the old discussion 
 of the autumn shows, the pastels at the 
 Grosvenor, and the most recent additions 
 to the National Gallery. 
 
 When at last Rainham came into the 
 room, following, with his habitual half- 
 timid air, the shambling figure of the 
 painter Oswyn, it struck Lightmark that 
 he had grown older, and that he had, as 
 it were, assimilated some of the intimate 
 disreputability of the place : it would no 
 longer have been possible to single him 
 out as a foreign unit in the circle, or to 
 detect in his mental attitude any of the 
 curiosity of the casual seeker after new 
 impressions, the Philistine in Bohemia. 
 There was nothing but pleasure in the 
 slight manifestation of surprise which pre- 
 ceded his frank greeting of Lightmark, 
 a greeting thoroughly English in its 
 matter-of-fact want of demonstrativeness. 
 and the avoidance of anything likely to 
 attract the attention of others. 
 
 Oswyn seemed less at his ease : there 
 
212 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 was an extra dash of nervous brusqueness 
 in the sarcastic welcome which he offered 
 to the new-comer ; and although there was 
 a vacant seat in the little circle of which 
 Copal and Lightmark formed the nucleus, 
 and to which Rainham had joined himself, 
 he shuffled off to his favourite corner, and 
 buried himself in * Gil Bias ' and an abnor- 
 mally thick cloud of tobacco-smoke. 
 
 Rainham gazed after him for a moment 
 or two with a puzzled expression. 
 
 ' Amiable as ever !' said Lightmark, with 
 a laugh. ' Poor old beggar ! Have a 
 cigarette ? You ought to give up pipes. 
 Haven't you been told that cigarettes are 
 — what is it ? — '' the perfect type " ?' 
 
 'Oh, chestnuts !' interposed Copal, ' that's 
 at least six months old. And it's rot, too ! 
 Do you know what McAllister xalls them ^. 
 Spittle and tissue. Brutal, but expressive. 
 But I say, old man, won't Mrs. Thingumy 
 drop on you for smoking in your dress- 
 coat .'^ Or — or No, break it to me 
 
 gently. You don't mean to say that you 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 213 
 
 possess two ? I really feel proud of having 
 my studio next door to you.' 
 
 ' Copal is becoming quite a humorist,' 
 Lightmark suggested in an impartial 
 manner. ' What a wag it is ! Keep it 
 up, my boy. By the way, Mrs. Grumbit 
 has been talking about your "goings on," 
 as she calls them : she's apparently very 
 much exercised in her mind as to the state 
 of your morals. She told me she had to 
 take you in with the matutinal milk three 
 times last week. She wants me to talk 
 to you like a father. It won't do, you 
 know.' 
 
 ' I should like to hear you, Dick,' said 
 Rainham lazily. ' Fire away ! But who 
 is Mrs. Grumbit ?' 
 
 ' Oh, she's our housekeeper — the lady 
 who dusts the studio, you know, and gives 
 the models tea and good advice. She's 
 very particular as to the models : she 
 won't let us paint from any who don't 
 come up to her standard of propriety. 
 And the worst of it is that the properest 
 
214 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 girls are always the ugliest. I don't 
 know ' 
 
 * Before you proceed with this highly 
 original disquisition,' interrupted Copal, 
 * I think you ought to be warned that we 
 have recently formed a Society for the 
 Protection of Reputations, models and 
 actresses' in particular. It was McAllis- 
 ter's idea. You now have the honour of 
 being in the headquarters— the committee- 
 room — of the society, and anything like 
 slander, or even truth, will be made an 
 example of.' 
 
 ' Don't you find it rather difficult to 
 spread your sheltering wings over what 
 doesn't exist Y hazarded Lightmark 
 amusedly. 
 
 * Ah, I knew you would say that ! You 
 see, that's just where we come in. We 
 talk about their morals and reputations 
 until they begin to imagine they have 
 some, and they unconsciously get induced 
 to live up to them. See? It's rather 
 mixed, but it works beautifully. Ask the 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 215 
 
 vice-president ! Rainham holds that proud 
 office. I may remark that I am treasurer, 
 and the subscription is half a guinea, 
 which goes towards the expenses of pro- 
 viding light refreshments for the — the 
 beneficiaries.' 
 
 ' This is really very interesting ! Rain- 
 ham vice-president, too ! I thought he 
 looked rather — rather worn by the cares 
 of the office. You must make me a 
 member at once. But who's president ?' 
 
 ' President ? Who is president, McAl- 
 lister ? 1 really forget. You see, when- 
 ever the president is caught speaking too 
 candidly of any of our clients' characters, 
 we pass a vote of censure, and depose 
 him, and he has to stand drinks. The 
 competition isn't so keen as it used to be. 
 If you would like to stand — for the office, 
 I mean — 1 dare say there will be an open- 
 ing soon. . . . Well, I must be off: I'm 
 afraid of Mrs. Grumbit, and — yes, by 
 Jove! — I've forgotten my latchkey again ! 
 Of course you're not coming yet, Dick ? 
 
2i6 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 Come and breakfast with me to-morrow. 
 Good-night, you fellows !' 
 
 ' Copal has been in great form to-night/ 
 said Lightmark, after the door had closed 
 on him, getting up and stretching himself. 
 ' What does it mean ? Joy at my return ^ 
 Fatted calf .^' 
 
 * No doubt, my boy, no doubt,' growled 
 McAllister humorously, on his way to the 
 door. ' But you must bear in mind, too, 
 the circumstance that the laddie's just sold 
 a picture.' 
 
 ' Good business !' ejaculated Lightmark, 
 as he reflected to himself that perhaps that 
 despaired-of fiver would be repaid after 
 all. 
 
 About midnight most of the men left. 
 Rainham remained, and Lightmark, who 
 professed himself too lazy to move. Rain- 
 ham lapsed into his familiar state of half- 
 abstraction, while his friend cross-examined 
 a young sculptor fresh from Rome. 
 
 At the next table Oswyn was holding 
 forth, with eager gesticulations and the 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 217 
 
 excitement of the hour in his eyes, on the 
 subject of a picture which he contemplated 
 painting in oils for exhibition at the Salon 
 next year. Rainham had heard it all 
 before ; still, he listened with a keen appre- 
 ciation of the wonderful touch with which 
 the little dishevelled artist enlarged on the 
 capabilities of his choice, the possibilities 
 of colour and treatment. The picture was 
 to be painted at the dock, and the painter 
 had already achieved a daringly suggestive 
 impression in pastels of the familiar night- 
 scene which he now described : the stream- 
 ing, vivid torches, their rays struggling 
 and drowning in the murky water, glim- 
 mering faintly in the windows of the black 
 warehouse barely suggested at the side ; 
 the alert, swarming sailors, busy with ropes 
 and tackle ; and in the middle the dark, 
 steep leviathan, fresh from the sea-storms, 
 growing, as it were, out of the impene- 
 trable chaos of the foggy background, in 
 which the river-lights gleamed like opals 
 set in dull ebony. 
 
2i8 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 When the tide of inspiration failed the 
 speaker, as it soon did, Lightmark con- 
 tinued to look at him askance, with an air 
 of absent consideration turning to uneasi- 
 ness. There was a general silence, broken 
 only by the occasional striking of a match 
 and the knocking of a pipe against a boot- 
 heel. Soon the young sculptor discovered 
 that he had missed his last train, and fled 
 incontinently. Oswyn settled himself back 
 in his chair, as one who has no regard for 
 time, and rolled a cigarette, the animation 
 with which he had spoken now only per- 
 ceptible in the points of colour in either 
 cheek. Rainham and Ligfhtmark left him 
 a few minutes later, the last of the revel- 
 lers, drawing the cat with the charred end 
 of a match on the back of an envelope, 
 and too deeply engrossed to notice their 
 departure. 
 
 The fog had vanished, and the moon 
 shone softly, through a white wreath of 
 clouds, over the straggling line of house- 
 tops. The narrow, squalid little street was 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 219 
 
 deserted, and the sound of wheels In the 
 busier thoroughfare at the end was very- 
 intermittent. 
 
 Lightmark buttoned his gloves de- 
 liberately, and drew a long breath of the 
 night air before he broke the silence. 
 
 ' It's on occasions like this that I wish 
 Bloomsbury and Kensington lay in the 
 same direction — from here, you know ; we 
 should save a fortune in cab-fares. . . . 
 But — but that wasn't what I wanted to say. 
 Philip, my dear fellow, congratulate me.' 
 
 He paused for a minute looking at the 
 other curiously, with something of a melo- 
 dramatic pose. Rainham had his face 
 turned rather away, and was gazing at the 
 pale reflection of the moonlight in one of 
 the opposite windows. 
 
 ' I know,' he said simply. ' I do con- 
 gratulate you — from the bottom of my 
 heart. And I hope you will make her 
 happy.' Then he turned and looked 
 Lightmark in the face. ' I suppose you 
 do love her, Dick ?' 
 
220 A COMEDY OF MASKS 
 
 ' I suppose I do. But how the deuce 
 did you know anything about it ? I have 
 been blaming myself, needlessly it appears, 
 for not letting you hear of it. Has it — 
 has it been in the papers ?' 
 
 Rainham laughed in spite of himself. 
 
 ' Approaching marriage of a celebrated 
 artist 1 No, Dick, I don't think it has. Lady 
 Garnett told me more than a week ago.' 
 
 'Oh,' said Dick blankly. ' I — I'm much 
 obliged to her. I thought perhaps it was 
 the Colonel ; I wrote to him, you know, 
 and I thought he was a discreet old bird. 
 But how did Lady Garnett know i^' 
 
 ' She seemed to think it was no secret,' 
 said Rainham, with a suggestion of apology 
 in his tone ; ' and, of course, she knows 
 that I am ' 
 
 ' My best friend,' interposed the other 
 impulsively. ' So you are. And I ought 
 to have told you ; I was a brute. And I 
 feel like the devil about it. . . . Well, it 
 can't be helped ! Will you have this cab, 
 or shall I ?' 
 
A COMEDY OF MASKS 221 
 
 Rainham drew back with a gesture of 
 abnegation as the driver reined the horse 
 back upon its haunches with a clatter. 
 
 ' I'm going to walk, I think. Only up 
 to Bloomsbury, you know. Good-night, 
 Dick. I hope you'll be very happy, both 
 of you.' 
 
 When the cab drove off, Rainham stood 
 still for a minute and watched it out of 
 sight. Then he started and seemed to 
 pull himself together. 
 
 ' I wish I knew !' he said aloud to him- 
 self, as he stepped rapidly towards the 
 East. ' Well, we'll be off to Bordighera 
 now, mon vieux. We've lost Dick, I 
 think, and we've lost ' 
 
 The soliloquy died away in a sigh and a 
 pathetic shrug. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 aiLI.ING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD. 
 
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