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Halcyone

by Elinor Glyn · English · Gutenberg #13530 · 492,394 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Halcyone

Author: Elinor Glyn


        
Release date: September 26, 2004 [eBook #13530]
                Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13530

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HALCYONE ***

HALCYONE



BY ELINOR GLYN

AUTHOR OF "THE REASON WHY," "HIS HOUR," "THREE WEEKS," ETC.


[Frontispiece]


1912



TO THE MEMORY
OF
MY KIND FRIEND

LORD ST. HELIER

WHOSE SYMPATHY WITH MY CLASSICAL STUDIES
SO GREATLY ENCOURAGED THEM


[Greek: DRASANTI PATHEIN]



_"And now they are past the last blue headland and in the open sea; and
there is nothing round them but the waves and the sky and the wind. But
the waves are gentle and the sky is clear, and the breeze is tender and
low; for these are the days when Halcyone and Ceyx build their nest and
no storms ever ruffle the pleasant summer sea. And who were Halcyone and
Ceyx? Halcyone was a fairy maiden, the daughter of the beach and of the
wind. And she loved a sailor-boy and married him; and none on earth were
so happy as they. But at last Ceyx was wrecked; and before he could swim
to the shore, the billows swallowed him up. And Halcyone saw him
drowning and leapt into the sea to him; but in vain. Then the Immortals
took pity on them both, and changed them into two fair sea-birds, and
now they build a floating nest every year and sail up and down for ever
upon the pleasant seas of Greece."_

THE HEROES, _Kingsley._





HALCYONE




CHAPTER I


Outside one of the park gates there was a little house. In the
prosperous days of the La Sarthe it had been the land steward's--but
when there was no longer any land to steward it had gone with the rest,
and for several years had been uninhabited.

One day in early spring Halcyone saw smoke coming out of the chimney.
This was too interesting a fact not to be investigated; she resented it,
too--because a hole in the park paling had often let her into the garden
and there was a particularly fine apple tree there whose fruit she had
yearly enjoyed.

She crept nearer, a tall, slender shape, with mouse-colored hair waving
down her back, and a scarlet cap pulled jauntily over her brow--the
delightful feeling of adventure tingling in her veins. Yes, the gap was
there, it had not been mended yet--she would penetrate and see for
herself who this intruder could be.

She climbed through and stole along the orchard and up to the house.
Signs of mending were around the windows, in the shape of a new board
here and there in the shutters; but nothing further. She peeped over the
low sill, and there her eyes met those of an old man seated in a shabby
armchair, amid piles and piles of books. He had evidently been reading
while he smoked a long, clay pipe.

He was a fine old man with a splendid presence, his gray hair was longer
than is usual and a silvery beard flowed over his chest.

Halcyone at once likened him to Cheiron in the picture of him in her
volume of Kingsley's "Heroes."

They stared at one another and the old man rose and came to the window.

Halcyone did not move.

"Who are you, little girl?" he said. "And what do you want?"

"I want to know who you are, and why you have come here?" she answered
fearlessly. "I am Halcyone, you know."

The old man smiled.

"That ought to tell me everything," he said, gravely, "but unfortunately
it does not! Who is Halcyone?"

"I live at La Sarthe Chase with the Aunts La Sarthe," she said proudly,
as though La Sarthe Chase had been Windsor Castle--"and I have been
accustomed to play in this garden. I don't like your being here much."

"I am sorry for that, because it suits me and I have bought it. But how
would it be if I said you might come into the garden still and play?
Would you forgive me then for being here?"

"I might," said Halcyone. "What are all these books for?"

"They are to read."

"I knew that--" and she frowned, beetling her delicate dark brows, "but
why such a lot? You can never read them all."

The old man smiled.

"I have read most of them already," he said. "I have had plenty of time,
you see."

"Yes, I dare say you are old," said Halcyone-- "and what are they about?
I would like to know that. My books so seldom interest me."

He handed her one through the window, but it was written in Greek and
she could not read it. She frowned again as she turned over the pages.

"Perhaps there is something nice in that," she said.

"Possibly."

"Well, won't you tell me what?"

"That would take a long time--suppose you come in and have tea with me,
then we could talk comfortably."

"That sounds a good plan," she said, gravely. "Shall I climb through the
window--I can quite easily--or would you like me to go round by the
door?"

"The window will serve," said the old man.

And with one bound as light as a young kid, Halcyone was in the room.

There was a second armchair beyond the pile of books, and into that she
nestled, crossing her knees and clasping her hands round them. "Now we
can begin," she said.

"Tea or talk?" asked the old man.

"Why, talk, of course; there is no tea--"

"But if you rang that bell some might come."

Halcyone jumped up again and looked about for the bell. She was not
going to ask where it was--she disliked stupid people herself. The old
man watched her from under the penthouse of his eyebrows with a curious
smile.

The bell was hidden in the carving of the mantelpiece, but she found it
at last and gave it a lusty pull.

It seemed answered instantaneously by a strange-looking man,--a dark,
extremely thin person with black, dull eyes.

The old man spoke to him in an unknown language and he retired silently.

"Who was that?" asked Halcyone.

"That is my servant,--he will bring tea."

"He is not English?"

"No--does that matter?"

"Of course not--but what country does he come from?"

"You must ask him someday."

"I want to see countries," and she stretched out her slender arms, "I
want to fly away outside the park and see the world."

"You have time," said the old man.

"When I am big enough I shall run away--I get very tired of only the
Aunts La Sarthe. They never understand a word I say." "What do you say?"

"I want to say all sorts of things, but if it isn't what they have heard
a hundred times before, they look shocked and pained."

"You must come and say them to me then, perhaps I might understand, and
in any case I should not be shocked or pained."

"They remind me of the Three Gray Sisters, although there are only two
of them--one eye and one tooth between them."

"I see--there is something we can talk about at all events," said the
old man. "The Three Gray Sisters are friends of yours--are they?"

"Not friends!" Haley one exclaimed emphatically. "I can't bear them,
silly old things nodding there, with their ridiculous answers to
Perseus, saying old things were better than new--and their day better
than his--I should have thrown their eye into the sea if I had been he.
Do all old people do that?--pretend their time was the best?--do you? I
don't mean to."

"You are right. It is a bad habit."

"But are they better, the old things?"

The old man did not answer for a moment or two. He looked his visitor
through and through with his wise gray eyes--an investigation which
might have disconcerted some people, but Halcyone was unabashed.

"I know what you are doing," she said. "You are seeing the other side of
my head--and I wish I could see the other side of yours, I can the
Aunts' La Sarthe and Priscilla's, in a minute, but yours is different."

"I am glad of that--you might be disappointed, though, if you did see
what was there."

"I always want to see," she said simply--"see everything; and sometimes
I find the other side not a bit what this is--even in the birds and
trees and the beetles. But you must have a huge big one."

The old man laughed.

"You and I are going to be good acquaintances," he said. "Tell me some
more of Perseus. What more do you know of him?"

"I have only read 'The Heroes,'" Halcyone admitted, "but I know it by
heart--and I know it is all true though my governess says it is
fairy-tales and not for girls. I want to learn Greek, but they can't
teach me."

"That is too bad."

"When things are put vaguely I always want to know, them--I want to know
why Medusa turned into a gorgon? What was her sin?"

The old man smiled.

"I see," said Halcyone, "you won't tell me, but some day I shall know."

"Yes, some day you shall know," he said.

"They seem such great people, those Greeks; they knew everything--so the
preface of my 'Heroes' says, and I want to learn the things they
knew--mathematics and geometry, rather--and especially logic and
metaphysics, because I want to know the meaning of words and the art of
reasoning, and above everything I want to know about my own thoughts and
soul." "You strange little girl," said the old man. "Have you a soul?"

"I don't know, I have something in there," and Halcyone pointed to her
head--"and it talks to me like another voice, and when I am alone up a
tree away from people, and all is beautiful, it seems to make it tight
round here,--and go from my head into my side," and she placed her lean
brown paw over her heart.

"Yes--you perhaps have a soul," said the old man, and then he added,
half to himself--"What a pity."

"Why a pity?" demanded Halcyone.

"Because a woman with a soul suffers, and brings tribulation--but since
you have one we may as well teach you how to keep the thing in hand."

At that moment, the dark servant brought tea, and the fine oriental
china pleased Halcyone whose perceptions took in the texture of every
single thing she came in contact with.

The old man seemed to go into a reverie, he was quite silent while he
poured out the tea, forgetting to enquire her tastes as to cream and
sugar--he drank his black--and handed Halcyone a cup of the same.

She looked at him, her inquiring eyes full of intelligence and
understanding, and she realized at once that these trifles were not in
his consideration for the moment. So she helped herself to what she
wanted and sat down again in her armchair. She did not even rattle her
teaspoon. Priscilla often made noises which irritated her when she was
thinking. The old man came back to a remembrance of her presence at
last.

"Little girl," he said--"would you like to come here pretty often and
learn Greek, and about the Greeks?"

Halcyone bounded from her chair with joy.

"But of course I would!" she said. "And I am not stupid--not really
stupid Mademoiselle says, when I want to learn things."

"No--I dare say you are not stupid," the old man said. "So it is a
bargain then; I shall teach you about my friends the Greeks, and you
shall teach me about the green trees, and your friends the rabbits and
the beetles."

Then those instinctive good manners of Halcyone's came uppermost,
inherited, like her slender shape and balanced head, from that long line
of La Sarthe ancestors, and she thanked the old man with a quaint,
courtly, sweetly pedantic grace. Then she got up to go--

"I like being here--and may I come again to-morrow?" she said
afterwards. "I must go now or they will be disagreeable and perhaps make
difficulties."

The old man watched her as she curtsied to him and vaulted through the
window again, and on down the path, and through the hole in the paling,
without once turning round. Then he muttered to himself:

"A woman thing who refrains from looking back!--Yes, I fear she has a
soul."

Then he returned to his pipe and his Aristotle.




CHAPTER II


Halcyone struck straight across the park until she came to the beech
avenue, near the top, which ran south. The place had been nobly planned
by that grim old La Sarthe who raised it in the days of seventh Henry.
It stood very high with its terraced garden in the center of four
splendid avenues of oak, lime, beech and Spanish chestnut running east,
west, north and south. And four gates in different stages of
dilapidation gave entrance through a broken wall of stone to a circular
drive which connected all the avenues giving access to the house, a
battered, irregular erection of gray stone.

To reach the splendid front door you entered from the oak avenue and
crossed the pleasance, now only an overgrown meadow where the one cow
grazed in the summer.

Then you were obliged to mount three stately flights of stone steps
until you reached the first terrace, which was flagged near the house
and bordered with stiff flower-beds. Here you might turn and look back
due west upon a view of exquisite beauty--an undulating fertile country
beneath, and then in the far distance a line of dim blue hills.

But if you chanced to wish to enter your carriage unwetted on a rainy
day, you were obliged to deny yourself the pleasure of passing through
the entrance hall in state, and to go out at the back by stone passages
into the courtyard where the circular avenue came up close to a
fortified door, under the arch of which you could drive.

Everything spoke of past grandeur and present decay--only the
flower-beds of the highest terrace appeared even partly cultivated; the
two lower ones were a wild riot of weeds and straggling rose trees
unpruned and untrained, and if you looked up at the windows in the
southern wing of the house, you saw that several panes in them were
missing and that the holes had been stuffed with rags.

At this time of the year the beech avenue presented an indescribably
lovely sight of just opening leaves of tender green. It was a
never-failing joy to Halcyone. She walked the few paces which separated
her from it and turning, stood leaning against the broken gate now,
drinking in every tone of the patches the lowered sun made of gold
between the green. For her it was full of wood nymphs and elves. It did
not contain gods and goddesses like the others. She told herself long
stories about them.

The beech avenue was her favorite for the spring, the lime for the
summer, the chestnut for the autumn, and the oak for the winter. She
knew every tree in all four, as a huntsman knows his hounds. And when,
in the great equinoctial storm of the previous year, three giant oaks
lay shattered and broken, the sight had caused her deep grief, until she
wove a legend about them and turned them into monsters for Perseus to
subdue with Medusa's head. One, indeed, whose trunk was gnarled and
twisted, became the serpent of the brazen scales who sleepeth not,
guarding the Golden Fleece.

"As the tree falls so shall it lie," seemed to be the motto of La Sarthe
Chase. For none were removed.

Halcyone stretched out her arms and beckoned to her fairy friends.

"Queen Mab," she called, "come and dance nearer to me--I can see your
wings and I want to talk to you to-day!"

And as if in answer to this invitation, the rays of the lowered sun
shifted to an opening almost at her feet, and with a cry of joy the
child began to dance in the gorgeous light.

"Come follow, follow me, ye fairy elves that be," she sang softly.

And the sprites laughed with gladness, and gilded her mouse hair with
gold, and lit up her eyes, and wove scarves about her with gossamer
threads, and beneath her feet tall bluebells offered their heads as a
carpet.

But Halcyone sprang over them, she would not have crushed the meanest
weed.

"Queen Mab!" she said at last, as she sat down in the middle of the
sunlight, "I have found an old gentleman--and he is Cheiron, and if one
could see it in the right light, he may have a horse's body, and he is
going to teach me just what Jason learnt--and then I shall tell it to
you."

The rays shifted again to a path beyond, and Halcyone bounded up and
went on her way.

Old William was drawing the elder Miss La Sarthe in a dilapidated
basket-chair, up and down on the highest terrace. She held a minute
faded pink silk parasol over her head--it had an ivory handle which
folded up when she no longer needed the parasol as a shade. She wore
one-buttoned gloves, of slate-colored kid, and a wrist-band of black
velvet clasped with a buckle. An inverted cake-tin of weather-beaten
straw, trimmed with rusty velvet, shadowed her old, tired eyes; an
Indian shawl was crossed upon her thin bosom.

"Halcyone!" she called querulously. "Where have you been, child? You
must have missed your tea."

And Halcyone answered:

"In the orchard."

For of what use to inform Aunt Ginevra about that enchanting visit to
Cheiron! Aunt Ginevra who knew not of such beings!

"The orchard's let," grunted old William--"they do say it's sold--"

"I had rather not hear of it, William," said Miss La Sarthe frowning.
"It does not concern one what occurs beyond one's gates."

Old William growled gently, and continued his laborious task--one of the
wheels squeaked as it turned on the flags.

"Aunt Ginevra, you must have that oiled," said Halcyone, as she screwed
up her face. "How can you bear it? You can't see the lovely spring
things, with that noise."

"One does not see with one's ears, Halcyone," quavered Miss La Sarthe.
"Take me in now, William."

"And she can't even see them with her eyes--poor Aunt Ginevra!" Halcyone
said to herself, as she walked respectfully by the chair until it passed
the front door on its way to the side. Then she bounded up the steps and
through the paneled, desolate hall, taking joy in climbing the dog-gates
at the turn of the stairs, which she could easily have opened--and she
did not pause until she reached her own room in the battered south wing,
and was soon curled up in the broad window sill, her hands clasped round
her knees.

For this was a wonderful thing which had come into her life.--She had
met someone who could see the other side of her head! Henceforth there
would be a human voice, not only a fairy's, to converse with her.
Indeed, the world was a very fair place!

Here, Priscilla found her when it was growing dark, still with the rapt
expression of glad thought on her face. And the elderly woman shook her
head. "That child is not canny," she muttered, while aloud she chided
her for idleness and untidiness in having thrown her cap on the floor.

But Halcyone flung her arms round Priscilla's neck and laughed in her
beard.

"Oh, you dear old goosie! I have been with the Immortals on the blue
peaks of Olympus and there we did not wear caps!"

"Them Immortals!" said Priscilla. "Better far you were attending to
things you can see. They'll be coming down and carrying you off, some of
these fine nights!"

"The Immortals don't care so much about the nights, Priscilla--unless
Artemis is abroad--she does--but the others like the sunlight and great
white clouds and a still blue sky. I am quite safe--" and Halcyone
smiled.

Priscilla began tidying up.

"Ma'm'selle's wrote to the mistresses to say she won't come back, she
can't put up with the place any longer."

This sounded too good to be true! Another governess going! Surely they
would see it was no use asking any more to come to La Sarthe
Chase--Halcyone had never had one who could appreciate its beauties.
Governesses to her were poor-spirited creatures afraid of rats, and the
dark passages--and one and all resentful of the rag-stuffed panes in the
long gallery. Surely with the new-found Cheiron to instruct her about
those divine Greeks a fresh governess was unnecessary.

"I shall ask Aunt Ginevra to implore my stepfather not to send any more.
We don't want them, do we, Priscilla?"

"That we don't, my lamb!" agreed Priscilla. "But you must learn
something more useful than gods and goddesses. Your poor, dear mother in
heaven would break her heart if she knew you were going to be brought up
ignorant."

Halcyone raised her head haughtily.

"I shan't be ignorant--don't be afraid. I would not remain ignorant even
if no other governess ever came near me. I can read by myself, and the
dear old gentleman I saw to-day will direct me." And then when she
perceived the look of astonishment on Priscilla's face: "Ah! That is a
secret! I had not meant to tell you--but I will. The orchard cottage is
inhabited and I've seen him, and he is Cheiron, and I am going to learn
Greek!"

"Bless my heart!" said Priscilla. "Well, now, it is long past seven
o'clock and you must dress to go down to dessert."

And all the time she was putting Halcyone into her too short white
frock, and brushing her mane of hair, the child kept up a brisk
conversation. Silent for hours at a time, when something suddenly
interested her she could be loquacious enough.

One candle had to be lit before her toilet was completed, and then at
half past seven she stole down the stairs, full of shadows, and across
the hall to the great dining-room, where the Misses La Sarthe dined in
state at seven o'clock, off some thin soup and one other dish, so that
at half past seven the cloth had been cleared away by old William (in a
black evening coat now and rather a high stock), and the shining
mahogany table reflected the two candles in their superb old silver
candlesticks.

At this stage, as Halcyone entered the room, it was customary for
William to place the dish of apples on the table in front of Miss La
Sarthe, and the dish of almonds and raisins in front of Miss Roberta.
The dessert did not vary much for months--from October to late June it
was the same; and only on Sundays was the almond and raisin dish allowed
to be partaken of, but an apple was divided into four quarters, after
being carefully peeled by Miss La Sarthe, each evening, and Miss Roberta
was given two quarters and Halcyone one, while the eldest lady nibbled
at the remaining piece herself.

In her day, children had always come down to dessert, and had had to be
good and not greedy, or the fate of Miss Augusta Noble of that estimable
book, "The Fairchild Family," would certainly fall upon them. Halcyone,
from her earliest memory, had come down to dessert every night--except
at one or two pleasant moments when the measles or a bad cold had kept
her in bed. Half past seven o'clock, summer and winter, had meant for
her the quarter of an apple, two or three strawberries or a plum--and
almost always the same conversation.

Miss La Sarthe sat at the head of the table, in a green silk dress cut
low upon the shoulders and trimmed with a bertha of blonde lace. Miss
Roberta--sad falling off from dignity--had her thin bones covered with a
habit shirt of tulle, because she was altogether a poorer creature than
her sister, and felt the cold badly. Both ladies wore ringlets at the
sides of their faces and little caps of ribbon and lace.

Even within Halcyone's memory, the dining-room had lost some of its
adornments. The Chippendale chairs had gone, and had been replaced by
four stout kitchen ones. The bits of rare china were fewer--but the
portrait of the famous Timothy La Sarthe, by Holbein, still frowned from
his place of honor above the chimneypiece. All the La Sarthes had been
christened Timothy since that time.

The affair of the governess seemed to be troubling Miss Roberta. At
intervals she had found comfort in these denizens of the outer world,
and, free from the stern eye of Sister Ginevra, had been wont to chat
with one and another. They never stayed long enough for her to know them
well, and now this lady--the fifth within two years--had refused to
return. Life seemed very dull.

"Need I have any more governesses, Aunt Ginevra?" Halcyone said. "There
is an old gentleman who has bought the orchard house and he says he will
teach me Greek--and I already know a number of other tiresome things."

Halcyone had not meant to tell her aunts anything about Cheiron--this
new-found joy--but she reasoned after she heard of Mademoiselle's
non-return that the knowledge that she would have some instructor might
have weight with those in charge of her. It was worth risking at all
events.

Miss La Sarthe adjusted a gold pince-nez and looked at the little girl.

"How old are you, Halcyone?" she asked.

"I was twelve on the seventh of last October, Aunt Ginevra."

"Twelve--a young gentlewoman's education is not complete at twelve years
old, child--although governesses in the house are not very pleasant, I
admit"--and Miss La Sarthe sighed.

"Oh, I know it isn't!" said Halcyone, "but you see, I can speak French
and German quite decently, and the other things surely I might learn
myself in between the old gentleman's teaching."

"But what do you know of this--this stranger?" demanded Miss La Sarthe.
"You allude to someone of whom neither your Aunt Roberta nor I have ever
heard."

"I met him to-day. I went into the orchard as usual, and found the house
was inhabited, and I saw him and he asked me in to tea. He is a very old
gentleman with a long white beard, and very, very clever. His room is
full of Greek books and we had a long talk, and he was very kind and
said he would teach me to read them."

This seemed to Halcyone to be sufficient in the way of credentials for
anyone.

"I have heard from Hester," Miss Roberta interposed timidly, "that the
orchard house has been bought by an Oxford professor--it sounds most
respectable, does it not, sister?"

Miss La Sarthe looked stern:

"More than thirty-five years ago, Roberta, I told you I disapproved of
Hester's chattering. I cannot conceive personally, how you can converse
with servants as you do. Hester would not have dared to gossip to me!"

Poor Miss Roberta looked crushed. She had often been chided on this
point before.

Halcyone would like to have reminded her elder aunt that William, who
was equally a servant, had announced some such news to her that
afternoon; but she remained silent. She must gain her point if she
could, and to argue, she knew, was never a road to success.

"I am sure if we could get a really nice English girl," hazarded Miss
Roberta, wishing to propitiate, "it might be company for us all,
Ginevra--but if Mrs. Anderton insists upon sending another foreign
person--"

"And of course she will," interrupted the elder lady; "people of Mrs.
Anderton's class always think it is more genteel to have a smattering of
foreign languages than to know their own mother tongue. We may get
another German--and that I could hardly bear."

"Then do write to my stepfather, please, please," cried Halcyone. "Say I
am going to be splendidly taught--lots of interesting things--and oh--I
will try so hard by myself to keep up what I already know. I will
practice--really, really, Aunt Ginevra--and do my German exercises and
dear Aunt Roberta can talk French to me and even teach me the Italian
songs that she sings so beautifully to her guitar!"

This last won the day as far as Miss Roberta was concerned. Her faded
cheeks flushed pink. The trilling Italian love-songs, learnt some fifty
years ago during a two years' residence in Florence, had always been her
pride and joy. So she warmly seconded her niece's pleadings, and the
momentous decision was come to that James Anderton should be approached
upon the subject. If the child learned Greek--from a professor--and
could pick up a few of Roberta's songs as an accomplishment, she might
do well enough--and a governess in the house, in spite of the money paid
by Mr. Anderton to keep her, was a continual gall and worry to them.

Halcyone knew very little about her stepfather. She was aware that he
had married her mother when she was a very poor and sorrowful young
widow, that she had had two stepsisters and a brother very close
together, and then that the pretty mother had died. There was evidently
something so sad connected with the whole story that Priscilla never
cared much to talk about it. It was always, "your poor sainted mother in
heaven," or, "your blessed pretty mother"--and with that instinctive
knowledge of the feelings of other people which characterized Halcyone's
point of view, she had avoided questioning her old nurse. Her
stepfather, James Anderton, was a very wealthy stockbroker--she knew
that, and also that a year or so after her mother's death he had married
again--"a person of his own class," Miss La Sarthe had said, "far more
suitable to him than poor Elaine."

Halcyone had only been six years old at her mother's death, but she kept
a crisp memory of the horror of it. The crimson, crumpled-looking baby
brother, in his long clothes, whose coming somehow seemed responsible
for the loss of her tender angel, for a long time was viewed with
resentful hatred. It was a terrible, unspeakable grief. She remembered
perfectly the helpless sense of loss and loneliness.

Her mother had loved her with passionate devotion. She was conscious
even then that Mabel and Ethel, the stepsisters, were as nothing in
comparison to herself in her mother's regard. She had a certainty that
her mother had loved her own father very much--the young, brilliant,
spendthrift, last La Sarthe. And her mother had been of the family,
too--a distant cousin. So she herself was La Sarthe to her finger
tips--slender and pale and distinguished-looking. She remembered the
last scene with her stepfather before her coming to La Sarthe Chase. It
was the culmination after a year of misery and unassuaged grieving for
her loss. He had come into the nursery where the three little girls were
playing--Halcyone and her two stepsisters--and he had made them all
stand up in his rough way, and see who could catch the pennies the best
that he threw from the door. His brother, "Uncle Ted," was with him. And
the two younger children, Mabel of five and Ethel of four, shouted
riotously with glee and snatched the coins from one another and greedily
quarreled over those which Halcyone caught with her superior skill and
handed to them.

She remembered her stepfather's face--it grew heavy and sullen and he
walked to the window, where his brother followed him--and she remembered
their words and had pondered over them often since.

"It's the damned breeding in the brat that fairly gets me raw, Ted," Mr.
Anderton had said. "Why the devil couldn't Elaine have given it to my
children, too. I can't stand it--a home must be found for her
elsewhere."

And soon after that, Halcyone had come with her own Priscilla to La
Sarthe Chase to her great-aunts Ginevra and Roberta, in their
tumble-down mansion which her father had not lived to inherit. Under
family arrangements, it was the two old ladies' property for their
lives.

And now the problem of what James Anderton--or rather the second Mrs.
James Anderton--would do was the question of the moment. Would there be
a fresh governess or would they all be left in peace without one? Mrs.
James Anderton, Miss Roberta had said once, was a person who "did her
duty," as people often did "in her class"--"a most worthy woman, if not
quite a lady"--and she had striven to do her best by James Anderton's
children--even his stepchild Halcyone.

Miss La Sarthe promised to write that night before she went to bed--but
Halcyone knew it was a long process with her and that an answer could
not be expected for at least a week. Therefore there was no good
agitating herself too soon about the result. It was one of her
principles never to worry over unnecessary things. Life was full of
blessed certainties to enjoy without spoiling them by speculating over
possible unpleasantnesses.

The old gentleman--Cheiron--and old William and the timid curate who
came to dine on Saturday nights once a month were about the only male
creatures Halcyone had ever spoken to within her recollection--their
rector was a confirmed invalid and lived abroad--but Priscilla had a
supreme contempt for them as a sex.

"One and all set on themselves, my lamb," she said; "even your own
beautiful father had to be bowed down to and worshiped. We put up with
it in him, of course; but I never did see one that didn't think of
himself first. It is their selfishness that causes all the sorrow of the
world to women. We needn't have lost your angel mother but for Mr.
Anderton's selfishness--a kind, hard, rough man--but as selfish as a
gentleman."

It seemed a more excusable defect to Priscilla in the upper class, but
had no redeeming touch in the status of Mr. Anderton.

Halcyone, however, had a logical mind and reasoned with her nurse:

"If they are _all_ selfish, Priscilla, it must be either women's fault
for letting them be, or God intended them to be so. A thing can't be
_all_ unless the big force makes it."

This "big force"--this "God" was a real personality to Halcyone. She
could not bear it when in church she heard the meanest acts of revenge
and petty wounded vanity attributed to Him. She argued it was because
the curate did not know. Having come from a town, he could not be
speaking of the same wonderful God she knew in the woods and fields--the
God so loving and tender in the springtime to the budding flowers, so
gorgeous in the summer and autumn and so pure and cold in the winter.
With all that to attend to He could not possibly stoop to punish
ignorant people and harbor anger and wrath against them. He was the
sunlight and the moonlight and the starlight. He was the voice which
talked in the night and made her never lonely.

And all the other things of nature and the universe were gods,
also--lesser ones obeying the supreme force and somehow fused with Him
in a whole, being part of a scheme which He had invented to complete the
felicity of the world He had created--not beings to be prayed to or
solicited for favors, but just gentle, glorious, sympathetic, invisible
friends. She was very much interested in Christ; He was certainly a part
of God, too--but she could not understand about His dying to save the
world, since the God she heard of in the church was still forever
punishing and torturing human beings, or only extending mercy after His
vanity had been flattered by offerings and sacrifices.

"I expect," she said to herself, coming home one Sunday after one of Mr.
Miller's lengthy discourses upon God's vengeance, "when I am older and
able really to understand what is written in the Bible I shall find it
isn't that a bit, and it is either Mr. Miller can't see straight or he
has put the stops all in the wrong places and changed the sense. In any
case I shall not trouble now--the God who kept me from falling through
the hole in the loft yesterday by that ray of sunlight to show the
cracked board, is the one I am fond of."

It was the simple and logical view of a case which always appealed to
her.

"Halcyone" her parents had called her well--their bond of love--their
tangible proof of halcyon days. And always when Halcyone read her
"Heroes" she felt it was her beautiful father and mother who were the
real Halcyone and Ceyx, and she longed to see the blue summer sea and
the pleasant isles of Greece that she might find their floating nest and
see them sail away happily for ever over those gentle southern waves.




CHAPTER III


Mr. Carlyon--for such was Cheiron's real name--knocked the ashes from
his long pipe next day at eleven o'clock in the morning, after his late
breakfast and began to arrange his books. His mind was away in a land of
classical lore; he had almost forgotten the sprite who had invaded his
solitude the previous afternoon, until he heard a tap at the window, and
saw her standing there--great, intelligent eyes aflame and rosy lips
apart.

"May I come in, please?" her voice said. "I am afraid I am a little
early, but I had something so very interesting to tell you, I had to
come."

He opened wide the window and let in the May sunshine.

"The first of May and a May Queen," he told her presently, when they
were seated in their two chairs. "And now begin this interesting news."

"Aunt Ginevra has promised to write to my step-father at once, and
suggest that no more governesses are sent to me. Won't it be perfectly
splendid if he agrees!"

"I really don't know," said Cheiron.

Halcyone's face fell.

"You promised to teach me Greek," she said simply, "and I know from my
'Heroes' that is all that I need necessarily learn from anyone to
acquire the other things myself."

This seemed to Mr. Carlyon a very conclusive answer--his bent of mind
found it logical.

"Very well," he said. "When shall we begin?"

"Perhaps to-morrow. To-day if you have time I would like to take you for
a walk in the park--and show you some of the trees. The beeches are
coming out very early this year; they have the most exquisite green just
showing, and the chestnuts in some places have quite large leaves. It is
damp under foot, though--do you mind that?"

"Not a bit," said Cheiron.

And so they went, creeping through the hole in the paling like two
brigands on a marauding expedition.

"There used to be deer when I first came five years ago," Halcyone said.
"I remember them quite well, and their sweet little fawns; but the next
winter was that horribly cold one, and there was no hay to be put out to
them--my Aunts La Sarthe are very poor--and some of them died, and in
the summer the Long Man came and talked and talked, and Aunt Roberta had
red eyes all the afternoon, as she always does when he comes, and Aunt
Ginevra pretended hers were a cold in her head--and the week after a lot
of men arrived and drove all the tender, beautiful creatures into
corners, and took them away in carts with nets over them--the does--but
the bucks had pieces of wood because their horns would have torn the
nets."

Her delicate lips quivered a moment, as though at a too painful
memory--then she smiled.

"But one mother doe and her fawn got away--and I knew where they were
hiding, but I did not tell, of course--and now there are four of them,
or perhaps five. But they are very wild and keep in the copses, and fly
if they see anyone coming. They don't mind me, of course, but strangers.
The mother remembers that awful day, I expect."

"No doubt," said Cheiron; "and who is the 'Long Man' you spoke of as
having instigated this outrage?"

"He is the man of business, he was the bailiff once, but is a house
agent now in Applewood. And whenever he comes something has to go--we
all dread it. Last Michaelmas it was the Chippendale dining-room
chairs--"

"I know him then--I bought my cottage from him. I suppose all this is
necessary, because he seemed an honest fellow."

"Someone long ago made it necessary--it is not the Aunts' fault--" and
then Halcyone stopped abruptly and pointed to the beech avenue which
they were approaching now through the bracken, brown and crisp from last
year, with only here and there a green shoot showing.

"Queen Mab and the elves live there in May and early June," she said.
"They dance every afternoon as the sun sets, and sometimes in the dawn,
too, and the early morning. You can see them if you keep quite still."

"Naturally," said Cheiron.

"Do you know, since last winter I have had a great pleasure," and
Halcyone's grave, intent eyes looked up into the old gentleman's face.
"There was a terrible storm in February--but can you really keep a
secret?"--and then, as he nodded his head seriously, she went on. "It
blew down a narrow piece of the paneling in the long gallery--it is next
to my room, you know--and I heard the noise in the night and lit a
candle and went to see. Some of the window panes are broken, so it is
very blustery there in storms. Well, there was a door behind it--a
secret door! I was so excited, but I could not keep the candle alight
and it was very cold. I saw nothing was broken--only the wind had
dislodged the spring. I was able to push it back and pull a little chest
against it, and wait till morning. And then what do you think I
found?--it led to a staircase in the thickness of the wall, which went
down and down until it came to a door right below the cellar--it took me
days of dodging Mademoiselle and Priscilla to carry down oil and things
to help me to open it--and then it came out in a hollow archway on the
second terrace, which has a stone bench in it, and is where old William
keeps his tools. It is so cleverly done you could never see it; it looks
just as if it was no door, but was only there for ornament. You may
fancy I never told anyone! It is my secret--and yours now--and it
enabled me to do what I have always longed to do--go out in the night!"

"You go out in the night all alone!" exclaimed Cheiron, almost aghast.

"But of course," said Halcyone. "You cannot think of the joy when there
is a moon and stars; and some of the night creatures are such
friends--they teach me wonderful things. Only the dreadful difficulty is
in avoiding Priscilla--she sleeps in the dressing-room next me. I love
her better than anyone else in the world, but she could never
understand--she would only worry about the wet feet and clothes being
spoilt. I always think it is so fortunate though, don't you, that
servants--even a dear like Priscilla--sleep so soundly. Aunt Ginevra
says they can't help it, every class has its peculiarity."

Mr. Carlyon was extremely interested--he wanted to hear more of these
adventures.

"How do you avoid Priscilla seeing your things in the morning then?" he
asked.

"I have got a pair of big gutta-percha boots--they were my father's
waders once, and I found them, and have hidden them in one of the
chests, and I tuck everything into them--so there are no marks. It is
enchanting."

"And do you often have these nocturnal outings, you odd little girl?"
Cheiron said, wonderingly.

"Not very. I have to be so careful, you see--and I only choose moonlight
or starlight nights, and they are rare--but when the summer comes I hope
to enjoy many more of them."

Then Mr. Carlyon's old eyes looked away into distance and seemed to
see a slender shape wrapped in a spotted fawn's skin, its head crowned
with leaves, joining the throng of those other early worshipers of
Dionysus as they beat their weird music among the dark crags of
Parnassus--searching for communion with the spiritual beyond in the only
way they knew of then to reach it, through a wild ecstasy of emotion.
Here was the same impulse, unconscious, instinctive. The probing of
nature to discover her secrets. Here was a female thing with a soul
unafraid in her pure innocence, alone in the night.

Halcyone did not interrupt his meditations, and presently they came to
the broken gate close to the house.

Cheiron paused and leaned on the top bar.

"Is this the elves' home?" he asked.

"Yes," she answered gravely. "But so late in the day you cannot see
them. You must wait again until the sun is setting; and I expect when it
is warm they come in the moonlight, too, but I have not been able to get
a fine enough night--as yet. This avenue is the most beautiful of all,
because a hundred years ago the La Sarthes had a quarrel with the
Wendovers, whose land just touches at the end of it, and they closed the
gate, and so the turf has covered the gravel. And look at the tree--you
can see the fairy ring where they dance, and I always fancy they sup
under the one with the very low branch at the side--but I don't believe
I should like 'marrow of mice,' should you?"

"Not at all," said Cheiron.

Then they wandered on. Halcyone led him to each of the favorite points
of view, and he became acquainted with the great serpent, and so vivid
was her picturing that he almost fancied he saw the Golden Fleece,
nailed to the tree beyond, and heard Orpheus' exquisite melodies
charming the reptile to sleep while Jason stepped over his slumbering
coils.

"But I do not have Medea here," she said; "I play her part myself, and I
make her different. She was too cunning and had wicked thoughts in her
heart, and so the poor Heroes suffered. If she had been good and true
and had not killed Absyrtus, things might have had a different ending. I
never like to think of Absyrtus in any case--because, do you know, I
once hated my baby brother, and would have been glad if anyone had
killed him."

Her eyes became black as night with this awful recollection. "It was
very long ago, you understand--when I was quite a little girl before I
knew the wonderful things the wind and the flowers and the stars tell
me."

Cheiron did not ask the cause of this hate; he reserved the question for
a future time, and encouraged her to tell him of her discoveries in
wonderland.

Some trees had strange personalities, she said. You could never guess
the other side of their heads, until you knew them very well. But all
had good in them, and it was wisest never even to see the bad.

"I always find if you are afraid of things they become real and hurt
you, but if you are sure they are kind and true they turn gentle and
love you. I am hardly ever afraid of anything now--only I do not like a
thunderstorm. It seems as if God were really angry then, and were not
considering sufficiently just whom He meant to hit."

Justice to her appeared to hold chief place among the virtues.

"Do you stay here all the year round?" asked Cheiron, presently, "or do
you sometimes have a trip to the seaside?"

"I have never been away since I first came--I would love to see the
sea," and her eyes became dreary. "I can just remember long ago with my
mother, we went once--she and I alone--" then she turned to her old
companion and looked up in his face.

"Had you a mother? Of course you had, but I mean one that you knew?"

The late Mrs. Carlyon had not meant anything much to her son in her
lifetime, and was now a far-off memory of forty years ago, so Cheiron
answered truthfully upon the subject, and Halcyone looked grave.

"When we have been friends for a long time I will tell you of my
beautiful mother--and I could let you share my memory of her
perhaps--but not to-day," she said.

And then she was silent for a while as they walked on. But when they
were turning back towards the orchard house she suddenly began to laugh,
glancing at the old gentleman with eyes full of merriment.

"It is funny," she said, "I don't even know your name! I would like to
call you Cheiron--but you have a real name, of course."

"It is Arnold Carlyon, and I come from Cornwall," the old gentleman
said, "but you are welcome to call me Cheiron, if you like."

Halcyone thanked him prettily.

"I wish you had his body--don't you? How we could gallop about, could we
not? But I can imagine you have, easily. I always can see things I
imagine, and sometimes they become realities then."

"Heaven forbid!" exclaimed Cheiron. "What would my four legs and my
hoofs do in the little orchard house, and how should I sit in my
armchair?"

Halcyone pealed with merry laughter; her laughs came so rarely and were
like golden bells. The comic side of the picture enchanted her.

"Of course it would only do if we lived in a cave, as the real Cheiron
did," she admitted. "I was silly, was not I?"

"Yes," said Mr. Carlyon, "but I don't think I mind your being so--it is
nice to laugh."

She slipped her thin little hand into his for a moment, and caught hold
of one of his fingers.

"I am so glad you understand that," she said. "How good it is to laugh!
That is what the birds sing to me, it is no use ever to be sad, because
it draws evil and fear to yourself, and even in the winter one must know
there is always the beautiful spring soon coming. Don't you think God is
full of love for this world?"

"I am sure he is."

"The Aunts' God isn't a very kind person," she went on. "But I expect,
since you know about the Greeks, yours and mine are the same."

"Probably," said Cheiron.

Then, being assured on this point, Halcyone felt she could almost
entrust him with her greatest secret.

"Do you know," she said, in the gravest voice, "I will tell you
something. I have a goddess, too. I found her in the secret staircase.
She is broken, even her nose a little, but she is supremely beautiful.
It is just her head I have got, and I pretend she is my mother
sometimes, really come back to me again. We have long talks. Some day I
will show her to you. I have to keep her hidden, because Aunt Ginevra
cannot bear rubbish about, and as she is broken she would want to have
her thrown away."

"I shall be delighted to make her acquaintance. What do you call her?"

"That is just it," said Halcyone. "When I first found her it seemed to
me I must call her Pallas Athené, because of that noble lady in
Perseus--but as I looked and looked I knew she was not that; it seems
she cannot be anything else but just Love--her eyes are so tender, she
has many moods, and they are not often the same--but no matter how she
looks you feel all the time just love, love, love--so I have not named
her yet. You remember when Orpheus took his lyre and sang after Cheiron
had finished his song--it was of Chaos and the making of the world, and
how all things had sprung from Love--who could not live alone in the
Abyss. So I know that is she--just Love."

"Aphrodite," said Cheiron.

"It is a pretty name. If that is what it means, I would call her that."

"It will do," said Cheiron.

"Aphrodite--Aphrodite," she repeated it over and over. "It must mean
kind and tender, and soft and sweet, and beautiful and glorious, and
making you think of noble things, and making you feel perfectly happy
and warmed and comforted and blessed. Is it all that?"

"It could be--and more," said Cheiron.

"Then I will name her so."

After this there was a long silence. Mr. Carlyon would not interrupt
what was evidently a serious moment to his little friend. He waited, and
then presently he turned the channel of her thoughts by asking her if
she thought he might call on her Aunts that afternoon.

Halcyone hesitated a second.

"We hardly ever have visitors. Aunt Ginevra has always said one must not
receive what one cannot return, and they have no carriage or horses now,
so they never see anyone. Aunt Roberta would, but Aunt Ginevra does not
let her, and she often says in the last ten years they have quite
dropped out of everything. I do not know what that means altogether,
because I do not know what there was to drop out of. I have scarcely
ever been beyond the park, and there do not seem to be any big houses
for miles--do there?--except Wendover, but it is shut up; it has been
for twenty years."

"Then you think the Misses La Sarthe might not receive me?"

"You could try, of course. You have not a carriage. If you just walked
it would make it even. Shall I tell them you are coming? I had better,
perhaps."

"Yes, this afternoon."

And if Halcyone had known it, she was receiving an unheard-of
compliment! The hermit Carlyon--the old Oxford Professor of Greek, who
had come to this out-of-the-way corner because he had been assured by
the agent there would be no sort of society around him--now intended to
put on a tall hat and frock coat, and make a formal call on two maiden
ladies--all for the sake of a child of twelve years, with serious gray
eyes--and a soul!




CHAPTER IV


In her heart of hearts Miss Roberta felt fluttered as she walked across
the empty hall to the Italian parlor behind her sterner sister, to
receive their guest. He would come in the afternoon, Halcyone had said.
That meant about three o'clock, and it behooved ladies expecting a
gentleman to be at ease at some pretty fancy work when he should be
announced.

The village was two miles beyond the lime lodge gates, and for the last
eight years rheumatism in the knee had made the walk there out of the
question for poor Miss Roberta--so even the sight of a man and a
stranger was an unusual thing! She had not attempted conversation with
anyone but Mr. Miller, the curate, for over eleven years. The isolation
in which the inhabitants of La Sarthe Chase lived could not be more
complete.

The Italian parlor had its own slightly pathetic _cachet_. The walls and
ceiling had been painted by rather a bad artist from Florence at the
beginning of the nineteenth century, but the furniture was good of its
kind--a strange dark orange lacquer and gilt--and here most of the
treasures which had not yet been disposed of for daily bread, were
hoarded in cabinets and quaint glass-topped show tables. There were a
number of other priceless things about the house, the value of which the
Long Man's artistic education was as yet too unfinished to appreciate.
And the greatest treasure of all, as we have seen, was probably only
understood by Halcyone--but more of that in its place.

At present it concerns us to know that Miss La Sarthe and her sister had
reached the Italian parlor, and were seated in their respective
chairs--Miss Roberta with a piece of delicate embroidery in her hands,
the stitches of which her eyes--without spectacles, to receive
company--were too weak adequately to perceive.

Miss La Sarthe did not condescend to any such subterfuges. She sat quite
still doing nothing, looking very much as she had looked for the last
forty years. Her harp stood on one side of the fireplace, and Miss
Roberta's guitar hung by a faded blue ribbon from a nail at the other.

Presently old William announced:

"Mr. Carlyon."

And Cheiron, in his Sunday best, walked into the room.

Halcyone was not present. If children were wanted they were sent for. It
was not seemly for them to be idling in the drawing-rooms.

But Miss Roberta felt so pleasantly nervous, that she said timidly,
after they had all shaken hands:

"Ginevra, can we not tell William to ask Halcyone to come down, perhaps
Mr. Carlyon might like to see her again."

And William, who had not got far from the door, was recalled and sent on
the errand.

"What a very beautiful view you have from here," Mr. Carlyon said, by
way of a beginning. "It is an ideal spot."

"We are glad you like it," Miss La Sarthe replied, graciously; "as my
sister and I live quite retired from the world it suits us. We had much
gayety here in our youth, but now we like tranquillity."

"It is, however, delightful to have a neighbor," Miss Roberta
exclaimed--and then blushed at her temerity.

The elder lady frowned; Roberta had always been so sadly effusive, she
felt. Men ought not to be flattered so.

Mr. Carlyon bowed, and the platitudes were continued, each felt he or
she must approach the subject of Halcyone's lessons, but waited for the
other to begin.

Halcyone, herself, put an end to all awkwardness after she very gently
entered the room. There was no bounding or vaulting in the presence of
the aunts.

"Is it not kind of Mr. Carlyon to wish to teach me Greek?" she said,
including both her relatives. "I expect he has told you about it
though."

The Misses La Sarthe were properly surprised and interested. Most kind
they thought it and expressed their appreciation in their separate ways.
They both hoped their great-niece would be diligent, and prove a worthy
pupil. It was most fortunate for Halcyone, because her stepfather, Mr.
James Anderton, might decide at their request not to send another
governess, and, "No doubt it will be most useful to her," Miss La Sarthe
continued. "In these modern days so much learning seems to be expected
of people. When we were young, a little French and Italian were all that
was necessary."

Then Mr. Carlyon made friends of them for life, by a happy inspiration.

"I see you are both musicians," he said, pointing to the antiquated
musical instruments. "A taste of that sort is a constant pleasure."

"We used to play a good deal at one time," admitted Miss La Sarthe,
without a too great show of gratification, "and my sister was quite
celebrated for her Italian songs."

"Oh!" gasped Miss Roberta, blushing again.

"I hope I may have the pleasure of hearing you together some day," said
the Professor, gallantly.

Both ladies smilingly acquiesced, as they depreciated their powers.

And just before their visitor got up to leave, Miss La Sarthe said with
her grand air:

"We hope you find your cottage comfortable. It used to be the land
steward's, before we disposed of the property we no longer required. It
always used to have a very pretty garden, but no doubt it has rather
fallen into decay."

"I shall do my best to repair it," Mr. Carlyon said, "but it will take
some time. I and my servant have already begun to clear the weeds away,
and a new gardener is coming next week."

"Oh, may I help?" exclaimed Halcyone. "I love gardening, and can dig
quite well. I often help William."

"Our old butler does many useful things for us," Miss Roberta explained,
with a slightly conscious air.

And then the adieus were said, Halcyon's first lesson having been
arranged to begin on the morrow.

When the visitor had gone and the door was shut:

"A very worthy, cultivated gentleman, Roberta," Miss La Sarthe announced
to her sister. "We must ask him to dinner the next time Mr. Miller is
coming. We must show him some attention for his kindness to our
great-niece; he will understand and not allow it to flatter him too
much. You remember, Roberta, our Mamma always said unmarried women--of
any age--cannot be too careful of _les convenances_, but we might ask
him to dinner under the circumstances--don't you think so?"

"Oh, I am sure--yes, sister--but I wish you would not talk so of our
age," Miss Roberta said, rather fretfully for her. "You were only
seventy-two last November, and I shall not be sixty-nine until
March--and if you remember, Aunt Agatha lived to ninety-one, and Aunt
Mildred to ninety-four! So we are not so very old as yet."

"The more reason for us to be careful then," retorted the elder lady,
and Miss Roberta subsided with a sigh as she took her guitar from the
wall and began in her gentle old quavering voice to trill out one of her
many love-songs.

The guitar had not been tuned for several days, and had run down into a
pitiful flatness; Halcyone could hardly sit still, it hurt her so--but
it was only when Miss Roberta had begun a second warble that either she
or Miss La Sarthe noticed the jar. Then a helpless look grew in the
songstress's faded eyes.

"Halcyone, dear--I think you might tune the instrument for me," she
said. "I almost think the top string is not quite true, and you do it so
quickly."

And grateful for the chance, the child soon had it perfectly accorded,
and the concert continued.

Meanwhile Mr. Carlyon had got back to the orchard house, and had rung
for some of his black tea. He was musing deeply upon events. And at last
he sat at his writing-table and wrote a letter to his friend and former
pupil, John Derringham, in which he described his arrival at his new
home, and his outlook, and made a casual reference to the two maiden
ladies in these terms:

"The park and house is still owned by two antediluvian spinsters of the
name of La Sarthe--exquisite specimens of Early Victorian gentility.
They are very poor and proud and narrow-minded, and they have a
great-niece living with them, the most remarkable little female
intelligence I have ever come across. My old habit of instruction is not
to be allowed to rest, for I am going to teach the creature Greek, as a
diversion. She seems to be about twelve years old, and has the makings
of a wonderful character. In the summer you had better come down and pay
me a visit, if you are not too busy with your potent mistress, your
political ambitions."

But John Derringham did not respond to this casual invitation for many a
long day. He had other potent interests beside his political
ambitions--and in any case, never did anything unless he felt inclined.

Mr. Carlyon did not expect him--he knew him very well.

Thus the days passed and by the end of June even, Halcyone had learned
more than the Greek alphabet; and had listened to many charming stories
of that wonderful people. And the night was her friend, and numerous
hours were passed in the shadow of his dark wings, as she flitted like
some pale ghost about the park and the deserted, dilapidated garden.




CHAPTER V


The July of that year was very warm with peculiarly still days, and
Halcyone and her master, Cheiron, spent most of their time during their
hours of study, under the apple tree. They had got to a stage of
complete understanding, and seemed to have fitted into each other's
lives as though they had always been together.

Mr. Carlyon watched his little pupil from under the shadow of his
penthouse brows with the deep speculative interest she had aroused in
him from the first. He had theories upon several subjects, which she
seemed to be going to show the result of in practice--and in his kindly
cynic's heart she was now enshrined in a special niche.

For Halcyone he was "Cheiron," her master, who had the enchanting
quality of being able to see the other side of her head. Every idea of
her soul seemed to be developing under this touch of sympathy and
understanding. Her heterogeneous knowledge culled from the teachings of
her many changing governesses, seemed to regulate itself into distinct
branches with an upward shoot for each, and Mr. Carlyon watched and
encouraged them all.

It was on one glorious Saturday morning when the fairies and nymphs and
gods and goddesses were presumably asleep in the sunlight, that she drew
up her knees as she sat on the grass by her Professor's chair, and
pushing away the Greek grammar, said, with grave eyes fixed upon his
face:

"Cheiron, to-day something tells me I can show you Aphrodite. When it is
cooler, about five o'clock, will you come with me to the second terrace?
There I will leave you and go and fetch her, and as William and
Priscilla will be at tea, I can open the secret door, and you shall see
where she lives--all in the dark!"

Mr. Carlyon felt duly honored--for they had never referred to this
subject since she had first mentioned it. The Professor felt it was one
of deep religious solemnity to his little friend, and had waited until
she herself should feel he was worthy of her complete confidence.

"She speaks to me more than ever," Halcyone continued. "I took her out
in the moonlight on Thursday night, and she seemed to look more lovely
than before. It has pleased her that I call her Aphrodite--it was
certainly her name."

"It is settled, then," said Cheiron, "at five o'clock I will be upon the
terrace."

Halcyone returned to her grammar, and silence obtained between them.
Then presently Mr. Carlyon spoke.

"I am going to have a visitor for a week or perhaps more," he announced.

A startled pair of eyes looked up at him.

"That seems odd," Halcyone said. "I hope whoever it is will not be much
in our way. I do not think I am glad--are you?"

"Yes, I am glad. It is someone for whom I have a great regard," and Mr.
Carlyon knocked the ashes from his long pipe. "It is a young man who
used to be at Oxford and to whom also I taught Greek."

"Then he will know a great deal more than I do, being older," returned
Halcyone, not at all mollified by this information.

"Yes, he knows rather more than you do as yet," the Professor allowed.
"Perhaps you will not like him; he can be quite disagreeable when he
wishes--and he may not like you."

Halcyone's dark brows met.

"If he is someone for whom you have a regard he must be of those who
count. I shall be angry then, if he dislikes me--is he coming soon?"

"On Monday, by the four o'clock train."

"Our lesson will be over--that is something. You will not want me on
Tuesday, I expect?" and a note of regret grew in her voice.

"I thought you might have a holiday for a while, all pupils have
holidays in the summer," the Professor returned.

"Very well," was all she said, and then was quiet for a time, thinking
the matter over. She wished to hear more of this visitor who was going
to interrupt their pleasant intercourse.

"Of what sort is he?" she asked presently. "A hunter like Meleager--or
cunning like Theseus--or noble like Perseus, whom I love best of all?"

"He is not very Greek to look at, I am afraid, except perhaps in his
length of limb," and the Professor smiled. "He is just a thin, lanky,
rather distinguished young Englishman and was considered to be the most
brilliant of my pupils, taking a Double First under my auspices and
leaving Oxford with flying colors when I retired myself a year or two
ago. He has been very lucky since, he is full of ambitions in the
political line, and he has a fearless and rather caustic wit."

"I must think of him as Pericles, then, if he is occupied with the
state," said Halcyone. "But how has he been lucky since? I would like to
know--tell me, please, and I will try not to mind his being here."

"Yes--try--" said Mr. Carlyon. "After he took his degree he studied law
and history, you know, as well as the Greek philosophy which you may
come to some day--he went to London to the Temple to read for the bar.
He never intended to be a practicing barrister, but everything is a
means to his career. Then his luck came--he has lots of friends and
relations in the great world and at one of their country houses he met
the Prime Minister, who took a tremendous fancy to him, and the thing
going well, the great man finally asked him to be his assistant private
secretary, which post he accepted. The chief private secretary last year
being made governor of a colony, John has now stepped into his shoes,
and presently he will go into Parliament. He is a brilliant fellow and
cares for no man--following only his own star. I shall be very glad to
see him again."

Halcyone's face fell into a brown study and the Professor watching her
mused to himself.

"John Derringham will find her in the way. She is not woman enough yet
to attract his eye; he will only perceive she is a rather plain
child--and she will certainly see the other side of his head."

As Halcyone walked back to La Sarthe Chase for her early dinner, she
mused also:

"I must not feel this dislike towards Cheiron's other pupil. After all,
Jason could not have the master alone--and if I do feel it then he will
be able to harm me, should he dislike me, too--but if I try to like him,
then he will be powerless, and when he has gone he will not have left
any mark."

Mr. Carlyon felt a perceptible glow of interest as he waited at five
o'clock that day upon the dilapidated stone bench in the archway where
old William kept his garden tools, and while the subdued light gave him
very little chance of studying minutely the walls, the general aspect
certainly presented no hint of any door. However, he had not to wait or
speculate long, for, with hardly a creak, two stones seemed to turn upon
a pivot, and Halcyone came forth from the aperture bending her head.

"After all, I do not think you had better come in with me," she said.
"It is low like this for ten yards; it will make your back ache--so I
have brought her. If you will hold her, I will run out and see if all is
safe; and then we can carry her to the summer house and take off her
scarf."

Cheiron held out his arms to receive the precious bundle; and he could
feel by its weight it was a marble head. It was enveloped in the
voluminous folds of the remains of an old blue silk curtain, a relic of
other days, when rich stuffs hung before the windows of La Sarthe Chase.

"I took the covering from the Spanish Chest in the long gallery,"
Halcyone announced. "I had played with it for years, and the color suits
her--it must be the same as are her real eyes."

Then she darted out into the sunlight and returned again in a few
moments--with shining face. All was safe and the momentous hour had
come.

She took her goddess from Mr. Carlyon's arms, and walking with the
dignity of a priestess of the Temple, she preceded her master along the
tangled path.

A riot of things growing impeded each step. Roses which had degenerated
into little better than wild ones, showed late red and pink blooms,
honeysuckle and columbines flowered, and foxgloves raised their graceful
heads.

At the end there was a broken bower at the corner of the terrace, with a
superb view over the park and far beyond to the high blue hills.

This place was cleared, for Halcyone had done the necessary work
herself. It was one of her outlooks upon the world and she had even
carefully mended the cracked bench with a bit of board and a nail or
two. The table, which was of stone, still stood firmly and was quaint
and rather Greek in shape--for had not a later Timothy La Sarthe brought
it from Paris in the Empire days?

Mr. Carlyon sat down and prepared himself for the solemn moment when the
Goddess should be unveiled.

And when the reverent little priestess had removed the folds from the
face as it lay upon the table, he started and held his breath, for he
instantly realized that indeed this was the work of some glorious old
Greek sculptor; none other could have created that perfect head.

And as he looked, the child slipped her hand into his and whispered
softly:

"Watch her eyes; she is tender to-day and welcomes us. I was not quite
sure how she would receive you."

And lo! it seemed to Mr. Carlyon as though the divine orbs softened into
a smile, such was the art of those old Greeks, who marred not the marble
with pupil or iris, who stooped to no trick of simulation, but left the
perfect modeling to speak for itself.

The eyes of this Aphrodite conveyed volumes of love, with her nobly
planned brows and temples and her softly smooth cheeks. The slight break
of the nose even did not seem to spoil the perfect beauty of the whole.
Her mouth, tender and rather full, seemed to smile a welcome, and the
patine, unspoiled by any casts having ever been taken, gleamed as the
finest of skin. It was in a wonderful state of preservation and not
darkened to more than a soft cream color.

So there she lay at last! Goddess of Love still for all time. The head
was broken off at the base of the slender, rounded throat.

Halcyone perceived that Cheiron was appreciating her treasure in a
proper spirit and spoke not a word while he examined it minutely,
turning it in all lights.

"What consummate genius!" he almost whispered at last. "You have truly a
goddess here, child, and you do well to guard her as such,--Aphrodite
you have named her well."

"I am glad now that I have shown her to you--at first I was a little
afraid--but you understand. And now you can feel how I have my mother
always with me. She tells me to hope, and that all mean things are of no
importance, and that God intends us all to be as happy as is her
beautiful smile."

Then Mr. Carlyon asked again for the story of the Goddess's discovery,
and heard all the details of how there was a ray of light in the dark
passage, coming from some cleverly contrived crack on the first terrace.
Here Halcyone's foot had struck against the marble upon her original
voyage of discovery, and by the other objects she encountered she
supposed someone long ago, being in flight, had gradually dropped things
which were heavy and of least value. There was a breastplate as well,
and an iron-bound box which she had never been able to move or open.

"You might help me and we could look into it some day," she said.

Mr. Carlyon took Aphrodite into his hands and raised her head, examining
every point with minute care, and now her expression appeared to change
and grow sad in the different effect of light.

"I do not want her to be up upon a pillar like Artemis and Hebe, who are
still in the hall," Halcyone said. "She could not talk to me then, she
would be always the same. I like to hold her this way and that, and then
I can see her moods and the blue silks keeps her nice and warm."

"It is a great possession," said Cheiron, "and I understand your joy in
it," and he handed the head back to the child with respect.

Halcyone bent and caressed it with her soft little velvet cheek.

"See," she said. "Once I was very foolish and cried about something and
the tears made this little mark," and she pointed to two small spots
which did not gleam quite so much as the rest of the surface. "Tears
always do silly things--I am never so foolish now." And then her young
voice became dreamy and her eyes widened with a look as though she saw
far beyond.

"Cheiron--all the world is made for gladness if we only do not take the
ugly things with us everywhere. There is summer, as it is now, when we
rest and play and all the gods come down from Olympus and dance and sing
and bask in the light--and then the autumn when the colors are rich and
everything prepares for winter and sleeps. But even in the cold and dark
we must not be sad, because we know it is only for a time and to give us
change, so that we may shout for joy when the spring comes and each year
discover in it some new beauty."

Cheiron did not speak for a while, he, too, was musing.

"You are a little Epicurean," he said at last, "and presently we shall
read about Epicurus' great principles and his garden where he taught and
lived."




CHAPTER VI


John Derringham had been at the orchard house for three or four days
before there was any sign of Halcyone. She had kept away on purpose and
was doing her best to repress the sense of resentment the thought of the
presence of a stranger caused. Mr. Carlyon had given her some simple
books upon the Renaissance which she was devouring with joy. This period
seemed to give some echo of the Greek ideas she loved, and as was her
habit she was visualizing everything as she read, bringing the people
and the places up before her mental eyes, and regulating them into
friends or acquaintances. Cheiron did not confine himself to teaching
her Greek alone, but directed all her reading, taking a growing delight
in her intelligent mind. Thus they had many talks upon history and the
natural sciences and poetry and painting. But to hear of the famous
statues and learn from pictures to know the styles of the old sculptors
seemed to please her best of all.

By the fifth day, a Friday, Mr. Carlyon began to feel a desire to see
his little pupil again and sent her a message by his dark, silent
servant. Would she not take tea with him that afternoon? So Halcyone
came. She was very quiet and subdued and crept through her gap in the
hedge without any leaps or bounds.

John Derringham was stretched the whole length of his long, lean limbs
under the apple tree--her apple tree! This did not produce a favorable
note.

Cheiron watched the meeting with inward amusement.

"This is my little friend Halcyone La Sarthe," he said. "Halcyone,
yonder Tityus in these latter days is known by the name of John
Derringham--of Derringham in the County of Northampton. Make your bows
to one another."

Halcyone inclined her head with dignity, but Mr. Derringham only raised
himself a little and said "Good afternoon." He did not care for
children, and was busy with his old master discussing other things.

"You will pour out the tea, Halcyone, for us as usual," Cheiron said.
"Demetrius will bring it in a minute." And Halcyone sat down demurely
upon the basket chair near the table and crossed her hands.

"I tell you I will not take their point of view," John Derringham said,
continuing the conversation he had been carrying on before Halcyone
arrived. "Everything in England is spoilt by this pandering to the
mediocrity. A man may not make a speech but he must choose his words so
that uneducated clods can grasp his meaning, he cannot advocate an idea
with success unless it can appeal to the lower middle classes. It is
this subservience to them which has brought us to where we are. No
ideals--no lofty ends--just a means to each one's own hand. I will never
pretend we are all equal, I will never appeal to anything but the
highest in an audience. So they can throw me out if they will!" And he
stretched out his long legs and clasped his hands under his head--so
that to Halcyone he seemed seven foot tall.

"Tityus" she thought was a very apt name for him, and she wondered if he
would jump if the vulture suddenly gave a gnaw at his liver!

"You are an idealist, John," said Mr. Carlyon. "All this might have been
of some use as a principle of propaganda before the franchise was so
low, but now the mediocrity is our master--so of what use? If you talked
so you would but preach to empty benches."

"I will not do that--I will make them listen. My point is that everyone
can rise if he wishes, but until he has done so in fact, there is no use
in his pretending in words that he has. I would explain to them the
reason of things. I could have agreed with the greatest Athenian
democrats because their principle was one of sense. They had slaves to
do the lowest offices who had no voice in public affairs, but here we
let those who have no more education or comprehension than slaves have
the same power as men who have spent their lives in studying the matter.
It is all unjust, and no one has the courage to tell them to their faces
they are unfitted for the task."

"It will be a grand stalking horse for your first essay in your
constituency," Cheiron said with his kindly twinkle of sarcasm. He loved
to encourage John Derringham to talk.

But at that moment Demetrius brought the tea and Halcyone gravely began
her task.

"Do you take it black like Mr. Carlyon?" she asked of the reclining
guest.

He came back to the remembrance of her presence and glancing at her,
murmured:

"Oh--ah, no--that is, yes--strong, only with cream and sugar. Thanks
awfully."

But Halcyone did not rise to hand it to him, so he was obliged to get up
and take it from where she sat. She perceived then that though extremely
thin he was lithe and well-shaped. And in spite of her unconquered
prejudice, she was obliged to own she liked his steely gray hawk-like
eyes and his fine, rather ascetic, clean-shaven face. He did not look at
her specially. He may have taken in a small, pale visage and masses of
mouse-colored hair and slender legs--but nothing struck him particularly
except her feet. As his eyes dropped to the ground he caught sight of
them; they were singularly perfect feet. He admired points in man or
beast--and when he had returned to his old place stretched out under the
apple tree, he still glanced at them now and then; they satisfied his
eye.

"What have you been doing in these days, Halcyone?" Mr. Carlyon asked.
"I have not seen you since Monday morning. Have you been getting into
any mischief?"

Halcyone reluctantly admitted that she had not. There was, she
explained, very little chance of any of an agreeable kind coming her way
at La Sarthe Chase. She had been gardening with William--they had quite
tidied the top terrace--and she had been reading French with Aunt
Roberta, but the book was great nonsense.

Then she added that she had brought an invitation from the Aunts La
Sarthe that Mr. Carlyon's guest should accompany him when he dined with
them on the Saturday. It had become the custom for him to partake of
this repast on the same occasions that Mr. Miller did--once a month.

John Derringham frowned under his straw hat which he had pulled over his
eyes. He had not come into the country to be dragged out to bucolic
dinner parties. But upon some points he knew his old master was obdurate
and from his firm acceptance of the invitation this appeared to be one
of them.

Then Halcyone asked politely if he would have a second cup of tea, but
he refused and again addressed Cheiron, ignoring her. Their conversation
now ran into philosophical questions, some of them out of her depth, but
much of the subject interested her deeply and she listened absorbed.

At last there was a pause and her fresh young voice asked:

"What, then, is the aim of philosophy--is it only words, or does it
bring any good?"

And both men looked at her, staggered for a moment, and John Derringham
burst into a ringing laugh.

"Upon my word, I don't know," he said. "It was invented so that the
Master here and I should pull each other's theories to pieces; that
evidently was its aim from the beginning of time. I do not know if it
has any other good."

"Everything is so very simple," said Halcyone. "To have to argue about
it must be fatiguing."

"You find things simple, do you?" asked John Derringham, now
complacently roused to look at her. "What are your rules of life then,
let us hear, oh, Oracle!--we listen with respect!"

Halcyone reddened a little and a gleam grew in her wise eyes. She would
have refused to reply, but looking at her revered master, she saw that
he was awaiting her answer with an encouraging smile. So she thought a
second and then said calmly, measuring her words: "Things are what we
make them, they have no power in themselves; they are as inanimate as
this wood--" and she touched the table with her fine brown hand. "It is
we ourselves who give them activity. So it is our own faults if they are
bad--they could just as easily be good. Is not that simple enough?"

"An example, please, Goddess," demanded John Derringham with a cynical
smile.

"The dark is an example," she went on quietly. "People fill the dark
with their own frightening images and fear it because they themselves
have turned it into evil. The dark is as kind as the day."

John Derringham laughed. He was amused at this precocious wisdom and he
suddenly remembered that his old master had mentioned some clever child
when writing to him first about the place, two months before. This was
the creature, then, who was learning Greek. She had picked up these
ideas, of course, out of some book and was showing off. Children should
be snubbed and kept in their places:

"Then you don't cry when your nurse leaves you at night without a
candle. What a good little girl! But perhaps you take a doll to bed," he
added mockingly, "or suck your thumb."

Halcyone did not answer, her eyes, benign as a goddess's, looked him
through and through--and Cheiron leaned back in his chair and puffed
volumes of smoke while he chuckled delightedly:

"Take care, John--you will come off second best, for Halcyone can see
the other side of your head."

For some unaccountable reason, John Derringham felt annoyed; but it was
too contemptible to be annoyed by a child, so he laughed as he answered
condescendingly:

"There, I will not tease her. I expect she hates me already--" and he
pushed his hat back from his eyes.

"No," said Halcyone. "One only hates a thing one fears; hate implies
fear. I hated my last but one governess for a while--because she told
lies and was mean and she had the power to keep me in. But once I
reasoned about it, I grew quite indifferent and she had no effect upon
me at all."

"You have not had time to reason about me," returned John Derringham,
"but it is something that you don't hate me; I ought to feel pleased."

"I do not know that there is occasion for that," Halcyone remarked, "it
is all a level thing which does not matter. You are Mr. Carlyon's guest
and I expect will be staying some time--"

"So you will have to put up with me!" and John Derringham laughed,
furious now with himself for his increasing irritation.

"I must be going," Halcyone then announced and got up from her
chair--"and I will tell my aunts that they may expect you to-morrow
night," she continued, addressing Mr. Carlyon.

He rose and prepared to accompany her down the garden. She bowed to John
Derringham with quiet dignity as he still lay on the ground and walked
on by the side of her Professor without further words.

"You don't like my old pupil, Halcyone?" Mr. Carlyon said when they got
to the gap in the hedge. "Tell me, what do you see at the other side of
his head?"

"Himself," was all she answered as she bounded lightly away laughing,
and was soon lost to view in the copse beyond.

And Cheiron, considerably amused, returned to his prostrate guest to
find him with a frown upon his face.

"I hope to goodness, Master, you won't bore me with that brat while I am
here," he exclaimed, "chattering aphorisms like a parrot. I can't stand
children out of their place."




CHAPTER VII


"Since there will be three gentlemen, Ginevra," Miss Roberta said on
Saturday morning when they sat together in the Italian parlor after
breakfast, "do you not think we had better have Halcyone down to dinner
to-night? I know," she added timidly, "it is not in the proper order of
things, but we could make an exception."

Miss La Sarthe frowned. Roberta so often was ready to upset regulations.
She was difficult to deal with. But this suggestion of hers had some
point.

They would be two ladies to three of the other sex--and one of their
guests appeared to be quite a young man--perhaps it might be more
prudent to relax a rule, than to find themselves in an embarrassing
position.

"I strongly deplore the fact of children ever being brought from their
seclusion except for dessert, but as you say, Roberta, three
gentlemen--and one a perfect stranger--might be too much for us. I
hardly think our Mamma would have approved of our giving such an
unchaperoned party, so for this once Halcyone had better come down. She
can have Mr. Miller for her partner, you will be conducted by the
Professor--and the new guest will take me in."

Miss Roberta bridled--the Professor was now a hero in her eyes.

"And Sister," she said, "I think we might bring six of the chairs from
Sir Timothy's bed- and dressing-room just for to-night, instead of those
Windsor ones. It would give the dining-room a better look, do you not
think so?"

And to this also Miss La Sarthe agreed. So Miss Roberta joyfully found
Halcyone out upon the second terrace and imparted to her the good news.
They would arrange flowers in the épergne, she suggested--a few sweet
williams and mignonette and a foxglove or two. A pretty posy fixed in
sand, such as she remembered there always was in their gala days.
Halcyone was enchanted at the prospect.

"Oh! dear Aunt Roberta, do let me do it all," she said. "You sit here on
the bench and I will run and fetch the épergne--and we can pick what we
think best. Or--don't you think just a big china bowl full of sweet peas
would be prettier? The sand might show and, and--the épergne is rather
stiff."

But Miss Roberta looked aggrieved. The épergne with its gold and silver
fern leaves climbing up a thin stalk of glass to its top dish for fruit
had always come out for dinner parties and she liked not innovations. It
was indeed as much as Halcyone could do to get all the flowers of the
same kind, a nasturtium and a magenta stock had with care to be smuggled
away, leaving the sweet peas sole occupants of the sand. But the effect
was very festive and the two carried their work into the dining-room
well pleased.

The best Sèvres dinner-set was had out, which that traveler Timothy had
brought from Paris among other things, and the best cut glass and
rat-tailed silver. Old William, assisted by Hester and Priscilla, had
been busy polishing most of the day--while the cook and the "young
person from the village" were contriving wonders in the vast kitchen.
And punctually at seven in broad daylight, the three Misses La Sarthe,
the two elder in their finest mauve silk evening dresses, awaited their
guests in the Italian parlor.

Miss Roberta's heart had not fluttered like this since a county ball
some forty years ago when a certain whiskered captain of a dashing
cavalry regiment stationed at Upminster had whispered in her ear.

Priscilla had let down Halcyone's white muslin frock and as the tucks
were rather large, it was longer than she intended, so that the child
might easily have been taken for a girl of fifteen, and her perfect feet
were encased in a pair of old-fashioned bronze slippers with elastics
crossed up the legs of her white silk stockings. A fillet of blue silk
kept back the soft cloud of her mouse-colored hair.

Mr. Miller was announced first--very nervous, as usual, and saying the
wrong thing in his flurry. Then up the terrace steps could be seen
advancing Mr. Carlyon and his guest. They had walked over from the
cottage--and Halcyone, observing from the window, was conscious that
against her will she was admiring John Derringham's arrogant, commanding
walk.

"He could very well be as Theseus was after he grew proud," she said to
herself.

And soon they were announced.

Mr. Carlyon was now on the most friendly terms with both old ladies, and
as well as coming to the monthly dinner, sometimes dropped in to tea on
Sunday afternoons, but he knew this was a real party and must be treated
as such.

How agreeable it felt to be once more in the world, Miss Roberta
thought, and her faded pale cheeks flushed a delicate pink.

John Derringham had been sulky as a bear at the idea of coming, but
something in the quaintly pathetic refinement of the poor and splendid
old house pleased him, and the aroma of untouched early-Victorian
prudish grace which the ancient ladies threw around them appealed to his
imagination, as any complete bit of art or nature always did. He found
himself seated between Miss La Sarthe and Halcyone and quite enjoying
himself. Everything was of the time from the épergne to the way the
bread was cut.

Halcyone conversed with Mr. Miller, who always felt he must make nursery
jokes with her and ask her the names of her dolls.

"He can't help it," she told Cheiron one day. "If he had any more
intelligence God would have put him to work in some busier place."

John Derringham did not address her; he devoted himself to Miss La
Sarthe.

He had absolutely no diffidence. He had been spoilt from his cradle, and
by the time he had left Eton--Captain of the Oppidans--had ruled all
those near him with a rod of iron, imposing his interesting enthusiastic
personality upon all companies with unqualified success. Miss La Sarthe
fell at once. He said exactly the right things to her and flattered her
by his unfeigned interest in all she spoke of. He was studying her as he
studied any rare memento of historical value.

"My great-niece reads every morning with Mr. Carlyon," she said
presently. "Girls are expected to be so very clever nowadays, we are
told. She already knows a little Greek. It would have been considered
quite unnecessary in our day."

"And I am sure it is in this," said John Derringham. "Learned women are
an awful bore. As a sex they were meant to be feminine, dainty,
exquisite creatures as those I see to-night," and he bowed gallantly
while Miss La Sarthe thrilled. She thoroughly approved of his
appearance.

"So very much of a gentleman, Roberta," she afterwards said. "None of
that thick, ill-cut look we are obliged to observe in so many of the
younger people we see when we go into Upminster each year."

"And why should he look thick or ill-cut, Sister?" Miss Roberta replied.
"Mr. Carlyon told me the Derringhams have been seated at Derringham
since fabulous times."

Thus this last of that race was appreciated fully in at least two
antiquated female hearts.

But meanwhile the cloth was being removed, and the port wine and old
Madeira placed before the elder hostess.

"Our father's cellar was famous for its port," she said, "and we have a
few bottles of the '47 left."

But now she felt it was only manners to turn to Mr. Carlyon upon her
other hand, so John Derringham was left in silence, no obligation to
talk to Halcyone making itself felt. She turned and looked at him, he
interested her very much. Mr. Carlyon had quantities of books of
photographs of all the famous statues in Europe and especially in Italy
and Greece, but she could not find any likeness to him in any of her
recollection of them. Alas! his face was not at all Greek. His nose was
high and aquiline, his forehead high and broad, and there was something
noble and dominating in his fearless regard. His hair even did not grow
very prettily, though it was thick and dark--and there was not an ounce
of superfluous flesh upon his whole person. He never for a moment
suggested repose, he gave the impression of vivid, nervous force and
action, a young knight going out to fight any impossible dragon with his
good sword and shield--unabashed by the smoke from its flaming nostrils,
undaunted by any fear of death.

Halcyone watched him, and her prejudice slept.

The silence had lasted quite five minutes when he allowed his natural
good manners, which he was quite aware he had kept in abeyance in regard
to her, to come uppermost.

"The Professor has been telling me how wonderfully you work with him,"
he said; "we under him at Oxford were not half so diligent it seems. I
wonder what good it will be to you at all."

"If a thing gives pleasure, it is good," she answered gravely. "I wanted
to learn Greek because I had a book when I was little which told me
about those splendid heroes, and I thought I could read more about them
when I am grown up if I knew it--than if I did not."

"There is something in that. What was the book?" he asked.

Her steady eyes looked straight into his as she replied: "It was
Kingsley's 'Heroes' and if only I were a boy I would be like Perseus and
go and kill the Gorgon and rescue Andromeda from the sea monster. Pallas
Athené said some fine things to him--do you remember?--when she asked
him the question of which sort of man he would be."

"No, I don't remember," said John Derringham. "You must tell me now."

Then Halcyone began in a soft dream voice while her eyes widened and
darkened with that strange look as though she saw into another and
vaster world. "'I am Pallas Athené and I know the thoughts of all men's
hearts, and discern their manhood or their baseness. And from the souls
of clay I turn away; and they are blest, but not by me. They fatten at
ease like sheep in the pasture and eat what they did not sow, like oxen
in the stall. They grow and spread like the gourd along the ground, but
like the gourd they give no shade to the traveler and when they are ripe
death gathers them, and they go down unloved into hell, and their name
vanishes out of the land.'"

She paused a second and John Derringham was astonished at himself
because he was conscious of experiencing a thrill of deep interest.

"Yes?" he said--and her voice went on:

"'But to the souls of fire I give more fire and to those who are manful
I give a might more than man's. These are the heroes, the sons of the
Immortals who are blest but not like the souls of clay, for I drive them
forth by strange paths, Perseus, that they may fight the Titans and
monsters, the enemies of gods and men. Through doubt and need and danger
and battle I drive them, and some of them are slain in the flower of
youth, no man knows when or where, and some of them win noble names and
a fair and green old age--but what will be their latter end, I know not,
and none, save Zeus, the father of gods and men--Tell me, now, Perseus,
which of these two sorts of men seem to you more blest?'"

It was as if she asked him a personal question and unconsciously he
answered:

"I should reply as Perseus did. Tell me his words."

"'Better to die in the flower of youth on the chance of winning a noble
name than to live at ease like the sheep and die unloved and
unrenowned.'"

He bent nearer to her and answered softly: "They are indeed fine words,"
and there was no mockery whatever in his eyes as he looked at her--and
took in every detail of her pure childish face. "You wonderful, strange
little girl--soon I too am going like Perseus to fight the Gorgons, and
I shall remember this night and what you have said."

But at that moment Mr. Miller's high, cackling laugh was heard in an
explosion of mirth. Mr. Carlyon had made some delightfully obvious joke
for his delectation and amidst a smiling company Miss La Sarthe rose
with dignity to leave the gentlemen alone with their wine.




CHAPTER VIII


Next morning, John Derringham sat at a late breakfast with his whilom
master of Greek and discussed things in general over his bacon and tea.

It was three years since he had left Oxford, and life held out many
interesting aspects for him. He was standing for the southern division
of his county in the following spring when the present member was going
to retire, and he was vehement in his views and clear as to the course
he meant to take. He was so eloquent in his discourse and so full of
that divine spark of enthusiasm, that he was always listened to, no
matter how unpalatably Tory the basic principles of his utterances were.
He never posed as anything but an aristocrat, and while he whimsically
admitted that in the present day to be one was an enormous disadvantage
for a man who wished to get on, he endeavored to palliate the misfortune
by lucid explanation of what the duties of such a status were, and of
the logical advantages which an appreciation of the truths of cause and
effect might bring to mankind. Down in his own country he was considered
the coming man. He thundered at the people and had facts and figures at
his finger tips. His sublime belief in himself never wavered and like
any inspired view, right or wrong, it had its strong effect.

Mr. Carlyon thought highly of him, for a number of reasons.

"If women do not make a stumbling-block for you, John, you will go far,"
he said as he buttered his toast.

"Women!" quoth John Derringham, and he laughed incredulously. "They
matter no more to me than the flowers in the garden--enchanting in the
summer time, a mere pleasure for sight and touch, but to make or mar a
man's life!--not even to be considered as factors in the scheme of
things."

"I am glad to hear you say so," said Mr. Carlyon dryly. "And I hope that
jade, Fate, won't play you any tricks."

John Derringham smiled.

"I admit that a woman with money may be useful to me by and by," he
said, "because, as you know, I am always hard up, and presently when I
want to occupy a larger sphere I shall require money for my ends, but
for the time being they serve to divert me as a relaxation; that is
all."

"You are contracting no ties, dear lad?" asked the Professor with one
eyebrow raised, while he shook back his silvery hair. "I had heard
vaguely about your attention to Lady Durrend, but I understand she has
had many preliminary canters and knows the ropes."

John Derringham smiled. "Vivienne Durrend is a most charming woman," he
said. "She has taught me a number of things in the last two years. I am
grateful to her. Next season she is bringing a daughter out--and she has
a wonderful sense of the fitness of things." Then he sipped his tea and
got up and strolled towards the windows.

"Besides," he continued, "I do not admit there are any ties to be
contracted. The Greeks understood the place of women; all this nonsense
of vows of fidelity and exaltation of sentiment in the home cramps a
man's ambitions. It is perfectly natural that he should take a wife if
his position calls for it, because the society in which we move has made
a figurehead of that kind necessary. But that a woman should expect a
man to be faithful to her, be she wife or mistress, is contrary to all
nature."

"We have put nature out of the running now for a couple of thousand
years," Mr. Carlyon announced sententiously; "we have set up a standard
of impossibilities and worship hypocrisy and can no longer see any
truth. You have got to reckon with things as they are, not with what
nature meant them to be."

"Then you think women are a force now which one must consider?"

"I think they are as deadly as the deep sea--" and Mr. Carlyon's voice
was tense. "When they have only bodies they are dangerous enough, but
when--as many of the modern ones have--they combine a modicum of mind as
well, with all the cunning Satan originally endowed them with--then
happy is the man who escapes, even partially whole, from their claws."

"Whew--" whistled John Derringham, "and what if they have souls? Not
that I personally admit that such a case exists--what then?"

"When you meet a woman with a soul you will have met your match, John,"
the Professor said, and opening his _Times_, which Demetrius had brought
in with the second post, he closed the conversation.

John Derringham strolled into the garden. The place had been greatly
improved since Halcyone's first discovery of its new occupant. The
shutters were all a spruce green and the paths weeded and tidy, while
the borders were full of bedded-out plants and flowers. A famous
gardener from Upminster renowned through all the West had come over and
given his personal attention to the matter, and next year wonderful
herbaceous borders would spring up on all sides. Mr. Johnson's visits
and his council, though at first resented, had at length grown a source
of pure delight to Halcyone; she reveled in the blooms of the delicate
begonias and salvias and other blossoms which she had never seen before.
Mr. Carlyon, although desiring solitude, appreciated a beautiful and
cultivated one, and the orchard house was now becoming a very
comfortable bachelor's home.

The day was much cooler than it had been of late. There was a fresh
breeze though the sun shone. John Derringham wandered down to the apple
tree and thence to the gap, and through it and on into the park. His
walk was for pleasure, and aimless as to destination, and presently he
sat down under a low-spreading oak and looked at the house--La Sarthe
Chase. A beautiful view of it could be obtained from there, and it
interested him--and from that his thoughts came to Halcyone and her
strange, quaint little personality, and he stretched himself out and
putting his hands under his head he looked up into the dense foliage of
the tree above him--and there his eyes met two grave, quiet ones peering
down from a mass of green, and he saw slender brown legs drawn up on a
broad branch, and a scrap of blue cotton frock.

"Good morning," Halcyone said quite composedly, "don't make a noise,
please, or rustle--the mother doe is just coming out of the copse with
her new fawn."

"How on earth did you get up there?" he asked, surprised.

"I swung myself from the lower branch on the other side; it is quite
easy--would you like to come up, too? There is plenty of room--and then
we could be sure the doe would not see you and she might peep out again.
I do not wish to frighten her."

John Derringham rose leisurely and went to the further side of the oak,
where sure enough there was a drooping branch and he was soon up beside
her, dangling his long limbs as he sat in a fork.

"What an enchanting bower you have found," he said. "Away from all the
world."

"No indeed, that cannot be at this time of the year," she answered.
"See, there is a squirrel far up in the top and there are birds, and
look--down there at the roots there is a rabbit hole with such a family
in it. It is only in the winter you can be alone--and not even then, for
you know there are the moles even if you cannot see them."

"Creatures are interesting to watch, aren't they?" he said. "I have an
old place which I loved when I was a boy. It is let now because I am too
poor to live in it, but I used to like to prowl about in the early
mornings long ago."

"We are all very poor," said Halcyone simply, "but I am sorry for you
that you have to let strangers be in your house--that must be dreadful."

John Derringham smiled, and his face lost the _insouciante_ arrogance
which irritated his enemies so. His smile, rare enough, was singularly
sweet.

"I don't think about it," he said. "It is best not to when anything is
disagreeable."

"Cheiron and I often tell one another things like that."

"Cheiron--who is Cheiron?" he asked.

This seemed a superfluous question to Halcyone.

"The Professor, of course. He is just like the picture in my 'Heroes,'"
she answered, "and I often pretend we are in the cave on Pelion. I
thought you would perhaps be like one of the others since you were his
pupil, too, but I cannot find which. You are not Heracles--because you
have none of those great muscles--or Æneas or Peleus. Are--are you Jason
himself, perhaps--" and her voice sounded glad with discovery. "We do
not know, he may not have had a Greek face."

John Derringham laughed. "Jason who led the Argonauts to find the Golden
Fleece--it is a good omen. Would you help me to find the Golden Fleece
if you could?"

"Yes, I would, if you were good and true--but the end of the story was
sad because Jason was not."

"How must I be good and true then? I thought Jason was a straight enough
sort of a fellow and that it was Medea who brought all the
trouble--Medea, the woman."

Halcyone's grave eyes never left his face. She saw the whimsical twinkle
in his but heeded it not.

"He should not have had anything to do with Medea--that is where he was
wrong," she said, "but having given her his word, he should have kept
it."

"Even though she was a witch?" Mr. Derringham asked.

"It was still his word--don't you see? Her being a witch did not alter
his word. He did not give it because she was or was not a witch--but
because he himself wanted to at the time, I suppose; therefore, it was
binding."

"A man should always keep his word, even to a woman, then?" and John
Derringham smiled finely.

"Why not to a woman as well as a man?" Halcyone asked surprised. "You do
not see the point at all it seems. It is not to whom it is you give your
word--it is to you it matters that you keep it, because to break it
degrades yourself."

"You reason well, fair nymph," he said gallantly; he was frankly amused.
"What may your age be? A thousand years more or less will not make any
difference!"

"You may laugh at me if you like," said Halcyone, and she smiled; his
gayety was infectious, "but I am not so very young. I shall be thirteen
in October, the seventh of October."

John Derringham appeared to be duly impressed with this antiquity, and
went on gravely:

"So you and the Master discuss these knotty points of honor and
expediency together, do you, as a recreation from the Greek syntax? I
should like to hear you."

"The Professor does not believe in men much," Halcyone said. "He says
they are all honorable to one another until they are tempted--and that
they are never honorable to a woman when another woman comes upon the
scene. But I do not know at all about such things, or what it means. For
me there is nothing towards other people; it only is towards yourself.
You must be honorable to yourself."

And suddenly it seemed to John Derringham as if all the paltry shams of
the world fell together like a pack of cards, and as if he saw truth
shining naked for the first time at the bottom of the well of the
child's pure eyes.

An extraordinary wave of emotion came over him, finely strung as he was,
and susceptible to all grades of feeling. He did not speak for a minute;
it was as if he had quaffed some elixir. A flame of noble fire seemed to
run in his veins, and his voice was changed and full of homage when at
last he addressed her.

"Little Goddess of Truth," he said, "I would like to be with you always
that you might never let me forget this point of view. And you believe
it would have won for Jason in the end--if he had been true to himself?
Tell me--I want greatly to know."

"But how could there be any doubt of that?" she asked surprised. "Good
only can bring good, and evil, evil."

At this moment, out from the copse the soft head of a doe appeared, and
at the thrilling sight Halcyone slipped her hand into her companion's,
and held his tight lest he should move or rustle a leaf.

"See," she whispered right in his ear. "She will cross to the other side
by the stream--and oh! there is the fawn! Is he not the dearest baby
angel you have ever seen--!"

And the doe, feeling herself safe, trotted by, followed by a minute son
in pale drab velvet hardly a month old.

The pair in the tree watched them breathlessly until they had entered
the copse again beyond the bend, and then Halcyone said:

"That makes six--and perhaps there are more. Oh! how I hope the Long Man
will not see them!"

John Derringham did not let go her hand at once; there was something
soft and pleasant in the touch of the cool little fingers.

"I want to hear about everything," he said. "Tell me of the Long
Man--and the fawns, and why there are only six. I am having the happiest
morning I have had for years."

So Halcyone began. She glossed a good deal over the facts she had told
Mr. Carlyon upon the subject because she did not feel she knew this
stranger well enough to let him into her aunts' private affairs--so she
turned the interest to the deer themselves, and they chatted on about
all sorts of animals and their ways, and John Derringham was entranced
and felt quite aggrieved when she said it was getting late and she must
go back to the house for her early dinner. He swung himself down from
the tree by the high branch with ease and stood ready to catch her, but
with a nimbleness he did not expect, she crept round to the lower side
and was landed upon the soft turf before he could reach her.

Then he walked back with her to the broken gate, telling her about his
own old home the while, and then they paused to say good-by.

Halcyone carried a twig of freshly sprouting oak which she had brought
from the tree, having broken it off in her lightning descent.

"Give me one leaf and you keep the other," he said. "And then, whenever
I see it, I will try to remember that I must always be good and true."

With grave earnestness she did as he asked, and then opened the gate.

"I want to tell you," she said--and she looked down for a second, and
then up into his eyes from beyond the bars. "I did not like the thought
of your coming--and at first I did not like you--but now I see something
quite different at the other side of your head--Good-by."

And before he could answer, she was off as the young fawn would have
been--a flitting shape among the trees. And John Derringham walked
slowly back to the orchard house, musing as he went.

But when he got there a telegram from his Chief had arrived, recalling
him instantly to London.

And he did not see Halcyone again for several years.




CHAPTER IX


The seasons came and went with peaceful regularity, unbroken by a
jarring note from the outside world. Mr. Anderton, being well assured by
the Misses La Sarthe that his stepdaughter was receiving a splendid
education, was only too glad to leave her in peace, and Mrs. Anderton
felt her duty achieved when at the beginning of each summer and winter
she sent a supply of what she considered suitable clothes. It took
Priscilla and Hester hours to alter them to Halcyone's slender shape.

Mr. Carlyon was seldom absent from his house during this period, only
twice a year, when he spent a fortnight in London in June, and another
week in November with his brother, a squire of some note in the Cornish
world. Halcyone made green his old age with the exquisite quality of her
opening mind. And deep down in her heart there always dwelt the image of
John Derringham, and whatever new hero she read about, he unconsciously
assumed some of his features or mien. She passed through enthusiasms for
all periods, and for quite six months was under the complete spell of
the "Morte d'Arthur" and the adventures of the knights contained
therein. She read voraciously and systematically, but her first love for
all things Greek regained its hold and undoubtedly colored her whole
view of life.

Her education was exotic and might have ruined a brain of lesser fiber.
But for her it seemed to bring forth all that was clear and fine and
polish it with a diamond luster. Twice a week alternately the French and
German master from the Applewood Grammar School came to her, and she
also learned to read music from the organist at the church, and then
played to herself with no technique but much taste.

And of all her masters, Nature and the fearless study of her night moods
molded her soul the most.

For the first few months after John Derringham's visit Mr. Carlyon often
spoke of him and read aloud bits of his letters, and Halcyone listened
with rapt attention, but she never embarked upon the subject
herself--and then the Professor had an accident to his knee which kept
him a prisoner for months. And somehow the interest of this seemed to
dwarf less present things, and as time went on, John Derringham grew to
be mentioned only by fits and starts, when his rapidly rising political
career called forth cynical grunts of admiration from his old master.
There had been a dissolution of Parliament and a short term of office
for the other side, and then at the General Election John Derringham's
Chief had come in again stronger than ever, and he himself had been made
Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. It was a tremendous rise
for one so young. He was at that time not more than twenty-nine years
old--but two years before this happened, when Halcyone was about
fifteen, he came again to the orchard house for a short Saturday to
Monday visit.

From the moment that she knew he was coming a strange stillness seemed
to fall upon the child. She had grown long-legged and was at the
fledgling stage when even a pretty girl sometimes looks plain, and she,
who had as yet no claim to beauty, was at her worst. She was quite aware
of it, with her intense soul-worship of all beautiful things. Some
unreasoned impulse made her keep away from her master during the first
day, but on the Sunday he summoned her, and, as once before, she came
and poured out the tea, but it was a cold and windy autumn afternoon,
and it was not laid out of doors. John Derringham had been for a walk,
and came in while she sat in a shadowy corner behind the table, teapot
in hand.

He was greatly changed, she thought, in the three years. He had grown a
beard! and looked considerably older, with his thin commanding figure
and arrogant head. He was not handsome now, but peculiarly
distinguished-looking. He could very well be Pericles, she decided at
once. As for him, he had almost forgotten her. Life had been so full of
many things; but, seeing a pale, slender, overgrown girl with
mouse-colored clouds of hair now confined in a demure pigtail, it came
to his mind that this must be the Professor's pupil again. Had she not
been called Hebe or Psyche--or Halcyone--some Greek name? And gradually
his former recollection of her came back, and of their morning in the
tree.

"Why, how do you do," he said politely, and Halcyone bowed without
speaking. She felt much as Hans Andersen's Ugly Duckling used to feel,
and when John Derringham had said a few ordinary things about her having
grown out of all likeness, he turned to the Professor again, and almost
forgot her presence.

His talk was most wonderful to listen to, she thought, his language was
so polished, and there was a courtesy added to the former vehemence.
They spoke of nothing but politics, which she did not understand, and
Cheiron chaffed him a good deal in his kindly cynical way. He was still
fighting his chimeras, it seemed, and fighting them successfully. As he
spoke, Halcyone, behind the teapot, thrilled with a kind of worship. To
be strong and young and manful, and to combat modern dragons, appeared
to her to be a god-like task.

In the midst of a heated argument she rose to slip away. Her comings and
goings were so natural to the Professor that he was unaware that she was
leaving the room until John Derringham broke off in the middle of a
sentence, to rise and open the door for her.

"Good-by," she said. "Aunt Roberta is not very well to-day, so I must
not be late. Good night, Cheiron"--and she went out and closed the door.

"But it is quite dark!" exclaimed John Derringham. "Is there a servant
waiting? She can't go all alone!"

The Professor leaned back in his chair.

"Don't disturb yourself," he said. "Halcyone is accustomed to the
twilight. It is a strange night-creature--leave it alone."

John Derringham sat down again.

"She is not nearly so attractive-looking as she used to be. If I
remember, she was rather a weirdly pretty child."

"Just a chrysalis now," grunted the professor between [**TR Note: was
betwen in original; typesetter's error.] puffs of smoke. "But there is
more true philosophy and profound knowledge of truth in that little head
than either you or I have got in ours, John."

"You always thought the world of her, Master--you, with your
ineradicable contempt for women!"

"She is not a woman--yet. She is an intelligence and a brain--and a
soul."

"Oh, she has a soul, then!" and John Derringham smiled. "I remember once
you said when I should meet a woman with a soul I should meet my match!
I do not feel very alarmed."

One of the Professor's penthouse brows raised itself about half an inch,
but he did not speak.

"In which school have you taught her?" John Derringham asked--"you who
are so much of a cynic, Master. Does she study the ethics of Aristotle
with you here in this Lyceum, or do you reconstruct Plato's Academy? She
is no sophist, apparently, since you say she can see the truth."

Mr. Carlyon looked into the fire.

"She is almost an Epicurean, John, in all but the disbelief in the
immortality of the soul. She has evolved a theory of her own about that.
It partakes of Buddhism. After I have discussed metaphysical
propositions with her over which she will argue clearly, she will
suddenly cut the whole knot with a lightning flash, and you see the
naked truth, and words become meaningless, and discussion a jest."

"All this, at fifteen!" John Derringham laughed antagonistically, and
then he suddenly remembered her words to himself upon honor in the tree
that summer morning three years ago, and he mused.

Perhaps some heaven-taught beings were allowed to come to earth after
all, now and then as the centuries rolled on.

"She knows Greek pretty well?" he asked.

"Fairly, for the time she has learnt. She can read me bits of Lucian.
She would stumble over the tragedies. I read them to her." Then he
continued, as though it were a subject he loved, "She has a concrete
view upon every question; her critical faculty is marvelous. She never
lays down the law, but if you ask her, you have your answer in a
nutshell, the simplest truth, which it always appears to her so strange
that you have not seen all the time."

"What is her parentage? Heredity plays so large a part in these things,"
Mr. Derringham asked.

"The result of a passionate love-match between distant cousins of that
fine old race, I believe. Timothy La Sarthe was at Oxford before your
day, but not under me--a brilliant, enchanting fellow, drowned while
yachting when my little friend was only a few months old."

"And the mother?"

"Married again to pay his debts, to a worthy stockbroker, almost
immediately, I believe. She paid the debt with herself and died after
having three children for him in a few years."

"So your protégée lives with those cameos of the Victorian era we dined
with, and never sees the outside world?"

"Never--from one year's end to another."

"What a fate!" and John Derringham stretched out his arms. "Ye gods,
what a fate!"

And again Cheiron smiled, raising his bushy left brow.

Halcyone, meanwhile, was walking with firm certain steps across the
park, where the dusk had fallen. The turbulent Boreas blew in her face,
and she stopped and took off her soft cap and unplaited her hair so that
it flew out in a cloud as the wind rushed through it. This sensation was
a great pleasure to her, and when she came to a rising ground, a kind of
knoll where the view of the country was vast and superb, she paused
again and took in great deep breaths. She was drawing all the forces of
the air into her being and quivered presently with the joy of it.

She could see as only those who are accustomed to the dark can. She was
aware of all the outlines of golden bracken at her feet and the head of
a buck peeping from the copse near. The sky was a passionate,
tempestuous mass of angry clouds scudding over the deep blue, where an
evening star could be seen peeping out.

"Bring me your force and strength, that I may grow noble and beautiful,
dear wind," she said aloud. "I want to be near him when he comes again,"
and then she ran and jumped the uneven places, while she hummed a
strange song.

And Jeb Hart and Joseph Gubbs, the poachers, saw her, as she passed
within a yard of where they lay setting their snares, and Gubbs, who was
a good Catholic from Upminster, crossed himself as he muttered in his
friend's ear:

"We'll get no swag to-night, Jeb. When she passes, blest if she don't
warn the beasts."




CHAPTER X


When Halcyone was nearly nineteen and had grown into a rare and radiant
maiden, the like of whom it would be difficult to find, an event
happened which was of the greatest excitement and importance to the
neighborhood. Wendover, which had been shut up for twenty years, was
reported to have been taken for a term by a very rich widow--or
_divorcée_--from America it was believed, and it was going to be
sumptuously done up and would be filled with guests. Mr. Miller took
pains to find out every detail from the Long Man at Applewood, and so
was full of information at his monthly repast with the old ladies. Mrs.
Vincent Cricklander was the new tenant's name. The Long Man had himself
taken her over the place when she first came down to look at it, and his
report was that she was the most beautiful lady he had ever seen, and
with an eye to business that could not be beaten. He held her in vast
respect.

Then Mr. Miller coughed; he had now come to the point of his discourse
which made him nervous.

For he had learned beyond the possibility of any doubt that Mrs.
Cricklander was, alas! not a lonely widow but had been divorced--only a
year or two ago. She had divorced her husband--not he her--he hastened
to add, and then coughed again and got very red.

"When we were young," Miss La Sarthe remarked severely, "our Mamma would
never have allowed us to know any divorced person--and, indeed, our good
Queen Victoria would never have received one at her Court. We cannot
possibly call, Roberta."

Poor Miss Roberta's face fell. She had been secretly much elated by the
thoughts of a neighbor, and to have all her hopes thus nipped in the bud
was painful. She had heard (from Hester again, it is to be feared!) that
Mrs. Cricklander's maid, who was a cousin of the baker in Applewood, and
who had originally instigated her discovery of Wendover, had said that
her lady knew all the greatest people in England--lords and duchesses by
the dozen, and even an archbishop! Surely that was respectable enough.

But Miss La Sarthe, while again deploring the source of her sister's
information, was firm. Ideas might have changed, but _they_ had not.
Since the last time they had curtsied to the beloved late Queen, in
about 1879, she believed new rules had been made, but the La Sarthe had
nothing to do with such things!

Halcyone caught Miss Roberta's piteous, subdued eye, and smiled a
tender, kind smile. With years her understanding of her ancient aunts
had grown. They were no longer rather contemptible, narrow-minded elders
in her eyes, but filled her with a pitiful and gentle respect. Their
courage under adversity, their firm self-control, and the force which
made them live up to their idea of the fitness of things, appealed to
her strongly. She had John Derringham's quality of detached
consideration, and appreciated her old relatives as exquisite relics of
the past, as well as her own kith and kin.

"In America, divorce is not considered the heinous crime it was once in
England," Mr. Carlyon said. "Perhaps this lady may have been greatly
sinned against and deserves all our pity and regard."

But Miss La Sarthe remained obdurate. The point was not as to who was in
the right, she explained, but that certain conventions, laid down by one
whose memory was revered, had been outraged, and she could never permit
her sister or Halcyone to have any intercourse with the tenant of
Wendover Park!

The preparations for the new arrival went on apace all the autumn and
winter. Armies of workpeople were reported to be in possession, and
whole train-loads of splendid French furniture were known to have
arrived at Applewood, to augment the antique and time-worn pieces which
were Wendover's own.

Miss Le Sarthe sent for the Long Man. Things had been rather better of
late, and no more precious belongings had been forced to be parted with.
An investment which had been valueless for years now began to produce
some interest which was a great comfort, for Miss La Sarthe was now
seventy-nine and Miss Roberta seventy-six.

The orders that the agent received were precise. The gate between
Wendover and La Sarthe Chase which had been closed for over a hundred
years was to be boarded up, and their side of the haw-haw which for
nearly a mile divided the two parks was to be deepened and cleared out,
and the spikes mended in any places where the ground might have seemed
to have fallen in sufficiently, or the irons to have become broken
enough to make the passage easy.

This would be unnecessary, Mr. Martin (the Long Man) told her. The
haw-haw was still as perfect as ever and a wonder of concealed traps for
the unwary, but the gate should be seen to at once.

Thus La Sarthe Chase was armed fully against Wendover, when, about
Easter, Mrs. Cricklander decided she would come down and bring a few
friends. It was with a sudden violent beating of the heart that Halcyone
learned casually from Mr. Carlyon that John Derringham would be of their
number.

The aunts took in the _Morning Post_, but until she was eighteen they
had rigorously forbidden Halcyone's perusal of it. Newspapers, except
one or two periodicals, were not fit for young ladies' reading until
they were grown up, they felt. However, their niece, having now come to
years of discretion, sometimes had the pleasure of reading John
Derringham's speeches and thrilled with joy over his felicitous daring
and caustic wit. The Government could not last much longer, but he at
least, as far as he could, would keep it full of vigor until the end.
She knew, therefore, that the last sitting before the Easter recess had
been a storm of words sharp as sword-thrusts--it was before the days of
the language of Billingsgate and the behavior of roughs. There were
quite a number of gentlemen still in the House of Commons, who often
behaved as such.

Those wonderful forces which Halcyone culled from all nature, and
especially the night, gave her a serenity over the most moving events,
and when the sudden beating of her heart was over, she waited calmly for
the moment when she should see John Derringham again.

Mr. Carlyon took in the _Graphic_ as well as his _Quarterly Review_ and
the _Nineteenth Century_, and it was her only medium for guessing even
what the outside world looked like, but from it she was quite aware that
a beard was a most unusual thing for a young modern man of the world,
and that John Derringham for that reason must always be distinguished
from his fellows. Carpenters and hedgers and ditchers wore them, and
nondescript young fellows she remembered seeing when she went into
Upminster with her aunts; but these excursions had been discontinued now
for the past five years, so the villagers of Sarthe-under-Crum and the
denizens of the rather larger Applewood were the only human beings she
ever saw.

The party at Wendover were to arrive on the Thursday before Good
Friday--Priscilla had told her that--and it was just possible that some
of them might be in church.

The aunts now drove a low basket shay which had been their pride in the
sixties, but which for countless years, until the investment began to
pay, they had been unable to keep a pair of ponies for. Now, however,
the shay was unearthed from the moldy coach-house and for the past year
two very old and quiet specimens of Shetland had been found for them by
Mr. Martin and they were able to drive to church every Sunday in state,
William sitting up behind, holding the reins between his mistresses,
while Miss La Sarthe flourished a small whip whose delicate handle was
studded with minute turquoises. From it dangled a ring which she could
slip on her finger over her one-buttoned slate-colored glove, and so
feel certain of not dropping this treasure. Halcyone always walked.

On Good Friday there was not a sight of the Wendover party in church,
and Halcyone went back by the orchard house to look in at Cheiron, who
had had a cold in the last few days.

Stretched in the armchair she found John Derringham.

The brisk walk in the fresh spring air had brought some faint color to
her pale cheeks, her soft hair was wound about her head with becoming
simplicity, and she wore an ordinary suit which could not disguise her
beautiful slender limbs, so long and thin, a veritable Artemis in her
chaste perfection of balance and proportion.

Halcyone could pass in any crowd and perhaps no one would ever notice
her and her mouse-like coloring, but once your eye was arrested, then,
like looking at some rare bit of delicate enamel, you began to perceive
undreamed-of graces which soothed the sight until you were filled with
the consciousness of an exquisite beauty as intangible as her other
charm--distinction. An infinite serenity was in her atmosphere, a
promise of all pure and tender things in her great soft eyes. The
mystery and freshness of the night seemed always to hang about her. Her
ways were noiseless--the most creaking door appeared to forget its
irritating habit when under her touch. Thus it was that John Derringham,
smoking a cigar, never even glanced up until a voice of extreme
cultivation and softness said gently:

"Good morning. And how are you?"

Then he bounded from his chair, startled a little, and held out his
hand.

"My old friend, Miss Halcyone, the Priestess of Truth!" he exclaimed,
"as I am alive!"

She smiled serenely while they shook hands, and sat down demurely by the
Professor's side.

"I thought you would have been translated to Olympus long ago," the
visitor said. "Have you honored this ordinary earth and our friend
Cheiron's cave, ever since?"

"Ever since!"

"There can be nothing left for you to learn. Master, it is you and I
whom she could teach," he laughed.

"How do you know all this?" asked Halcyone quietly, while her eyes
smiled at his raillery. "Do I look such an old-fashioned blue-stocking,
then?"

"You look perfectly sweet," and John Derringham's expressive eyes
confirmed what he said.

"Enough, enough, John. Halcyone is quite unaccustomed to gallants from
the world like you," the Professor growled. "If you pay her compliments
she won't believe you can really make a speech."

So Mr. Derringham laughed and continued his interrupted conversation. He
seemed in good humor with all the world. He was going to stay at
Wendover for the whole of Easter week. Mrs. Cricklander had an amusing
party of luminaries of both sides--she was the most perfect hostess and
had a remarkable talent for collecting the right people.

"She is quite the best-read woman I have ever met, Master," John
Derringham said. "You must let me bring her over here one day to see
you--you would delight in her wit and beauty. She does not leave you a
dull moment."

"Yes, bring her," the Professor returned between the puffs at his long
pipe. "I have never met any of these new hothouse roses grafted upon
briar roots. I should like to study how the system has worked."

"Quite admirably, as you will see. I do not know any Englishwomen who
are to compare to such Americans in brilliancy and fascination."

Over Halcyone, in spite of her serenity, there crept a feeling of cold.
She did not then analyze why, and, as was her habit when anything began
to distress her, she looked out of the window, whether it were night or
day. She always did this, and when her eyes saw Nature in any of her
moods, calm returned to her.

"She will simply revel in La Sarthe Chase when she sees it," Mr.
Derringham went on, now addressing Halcyone. "She is a past-mistress in
knowledge of the dates of things. You are going to have the most
delicious neighbor, Miss Halcyone, and in learning, a foeman worthy of
your steel."

Cheiron was heard to chuckle wickedly, and when his former Oxford pupil
asked him with mild humor the reason of his inappropriate mirth, he
answered dryly:

"She is never likely to see the inside of the park even. Queen Victoria
did not receive divorced persons, and the Misses La Sarthe, in
consequence, cannot either. You will have to bring her here by the road,
John!"

Halcyone winced a little. She disliked this conversation; it was not as
_fine_ as she liked to think were the methods of both the men who were
carrying it on.

John Derringham reddened up to his temples, where there were a few
streaks of gray in his dark hair which added to the distinction of his
finely cut, rather ascetic face. The short, well-trimmed beard was very
becoming, Halcyone thought, and gave him a look of great masculinity and
strength. His hawk's eyes were shadowed, as though he sat up very late
at night; which indeed he did. For John Derringham, at this period of
his life, burnt the candle at both ends and in the middle, too, if it
could add to the pleasure or benefit of his calculated career, mapped
out for himself by himself.

A sensation almost of wrath rose in his breast at his old master's
words. These ignorant country people, to dare to criticise his
glittering golden pheasant, whom he was very nearly making up his mind
to take for a wife! This aspect of the case, that even these unimportant
old ladies could question the position of his choice, galled him. He had
spent up to the last penny of his diminished income in his years of
man's estate, and Derringham was mortgaged to its furthest acre--and a
gentleman must live--and with his brilliant political future expanding
before him, lack of means must not be allowed to stand in his way. He
would give this woman in gratified ambition as much or more than she
would give him in wealth, so it would be an equal bargain and benefit
them both. And, above all, he was more than half in love with her, and
could get quite a large share of pleasure out of the affair as well. He
had been too busy to trouble much over women as a sex since he had left
the University--except in the way he had once described to his old
master, regarding them as flowers in a garden--mere pleasures for sight
and touch, and experiencing ephemeral passions which left no mark. But
women either feared or adored him; and this woman, the desired of a host
of his friends, had singled him out for her especial favors. It had
amused him the whole of the last season; he had defied her efforts to
chain him to her chariot wheels, and in the winter she had gone to
Egypt, and had only just returned. But the charm was growing, and he
felt he would allow himself to be caught in her net.

"Mrs. Cricklander would be very much amused could she hear this verdict
of the county," he said with a certain tone in his voice which did not
escape Halcyone. "In London we do not occupy ourselves with such
unimportant things--but I dare say she will get over it. And now I
really must be going back. May I walk with you through the park, Miss
Halcyone, if you are going, too? I am sure there must be an opening
somewhere, as the two places touch."

"Yes, there is just one," Halcyone said. "The haw-haw runs the whole
way, and it is impossible to pass, except in the one spot, and I believe
no one knows of it but myself. There are a few bricks loose, and I used
to take them out and put them back when I wanted to get into
Wendover--long ago."

"Then it will be an adventure; come," he said, and Halcyone rose.

"Only if you will not give away my secret. Promise you will not tell
anyone else," she bargained.

"Oh! I promise," and John Derringham jumped up--his movements were
always quick and decided and full of nervous force. "I will bring my
hostess to see you on Monday or Tuesday, Master," he announced, as he
said good-by. "And prepare yourself to fall at her feet like all the
rest of us--Merlin and Vivien, you know. It will be a just punishment
for your scathing remarks."

When they were outside in the garden Halcyone spoke not a word. The beds
were a glory of spring bulbs, and every bud on the trees was bursting
with its promise of coming leaf. Glad, chirruping bird-notes called to
one another, and a couple of partridges ran across the lawn.

John Derringham took in the lines of Halcyone's graceful person as she
walked ahead. She had that same dignity of movement from the hips which
the Niké of Samothrace seems to be advancing with as you come up the
steps of the Louvre.

How tall she had grown! She must be at least five feet nine or ten. But
why would she not speak?

He overawed her here in the daylight, and she felt silent and oppressed.

"Whereabouts is our tree that we sat in when I was young and you were
old?" he asked, after they had got through the gap in the hedge. A
little gate had been put in the last years to keep out the increasing
herd of deer.

"It is over there by the copse," she said shyly. "The lower branch fell
last winter, and it makes a delightful seat. One is not obliged to climb
into the tree now. See: Demetrius helped me to drag it close, and we
nailed on these two arms," and she pointed to a giant oak not far from
them, which John Derringham pretended to recognize.

He tried his best to get her to talk to him, but some cloud of timid
aloofness on her part seemed to hang between them, and very soon below
the copse they came to the one vulnerable part in all the haw-haw's
length. She showed him how to take the bricks out and where to place his
feet, and pointed out how secluded from any eye the place was. Then, as
he climbed down and then up again, and looked across at her from
Wendover lands, she said a sedate good-by, and turning, went on among
the thickly growing saplings of the copse and, never looking back, was
soon out of sight.

John Derringham watched her disappear with a strange feeling of ruffled
disquietude in his heart.




CHAPTER XI


It was so warm and charming an April day that Mrs. Cricklander and some
of her friends were out of doors before luncheon, walking up and down
the broad terrace walk that flanked Wendover's southern side.

It was a Georgian house, spacious and comfortable, but not especially
beautiful. Mrs. Cricklander was a woman of enormous ability--she had a
perfect talent for discovering just the right people to work for her
pleasure and benefit, while being without a single inspiration herself.
If she engaged a professional adviser to furnish her house, and decorate
it, you could be sure he was of the best and that his services had been
measured and balanced beforehand, and that he had been generously paid
whatever he had obtained by bargaining for it, and that the agreement
was signed and every penny of the cost entered in a little book. It was
so with everything that touched her life. She had a definite idea of
what she wanted, although she did not always want the same thing for
long; but while she did, she went about getting it in a sensible,
practical way, secured it, paid for it,--and then often threw it away.

She had felt she wanted Vincent Cricklander because he belonged to one
of the old families in New York and played polo well, and, being a great
heiress though of no pretensions to birth, she wished to have an
undisputed entry into the inner circle of her own country. He fulfilled
her requirements for quite three years, and then she felt she was
"through" with America, and wanted fresh fields for her efforts. Paris
was too easy, Berlin doubtful, Vienna and Petersburg impossible to
conquer, but London would hold out everything that she could wish for.
Only, it must be the very best of London, not the part of its society
that anyone can struggle and push and pay to get into, but the real
thing. She was "quite finished" with Vincent Cricklander, too, at this
period; to see him play polo no longer gave her any thrill. So one
morning at their lunch, on a rare occasion when they chanced to be
alone, she told him so, and asked him practically how much he would take
to let her divorce him.

But Vincent Cricklander was a gentleman, and, what is more, an American
gentleman, which means of a chivalry towards women unknown in other
countries.

"I do not want any of your money, Cis," he said. "I will be quite glad
to go, if it will make you happier. We'll phone T.V. Ryan this afternoon
and let him think out a scheme so that it can be done without a scandal
of any sort. My mother has old-fashioned ideas, and I would hate to pain
the poor dear lady."

It took nearly two years, but the divorce was completed at last, and
Cecilia Cricklander found herself perfectly free and with all the keen
scent of the hunter for the chase dilating her fine nostrils as she
stood upon the deck of the great ocean liner bound for Liverpool.

She was a very beautiful woman and refined in every point, with
exquisite feet and hands, pure, brilliant, fair coloring and a superb
figure, and even a fairly sweet voice. Her education had been a good
deal neglected because she was too spoilt by a doting father to profit
by the instruction he provided for her. She felt this keenly directly
she began to go out into the world, and immediately commenced to remedy
the defect. For her, from the very beginning, life appeared in the light
of a game. Fate was an adversary from whom she meant to win all the
stakes, and it behooved a clever woman not to overlook a single card
that might be of use to her in her play. She was quite aware of her own
limitations, and her own forces and advantages. She knew she was
beautiful and charming; she knew she was kind and generous and extremely
"cute," as her old father said. She knew that literature and art did not
interest her one atom in themselves, that most music bored her, and that
she had a rather imperfect memory; but during her brief visits to
England, when she was making up her mind that this country would be the
field for her next exertions, she had decided that to be beautiful and
charming was not just enough; there were numbers of other Americans who
were both, and they were all one as successful and sought after as the
other. She must be something beyond this--a real Queen. To beauty and
wealth and charm she must add culture as well. She must be able to talk
to the prime minister upon his pet foibles, she must be able to quote
erudite passages from all the cleverest books of the day to the
brilliant politicians and diplomats and men of polished brain who made
up the society over which she wished to rule. And how was this to be
done? She thought it all out, and during her two years of living quietly
to obtain her divorce without a breath of scandal, she had hit upon and
put into practice an admirable plan.

She searched for and found a poor, very plain and highly cultivated
English gentlewoman, one who had been governess in a foreign Royal
family and was now trying to support an aged mother by giving private
lessons. Arabella Clinker was this treasure's name--Miss Arabella
Clinker, aged forty-two, and as ugly as it is possible for a thoroughly
nice woman to be.

Mrs. Cricklander made no mysteries about what she required Miss
Clinker's companionship for. She explained minutely that should any
special dinner-party or _rencontre_ with any great person be in view,
Miss Clinker must do a sort of preparatory cramming for her, as boys are
prepared for examinations.

"You must make it your business, when I give you the names of the people
I am to meet, to post me up in what they are likely to talk about. You
must read all the papers in the morning with the political speeches in
them, and then give me a quick _résumé_; if it should be any diplomat or
great artist or one of those delightful Englishmen who knows everything,
then you must suggest some suitable authors to speak of that they will
like, and I have quite enough sense myself to turn the conversation off
any that I should not know about. In this way you will soon learn what I
require of you, and I shall learn a great deal and gradually can launch
out into much more difficult things."

Arabella Clinker had a sense of humor, and she adored her mother and
wished to give her a comfortable old age. Mrs. Cricklander's terms for
this unique position were according to her accustomed liberality.

"I like to give splendid prices for things, and then I expect them to be
splendidly done," she said.

Miss Clinker had promised to do her best, and their partnership had
lasted for nearly three years with the most satisfactory results to both
of them. Their only difficulty was Mrs. Cricklander's defective memory.
She _could not_ learn anything by heart, and if she were at all tired
had to keep herself tremendously in hand to make no mistakes. But the
three years of constant trying had enabled her to talk upon most
subjects in a shibboleth of the world which imposed upon everyone. Her
real talent which called for the greatest admiration was the way in
which she manipulated what she knew, and skimmed a fresh subject. She
would do so with such admirable skill and wording as to give the
impression that she was acquainted with its profoundest depths; and then
when she was safely over the chasm the first moment she was free she
would rush to Arabella for the salient points, doggedly repeat them over
and over, and on the next occasion come out with them to the same
person, convincing him more than ever of her thorough knowledge of the
subject. But her memory was her misfortune, for if Miss Clinker
instructed her, for instance, in all the different peculiarities of the
styles of Keats and Shelley, a week after she would have forgotten which
was which--because both bored her to distraction--and she would have to
be reminded again. One awful moment came when, rhapsodizing upon the
sensibility of Keats' character, she said to Sir Tedbury Delvine, the
finest litterateur of his time, that there must have come moments during
Keats' latter years when he must have felt as his own "Prometheus
Unbound"! But, seeing her mistake immediately by her listener's blank
face, she regained her ground with a skill and a flow of words which
made Sir Tedbury Delvine doubt whether his own ears had heard aright.

"Arabella," Mrs. Cricklander said when next morning she lay smoking in
her old-rose silk bed, while she went through her usual lessons for the
day, "you must give me just a point each about those wretched old two,
so that I will remember them again. I must have a sort of keynote.
Shelley's would do with that horrible statue of him drowned, at Oxford,
that would connect his chain--but what for Keats?"

So at last Miss Clinker invented a plan, almost Pythagorean in its way,
and it proved very helpful to her patroness.

When she went on light, amusing excursions to Egypt and such places, she
allowed Arabella to remain with her mother, and these were months of
pure happiness to Miss Clinker.

It had not taken Mrs. Cricklander long to conquer London with her money,
and her looks, and her triumphant belief in herself. At the end of two
years, when John Derringham was first presented to her, she had almost
reached the summit of her ambitions. To become his wife she had decided
would place her there. For was he not certain to climb to the top of the
tree, as well as being the most brilliant and most sought after young
man in all England. Of love--the love that recks not of place or gain
but just gives its being to the loved one--to such emotion she was
happily a complete stranger. John Derringham attracted her greatly, and
until now had successfully evaded all her snares and had remained beyond
the thrall of her will. To have got him to come for this whole week of
Easter was a triumph and exulted her accordingly. She particularly
affected politicians, and her house in Grosvenor Square was a
meeting-place for both parties, provided the members of each were of the
most distinguished type. And there were not more than two or three
people out of all her acquaintances, besides Arabella, who smiled a
little over her brilliant culture.

By all this it can be seen that Mrs. Cricklander was a wonderful
character--tenacious, indomitable, full of nerve and deserving of the
greatest respect in consequence.

The only thing the least vulgar about her was her soul--if she had
one--and it is not the business of society to look into such things.
Scrutiny of the sort is left for creatures like the Professor, Cheiron,
who have nothing else to do--but his impressions upon this subject must
come in their proper place.

Meanwhile, John Derringham had joined the party on the terrace, and was
joyously acclaimed, and then minutely questioned as to the cause of his
lengthy absence. He had not been to church--that was certain. He had not
been out of the park, because the lodges were not in the direction from
which he had been seen advancing. Where had he been, then? All alone? He
would not give any account of himself, as was his way, and presently his
hostess drew him on ahead and down the terrace steps. She wanted to
point out to him some improvements which she contemplated. The garden
must be the most beautiful in the country--and he knew so much about
gardens, he could tell her exactly which style would suit the house
best.

John Derringham was in a bad temper. That unaccountable sense of a
discordant note with himself still stayed with him. He unconsciously,
during his walk, had dwelt upon the Professor's information as to the
view of the old ladies of The Chase, and then Halcyone's silence and
stiffness. He felt excluded from the place which he recollected he had
held in the child's regard. His memory had jumped the brief glimpse of
her during her fledgling period, and had gone back with distinct
vividness to the summer morning in the tree, almost seven years ago.

He answered with a carelessness which was not altogether pleasing to
Cecilia Cricklander. She saw instantly that her favorite guest was
ruffled by something. Although never fine, she was quick at observing
all the moods of her pawns, and had brought the faculty of watching for
signs from castles, knights and kings to a science. John Derringham must
be humored and cajoled by a proof of her great understanding of him--he
must be left in silence for a minute, and then she would pause and look
over the balustrade, so that he might see her handsome profile and take
in the exquisite simplicity of her perfect dress. She knew these things
pleased him. She would look a little sad, too, and far away.

It had its effect.

"What are you dreaming about, fair châtelaine?" he asked after a while.
"Your charming mouth has its corners drooped."

"I was wondering--" and then she stopped.

"Yes?" asked John Derringham. "You were wondering what?"

"I was wondering if one could ever get you to really take an interest in
anything but your politics, and your England's advancement? How good it
would be if one could interest you for a moment in anything else."

He leaned upon the balustrade beside her.

"You are talking nonsense," he said. "You know very well that you
interest me every time I see you--and it is growing upon me. That was
not the only thing revolving in your clever mind."

"Yes, indeed," and she looked down.

"Well, then, I am interested in your garden. What do you think of doing?
Tell me."

She explained an elaborate plan, and quoted the names of famous
gardeners and their styles, with her accustomed erudition. For had not
Arabella got them up for her only that morning, as she smoked her
seventh cigarette in bed? She inclined to French things, and she thought
that this particular part--a mere rough bit of the park--could very well
be laid out as a _Petit Trianon_. She could procure copies of the plans
of Mique, and even have a _Temple d'Amour_.

"I love to create," she said. "The place would not have amused me if
everything had been complete, and if you will help me I shall be so
grateful."

"Of course I will," he said. "The _Temple d'Amour_ would look quite well
up upon that rising ground, and you could have a small winding lake dug
to complete the illusion. Nothing is impossible, and I suppose you can
get permission from the old Wendover who lives in Rome to do what you
wish?"

"I should like to have been able to take the park of the next place, La
Sarthe Chase, too--that impassable haw-haw and the boarded-up gate
irritate me. The boards have been put since I came to look over
everything last autumn. I did instruct the agent, Martin, in Applewood
to offer a large price for it, but he assured me it would be quite
useless; it belongs, it appears, to the most ridiculous old ladies, who
are almost starving, but would rather die than be sensible."

Suddenly John Derringham was conscious that his sympathies had shifted
to the Misses La Sarthe, and he could not imagine why.

"You told me, I think," she went on, "that you knew this neighborhood.
Do you happen to be aware of any bait I could hold out to them?"

"No, I do not," he said. "That sort of pride is foolish, if you like;
but there it is--part of an inheritance of the spirit which in the past
has made England great. They are wonderful old ladies. I dined with them
once long ago."

"I must really go over and see them one day. Perhaps I could persuade
them to my view."

The flicker of a smile came into the eyes of John Derringham, and she
noticed it at once. It angered her, and deepened the pretty pink in her
fresh cheeks.

"You think they would not be pleased to see me?" she flashed.

"They are ridiculously old-fashioned," he said. "Not your type at all."

"But I love curiosities," she returned, smiling now. "I am not
absolutely set upon any type. All human beings are a delightful study.
If you know them, you must bring them to see me then some day."

But at this John Derringham laughed outright.

"If you could picture them, you would laugh, too," he said. "There is
someone, though, whom I do want you to know, who lives close here--my
old Oxford professor of Greek, Arnold Carlyon. He is a study who will
repay you. The most whimsical cynic, as well as one of the greatest
scholars I have ever come across in my life. I promised him to-day that
I would persuade you to let me take you to see him."

"How enchanting," she replied with enthusiasm. "And we must make him
come here. When shall we go? To-morrow?"

"No, I said Monday or Tuesday--with your permission," and he bent over
her with caressing homage.

"Of course--when you will. That, then, is where you were this morning.
But how did you get back through the park?" she asked. "There is no
opening at that side whatever. It is all blocked by the wicked La Sarthe
Chase."

"I came round the edge," he said, and felt annoyed--he hated lying--"and
then turned upwards. I wanted to see the boundaries."

"I hate boundaries," she laughed. "I always want to overstep them."

"There is the chance of being caught in snares."

"Which adds to the excitement," and she allowed her radiant eyes to seek
his with a challenge.

He was not slow to take it up.

"Enchantress," he whispered softly, "it is you whose charm lays snares
for men. You have no fear of falling into them yourself."

She rippled a low laugh of satisfaction. And, having tamed her lion, she
now suggested it was time to go in to luncheon.




CHAPTER XII


Arabella Clinker took Sunday afternoons generally to write a long letter
to her mother, and Good Friday seemed almost a Sunday, so she went up to
her room from force of habit. But first she looked up some facts in the
countless books of reference she kept always by her. Mrs. Cricklander
had skated over some very thin ice at luncheon upon a classical subject,
when talking to the distinguished Mr. Derringham, and she must be warned
and primed up before dinner. Arabella had herself averted a catastrophe
and dexterously turned the conversation in the nick of time. Mrs.
Cricklander had a peculiarly unclassical brain, and found learning
statistics about ancient philosophies and the names of mythological
personages the most difficult of all. Fortunately in these days, even
among the most polished, this special branch of cultivation was rather
old-fashioned, Miss Clinker reflected, but still, as Mr. Derringham
seemed determined to wander along this line (Arabella had unconsciously
appropriated some apt Americanisms during her three years of bondage),
she must be loyal and not allow her employer to commit any blunders. So
she got her facts crystallized, or "tabloided," as Mrs. Cricklander
would mentally have characterized the process, and then she began her
letter to her parent. Mrs. Clinker, an Irishwoman and the widow of a
learned Dean, understood a number of things, and was clear-headed and
humorous, for all her seventy years, and these passages in her
daughter's letter amused her.

    We are entertaining a number of distinguished visitors, and among
    them Mr. John Derringham, the Under Secretary of State for Foreign
    Affairs. He is a most interesting personality, as perfectly sure of
    what he wants in life as is M. E. (M. E. stood for "My
    Employer"--names were invidious). They would be a perfect match, each
    as selfish as the other, I should say. He is really very cultivated,
    and believes her to be so, too. She has not made a single mistake as
    yet, but frightened me at luncheon a little. I must try and get her
    to keep him off classical subjects. She intends to marry him--and
    then she will not require me, I suppose; or rather, I do not think he
    would permit her to keep me. If it came to a measure of wills, he
    would win, I think--at first, at least--but she could wear away a
    stone in the end, as you know. The arranging of this place is still
    amusing her, so she may decide to spend a good deal of time here. She
    closed her mouth with that firm snap this morning that I have
    described to you often, and said that it was going to be her delight
    to make them put themselves out and come so far away from London for
    her. "Them," for the moment, are Mr. Derringham and Mr.
    Hanbury-Green, almost a Socialist person, who is on the other
    side--very brilliantly clever but with a Cockney accent in one or two
    words. M. E. does not notice this, of course. Mr. H-G. is in love
    with her--Mr. D. is not, but she is determined that he shall be. I do
    not know if he intends to marry her. He is making up his mind, I
    think, therefore I must be doubly careful not to allow her to commit
    any mistakes, because if she did it would certainly estrange him, and
    as to keep her free is so much to our advantage, I feel I must be
    extra careful in doing my duty.

Arabella was a person of scrupulous honor.

She then proceeded to describe the party, and concluded with,

    There is one American girl I like very much--perfectly natural and
    bubbling with spirits, saying aloud everything she thinks, really
    well educated and taking so much outdoor exercise that she has not
    yet begun to have the nervous attacks that are such a distressing
    feature of so many of her countrywomen. I am told it is their
    climate. M. E. says it is because the men out there have always let
    them have their own way. I should think so much smoking has something
    to do with it.

John Derringham meanwhile had gone with his hostess and some of the rest
of the party, Mr. Hanbury-Green among them, to inspect the small golf
links Mrs. Cricklander was having constructed in the park. Her
country-house must be complete with suitable amusements. She had taken
all the Wendover shooting, too, and what she could get of Lord
Graceworth's beyond. "You cannot drag people into the wilds and then
bore them to death," she said. What she most enjoyed was to scintillate
to a company of two or three, and fascinate them all into a desire for a
_tête-à-tête_, and then, when with difficulty one had secured this
privilege, to be elusive and tantalize him to death. To passion she was
a complete stranger, and won all her games because with her great beauty
she was as cold as ice.

She was not feeling perfectly content this Good Friday afternoon.
Something had happened since the evening before which had altered John
Derringham's point of view towards her. She felt it distinctly with her
senses, trained like an animal's, to scent the most subtle things in
connection with herself. It was impossible to seize, she could not
analyze it, but there it was; certainly there seemed to be some change.
He was brilliant, and had been even _empressé_ before lunch, but it
was not spontaneous, and she was not perfectly sure that it was not
assumed. It was his cleverness which attracted her. She could not see the
other side of his head--not that she would have understood what that
meant, if she had heard the phrase.

But her habit was not to sit down under an adverse circumstance, but to
probe its source and eradicate it, or, at least, counteract it. Thus,
while she chattered eloquently to Sir Tedbury Delvine, her keen brain
was weighing things. John Derringham had certainly had a look of aroused
passion in his eyes when he had pressed her hand in a lingered good
night; he had even said some words of a more advanced insinuation as to
his intentions towards her than he had ever done before. They were never
exact--always some fugitive hint to which afterwards she would try to
fix some meaning as she reviewed their meetings. She had not seen him at
breakfast because she never came down in the morning until eleven or
twelve, and he had already gone out, she heard, when she did descend.

It followed then that either he had received some disturbing letter by
the post--only one on Good Friday--or something had occurred during his
visit to his old master. It would be her business to find out which of
these two things it was. Could the Professor be married, and might there
be some woman in the family? Or was it nothing to do with the Professor
or with a letter, or was there a more present reason? Had Cora Lutworth
attracted him with her youth and high spirits? They were walking ahead
now, and she could hear his laugh and see how they were enjoying
themselves.

She had been a perfect fool to ask Cora. She did not fear a single
Englishwoman, the powers of most of whom in her heart she despised--but
Cora was of her own race, and well equipped to rival her in a question
of marriage. Cora was only twenty-one, and she herself was thirty--and
there was the divorce which, although she had found it no bar to her
entrance into the most exclusive English society, still might perhaps
rankle unconsciously in the mind of a man mounting the political ladder,
and determined to secure the highest honors.

She felt she hated Cora, and would have destroyed her with a look if she
had been able.

Miss Lutworth, meanwhile, brimful of the joy of life and _insouciance_,
was amusing herself vastly. And John Derringham was experiencing that
sense of relaxation and irresponsible pleasure he got sometimes when he
was overworked from going to an excruciatingly funny Paris farce. Miss
Lutworth did not appeal to his brain at all, although she was quite
capable of doing so; she just made him feel gay and frolicsome with her
deliciously _rusé_ view of the world and life in general. He forgot his
ruffled temper of the morning, and by the time they had returned for
tea, was his brilliant self again, and quite ready to sit in a low chair
at his hostess's side, while she leaned back among the cushions of her
sofa, in her own sitting-room, whither she had enticed him during that
nondescript hour before dinner, when each person could do what he
pleased.

"Is not Cora sweet?" she said, smoothing the brocade beneath her hand.
Her sitting-room had been arranged by the artist who had done the house,
as a perfect bower of Italian Sixteenth Century art. Mr. Jephson, the
artist, had assured her that this period would make a perfect background
for her fresh and rather voluptuous coloring; it had not become so
_banal_ as any of the French Louis'. And so Arabella had been instructed
to drum into her head the names of the geniuses of that time, and their
works, and she could now babble sweetly all about Giorgione, Paolo
Veronese and Titian's later works without making a single mistake. And
while the pictures bored her unspeakably, she took a deep pleasure in
her own cleverness about them, and delighted in tracing the influence
Paolo Veronese must have had upon Boucher, a hint from Arabella which
she had announced as an inspiration of her own.

She had tea-gowns made to suit this period, and adopted the stately
movements which were evidently the attribute of that time.

John Derringham thought her superb. If he had been really in love with
her, he might have seen through her--and not cared--just as if she had
not attracted him at all, he would certainly have taken her measure and
enjoyed laying pitfalls for her. But as it was, his will was always
trying to augment his inclination. He was too busy to analyze the real
meaning of any woman, and until the Professor's words about the divorce
and the Misses La Sarthe's view of the affair, it had never even struck
him that there could be one single aspect of Mrs. Cricklander's case
which he might have to blink at. He had told himself he had better marry
a rich woman, since his old maternal uncle, Joseph Scroope, had just
taken unto himself a young wife and might any day have an heir. And this
was his only other possible source of fortune.

Mrs. Cricklander seemed the most advantageous bargain looming upon the
horizon. She was of proved entertaining capabilities. She had passed her
examination in the power of being a perfect hostess. She had undoubted
and expanding social talents. Women did not dislike her; she was very
vivid, very handsome, very rich. What more could a man who in his
innermost being had a supreme contempt for women, and a supreme belief
in himself, desire?

He had even balanced the advantages of marrying a rich American girl,
one like Miss Lutworth, for example. But such beings were unproven, and
might develop nerves and fads, which were of no consequence in the
delightful creatures with whom he passed occasional leisure hours of
recreation, but which in a wife would be a singular disadvantage. Since
he must marry--and soon--before the present Parliament broke up and his
Government went out, and there came some years of fighting from the
Opposition benches, when especially brilliant entertaining might be of
advantage to him--he knew he had better make up his mind speedily, and
take this ripe and luscious peach, which appeared more than willing to
drop into his mouth.

So, this late afternoon, aided by the scents and colors and propinquity,
he did his very best to make gradual love to her, and for some
unaccountable hideously annoying reason felt every moment more aloof. It
almost seemed at last as if he were guarding something of fine and free
that was being assailed. His dual self was fighting within his soul.

Mrs. Cricklander was experiencing all the exciting emotions which
presumably the knights of old enjoyed when engaged in a tournament. She
was not even disturbed when the dressing-gong rang and she had not yet
won. It was only a postponement of one of the most entrancing games she
had ever played in her successful life. And Mr. Hanbury-Green was going
to sit upon her left hand at dinner and would afford new flint for her
steel. He was a recent acquisition, and of undoubted coming value. His
views were in reality nearer her heart politically than those of John
Derringham. Deep down in her being was a strong class hatred--undreamed
of, and which would have been vigorously denied. She remembered the
burning rage and the vows of vengeance which had convulsed her as a
girl, because the refined and gently bred women of her own New York's
inner circle would have none of her, and how it had been her glory to
trample upon as many of them as she could, when Vincent Cricklander had
placed her as head of his fine mansion in Fifty-ninth Street, having
moved from the old family home in Washington Square. And there,
underneath, was the feeling still for those of any country who, instinct
told her, had inherited from evolution something which none of her
money, and none of her talent, and none of her indomitable will, could
buy. But of course Mr. Hanbury-Green was not to be considered, except as
a foil for her wit--a pawn in the game for the securing of John
Derringham.

Thus it was that she was able to walk in her stately way with trailing
velvets down the broad stairs of her newly acquired home with a sense of
exaltation and complacency which was unimpaired.

John Derringham, on the contrary, was rather abrupt with his valet and
spoilt two white ties, and swore at himself because his old Eton hand
had lost its cunning. But finally he too went down the shallow steps,
and, joining his hostess at the door, sailed in with her to the George I
saloon, his fine eyes shining and his bearing more arrogant than before.




CHAPTER XIII


After dinner there was a brisk passage of arms between the two men of
opposite party in the group by the fire, and Mrs. Cricklander incited
them to further exertions. It had arisen because Mr. Derringham had
launched forth the abominable and preposterous theory that the only
thing the Radicals would bring England to would be the necessity of
returning to barbarism and importing slaves--then their schemes applied
to the present inhabitants of the country might all work. The denizens
in the casual wards, having a vote and a competence provided by the
State, would have time to become of the leisured classes and apply
themselves to culture, and so every free citizen being equal, a company
of philosophers and an aristocracy of intellect would arise and all
would be well!

Mrs. Cricklander glanced stealthily at his whimsical face, to be sure
whether he were joking or no--and decided he probably was. But Mr.
Hanbury-Green, so irritated by the delightful hostess's evident
_penchant_ for his rival, allowed his ill-humor to obscure his usually
keen judgment, and took the matter up in serious earnest.

"Your side would not import, but reduce us all--we who are the defenders
of the people--to being slaves," he said with some asperity. "Your class
has had its innings long enough, it would be the best thing in the world
for you to have to come down to doing your own housework."

"I should make a capital cook," said John Derringham, with smiling eyes,
"but I should certainly refuse to cook for anyone but myself; and you,
Mr. Green, who may be an indifferent artist in that respect, would have
perhaps a bad dinner."

"I never understand," interrupted Mrs. Cricklander--"when everything is
socialistic, shall we not be able to live in these nice houses?"

"Of course not," said Mr. Hanbury-Green gravely. "You will have to share
with less fortunate people." And then he drew himself up ready for
battle, and began.

"Why, because a man or woman is born in the gutter, should not he or she
be given by the State the same chance as though born in a palace? We are
all exactly the same human beings, only until now luck and circumstance
have been different for us."

"I am all for everyone having the same chance," agreed John Derringham,
allowing the smile to stay in his eyes, "although I do not admit we are
all the same human beings, any more than the Derby winner is the same
horse as the plow horse or the cob. They can all draw some kind of
vehicle, but they cannot all win races--they have to excel, each in his
different line. Give everyone a chance, by all means, and then make him
come up for examination, and if found fit passed on for higher things,
and if unfit, passed _out_! It is your tendency to pamper the unfit
which I deplore. You have only one idea on your Radical Socialist side
of the House, to pull down those who are in any inherited or agreeable
authority--not because they are doing their work badly, but because you
would prefer their place! The war-cry of boons for the people covers a
multitude of objects, and is the most attractive cry for the masses to
hear all over the world. The real boon for the people would be to give
them more practical sound education and ruthlessly to clear out the
unfit." Then his face lost its whimsical expression and became
interested.

"Let us imagine a Utopian state of republic. Let every male citizen who
has reached twenty-five years, say, pass his examination in the right to
live freely, regardless of class, and if he cannot do so, let him go
into the ranks of the slaves, because, turn it how you will, we must
have some beings to do the lowest offices in life. Who would willingly
clean the drains, fill the dust-carts--and, indeed, do the hundred and
one things that are simply disgusting, but which must be done?"

Mr. Hanbury-Green had not a sufficiently strong answer ready, so
remained loftily silent, while John Derringham went on:

"We obscure every issue nowadays by a sickly sentiment and this craze
for words to prove black is white in order to please the mediocrity. If
we could only look facts in the face we should see that the idea of
equality of all men is perfectly ridiculous. No ancient republic ever
worked, even the most purely democratic, like the Athenian, of the fifth
and fourth centuries B.C., without an unconsidered and unrepresented
population of slaves. You know your Aristotle, Mr. Green," he went on
blandly, "and you will remember his admirable remark about some men
being born masters and others born to obey, and that, if only Nature had
made the difference in their mental capacities as apparent to the eye as
is the difference in their bodies, everyone would recognize this at
once."

His voice grew intense: the subject interested him.

"You may say," he went on, "that Aristotle, Plato and Socrates accepted
the fact of slavery without protest because it was an institution from
time immemorial, and so the idea did not appear to them so repugnant.
But do you mean to tell me that such consummate geniuses, such unbiased
glorious brains would have glossed over any idea, or under-considered
any point in their schemes for the advancement of man? They accepted
slavery because they saw that it was the only possible way to make a
republic work, where all citizens might aspire to be equal."

"You would advocate slavery then? Oh! Mr. Derringham, how dreadful of
you!" exclaimed Mrs. Cricklander, half playfully.

"Not in the least," he returned, still allowing some feeling to stay in
his voice. "I would only have it recognized that there must be some
class in my ideal republic who will do the duties of the slaves of old.
I would have it so arranged that they should occupy this class only when
they had shown they were unfit for anything higher, and I would also
arrange it that the moment they appeared capable of rising out of it
there should be no bar to their doing so. It is the cry of our all being
equal because we have two arms and two legs and a head in common, not
counting any mental endowment, which is utter trash and hypocrisy. But
when these agitators are shouting for the people's rights and inciting
poor ignorant wretches to revolt, they never suggest that the lowest of
them is not perfectly suited to the highest position! Those occupying
any station above the lowest have got there merely by superior luck and
favoritism, not merit--that is what they preach."

Mr. Hanbury-Green was just going to answer with a biting attack when
Miss Cora Lutworth's rather high voice was heard interrupting from a
tall old chair in which she had perched herself.

"Why, Mr. Derringham, we all want to be something very grand," she
laughed merrily. "I hate common people and love English dukes and
duchesses--don't you, Cis?" and she looked at Mrs. Cricklander, who was
standing in a position of much stately grace by the lofty mantelpiece.

"You sweet girl!" exclaimed Lord Freynault, who was next to her. "I
cannot get any nearer to those favored folk than my uncle's being a
duke, but won't you let me in for some of your friendly feelings on that
account?"

"I certainly will," she answered archly, "because I like the way you
look. I like how your hair is brushed, and how your clothes are cut, and
your being nice and clean and outdoor--and long and thin--" and then she
whispered--"ever so much better than Mr. Hanbury-Green's thick
appearance. He may be as clever as clever, but he is common and climbing
up, and I like best the people who are there!"

John Derringham now addressed himself exclusively to his hostess.

"I agree with the point of view of the old Greeks--they were so full of
common sense. Balance and harmony in everything was their aim. A
beautiful body, for instance, should be the correlative of a beautiful
soul. Therefore in general their athletics were not pursued, as are
ours, for mere pleasure and sport, and because we like to feel fit. They
did not systematically exercise just to wrest from some rival the prize
in the games, either. Their care of the body had a far higher and nobler
end: to bring it into harmony as a dwelling-place for a noble soul."

"How divine!" said Mrs. Cricklander.

John Derringham went on:

"You remember Plato upon the subject--his reluctance to admit that a
physical defect must sometimes be overlooked. But nowadays everything is
distorted by ridiculous humanitarian nonsense. With our wonderful
inventions, our increasing knowledge of sanitation and science, and the
possibilities and limitations of the human body, what glorious people we
should become if we could choke this double-headed hydra of rotten
sentiment and exalt common sense!"

But now Mrs. Cricklander saw that a storm was gathering upon Mr.
Hanbury-Green's brow and, admirable hostess that she was, she decided to
smooth the troubled waters, so she went across the room to the piano,
and began to play a seductive valse, while John Derringham followed her
and leaned upon the lid, and tried to feel as devoted as he looked.

"Why cannot we go to-morrow and see your old master?" she asked, as her
white fingers, with their one or two superb rings, glided over the keys.
"I feel an unaccountable desire to become acquainted with him. I should
love to see what the person was like who molded you when you were a
boy."

"Mr. Carlyon is a wonderful-looking old man," John Derringham returned.
"Someone--who knows him very well--described him long ago as 'Cheiron.'
You will see how apt it is when you meet."

Mrs. Cricklander crashed some chords. She had never heard of this
Cheiron. She felt vaguely that Arabella had told her of some classical
or mythological personage of some such sounding name, a boatman of
sorts--but she dare not risk a statement, so she went on with the point
she wished to gain, which was to investigate at once Mr. Carlyon's
surroundings and discover, if possible, whether there was any influence
there that would be inimical to herself.

"I dare say we can go to-morrow," John Derringham said. "You and I might
walk over--and perhaps Miss Lutworth and Freynault. We can't go a large
party, the house is so small."

"Why cannot you and I go alone, then?" she asked.

"Oh, I think he would like to see Miss Cora. She is such a charming
girl," and John Derringham looked over to where she sat, still dangling
a pair of blue satin feet from the high chair. And inwardly Mrs.
Cricklander burned.

Cora was a second cousin of her divorced husband, and belonged by birth
to that inner cream of New York society which she hated in her heart.
Never, never again would she be so foolish as to chance crossing swords
with one of her own nation. But aloud she acquiesced blandly and
arranged that they should start at eleven o'clock.

"Perhaps we could persuade him to return to lunch with us?" she
hazarded. "And that would be so nice."

"You must do what you can with him," John Derringham said. "I have
prepared him to find you beautiful--as you are."

"You say lovely things about me behind my back, then?" she laughed. "Now
he will be disappointed!"

"Yes, I admit it was a _bêtíse_--but, being my real thoughts, they
slipped out when I was there to-day. You will have to be extra charming
to substantiate them."

Before Mrs. Cricklander went to bed, she called Arabella Clinker into
her room.

"Arabella," she said, "who was Cheiron?" But she pronounced the "ei" as
an "a," so Miss Clinker replied without any hesitation:

"He was a boatman who carried the souls of the dead over the River Styx,
and to whom they were obliged to pay an obolus--son of Erebus and Nox.
He is represented as an old man with a hideous face and long white beard
and piercing eyes."

"Is there anything else I ought to know about him?" her employer asked,
and Arabella thought for a moment.

"There is the story of Hercules not showing the golden bow. Er--it is a
little complicated and has to do with the superstitions of the
ancients--er--something Egyptian, I think, for the moment--I will look
it up to-morrow. I can't say offhand."

"Thanks, Arabella. Good night."

And it was not until after the party of four had started next morning
that Miss Clinker suddenly thought, with a start: "She may have been
alluding to quite the other Cheiron--the Centaur--and in that case I
have given her some wrong lights!"




CHAPTER XIV


Cora was being more than exasperating, Mrs. Cricklander thought, as they
went through the park. Not content with Lord Freynault, who was plainly
devoted to her, she kept every now and then looking back at John
Derringham with some lively sally, and although he was being
particularly agreeable to herself, he responded to Miss Lutworth's
piquant attacks with a too ready zeal.

Mrs. Cricklander grew more and more certain that her hold over him had
lessened in these last two days, and every force in her indomitable
personality stiffened with determination to win him at all costs.

The Professor received them graciously. He was seated in his library,
which now was a most comfortable room surrounded with bookcases in which
lived all his rare editions of loved books. Nothing could be more
fascinating than Mrs. Cricklander's manner to him--a mixture of
deference and friendly familiarity, as though he would appreciate the
fact of a tacit understanding between them that she too had a right in
John Derringham's friends. She had been so reassured by finding that Mr.
Carlyon was unmarried and lived alone, that a glow of real warmth
towards the Professor emanated from her, while the conviction grew that
it was nothing but the influence of Cora Lutworth which had even
momentarily cooled her whilom ardent friend.

Mr. Carlyon's imperturbable countenance gave no hint of what he thought
of her, although John Derringham watched him furtively and anxiously. He
listened to their conversation when he could, and it jarred upon him
twice when the lady of his choice altogether missed the point of
Cheiron's subtle remarks. She whom he had always considered so
understanding!

Of Halcyone there was no sign and no mention, and for some reason which
he could not explain John Derringham felt glad.

It seemed an eternity before Mrs. Cricklander got up to go, having been
unable to persuade Mr. Carlyon to return with them to luncheon. He had a
slight cold, he said, and meant to remain in his warm library.

"Mr. Derringham says you are called Cheiron," Mrs. Cricklander announced
laughingly. "How ridiculous to find in you any likeness to that old
ferryman of the piercing eye. I see no resemblance but in the beard."

"So John relegates me to the post of ferryman to the dead already, does
he!" Mr. Carlyon responded. "I had hoped he still allowed me my horse's
hoofs and my cave--I have been deceiving myself all these years,
evidently."

A blank look grew in Mrs. Cricklander's eye. What had caves and horse's
hoofs to do with the case? She had better turn the conversation at once,
or she might be out of her depth, she felt; and this she did with her
usual skill, but not before the Professor's left eyebrow had run up into
his forehead, and his wise old eyes beneath had met and then instantly
averted themselves from those of John Derringham.

All the way back to the house Mrs. Cricklander had the satisfaction of
listening to a much more advanced admiration of herself than she had
hoped to obtain so soon, and arrived in the best of restored humors--for
John Derringham had clenched his teeth as he left the orchard house, and
had told himself that he would not be influenced or put off by any of
these trifling things, and that it was some vixenish turn of Fate to
have allowed these currents of disillusion about a woman who was so
eminently suitable to reach him through the medium of his old friend.

A strange thing happened to Halcyone that morning. She had made up her
mind to keep away from her usual visit to Cheiron on the Monday and
Tuesday when John Derringham had announced he might bring over his
hostess to see the Professor. She did not wish to cause complications
with her aunts by making Mrs. Cricklander's acquaintance, and underneath
she had some strange reluctance herself. Her unerring instincts warned
her that this woman might in some way trouble her life, but she thought
Saturday would be perfectly safe and was preparing to start, when some
vague longing came over her to see her goddess. She had felt less serene
since the day before, and John Derringham and his words and looks
absorbed her thoughts. The home of Aphrodite was now in a chest in the
long gallery, of which she kept the key, and as this old room was always
empty--none of the servants, not even Priscilla, caring about visiting
it--haunted, it was, they said--she had plenty of time to spend what
hours she liked with her treasure without having to do so by stealth, as
in the beginning. For any place indoors she loved the long gallery
better than any other place. The broken window panes had been mended
when the turn for the better came for the whole house, and now she
herself kept it all dusted and tidy and used it as a sitting-room and
work-room as well; and, above all, it was the temple of the goddess
wherein was her shrine.

This day when Aphrodite was uncovered from her blue silk wrappings, her
whole expression seemed to be one of appeal; however Halcyone would hold
her, in high or low light, the eyes appeared to be asking her something.

"What is it, sweet mother and friend?" she said. "Do you not want me to
leave you to-day? If so, indeed I will not. What are you telling me with
those beautiful, sad eyes? That something is coming into my existence
that you promised me always, and that it will cause me sorrow, and I
must pause?"--and she shivered slightly and laid her cheek against the
marble cheek. "I am not afraid, and I want whatever it must be, since it
is life." Then she put the head back, and started upon her walk. But
first one thing and then another delayed her, until last of all she sat
down under the oak near the gap in the hedge and asked herself if all
these things could be chance. And here she took to dreaming and watching
the young rabbits come out of their holes, and to wondering what Fate
held in store for her in the immediate future. What was going to be her
life? That nothing but good could happen she always knew, because since
the very beginning God--the same personal kindly force that she had
always worshiped, unaltered by her deep learning, unweakened by any
theological dissertations--was there manifesting the whole year round
His wonderful love for the world.

And so she sat until the clock of the church at Sarthe-under-Crum struck
one, and she started up, realizing that she was too late now to go on to
Cheiron's and would only just have time to return for lunch with her
aunts. She must go instead in the afternoon. So she walked briskly to
the house, with a strange feeling of relief and joy, which she was quite
unable to account for in any explicable way.

Nothing delayed her on her second attempt to reach the orchard house,
and she found Cheiron placidly smoking while he read a volume of Lucian.
She was quite aware what that meant. When the Professor was in an amused
and cynical humor he always read Lucian, and although he knew every word
by heart, it still caused him complete satisfaction, plainly to be
discerned by the upward raising of the left penthouse brow.

Halcyone sat down and smiled sympathetically while she tried to detect
which volume it was, that she might have some clew to the cause of her
Professor's mood. But he carefully closed the book, so that she could
not see--it was the Judgment of Paris in the dialogue of the gods--and
she was unable to have her curiosity gratified.

"Something has entertained you, Cheiron?" she said.

"I have had the visit of two goddesses," he answered, chuckling. "Our
friend John Derringham brought them. He wanted to show them off and get
my opinion, I think."

"And did you give him one?" she asked. "I suppose not!"

"He went away with his teeth shut--" and Mr. Carlyon's smile deepened as
he stroked his white beard.

Halcyone laughed. She seldom asked questions herself. If the Professor
wished to tell her anything about the ladies he would do so--she was
dying to hear! Presently a set of disjointed sentences flowed from her
master's lips between his puffs of smoke.

"Girl--worth something--showy--honest--sure of
herself--clever--pretty--on her own roots--not a graft."

"Girl"--who was the girl? Halcyone wondered. But Cheiron continued his
laconic utterances.

"Woman--beautiful--determined--thick--roots of the commonest--grafting
of the best--octopean, tenacious--dangerous--my poor devil of a John!"

"And did you give the apple to either, Cheiron?" Halcyone asked with a
gleam of fine humor in her wise eyes. "Or, one of the trio being absent,
did you feel yourself excused?"

Mr. Carlyon glanced at her sharply, and then broke into a smile.

"Young woman, I do not think I have ever allowed you to read the
Judgment of Paris," he said. "Wherefore your question is ill-timed and
irrelevant."

Then they laughed together. How well they knew one another!--not only
over things Greek. And presently they began their reading. They were in
the middle of Symonds' "Renaissance," and so forgot the outer world.

But after Halcyone had gone in the dusk through the park, the Professor
sat in the firelight for a while, and did not ring for lights. He was
musing deeply, and his thoughts ran something in this line:

"John must dree his weird. Nothing anyone could say has ever influenced
him. If he marries this woman she will eat his soul; having only a sham
one of her own, she will devour his. She'll do very well to adorn the
London house and feed his friends. He'll find her out in less than a
year--it will kill his inspirations. Well, Zeus and all the gods cannot
help a man in his folly. But my business is to see that he does not
ensnare the heart of my little girl. If he had waited he could have
found her--the one woman with a soul."

       *       *       *       *       *

Miss Roberta had, unfortunately, a bad attack of rheumatism on Easter
Sunday, augmented by a cold, and Halcyone stayed at home to rub her poor
knee with hot oil, so she did not see the Wendover party, several of
whom came to church. Miss La Sarthe occupied the family pew alone, and
was the source of much amusement and delight to the smart inhabitants of
the outer world.

"Isn't she just too sweet, Cis?" whispered Miss Lutworth into Mrs.
Cricklander's ear. "Can't we get Mr. Derringham to take us over there
this afternoon?"

But when the subject was broached later at luncheon by his hostess, John
Derringham threw cold water upon the idea. He had stayed behind for a
few minutes to renew his acquaintance with the ancient lady, and had
given her his arm down the short church path, and placed her with
extreme deference in the Shetland pony shay, to the absolute enchantment
of Miss Lutworth, who, with Lord Freynault, stood upon the mound of an
old forgotten grave, the better to see. It was in the earlier days of
motor-cars, and Mrs. Cricklander's fine open Charron created the
greatest excitement as it waited by the lych-gate. The two Shetlands
cocked their ears and showed various signs of nervous interest, and
William had all he could do to hold the minute creatures. But Miss La
Sarthe behaved with unimpaired dignity, never once glancing in the
direction of the great green monster. She got in, assisted by the
respectful churchwarden, and allowed John Derringham to wrap the rug
round her knees, and then carefully adjusted the ring of her
turquoise-studded whip handle.

"Good day, Goddard," she said with benign condescension to the
churchwarden. "And see that Betsy Hodges' child with the whooping-cough
gets some of Hester's syrup and is not brought to church again next
Sunday." And she nodded a gracious dismissal. Then, turning to John
Derringham, she gave him two fingers, while she said with some show of
haughty friendliness: "My sister and I will be very pleased to see you
if you are staying in this neighborhood, Mr. Derringham, and care to
take tea with us one day."

"I shall be more than delighted," he replied, as he bowed with homage
and stood aside, because William's face betrayed his anxiety over the
fidgety ponies.

Miss La Sarthe turned her head with its pork-pie hat and floating veil,
and said with superb tranquillity, "You may drive on now, William." And
they rolled off between a lane of respectful, curtseying rustics.

Mrs. Cricklander and Lady Maulevrier had already entered the motor and
were surveying the scene with amused interest, while Miss Lutworth and
Lord Freynault, chaperoned by Arabella Clinker, were preparing to walk.
It was not more than a mile across the park, and it was a glorious day.
John Derringham joined them.

"I think I will come with you, too," he said. "You take my place, Sir
Tedbury. It is only fair you should drive one way."

And so it was arranged, not altogether to the satisfaction of the
hostess, who would have preferred to have walked also. However, there
was nothing to be done, and so they were whizzed off, while with the
tail of her eye Cecilia Cricklander perceived that Lord Freynault had
been displaced from Cora's side and was now stalking behind the other
pair, beside Arabella Clinker.

"What an extraordinary sight that was," she said to Sir Tedbury Delvine
as they went along. "I thought no villagers curtsied any more now in
England. That very funny-looking old lady might have been a royalty!"

"It is because she has never had a doubt but that she is--or something
higher--complete owner of all these souls," he returned, "that they have
not yet begun to doubt it either. They and their forebears have bobbed
to the La Sarthe for hundreds of years, and they will go on doing it if
this holder of the name lives to be ninety-nine. They would never do so
to any new-comer, though, I expect."

"But I am told they have not a penny left, and have sold every acre of
the land except the park. Is it not wonderful, Kitty?" Mrs. Cricklander
went on, turning to Lady Maulevrier. "I am dying to know them. I hope
they will call."

But Sir Tedbury had already chanced to have talked the matter over with
John Derringham, because he himself was most anxious to see La Sarthe
Chase, which was of deep historical interest, and had incidentally been
made aware by that gentleman of the old ladies' views, so he hastily
turned the conversation, rather awkwardly, to other things. And a wonder
grew in Mrs. Cricklander's mind.

That anyone should not be enchanted to receive her beautiful and
sought-after self could not enter her brain, but there was evidently
some bar between the acquaintance of herself and her nearest neighbors,
and Arabella should be set to find out of what it consisted.




CHAPTER XV


"Do let us go around by the boundary," Miss Lutworth said when they got
through the Wendover gates. "I long to see even the park of that
exquisite old lady; it must look quite different to anybody else's, and
I feel I want an adventure!"

So they struck in towards the haw-haw--the four walking almost abreast.

When they came to beyond the copse, after it touched the Professor's
garden, they paused and took in the view. It was unspeakably beautiful
from there, rolling away towards the splendid old house, which could
only just be distinguished through the giant trees, not yet in leaf. And
suddenly, hardly twenty yards from them across the gulf, coming from the
gap in Mr. Carlyon's hedge, they saw a tall and very slender
mouse-colored figure, as Halcyone emerged on her homeward way--she had
run down to see Cheiron when her duties with Miss Roberta were over, and
was now going back to lunch.

"Good morning!" called John Derringham, and the four advanced to the
very edge of their side, and Halcyone turned and also bordered hers,
while she bowed serenely.

"Isn't it a day of the gods!" he continued. "And may I from across this
Stygian lake (there was a little water collected in the haw-haw here
from the recent rains) introduce Miss Lutworth to you--and Miss Clinker
and Lord Freynault? Miss Halcyone La Sarthe."

Everyone bowed, and Halcyone smiled her sweet, grave smile.

"We would love to jump over--or you come to us," Cora Lutworth said with
her frank, friendly charm. "Isn't there any way?"

"I am afraid not," responded Halcyone. "You are across in another
world--we live in the shades, this side."

"Remember something about a fellow named Orpheus getting over to fetch
his girl"--"gail" Lord Freynault pronounced it--"since old John will use
Eton cribs in describing the horrid chasm. Can't we sop old Cerberus and
somehow manage to swim, if there is no ferryman about?"

"You would certainly be drowned," said Halcyone. "In this place the lake
is quite ten inches deep!"

Cora Lutworth was taking in every bit of her with her clever, kindly
eyes.

"What a sweet, distinguished violet-under-the-mossy-bank pet of a girl!"
she was saying to herself. "No wonder Mr. Derringham goes to see his
Professor! How mad Cis would be! I shan't tell her." And aloud she said:

"You cannot imagine how I am longing to get a nearer peep of your
beautiful old house. Do we get a chance further on?"

"No," said Halcyone. "I am so sorry. You branch further off once you
have passed the closed gate. It was very stupid--the La Sarthe quarreled
with the Wendovers a hundred years ago, and it was all closed up then,
and these wicked spikes put."

"It is too tantalizing. But won't you walk with us to where we have to
part?" Miss Lutworth said, while John Derringham had a sudden longing to
turn back and carefully remove certain bits of iron and brick he wot of,
and ask this nymph of the woods to take him on to their tree, and tell
him more stories about Jason and Medea in that exquisitely refined voice
of hers, as she had done once before, long ago. But even though he might
not have this joy, he got rather a fine pleasure out of the fact of
sharing the secret of the crossing with her, and he had the satisfaction
of meeting her soft eyes in one lightning comprehending glance.

They chatted on about the view and the beauties of the neighborhood, and
they all laughed often at some sally of Cora's--no one could resist her
joyous, bubbling good-fellowship. She had all the sparkle of her clever
nation, and the truest, kindest heart. Halcyone had never spoken to
another young girl in her life, and felt like a yearling horse--a desire
to whinny to a fellow colt and race up and down with him beside the
dividing fence of their paddocks. A new light of youth and sweetness
came into her pale face.

"I do wish I might ask you to come round by the road," she said, "and
see it near, but, as Mr. Derringham knows, my aunts are very old, and
one is almost an invalid now, so we never have any visitors at all."

"Of course, we quite understand," said Cora, quickly, touched at once by
this simple speech. "But we should so 

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