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The Independence of Claire

by Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey · English · Gutenberg #21098 · 556,424 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Independence of Claire

Author: Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey


        
Release date: April 16, 2007 [eBook #21098]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21098

Credits: Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INDEPENDENCE OF CLAIRE ***




Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




The Independence of Claire

By Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
________________________________________________________________________
This is a rather typical Horne Vaizey book, about the life led by young
well-brought-up women in Edwardian times.  Worries about money, about
who to marry, whether to go or not to parties to be given by elderly
hostesses, about clothes, about hair-styles, and even, as so often in
this author's books, with a bit of illness thrown in as well.

There's a time when Claire seems on the way to making a big mistake, but
it all gets sorted out in the end.  Make an audiobook of this book -
that is probably the best way to enjoy it.
________________________________________________________________________
THE INDEPENDENCE OF CLAIRE

BY MRS. GEORGE DE HORNE VAIZEY



CHAPTER ONE.

"I'LL HAVE TO DO IT."

Claire Gifford stood in the salon of the Brussels pension which had been
her home for the last three years, and bent her brows in consideration
of an all-absorbing problem.  "Can I marry him?" she asked herself once
and again, with the baffling result that every single time her brain
answered instantly, "_You must_!" the while her heart rose up in
rebellion, and cried, "I won't!"  Many girls have found themselves in
the same predicament before and since, but few have had stronger reasons
for sacrificing personal inclination on the altar of filial duty than
Claire knew at this minute.

To begin with, the relationship between herself and her mother was more
intimate than is usually the case, for Claire was an only child, and
Mrs Gifford a widow only eighteen years older than herself.  Briefly
stated, the family history was as follows--Eleanor Guyther had been the
only child of stern, old-world parents, and at seventeen had run away
from the house which had been more like a prison than a home, to marry a
handsome young artist who had been painting in the neighbourhood during
the summer months; a handsome merry-faced boy of twenty-one, whose
portrait Claire treasured in an old-fashioned gold locket, long since
discarded by her mother, who followed the fashion in jewellery as well
as in dress.  It was strange to look at the face of a father who was no
older than oneself, and Claire had spent many hours gazing at the
pictured face, and trying to gain from it some idea of the personality
of the man of whom her mother persistently refused to speak.

Mrs Gifford shrank from all disagreeables, great and small, and
systematically turned her back on anything which was disturbing or
painful, so that it was only from chance remarks that her daughter had
gained any information about the past.  She knew that her father had
been a successful artist, although not in the highest sense of the term.
He had a trick of turning out pretty domestic pictures which appealed
to the taste of the million, and which, being purchased by enterprising
dealers, were reproduced in cheap prints to deck the walls of suburban
parlours.  While he lived he made a sufficient income, and before his
death a formal reconciliation had taken place between the runaway
daughter and her north-country parents, from whom she later inherited
the money which had supported herself and her daughter throughout the
years of her widowhood.

Claire had the vaguest idea as to the amount of her mother's means, for
until the last few years the question of money had never arisen, they
had simply decided what they wished to do, without considering the cost,
but of late there had been seasons of financial tightness, and the
morning on which this history begins had brought a most disagreeable
awakening.

Mrs Gifford was seated in the salon staring disconsolately at a note
which had just arrived by the afternoon post.  It was a very
disagreeable note, for it stated in brief and callous terms that her
account at the bank was overdrawn to the extent of three hundred francs,
and politely requested that the deficit should be made good.  Claire
looked flushed and angry; Mrs Gifford looked pathetic and pale.

It seemed, in the first place, quite ludicrous that such a relationship
as that of mother and daughter should exist between two women who looked
so nearly of an age, and Mrs Gifford's youthful appearance was a
standing joke in the Pension.  Every new visitor was questioned by
Madame as to the relationship between the two English ladies, and never
had one of the number failed to reply "sisters," and to be convulsed
with astonishment when corrected; and in good truth Mrs Gifford was a
wonderful specimen of the prolonged youth which is a phenomenon of the
present day.

She was slight, she was graceful, her waving brown hair was as naturally
luxuriant as that of a girl, her complexion was smooth and fair, her
pretty features were unchanged, she dressed with good taste, and, though
secretly proud of her youthful looks, was never so foolish as to adopt
kittenish airs to match.  Her manner was quiet, gracious, appealing; a
little air of pathos enveloped her like a mist; on strangers she made
the impression of a lovely creature who had known suffering.  Everybody
was kind to Mrs Gifford, and she in return had never been known to
utter an unkind word.  She had been born with the faculty of loving
everybody a little, and no one very much, which--if one comes to think
of it--is the most powerful of all factors towards securing an easy
life, since it secures the owner from the possibility of keen personal
suffering.

At the present moment Mrs Gifford did, however, look really perturbed,
for, after shutting her eyes to a disagreeable fact, and keeping them
shut with much resolution and--it must be added--ease, for many years
past, she was now driven to face the truth, and to break it to her
daughter into the bargain.

"But I don't understand!"  Claire repeated blankly.  "How _can_ the
money be gone?  We have spent no more this year than for years past.  I
should think we have spent less.  I haven't been extravagant a bit.  You
offered me a new hat only last week, and I said I could do without--"

"Yes, yes, of course.  It's quite true, _cherie_, you have been most
good.  But, you see, ours has not been a case of an income that goes on
year after year--it never was, even from the beginning.  There was not
enough.  And you _did_ have a good education, didn't you?  I spared
nothing on it.  It's folly to stint on a girl's education.--It was one
of the best schools in Paris."

"It was, mother; but we are not talking about schools.  Do let us get to
the bottom of this horrid muddle!  If it isn't a case of `income,' what
can it be?  I'm ignorant about money, for you have always managed
business matters, but I can't see what else we can have been living
upon?"

Mrs Gifford crinkled her delicate brows, and adopted an air of
plaintive self-defence.

"I'm sure it's as great a shock to me as it is to you; but, under the
circumstances, I do think I managed very well.  It was only nine
thousand pounds at the beginning, and I've made it last over thirteen
years, _with_ your education!  And since we've been here, for the last
three years, I've given you a good time, and taken you to everything
that was going on.  Naturally it all costs.  Naturally money can't last
for ever..."

The blood flooded the girl's face.  Now at last she _did_ understand,
and the knowledge filled her with awe.

"Mother!  Do you mean that we have been living all this time on
_capital_?"

Mrs Gifford shrugged her shoulders, and extended her hands in an
attitude typically French.

"What would you, _ma chere_?  Interest is so ridiculously low.  They
offered me three per cent.  Four was considered high.  How could we have
lived on less than three hundred a year?  Your school bills came to
nearly as much, and I had to live, too, and keep you in the holidays.  I
did what I thought was the best.  We should both have been miserable in
cheap pensions, stinting ourselves of everything we liked.  The money
has made us happy for thirteen years."

Claire rose from her seat and walked over to the window.  The road into
which she looked was wide and handsome, lined with a double row of
trees.  The sun shone on the high white houses with the green
_jalousies_, which stood _vis-a-vis_ with the Pension.  Along the
cobble-stoned path a dog was dragging a milk-cart, the gleaming brass
cans clanking from side to side; through the open window came the faint
indescribable scent which distinguishes a continental from a British
city.  Claire stared with unseeing eyes, her heart beating with heavy
thuds.  She conjured up the image of a man's face--a strong kindly
face--a face which might well make the sunshine of some woman's life,
but which made no appeal to her own heart.  She set her lips, and two
bright spots of colour showed suddenly in her cheeks.  So smooth and
uneventful had been her life that this was the first time that she had
found herself face to face with serious difficulty, and, after the first
shock of realisation, her spirit rose to meet it.  She straightened her
shoulders as if throwing off a weight, and her heart cried valiantly,
"It's my own life, and I will _not_ be forced!  There must be some other
way.  It's for me to find it!"

Suddenly she whirled round, and walked back to her mother.

"Mother, if you knew how little money was left, why wouldn't you let me
accept Miss Farnborough's offer at Christmas!"

For a moment Mrs Gifford's face expressed nothing but bewilderment.
Then comprehension dawned.

"You mean the school-mistress from London?  What was it she suggested?
That you should go to her as a teacher?  It was only a suggestion, so
far as I remember.  She made no definite offer."

"Oh, yes, she did.  She said that she had everlasting difficulty with
her French mistresses, and that I was the very person for whom she'd
been looking.  Virtually French, yet really English in temperament.  She
made me a definite offer of a hundred and ten pounds a year."

Mrs Gifford laughed, and shrugged her graceful shoulders.  She appeared
to find the proposal supremely ridiculous, yet when people were without
money, the only sane course seemed to be to take what one could get.
Claire felt that she had not yet mastered the situation.  There must be
something behind which she had still to grasp.

"Well, never mind the school for a moment, mother dear.  Tell me what
_you_ thought of doing.  You must have had some plan in your head all
these years while the money was dwindling away.  Tell me your scheme,
then we can compare the two and see which is better."

Mrs Gifford bent her head over the table, and scribbled aimlessly with
a pen in which there was no ink.  She made no answer in words, yet as
she waited the blood flamed suddenly over Claire's face, for it seemed
to her that she divined what was in her mother's mind.  "I expected that
you would marry.  I have done my best to educate you and give you a
happy youth.  I expected that you would accept your first good offer,
and look after _me_!"

That was what a French mother would naturally say to her daughter; that
was what Claire Gifford believed that her own mother was saying to her
at that moment, and the accusation brought little of the revolt which an
English girl would have experienced.  Claire had been educated at a
Parisian boarding school, and during the last three years had associated
almost entirely with French-speaking Andrees and Maries and Celestes,
who took for granted that their husbands should be chosen for them by
their parents.  Claire had assisted at betrothal feasts, and played
_demoiselle d'honneur_ at subsequent weddings, and had witnessed an
astonishing degree of happiness as an outcome of these business-like
unions.  At this moment she felt no anger against her own mother for
having tried to follow a similar course.  Her prevailing sensation was
annoyance with herself for having been so difficult to lead.

"It must be my English blood.  Somehow, when it came to the point, I
never _could_.  But Mr Judge is different from most men.  He is so good
and generous and unmercenary.  He'd be kind to mother, and let her live
with us, and make no fuss.  He is as charming to her as he is to me.
Oh, dear, I _am_ selfish!  I _am_ a wretch!  It isn't as if I were in
love with anyone else.  I'm not.  Perhaps I never shall be.  I'll never
have the chance if I live in lodgings and spend my life teaching
irregular verbs.  Why can't I be sensible and French, and marry him and
live happily ever after?  _Pauvre petite mere_!  Why can't I think of
_her_?"

Suddenly Claire swooped down upon her mother's drooping figure, wrapped
her in loving arms, and swung her gently to and fro.  She was a tall,
strikingly graceful girl, with a face less regularly beautiful than her
mother's, but infinitely more piquant and attractive.  She was more
plump and rounded than the modern English girl, and her complexion less
pink and white, but she was very neat and dainty and smart, possessed
deep-set, heavily-lashed grey eyes, red lips which curled mischievously
upward at the corner, and a pair of dimples on her soft left cheek.

The dimples were in full play at this moment; the large one was just on
the level with the upward curl of the lips, the smaller one nestled
close to its side.  In repose they were almost unnoticed, but at the
slightest lighting of expression, at the first dawn of a smile, they
danced into sight and became the most noticeable feature of her face.
Claire without her dimples would have been another and far less
fascinating personality.

"Mother darling, forgive me!  Kiss me, _cherie_--don't look sad!  I
_have_ had a good time, and we'll have a good time yet, if it is in my
power to get it for you.  Cheer up!  Things won't be as bad as you fear.
We won't allow them to be bad. ...  How much does the horrid old bank
say that we owe?  Three hundred francs.  I can pay it out of my own
little savings.  Does it mean literally that there is nothing more,
nothing at all--not a single sou?"

"Oh no.  I have some shares.  They have been worthless for years, but
just lately they have gone up.  I was asking Mr Judge about them
yesterday.  He says I might get between two and three hundred pounds.
They were worth a thousand, years ago."

Claire brightened with the quick relief of youth.  Two or three hundred
English pounds were a considerable improvement on a debit account.  With
two or three hundred pounds much might yet be done.  Thousands of people
had built up great fortunes on smaller foundations.  In a vague,
indefinite fashion she determined to devote these last pounds to
settling herself in some business, which would ensure a speedy and
generous return.  School teaching was plainly out of the question, since
two gentlewomen could not exist on a hundred and ten pounds a year.  She
must think of something quicker, more lucrative.

All through dinner that evening Claire debated her future vocation as
she sat by her mother's side, halfway down the long dining-table which
to English eyes appeared so bare and unattractive, but which was yet
supplied with the most appetising of food.  Claire's eyes were
accustomed to the lack of pretty detail; she had quite an affection for
the Pension which stood for home in her migratory life, and a real love
for Madame Dupre, the cheery, kindly, most capable proprietor.  Such of
the _pensionnaires_ as were not purely birds of passage she regarded as
friends rather than acquaintances; the only person in the room to whom
she felt any antagonism was Mr Judge himself, but unfortunately he was
the one of all others whom she was expected to like best.

As she ate her salad and broke fragments of delicious crusty roll,
Claire threw furtive glances across the table at the man who for the
last weeks had exercised so disturbing an element in her life.  Was it
six weeks or two months, since she and her mother had first made his
acquaintance at the tennis club at which they spent so many of their
afternoons?  Claire had noticed that a new man had been present on that
occasion, had bestowed on him one critical glance, decided with youthful
arrogance: "Oh, quite old!" and promptly forgotten his existence, until
an hour later, when, as she was sitting in the pavilion enjoying the
luxury of a real English tea, the strange man and her mother had entered
side by side.  Claire summoned in imagination the picture of her mother
as she had looked at that moment, slim and graceful in the simplest of
white dresses, an untrimmed linen hat shading her charming face.  She
looked about twenty-five, and Claire was convinced that she knew as
much, and that it was a mischievous curiosity to see her companion's
surprise which prompted her to lead the way across the floor, and
formally introduce "My daughter!"

Mr Judge exhibited all the expected signs of bewilderment, but he made
himself exceedingly amiable to the daughter, and it was not until a week
later that it was discovered that he had concluded that the relationship
must surely be "step," when fresh explanations were made, and all the
bewilderment came over again.

Since then, oh, since then, Claire told herself, there had been no
getting away from the man!  He was, it appeared, an Indian merchant
spending a few months on the Continent, at the conclusion of a year's
leave.  He had come to Brussels because of the presence of an old school
friend--the same friend who was responsible for the introduction at the
tennis club--but week after week passed by, and he showed no disposition
to move on.

Now Brussels is a very gay and interesting little city, but when Paris
looms ahead, and Berlin, Vienna, to say nothing of the beauties of
Switzerland and the Tyrol, and the artistic treasures of Italy--well! it
_did_ seem out of proportion to waste six whole weeks in that one spot!

At the end of the last fortnight, too, Mr Judge declared that he was
sick to death of hotels and lonely evenings in smoking rooms, and
approached Madame Dupre with a view to joining the party at Villa Beau
Sejour.  Madame was delighted to receive him, but Claire Gifford told
her mother resentfully that she considered Mr Judge's behaviour "very
cool."  How did he know that it would be pleasant for them to have him
poking about morning, noon, and night?

"It isn't _our_ Pension, darling, and he is very nice to you," Mrs
Gifford had said in return, and as it was impossible to contradict
either statement, Claire had tossed her head, and relapsed into silence.

For the first weeks of her acquaintance with Mr Judge, Claire had
thoroughly enjoyed his attentions.  It was agreeable to know a man who
had a habit of noting your wishes, and then setting to work to bring
them about forthwith, and who was also delightfully extravagant as
regards flowers, and seemed to grow chocolates in his coat pockets.  It
was only when he spoke of moving to the Pension, and her girl friends at
the tennis club began to tease, roll meaning eyes, and ask when she was
to be congratulated, that she took fright.

Did people really think that she was going to _marry_ Mr Judge?

Lately things had moved on apace, and as a result of the unwelcome
revelations of the morning's post, Claire was to-day asking herself a
different question.  She was no longer occupied with other people; she
was thinking of herself...  "Am I going to marry Mr Judge?  Oh, good
gracious, is that _My Husband_ sitting over there, and have I got to
live with him every day, as long as we both shall live?"

She shuddered at the thought, but in truth there was nothing to shudder
at in Robert Judge's appearance.  He was a man of forty, bronzed, and
wiry, with agreeable if not regular features.  Round his eyes the skin
was deeply furrowed, but the eyes themselves were bright and youthful,
and the prevailing expression was one of sincerity and kindliness.  He
wore a loose grey tweed suit, with a soft-coloured shirt which showed a
length of brown neck.  The fingers of his right band were deeply stained
with tobacco.  During _dejeuner_ he carried on a conversation with his
right-hand companion, in exceedingly bad French, but ever and anon he
glanced across the table as though his thoughts were not on his words.
Once, on looking up suddenly, Claire found his eyes fixed upon herself,
with a strained, anxious look, and her heart quickened as she looked,
then sank down heavy as lead.

"It's coming!" she said to herself.  "It's coming!  There's no running
away.  I'll have to stay, and see it out.  Oh, why can't I be French,
and sensible?  I ought to be thankful to marry such a kind, good man,
and be able to give mother a comfortable home!"

But as a matter of fact she was neither glad nor thankful.  Despite her
French training, the English instinct survived and clamoured for
liberty, for independence.  "It's my own life.  If I marry at all, I
want to choose the man for no other reason than that I love him; not as
a duty, and to please somebody else!"  Then she glanced at her mother
sitting by her side, slim, and graceful, with the little air of pathos
and helplessness which even strangers found so appealing, and as she did
so, a shiver passed through Claire's veins.

"But I'll have to do it!" she said to herself helplessly.  "I'll have to
do it!"



CHAPTER TWO.

TOO SUCCESSFUL!

The next few days passed by slowly enough.  It is a great trial for a
young creature to realise that a change is inevitable and, at the same
time, that one must be cautious about making it.  The impulse is always
to rush into action, and it is difficult to sit still and agree with the
elderly precept in favour of consideration and delay.  If matters had
been left to Claire she would have started out forthwith to search for a
cheap Pension, and would have also despatched a letter to Miss
Farnborough by the first post, to inquire if the school post were still
open, but her mother vetoed both proposals, and pleaded so urgently for
delay, that there was nothing left but to agree, and compose herself as
best she might.

The weather was too hot for tennis, and in truth Claire was not in the
mood for games.  With every hour she realised more keenly that she had
come to the parting of the ways, and in the prospect of a new life old
interests lost their savour.  Her mother seemed to share her
restlessness, but while Claire preferred to stay indoors, in the privacy
of her own room, Mrs Gifford seemed to find relief in action, and was
often out for hours at a time, without vouchsafing any explanation of
her absence.

Claire was not curious.  She was content to close the green shutters of
her windows, slip into a muslin wrapper, and employ herself at some
simple piece of needlework, which kept her hands busy while leaving her
thoughts free.

Where would she be this time next year?  It was a question which no
mortal can answer with certainty, but many of us are happy in the
probability that we shall be still living in the same dear home,
surrounded by the people and the objects which we love, whereas Claire's
one certainty was that she must move on to fresh scenes.  Bombay or
London--that seemed the choice ahead!  Matrimony or teaching.  On the
one hand a luxurious home, carriages and horses, a staff of servants,
and apparently as much society as one desired, with the incubus of a
husband whom she did not love, and who was twenty years her senior.  On
the other hand, work and poverty, with the advantages of freedom and
independence.

Claire's eyes brightened at the sound of those two words, for dear as
liberty is to the heart of an Englishwoman, it was in prospect dearer
still to this girl who had been educated in a country still enslaved by
chaperonage, and had never known a taste of real freedom of action.
Mrs Gifford had been as strict as or stricter than any Belgian mother,
being rightly determined that no breath of scandal should touch her
daughter's name; therefore wherever Claire went, some responsible female
went with her.  She was chaperoned to church, chaperoned on her morning
constitutional, a chaperon sat on guard during the period of music and
drawing lessons, and at their conclusion escorted her back to the
Pension.  What wonder that the thought of life as a bachelor girl in
London seemed full of a thrilling excitement!

Suppose for one minute that she decided on London--what would become of
mother?  Again and again Claire asked herself this question, again and
again she recalled the interview between herself and the headmistress,
Miss Farnborough, when the subject of teaching had been discussed.  It
had happened one morning in the salon of the Pension, when Claire had
been coaching an English visitor in preparation for a French interview
which lay ahead, and Miss Farnborough, laying down her book, had
listened with smiling interest.  Then the Englishwoman left the room,
and Miss Farnborough had said, "You did that very cleverly; very
cleverly indeed!  You have a very happy knack of putting things simply
and forcibly.  I've noticed it more than once.  Have you ever done any
teaching?"

"None professionally," Claire had replied with a laugh, "but a great
deal by chance.  I seem to drift into the position of coach to most of
the English visitors here.  It pleases them, and it interests me.  And I
used to help the French girls with their English at school."

Then Miss Farnborough had inquired with interest as to the details of
Claire's education, the schools she had attended, the examinations she
had passed, and finally had come the critical question, "Have you ever
thought of taking up teaching as a profession?"

Claire had never thought of taking up work of any kind, but the
suggestion roused a keen interest, as one of the temporary "tight" times
was in process, so that the prospect of money-making seemed particularly
agreeable.  She discussed the subject carefully, and out of that
discussion had arisen the final offer of a post.

The junior French mistress in the High School of which Miss Farnborough
was head was leaving at midsummer.  If Claire wished she could take her
place, at a salary beginning at a hundred and ten pounds a year.  In
Trust Schools, of which Saint Cuthbert's was one, there was no fixed
scale of advancement, but a successful teacher could reach a salary of,
say, two hundred a year by the time she was thirty-eight or forty, as
against the permanent sixty or seventy offered to mistresses in
residential schools of a higher grade.  Miss Farnborough's mistresses
were women trained at the various universities; the school itself was
situated in a fashionable neighbourhood, and its pupils were for the
most part daughters of professional men, and gentlefolk of moderate
incomes.  There was no pension scheme, and mistresses had to live out,
but with care and economy they could take out some insurance to provide
for old age.

Claire took little interest in her own old age, which seemed too far
away to count, but she was intensely interested in the immediate future,
and had been hurt and annoyed when her mother had waved aside the
proposal as unworthy of serious consideration.  And now, only three
months after Miss Farnborough's departure, the crisis had arisen, and
that hundred and ten pounds assumed a vastly increased value.  Supposing
that the post was accepted, and mother and daughter started life in
London with a capital of between two and three hundred pounds, and a
salary of one hundred and ten, as regular income--how long would the
nest-egg last out?

Judging from the experience of past years, a very short time indeed, and
what would happen after that?  Claire had read gruesome tales of the
struggles of women in like positions, overtaken by illness, losing the
salaries which represented their all, brought face to face with actual
starvation, and in the midst of the midsummer heat, little shivers of
fear trickled up and down her spine as she realised how easily she and
her mother might drift into a like position.

Then, on the other hand, Bombay!  Indian houses were large; mother could
have her own rooms.  In the hot weather they would go together to the
hills, leaving Mr Judge behind.  How long did the hot season last, four
or five months?  Nearly half the year, perhaps.  It would be only half
as bad as marrying a man for money in Europe, for you would get rid of
him all that time!  Claire shrugged her shoulders and laughed, and two
minutes later whisked away a tear, dedicated to the memory of girlish
dreams.  Useless to dream any longer, she was awake now, and must face
life in a sensible manner.  Her duty was to marry Robert Judge, and to
make a home for her mother.

Another girl might have cherished anger against the recklessness which
had landed her in such a trap, but after the first shock of discovery
there had been no resentment in Claire's heart.  She implicitly believed
her mother's assurance that according to her light she had acted for the
best, and echoed with heartiness the assertion that the money had
provided a good time for thirteen long years.

They had not been rich, but there had been a feeling of sufficiency.
They had had comfortable quarters, pretty clothes, delightful holiday
journeys, a reasonable amount of gaiety, and, over and beyond all, the
advantages of an excellent education.  Claire's happy nature remembered
her benefits, and made short work of the rest.  Poor, beautiful mother!
who could expect her to be prudent and careful, like any ordinary,
prosaic, middle-aged woman?

Even as the thought passed through the girl's mind the door of the
bedroom opened, and Mrs Gifford appeared on the threshold.  She wore a
large shady hat, and in the dim light of the room her face was not
clearly visible, but there was a tone in her voice which aroused
Claire's instant curiosity.  Mother was trying to speak in her ordinary
voice, but she was nervous, she was agitated.  She was not feeling
ordinary at all.

"Claire, _cherie_, we are going to the forest to have tea.  It is
impossibly hot indoors, but it will be delightful under the trees.  Mr
Judge has sent for a _fiacre_, and Miss Benson has asked to come too.
Put on your blue muslin and your big hat.  Be quick, darling!  I'll
fasten you up."

"I'd rather not go, thank you, mother.  I'm quite happy here.  Don't
trouble about me!"

Mrs Gifford was obviously discomposed.  She hesitated, frowned, walked
restlessly up and down, then spoke again with an added note of
insistence--

"But I want you to come, Claire.  I've not troubled you before, because
I saw you wanted to be alone, but--it can't go on.  Mr Judge wants you
to come.  He suggested the drive because he thought it would tempt you.
If you refuse to-day, he will ask you again to-morrow.  I think, dear,
you ought to come."

Claire was silent.  She felt sick and faint; all over her body little
pulses seemed to be whizzing like so many alarm clocks, all crying in
insistent voices, "Time's up!  Time's up!  No more lazing.  Up with you,
and do your duty!"  Her forehead felt very damp and her throat felt very
dry, and she heard a sharp disagreeable voice saying curtly--

"Oh, certainly, I will come.  No need to make a fuss.  I can dress
myself, thank you.  I'll come down when I'm ready!"

Mrs Gifford turned without a word and went out of the room, but Claire
was too busy being sorry for herself to have sympathy to spare for
anyone else.  She threw off her wrapper and slipped into the cool muslin
dress which was at once so simple, and so essentially French and up-to-
date, and then, throwing open the door of a cupboard, stared at a long
row of hats ranged on a top shelf, and deliberately selected the one
which she considered the least becoming.

"I will _not_ be decked up for the sacrifice!" she muttered
rebelliously, then bent forward, so that her face approached close to
the flushed, frowning reflection in the glass.  "You are going to be
proposed to, my dear!" she said scornfully.  "You are going to be good
and sensible, and say `Yes, please!'  When you see yourself next, you
will be Engaged!  It won't be dear little Claire Gifford any more, it
will be the horrible future Mrs Robert Judge!"

She stuck hat-pins through the straw hat with savage energy; for once in
her life noticed with distinct satisfaction that it was secured at an
unbecoming angle, then, hearing through the _jalousies_ the sound of
approaching wheels, marched resolutely forth to meet her fate...

In the _fiacre_ Mrs Gifford and Miss Benson took the seats of honour,
leaving Claire and Mr Judge to sit side by side, and the one furtive
glance which she cast in his direction showed him looking confident and
unperturbed.  Just like a French _pretendu_, already assured by Maman
that Mademoiselle was meekly waiting to assent to his suit!

"He might at least pay me the compliment of _pretending_!  It is
dreadfully dull to be taken for granted," reflected Claire in disgust.

The next hour was a horrible experience.  Everything happened exactly as
Claire had known it would, from the moment the quartette set forth.
Arrived at the forest, they took possession of one of the little tables
beneath the trees, and made fitful conversation the while they consumed
delicious cakes and execrable tea.  Then the meal being finished, Mrs
Gifford and her companion announced a wish to sit still and rest, while
Mr Judge nervously invited Miss Claire to accompany him in a walk.  She
assented, of course; what was the use of putting it off? and as soon as
they were well started, he spied another seat, and insisted upon sitting
down once more.

"Now he'll begin," thought Claire desperately.  "He'll talk about India,
and being lonely, and say how happy he has felt since he's been here,"
and even as the thought passed through her mind, Mr Judge began to
speak.

"Awfully jolly old forest this is--awfully nice place Brussels,
altogether.  Nicest place in the world.  Never been so happy in my life
as I've been the last month.  Of course, naturally, you must realise
that, when a fellow hangs on week after week, there--er, there must be
some special attraction.  Not that it isn't a rattling old city, and all
that!"  Mr Judge was growing a little mixed: his voice sounded flurried
and nervous, but Claire was not in the least inclined to help him.  She
sat rigid as a poker, staring stolidly ahead.  There was not the ghost
of a dimple in her soft pink cheeks.

"I--er, your mother tells me that she has said nothing to you, but she
is sure, all the same, that you suspect.  I asked her to let me speak to
you to-day.  Naturally she feels the difficulty.  She is devoted to you.
You know that, of course.  I have told her that I will make your
happiness my special charge.  There is nothing in the world I would not
do to ensure it.  You know that too, don't you, Claire?"

He stretched out his hand and touched her tentatively on the arm, but
Claire drew herself back with a prickly dignity.  If he wanted to
propose at all, he must propose properly; she was not going to commit
herself in response to an insinuation.

"You are very kind.  I am quite happy as I am."

"Er--yes--yes, of course, but--but things don't go on, you know, can't
go on always without a change!"

Mr Judge took off his straw hat, twirled it nervously to and fro, and
laid it down on the bench by his side.  Claire, casting a quick glance,
noticed that his hair was growing noticeably thin on the temples, and
felt an additional sinking of spirits.

"Claire!" cried the man desperately, "don't let us beat about the bush.
I'm not used to this sort of thing--don't make it harder than you need!
You _have_ noticed, haven't you?  You know what I want to tell you?"

Claire nodded dumbly.  In the case of previous Belgian admirers affairs
had been checked before they reached the extreme stage, and she found
this, her first spoken proposal much less exciting than she had
expected.  As a friend pure and simple, she had thoroughly liked Mr
Judge, and at the bottom of her heart there lived a lingering hope that
perhaps if he loved her very much, and expressed his devotion in very
eloquent words, her heart might soften in response.  But so far he had
not even mentioned love!  She was silent for several minutes, and when
she did speak it was to ask a side question.

"Is mother willing to go to India?"

She was looking at the man as she spoke, and the change which passed
over his face, startled her by its intensity.  His eyes shone, the
rugged features were transfigured by a very radiance of joy.  He looked
young at that moment, young and handsome, and blissfully content.
Claire stared at him in amazement, not unmingled with irritation.  Even
if mother _were_ willing, her own consent had still to be obtained.  It
was tactless to make so sure!

Her own face looked decidedly sulky as she twitched round on her seat,
and resumed her stolid staring into space.  Again there was silence,
till a hand stretched out to clasp her arm, and a voice spoke in deep
appealing accents--

"Claire, dear child, you are young; you have never known loneliness or
disappointment.  We have!  Happiness is fifty times more precious, when
it comes to those who have suffered.  You would not be cruel enough to
damp our happiness!  You _can_ do it, you know, if you persist in an
attitude of coldness and disapproval.  I don't say you can destroy it.
Thank God! it goes too deep for anyone to be able to do that.  But you
can rub off the bloom.  Don't do it, Claire!  Be generous.  Be yourself.
Wish us good luck!"

"Wish _who_ good luck?  What, oh, what are you talking about?"  Claire
was gasping now, quivering with a frenzy of excitement.  Robert Judge
stared in return, his face full of an honest bewilderment.

"Of our engagement, of course.  Your mother's engagement to me.  I have
been talking about it all the time!"

Then Claire threw up both her hands, and burst into a wild peal of
laughter.  Peal after peal rang out into the air, she rocked to and fro
on her seat, her eyes disappeared from view, her teeth shone, her little
feet in their dainty French shoes danced upon the ground; she laughed
till the tears poured down her cheeks, and her gloved hands pressed
against her side where a "stitch" was uncomfortably making itself felt.
Stout Belgian couples passing past the end of the avenue, looked on with
indulgent smiles, a little shocked at so much demonstration in public,
but relieved to perceive that _une Anglaise_ could laugh with such
_abandon_.  Monsieur they observed looked not sympathetic.  Monsieur had
an air injured, annoyed, on his dignity.  On his cheeks was a flush, as
of wounded pride.  When at length the paroxysm showed signs of
lessening, he spoke in cold stilted tones.

"You appear to find it ridiculous.  It seems to amuse you very much.  I
may say that to us it is a serious matter!"

"Oh no!  You don't understand--you _don't_ understand!" gasped Claire
feebly.  "I am not laughing at you.  I'm laughing at myself.  Oh, Mr
Judge, you'll never guess, it's too screamingly funny for words.  I
thought all this time, from the very beginning I thought, it was _me_!"

"You thought it was--you thought I wanted--that I was talking of--that I
meant to propose to--"

"Yes!  Yes!  Yes!  Me!  Me!  Me!  Of course I did.  I've been thinking
it for weeks.  Everyone thought so.  They've teased me to death.  You
were attentive to me, you know you were.  You were always giving me
things ..."

"Well, of course!"  Poor Mr Judge defended himself with honest
indignation.  "What else could I do?  I could not give them to _her_!
And I wanted--naturally I wanted, to get you on my side.  You were the
difficulty.  I knew that if she had only herself to consider I could win
her round, but if you ranged yourself against me, it would be a hard
fight.  Naturally I tried to ingratiate myself.  It appears that I have
rather overdone the part, but I can't flatter myself," his eyes twinkled
mischievously, "that I've been too successful!  You don't appear exactly
overcome with disappointment!"

They laughed together, but only for a moment.  Then he was serious
again, appealing to her in earnest tones.

"You won't range yourself against me, Claire?  You won't dissuade her.--
I love her very dearly, and I know I can make her happy.  You won't make
it hard for us?"

"Indeed, I won't!  Why should I?"  Claire cried heartily.  "I'm only too
thankful.  Mother needs someone to look after her, and I'd sooner you
did it than anyone else.  I like you awfully--always did, until I began
to be afraid--I didn't want to marry you myself, but if mother does, I
think it's a splendid thing."

"Thank you, dear, thank you a thousand times.  That's a _great_ relief."
Robert Judge stretched himself with a deep breath of satisfaction.
Then he grew confidential, reviewing the past with true lover-like
enjoyment.

"I fell in love with her that first afternoon at the tennis club.
Thought Bridges introduced her as Miss Gifford, put her down at twenty-
five, and hoped she wouldn't think me a hopeless old fogey.  Never had
such a surprise in my life as when she introduced you.  Thought for a
time I should have to give it up.  Then she asked my advice on one or
two business matters, and I discovered--" He hesitated, flushing
uncomfortably, and Claire finished the sentence.

"That we are coming to the end of our resources?"

Mr Judge nodded.

"And so, of course," he continued simply, "that settled it.  I couldn't
go away and leave her to face a struggle.  I was jolly thankful to feel
that I had met her in time."

"I think you are a dear, good man.  I think mother is very lucky.  Thank
you so much for being my step-papa!" cried Claire, her grey eyes
softening with a charming friendliness as they dwelt on the man's honest
face, and he took her hand in his, and squeezed it with affectionate
ardour.

"Thank you, my dear.  Thank _you_!  I shall be jolly proud of having
such a pretty daughter.  I'm not a rich man, but I am comfortably well-
off, and I'll do my best to give you a good time.  Your mother feels
sure she will enjoy the Indian life.  Most girls think it great fun.
And of course I have lots of friends."

Claire stared at him, a new seriousness dawning in her eyes.  She looked
very pretty and very young, and not a little pathetic into the bargain.
For the first time since the realisation of her mistake the personal
application of the situation burst upon her, and a chill crept through
her veins.  If she herself had married Robert Judge, her mother would
have made her home with them as a matter of course; but it was by no
means a matter of course that she should make her home with her mother.
She stared into the honest face of the man before her--the man who was
not rich, the man who was in love for the first time in his life, and a
smile twisted the corner of her lips.

"Mr Judge, if I ask you a question, will you promise to give me an
absolutely honest answer?"

"Yes, I will."

"Well, then, will you _like_ having a third person living with you all
the time?"

Up to the man's forehead rushed the treacherous blood.  He frowned, he
scowled, he opened his lips to protest; but that flush had answered for
him, and Claire refused to listen.  "No, no--don't!  Of course you
wouldn't.  Who would, in your place?  Poor darlings--I quite understand.
You _are_ middle-aged, you know, though you feel about nineteen, and
mother is prettier and more charming than half the girl brides.  And you
will want to be just as young and foolish as you like, not to be
_obliged_ to be sensible because a grown-up daughter is there all the
time, staring at you with big eyes?  I should be in the way, and I
should _feel_ in the way, and--"

Mr Judge interrupted in an urgent voice:

"Look here, Claire, I don't think you ought to corner me like this.
It's not fair.  I've told you that I am prepared to do everything for
your happiness.  You ought surely to realise that I--"

"And _you_ ought to realise that I--" Claire broke off suddenly, and
held out her hand with a charming smile.  "Oh, but there's plenty of
time--we can arrange all that later on.  Let's go and find mother and
put her out of her misery.  She will be longing to see us come back."

They walked down the avenue together, and, as they went, Claire turned
her head from side to side, taking in the well-known scene with wistful
intensity.  How many times would she see it again?  As she had said,
many discussions would certainly take place as to her future
destination, but she knew in her heart that the result was sure.
Providence had decided or her.  The future was London and work!



CHAPTER THREE.

MRS. GIFFORD IS MARRIED.

Claire lost no time in writing to Miss Farnborough to apply for the post
of French mistress if it were still vacant, and by return of post
received a cordial reply.  Several applications had been received, but
no appointment had been made, and the Head was pleased to confirm her
previous offer of a commencing salary of a hundred and ten pounds, and
would expect Miss Gifford to take up her duties at the beginning of the
autumn term.  She congratulated her on her decision, and felt sure she
would never regret devoting her life to so interesting and valuable a
work, instead of being content to waste it in the pursuit of idle
pleasure.

Poor Claire looked a little dubious as she read those last words.  The
pursuit of pleasure does not as a rule begin to pall at twenty-one; and
the old life looked very sweet and pleasant viewed from the new
standpoint of change.  She put on a bright face, however, and sternly
repressed all signs of depression in discussing the matter with her
mother and Mr Judge.  Her determination evoked the expected opposition,
but slowly and surely the opposition decreased, and her arguments were
listened to with increasing respect.  The lovers were sincerely desirous
of securing the girl's happiness, but middle-aged though they were, they
were deeply in love, and felt a natural desire to begin their married
life without the presence of a third person, however dear that person
might be.

Mr Judge applauded Claire's spirit, and prophesied her rapid success as
a teacher.  Mrs Gifford murmured sweetly, "And if you _don't_ like it,
dear, you can always come out by the next boat.  Try it for a year.  It
will be quite an amusing experience to live the life of a bachelor girl.
And, of course, in a year or two we'll be coming home.  Then you must
spend the whole leave with us.  We'll see, won't we?  We won't make any
plans, but just be guided by circumstances.  If you want somewhere to go
in the holidays, there's my old Aunt Mary in Preston, but you'd be bored
to sobs, darling.  No doubt Miss Farnborough will introduce you to lots
of nice people in London, and you will have all the fifteen other
mistresses to take you about.  I expect you'll be quite gay! ...
Claire, darling, _would_ you have gold tissue under this ninon, or just
a handsome lace?"

For the next few weeks things moved quickly.  In answer to inquiries
about lodgings, Miss Farnborough wrote a second time to say that Miss
Rhodes, the English mistress, had comfortable rooms which she was
sharing with the present French teacher.  She was willing to continue
the arrangement, and, as a stranger in town, Claire would doubtless find
it agreeable as well as economical.  The letter was entirely business-
like and formal, and, as such, a trifle chilling to Claire, for Miss
Farnborough had been so warm in her spoken invitation that Claire had
expected a more cordial welcome.  Could it be that the shadow of
officialdom was already making itself felt?

The next few weeks were given up to trousseau-hunting and farewell
visits, and no girl could have shown a livelier interest in the
selection of pretty things than did this bride of thirty-nine.  Claire
came in for a charming costume to wear at the wedding, and for the rest,
what fitted her mother fitted herself, and as Mrs Gifford said sweetly,
"It would be a sin to waste all my nice things, but they're quite
unsuitable for India.  Just use them out, darling, for a month or two,
and then get what you need," an arrangement which seemed sensible
enough, if one could only be sure of money to supply that need when it
arose!

The day before her marriage Mrs Gifford thrust an envelope into her
daughter's hand, blushing the while with an expression of real distress.

"I'm so sorry, darling, that it's so little.  I've tried to be careful,
but the money has flown.  Going out to India one needs so many clothes,
and there were quite a number of bills.  I'll send more by and by, and
remember always to say if you run short.  I want you to have plenty for
all you need.  With what you have, this will see you nicely through your
first term, and after that you'll be quite rich."

Claire kissed her, and was careful not to look at the cheque until she
was alone.  She had counted on at least a hundred to put in the bank as
a refuge against a rainy day.  Surely at this parting of the ways mother
would wish her to have this security; but when she looked at her cheque,
it was to discover that it was made out for fifty pounds--only half that
sum.  Claire felt sore at that moment, and for the first time a chill of
fear entered into her anticipations.  Fifty pounds seemed a dreadfully
small sum to stand between herself and want.  A hundred might be only
twice its value, but its three figures sounded so much more substantial.
She struggled hard to allow no signs of resentment to be seen, and felt
that virtue was rewarded, when late that evening Mr Judge presented her
with yet another envelope, saying awkwardly--

"That's--er--that's the bridesmaid's present.  Thought you'd like to
choose for yourself.  Something to do, you know, some fine half-holiday,
to go out and look in the shops.  I've no views--don't get jewellery
unless you wish.  Just--er--`blew it' your own way!"

Claire kissed him, and remarked that he was a sweet old dear; and this
time the opening of the envelope brought a surprise of an agreeable
nature, for this cheque also was for fifty pounds, so that the desired
hundred was really in her possession.  No jewellery for her!  Into the
bank the money should go--every penny of it, and her bridesmaid present
should be represented by peace of mind, which, after the financial shock
of the last month, seemed more precious than many rubies.

Mr and Mrs Judge were married at the Embassy, and afterwards at an
English church, the bride looking her most charming self in a costume of
diaphanous chiffon and lace and the most fascinating of French hats, and
the bridegroom his worst in his stiff conventional garments.  They were
a very radiant couple, however, and the _dejeuner_ held after the
ceremony at the "Hotel Britannique" was a cheerful occasion, despite the
parting which lay ahead.

The gathering was quite a large one, for Mr Judge had insisted upon
inviting all the friends who had been kind to his _fiancee_ and her
daughter during their three years' sojourn in the city, while the
_pensionnaires_ at "Villa Beau Sejour" came _en masse_, headed by Madame
herself, in a new black silk costume, her white transformation
elaborately waved and curled for the occasion.

There were speeches, and there were toasts.  There were kindly words of
farewell and cheerful anticipations of future meetings, there were good
wishes for the bride and bridegroom, and more good wishes for the
bridesmaid, and many protestations that it was "her turn next."

Then the bride retired to change her dress.  Claire went with her, and
tried valiantly not to cry as she fastened buttons and hooks, and
realised how long it might be before she next waited on her mother.
Mrs Judge was tearful, too, and the two knew a bitter moment as they
clung together for the real farewell before rejoining the guests.

"I've been careless; I've made a mess of things.  I've not been half as
thoughtful as I should have been," sobbed the bride, "but I _have_ loved
you, Claire, and this will make no difference!  I shall love you just
the same."

Claire flushed and nodded, but could not trust herself to speak.  The
love of a mother in far-off India could never be the same as the love of
the dear companion of every day.  But she was too generous to add to her
mother's distress by refusing to be comforted, and the bride nervously
powdered her eyes, and re-arranged her veil before descending to the
hall, anxious as ever to shelve a painful subject, and turn her face to
the sun.

Five minutes later Mr and Mrs Judge drove away from the door, and the
girl who was left behind turned slowly to re-enter the hotel.  It was
very big, and fine, and spacious, but at that moment it was a type of
desolation in Claire's eyes.  With a sickening wave of loneliness she
realised that she was motherless and alone!



CHAPTER FOUR.

A FELLOW TRAVELLER INTRODUCES HERSELF.

The next afternoon Claire started on her journey to London.  She had
spent the night with friends, and been seen off at the station by quite
a crowd of well-wishers.  Little souvenirs had been showered upon her
all the morning, and everyone had a kindly word, and a hopeful prophecy
of the future.  There were invitations also, and promises to look her up
in her London home, and a perfect shower of violets thrown into the
carriage as the train steamed out of the station, and Claire laughed and
waved her hand, and looked so complacent and beaming that no one looking
on could have guessed the real nature of her journey.  She was not
pretending to be cheerful, she _was_ cheerful, for, the dreaded parting
once over, her optimistic nature had asserted itself, and painted the
life ahead in its old rosy colours.  Mother was happy and secured from
want; she herself was about to enjoy a longed-for taste for
independence; then why grumble? asked Claire sensibly of herself, and
anything less grumbling than her appearance at that moment it would be
hard to imagine.

She was beautifully dressed, in the simplest but most becoming of
travelling costumes, she was agreeably conscious that the onlookers to
her send-off had been unanimously admiring in their regard, and, as she
stood arranging her bags on the rack overhead, she saw her own face in
the strip of mirror and whole-heartedly agreed in their verdict.

"I'm glad I'm pretty!  It's a comfort to be pretty.  I should grow so
tired of being with myself if I were plain!" she reflected complacently
as she settled herself in her corner, and flicked a few grains of dust
from the front of her skirt.

She had taken a through first-class ticket from sheer force of habit,
for Mrs Gifford had always travelled first, and the ways of economy
take some time to acquire.  In the opposite corner of the carriage sat
an elderly woman, obviously English, obviously also of the _grande dame_
species, with aquiline features, white hair dressed pompadour fashion,
and an expression compounded of indifference and quizzical good humour.
The good humour was in the ascendant as she watched the kindly Belgians
crowd round her fellow-passenger, envelop her in their arms, murmur
tearful farewells, and kiss her soundly on either cheek.  The finely
marked eyebrows lifted themselves as if in commiseration for the victim,
and as the door closed on the last farewell she heaved an involuntary
sigh of relief.  It was evident that the scene appealed to her entirely
from the one standpoint; she saw nothing touching about it, nothing
pathetic; she was simply amused, and carelessly scornful of
eccentricities in manner or appearance.

On the seat beside this imposing personage sat a young woman in black,
bearing the hall mark of lady's maid written all over her in capital
letters.  She sat stiffly in her seat, one gloved hand on her knee, the
other clasped tightly round the handle of a crocodile dressing-bag.

Claire felt a passing interest in the pair; reflected that if it were
her lot in life to be a maid, she would choose to live on the Continent,
where an affectionate intimacy takes the place of this frigid
separation, and then, being young and self-engrossed, promptly forgot
all about them, and fell to building castles in the air, in which she
herself lived in every circumstance of affluence and plenty, beloved and
admired of all.  There was naturally a prince in the story, a veritable
Prince Charming, who was all that the most exacting mind could desire,
but the image was vague.  Claire's heart had not yet been touched.  She
was still in ignorance as to what manner of man she desired.

Engaged in these pleasant day-dreams Antwerp was reached before Claire
realised that half the distance was covered.  On the quay the wind blew
chill; on the boat itself it blew chillier still.  Claire became aware
that she was in for a stormy crossing, but was little perturbed by the
fact, since she knew herself to be an unusually good sailor.  She tipped
the stewardess to fill a hot bottle, put on a cosy dressing-jacket, and
lay down in her berth, quite ready for sleep after the fatigue and
excitement of the past week.

In five minutes the ship and all that was in it was lost in dreams, and,
so far as Claire was concerned, it might have been but another five
minutes before the stewardess aroused her to announce the arrival at
Parkeston Pier.  The first glance around proved, however, that the other
passengers had found the time all too long.  The signs of a bad crossing
were written large on the faces of her companions, and there was a trace
of resentment in the manner in which they surveyed her active movements.
An old lady in a bunk immediately opposite her own seemed especially
injured, and did not hesitate to put her feelings into words, "_You_
have had a good enough night!  I believe you slept right through...  Are
you aware that the rest of us have been more ill than we've ever been in
our lives?" she asked in accusing tones.  And Claire laughed her happy,
gurgling little laugh, and said--

"I'm _so_ sorry, but it's all over, isn't it?  And people always say
that they feel better afterwards!"

The old lady grunted.  She certainly looked thoroughly ill and wretched
at the moment, her face drawn and yellow beneath her scanty locks, and
her whole appearance expressive of an extremity of fatigue.  It seemed
to her that it was years since she had left the quay at Antwerp, and
here was this young thing as blooming as though she had spent the night
in her own bed!  She hitched a shawl more closely over her shoulders,
and called aloud in a high imperious tone--

"Mason!  Mason!  You must really rouse yourself and attend to me.  We
shall have to land in a few minutes.  Get up at once and bring me my
things!"

The covering of another bunk stirred feebly, and two feet encased in
black merino stockings descended slowly to the floor.  A moment later a
ghastly figure was tottering across the floor, lifting from a box a
beautifully waved white wig, and dropping it carefully over the head of
the aggrieved old lady of the straggly locks.

It was all that Claire could do to keep from exclaiming aloud, as it
burst upon her astonished senses that this poor, huddled creature was
none other than the _grande dame_ of the railway carriage, the haughtily
indifferent, cynically amused personage who had seemed so supremely
superior to the agitations of the common ruck!  Strange what changes a
few hours' conflict with the forces of Nature could bring about!

Ill as the mistress was, the maid was even worse, and it was pitiful to
see the poor creature's efforts to obey the exigent demands of her
employer.  In the end faintness overcame her, and if Claire had not
rushed to the rescue, she would have fallen on the floor.

"It's no use struggling against it!  You must keep still until the boat
stops.  You'll feel better at once when we land, and you get into the
air."  Claire laid the poor soul in her bunk, and turned back to the old
lady who was momentarily growing younger and more formidable, as she
continued the stages of her toilette.

"Can I help you?" she asked smilingly, and the offer was accepted with
gracious composure.

"Please do.  I should be grateful.  Thank you.  That hook fastens over
here, and the band crosses to this side.  The brooch is in my bag--a
gold band with some diamonds--and the hat-pins, and a clean
handkerchief.  Can you manage? ...  The clasp slides back."

Claire opened the bag and gazed with admiration at a brown _moire_
antique lining, and fittings of tortoiseshell, bearing raised monograms
in gold.  "I shall have one exactly to match, when I marry my duke!" was
the mental reflection, as she selected the articles mentioned and put
the final touches to the good lady's costume.

Later on there was Mason to be dressed; later on still, Claire found
herself carrying the precious dressing-bag in one hand, and supporting
one invalid with the other, while Mason tottered in the wake, unable for
the moment to support any other burden than that of her own body.

Mrs Fanshawe--Claire had discovered the name on a printed card let into
the lining of the bag--had no sympathy to spare for poor Mason.  She
plainly considered it the height of bad manners for a maid to dare to be
sea-sick; but being unused to do anything for herself, gratefully
allowed Claire to lead the way, reply to the queries of custom-house
officials, secure a corner of a first-class compartment of the waiting
train, and bid an attendant bring a cup of tea before the ordinary
breakfast began.

Mason refused any refreshment, but Mrs Fanshawe momentarily regained
her vigour, and was all that was gracious in her acknowledgment of
Claire's help.  The quizzical eyes roved over the girl's face and
figure, and evidently approved what they saw, and Claire, smiling back,
was conscious of an answering attraction.  Thoughtless and domineering
as was her behaviour to her inferior, there was yet something in the old
lady's personality which struck an answering chord in the girl's heart.
She was enough of a physiognomist to divine the presence of humour and
generosity, combined with a persistent cheerfulness of outlook.  The
signs of physical age were unmistakable, but the spirit within was
young, young as her own!

The mutual scrutiny ended in a mutual laugh, which was the last breaking
of the ice.

"My dear," cried Mrs Fanshawe, "you must excuse my bad manners!  You
are so refreshing to look at after all those horrors on the boat that I
can't help staring.  And you've been so kind!  Positively I don't know
how I should have survived without you.  Will you tell me your name?  I
should like to know to whom I am indebted for so much help."

"My name is Claire Gifford."

"Er--yes?"  Plainly Mrs Fanshawe felt the information insufficient.
"Gifford!  I knew some Giffords.  Do you belong to the Worcestershire
branch?"

Claire hitched her shoulders in the true French shrug.

"_Sais pas_!  I have no English relations nearer than second cousins,
and we have lived abroad so much that we are practically strangers.  My
father died when I was a child.  I went to school in Paris, and for the
last few years my mother and I have made our headquarters in Brussels.
She married again, only yesterday, and is going to live in Bombay."

Mrs Fanshawe arched surprised brows.

"And you are staying behind?"

"Yes.  They asked me to go.  Mr Judge is very kind.  He is my--er--
stepfather!"  Claire shrugged again at the strangeness of that word.
"He gave me the warmest of invitations, but I refused.  I preferred to
be left."

Mrs Fanshawe hitched herself into her corner, planted her feet more
firmly on the provisionary footstool, and folded her hands on her knee.
She had the air of a person settling down to the enjoyment of a
favourite amusement, and indeed her curiosity was a quality well-known
to all her acquaintances.

"Why?" she asked boldly, and such was the force of her personality that
Claire never dreamt for a moment of refusing to reply.

"Because I want to be independent."

Mrs Fanshawe rolled her eyes to the hat-rail.

"My dear, nonsense!  You're far too pretty.  Leave that to the poor
creatures who have no chance of finding other people to work for them.
You should change your mind, you know, you really should.  India's quite
an agreeable place to put in a few years.  The English girl is a trifle
overdone, but with your complexion you would be bound to have a success.
Think it over!  Don't be in a hurry to let the chance slip!"

"It _has_ slipped.  They sail from Marseilles a week from to-day, and
besides I don't want to change.  I like the prospect of independence
better even than being admired."

"Though you like that, too?"

"Of course.  Who doesn't?  I'm hoping--with good luck--to be admired in
England instead!"

"Then you mustn't be independent!"  Mrs Fanshawe said, laughing.  "It
was the rage a year or two ago; girls had a craze for joining
Settlements, and running about in the slums, but it's quite out of date.
Hobble skirts killed it.  It's impossible to be utilitarian in a hobble
skirt...  And how do you propose to show your independence, may I ask?"

"I am going to be French mistress in a High School," Claire said
sturdily, and hated herself because she winced before the eloquent
change of expression which passed over her companion's face.

Mrs Fanshawe said, "Oh, really!  How _very_ interesting!" and looked
about as uninterested the while as a human creature could be.  In the
pause which followed it was obvious that she was readjusting the first
impression of a young gentlewoman belonging to her own leisured class,
and preparing herself to cross-question an entirely different person--an
ordinary teacher in a High School!  There was a touch of patronage in
her manner, but it was still quite agreeable Mrs Fanshawe was always
agreeable for choice: she found it the best policy, and her indolent
nature shrank from disagreeables of every kind.  This pretty girl had
made herself quite useful, and a chat with her would enliven a dull hour
in the train.  Curiosity shifted its point, but remained actively in
force.

"Tell me all about it!" she said suavely.  "I know nothing about
teachers.  Shocking, isn't it?  They alarm me too much.  I have a horror
of clever women.  You don't look at all clever.  I mean that as a
compliment--far too pretty and smart, but I suppose you are dreadfully
learned, all the same.  What are you going to teach?"

"French.  I am almost as good as a Frenchwoman, for I've talked little
else for sixteen years.  Mother and I spoke English together, or I
should have forgotten my own language.  It seems, from a scholastic
point of view, that it's a useful blend to possess--perfect French and
an English temperament.  `Mademoiselle' is not always a model of
patience!"

"And you think you will be?  I prophesy differently.  You'll throw the
whole thing up in six months, and fly off to mamma in India.  You
haven't the least idea what you are in for, but you'll find out, you'll
find out!  Where is this precious school?  In town, did you say?  Shall
you live in the house or with friends?"

"I have no friends in London except Miss Farnborough, the head mistress,
but there are fifteen other mistresses besides myself.  That will be
fifteen friends ready-made.  I am going to share lodgings with one of
them, and be a bachelor girl on my own account.  I'm so excited about
it.  After living in countries where a girl can't go to the pillar-box
alone, it will be thrilling to be free to do just as I like.  Please
don't pity me!  I'm going to have great fun."

Mrs Fanshawe hitched herself still further into her corner and smiled a
lazy, quizzical smile.

"Oh, I don't pity you--not one bit!  All young people nowadays think
they are so much wiser than their parents; it's a wholesome lesson to
learn their mistake.  You're a silly, blind, ridiculous little girl, and
if I'd been your mother, I should have insisted upon taking you with me,
whether you liked it or not.  I always wanted a daughter like you--sons
are so dull; but perhaps it's just as well that she never appeared.  She
might have wanted to be independent, too, in which case we should have
quarrelled.--So those fifteen school-mistresses make up your whole
social circle, do they?  I wouldn't mind prophesying that you'll never
want to speak a word to them out of school hours!  I have a friend
living in town, quite a nice woman, with a daughter about your age.
Shall I ask her to send you a card?  It would be somewhere for you to go
on free afternoons, and she entertains a good deal, and has a craze for
the feminist movement, and for girls who work for themselves.  You might
come in for some fun."

Claire's flush of gratification made her look prettier than ever, and
Mrs Fanshawe felt an agreeable glow of self-satisfaction.  Nothing she
liked better than to play the part of Lady Bountiful, especially when
any effort involved was shifted onto the shoulders of another, and in
her careless fashion she was really anxious to do this nice girl a good
turn.  She made a note of Claire's address in a dainty gold-edged
pocket-book, expressed pleasure in the belief that through her friend
she would hear reports of the girl's progress, and presently shut her
eyes, and dozed peacefully for the rest of the ride.

Round London a fine rain was falling, and the terminus looked bleak and
cheerless as the train slowed down the long platform.  Mason, still
haggard, roused herself to step to the platform and look around as if
expecting to see a familiar face, and in the midst of collecting her own
impedimenta Claire was conscious that Mrs Fanshawe was distinctly
ruffled, when the familiar figure failed to appear.  Once more she found
herself coming to the rescue, marshalling the combined baggage to the
screened portion of the platform where the custom-house officials went
through the formalities incidental to the occasion, while the tired
passengers stood shiveringly on guard, looking bleached and grey after
their night's journey.  The bright-haired, bright-faced girl stood out
in pleasant contrast to the rest, trim and smart and dainty as though
such a thing as fatigue did not exist.  Mrs Fanshawe, looking at her,
stopped short in the middle of a mental grumble, and turned it round, so
that it ended in being a thanksgiving instead.

"Most neglectful of Erskine to fail me after promising he would come...
Perhaps, after all, it's just as well he did not."

And at that moment, with the usual contrariety of fate, Erskine
appeared!  He came striding along the platform, a big, loosely-built
man, with a clean-shaven face, glancing to right and left over the
upstanding collar of a tweed coat.  He looked at once plain and
distinguished, and in the quizzical eyes and beetling eyebrows there was
an unmistakable likeness to the _grande dame_ standing by Claire's side.
Just for a moment he paused, as he came in sight of the group of
passengers, and Claire, meeting his glance, knew who he was, even before
he came forward and made his greeting.

"Holla, Mater!  Sorry to be late.  Not my fault this time.  I was ready
all right, but the car did not come round.  Had a good crossing?"

"My dear, appalling!  Don't talk of it.  I was prostrate all night, and
Mason too ill to do anything but moan.  She's been no use."

"Poor beggar!  She looks pretty green.  But-- er--" The plain face
lighted with an expectant smile as he turned towards the girl who stood
by his mother's side, still holding the precious bag.  "You seem to have
met a friend..."

"Oh--er--yes!"  With a gesture of regal graciousness Mrs Fanshawe
turned towards the girl, and held out her gloved hand.  "Thank you _so_
much, Miss Gifford!  You've been quite too kind.  I'm really horribly in
your debt.  I hope you will find everything as you like, and have a very
good time.  Thank you again.  _Good-bye_.  I'm really dropping with
fatigue.  What a relief it will be to get to bed!"  She turned aside,
and laid her hand on her son's arm.  "Erskine, where _is_ the car?"

Mother and son turned away, and made their way down the platform,
leaving Claire with crimson cheeks and fast-beating heart.  The little
scene which had just happened had been all too easy to understand.  The
nice son had wished for an introduction to the nice girl who a moment
before had seemed on such intimate terms with his mother: the mother had
been quite determined that such an introduction should not take place.
Claire knew enough of the world to realise how different would have been
the proceedings if she had announced herself as a member of the "idle
rich," bound for a course of visits to well-known houses in the country.
"May I introduce my son, Miss Gifford?  Miss Gifford has been an angel
of goodness to me, Erskine.  Positively I don't know what I should have
done without her!  Do look after her now, and see her into a taxi.  Such
a mercy to have a man to help!"  That was what would have happened to
the Claire Gifford of a week before, but now for the first time Claire
experienced a taste of the disagreeables attendant on her changed
circumstances, and it was bitter to her mouth.  All very well to remind
herself that work was honourable, that anyone who looked down on her for
choosing to be independent was not worth a moment's thought, the fact
remained that for the first, the very first time in her life she had
been made to feel that there was a barrier between herself and a member
of her own class, and that, however willing Mrs Fanshawe might be to
introduce her to a casual friend, she was unwilling to make her known to
her own son!

Claire stood stiff and poker-like at her post, determined to make no
movement until Mrs Fanshawe and her attendants had taken their
departure.  The storm of indignation and wounded pride which was surging
through her veins distracted her mind from her surroundings; she was
dimly conscious that one after another, her fellow-passengers had taken
their departure, preceded by a porter trundling a truck of luggage;
conscious that where there had been a crowd, there was now a space,
until eventually with a shock of surprise she discovered that she was
standing alone, by her own little pile of boxes.  At that she shook
herself impatiently, beckoned to a porter and was about to walk ahead,
when an uneasy suspicion made itself felt.  The luggage!  Something was
wrong.  The pile looked smaller than it had done ten minutes before.
She made a rapid circuit, and made a horrible discovery.  A box was
missing!  The dress-box containing the skirts of all her best frocks,
spread at full length and carefully padded with tissue paper.  It had
been there ten minutes ago; the custom-house officer had given it a
special rap.  She distinctly remembered noticing a new scratch on the
leather.  Where in the name of everything that was inexplicable could it
have disappeared?  Appealed to for information the porter was not
illuminating.  "If it had been there before, why wasn't it there now?
Was the lady _sure_ she had seen it?  Might have been left behind at
Antwerp or Parkeston.  Better telegraph and see!  If it had been there
before, why wasn't it there now?  Mistakes did happen.  Boxes were much
alike.  P'raps it was left in the van.  If it was there ten minutes
before, why wasn't it--"

Claire stopped him with an imperious hand.

"That's enough!  It _was_ there: I saw it.  I counted the pieces before
the custom-house officer came along.  I noticed it especially.  Someone
must have taken it by mistake."

The porter shook his head darkly.

"On purpose, more like!  Funny people crosses by this route.  Funny
thing that you didn't notice--"

Claire found nothing funny in the reflection.  She was furious with
herself for her carelessness, and still more furious with Mrs Fanshawe
as the cause thereof.  Down the platform she stalked, a picture of vivid
impetuous youth, head thrown back, cheeks aflame, grey eyes sending out
flashes of indignation.  Every porter who came in her way was stopped
and imperiously questioned as to his late load, every porter was in his
turn waved impatiently away.  Claire was growing seriously alarmed.
Suppose the box was lost!  It would be as bad as losing _two_ boxes, for
of what use were bodices minus skirts to match?  Never again would she
be guilty of the folly of packing bits of the same costumes in different
boxes.  How awful--how awful beyond words to arrive in London without a
decent dress to wear!

Whirling suddenly round to pursue yet another porter, Claire became
aware of a figure in a long tweed coat standing on the space beside the
taxi-stand, intently watching her movements.  She recognised him in a
moment as none other than "Erskine" himself, who, having seen his mother
into her car, was presumably bound for another destination.  But why was
he standing there?  Why had he been so long in moving away?  Claire
hastily averted her eyes, but as she cross-questioned porter number
four, she was aware that the tall figure was drawing nearer, and
presently he was standing by her side, taking off his hat, and saying in
the most courteous and deferential of tones--

"Excuse me--I'm afraid something is wrong!  Can I be of any assistance?"

Claire's glance was frigid in its coldness; but it was difficult to
remain frigid in face of the man's obvious sincerity and kindliness.

"Thank you," she said quietly.  "Please don't trouble.  I can manage
quite well.  It's only a trunk..."

"Is it lost?  I say--what a fag!  Do let me help.  I know this station
by heart!  If it is to be found, I am sure I can get it for you."

This time there was a distinct air of appeal in his deep voice.  Claire
divined that the nice man was anxious to atone for his mother's cavalier
behaviour, and her heart softened towards him.  After all, why should
she punish herself by refusing?  Five minutes more or less on the
station platform could make no difference one way or another, for at the
end they would wish each other a polite adieu, and part never to meet
again.  And she _did_ want that box!

She smiled, and sighed, and looked delightfully pretty and appealing, as
she said frankly--

"Thank you, I _should_ be grateful for suggestions.  It's the most
extraordinary and provoking thing--"

They walked slowly down the platform while she explained the situation,
and reiterated the fact that she had seen the box ten minutes before.
Erskine Fanshawe did not dispute the statement as each porter had done
before him; he contented himself with asking if there was any
distinctive feature in the appearance of the box itself.

Claire shook her head.

"The ordinary brown leather, with strappings and C.G. on one side.  Just
like a thousand other boxes, but it had a label, beside the initials.  I
don't see how anyone can have taken it by mistake."  She set her teeth,
and her head took a defiant tilt.  "There's one comfort; if it _is_
stolen, whoever has taken it will not get much for her pains!  There's
nothing in it but skirts.  Skirts won't be much good without the bodices
to match!"

The man looked down at her, his expression comically compounded of
sympathy and humour.  At that moment, despite the irregularity of his
features, he looked wonderfully like his handsome mother.

"Er--just so!  Unfortunately, however, from the opposite point of view,
you find yourself in the same position!  Bodices, I presume, without
skirts--"

Claire groaned, and held up a protesting hand.

"Don't!  I can't bear it.  It's really devastating.  My whole outfit--at
one fell sweep!"

"Isn't it--excuse my suggesting it--rather a mistake to--er--divide
pieces of the same garment, _so_ that if one trunk should be lost, the
loss practically extends to two?"

"No, it isn't.  It's the only sensible thing to do," Claire said
obstinately.  "Skirts must be packed at full length, and a dress-box is
made for that very purpose.  All the same, I shall never do it again.
It's no use being sensible if you have to contend with--_thieves_!"

"I don't think we need leap to that conclusion just yet.  You have only
spoken to two or three porters.  We'd better wait about a few minutes
longer until the other men come back.  Very likely the box was put on a
truck by accident, and if the mistake was discovered before it was put
on the taxi, it would be sent back to see if its owner were waiting
here.  If it doesn't turn up at once, you mustn't be discouraged.  The
odds are ten to one that it's only a mistake, and in that case when the
taxi is unloaded, the box will be sent back to the lost luggage office,
or forwarded to your address.  Was the full address on the box, by the
way?"

Claire nodded assent.

"Oh, yes; I have that poor satisfaction at least.  I was most methodical
and prudent, but I don't know that that's going to be much consolation
if I lose my nice frocks, and am too poor to buy any more."

The last phrase was prompted by a proud determination to sail under no
false colours in the eyes of Mrs Fanshawe's son; but the picture evoked
thereby was sufficiently tragic to bring a cloud over her face.  The
memory of each separate gown rose before her, looking distractingly
dainty and becoming; she saw a vision of herself as she might have been,
and faced a future bounded by eternal blue serge.  All the tragedy of
the thought was in her air, and her companion cried quickly--

"You won't need to buy them!  They'll turn up all right, I am quite sure
of that.  The worst that can happen is a day or two's delay.  After all,
you know, there are thousands of honest folk to a single thief, and even
a thief would probably prefer a small money reward to useless halves of
dresses!  If you hear nothing by to-morrow, you might offer a reward."

"Oh, I will!"  Claire said gratefully.  "Thank you for thinking of it."

No more porters having for the moment appeared in sight, they now
turned, and slowly retraced their steps.  Claire, covertly regarding her
companion, wondered why she felt convinced that he was a soldier;
Erskine Fanshawe in his turn covertly regarded Claire, and wondered why
it was that she seemed different from any girl he had seen before.  Then
tentatively he put a personal question.

"Do you know London well, Miss Gifford?  My mother told me you were--
er--coming to settle--"

"Not at all well, as a whole.  I know the little bit around Regent
Street, and the Park, and the places one sees in a week's visit, but
that's all.  We never stayed long in town when we came to England.  I
shall enjoy exploring on half holidays when I am free from work.  I am a
school-mistress!" said Claire with an air, and gathered from her
companion's face that he knew as much already, and considered it a
subject for commiseration.  He looked at her with sympathetic eyes, and
asked deeply--

"Hate it very much?"

"Not at all.  Quite the contrary.  I adore it.  At least, that's to say,
I haven't begun yet, but I feel sure I _shall_!"  Claire cried ardently;
and at that they both laughed with a delightful sense of understanding
and _camaraderie_.  At that moment Claire felt a distinct pang at the
thought that never again would she have the opportunity of speaking and
laughing with this attractive, eminently companionable man; then her
attention was distracted by the appearance of two more porters, who had
each to be interviewed in his turn.

They had no good news to give, however, so the searchers left the
platform in disgust, and repaired to the office for lost luggage, where
the story of the missing box was recounted to an unsympathetic clerk.
When a man spends his whole life listening to complaints of missing
property, he can hardly be expected to show a vehement distress at the
loss of yet another passenger, but to Claire at this moment there was
something quite brutal in his callous indifference.  The one suggestion
which he had to make was that she could leave her name, and the manner
in which it was given was a death-blow to hope.

At this very moment, however, just as Claire was bending forward to
dictate the desired information she felt a touch on her arm, and looking
in the direction of Mr Fanshawe's outstretched hand, beheld a porter
approaching the office, trundling before him a truck on which reposed in
solitary splendour, a long brown dress-box, and oh, joy of joys! even at
the present distance the white letters C.G. could be plainly
distinguished on the nearer side!  Claire's dignity went to the winds at
that sight, and she dashed forward to meet her property with the joyous
impetuosity of a child.

The explanation was simple to a degree, and precisely agreed with Mr
Fanshawe's surmise as to what had really happened.  During Claire's
trance of forgetfulness, the box had been wheeled away, with a large
consignment of luggage, and the mistake discovered only when the various
items were in process of being packed into a company's omnibus, when,
there being no one at hand to claim it, it had been conveyed--by very
leisurely stages--to the lost luggage office.

All's well that ends well!  Claire gleefully collected her possessions,
feeling a glow of delight in the safety which an hour before she would
have taken as a matter of course, and stood at attention while each
separate item was placed on the roof of the taxi.  The little addresses
of which she had boasted were duly inserted in leather framings on each
box, the delicate writing too small to be deciphered, except near at
hand.  Claire saw her companion's eyes contract in an evident effort to
distinguish the words, and immediately moved her position so as to
frustrate his purpose.  She did not intend Mr Fanshawe to know her
address!  When she was seated in the taxi, however, there came an
awkward moment, for her companion waved the chauffeur to his seat, and
stood by the window looking in at her, with a face which seemed unduly
serious and earnest, considering the extremely slight nature of their
acquaintance.

"Well!  I am thankful the box turned up.  I shall think of you enjoying
your re-united frocks...  Sure you've got everything all right?  Where
shall I tell the man to drive?"

For the fraction of a second Claire's eyes flickered, then she spoke in
decided tones.

"`The Grand Hotel.'"

Mr Fanshawe's eyes flickered too, and turned involuntarily towards the
boxes on the roof.  What exactly were the words on the labels he could
not see, but at least it was certain that they were not "The Grand
Hotel!"  He turned from the inspection to confront a flushed, obstinate
face.

"Do you wish me to give the man that address?"

"I do."

Very deliberately and quietly Mr Fanshawe stepped back a pace, opened
his long coat, and fumbled in an inner pocket for a leather pocket-book;
very quietly and deliberately he drew from one bulging division a
visiting card, and held it towards her.  Claire caught the word
"Captain" and saw that an address was printed in the corner, but she
covered it hastily with her hand, refusing a second glance.  Captain
Fanshawe leant his arm on the window sash and said hesitatingly--

"Will you allow me to give you my card!  As you are a stranger in town
and your people away, there may possibly be--er--occasions, when it
would be convenient to know some man whom you could make of use.  Please
remember me if they do come along!  It would be a privilege to repay
your kindness to my mother...  Send me a wire at any time, and I am at
your service.  I hope you _will_ send.  Good morning!"

"Good-bye!" said Claire.  Red as a rose was she at that moment, but very
dignified and stately, bending towards him in a sweeping bow, as the
taxi rolled away.  The last glimpse of Captain Fanshawe showed him
standing with uplifted hat, the keen eyes staring after her, with not a
glint of humour in their grey depths.  Quite evidently he meant what he
said.  Quite evidently he was as keen to pursue her acquaintance as his
mother had been to drop it.

Claire Gifford sat bolt upright on her seat, the slip of cardboard
clasped within her palms, and as she sat she thought many thoughts.  A
physiognomist would have been interested to trace the progress of those
thoughts on the eloquent young face.  There was surprise written there,
and obvious gratification, and a demure, very feminine content; later on
came pride, and a general stiffening of determination.  The spoiled
child of liberty and the High School-Mistress of the future had fought a
heated battle, and the High School-Mistress had won.

Deliberately turning aside her eyes, so that no word of that printed
address should obtrude itself on her notice, Claire tore the card
sharply across and across, and threw the fragments out of the window.

A moment later she whistled through the tube, and instructed the
chauffeur as to her change of address.

Adieu to the Fanshawes, and all such luxuries of the past.  Heigh-ho for
hard work, and lodgings at fifteen shillings a week!



CHAPTER FIVE.

MISS RHODES, POISONER.

It is a somewhat dreary feeling to arrive even at a friend's house
before seven o'clock in the morning, and be received by sleepy-looking
people who have obviously been torn unwillingly from their beds in
deference to the precepts of hospitality, but it is infinitely worse to
arrive at a lodging-house at the same hour, ring several times at the
bell before a dingy servant can be induced to appear, and to realise a
moment later that in a tireless parlour you perceive your journey's
goal!

Claire Gifford felt a creep of the blood at the sight of that parlour,
though if her first introduction had been at night, when the curtains
were drawn and the lamps lit, she would have found it cosy enough.
There was no sign of her room-mate; perhaps it was too much to expect
her to get up at so early an hour to welcome a stranger, but Claire
_had_ expected it, felt perfectly sure that--had positions been
reversed--she herself would have taken pains to deck both herself and
her room in honour of the occasion, and so felt correspondingly
downcast.

Presently she found herself following the dingy maid up three separate
nights of stairs, and arriving at a tiny box of a bedroom on the top
floor.  There was a bed, a washstand, a chest of drawers doing service
as a dressing-table, two chairs and a sloping roof.  Claire would have
been quite disappointed if that last item had been missing, for whoever
heard of a girl who set out to make her own living who had not slept in
a room with a sloping roof?  On the whole, despite its tiny proportions,
the little room made a pleasant impression.  It was clean, it was
bright, walls and furniture were alike of a plain unrelieved white, and
through the open casement window could be seen a distant slope of green
overtopping the intervening chimney tops.  Claire's eyes roved here and
there with the instinct of a born home-maker, saw what was lacking here,
what was superfluous there, grasped neglected possibilities, and
mentally re-arranged and decorated the premises before a slower person
would have crossed the floor.

Then she took up her stand before the small mirror, and devoted a whole
minute to studying her own reflection from the point of view of Captain
Erskine Fanshawe of unknown address.  By her own deliberate choice she
had cut herself off from future chance of meeting this acquaintance of
an hour; nevertheless it was distinctly reviving to discern that her hat
was set at precisely the right angle, and that for an all-night voyager
her whole appearance was remarkably fresh and dainty.

Claire first smiled, and then sighed, and pulled out the hat-pins with
impatient tugs.  To be prudent and self-denying is not always an
exhilarating process for sweet and twenty.

Presently the maid came staggering upstairs with the smaller boxes, and
Claire busied herself in her room until the clock had struck eight, when
she again descended to the joint sitting-room.  This time the fire was
lighted, and the table laid for breakfast, and behind the tea-tray sat
Miss Rhodes, the English mistress, already halfway through her meal.
She rose, half smiling, half frowning, and held out a thin hand in
welcome.

"Morning.  Hope you've had a good crossing.  Didn't know when you'd be
down.  Do you take coffee?"

"Please!"  Claire felt that a cup of coffee would be just what she
needed, but missed the familiar fragrant scent.  She seated herself at
the table, and while Miss Rhodes went on with her preparation, studied
her with curious eyes.

She saw a woman of thirty-two or three, with well-cut features, dark
eyes, and abundant dark hair--a woman who ought to have been distinctly
good-looking but who succeeded in being plain and commonplace.  She was
badly-dressed, in a utility blouse of grey flannel, her expression was
tired and listless, and her hair, though neat, showed obvious lack of
care, having none of the silky sheen which rewards regular systematic
brushing.  So far bad, but, in spite of all drawbacks, it was an
interesting face, and Claire felt attracted, despite the preliminary
disappointment.

"There's some bacon in that dish.  It will be cold, I'm afraid.  You can
ring, if you like, and ask them to warm it up, but they'll keep you
waiting a quarter of an hour out of spite.  I've given it up myself."

"Oh, I'm accustomed to French breakfasts.  I really want nothing but
some bread and coffee."  Claire sipped at her cup as she finished
speaking, and the sudden grimace of astonishment which followed roused
her companion to laughter.

"You don't like it?  It isn't equal to your French coffee."

"It isn't coffee at all.  It's undrinkable!"  Claire pushed away her cup
in disgust.  "Is it always as bad as that?"

"Worse!" said Miss Rhodes composedly.  "They put in more this morning
because of you.  Sometimes it's barely coloured, and it's always
chicory."  She shrugged resignedly.  "No English landlady can make
coffee.  It's no use worrying.  Have to make the best of what comes."

"Indeed I shan't.  Why should I?  I shan't try.  There's no virtue in
drinking such stuff.  We provide the coffee--what's to hinder us making
it for ourselves?"

"No fire, as a rule.  Can't afford one when you are going out
immediately after breakfast."

Claire stared in dismay.  It had never occurred to her that she might
have to be economical to this extent.

"But when it's very cold?  What do you do then?"

"Put on a jersey, and nurse the hot-water jug!"

Claire grimaced, then nodded with an air of determination.

"I'll buy a machine!  There can be no objection to that.  You would
prefer good coffee, wouldn't you, if you could get it without any more
trouble?"

"Oh, certainly.  I'll enjoy it--while it lasts!"

"Why shouldn't it last?"

Miss Rhodes stared across at the eager young face.  She looked tired,
and a trifle impatient.

"Oh, my dear girl, you're _New_.  We are all the same at first--bubbling
over with energy, and determined to arrange everything exactly as we
like.  It's a phase which we all live through.  Afterwards you don't
care.  You are too tired to worry.  All your energy goes on your day's
work, and you are too thankful for peace and quietness to bother about
details.  You take what comes, and are thankful it's not worse."

Claire's smile showed an elaborate forbearance.

"Rather a poor-spirited attitude, don't you think?"

"Wait and see!" said the English mistress.

She rose and threw herself in a chair by the window, and Claire left the
despised coffee and followed her example.  Through the half-opened panes
she looked out on a row of brick houses depressingly dingy, depressingly
alike.  About every second house showed a small black card on which the
word "Apartments" was printed in gilt letters.  Down the middle of the
street came a fruiterer's cart, piled high with wicker baskets.  The cry
of "Bananas, cheap bananas," floated raucously on the air.  Claire
swiftly averted her eyes and turned back to her companion.

"It is very good of you to let me share your _appartement_.  Miss
Farnborough said she had arranged it with you, but it must be horrid
taking in a stranger.  I will try not to be too great a bore!"

But Miss Rhodes refused to be thanked.

"I'm bound to have somebody," said she ungraciously.  "Couldn't afford
them alone.  You know the terms?  Thirty-five shillings a week for the
three rooms.  That's cheap in this neighbourhood.  We only get them at
that price because we are out all day, and need so little catering."
She looked round the room with her tired, mocking smile.  "Hope you
admire the scheme of decoration!  I've been in dozens of lodgings, but I
don't think I've ever struck an uglier room; but the people are clean
and honest, and one has to put that before beauty, in our
circumstances."

"There's a great _deal_ of pattern about.  It hasn't what one could call
a restful effect!" said Claire, looking across at an ochre wall
bespattered with golden scrawls, a red satin mantel-border painted with
lustre roses, a suite of furniture covered in green stamped plush, a
collection of inartistic pictures, and unornamental ornaments.  Even her
spirit quailed before the hopelessness of beautifying a room in which
all the essentials were so hopelessly wrong.  She gave it up in despair,
and returned to the question of finance.

"Then my share will be seventeen and six!  That seems very cheap.  I am
to begin at a hundred and ten pounds.  How much extra must I allow for
food?"

"That depends upon your requirements.  We have dinner at school; quite a
good meal for ninepence, including a penny for coffee afterwards."

"The same sort of coffee we have had this morning?"

"Practically.  A trifle better perhaps.  Not much."

"Hurrah!" cried Claire gaily.  "That's a penny to the good!  Eightpence
for me--a clear saving of fivepence a week!"

Miss Rhodes resolutely refused to smile.  She had the air of thinking it
ribald to be cheerful on the serious question of pounds, shillings and
pence.

"Even so, it's three-and-four, and you can't do breakfast and supper and
full board on Saturday and Sunday under seven shillings.  It's tight
enough to manage on that.  Altogether it often mounts up to twelve."

"Seventeen and twelve."  Claire pondered deeply before she arrived at a
solution.  "Twenty-nine.  Call it thirty, to make it even, and I am to
begin at a hundred and ten.  Over two pounds a week.  I ought to do it
comfortably, and have quite a lot over."

Miss Rhodes laughed darkly.

"What about extras?" she demanded.  "What about laundry, and fires, and
stationery and stamps?  What about boot-mending, and Tubes on wet days,
and soap and candles, and dentist and medicines, and subs, at school,
and collections in church, and travelling expenses on Saturdays and
Sundays, when you invariably want to go to the very other side of the
city?  London is not like a provincial town.  You can't stir out of the
house under fourpence or sixpence at the very least.  What about
illness, and amusement, and holidays?  What about--"

Claire thrust her fingers in her ears with an air of desperation.

"Stop!  Stop!  For pity's sake don't swamp me any more.  I feel in the
bankruptcy court already, and I had imagined that I was rich!  A hundred
and ten pounds seemed quite a big salary.  Everybody was surprised at my
getting so much, and I suppose you have even more?"

"A hundred and fifty.  Yes!  You must remember that we don't belong to
the ordinary rut of worker--we are experts.  Our education has been a
long costly business.  No untrained worker could take our place; we are
entitled to expert's pay.  Oh, yes, they are quite good salaries if you
happen to have a home behind you, and people who are ready to help over
rough times, instead of needing to be helped themselves.  The pity of it
is that most High School-mistresses come from families who are _not_
rich.  The parents have made a big effort to pay for the girls'
education, and when they are fairly launched, they expect to be helped
in return.  Some girls have been educated by relations, or have
practically paid for themselves by scholarships.  Three out of four of
us have people who are more in need of help than able to give it.  I
give my own mother thirty pounds a year, so we are practically on the
same salary.  Have _you_ a home where you can spend your holiday?
Holidays run away terribly with your money.  They come to nearly four
months in the year."

For the first time those prolonged holidays appeared to Claire as a
privilege which had its reverse side.  Friends in Brussels might
possibly house her for two or three weeks; she could not expect, she
would not wish them to do more; and at the end there would still remain
over three months!  It was a new and disagreeable experience to look
forward to holidays with _dread_!  For a whole two minutes she looked
thoroughly depressed, then her invincible optimism came to the top, and
she cried triumphantly--

"I'll take a holiday engagement!"

The English mistress shook her head.

"That's fatal!  I tried it myself one summer.  Went with a family to the
seaside, and was expected to play games with the children all day long,
and coach them in the evening.  I began the term tired out, and nearly
collapsed before the end.  Teaching is nerve-racking work, and if you
don't get a good spell off, it's as bad for the pupils as yourself.  You
snap their heads off for the smallest trifle.  Besides, it's folly to
wear oneself out any sooner than one need.  It's bad enough to think of
the time when one has to retire.  That's the nightmare which haunts us
more and more every year."

"Don't you think when the time comes you will be _glad_ to rest?" asked
innocent Claire, whereupon Miss Rhodes glared at her with indignant
eyes.

"We should be glad to rest, no doubt, but we don't exactly appreciate
the prospect of resting in the workhouse, and it's difficult to see
where else some of us are to go!  There is no pension for High School-
mistresses, and we are bound to retire at fifty-five--if we can manage
to stick it out so long.  Fifty-five seems a long way off to you--not
quite so long to me; when you reach forty it becomes to feel quite near.
Women are horribly long-lived, so the probability is that we'll live on
to eighty or more.  Twenty-five years after leaving off work,
and--_where is the money to come from to keep us_?  That's the question
which haunts us all when we look into our bank-books and find that, with
all our pains, we have only been able to save at the utmost two or three
hundred pounds."

Claire looked scared, but she recovered her composure with a swiftness
which her companion had no difficulty in understanding.  She pounced
upon her with lightning swiftness.

"Ah, you think you'll get married, and escape that way!  We all do when
we're new, and pretty, and ignorant of the life.  But it's fifty to one,
my dear, that you _won't_?  You won't meet many men, for one thing; and
if you do, they don't like school-mistresses."

"Doesn't that depend a good deal on the kind of school-mistress?"

"Absolutely; but after a few years we are all more or less alike.  We
don't _begin_ by being dowdy and angular, and dogmatic and prudish; we
begin by being pretty and cheerful like you.  I used to change my blouse
every evening, and put on silk stockings."

"Don't you now?"

"I do _not_!  Why should I, to sit over a lodging-house table correcting
exercises till ten o'clock?  It's not worth the trouble.  Besides, I'm
too tired, and it wears out another blouse."

Claire's attention was diverted from clothes by the shock of the
reference to evening work.  She had looked forward to coming home to
read an interesting book, or be lazy in whatever fashion appealed to her
most, and the corrections of exercises seemed of all things the most
dull.

"Shall I have evening work, too?" she inquired blankly, and Miss Rhodes
laughed with brutal enjoyment.

"Rather!  French compositions on the attributes of a true woman, or,
`How did you spend your summer holiday?' with all the tenses wrong, and
the idioms translated word for word.  And every essay a practical
repetition of the one before.  It's not once in a blue moon that one
comes across a girl with any originality of thought.  Oh, yes! that's
the way we shall spend five evenings a week.  You will sit at that side
of the table, I will sit at this, and we'll correct and yawn, and yawn
and correct, and drink a cup of cocoa and go to bed at ten.  Lively,
isn't it?"

"Awful!  I never thought of homework.  But if Saturday is a whole
holiday there will still be one night off.  I shall make a point of
doing something exciting every Saturday evening."

"Exciting things cost money, and, as a rule, when you have paid up the
various extras, there's no money to spare.  I stay in bed till ten
o'clock on Saturday, and then get up and wash blouses, and do my
mending, and have a nap after lunch, and if it's summer, go and sit on a
penny chair in the park, or take a walk over Hampstead Heath.  In the
evening I read a novel and have a hot bath.  Once in a blue moon I have
an extravagant bout, and lunch in a restaurant, and go to an
entertainment--but I'm sorry afterwards when I count the cost.  On
Sunday I go to church, and wish some one would ask me to tea.  They
don't, you know.  They may do once or twice, when you first come up, but
you can never ask them back, and your clothes get shabby, and you know
nothing about their interests, so they think you a bore, and quietly let
you drop."

A smothered exclamation burst from Claire's lips; with a sudden,
swirling movement she leapt up, and fell on her knees before Miss
Rhodes's chair, her hands clasping its arms, her flushed face upturned
with a desperate eagerness.

"Miss Rhodes! we are going to live together here, we are going to share
the same room, and the same meals.  Would you--if any one offered you a
million pounds, would you agree to poison me slowly, day by day,
dropping little drops of poison into everything I ate and everything I
drank, while you sat by and watched me grow weaker and weaker till I
_died_?"

"Good heavens, girl--are you mad!  What in the world are you raving
about?"

Miss Rhodes had grown quite red.  She was indignant; she was also more
than a little scared.  The girl's sudden change of mood was startling in
itself, and she looked so tense, so overwhelmingly in earnest.  What
could she mean?  Was it possible that she was a little--_touched_?

"I suppose you don't realise it, but it's insulting even to put such a
question."

"But you _are_ doing it!  It's just exactly what you are beginning
already.  Ever since I arrived you've been poisoning me drop by drop.
Poisoning my _mind_!  I am at the beginning of my work, and you've been
discouraging me, frightening me, painting it all black.  Every word that
you've said has been a drop of poison to kill hope and courage and
confidence--and oh, don't do it! don't go on!  I may be young and
foolish, and full of ridiculous ideas, but let me keep them as long as I
can!  If all that you say is true, they will be knocked out of me soon
enough, and I--I've never had to work before, or been alone, and--and
it's only two days since my mother left me to go to India--all that long
way--and left me behind!  It's hard enough to go on being alone, and
believing it's all going to be _couleur de rose_, but it will be fifty
times harder if I don't.  Please--please don't make it any worse!"

With the last words tears came with a rush, the tears that had been
resolutely restrained throughout the strain of the last week.  Claire
dropped her head on the nearest resting-place she could find, which
happened to be Miss Rhodes's blue serge lap, and felt the quick pressure
of a hand over the glossy coils.

"Poor little girl!" said the English mistress softly.  "Poor little
girl!  I'm sorry!  I'm a beast!  Take no notice of me.  I'm a sour,
disagreeable old thing.  It was more than half jealousy, dear, because
you looked so pretty and spry, so like what I used to look myself.  The
life's all right, if you keep well, and don't worry too much ahead.
There, don't cry!  I loathe tears!  You will yourself, when you have to
deal with silly, hysterical girls.  Come, I'll promise I won't poison
you any more--at least, I'll do my best; but I've a grumbling nature,
and you'd better realise it, once for all, and take no notice.  We'll
get on all right.  I like you.  I'm glad you came.  My good girl, if you
don't stop, I'll shake you till you do!"

Claire sat back on her heels, mopped her eyes, and gave a strangled
laugh.

"I hate crying myself, but I'll begin again on the faintest provocation.
It's always like that with me.  I hardly ever cry, but when I once
begin--"

Miss Rhodes rose with an air of determination.

"We'd better go out.  I am free till lunch-time.  I'll take you round
and show you the neighbourhood, and the usual places of call.  It will
save time another day.  Anything you want to buy?"

Claire mopped away another tear.

"C-certainly," she said feebly.  "A c-offee machine."



CHAPTER SIX.

THE INVITATION.

The next morning Claire was introduced to the scene of her new labours,
and was agreeably impressed with its outside appearance.  Saint
Cuthbert's High School was situated in a handsome thoroughfare, and had
originally been a large private house, to which long wings had been
added to right and left.  On each side and across the road were handsome
private houses standing in their own grounds, owned by tenants who
regarded the High School with lively detestation, and would have borne
up with equanimity had an earthquake swallowed it root and branch.

Viewed from inside, the building was less attractive, passages and
class-rooms alike having the air of bleak austerity which seems
inseparable from such buildings; but when nine o'clock struck, and the
flood of young life went trooping up the stairways and flowed into the
separate rooms, the sense of bareness was replaced by one of tingling
vitality.

As is usual on an opening day, every girl was at her best and brightest,
decked in a new blouse, with pigtails fastened by crisp new ribbons, and
good resolutions wound up to fever point.  To find a new French mistress
in the shape of a pretty well-dressed girl, who was English at one
moment, and at the next even Frenchier than Mademoiselle, was an
unexpected joy, and Claire found the battery of admiring young eyes an
embarrassing if stimulating experience.

Following Miss Farnborough's advice, she spent the first day's lessons
in questioning the different classes as to their past work, and so
turned the hour into an impromptu conversation class.  The ugly English
accents made her wince, and she winced a second time as she realised the
unpleasant fact that just as her pupils would have to prepare for her,
so would she be obliged to prepare for them!  Forgotten rules of grammar
must be looked up and memorised, for French was so much her mother
tongue that she would find it difficult to explain distinctions which
came as a matter of course.  That meant more work at night, more
infringement of holiday hours.

The girls themselves were for the most part agreeable and well-mannered.
The majority were the daughters of professional men, and of gentle-
folks of limited means; but there was also a sprinkling of the daughters
of better-class artisans, who paid High School fees at a cost of much
self-denial in order to train their girls for teachers' posts in the
future.  Here and there an awkward, badly-dressed child was plainly of a
still lower class.  These were the free "places"--clever children who
had obtained scholarships from primary schools, and were undergoing the
ordeal of being snubbed by their new school-mates as a consequence of
their success.

From the teacher's point of view these clever children were a welcome
stimulus, but class feeling is still too strong in England to make them
acceptable to their companions.

At lunch-time the fifteen mistresses assembled in the Staff-Room, a dull
apartment far too small for the purpose, a common fault in High Schools,
where the different governing bodies are apt to spare no expense in
providing for the comfort of the scholar, but grudge the slightest
expenditure for the benefit of those who teach.

Fifteen mistresses sat round the table eating roast lamb and boiled
cabbage, followed by rhubarb pie and rice pudding, and Claire, looking
from one to the other, acknowledged the truth of Miss Rhodes's assertion
that they were all of a type.  She herself was the only one of the
number who had any pretensions to roundness of outline, all the rest
were thin to angularity, half the number wore pince-nez or spectacles,
and all had the same strained pucker round the eyes.  Each one wore a
blue serge skirt and a white blouse, and carried herself with an air of
dogmatic assurance, as who should say: "I know better than any one else,
and when I speak let no dog bark!"  The German mistress was the veteran
of the party and was probably a good forty-five.  Miss Bryce, the
Froebel mistress, paired with Claire herself for the place of junior.
Miss Blake, the Gym. mistress, was a graceful girl with an air of
delicacy which did not seem in accord with her profession.  Miss Rose,
the Art mistress, was plain with a squat, awkward figure.

Rising from the table, Claire caught a glimpse of her own reflection in
the strip of mirror over the chimney-piece, and at the sight a little
thrill, half-painful, half-pleasant, passed through her veins.  The soft
bloom of her complexion, the dainty finish of her dress, differentiated
her almost painfully from her companions, and she felt a pang of dread
lest that difference should ever grow less.  While she affected to read
one of the magazines which lay on a side table, she was really occupied
making a number of vehement resolutions: Never to slack in her care of
her personal appearance; never to give up brushing her hair at night;
never to wear a flannel blouse; never to give up manicuring her hands;
never, no, never to allow herself to grow short-sighted, and be obliged
to submit to specs!

The different mistresses seemed to be on friendly terms, but there was
an absence of the camaraderie which comes from living under the same
roof.  School was a common possession, but home hours were spent apart,
except when, as in Claire's own case, two mistresses shared the same
rooms, and it followed as a matter of course that personal interests
were divided.  To-day the conversation was less scholastic than usual,
the intervening holidays forming a topic of interest.  The Art mistress
had been on a bicycle sketching tour with a friend; the German mistress
had taken a cheap trip home; Miss Blake announced that all her money had
gone on "hateful massage," and the faces of her listeners sobered as
they listened, for Sophy Blake, who led the exercises with such verve
and go, had of late complained of rheumatic pains, and her companions
heard of her symptoms with dread.  What would become of Sophy if those
pains increased?  One after another the mistresses drifted over to where
Claire sat turning the pages of her magazine, and exchanged a few
fragments of conversation, and then the great bell clanged again, and
afternoon school began.

The first half-hour of afternoon school proved the most trying of the
day.  Claire was tired after the exertions of the morning, and a very
passion for sleep consumed her being.  She fought against it with all
her might, but the yawns would come; she fought against the yawns, and
the tears flowed.  To her horror the infection spread, and the girls
began to yawn in their turn, with long, uncontrolled gapes.  It was a
junior class, and the new mistress shrewdly suspected that the infection
was welcomed as an agreeable interlude.  It was obvious that she could
not afford to reject that cup of coffee.  Good or bad it must be drunk!
Rich or poor that penny must be dedicated to the task of vitalising that
first hour of sleepiness.

At the end of six weeks Claire felt as though she had been a High
School-mistress all her life.  The regular methodical days, in which
every hour was mapped out, had a deadening effect on one who had been
used to constant variety, and except for a difference in the arrangement
of classes there seemed no distinction between one and the other.  She
was a machine wound up to work steadily from Monday morning until Friday
night, and absurdly ready to run down when the time was over.

Every morning after breakfast she started forth with Miss Rhodes, by
foot if the weather were fine, by Tube if wet; every mid-day she dined
in the Staff-Room with the fifteen other mistresses, and gulped down a
cup of chicory coffee.  At four o'clock the mistresses met once more for
tea, a free meal this time, supplemented by an occasional cake which one
of the fifteen provided for the general good.  At five she and her table
companion returned to their rooms, and rested an hour before taking the
evening meal.

Claire was sufficiently French to be intolerant of badly cooked food,
and instead of resigning herself to eat and grumble, after the usual
habit of lodging-house dwellers, resolutely set to work to improve the
situation.  The coffee machine had now a chafing-dish as companion, and
it was a delightful change of work to set the two machines to work to
provide a dainty meal.

"High Tea" consisted as a rule of coffee and some light dish, the
materials for which were purchased on the way home.  On hungry days,
when work had been unusually trying, the butcher supplied cutlets, which
were grilled with tomatoes, or an occasional quarter of a pound of
mushrooms: on economical days the humble kipper--legendary food of all
spinsters in lodgings!--was transformed into quite a smart and
restaurant-ey dish, separated from its bones, pounded with butter and
flavouring, and served in neat little mounds on the top of hot buttered
toast.  Moreover, Claire was a proficient in the making of omelettes,
and it was astonishing how large and tempting a dish could be compounded
of two eggs, and the minutest scrap of ham left over from the morning's
breakfast!

"Every luxury of the season, with the smell thrown in!  In _nice_
cooking the smell is almost the best part.  All the cedars in Lebanon
wouldn't smell as good at this moment as this nice ham-ey coffee-y
frizzle," Claire declared one Friday evening as she served the meal on
red-hot plates, and glowed with delight at her own sleight of hand.
"Don't you admire eggs for looking so small, when they possess such
powers of expansion?  All the result of beating.  Might make a simile
out of that, mightn't you?"

"Might, but won't," the English teacher replied, sipping luxuriously at
her coffee.  "I'm not a teacher any more at this moment.  I'm a
gourmand, pure and simple, and I'll stay a gourmand straight on till
this omelette is finished.  When all trades fail, you might go out as a
missioner to women living in diggings, and teach them how to prepare
their meals, and sell chafing-dishes by instalment payments at the door,
as the touts sell sewing machines to the maids.  It would be a noble
vocation!"

Claire smirked complacently.  "I flatter myself I _have_ made a
difference to your material comfort!  Poor we may be, but we do have
nice, dainty little meals, and there's no reason why every able-bodied
woman shouldn't have them at the same cost.  I've just remembered
another nice dish.  We'll have it to-morrow night."  She paused, and a
wistful look came into her eyes, for the next day was Saturday, and it
was on holiday afternoons that the feeling of loneliness grew most
acute.  School life was monotonous, but it was never lonely; from
morning to night one lived in a crowd, and already each class had
furnished youthful adorers eager to sit at the feet of the pretty new
mistress, and bring her offerings of chocolates and flowers; for five
long days there was always a crowd, always a hum and babble of voices,
but at the end of the week came a dead calm.

On the first Saturday of the term Miss Farnborough had invited the new
French mistress to tea, and had been all that was friendly and
encouraging; but since that time no word had passed between them that
was not strictly concerned with the work in hand, and Claire realised
that as one out of sixteen mistresses she could not hope for frequent
invitations.

On one Sunday the Gym. mistress had offered her company for a walk, and
there the list of hospitalities ceased.  No invitations came from that
friend of Mrs Fanshawe's who was so fond of girls who were working for
themselves.  Claire had hardly expected it, but she was disappointed all
the same.  A longing was growing within her to sit again in a pretty,
daintily-appointed room, and talk about something else than time-tables,
and irregular verbs, and the Association of Assistant Mistresses which,
amalgamated with the Association of Assistant Masters and the Teachers'
Guild, were labouring to obtain a settled scale of salaries, and that
great safeguard, desired above all others, a pension on retirement!

On this particular Friday evening the longing was so strong that she had
deliberately gone out of her way to try to gain an invitation by walking
home with a certain Flora Ross in the sixth form, who was the most
ardent of her admirers.  Flora lived in a cheerful-looking house about a
quarter of a mile from the school, and every morning hung over the gate
waiting for the chance occasions when her beloved Miss Gifford
approached alone, and she could have the felicity of accompanying her
for the rest of the way.  On these occasions she invariably turned to
wave her hand to a plump, smiling mother who stood at a bay window
waving in return.  An upper window was barred with brass rods, against
which two little flaxen heads bobbed up and down.  Both the house and
its inmates had a cheerful wholesome air, which made a strong appeal to
the heart of the lonely girl, and this Friday afternoon, meeting Flora
waiting in the corridor, she had accepted her companionship on the way
home with a lurking hope that when the green gate was reached, she would
be invited to come inside.

Alas! no such thought seemed to enter Flora's brain.  She gazed
adoringly into Claire's face and hung breathlessly on her words, but for
all her adoration there was a gulf between.  Claire was the sweetest and
duckiest of mistresses, but she _was_ a mistress, a being shut off from
the ordinary interests of life.  When Flora said, "Isn't it jolly, we
are going to have a musical party to-morrow!  We have such lovely
parties, and mother always lets me sit up!" she might have been speaking
to a creature without ears, for all the consciousness she exhibited that
Claire might possibly wish to take part in the fray.  When the green
gate was reached, the plump mamma was seen standing outside the drawing-
room window and recognising the identity of her daughter's companion,
she bent her head in a courteous bow, but she made no attempt to
approach the gate.

"See you on Monday!" cried Flora fondly, then the gate clicked, and
Claire walked along the road with her head held high, and two red spots
burning on either cheek.  That evening for the first time she felt a
disinclination to change into the pretty summer frock which she had
chosen as a compromise for evening dress; that evening for the first
time the inner voice whispered to her as it had done to so many before
her: "What's the good?  Nobody sees you!  Nobody cares."

Miss Rhodes finished her share of the omelette, turned on to bread and
jam, and cast a glance of inquiry at her companion, who had relapsed
into unusual silence.

"Anything wrong?"

"Yes, I think so.  Usual symptoms, I suppose.  I want to wear all my
best clothes and go out to do something gay and exciting, Cecil!"  The
English teacher's name being Rhodes, it was obvious that she should be
addressed as Cecil, especially as her parents had been misguided enough
to give her the unsuitably gentle name of Mary.  "Cecil, do none of the
parents _ever_ ask us out?"

"Why should they?"

"Why shouldn't they?  If we are good enough to teach their children, we
are good enough for them.  If they are interested in their children's
welfare, they ought to make a point of knowing us to see what kind of
influence we use."

"Quite so."

"Well?"

"Well, my dear, there's only one thing to be said--they _don't_!  As I
told you before, there's a prejudice against mistresses.  They give us
credit for being clever, and cultivated, and hard-working; but they
never grasp the fact that we are human girls, who would very much enjoy
being frivolous for a change.  I _have_ been asked out to tea at rare
intervals, and the mothers have apologised for the ordinary
conversation, and laboriously switched it on to books.  I didn't want to
talk books.  I wanted to discuss hats and dresses, and fashionable
intelligence, and sing comic songs, and play puss-in-the-corner, and be
generally giddy and riotous; but my presence cast a wet blanket over the
whole party, and we discussed Science and Art.  Now I'm old and
resigned, but it's hard on the new hands.  I think it was rather brutal
of your mother to let you come to London without taking the trouble of
getting _some_ introductions.  Don't mind me saying so, do you?"

Claire smiled feebly.

"You have said it, anyhow!  I know it must seem unkind to anyone who
does not know mother.  She's really the kindest person in the world, but
she's very easy-going, and apt to believe that everything will happen
just as she wishes.  She felt quite sure that Miss Farnborough and the
staff would supply me with a whirl of gaiety.  There _was_ one lady, who
said she would write to a friend--"

Cecil groaned deeply.

"I know that friend.  She comes from Sheffield.  A dear kind friend who
would love to have you out on holidays.  A friend who takes a special
interest in school-mistresses.  A friend who gives such nice inter-est-
ing parties, and would certainly send you a card if she knew your
address.  Was that it, my dear--was that the kind of friend?"

Cecil chuckled with triumph at the sight of Claire's lengthening jaw.
In truth there seemed something uncanny in so accurate a reproduction of
Mrs Fanshawe's description.  Was there, indeed, no such person?  Did
she exist purely as a dummy figure, to be dangled before the eyes of
credulous beginners?  Claire sighed, and buried her last lingering hope;
and at that very moment the postman's rap sounded at the door, and a
square white envelope was handed in, addressed in feminine handwriting
to Miss Claire Gifford.

Claire tore it open, pulled forth a white card, gasped and flushed, and
tossed it across the table with a whoop of triumph.

"Raven, look at that!  What do you think now of your melancholy croaks?"

Cecil picked up the card, inscribed with the orthodox printed lines,
beneath which a few words had been written.

  Mrs Willoughby,
  At Home
  May 26th, 9 p.m.
  Music.

"Have just received your address from Mrs Fanshawe.  Shall hope to see
you to-morrow.--E.B.W."

Cecil screwed up her face in disparagement.

"Nine o'clock.  Mayfair.  That means a taxi both ways.  Can't arrive at
a house like that in a mackintosh, with your shoes in a bag.  Much wiser
to refuse.  It will only unsettle you, and make you unfit for work.
She's done the polite thing for once, because she was asked, but she'll
never do it again.  I've been through it myself, and I know the ropes.
A woman like that has hundreds of friends; why should she bother about
you?  You'll never be asked again."

But at that Claire laughed, and beat her hand on the table.

"But I say I shall!  I say I'll be asked _often_!  I don't care if
you've had a hundred experiences, mine shall be different.  She has
asked me once; now, as the Yankees say, `it's up to me' to do the rest.
I'll make up my mind to make her _want_ to ask me!"



CHAPTER SEVEN.

TRANSFORMATION OF CECIL.

In the days to come when Claire looked back and reviewed the course of
events which followed, she realised that Mrs Willoughby's invitation
had been a starting-point from which to date happenings to others as
well as herself.  It was, for instance, on the morning after its arrival
that Cecil's chronic discontent reached an acute stage.  She appeared at
breakfast with a clouded face, grumbled incessantly throughout the meal,
and snapped at everything Claire said, until the latter was provoked
into snapping in return.  In the old days of idleness Claire had been
noted for the sunny sweetness of her disposition, but she was already
discovering that teaching lays a severe strain on the nerves, and at the
end of a week's work endurance seemed at its lowest ebb.  So, when her
soft answers met rebuff after rebuff, she began to grumble in her turn,
and to give back as good as she got.

"Really, Cecil, I am exceedingly sorry that your form is so stupid, and
your work so hard, but I am neither a pupil nor a chief, so I fail to
see where my responsibility comes in.  Wouldn't it be better if you
interviewed Miss Farnborough instead of me?"

It was the first time that Claire had answered sharply, and for the
moment surprise held Cecil dumb.  Then the colour flamed into her
cheeks, and her eyes sparkled with anger.  Though forbearance had failed
to soothe her, opposition evidently added fuel to the fire.

"Miss Farnborough!" she repeated jeeringly.  "What does Miss Farnborough
care for the welfare of her mistresses, so long as they grind through
their daily tasks?  It is the pupils she thinks about, not us.  The
pupils who are to be pampered and considered, and studied, and amused in
school and out.  They have to have games in summer, and a mistress has
to give up her spare time to watch the pretty dears to see that they
don't get into trouble; and they must have parties, and concerts, and
silly entertainments in winter, with some poor wretch of a mistress to
do all the work so that they may enjoy the fun.  Miss Farnborough is an
exemplary Head so far as her scholars are concerned, but what does she
do for her mistresses?  I ask you, does she do anything at all?"

Claire considered, and was silent.  Her first term was nearly over, and
she could not truthfully say that the Head had taken any concern for her
as an individual who might be expected to feel some interest in life
beyond the school door.  It is true that almost every day brought the
two in contact for the exchange of a few words which, if strictly on
business, were always pleasant and kindly, but except for the one
invitation to tea on the day before work began, they had never met out
of school hours.  Claire was a stranger in London, yet the Head had
never inquired as to her leisure hours, never invited her to her house,
or offered, her an introduction to friends, never even engaged the
sympathies of other mistresses on her behalf.  Claire had expected a
very different treatment, and had struggled against a sense of injury,
but she would not acknowledge as much in words.

"I suppose Miss Farnborough is even more tired than we are.  She has a
tremendous amount of responsibility.  And she has a brother and sister
at home.  Perhaps they object to an incursion of school in free hours."

"Then she ought to leave them, and live where she can do her duty
without interference.  After all mistresses are girls, too, not very
much older than some of the pupils when we begin work; it's inhuman to
take _no_ interest in our welfare.  It wouldn't kill a Head to give up a
night a month to ask us to meet possible friends, or to write a few
letters of introduction.  You agree with me in your heart, so it's no
use pretending.  It's a moral obligation, if it isn't legal, and I say
part of the responsibility is hers if things go wrong.  It's inhuman to
leave a young girl alone in lodgings without even troubling to inquire
if she has anywhere to go in her leisure hours.  But it's the same tale
all round.  Nobody thinks.  Nobody cares.  I've gone to the same church
for three years, and not a soul has spoken to me all that time.  I've no
time to give to Church work, and the seats are free, so there's no way
of getting into touch.  I don't suppose any one has ever noticed the
shabby school-mistress in her shabby blue serge."

Suddenly Mary Rhodes thrust back her chair, and rising impetuously began
to storm up and down the room.

"Oh, I'm tired, I'm tired of this second-hand life.  Living in other
people's houses, teaching other people's children, obeying other
people's orders.  I'm sick of it.  I can't stand it a moment longer.
I'd rather take any risk to be out of it.  After all, what could be
worse?  Any sort of life lived on one's own must be better than this.
Nearly twelve years of it--and if I have twenty more, what's the end?
What is there to look forward to?  Slow starvation in a bed-sitting-
room, for perhaps thirty years.  I won't do it, I won't!  I've had
enough.  Now I shall choose for myself!"

Like a whirlwind she dashed out of the room, and Claire put her elbow on
the table and leant her head on her hands, feeling shaken, and
discouraged, and oppressed.  For the first time a doubt entered her mind
as to whether she could continue to live with Mary Rhodes.  In her
brighter modes there was much that was attractive in her personality,
but to live with a chronic grumbler sapped one's own powers of
resistance.  Claire felt that for the sake of her own happiness and
efficiency it would be wiser to make a change, but her heart sank at the
thought of making a fresh start, of perhaps having to live alone with no
one to speak to in the long evenings.  The life of a bachelor girl made
little appeal at that moment.  Liberty seemed dearly bought at the price
of companionship.

Claire spent the morning writing to her mother and reading over the
series of happy letters which had reached her week after week.  Mrs
Judge was in radiant spirits, delighted with the conditions of her new
life, full of praise of her husband and the many friends to whom she had
been introduced.  Three-fourths of the letter were taken up with
descriptions of her own gay doings, the remaining fourth with optimistic
remarks on her daughter's life.  How delightful to share rooms with
another girl!  What a nice break to have every Saturday and Sunday free!
What economical rooms!  Claire must feel quite rich.  What fun to have
the girls so devoted!

Claire made an expressive grimace as she read that "quite rich."  This
last week she had been obliged to buy new gloves, and to have her boots
mended.  A new umbrella had been torn by the carelessness with which
another teacher had thrust her own into the crowded stand, and one night
she had been seized with a longing for a dainty well-cooked meal, and
had recklessly stood treat at a restaurant.  She did not feel at all
"rich" as she made up the week's account, and reflected that next week
the expense of driving to Mrs Willoughby's "At Home" would again swell
up the total of these exasperating "extras" which made such havoc of
advance calculations.

Cecil did not appear until lunch was on the table, when she flung the
door wide open and marched in with an air of bravado, as if wanting her
companion to stare at once and get over it.  It would have been
impossible not to stare, for the change in her appearance was positively
startling to behold.  Her dark hair was waved and fashionably coiffed.
Her best coat and skirt had been embellished with frills of lace at neck
and sleeves, a pretty little waistcoat had been manufactured out of a
length of blue ribbon and a few paste buttons, while a blue feather
necklet had been promoted a step higher, and encircled an old straw hat.
The ribbon bow at the end of the boa exactly matched the shade of the
waistcoat, and was cocked up at a daring angle, while a becoming new
veil and a pair of immaculate new gloves added still further to the
effect.

Claire had always suspected that Cecil could be pretty if she chose to
take the trouble, and now she knew it for a fact.  It was difficult to
realise that this well-groomed-looking girl, with the bright eyes and
softly-flushed cheeks, could really be the same person as the frumpy-
looking individual who every morning hurried along the street.

Involuntarily Claire threw up her hands; involuntarily she cried aloud
in delight "Cheers!  Cheers!  How do you do, Cecil?  Welcome home,
Cecil!--the real Cecil!  How pretty you are, Cecil!  How well that blue
suits you!  Don't dare to go back to your dull navy and black.  I shall
insist that you always wear blue.  I feel quite proud of having such a
fine lady to lunch.  You are going to have lunch, aren't you?  Why those
gloves and veil?"

"Oh, well--I'm not hungry.  I'll have some coffee.  I may have lunch in
town."  Cecil was plainly embarrassed under her companion's scrutiny.
She pushed up her veil, so that it rested in a little ridge across her
nose, craned forward her head, sipping her coffee with exaggerated care,
so that no drop should fall on her lacy frills.

Claire longed to ask a dozen questions, but something in Cecil's manner
held her at bay, and she contented herself with one inquiry--

"What time will you be home?"

Cecil shrugged her shoulders.

"Don't know.  Perhaps not till late."  She was silent for a moment, then
added with sudden bitterness, "You are not the _only_ person who has
invitations.  If I chose, I could go out every Saturday."

"Then why on earth are you always grumbling about your loneliness?"
thought Claire swiftly, but she did not put the thought into words.
After the warmth of her own welcome, a kinder response was surely her
due; she was angry, and would not condescend to reply.

The meal was finished in silence, but when Cecil rose to depart, the
usual compunction seized her in its grip.  She stood arranging her veil
before the mirror over the mantelpiece, uttering the usual interjectory
expressions of regret.

"Sorry, Claire.  I'm a wretch.  You must hate me.  I ought to be shot.
Nice Saturday morning I've given you!  What are you going to do this
afternoon?"

Claire's eyes turned towards the window with an expression sad to see on
so young a face--an imprisoned look.  Her voice seemed to lose all its
timbre as she replied in one flat dreary word--

"Nothing!"

A spasm of irresolution passed across Cecil's face.  For a moment she
looked as if she were about to throw aside her own project and cast in
her lot with her friend's.  Then her face hardened, and she turned
towards the door.

"Why not call for Sophie Blake, and see if she will go a walk?  She
asked you once before."

With that she was gone, and Claire was left to consider the proposition.
Sophie Blake, the Games mistress, was the single member of the staff
who had shown any disposition towards real friendship, though the
intimacy was so far confined to one afternoon's walk, and an occasional
chat in the dinner hour, but this afternoon the thought of her merry
smile acted as an irresistible magnet.  Claire ran upstairs to get
ready, in a panic lest she might arrive at Sophie's lodgings to find she
had already gone out for the afternoon.  Cecil had hinted that she might
not return until late, and suddenly it seemed unbearable to spend the
rest of the day in solitude.  Restlessness was in the air, first the
pleasurable restlessness caused by the receipt of Mrs Willoughby's
invitation, then the disagreeable restlessness caused by Cecil's erratic
behaviour.  As she hurried through the streets towards Sophie Blake's
lodgings, Claire pondered over the mystery of this sudden development on
Cecil's part.  Where was she going?  Whom was she going to see?  Why
declare with one breath that she was without a friend, and with the next
that if she chose she might accept invitations every week?  What special
reason had to-day inspired such unusual care in her appearance?

Sophie was at home.  Lonely Claire felt quite a throb of relief as she
heard the welcome words.  She entered the oil-clothed passage and was
shown into a small, very warm, very untidy front parlour wherein stood
Sophie herself, staring with widened eyes at the opening door.

"Oh, it's _you_!" she cried.  "What a fright you gave me!  I couldn't
think _who_ it could be.  Come in!  Sit down!  Can you find a free
chair?  Saturday is my work day.  I've been darning stockings, and
trimming a hat, and ironing a blouse, and washing lace, and writing
letters all in a rush.  I love a muddle on Saturdays.  It's such a
change after routine all the week.  What do you think of the hat?  Seven
and sixpence, all told.  I flatter myself it looks worth every penny of
ten.  Don't pull down that cloth.  The iron's underneath.  Be careful of
that table!  The ink-pot's somewhere about.  How sweet of you to call!
I'll clear this muddle away and then we can talk ...  Oh, my arm!"

"What's the matter with the arm?"

Sophie shrugged carelessly.

"Rheumatism, my dear.  Cheerful, isn't it, for a gym. mistress?  It's
been giving me fits all the week."

"The east winds, I suppose.  I know they make rheumatism worse."

"They do.  So does damp.  So does snow.  So does fog.  So does cold.  So
does heat.  If you could tell me of anything that makes it _better_, I'd
be obliged.  Bother rheumatism!  Don't let's talk of it...  It's
Saturday, my dear.  I never think of disagreeables on Saturday.  Where's
Miss Rhodes this afternoon?"

"I don't know.  She made herself look very nice and smart--she can be
very nice-looking when she likes!--and went out for the day."

"Humph!"  Sophie pursed her lips and contracted her brows as if in
consideration of a knotty point.  "She was awfully pretty when I came to
the school ten years ago.  And quite jolly and bright.  You wouldn't
know her for the same girl.  She's a worrier, of course, but it's more
than that.  Something happened about six years ago, which took the
starch out of her once for all.  A love affair, I expect.  Perhaps she's
told you...  I'm not fishing, and it's not my business, but I'm sorry
for the poor thing, and I was sorry for you when I heard you were going
to share her room.  She can't be the most cheerful companion in the
world!"

"Oh, she's quite lively at times," Claire said loyally, "and very
appreciative.  I'm fond of her, you know, but I wish she didn't grumble
quite so much."  She looked round the parlour, which was at once bigger
and better furnished than the joint apartment in Laburnum Crescent, and
seized upon an opportunity of changing the subject.  "You have a very
nice room."

Sophie Blake looked round with an air half proud, half guilty.

"Y-es.  Too nice.  I've no business to spend so much, but I simply can't
stand those dreadful cheap houses.  People are always fussing and
telling one to save up for old age.  I think it matters far more to have
things nice in one's youth.  I get a hundred and thirty a year, and have
to keep myself all the year round and help to educate a young sister.
We are orphans, and the grown-ups have to keep her between us.  I
couldn't save if I wanted to, so what's the use of worrying?  I don't
care very much what happens after fifty-five.  Perhaps I shall be
married.  Perhaps I shall be dead.  Perhaps some nice kind millionaire
will have taken a fancy to me, and left me a fortune.  If the worst
comes to the worst, I'll go into a home for decayed gentlewomen and knit
stockings--no, not stockings, I should never be able to turn the heels--
long armlet things, like mittens, without the thumbs.  Look here.  Where
shall we go?  Isn't it a shame that all the nice shops close early on
Saturday?  We might have had such sport walking along Knightsbridge,
choosing what we'd like best from every window.  Have you ever done
that?  It's ripping fun.  What about Museums?  Do you like Museums?
Rather cold for the feet, don't you think?  What can we do that's warm
and interesting, and exciting, and doesn't cost more than
eighteenpence?"

Claire laughed gleefully, not at the thought of the eighteenpenny
restriction, but from pure joy at finding a companion who could face
life with a smile, and find enjoyment from such simple means as
imaginary purchases from shop windows.  Oh, the blessed effect of a
cheerful spirit!  How inspiriting it was after the constant douche of
discouragement from which she had suffered for the last nine weeks!

"Oh, bother eighteenpence!  This is my treat, and we are going to enjoy
ourselves, or know the reason why.  I've got a lot of money in the bank,
and I'm just in the mood to spend.  We'll go to the Queen's Hall, and
then on to have tea in a restaurant.  You would like to hear some
music?"

"So long as it is not a chorus of female voices--I _should_!  I'm a
trifle fed up with female voices," cried Sophie gaily.  She picked up
her newly-trimmed hat from the table and caressed it fondly.  "Come
along, darling.  You're going to make your _debut_!"



CHAPTER EIGHT.

THE RECEPTION.

It was almost worth while leading a life of all work and no play for six
weeks on end, for the sheer delight of being frivolous once more; of
dressing oneself in one's prettiest frock, drawing on filmy silk
stockings and golden shoes, clasping a pearl necklace round a white
throat and cocking a feathery aigrette at just the right angle among
coppery swathes of hair.  No single detail was wanting to complete the
whole, for in the old careless days Claire's garments had been purchased
with a lavish hand, the only anxiety being to secure the most becoming
specimen of its kind.  There were long crinkly gloves, and a lace
handkerchief, and a fan composed of curling feathers and mother-of-pearl
sticks, and a dainty bag hanging by golden cords, and a cloak of the
newest shape, composed of layers of different-tinted chiffons, which
looked more like a cloud at sunset than a garment manufactured by human
hands and supposed to be of use!

Claire tilted her little mirror to an acute angle, gave a little skip of
delight as she surveyed the completed whole, and then whirled down the
narrow staircase, a flying mist of draperies, through which the little
gold-clad feet gleamed in and out.  She whirled into the sitting-room,
where the solitary lamp stood on the table, and Cecil lay on the humpy
green plush sofa reading a novel from the Free Library.  She put down
the book and stared with wide eyes as Claire gave an extra whirl for her
benefit, and cried jubilantly--

"Admire me!  Admire me!  I'm dying to be admired!  Don't I look fine,
and smart, and unsuitable!  Will any one in the world mistake me for a
High School-mistress!"

Cecil rose from the sofa, and made a solemn tour of inspection.
Obviously she was impressed, obviously she admired, obviously also she
found something startling in her inspection.  There was pure feminine
interest in the manner in which she fingered each delicate fabric in
turn, there was pure feminine kindness in the little pat on the arm
which announced the close of the inspection.

"My dear, it's ripping!  Rich and rare isn't in it.  You look a dream.
Poor kiddie!  If this is the sort of thing you've been used to, it's
been harder for you than I thought!  Yes, horribly unsuitable, and when
it's worn-out, you'll never be able to have another like it.  White
ponge will be your next effort."

"Bless your heart, I've three others just as fine, and these skimpy
skirts last for an age.  No chance of any one planting a great foot on
the folds and tearing them to ribbons as in the old days.  There _are_
no folds to tread on."

But Cecil as usual was ready with her croak.

"Next year," she said darkly, "there will be flounces.  Before you have
a chance of wearing your four dresses, everybody will be fussy and
frilly, and they'll be hopelessly out of date."

"Then I'll cut up two and turn them into flounces to fuss out the
others!" cried Claire, the optimist, and gave another caper from sheer
lightness of heart.  "How do you like my feet?"

"I suppose you mean shoes.  A pretty price you paid for those.  I'm sure
they're too tight!"

"Boats, my dear, boats!  I've had to put in a sole.  Didn't you know my
feet were so small?  How do you like my cloak?  It's meant to look like
a cloud.  Layers of blue, pink and grey, `superimposed,' as the fashion
papers have it.  Or should you say it was more like an opal?"

"No, I should not.  Neither one nor the other.  Considered as a cloak
for a foggy November evening, I should call it a delusion and a fraud.
You'll get a chill.  I've a Shetland shawl.  I'll lend it to you to wrap
round your shoulders."

"No, you won't!"  Claire cried defiantly.  "Shetland shawl indeed!  Who
ever heard of a girl of twenty-one in a Shetland shawl?  I'm going to a
party, my dear.  The joy of that thought would keep me warm through a
dozen fogs."

"You'll have to come back from the party, however, and you mayn't feel
so jubilant then.  It's not too exciting when you don't know a soul, and
sit on one seat all evening.  I knew a girl who went to a big crush and
didn't even get a cup of coffee.  Nobody asked her to go down."

Claire swept her cloak to one side, and sat down on a chair facing the
sofa, her white gloves clasped on her knee, the embroidered bag hanging
by its golden cords to the tip of the golden slippers.  She fixed her
eyes steadily on her companion, and there was in them a spark of anger,
before which Cecil had the grace to flush.

"Sorry!  Really I am sorry--"

  "`Repentance is to _leave_
  The sins we loved before,
  And show that we in earnest grieve
  By doing so No More!'"

quoted Claire sternly.  "Really, Cecil, you are the champion wet blanket
of your age.  It is too bad.  I have to do all the perking up, and you
can't even let me go to a party without damping my ardour.  I was
thinking it over the other night, and I've hit on a promising plan.  I'm
going to allow you a grumble day a week--but only one.  On that day you
can grumble as much as ever you like, from the moment you get up till
the moment you go to bed.  You'll be within your rights, and I shall not
complain.  I'll have my own day, too, when you can find out what it
feels like to listen, but won't be allowed to say a word in return.  For
the rest of the week you'll just have to grin and bear it.  You won't be
allowed a single growl."

Cecil knitted her brows, and looked ashamed and uncomfortable, as she
invariably did when taxed with her besetting sin.  Claire's charge on
mental poisoning had struck home, and she had honestly determined to
turn over a new leaf; but the habit had been indulged too long to be
easily abandoned.  Unconsciously, as it were, disparaging remarks flowed
from her lips, combined with a steady string of objections, adverse
criticisms, and presentiments of darkness and gloom.  At the present
moment she felt a little startled to realise how firmly the habit was
established, and the proposal of a licenced grumble day held out some
promise of a cure.

"Then I'll have Monday!" she cried briskly.  "I am always in a bad
temper on Mondays, so I shall be able to make the most of my chance."
She was silent for a moment considering the prospect, then was struck
with a sudden thought.  "But now and then I _do_ have a nice week-end,
and then I shouldn't want to grumble at all.  I suppose I could change
the day?"

There was a ring of triumph in Claire's laugh.

"Not you!  My dear girl, that's just what I am counting upon!  Sometimes
the sun will shine, sometimes you'll get a nice letter, sometimes the
girls will be intelligent and interesting, and then, my dear, you'll
forget, and the day will skip past, and before you know where you are it
will be Tuesday morning and your chance will have gone.  Cecil, fancy
it!  A whole fortnight without a grumble.  It seems almost too good to
be true!"

"It does!" said the English mistress eloquently.  She sat upright on the
green plush sofa, her shabby slippers well in evidence beneath the edge
of her shabby skirt, staring with curious eyes at the radiant figure of
the girl in the opposite chair.  "I don't think you need a day at all!"

"Because I'm going to a solitary party?  Only two minutes ago, my love,
you were sympathising with my hard lot!  I shall have Fridays.  I'm
tired on Fridays, and it's getting near the time for making up accounts.
I can be quite a creditable grumbler on Fridays."

"Well, just as you like!  You _are_ going to the party, I suppose?
Haven't changed your mind by any chance, and determined to spend the
evening hectoring me!  If you are going, you'd better go.  I'll sit up
for you and keep some cocoa--"

Claire rose with a smile.

"I appreciate the inference!  Starved and disillusioned, I am to creep
home and weep on your bosom.  Well, we'll see!  Good-bye for the
present.  I'll tell you all about it when I get back..."

A minute's whistling at the front door produced a taxi, in which Claire
seated herself and was whirled westward through brightly lighted
streets.  In the less fashionable neighbourhoods the usual Saturday
crowd thronged round the shops and booths, making their purchases at an
hour when perishable goods could be obtained at bargain prices.  Claire
and Cecil had themselves made such expeditions before now, coming home
triumphant with some savoury morsel for supper, and with quite a lavish
supply of flowers to deck the little room.  At the time the expeditions
had been pleasant enough, and there had seemed nothing in the least
_infra dig_ in taking advantage of the opportunity; but to-night the
girl in the cloudy cloak looked through the windows of her chariot with
an ineffable condescension, and found it difficult to believe that she
herself had ever made one of so insignificant a throng!

"How I do love luxury!  It's the breath of my nostrils," she said to
herself with a little sigh of content, as she straightened herself in
her seat, and smiled back at her own reflection in the strip of mirror
opposite.  Her hair had "gone" just right.  What a comfort that was!
Sometimes it took a stupid turn and could not be induced to obey.  She
opened the cloak at the top and peeped at the dainty whiteness within,
with the daring, thoroughly French touch of vivid emerald green which
gave a _cachet_ to the whole.  Yes, it was quite as pretty as she had
believed.  Every whit as becoming.  "I don't look a bit like a school-
mistress!" smiled Claire, and snoodled back again against the cushions
with a deep breath of content.

She was not in the least shy.  Many a girl about to make her _entree_
into a strange house would have been suffering qualms of misgiving by
this time, but Claire had spent her life more or less in public, and was
accustomed to meet strangers as a matter of course, so there was no
dread to take the edge off her enjoyment.

Even when the taxi slowed down to take its place in the stream of
vehicles which were drawn up before Mrs Willoughby's house, she knew
only a heightened enjoyment in the realisation that it was not a party
at all, but a real big fashionable At Home.

The usual crowd of onlookers stood on either side of the door, and as
Claire descended from the taxi, the sight of her golden slippers and
floating clouds of gauze evoked a gratifying murmur of admiration.  She
passed on with her head in the air, looking neither to right nor left,
but close against the rails stood a couple of working girls whose
wistful eyes drew her own as with a magnet.  In their expression was a
whole world of awe, of admiration; they looked at her as at a denizen of
another sphere, hardly presuming even to be envious, so infinitely was
she removed from their grey-hued life.  As Claire met their eyes, an
impulse seized her to stop and tell them that she was just a working
girl like themselves, but convention being too strong to allow of such
familiarities, she smiled instead, with such a frank and friendly
acknowledgment of their admiration as brought a flash of pleasure to
their faces.

"She's a real laidy, she is!" said Gladys to Maud; and Maud sniffed in
assent, and answered strongly, "You bet your life!"

The inside of the house seemed out of all proportion with the outside
appearance.  This is a special peculiarity of the West End, which has
puzzled many a visitor besides Claire Gifford.  What _is_ the magic
which transforms narrow slips of buildings into spacious halls and
imposing flights of stairways?  Viewed from the street, the town houses
of well-known personages seem quite inadequate for their purpose; viewed
from within, they are all that is stately and appropriate.  Those of us
who live in less favoured neighbourhoods would fain solve the riddle.

Mrs Willoughby stood at the top of her own staircase, shaking hands
with the stream of ascending guests, and motioning them forward to the
suite of entertaining rooms from which came a steady murmur of voices.
She was a stout woman, with a vast expanse of white shoulders which
seemed to join right on to her head without any preliminary in the shape
of a neck.  Her hair was dark, and a plain face was lightened by a pair
of exceedingly pleasant, exceedingly alert brown eyes.  As soon as she
met those eyes Claire felt assured that the kindness of which she had
heard was a real thing, and that this woman could be counted upon as a
friend.  There was, it is true, a slight vagueness in the manner in
which she made her greeting, but a murmur of "Mrs Fanshawe" instantly
revived recollections.

"Of course--of course!" she cried heartily.  "So glad you could come, my
dear.  I must see you later on.  Reginald!"--she beckoned to a lad in an
Eton suit--"I want you to take charge of Miss Gifford.  Take her to have
some coffee, and introduce her to some one nice."

A nod and a smile, and Mrs Willoughby had turned back to welcome the
next guest in order, while the Eton boy offered his arm with the air of
a prince of the blood, and led the way to a refreshment buffet around
which the guests were swarming with an eagerness astonishing to behold
when one realised how lately they must have risen from the dinner-table.
Claire found her young cavalier very efficient in his attentions.  He
settled her in a comfortable corner, brought her a cup of coffee heaped
with foaming cream, and gave it as his opinion that it was going to be
"a beastly crush."  Claire wondered if it would be tactful to inquire
how he happened to be at home in the middle of a term; but while she
hesitated he supplied the information himself.

"I'm home on leave.  Appendicitis.  Left the nursing home three weeks
ago.  Been at the sea, and came back yesterday in time for this show.
Getting a bit tired of slacking!"

"You must be.  Dear me!  I _am_ sorry.  Too bad to begin so soon,"
murmured Claire pitifully; but Master Reginald disdained sympathy.

"Oh, I dunno," he said calmly.  "It's quite the correct thing, don't you
know?  Everybody's doing it.  Just as well to get it through.  It
might"--he opened his pale eyes with a startled look--"it might have
come on in the hols!  Pretty fool I should have looked if I'd been done
out of winter sports."

"There's that way of looking at it!"  Claire said demurely.  For a
moment she debated whether she should break the fact that she herself
was a school-mistress, but decided that it would be wiser to refrain
since the boy would certainly feel more at ease with her in her private
capacity.  So for the next half-hour they sat happily together in their
corner, while the boy discoursed on the subjects nearest his heart, and
the girl deftly switched him back to the subjects more congenial.

"Yes, I love cricket.  At least I'm sure I should do, if I understood it
better...  _Do_ tell me who is the big old lady with the eyeglass and
the diamond tiara?"

"Couldn't tell you to save my life.  Rather an out-size, isn't she?
Towers over the men.  I say! you ought to go to Lord's Will you turn up
at Lord's next year to see our match?  We might meet somewhere and I'd
give you tea.  Harrow won't have a chance.  We've got a bowler who--"

"Can he really?  How nice!  Oh, that _is_ a curious-looking man with the
long hair!  I'm sure he is something, or does something different from
other people.  Is he a musician, do you think?  Do you ever have music
on these evenings?"

"Rather!  Sometimes the mater hires a big swell, sometimes she lets
loose the amateurs.  She knows lots of amateurs, y'know.  People who are
trying to be big-wigs, and want the chance to show off.  The mater
encourages them.  Great mistake if you ask me, but you needn't listen if
you don't want.  She has one of these crushes once a month.  Beastly
dull, I call them.  Can't think why the people come.  But she gives them
a rattling good feed.  Supper comes on at twelve, in the dining-room
downstairs."

But Claire was not interested in supper.  All her attention was taken up
in watching the stream of people passing by, and for a time the youth of
her companion had seemed an advantage, since it made it easy to indulge
her curiosity concerning her fellow-guests by a succession of questions
which might have been boring to an adult.  As time passed on, however,
and she became conscious that more than one pair of masculine eyes
turned in her direction, she wished frankly Master Reginald would
remember his mother's instructions and proceed without further delay to
introduce her to "someone nice."  To return home and confess to Cecil
that she had spent the evening in company with a schoolboy would be
almost as humiliating as sitting alone in a corner.

It was at this point that Claire became aware of the presence of a very
small, very wizened old woman sitting alone at the opposite side of the
room, her mittened hands clawing each other restlessly in her lap, her
sunken eyes glancing to right and left with a glance distinctly hostile.
The passing of guests frequently hid her from view, but when a gap came
again, there she sat, still alone, still twisting her mittened hands,
still coldly staring around.  Claire thought she looked a very
disagreeable old lady, but she was sorry for her all the same.  Horrid
to be old and cross, and to be alone in a crowd!  She put yet another
question to the boy by her side.

"That," said Master Willoughby seriously, "is Great-aunt Jane.  Great-
aunt Jane is the skeleton in our cupboard.  The mater says so, and she
ought to know.  Every time the mater has a show, the moment the door is
opened, in comes Great-aunt Jane, and sits it out until every one has
gone.  If any one dares speak to her she snaps his head off, and if they
let her alone, she's furious, and gives it to the mater after they're
gone.  Most of the crowd know her by now, and pretend they don't see,
... and she gets waxier and waxier.  Would you like to be introduced?"

"Yes, please!" said Claire unexpectedly.  She was tired of sitting in
one corner, and wanted to move her position, but she was also quite
genuinely anxious to try her hand at cheering poor cross Great-aunt
Jane.  The old lady _pensionnaires_ in the "Villa Beau Sejour" had made
a point of petting and flattering the pretty English girl, and Claire
was complacently assured that this old lady would follow their example.
But she was mistaken.

"Aunt Jane, Miss Gifford asks to be introduced to you.  Miss Gifford--
Lady Jane Willoughby."

Reginald beat a hurried retreat, and Claire seated herself at the end of
the sofa and smilingly awaited her companion's lead.  It did not come.
After one automatic nod of the head, Lady Jane resumed her former
position, taking no more notice of the new-comer than if she had
remained at the far end of the room.  Claire felt her cheeks begin to
burn.  Her complacence had suffered a shock, but pride came to her
rescue, and she made a determined effort at conversation.

"That nice boy has been telling me that he has had appendicitis."

Lady Jane favoured her with a frosty glance.

"Yes, he has.  Perhaps you will excuse me from talking about it.  I
object to the discussion of diseases at social gatherings."

Claire's cheeks grew hotter still.  A quick retort came to her lips.

"I wasn't going to discuss it!  I only mentioned it for--for something
to say.  I couldn't think how else to begin!"

The droop of Lady Jane's eyelids inferred that it was really quite
superfluous to begin at all.  Claire waited a whole two minutes by the
clock, and then made another effort.

"I hear we are to have some music later on."

"Sorry to hear it," said Great-aunt Jane.

"Really!  I was so glad.  Aren't you fond of music, then?"

"I am very fond of music," said Aunt Jane, and there was a world of
insinuation in her voice.  Without a definite word being spoken, the
hearer was informed that good music, real music, music worthy the name,
was a thing that no sane person would expect to hear at Mrs
Willoughby's "At Homes."  She was really the most terrifying and
disconcerting of old ladies, and Claire heartily repented the impulse
which had brought her to her side.  A pretty thing it would be if she
were left alone on this sofa for the rest of the evening!

But fortune was kind, and from across the room came a good angel who was
so exactly a reproduction of Mrs Willoughby herself, minus half her
age, that it must obviously be her daughter.  Janet Willoughby was not a
pretty girl, but she looked gay, and bright, and beaming with good
humour, and at this moment with a spice of mischief into the bargain.
The manner in which she held out her hand to Claire was as friendly as
though the two girls had been friends for years.

"Miss Gifford?  I was sure it must be you.  Mother told me to look for
you.  Aunt Jane, will you excuse my running away with Miss Gifford?
Several people are asking to be introduced.  Will you come with me, Miss
Gifford?  I want to take you into the music room."

Claire rose with a very leap of eagerness, and as soon as they had
gained a safe distance, Miss Willoughby turned to her with twinkling
eyes.

"I am afraid you were having a bad time!  I caught sight of you across
the room and was so sorry.  Who took you over there?  Was it that
naughty Reginald?"

"He did, but I asked him.  I thought she looked lonely.  I thought
perhaps she would be pleased."

Janet Willoughby's smile showed a quick approval.

"That was kind!  Thanks for the good intention, but I can't let you be
victimised any more.  I want to talk to you myself, and half-a-dozen men
have been asking for introductions to the girl with the green sash.  You
know Mrs Fanshawe, don't you?  Isn't she charming?  She and I are the
greatest of chums.  I always say she has never succeeded in growing
older than seventeen.  She is so delightfully irresponsible and
impulsive.  She wrote mother a charming letter about you.  It made us
quite anxious to meet you, but you know what town life is--a continual
rush!  Everything gets put off."

"It was awfully good of you to ask me at all, and very kind of Mrs
Fanshawe to write.  I only know her in the most casual way.  We crossed
over from Antwerp together, and her maid was ill, and I was able to be
of some use, and when she heard that I was coming to work in London and
that I knew nobody here--she--"

Jane Willoughby stared in frank amazement.

"Do you really mean that that was all?  You met her only that one time?
You know nothing of her home or her people?"

"Only that time.  I hope--I hope you don't think--"

Claire suffered an anxious moment before she realised that for some
unexplained reason Miss Willoughby was more pleased than annoyed by the
intelligence.  An air of something extraordinarily like relief passed
over her features.  She laughed gaily and said--

"I don't think anything at all except that it is delightfully like Mrs
Fanshawe.  She wrote as if she had known you for ages.  As a matter of
fact she probably _does_ know you quite well.  She is so extraordinarily
quick and clever, that she crowds as much life into an hour as an
ordinary person does into a week.  She told us that you had chosen to
come to London to work, rather than go to India and have a good time.
How plucky of you!  And you teach at one of the big High Schools...  You
don't look in the least like a school-mistress."

"Ah!  I'm off duty to-night!  You should see me in the morning, in my
working clothes.  You should see me at night, correcting exercises on
the dining-table in a lodging-house parlour, and cooking sausages in a
chafing-dish for our evening meal.  I `dig' with the English mistress,
and do most of our cooking myself, as the landlady's tastes and ours
don't agree.  I'm getting to be quite an expert at manufacturing
sixpenny dainties."

Janet Willoughby breathed a deep sigh; the diamond star on her neck sent
out vivid gleams of light.

"What fun!" she sighed enviously.  "What fun!" and as she spoke there
flashed suddenly before the eyes of her listener a picture of the
English mistress lying on the green plush sofa, her shabby slippers
showing beneath the hem of her shabby skirt, spending the holiday
Saturday evening at home because she had no invitations to go out, and
no money to spare for an entertainment.  "Oh, I _do_ envy you!" sighed
Janet deeply.  "It's one of my greatest ambitions to share rooms with a
nice girl, and live the simple life, and be free to do whatever one
liked.  Mother loves independence in other girls, but her principles
don't extend to me.  She says an only daughter's place is at home.  But
you are an only daughter, too."

"I am; but other circumstances were different.  It was a case of being
dependent on a stepfather or of working for myself--so I chose to work,
and--"

"And I'm sure you never regret it!"

Claire extended her hands in the expressive French shrug.

"Ah, but I do!  Horribly, at times.  Even now, after three months' work
I have a conviction that I shall regret it more and more as time goes
on; but if I had to decide again, I'd do just the same.  It's a question
of principle versus so many things--laziness and self-indulgence, and
wanting to have a good time, and the habits of a lifetime, and
irritation with stupid girls who won't work."

Janet Willoughby gave a soft murmur of understanding.

"Yes, of course.  Stupid of me to say that!  Of course, you must get
tired when you've never taught before.  Does it bore you very much?"

"Teaching?  Oh, no.  As a rule I love it, and take a pride in inventing
new ways to help the girls.  It's the all work and no play that gets on
one's nerves, and the feeling of being cut off from the world by an
impassable barrier of something that really doesn't exist.  People have
a prejudice against school-mistresses.  They think they are dull, and
proper, and pedantic.  If they want to be complimentary they say, `You
don't look like a school-mistress.'  You did yourself, not two minutes
ago.  But really and truly they are just natural, everyday girls,
wanting to have a good time in their leisure hours like other girls.
You can't think how happy I was to come here to-night and have the
chance of putting on pretty things again."

Janet Willoughby put her hand on Claire's arm and piloted her deftly
through the crowd.

"Now," she said firmly, "you just stay here, and I'll bring up all the
nicest men in the room, and introduce them in turns.  You _shall_ have a
good time, and you are wearing the very prettiest things in the room--if
it's any comfort to you to hear it.  We won't talk about school any
more.  To-night is for fun!"

The next hour passed on flying feet, while Claire sat the queen of a
little court, and Janet Willoughby flitted to and fro, bringing up fresh
arrivals to be introduced, and drafting off the last batch to other
parts of the crowded rooms.  All the men were agreeable and amusing, and
showed a flattering appreciation of their position.  Claire felt no more
interest in one than in another, but she liked them all, and felt a
distinct pleasure in talking to men again after the convent-like
existence of the last months.  She was pleased to welcome a new-comer,
smiled unconcerned at a farewell.

From time to time the buzz of voices was temporarily broken by the crash
of the piano, but always before the end of each performance it rose
again, and steadily swelled in volume.  In truth, the excellence of the
performance was no great inducement to listen, and Mrs Willoughby's
forehead showed a pucker of anxiety.  She drifted across to Claire's
corner, and spoke a few kindly words of welcome, which ended in a half
apology.

"I am sorry the music is so poor.  It varies so much on different
nights.  Sometimes we have quite a number of good singers, but to-night
there are none.  I am afraid so much piano grows a little boring."

She looked in the girl's face with a quick inquiry.

"Do _you_ sing?"

"No-o."  The word seemed final, yet there was an unmistakable hesitation
in Claire's voice.  Mrs Willoughby's glance sharpened.

"But you do something?  Play?  Recite?  What is it?  My dear, I should
be so grateful!"

"I--whistle!" confessed Claire with a blush, and a little babble of
delight greeted the words.  Every one who heard hailed the chance of a
variety in the monotonous programme.  Mrs Willoughby beamed with all
the relief of a hostess unexpectedly relieved of anxiety.

"Delightful!  Charming!  My dear, it will be such a help!  You would
like an accompaniment?  I'll introduce you to Mr Helder.  He can play
anything you like.  Will you come now!  I am sure every one will be
charmed."

There was no time for a second thought.  The next moment the long-haired
Mr Helder was bowing over Claire's hand, and professing his delight.
The little group in the corner were pressing forward to obtain a point
of vantage, and throughout the company in general was passing a wordless
hum of excitement.  Mr Helder was seating himself at the piano, a girl
in a white dress had ascended the impromptu platform and now stood by
his side, a pretty girl, a very pretty girl, a girl who acknowledged the
scattered applause with a smile which showed two dimples on one cheek, a
girl who looked neither shy nor conceited, but simply as if she were
enjoying herself very much, and expected everybody to do the same.  She
was going to sing.  It would be a relief to listen to singing after the
continued performances upon the piano.  They hoped sincerely that she
could sing well.  Why didn't the accompaniment begin?

Then suddenly a white-gloved hand gave a signal, Mr Helder's hands
descended on the keys, and at the same instant from between Claire's
pursed-up lips there flowed a stream of high, flute-like notes,
repeating the air with a bird-like fluency and ease.  She had chosen the
old-world ballad, "Cherry Ripe," the quaint turns and trills of which
lent themselves peculiarly well to this method of interpretation, and
the swing and gaiety of the measure carried the audience by storm.
Looking down from her platform Claire could see the indifferent faces
suddenly lighten into interest, into smiles, into positive beams of
approval.  At the second verse heads began to wag; unconsciously to
their owners lips began to purse.  It was inspiring to watch those
faces, to know that it was she herself who had wrought the magic change.

Those moments for Claire were pure undiluted joy.  Whistling had come to
her as a natural gift, compensating to some extent for the lack of a
singing voice; later on she had taken lessons, and practised seriously
to perfect her facility.  At school in Paris, later on in attending
social gatherings with her mother, she had had abundant opportunities of
overcoming the initial shyness; but indeed shyness was never a serious
trouble with Claire Gifford, who was gifted with that very agreeable
combination of qualities,--an amiable desire to please other people, and
a comfortable assurance of her own powers.

At the end of the third verse the applause burst out with a roar.
"Bravos" sounded from every side, and "Encores" persisted so strenuously
that Claire was not permitted even to descend from her platform.  Mrs
Willoughby rustled forward full of gratitude and thanks.  Mr Helder
rubbed his hands, and beamingly awaited further commands...  What would
Cecil have to say to a success like this?

Claire's second choice was one of Mendelssohn's "Songs without Words," a
quieter measure this time, sweet and flowing, and giving opportunity for
a world of delicate phrasing.  It was one of the pieces which she had
practised with a master, and with which she felt most completely at
home; and if the audience found it agreeable to hear, they also, to
judge from their faces, found it equally agreeable to watch.  Claire's
cheeks were flushed to a soft rose-pink, her head moved to and fro,
unconsciously keeping time with the air; one little golden shoe softly
tapped the floor.  Her unconsciousness of self added to the charm of the
performance.  But once the audience noticed, with sympathetic amusement,
her composure was seriously threatened, so that the bird-like notes
quavered ominously, and the twin dimples deepened into veritable holes.
Claire had caught sight of Great-aunt Jane standing in solitary state at
the rear of the throng of listeners, her mittened fingers still
plucking, her eyes frosty with disapproval.

After that Claire safeguarded her composure by looking steadily downward
at the points of her shoes until the end of the song approached, when it
seemed courteous, once more, to face her audience.  She raised her eyes,
and as she did so her heart leapt within her with a startling force.
She was thankful that it _was_ the end, that the long final note was
already on her lips, for there, standing in the doorway, his face
upraised to hers, stood her knight of the railway station, the rescuer
of the lost box--Erskine Fanshawe himself!



CHAPTER NINE.

THE SUPPER.

Claire stepped down from the platform to be surrounded by a throng of
guests all eager to express their admiration of her interesting
performance, to marvel how she could "do it," and to congratulate her
upon so unusual an accomplishment; and she smiled and bowed, declared
that it was quite easy, and perjured herself by maintaining that anyone
could do as well, acutely conscious all the time that Captain Fanshawe
was drawing nearer with determined steps, edging his way towards the
front of the crowd.  The next moment her hand was in his, and he was
greeting her with the assurance of a lifelong friend.

"Good evening, Miss Gifford.  Hadn't we better make straight for supper
now?  I am sure you must need it."

It was practically the ordinary invitation.  There was nothing to find
fault with in the words themselves, yet the impression of a previous
arrangement was obviously left with the hearers, who fell back, giving
way as to a superior right.  As for Claire, she laid her hand on the
extended arm, with all the good will in the world, and made a triumphant
passage through the crowd, which smiled upon her as though agreeing that
it was now her turn to be amused.

"This table, I think!"  Captain Fanshawe said, leading the way to the
furthest corner of the dining-room, and Claire found herself sipping a
hot cup of soup, and realising that the world was an agreeable place,
and that it was folly ever to allow oneself to be downhearted, since
such delightful surprises awaited round corners ready to transform the
grey into gold!

Captain Fanshawe looked exactly as memory had pictured him--plain of
feature, distinguished in bearing, grave, self-contained, yet with that
lurking light in his eyes which showed that humour lay beneath.  Claire
smiled at him across the table, and asked an obvious question--

"Rather a different meeting-place from our last!  Did you know me at
once?"

"I did," he said, and added deliberately, "Just as you knew me."

"Oh, well!"  Claire tried to look unconcerned.  "Men are always pretty
much the same.  Evening dress does not make the same difference to
them."

She knew a momentary fear lest he should believe she was fishing for a
compliment, and give the ordinary banal reply; but he looked at her with
a grave scrutiny, and asked quietly--

"Was that one of the frocks which went astray?"

"Yes!  All of it.  It wasn't even divided in half."

"It was a good thing the box turned up!" he said; and there, after all,
was the compliment, but so delicately inferred that the most fastidious
taste could not object.

With the finishing of the soup came the first reference to Claire's
work, for the Captain's casual "Do you care for anything solid, or would
you prefer a sweet?" evoked a round-eyed stare of dismay.

"Oh, _please_!" cried Claire deeply.  "I want to go straight through.
I've been living on mutton and cabbage for over two months, and cooking
suppers on a chafing-dish.  I looked forward to supper as part of the
treat!"

The plain face lightened into a delightful smile.

"That's all right!" he cried.  "Now we know where we are.  I hadn't much
dinner myself, so I'm quite game.  Let us study the book of the words."

A _menu_ lay on the table, a square white card emblazoned with many
golden words.  Captain Fanshawe drew his chair nearer, and ran his
finger down the list, while Claire bent forward to signify a yea or nay.
Every delicacy in season and out of season seemed to find its place on
that list, which certainly justified Master Reginald's eulogy of his
mother's "good feeds."  Claire found it quite a serious matter to decide
between so many good things, and even with various curtailments, made
rather out of pride than inclination, the meal threatened to last some
considerable time.

Well! there was obvious satisfaction in the manner in which Captain
Fanshawe delivered his orders, and for herself, she had been dignified
and self-denying; she had resolutely shut the door between this man and
herself, and devoted herself to work, and now, since fate had thrown him
in her way for a chance hour, she could enjoy herself with a light mind.
It was good to talk to a man again, to hear a deep masculine voice, to
look at a broad strong frame.  Putting aside all question of love and
marriage, the convent life is no more satisfying than the monastic.
Each sex was designed by God to be the complement of the other.  Each
must suffer from lack of the other's companionship.

"I arrived just as you began your performance," Captain Fanshawe
informed her.  "It was a great `draw.'  Everybody had crowded forward to
listen.  It was only towards the end of your second--er--how exactly
should one express it?--_morceau_, that I managed to get into seeing
line.  It was a surprise!  Have you known the Willoughbys long?"

Claire looked at him blankly.

"I never saw them before to-night.  Your mother wrote to ask them if
they would send me a card."

"Oh!"  Captain Fanshawe was certainly surprised, and Claire mentally
snubbed herself because at the bottom of her heart there had lain a
suspicion that perhaps--just perhaps--he had come to-night in the hope
of meeting his acquaintance of the railway station.  This was not the
case; no thought of her had been in his mind.  Probably until the moment
of meeting he had forgotten her existence.  Never mind!  They _had_ met,
and he was agreeable and friendly.  Now for a delightful half-hour...

"That was a good thought of the _mater's_.  You will like them.  They
are delightful people.  Just the people you ought to know as a stranger
in town.  How goes the school teaching, by the way?  As well as you
expected?"

Claire deliberated, with pursed lips.

"No.  I expected so much; I always do.  But much better than other
people expected for me.  Theoretically it's a fine life.  There are
times when it seems that nothing could be finer.  But--"

"But what?"

"I don't think it's quite satisfying, as a _whole_ life!"

"Does anyone suppose it is?"

"They try to.  They have to.  For most teachers there is so little
else."

The waiter handed plates of lobster mayonnaise, and Captain Fanshawe
said quietly--

"Tell me about the times when the work seems fine."

"Ah--many times!  It depends on one's own mood and health, because, of
course, the circumstances are always the same.  There are mornings when
one looks round a big class-room and sees all the girls' faces looking
upwards, and it gives one quite a thrilling sense of power and
opportunity.  That is what the heaven-born teacher must feel every
time.--`Here is the fresh virgin soil, and mine is the joy of planting
the right seed!  Here are the women of the future, the mothers of the
race.  For this hour they are mine.  What I say, they must hear.  They
will listen with an attention which even their parents cannot gain.  The
words which I speak this morning may bear fruit in many lives.'  That's
the ideal attitude, but the ordinary human woman has other mornings when
all she feels is--`Oh, dear me, six hours of this!  And what's the use?
Everything I batter in to-day will be forgotten by to-morrow.  What's
the ideal anyway in teaching French verbs?  I want to go to bed.'"

They laughed together, but Captain Fanshawe sobered quickly, and his
brow showed furrows of distress.  Claire looked at him and said
quickly--

"Do you mind if we don't talk school?  I am Cinderella to-night, wearing
fine clothes and supping in state.  I'd so much rather talk Cinderella
to match."

"Certainly, certainly.  Just as you wish."  Lolling back in his chair,
Captain Fanshawe adopted an air of _blase_ indifference, and drawled
slowly, "Quite a good winter, isn't it?  Lots going on.  Have you been
to the Opera lately?"

"Oh dear!" thought Claire with a gush, "how refreshing to meet a grown-
up man who can pretend like a child!"  She simpered, and replied
artificially, "Oh, yes--quite often.  The dear Duchess is _so_ kind; her
box is open to me whenever I choose to go.  Wonderful scene, isn't it?
All those tiers rising one above another.  Do you ever look up at the
galleries?  Such funny people sit there--men in tweed suits; girls in
white blouses.  Who _are_ they, should you think?  Clerks and typists
and school-mistresses, and people of that persuasion?"

"Possibly, I dare say.  One never knows.  They look quite respectable
and quiet, don't you know!"

The twinkle was alight in Captain Fanshawe's eyes.  It shone more
brightly still as he added, "Everybody turns up sooner or later in the
Duchess's box.  Have you happened to meet--the Prince!"

For a moment Claire groped for the connection, then dimpled merrily.

"Not yet.  No! but I am hoping--"

The waiter approached with plates of chicken in aspic, and more rolls of
crisp browned bread.  Claire sent a thought to Cecil finishing a box of
sardines, with her book propped up against the cocoa jug.  The
Cinderella _role_ was forgotten while her eyes roved around, studying
the silver dishes on the various tables.

"When you were a small boy, Captain Fanshawe, did you go out to
parties?"

Captain Fanshawe knitted his brows.  This charming girl was a little
difficult to follow conversationally; she leapt from one subject to
another with disconcerting agility.

"Er--pardon me!  Is that question put to me in my--er--private, or
imaginary capacity?"

"Private, of course.  But naturally you did.  Did you have pockets?"

"To the best of my remembrance I was disguised as a midshipmite, with
white duck trousers of a prodigious width.  They used to crackle, I
remember.  There was room for a dozen pockets."

Claire laid her arms on the table, so that her face drew nearer his own.
Her voice fell to a stage whisper--

"Did you--ever--take--something--home?"

The Captain threw back his head with a peal of laughter.

"Miss Gifford, what a question!  I was an ordinary human boy.  _Of
course_ I did.  And sat on my spoils in the carriage going back, and was
scolded for spoiling my clothes.  I had a small brother at home."

"Well--I have a small friend!  She has letters after her name, and is
very learned and clever, but she has a _very_ sweet tooth.  Do you
think, perhaps--in this bag--"

"Leave it to me!" he said firmly, and when the waiter next appeared, he
received an order to bring more bon-bons--plenty of bon-bons--a
selection of all the small dainties in silver dishes.

"He thinks I _am_ having a feast!"  Claire said demurely, as she watched
the progress of selection; then she met Erskine Fanshawe's eyes, and
nodded in response to an unspoken question, "And I _am_!  I'm having a
lovely time!"

"I wish it were possible that you could oftener--"

"Well, who knows?  A week ago I had made up my mind that nothing
exciting would ever happen again, and then this invitation arrived.
What a perfect dear Miss Willoughby seems to be!"

"Janet?  She _is_!" he said warmly.  "She is a girl who has had
everything the world can give her, and yet has come through unspoiled.
It's not often one can say that.  Many society girls are selfish and
vain, but Janet never seems to think of herself.  You'd find her an
ideal friend."

Claire's brain leapt swiftly to several conclusions.  Janet Willoughby
was devoted to Mrs Fanshawe; Mrs Fanshawe returned her devotion.
Janet Willoughby was rich, and of good birth.  Mrs Fanshawe had
mentally adopted her as a daughter-in-law.  Given the non-appearance of
a rival on the scene, her desire would probably be fulfilled, since such
sincere liking could easily ripen into love.  Just for a moment Claire
felt a stab of that lone and lorn feeling which comes to solitary
females at the realisation of another's happiness; then she rallied
herself and said regretfully--

"I'm afraid I shan't have the chance!  Our lives lie too far apart, and
my time is not my own.  It is only an occasional Saturday-night that I
can play Cinderella."

"What do you do on Sundays?"

"Go to church in the morning, and sleep in the afternoon.  Sounds
elderly, doesn't it?  But I do enjoy that sleep.  The hour after lunch
is the most trying of the school day.  It's all I can do sometimes to
smother my yawns, and not upset the whole class.  It's part of the
Sunday rest to be able to let go, lie down hugging a hot bottle, and
sleep steadily till it's time for tea."

"Where do you go to church?"

"Oh!"  Claire waved an airy hand, "it depends!  I've not settled down.
I am still trying which I like best."

Across the table the two pairs of eyes met.  The man's questioning,
protesting, the girl's steadily defiant.  "Why won't you tell me?" came
the unspoken question.  "Why won't you give me a chance?"

"I am too proud," came the unspoken answer.  "Your mother did not think
me good enough.  I will accept no acquaintance by stealth."

Interruption came in the shape of the waiter bearing a tray of little
silver dishes filled with dainties, which he proceeded to arrange in
rows on the table.  Claire relapsed into giggles at the sight, and
Captain Fanshawe took refuge, man-like, in preternatural solemnity; but
he made no comment, and the moment that the man had disappeared, both
heads craned eagerly to examine the spoils.

"Chocolates, _marrons glacis_, crystallised peaches, French bon-bons,
plums.  I don't recognise them by head mark.  These are too sticky...
These look uncommonly good!"  The big fingers hovered over each dish in
turn, lifting sample specimens, and placing them on Claire's plate,
whence they were swiftly conveyed to her bag.  Not a single sweetmeat
touched her own lips.  The unconventionality of the action seemed to
receive some justification from the fact that she was confiscating only
her own share.  When the waiter returned with ices, the little bag
bulged suspiciously, and the silver dishes were no longer required.  The
waiter was ordered to carry them away, and plainly considered that some
people did not know what they wanted.

"The only thing lacking is a cracker.  I invariably purloined a cracker,
and doubled up the ends.  I suppose we are hardly near enough to
Christmas.  By the by, what are you doing for Christmas?  You will have
holidays, of course," Captain Fanshawe said, with an elaborate
unconsciousness, and Claire kept her eyes on her plate.

"I may go to Belgium.  I haven't decided."

"There seem to be a good many things you cannot--decide.  Miss Gifford,
you haven't forgotten what I asked you?"

"What did you ask?"

"That if ever I could help--if you ever needed help--"

"I shall want help badly during the next few weeks, when the
examinations come on, and I have all the papers to set and correct."

Captain Fanshawe refused to smile.

"The kind of help that a man can give--"

"Yes, I remember.  You were very kind, and I am still so much under the
influence of the old life that I do feel you might be a comfort; but no
doubt, after some more months of school-mistressing, I shall resent the
idea that a man could do any more than I could myself.  So it's a case
of soon or never.  You will hardly be cruel enough to wish to hasten my
extremity!"

"I'm not so sure about that, if I could have the satisfaction of putting
things to rights!"

It was while she was smiling her acknowledgment of this pretty speech
that Claire became conscious of Janet Willoughby's eyes bent searchingly
upon her.  She had entered the room on the arm of her supper partner,
and came to a pause not a yard away from the table where a very
animated, apparently very intimate conversation was taking place between
the son of her old friend and the girl to whom she had believed him to
be unknown.  As she met Claire's glance, Janet smiled automatically, but
the friendliness was gone from her glance.  The next moment Captain
Fanshawe, had turned, seen her, and sprung to his feet.

"Janet!  Are you waiting for a table?  We have nearly finished.  Won't
you sit down and talk to Miss Gifford?"

"Oh, please don't hurry...  We'll find another place.  You have met
before, then?  I didn't know."

"I saw Miss Gifford when she was befriending my mother at Liverpool
Street Station, and recognised her upstairs just now.  Do sit down,
Janet.  You look tired."

Janet Willoughby took the offered chair and exchanged a few words with
Claire as she gathered together her possessions, but the subtle change
persisted.  Claire felt vaguely disturbed, but the next half-hour passed
so pleasantly that she had no time to puzzle over the explanation.
Captain Fanshawe never left her side; they sat together on the same sofa
which Great-aunt Jane had monopolised for the earlier part of the
evening, and talked of many things, and discussed many problems, and
sometimes agreed, and oftener disagreed, and when they disagreed most
widely, looked into each other's eyes and smiled, as who should say,
"What do words matter?  We understand!"

At one o'clock Claire rose to depart, and said her adieu to her hostess
and her daughter, who were standing side by side.

"My dear, it is too bad.  I have had _no_ time with you, and I am so
grateful for the charming way in which you came to the rescue!  We shall
hope to see you often again.  Shan't we, Janet?  You girls must arrange
a day which suits you both."

"Oh, yes, we must!"  Janet said, as she shook hands, but she made no
attempt to make the arrangement there and then, as her mother obviously
expected, and Claire realised, with a sinking of the heart, that a
promised friendship had received a check.

When she descended to the hall wrapped in her filmy cloak it was to find
Captain Fanshawe waiting at the foot of the stairs.  He looked worried
and grave, and the front door was reached before he made the first
remark.  Then, lingering tentatively on the threshold, he looked down at
her with a searching glance.

"Is--er--is your address still the Grand Hotel?"

Claire's face set into firm lines.

"Still the Grand Hotel!"

For a moment he looked her steadily in the eyes, then said quietly--

"And my address is still the Carlton Club!"  He bowed, and turned into
the house.

The footman banged the door of the taxi, and stood awaiting
instructions.

"T-wenty-two, Laburnum Crescent," said Claire weakly.  Halfway through
the words a sudden obstacle arose in her throat.  It was all she could
do to struggle through.  She hoped to goodness the footman did not
notice.

"There now! what did I tell you?  You look fagged to death, and as cross
as two sticks.  Five shillings wasted on taxis, and nothing for it but
getting thoroughly upset.  Next time I hope you will take my advice!"
said Cecil, and took up her candle to grope her way up the dark stairway
to bed.



CHAPTER TEN.

NOWHERE TO GO.

Cecil's observance of her day of licenced grumbling was somewhat
obstructed by the fact that for several weeks after Mrs Willoughby's At
Home, Monday mornings found her in a condition of excitement and gaiety.
It was a restless gaiety, which seemed to spring rather from the head
than the heart, and Claire looking on with puzzled eyes had an instinct
that her companion was assiduously whipping up her own spirits, playing
the part of happiness with all her force, with the object of convincing
the most critical of all audiences--her own heart!  Life was a lonely
thing to Claire in these days, for Cecil went out regularly every
Saturday and Sunday, returning so late that the two girls did not meet
from lunch one day until breakfast the next.  She vouchsafed no
explanation of her sudden plunge into society, neither beforehand when
she sat stitching at pathetic little pieces of finery, nor afterwards
when letting herself in with her latch-key she crept slowly to bed,
never deigning to enter Claire's room for one of those "tell-all-about-
it" _seances_ dear to a girl's heart.

It was the sight of those pathetic little pieces of finery which first
suggested the idea of a man to Claire's mind.  However dear and intimate
a woman friend may be, the prospect of meeting her does not inspire a
fellow-woman with sufficient energy to sit up until after midnight to
cover a shabby lace blouse with ninon, or to put a new silk collar and
cuffs on a half-worn coat.  It is only the prospect of meeting the eyes
of some male creature, who in all probability will remain supremely
unconscious of the result, which stimulates such effort, and Claire,
noting Cecil's restless excitement, cast anxious thoughts towards the
particular man in this case.

Was Sophie Blake correct in her deduction as to a previous unhappy
romance?  Claire had no tangible grounds to lead her to a conclusion,
but instinct induced her to agree.  Something beyond the troubles of her
professional life had gone towards warping a nature that was naturally
generous and warm.  In imagination Claire lived over the pitiful
romance.  Poor Cecil had been badly treated.  Some selfish man had made
love to her, amusing his idle hours with the society of a pretty, clever
woman; he had never seriously intended marriage, but Cecil had believed
in his sincerity, had given him her whole heart, had dreamt dreams which
had turned the grey of life to gold.

And then had come the end.  How had the end come?  Some day when they
were walking together, had he suddenly announced: "I am sailing to India
next month!" or, "We have been such capital friends, you and I.  I
should like you to be the first to hear my news.  I am engaged to be
married to the dearest girl in the world!"  Then, because convention
decrees that when her heart is wounded a woman may make no moan, had
Cecil twisted her lips into a smile, and cried, "I am so glad to hear
it.  I hope you will be very happy," while the solid earth rocked around
he

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