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Comedies of Courtship

by Anthony Hope · English · Gutenberg #24985 · 358,553 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Comedies of Courtship

Author: Anthony Hope


        
Release date: April 4, 2008 [eBook #24985]
                Most recently updated: January 3, 2021

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COMEDIES OF COURTSHIP ***










COMEDIES OF COURTSHIP

By Anthony Hope



  "It is a familiar fact that the intensity of a passion varies
   with the proximity of the appropriate object."
    Mr. Leslie Stephen, 'Science of Ethics'

  "How the devil is it that fresh features
   Have such a charm for us poor human creatures?"
    Lord Byron, 'Don Juan'


Charles Scribner's Sons New York 1896

Copyright, 1896 Charles Scribner's Sons

Copyright, 1894, 1896, by Anthony Hope


NOTE

"The Wheel of Love," published in Scribner's Magazine during the past
year, and "The Lady of the Pool," both protected by American copyright,
are here printed for the first time in book form. The four other
stories appeared without their author's consent or knowledge, with
their titles changed beyond recognition, and combined with other
unauthorized material, in a small volume printed by an American firm.
They are here given for the first time in their proper form and by my
authority.

Anthony Hope.



CONTENTS

The Wheel of Love The Lady of the Pool The Curate of Poltons A
Three-Volume Novel The Philosopher in the Apple Orchard The Decree of
Duke Deodonato



THE WHEEL OF LOVE



CHAPTER I

THE VIRTUOUS HYPOCRITES


AT first sight they had as little reason for being unhappy as it is
possible to have in a world half full of sorrow. They were young and
healthy; half a dozen times they had each declared the other more than
common good-looking; they both had, and never knew what it was not to
have, money enough for comfort and, in addition that divine little
superfluity wherefrom joys are born. The house was good to look at and
good to live in; there were horses to ride, the river to go a-rowing
on, and a big box from Mudie's every week. No one worried them; Miss
Bussey was generally visiting the poor; or, as was the case at this
moment, asleep in her arm-chair, with Paul, the terrier, in his basket
beside her, and the cat on her lap. Lastly, they were plighted lovers,
and John was staying with Miss Bussey for the express purpose of
delighting and being delighted by his fiancée, Mary Travers. For these
and all their mercies certainly they should have been truly thankful.

However the heart of man is wicked. This fact alone can explain why
Mary sat sadly in the drawing-room, feeling a letter that was tucked
inside her waistband and John strode moodily up and down the gravel
walk, a cigar, badly bitten, between his teeth, and his hand over and
again covertly stealing toward his breast-pocket and pressing a scented
note that lay there. In the course of every turn John would pass the
window of the drawing-room; then Mary would look up with a smile and
blow him a kiss, and he nodded and laughed and returned the salute.
But, the window passed, both sighed deeply and returned to lingering
those hidden missives.

"Poor little girl! I must keep it up," said John.

"Dear good John! He must never know," thought Mary.

And the two fell to thinking just what was remarked a few lines back,
namely, that the human heart is very wicked; they were shocked at
themselves; the young often are.

Miss Bussey awoke, sat up, evicted the cat, and found her spectacles.

"Where are those children?" said she. "Billing and cooing somewhere, I
suppose. Bless me, why don't they get tired of it?"

They had--not indeed of billing and cooing in general, for no one at
their age does or ought to get tired of that--but of billing and cooing
with one another.

It will be observed that the situation promised well for a tragedy.
Nevertheless this is not the story of an unhappy marriage.

If there be one thing which Government should forbid, it is a secret
engagement. Engagements should be advertised as marriages are; but
unless we happen to be persons of social importance, or considerable
notoriety, no such precautions are taken. Of course there are
engagement rings; but a man never knows one when he sees it on a lady's
hand--it would indeed be impertinent to look too closely--and when he
goes out alone he generally puts his in his pocket, considering that
the evening will thus be rendered more enjoyable. The Ashforth--Travers
engagement was not a secret now, but it had been, and had been too
long. Hence, when Mary went to Scotland and met Charlie Ellerton, and
when John went to Switzerland and met Dora Bellairs-the truth is, they
ought never to have separated, and Miss Bussey (who was one of the
people in the secret) had been quite right when she remarked that it
seemed a curious arrangement. John and Mary had scoffed at the idea of
a few weeks' absence having any effect on their feelings except, if
indeed it were possible, that of intensifying them.

"I really think I ought to go and find them," said Miss Bussey. "Come,
Paul!"

She took a parasol, for the April sun was bright, and went into the
garden. "When she came to the drawing-room window John was away at the
end of the walk. She looked at him: he was reading a letter. She looked
in at the window: Mary was reading a letter.

"Well!" exclaimed Miss Bussey. "Have they had a tiff?" And she slowly
waddled (truth imposes this word-she was very stout) toward the
unconscious John. He advanced toward her still reading; not only did he
not see her, but he failed to notice that Paul had got under his feet.
He fell over Paul, and as he stumbled the letter fluttered out of his
hand. Paul seized it and began to toss it about in great glee.

"Good doggie!" Cried Miss Bussey. "Come then! Bring it to me, dear.
Good Paul!"

John's face was distorted with agony. He darted toward Paul, fell on
him, and gripped him closely. Paul yelped and Miss Bussey observed, in
an indignant tone, that John need not throttle the dog. John muttered
something.

"Is the letter so very precious?" asked his hostess ironically.

"Precious!" cried John. "Yes!--No!--It's nothing at all."

But he opened Paul's mouth and took out his treasure with wonderful
care.

"And why," inquired Miss Bussey, "are you not with Mary, young man?
You're very neglectful."

"Neglectful! Surely, Miss Bussey, you haven't noticed anything--like
neglect? Don't say----"

"Bless the boy! I was only joking. You're a model lover."

"Thank you, thank you. I'll go to her at once," and he sped towards the
window, opened it and walked up to Mary. Miss Bussey followed him and
arrived just in time to see the lovers locked in one another's arms,
their faces expressing all appropriate rapture.

"There's nothing much wrong," said Miss Bussey; wherein Miss Bussey
herself was much wrong.

"What a shame! I've left you alone for more than an hour!" said John.
"Have you been very unhappy?" and he added, "darling." It sounded like
an afterthought.

"I have been rather unhappy," answered Mary, and her answer was true.
As she said it she tucked in a projecting edge of her letter. John had
hurriedly slipped his (it was rather the worse for its mauling) into
his trousers-pocket.

"You--you didn't think me neglectful?"

"Oh, no."

"I was thinking of you all the time,"

"And I was thinking of you, dear."

"Are you very happy?"

"Yes, John; aren't you?"

"Of course I am. Happy! I should think so," and he kissed her with
unimpeachable fervor.

When a conscientious person makes up his mind that he ought, for good
reasons, to deceive somebody, there is no one like him for
thorough-paced hypocrisy. When two conscientious people resolve; to
deceive one another, on grounds of duty, the acme of duplicity is in a
fair way to be reached. John Ashforth and Mary Travers illustrated this
proposition. The former had been all his life a good son, and was now a
trustworthy partner, to his father, who justly relied no less on his
character than on his brains. The latter, since her parents' early
death had left her to her aunt's care, had been the comfort and prop of
Miss Bussey's life. It is difficult to describe good people without
making them seem dull; but luckily nature is defter than novelists, and
it is quite possible to be good without being dull. Neither Mary nor
John was dull; a trifle limited, perhaps, they were, a thought severe
in their judgments of others as well as of themselves; a little
exacting with their friends and more than a little with themselves.
One description paints them both; doubtless their harmony of mind had
contributed more than Mary's sweet expression and finely cut features,
or John's upstanding six feet, and honest capable face, to produce that
attachment between them which had, six months before this story begins,
culminated in their engagement. Once arrived at, this ending seemed to
have been inevitable. Everybody discovered that they had foretold it
from the first, and modestly disclaimed any credit for anticipating a
union between a couple so obviously made for one another.

The distress into which lovers such as these fell when they discovered
by personal experience that sincerely to vow eternal love is one thing,
and sincerely to give it quite another, may be well imagined, and may
well be left to be imagined. They both went through a terrible period
of temptation, wherein they listened longingly to the seductive
pleading of their hearts; but both emerged triumphant, resolved to
stifle their mad fancy, to prefer good faith to mere inclination, and
to avoid, at all costs, wounding one to whom they had sworn to be true.
Thus far their steadfastness carried them, but not beyond. They could
part from their loved ones, and they did; but they could not leave them
without a word. Each wrote, after leaving Scotland and Switzerland
respectively, a few lines of adieu, confessing the love they felt, but
with resolute sadness saying farewell forever. They belonged to another.

It was the answers that Mary and John were reading when Miss Bussey
discovered them.

Mary's ran:


"MY DEAR MISS TRAVERS: I have received your letter. I can't tell you
what it means to me. You say all must be over between us. Don't be
offended--but I won't say that yet. It can't be your duty to marry a
man you don't love. You forbid me to write or come to you; and you ask
only for a word of good-by. I won't say good-by.  I'll say _Au
revoir--au revoir_, my darling."

"Charlie."

"Burn this."


This was John's:

"MY DEAR MR. ASHFORTH: What am I to say to you? Oh, why, why didn't you
tell me before? I oughtn't to say that, but it is too late to conceal
anything from you. Yes, you are right. It must be good-by.  Yes, I will
try to forget you. But oh, John, it's very, very, very difficult. I
don't know how to sign this--so I won't. You'll know who it comes from,
won't you?  Good-by.  Burn this."


These letters, no doubt, make it plain that there had been at least a
momentary weakness both in Mary and in John; but in a true and
charitable view their conduct in rising superior to temptation finally
was all the more remarkable and praiseworthy. They had indeed, for the
time, been carried away. Even now Mary found it hard not to make
allowances for herself, little as she was prone to weakness when she
thought of the impetuous _abandon_ and conquering whirl with which
Charlie Ellerton had wooed her; and John confessed that flight alone, a
hasty flight from Interlaken after a certain evening spent in gazing at
the Jungfrau, had saved him from casting everything to the winds and
yielding to the slavery of Dora Bellairs's sunny smiles and charming
coquetries. He had always thought that that sort of girl had no
attractions for him, just as Mary had despised 'butterfly-men' like
Charlie Ellerton. Well, they were wrong. The only comfort was that
shallow natures felt these sorrows less; it would have broken Mary's
heart (thought John), or John's (thought Mary), but Dora and Charlie
would soon find consolation in another. But here, oddly enough, John
generally swore heartily and Mary always began to search for her
handkerchief. "They're as affectionate as one could wish when they're
together," mused Miss Bussey, as she stroked the cat, "but at other
times they're gloomy company. I suppose they can't be happy apart.
Dear! dear!" and the good old lady fell to wondering whether she had
ever been so foolish herself.



CHAPTER II

SYMPATHY IN SORROW


"Give me," observed Sir Roger Deane, "Cannes, a fine day, a good set to
look at, a beehive chair, a good cigar, a cocktail on one side and a
nice girl on the other, and there I am!  I don't want anything else."

General Bellairs pulled his white mustache and examined Sir Roger's
figure and surroundings with a smile.

"Then only Lady Deane is wanting to your complete happiness," said he.

"Maud is certainly a nice girl, but when she deserts me----"

"Where is she?"

"I don't know."

"I do," interposed a young man, who wore an eye--glass and was in
charge of a large jug. "She's gone to Monte."

"I might have known," said Sir Roger. "Being missed here always means
you've gone to Monte--like not being at church means you've gone to
Brighton."

"Surely she doesn't play?" asked the General.

"Not she! She's going to put it in a book. She writes books you know.
She put me in the last--made me a dashed fool, too, by Jove!"

"That was unkind," said the General, "from your wife."

"Oh, Lord love you, she didn't mean it. I was the hero. That's how I
came to be such an ass. The dear girl meant everything that was kind.
Who's taken her to Monte?"

"Charlie Ellerton," said the young man with the eye-glass.

"There! I told you she was a kind girl. She's trying to pull old
Charlie up a peg or two. He's had the deuce of a facer, you know."

"I thought he seemed less cheerful than usual."

"Oh, rather. He met a girl somewhere or other--I always forget
places--Miss--Miss--hang it, I can't remember names--and got awfully
smitten, and everything went pleasantly and she took to him like
anything--, and at last old Charlie spoke up like a man, and----" Sir
Roger paused dramatically.

"Well?" asked the General.

"She was engaged to another fellow. Rough, wasn't it? She told old
Charlie she liked him infernally, but promises were promises, don't you
know, and she'd thank him to take his hook. And he had to take it, by
Gad! Rough, don't you know? So Maud's been cheering him up. The devil!"

"What's the matter now?" inquired the General.

"Why, I've just remembered that I promised to say nothing about it. I
say, don't you repeat it, General, nor you either, Laing."

The General laughed.

"Well," said Sir Roger, "he oughtn't to have been such a fool as to
tell me. He knows I never remember to keep things dark. It's not my
fault."

A girl came out of the hotel and strolled up to where the group was.
She was dark, slight, and rather below middle height; her complexion at
this moment was a trifle sallow and her eyes listless, but it seemed
rather as though she had dressed her face into a tragic cast, the set
of the features being naturally mirthful. She acknowledged the men's
salutations and sat down with a sigh.

"Not on to-day?" asked Sir Roger, waving his cigar toward the
lawn-tennis courts.

"No," said Miss Bellairs.

"Are you seedy, Dolly?" inquired the General.

"No," said Miss Bellairs.

Mr. Laing fixed his eye-glass and surveyed the young lady.

"Are you taking any?" said he, indicating the jug.

"I don't see any fun in vulgarity," observed Miss Bellairs.

The General smiled. Sir Roger's lips assumed the shape for a whistle.

"That's a nasty one for me," said Laing.

"Ah, here you are, Roger," exclaimed a fresh clear voice from behind
the chairs. "I've been looking for you everywhere. We've seen
everything--Mr. Ellerton was most kind--and I do so want to tell you my
impressions."

The new-comer was Lady Deane, a tall young woman, plainly dressed in a
serviceable cloth walking-gown. By her side stood Charlie Ellerton in a
flannel suit of pronounced striping; he wore a little yellow mustache,
had blue eyes and curly hair, and his face was tanned a wholesome
ruddy-brown. He looked very melancholy.

"Letters from Hell," murmured Sir Roger.

"But I was so distressed," continued his wife. "Mr. Ellerton would
gamble, and he lost ever so much money."

"A fellow must amuse himself," remarked Charlie gloomily, and with
apparent unconsciousness he took a glass from Laing and drained it.

"Gambling and drink--what does that mean?" asked Sir Roger.

"Shut up, Deane," said Charlie.

Miss Bellairs rose suddenly and walked away. Her movement expressed
impatience with her surroundings. After a moment Charlie Ellerton
slowly sauntered after her. She sat down on a garden-seat some way off.
Charlie placed himself at the opposite end. A long pause ensued.

"I'm afraid I'm precious poor company," said Charlie.

"I didn't want you to be company at all," answered Miss Bellairs, and
she sloped her parasol until it obstructed his view of her face.

"I'm awfully sorry, but I can't stand the sort of rot Deane and Laing
are talking."

"Can't you?   Neither can I."

"They never seem to be serious about anything, you know," and Charlie
sighed deeply, and for three minutes there was silence.

"Do you know Scotland at all?" asked Charlie at last.

"Only a little."

"There last year?"

"No, I was in Switzerland."

"Oh."

"Do you know Interlaken?"

"No."

"Oh."

"May I have a cigarette?"

"Of course, if you like."

Charlie lit his cigarette and smoked silently for a minute or two.

"I call this a beastly place," said he.

"Yes, horrid," she answered, and the force of sympathy made her move
the parasol and turn her face towards her companion. "But I thought,"
she continued, "you came here every spring?"

"Oh, I don't mind the place so much. It's the people."

"Yes, isn't it? I know what you mean."

"You can't make a joke of everything, can you?"

"Indeed no," sighed Dora.

Charlie looked at his cigarette, and, his eyes carefully fixed on it,
said in a timid tone:

"What's the point, for instance, of talking as if love was all bosh?"

Dora's parasol swept down again swiftly, but Charlie was still looking
at the cigarette and he did not notice its descent, nor could he see
that Miss Bellairs's cheek was no longer sallow.

"It's such cheap rot," he continued, "and when a fellow's--I say, Miss
Bellairs, I'm not boring you?"

The parasol wavered and finally moved.

"No," said Miss Bellairs.

"I don't know whether you--no, I mustn't say that; but I know what it
is to be in love, Miss Bellairs; but what's the good of talking about
it? Everybody laughs."

Miss Bellairs put down her parasol.

"I shouldn't laugh," she said softly. "It's horrid to laugh at people
when they're in trouble," and her eyes were very sympathetic.

"You are kind. I don't mind talking about it to you. You know I'm not
the sort of fellow who falls in love with every girl he meets; so of
course it's worse when I do."

"Was it just lately?" murmured Dora.

"Last summer."

"Ah! And--and didn't she----?"

"Oh, I don't know. Yes, hang it, I believe she did. She was perfectly
straight, Miss Bellairs. I don't say a word against her. She-I think
she didn't know her own feelings until--until I spoke, you know--and
then----"

"Do go on, if--if it doesn't----"

"Why, then, the poor girl cried and said it couldn't be because
she--she was engaged to another fellow; and she sent me away."

Miss Bellairs was listening attentively.

"And," continued Charlie, "she wrote and said it must be good-by
and--and----"

"And you think she----?"

"She told me so," whispered Charlie. "She said she couldn't part
without telling me. Oh, I say, Miss Bellairs, isn't it all damnable?  I
beg your pardon."

Dora was tracing little figures on the gravel with her parasol.

"Now what would you do?" cried Charlie. "She loves me, I know she does,
and she's going to marry this other fellow because she promised him
first. I don't suppose she knew what love was then."

"Oh, I'm sure she didn't," exclaimed Dora earnestly.

"You can't blame her, you know. And it's absurd to--to--to--not
to--well, to marry a fellow you don't care for when you care for
another fellow, you know!"

"Yes."

"Of course you can hardly imagine yourself in that position, but
suppose a man liked you and-and was placed like that, you know, what
should you feel you ought to do?"

"Oh, I don't know," exclaimed Dora, clasping her hands. "Oh, do tell me
what you think!  I'd give the world to know!"

Charlie's surprised glance warned her of her betrayal. "You mustn't ask
me." she exclaimed hastily.

"I won't ask a word. I--I'm awfully sorry, Miss Bellairs."

"Nobody knows," she murmured.

"Nobody shall through me."

"You're not very--? I'm very ashamed."

"Why? And because of me! After what I've told you!"

Charlie rose suddenly.

"I'm not going to stand it," he announced.

Dora looked up eagerly.

"What? You're going to----?"

"I'm going to have a shot at it. Am I to stand by and see her----?  I'm
hanged if I do. Could that be right?"

"I should like to know what one's _duty_ is?"

"This talk with you has made me quite clear. We've reasoned it out, you
see. They're not to be married for two or three months. A lot can be
done in that time."

"Ah, you're a man!"

"I shall write first. If that doesn't do, I shall go to her."

Dora shook her head mournfully.

"Now, look here, Miss Bellairs you don't mind me advising you?"

"I ought not to have let you see, but as it is--"

"You do as I do, you stick to it. Confound it, you know, when one's
life's happiness is at stake--"

"Oh, yes, yes!"

"One mustn't be squeamish, must one?"

And Dora Bellairs, in a very low whisper, answered, "No."

"I shall write to-night."

"Oh!  To-night?"

"Yes. Now promise me you will too."

"It's harder for me than you."

"Not if he really----."

"Oh, indeed, he really does, Mr. Ellerton."

"Then you'll write?"

"Perhaps."

"No. Promise!"

"Well--it must be right. Yes, I will."

"I feel the better for our talk, Miss Bellairs, don't you?"

"I do a little."

"We shall be friends now, you know; even if I bring it off I shan't be
content unless you do too. Won't you give me your good wishes?"

"Indeed I will."

"Shake hands on it."

They shook hands and began to stroll back to the tennis-courts.

"They look a little better," observed Sir Roger Deane, who had been
listening to an eloquent description of the gaming-tables.

Dora and Charlie walked on towards the hotel.

"Hi!" shouted Sir Roger. "Tea's coming out here."

"I've got a letter to write," said Charlie.

"Well, Miss Bellairs, you must come. Who's to pour it out?"

"I must catch the post, Sir Roger," answered Dora.

They went into the house together. In the hall they parted.

"You'll let me know what happens, Mr. Ellerton, won't you? I'm so
interested."

"And you?"

"Oh--well, perhaps," and the sallow of her cheeks had turned to a fine
dusky red as she ran upstairs.

Thus it happened that a second letter for John Ashforth and a second
letter for Mary Travers left Cannes that night.

And if it seems a curious coincidence that Dora and Charlie should meet
at Cannes, it can only be answered that they were each of them just as
likely to be at Cannes as anywhere else. Besides, who knows that these
things are all coincidence?



CHAPTER III

A PROVIDENTIAL DISCLOSURE


On Wednesday the eleventh of April, John Ashforth rose from his bed
full of a great and momentous resolution. There is nothing very strange
in that, perhaps it is just the time of day when such things come to a
man, and, in ordinary cases, they are very prone to disappear with the
relics of breakfast. But John was of sterner stuff.  He had passed a
restless night, tossed to and fro by very disturbing gusts of emotion,
and he arose with the firm conviction that if he would escape shipwreck
he must secure his bark by immovable anchors while he was, though not
in honor, yet in law and fact, free; he could not trust himself.
Sorrowfully admitting his weakness, he turned to the true, the right,
the heroic remedy.

"I'll marry Mary to--day fortnight," said he. "When we are man and wife
I shall forget this madness and love her as I used to."

He went down to breakfast, ate a bit of toast and drank a cup of very
strong tea. Presently Mary appeared and greeted him with remarkable
tenderness. His heart smote him, and his remorse strengthened his
determination.

"I want to speak to you after breakfast," he told her.

His manner was so significant that a sudden gleam of hope flashed into
her mind. Could it be that he had seen, that he would be generous? She
banished the shameful hope. She would not accept generosity at the
expense of pain to him.

Miss Bussey, professing to find bed the best place in the world, was in
the habit of taking her breakfast there. The lovers were alone, and,
the meal ended, they passed together into the conservatory. Mary sat
down and John leant against the glass door opposite her.

"Well?" said she, smiling at him.

It suddenly struck John that, in a scene of this nature, it
ill-befitted him to stand three yards from the lady. He took a chair
and drew it close beside her. The thing had to be done and it should be
done properly.

"We've made a mistake, Mary," he announced, taking her hand and
speaking in a rallying tone.

"A mistake!" she cried; "oh, how?"

"In fixing our marriage----."

"So soon?"

"My darling!" said John (and it was impossible to deny admiration to
the tone he said it in), "no. So late! What are we waiting for? Why are
we wasting all this precious time?"

Mary could not speak, but consternation passed for an appropriate
confusion, and John pursued his passionate pleadings. As Mary felt his
grasp and looked into his honest eyes, her duty lay plain before her.
She would not stoop to paltry excuses on the score of clothes,
invitations, or such trifles. She had made up her mind to the thing;
surely she ought to do it in the way most gracious and most pleasing to
her lover.

"If Aunt consents," she murmured at last, "do as you like, John dear,"
and the embrace which each felt to be inevitable at such a crisis
passed between them.

A discreet cough separated them. The butler stood in the doorway, with
two letters on a salver. One he handed to Mary, the other to John, and
walked away with a twinkle in his eye. However even our butlers do not
know everything that happens in our houses (to say nothing of our
hearts), although much they may think they do.

John looked at his letter, started violently and crushed it into his
pocket. He glanced at Mary; her letter lay neglected on her lap. She
was looking steadily out of the window.

"Well, that's settled," said John. "I--I think I'll have a cigar, dear."

"Yes, do, darling," said Mary, and John went out.

These second letters were unfortunately so long as to make it
impossible to reproduce them. They were also very affecting, Dora's
from its pathos, Charlie's from its passion. But the waves of emotion
beat fruitlessly on the rock-built walls of conscience. At almost the
same moment, Mary, brushing away a tear, and John, blowing his nose,
sat down to write a brief, a final answer. "We are to be married
today fortnight," they said. They closed the envelopes without a
moment's delay and went to drop their letters in the box. The servant
was already waiting to go to the post with them and a second later the
fateful documents were on their way to Cannes.

"Now," said John, with a ghastly smile, "we can have a glorious long
day together!"

Mary was determined to leave herself no loophole.

"We must tell Aunt what--what we have decided upon this morning," she
reminded him. "It means that the wedding must be very quiet."

"I shan't mind that. Shall you?"

"I shall like it of all things." she answered. "Come and find Aunt
Sarah."

Miss Bussey had always--or at least for a great many years
back--maintained the general proposition that young people do not know
their own minds. This morning's news confirmed her opinion.

"Why the other day you both agreed that the middle of June would do
perfectly. Now you want it all done in a scramble."

The pair stood before her, looking very guilty.

"What is the meaning of this--this (she very nearly said 'indecent')
extraordinary haste?"

Miss Bussey asked only one indulgence from her friends. Before she did
a kind thing she liked to be allowed to say one or two sharp ones. Her
niece was aware of this fancy of hers and took refuge in silence.
John, less experienced in his hostess's ways, launched into the
protests appropriate to an impatient lover.

"Well," said Miss Bussey, "I must say you look properly ashamed of
yourself [John certainly did], so I'll see what can be done. What a
fluster we shall live in! Upon my word you might as well have made it
tomorrow. The fuss would have been no worse and a good deal shorter."

The next few days passed, as Miss Bussey had predicted, in a fluster.
Mary was running after dress makers, John after licenses, Cook's
tickets, a best man, and all the impedimenta of a marriage. The
intercourse of the lovers was much interrupted, and to this Miss Bussey
attributed the low spirits that Mary sometimes displayed.

"There, there, my dear," she would say impatiently--for the cheerful
old lady hated long faces--"you'll have enough of him and to spare by
and by."

Curiously this point of view did not comfort Mary. She liked John very
much, she esteemed him even more than she liked him, he would, she
thought, have made an ideal brother. Ah, why had she not made a brother
of him while there was time? Then she would have enjoyed his constant
friendship all her life; for it was not with him as with that foolish
boy Charlie, all or nothing. John was reasonable; he would not have
threatened--well, reading--his letter one way, Charlie almost seemed to
be tampering with propriety. John would never have done that. And these
reflections, all of which should have pleaded for John, ended in
weeping over the lost charms of Charlie.

One evening, just a week before the wedding, she roused herself from
some such sad meditations, and, duty-driven, sought John in the
smoking-room. The door was half open and she entered noiselessly. John
was sitting at the table; his arms were outspread on it, and his face
buried in his hands. Thinking he was asleep she approached on tiptoe
and leant over his shoulder. As she did so her eyes fell on a sheet of
note-paper; it was clutched in John's right hand, and the encircling
grasp covered it, save at the top. The top was visible, and Mary,
before she knew what she was doing, had read the embossed
heading--nothing else, just the embossed heading--Hotel de Luxe,
Cannes, Alpes Maritimes.

The drama teaches us how often a guilty mind rushes, on some trifling
cause, to self-revelation. Like a flash came the conviction that
Charlie had written to John, that her secret was known, and John's
heartbroken. In a moment she fell on her knees crying, "Oh, how wicked
I've been! Forgive me, do forgive me! Oh, John, can you forgive me?"

John was not asleep, he also was merely meditating; but if he had been
a very Rip Van Winkle this cry of agony would have roused him.  He
started violently--as well he might--from his seat, looked at Mary, and
crumpled the letter into a shapeless ball.

"You didn't see?" he asked hoarsely.

"No, but I know. I mean I saw the heading, and knew it must be from
him. Oh, John!"

"From him!"

"Yes. He's--he's staying there. Oh, John! Really I'll never see or
speak to him again. Really I won't. Oh, you can trust me, John. See!
I'll hide nothing. Here's his letter! You see I've sent him away?"

And she took from her pocket Charlie's letter, and in her noble
fidelity (to John--the less we say about poor Charlie the better)
handed it to him.

"What's this?" asked John, in bewilderment. "Who's it from?"

"Charlie Ellerton," she stammered.

"Who's Charlie Ellerton? I never heard--but am I to read it?"

"Yes, please, I--I think you'd better."

John read it; Mary followed his eyes, and the moment they reached the
end, without giving him time to speak, she exclaimed, "There, you see I
spoke the truth.  I had sent him away. What does he say to you, John?"

"I never heard of him in my life before."

"John! Then who is your letter from?"

He hesitated. He felt an impulse to imitate her candor, but prudence
suggested that he should be sure of his ground first.

"Tell me all," he said, sitting down. "Who is this man, and what has he
to do with you?"

"Why don't you show me his letter? I don't know what he's said about
me."

"What could he say about you?"

"Well he--he might say that--that I cared for him, John."

"And do you?" demanded John, and his voice was anxious.

Duty demanded a falsehood; Mary did her very best to satisfy its
imperious commands. It was no use.

"Oh, John," she murmured, and then began to cry.

For a moment wounded pride struggled with John's relief; but then a
glorious vision of what this admission of Mary's might mean to him
swept away his pique.

"Read this," he said, giving her Dora Bellairs's letter, "and then
we'll have an explanation."

Half an hour later Miss Bussey was roused from a pleasant snooze. John
and Mary stood beside her, hand in hand. They wore brother and sister
now--that was an integral part of the arrangement--and so they stood
hand in hand. Their faces were radiant.

"We came to tell you, Auntie dear, that we have decided that we're not
suited to one another," began Mary.

"Not at all," said John decisively.

Miss Bussey stared helplessly from one to the other.

"It's all right, Miss Bussey," remarked John cheerfully. "We've had an
explanation; we part by mutual consent."

"John," said Mary, "is to be just my brother and I his sister. Oh, and
Auntie, I want to go with him to Cannes."

This last suggestion, which naturally did not appear to any
well-regulated mind to harmonize with what had gone before, restored
voice to Miss Bussey.

"What's the matter with you? Are you mad?" she demanded.

John sat down beside her. His friends anticipated a distinguished
Parliamentary career for John; he could make anything sound reasonable.
Miss Bussey was fascinated by his suave and fluent narrative of what
had befallen Mary and himself; she could not but admire his just
remarks on the providential disclosure of the true state of the case
before it was too late, and sympathized with the picture of suffering
nobly suppressed which grew under his skilful hand; she was inflamed
when he ardently declared his purpose of seeking out Dora; she was
touched when he kissed Mary's hand and declared that the world held no
nobler woman. Before John's eloquence even the stern facts of a public
engagement, of invited guests, of dresses ordered and presents
received, lost their force, and the romantic spirit, rekindled, held
undivided sway in Miss Bussey's heart.

"But," she said, "why does Mary talk of going to Cannes with you?"

"Mr. Ellerton is at Cannes, Aunt," murmured Mary, shyly.

"But you can't travel with John."

"Oh, but you must come too."

"It looks as if you were running after him."

"I'll chance Charlie thinking that," cried Mary, clasping her hands in
glee.

Miss Bussey pretended to be reluctant to undertake the journey, but she
was really quite ready to yield, and soon everything was settled on the
new basis.

"And now to write and tell people," said Miss Bussey. "That's the worst
part of it."

"Poor dear! We'll help," cried Mary. "But I must write to Cannes."

"Wire!" cried John.

"Of course, wire!" echoed Mary.

"The first thing tomorrow."

"Before breakfast."

"Mary, I shall never forget----."

"No, John, it's you who----." and they went off in a torrent of mutual
laudation.

Miss Bussey shook her head.

"If they think all that of one another why don't they marry?" she said.



CHAPTER IV

THE TALE OF A POSTMARK


"Yes," said Lady Deane, "we leave today week: Roger has to be back the
first week in May, and I want to stop at one or two places en route."

"Let's see. To-day's the 19th, no, the 20th; there's nothing to remind
one of time here. That'll be the 27th. That's about my date; we might
go together if you and Deane have no objection."

"Oh, I should be delighted, General; and shall you stay at all in
Paris?"

"A few days--just to show Dolly the sights."

"How charming! And you and I must have some expeditions together.
Roger is so odd about not liking to take me."

"We'll do the whole thing, Lady Deane," answered General Bellairs,
heartily. "Notre Dame, the Versailles, the Invalides, Eiffel Tower."

Lady Deane's broad white brow showed a little pucker.

"That wasn't quite what I meant," said she. "Oh, but Roger could take
Dora to those, couldn't he, while you and I made a point of seeing some
of the real life of the people? Of studying them in their ordinary
resorts, their places of recreation and amusement."

"Oh, the Francais, and the opera, and so on, of course."

"No, no, no," exclaimed Lady Deane, tapping her foot impatiently and
fixing her gray eyes on the General's now puzzled face. "Not the same
old treadmill in Paris as in London! Not that, General!"

"What then, my dear lady?" asked he. "Your wish is law to me," and it
was true that he had become very fond of his earnest young friend.
"What do you want to see? The Chamber of Deputies?"

Sir Roger's voice struck in.

"I'm not a puritanical husband, Bellairs, but I must make a stand
somewhere. Not the Chamber of Deputies."

"Don't be silly, Roger dear," said Lady Deane, in her usual tone of
dispassionate reproof.

"I can't find out where she does want to go to," remarked the General.

"I can tell you," said Sir Roger, and he leant down and whispered a
name; in the General's ear.  The General jumped.

"Good heavens!" he exclaimed. "I haven't been there since the fifties.
Is it still like what it used to be?"

"How should I know?" inquired Sir Roger. "I'm not a student of social
phenomena. Maud is, so she wants to go."

Lady Deane was looking on with a quiet smile.

"She never mentioned it," protested the General.

"Oh, of course if there's a worse place now!" conceded Sir Roger.

"I'll make up my mind when we arrive," observed Lady Deane. "Anyhow I
shall rely on you, General."

The General looked a little uncomfortable.

"If Deane doesn't object----."

"I shouldn't think of taking my wife to such places."

Suddenly Dora Bellairs rushed up to them.

"Have you seen Mr. Ellerton?" she cried. "Where is he?"

"In the smoking-room," answered Sir Roger. "Do you want him?"

"Would you mind? I can't go in there: it's full of men."

"After all we must be somewhere," pleaded Sir Roger as he went on his
errand.

"Dolly," said the General, "I've just made a charming arrangement.
Lady Deane and Sir Roger start for Paris to-day week, and we're going
with them. You said you'd like another week here."

"It's charming our being able to go together, isn't it?" said Lady
Deane. Dora's face did not express rapture, yet she liked the Deanes
very much.

"Oh, but----" she began.

"Well?" asked her father.

"I rather want to go a little sooner."

"I'm afraid," said Lady Deane, "we shan't get Roger to move before
then. He's bent on seeing the tennis tournament through.  When did you
want to go, Dora?"

"Well, in fact--to--night."

"My dear Dolly, what a weathercock you are!  It's impossible.  I'm
dining with the Grand Duke on Monday. You must make up your mind to
stay, young woman."

"Oh, please, papa----."

"But why do you want to go?" asked the General, rather impatiently.

Dora had absolutely no producible reason for her eagerness to go. And
yet--Oh, if they only knew what was at stake! "We're to be married in a
fortnight!" She could see the words dancing before her eyes. And she
must waste a precious week here!

"Do you want me, Miss Bellairs?" asked Charlie Ellerton, coming up to
them.

"Yes. I want--oh, I want to go to Rumpelmayer's."

"All right. Come along. I'm delighted to go with you."

They walked off in silence. Dora was in distress. She saw that the
General was immovable.

Suddenly Charlie turned to her and remarked,

"Well, it's all over with me, Miss Bellairs."

"What?  How do you mean?"

"My chance is gone. They're to be married in a fortnight. I had a
letter to say so this morning."

Dora turned suddenly to him.

"Oh, but it's too extraordinary," she cried. "So had I!"

"What?"

"Why, a letter to say they were to be married in a fortnight."

"Nonsense!"

"Yes. Mr. Ellerton--who--who is your friend?"

"Her name's Mary Travers."

"And who is she going--to marry?"

"Ah! She hasn't told me that."

A suspicion of the truth struck them both. Charlie produced his letter.

"She writes," he said, showing the postmark, "from Dittington."

"It is! It is!" she cried. "It must be Mary Travers that Mr. Ashforth
is going to marry!"

"Is that your friend?"

"Yes. Is she pretty, Mr. Ellerton?"

"Oh, awfully. What sort of a fellow is he?"

"Splendid!"

"Isn't it a deuced queer thing?"

"Most extraordinary. And when we told one another we never thought----."

"How could we?"

"Well, no, we couldn't, of course."

A pause followed. Then Charlie observed: "I suppose there's nothing to
be done."

"Nothing to be done, Mr. Ellerton! Why if I were a man I'd leave for
England tonight."

"And why can't you?"

"Papa won't. But you might."

"Ye--es, I suppose I might. It would look rather odd, wouldn't it?"

"Why, you yourself suggested it!"

"Yes, but the marriage was a long way off then."

"There's the more reason now for haste."

"Of course, that's true, but----."

"Oh, if papa would only take me!" A sudden idea seemed to strike
Charlie; he assumed an air of chivalrous sympathy. "When shall you go?"
he asked. "Not till to-day week," she said.  "We shan't get to England
till three or four days before it."  Dora knew nothing of the proposed
stay in Paris.

"Look here, Miss Bellairs," said Charlie, "we agreed to stand by one
another. I shall wait and go when you do."

"But think----."

"I've thought."

"You're risking everything."

"If she'll break it off ten days before, she'll do the same four days
before."

"If she really loves you she will."

"Anyhow we'll stand or fall together."

"Oh, I oughtn't to let you, but I can't refuse.  How kind you are!"

"Then that's settled," said Charlie, "And we must try to console one
another till then."

"The suspense is awful, isn't it?"

"Of course. But we must appear cheerful.  We mustn't betray ourselves."

"Not for the world! I can never thank you enough. You'll come with us
all the way?"

"Yes."

"Thank you again."

She gave him her hand, which he pressed gently.

"Hullo!" said he. "We seem to have got up by the church somewhere.
Where were we going to?"

"Why, to Rumpelmayer's."

"Oh, ah! Well, let's go back to the hotel."

Wonderings on the extraordinary coincidence, with an occasional
reference to the tender tie of a common sorrow which bound them
together, beguiled the journey back, and when they reached the hotel
Dora was quite calm. Charlie seemed distinctly cheerful, and when his
companion left him he sat down by Deane and remarked in a careless way,
just as if he neither knew nor cared what the rest of them were going
to do, "Well, I shall light out of here in a few days.  I suppose
you're staying some time longer?"

"Off in a week," said Sir Roger.

"Oh, by Jove, that's about my mark. Going back to England?"

"Yes, I suppose--so--ultimately. We shall stay a few days in Paris en
route. The Bellairs' go with us."

"Oh, do they?"

Sir Roger smiled gently.

"Surprised?" he asked.

Charlie ignored the question.

"And you aren't going to hurry?" he inquired.

"Why should we?"

Charlie sat silent.  It was tolerably plain that, unless the few days
en route were very few indeed, John Ashforth and Mary Travers were in a
fair way to be prosperously and peacefully married before Dora Bellairs
set foot in England. And if he stayed with the Bellairs', before he
did, either! Charlie lit a cigarette and sat puffing and thinking.

"Dashed nice girl, Dora Bellairs," observed Sir Roger.

"Think so?"

"I do. She's the only girl I ever saw that Laing was smitten with."

"Laing!" said Charlie.

"Well, what's the matter? He's an uncommon good chap, Laing--one of the
best chaps I know--and he's got lots of coin. I don't expect she'd
sneeze at Laing."

It is, no doubt, taking a very serious responsibility to upset an
arrangement arrived at deliberately and carried almost to a conclusion.
A man should be very sure that he can make a woman happy--happier than
any other man could-before he asks her to face the turmoil and the
scandal of breaking off her marriage only a week before its
celebration. Sure as he may be of his own affection, he must be equally
sure of hers, equally sure that their mutual love is deep and
permanent. He must consider his claims to demand such a sacrifice. What
remorse will be his if, afterwards, he discovers that what he did was
not, in truth, for her real happiness! He must be on his guard against
mere selfishness or mere vanity masquerading in the garb of a genuine
passion.

As these thoughts occurred to Charlie Ellerton he felt that he was at a
crisis of his life. He also felt glad that he had still a quiet week at
Cannes in which to revolve these considerations in his mind. Above all,
he must do nothing hastily.

Dora came out, a book in her hand. Her soft white frock fluttered in
the breeze, and she pushed back a loose lock of dark hair that caressed
her check.

"A dashed nice girl, upon my honor," said Sir Roger Deane.

"Oh, very."

"I say, old chap, I suppose you're in no hurry. You'll put in a few
days in Paris? We might have a day out, mightn't we?"

"I don't know yet," said Charlie, and, when Deane left him, he sat on
in solitude.

Was it possible that in the space of a week--? No, it was impossible.
And yet, with a girl like that----.

"I did the right thing in waiting to go with her, anyhow," said
Charlie, comforting himself.



CHAPTER V

A SECOND EDITION


"Don't you think it's an interesting sort of title?" inquired Lady
Deane of Mr. Laing.

Laing was always a little uneasy in her presence. He felt not only that
she was analyzing him, but that the results of the analysis seemed to
her to be a very small residuum, of solid matter. Besides, he had been
told that she had described him as a "commonplace young man," a thing
nobody could be expected to like.

"Capital!" he answered, nervously fingering his eye glass. "The
Transformation of Giles Brockleton! Capital!"

"I think it will do," said Lady Deane complacently.

"Er--what was he transformed into, Lady Deane?"

"A man," replied the lady emphatically.

"Of course. I see," murmured Laing apologetically, stifling a desire to
ask what Giles had been before.

A moment later the author enlightened him.

"Yes," said she, "into a man, from a useless, mischievous, contemptible
idler, a parasite, Mr. Laing, a creature to whom----"

"What did it, Lady Deane?" interrupted Laing hastily. He felt somehow
as if he were being catalogued.

"Just a woman's influence."

Laing's face displayed relief; he felt that he was in his depth again.

"Oh, got married, you mean? Well, of course, he'd have to pull up a
bit, wouldn't he? Hang it, I think it's a fellow's duty.

"You don't quite understand me," observed Lady Deane coldly. "He did
not marry the woman."

"What, did she give him the--I mean, wouldn't she have him, Lady Deane?"

"She would have married him; but beside her he saw himself in his true
colors. Knowing what he was, how could he dare? That was his
punishment, and punishment brought transformation."

As Lady Deane sketched her idea, her eyes kindled and her tone became
animated. Laing admired both her and her idea, and he expressed his
feeling's by saying:

"Remarkable sort of chap, Lady Deane. I shall read it all right, you
know."

"I think you ought," said she, rising, and leaving him to wonder
whether she had "meant anything."

He gave himself a little shake, as though to escape from the atmosphere
of seriousness which she had diffused about him, and looked round. A
little way off he saw Dora Bellairs and Charlie Ellerton sitting side
by side. His brow clouded. Before Charlie came it had been his
privilege to be Miss Bellairs's cavalier, and although he never hoped,
nor, to tell the truth, desired more than a temporary favor in her
eyes, he did not quite like being ousted.

"Pretty good for a fellow who's just had the bag!" he remarked
scornfully, referring to Roger Deane's unauthorized revelation.

It was the day before the exodus to Paris. Dora's period of weary
waiting had worn itself away, and she was acknowledging to Charlie that
the last two or three days had passed quicker than she had ever thought
they could.

"The first two days I was wretched, the next two gloomy, but these last
almost peaceful. In spite of--you know what--I think you've done me
good on the whole."

"Don't mention it," said Charlie, flinging his arm over the back of the
seat and looking at his companion.

"And now--in the end," pursued Dora, "I'm actually a little sorry to
leave all this; it's so beautiful," and she waved her parasol vaguely
at the hills and the islands, while with the other hand she took off
her hat and allowed the breeze to blow through her hair.

"It is jolly, isn't it?" she asked.

"I should rather think it was," said Charlie. "The jolliest I've ever
seen." It was evident that he did not refer to the scenery.

"Oh, you promised you wouldn't," cried Dora reproachfully.

"Well, then, I'll promise again," he replied, smiling amiably.

"What must I think of you, when only a week or so ago----?  Oh, and
what must you think of me to suppose I could? Oh, Mr. Ellerton!"

"Like to know what I think of you?" inquired Charlie, quite unperturbed
by this passionate rebuke.

"Certainly not," said she, with dignity, and turned away. A moment
later, however, she attacked him again.

"And you've done nothing," she said indignantly, "but suggest to papa
interesting places to stop at on the way, and things he ought to see in
Paris. Yes, and you actually suggested going home by sea from
Marseilles. And all the time you knew it was vital to me to get home as
soon as possible. To me? Yes, and to you _last week_. Shall I tell you
something, Mr. Ellerton?"

"Please," said Charlie. "Whisper it in my ear," and he offered his head
in fitting proximity.

"I shouldn't mind who heard," she declared.  "I despise you, Mr.
Ellerton."

Charlie was roused to a protest.

"For downright unfairness give me a girl!" said he. "Here have I taken
the manly course! After a short period of weakness--I admit that--I
have conquered my feelings; I have determined not to distress Miss
Travers by intruding upon her; I have overcome the promptings of a
cowardly despair; I have turned my back resolutely on a past devoid of
hope. I am, after a sore struggle, myself again. And my reward, Miss
Bellairs, is to be told that you despise me. Upon my honor, you'll be
despising Simon Stylites next."

"And you wrote and told Miss Travers you were coming!"

"All right. I shall write and toll her I'm not coming. I shall say,
Miss Bellairs, that it seems to me to be an undignified thing----"

"To do what I'm going to do? Thank you, Mr. Ellerton."

"Oh, I forgot."

"The irony of it is that you persuaded me to do it yourself."

"I was a fool; but I didn't know you so well then."

"What's that got to do with it?"

"Everything."

"You didn't know yourself, I'm afraid," she remarked. "You thought you
were a man of some--some depth of feeling, some constancy, a man
whose--whose regard a girl would value, instead of being----"

"Just a poor devil who worships the ground you tread on."

Dora laughed scornfully.

"Second edition!" said she. "The first dedicated to Miss Travers."

And then Charlie (and it is thing's like these which shake that faith
in human nature that we try to cling to) said in a low but quite
distinct voice:

"Oh, d----n Miss Travers!"

Dora shot--it almost looked as if something had shot her, as it used,
in old days, Miss Zazel--up from her seat.

"I thought I was talking to a _gentleman_," said she, "I suppose you'll
use that--expression--about me in a week."

"In a good deal less, if you treat me like this," said Charlie, and his
air was one of hopeless misery.

We all recollect that Anne ended by being tolerably kind to wicked King
Richard. After all, Charlie had the same excuse.

"I don't want to be unkind," said Dora more gently.

"I'll do anything in the world to please you."

"Then make papa go straight to Paris, and straight on from Paris," said
Dora, using her power mercilessly.

"Oh, I say, I didn't mean that, Miss Bellairs."

"You said you'd do anything I liked."

Charlie looked at her thoughtfully.

"I suppose you've no pity?" he inquired.

"For you?  Not a bit,"

"You probably don't know how beautiful you are?"

"Don't be foolish, and--and impertinent."

She was standing opposite to him. With a sudden motion, he sprang
forward, fell on one knee, seized her ungloved hand, covered it with
kisses, sprang up, and hastened away, crying as he went:

"All right.  I'll do it."

Dora stood where he left her. First she looked at her hand, then at
Charlie's retreating back, then again at her hand. Her cheek was
flushed and she trembled a little.

"John never did that," she said, "at least, not without asking. And
even then, not quite like that."

She walked on slowly, then stopped and exclaimed:

"I wonder if he ever did that to Mary Travers."

And her last reflection was:

"Poor boy.  He must be--oh, dear me!"

When Charlie reached the tennis-courts, he was, considering the moving
scene through which he had passed, wonderfully calm. In fact he was
smiling and whistling. Espying Sir Roger Deane, he went and sat down by
him.

"Roger," said he, "I'm going with you and the Bellairs' to-morrow."

"I know that."

"Miss Bellairs wants to go straight through to England without stopping
anywhere."

"She'll have to want, I expect."

"And I've promised to try and get the General to do what she wants."

"Have you though?"

"I suppose, Roger, old fellow--you know you've great influence with
him--I suppose it's no use asking you to say a word to him?"

"Not a bit."

"Why?"

"Because Maud particularly wants him to stay with us in Paris."

"Oh, of course, if Lady Deane wishes it, I mustn't say a word. She's
quite made up her mind about it, has she?"

"Well, I suppose so."

"She's strong on it, I mean? Not likely to change?"

"I think not, Charlie."

"She'd ask him to stay, as a favor to her?"

"I shouldn't at all wonder."

"Oh, well then, my asking him won't make much difference."

"Frankly, I don't see why it should."

"Thanks. I only wanted to know. You're not in a hurry, Roger? I mean,
you won't ask your wife to go straight on?"

"No, I shan't, Charlie. I want to stop myself."

"Thanks, old chap! See you at dinner," and Charlie strolled off with a
reassured air.

Sir Roger sat and thought.

"I see his game," he said to himself at last, "but I'm hanged if I see
hers. Why does she want to get back to England? Perhaps if I delay her
as much as I can, she'll tell me.  Hanged if I don't!  Anyhow I'm glad
to see old Charlie getting convalescent."

The next morning the whole party left Cannes by the early train. The
Bellairs, the Deanes, and Charlie Ellerton travelled together. Laing
announced his intention of following by the afternoon train.

"Oh," said Lady Deane, "you'll get to Paris sooner than we do." Dora
looked gloomy; so did Charlie, after a momentary, hastily smothered
smile.

The porter approached and asked for an address. They told him the Grand
Hotel, Paris.

"If anything comes to-day, I'll bring it on," said Laing.

"Yes, do; we shall have no address before Paris," answered General
Bellairs.

They drove off, and Laing, feeling rather solitary, returned to his
cigar. An hour later the waiter brought him two telegrams, one for Dora
and one for Charlie, he looked at the addresses.

"Just too late, by Jove! All right, garçon, I'll take 'em," and he
thrust them into the pocket of his flannel jacket. And when, after
lunch, he could not stand the dullness any longer and went to Monte
Carlo, he left the telegrams in the discarded flannels, where they lay
till--the time when they were discovered. For Mr. Laing clean forgot
all about them!



CHAPTER VI

A MAN WITH A THEORY


Even Miss Bussey was inclined to think that all had happened for the
best. John's eloquence had shaken her first disapprobation; the visible
happiness of the persons chiefly concerned pleaded yet more
persuasively. What harm, after all, was done, except for a little
trouble and a little gossip? To these Mary and John were utterly
indifferent. At first they had been rather shy in referring, before one
another, to their loves, but custom taught them to mention the names
without confusion, and ere long they had exchanged confidences as to
their future plans. John's arrangement was obviously the more prudent
and becoming. He discountenanced Mary's suggestion of an unannounced
descent on Cannes, and persuaded her to follow his example and inform
her lover that she would await news from him in Paris. They were to put
up at the European, and telegrams there from Cannes would rind them on
and after April 28th. All this valuable information was contained in
the dispatches, which lay, with their priceless messages, on the said
April 28th, in Mr. Arthur Laing's flannel jacket, inside his
portmanteau, on the way to Paris.

Paris claims to be the centre of the world, and if it be, the world has
a very good centre. Anyhow Paris becomes, from this moment, the centre
of this drama. Not only was Arthur Laing being whirled there by the
Nice express, and Miss Bussey's party proceeding thither by the eleven
o'clock train from Victoria--Mary laughed as she thought it might have
been her honeymoon she was starting on--but the Bellairs and their
friends were heading for the same point. Miss Bussey's party had the
pleasanter journey; they were all of one mind; Miss Bussey was eager to
reach Paris because it was the end of the journey; John and Mary
desired nothing but the moment when with trembling fingers they should
tear open their telegrams in the hall of the hotel. The expedition from
the south did not enjoy a like unanimity; but before following their
steps we may, in the interest of simplicity, land the first detachment
safely at its destination.

When Mary and John, followed by Miss Bussey--they outstripped her in
their eagerness--entered the hotel, a young man with an eye-glass was
just engaging a bedroom. John took his place beside the stranger, and
asked in a voice, which he strove to render calm, if there were any
letters for----.

"Beg pardon, sir. In one moment," said the clerk, and he added to
Laing, "Number 37, sir." Laing--Oh, the irony of things!--turned on
John and his companion just that one supercilious glance which we
bestow on other tourists, and followed his baggage upstairs.

"Anything," resumed John, "for Miss Travers or Mr. Ashforth?" And he
succeeded in looking as if he did not care a straw whether there were
or not.

After a search the porter answered, "Nothing, sir."

"What?" exclaimed John, aghast? "Oh, nonsense, look again."

Another search followed; it was without result.

John saw Mary's appealing eyes fixed on him.

"Nothing," he said tragically.

"Oh, John!"

"Have you taken the rooms, Mr. Ash forth?" inquired Miss Bussey.

"No.  I'm sorry.  I forgot all about them."

Miss Bussey was tired; she had been seasick, and the train always made
her feel queer.

"Has neither of you got an ounce of wits about you?" she demanded, and
plunged forward to the desk. John and Mary received their numbers in
gloomy silence, and mounted the stairs.

Now Arthur Laing in his hasty survey of the party had arrived at a not
unnatural but wholly erroneous conclusion. He had seen a young man,
rather nervous, a young woman, looking anxious and shy, and an elderly
person, plainly dressed (Miss Bussey was no dandy) sitting (Miss Bussey
always sat as soon as she could) on, a trunk. He took John and Mary for
a newly married couple, and Miss Bussey for an old family servant
detailed to look after her young mistress's entry into independent
housekeeping.

"More infernal honeymooners," he said to himself, as he washed his
hands. "The place is always full of 'em. Girl wasn't bad-looking,
though."

The next morning, unhappily, confirmed him in his mistake. For Miss
Bussey, overcome by the various trials of the day before, kept her bed,
and when Laing came down, the first sight which met his eyes was a
breakfast-table, whereat Mary and John sat tête-à-tête. He eyed them
with that mixture of scorn and envy which their supposed situation
awakens in a bachelor's heart, and took a place from which he could
survey them at leisure. There is a bright side to everything; and that
of Laing's mistake was the pleasure he derived from his delusion.
Sticking his glass firmly in his eye, he watched like a cat for those
playful little endearments which his cynical mood--he was, like many of
us, not at his best in the morning--led him to anticipate. He watched
in vain. The young people were decorum itself; more than that, they
showed signs of preoccupation; they spoke only occasionally, and then
with a business-like brevity.

Suddenly the waiter entered, with a hand fid of letters which he
proceeded to distribute. Laing expected none, and kept his gaze on his
honeymooners. To his surprise they showed animation enough now; their
eyes were first on the waiter's approaching form; the bridegroom even
rose an inch or two from his seat; both stretched out their hands.

Alas, with a little bow, a smile, and a shrug, the waiter passed by,
and the disappointed couple sank back, with looks of blank despair.

Surely here was enough to set any open-minded man on the right track!
Yes; but not enough to free one who was tied and bound to his own
theory.

"She's dashed anxious to hoar from home!" mused Laing. "Poor girl! It
ain't over and above flattering to him, though."

He finished his breakfast and went out to smoke. Presently he saw his
friends come out also; they went to the porter's desk and he hoard one
of them say "telegram." A sudden idea struck him.

"I am an ass!" said he. "Tell you what it is they've wired for rooms
somewhere--Monte, most likely--and can't start till they get an answer."

He was so pleased with his explanation that his last doubt vanished and
he watched Mary and John start for a walk--the fraternal relations they
had established would have allowed such a thing even in London, much
more in Paris--with quite a benevolent smile.

"Aunt Sarah is really quite poorly," remarked Mary as they crossed the
road and entered the Tuileries Gardens. "She'll have to stay in all
to-day and perhaps tomorrow. Isn't it hard upon her? Paris amuses her
so much."

John expressed his sympathy.

"Now if it had been you or I," he ended, "we shouldn't have minded.
Paris doesn't amuse us just now."

"Oh, but, John, we must be ready to start at any moment."

"You can't start without Miss Bussey,"

"I think that in a wagon-lit----" began Mary.

"But what's the good of talking?" cried John, bitterly. "Why is there
no news from her?"

"He _might_ have wired--John, is it possible our telegrams went astray?"

"Well, we must wait a day or two; or, if you like, we can wire again."

Mary hesitated.

"I--I can't do that, John. Suppose he'd received the first, and--and--"

"Yes, I see. I don't want to humiliate myself either."

"We'll wait a day, anyhow. And, now, John, let's think no more about
them! Oh, well, that's nonsense; but let's enjoys ourselves as well as
we can."

They managed to enjoy themselves very well. The town was new to Mary,
and John found a pleasure in showing it off to her. After a morning of
sight-seeing, they drove in the Bois, and ended the day at the theatre.
Miss Bussey, unfortunately, was no better. She had sent for an English
doctor and he talked vaguely about two or three days in bed. Mary
ventured to ask whether her aunt could travel.

"Oh, if absolutely necessary, perhaps; but much better not," was the
answer.

Well, it was not absolutely necessary yet, for no letter and no
telegram arrived. This was the awful fact that greeted them when they
came in from the theatre.

"We'll wire the first thing to-morrow," declared John, in a resolute
tone. "Write yours to-night, Mary, and I'll give, them to the porter--"

"Oh, not mine, please," cried Mary, in shrinking bashfulness. "I can't
let the porter see mine!"

"Well, then, we'll take them out before breakfast to-morrow."

To this Mary agreed, and they sat down and wrote their dispatches.
While they were so engaged Laing jumped out of a cab and entered the
room. He seized an English paper, and, flinging himself into a chair,
began to study the sporting news. Presently he stole a glance at Mary.
It so chanced that just at the same moment she was stealing a glance at
him. Mary dropped her eyes with a blush; Laing withdrew behind his
paper.

"Shy, of course. Anybody would be," he thought, with a smile.

"Did you like the piece, Mary?" asked John.

"Oh, very much. I wish Aunt Sarah could have seen it. She missed so
much fun."

"Well, she could hardly have come with us, could she?" remarked John.

"Oh, no," said Mary.

"Well, I should rather think not," whispered Laing, who failed to
identify 'Aunt Sarah' with the elderly person on the trunk.

"I shouldn't have been happy if she had," said Mary.

"I simply wouldn't have let her," said John, in that authoritative tone
which so well became him.

"No more would I in your place, old chap," murmured Mr. Laing.

Mary rose.

"Thanks for all your kindness, John. Good-night."

"I'm so glad you've had a pleasant day. Good-night, Mary."

So they parted--with a good-night as calm, as decorous, as frankly
fraternal as one could wish (or wish otherwise). Yet its very virtues
undid it in the prematurely suspicious eyes of Arthur Laing. For no
sooner was he left alone than he threw down his paper and began to
chuckle.

"All for my benefit, that, eh? 'Goodnight, Mary!' 'Good-night, John!'
Lord! Lord!" and he rose, lit a cigarette, and ordered a
brandy-and-soda.  And ever and again he smiled. He felt very acute
indeed.

So vain is it for either wisdom or simplicity, candor or
diplomacy--nay, for facts themselves--to struggle against a Man with a
Theory.  Mr. Laing went to bed no more doubting that Mary and John were
man and wife than he doubted that he had 'spotted' the winner of the
Derby.  Certitude could no farther go.



CHAPTER VII

THE SIGHTS OF AVIGNON


"It's a curious thing," observed Roger Deane, "but this fellow Baedeker
always travels the opposite way to what I do. When I'm coming back,
he's always going out, and vice versa. It makes him precious difficult
to understand, I can tell you, Miss Dora. However I think I've got him
now. Listen to this! 'Marseilles to Arles (Amphitheatre starred) one
day. Arles to Avignon (Palace of the Popes starred) two days--slow
going that--Avignon to----'"

"Do you want to _squat_ in this wretched country, Sir Roger?" demanded
Dora angrily.

A faint smile played round Sir Roger's lips.

"You're the only one who's in a hurry." he remarked.

"No, I'm not. Mr. Ellerton is in just as much of a hurry."

"Then he bears disappointment better."

"What in the world did papa and--well, and Lady Deane, you know--want
to stop here for?"

"You don't seem to understand how interesting Marseilles is. Let me
read you a passage. 'Marseilles was a colony founded about 600
B.C.'--What? Oh, all right! We'll skip a bit. 'In 1792 hordes of
galley-slaves were sent hence to Paris, where they committed frightful
excesses.' That's what Maud and your father are going to do. 'It was
for them that Rouget--' I say, what's the matter, Miss Dora?"

"I don't know why you should enjoy teasing me, but you _have_ nearly
made me cry, so perhaps you'll be happy now."

"You tried to take me in. I pretended to be taken in. That's all."

"Well, it was very unkind of you."

"So, after all, it's not a matter of indifference to you at what rate
we travel, as you said in the train to-day?"

"Oh, I had to. I--I couldn't let papa see."

"And why are you in a hurry?"

"I can't tell you; but I must--oh, I must!--be in England in four days."

"You'll hardly get your father to give up a day at Avignon."

"Well, one day there; then we should just do it, if we only slept in
Paris."

"Yes, but my wife----"

"Oh, you can stay. Don't say anything about Paris yet. Help me to get
there. I'll make papa go on. Please do, Sir Roger. I shall be so
awfully obliged to you; so will Mr. Ellerton."

"Charlie Ellerton? Not he! He's in no hurry."

"What do you mean? Didn't you hear him to-day urging papa to travel
straight through?"

"Oh, yes, I heard that."

"Well?"

"You were there then."

"What of that?"

"He's not so pressing when you're away."

"I don't understand. Why should he pretend to be in a hurry when he
isn't?"

"Ah, I don't know.  Don't you?"

"Not in the least, Sir Roger. But never mind Mr. Ellerton. Will you
help me?"

"As far as Paris. You must look out for yourself there."

These terms Dora accepted. Surely at Paris she would hear some news of
or from John Ashforth. She thought he must have written one line in
response to her last letter, and that his answer must have been so far
delayed as to arrive at Cannes after her departure; it would be waiting
for her at Paris and would tell her whether she was in time or whether
there was no more use in hurrying. The dread that oppressed her was
lest, arriving too late in Paris, she should find that she had missed
happiness by reason of this wretched dawdling in Southern France.

Seeing her meditative, Deane slipped away to his cigar, and she sat in
the hotel hall, musing. Deane's revelation of Charlie's treachery
hardly surprised her; she meant to upbraid him severely, but she was
conscious that, if little surprised, she was hardly more than a little
angry. His conduct was indeed contemptible; it revealed an utter
instability and fickleness of mind which made her gravely uneasy as to
Mary Travers's chances of permanent happiness. Yes, scornful one might
b; but who could be seriously angry with the poor boy? And perhaps,
after all, she did him injustice. Some natures were more prone than
others to sudden passions; it really did not follow that a feeling must
be either shallow or short-lived because it was sudden; whether it
survived or passed away would depend chiefly on the person who excited
it. It was clear that Mary Travers was incapable of maintaining a
permanent hold over Charlie's affections, but another girl might--might
have. If so, it would perhaps be a pity if Charlie and Mary Travers
were to come together again. She doubted very much if they were suited
to one another. She pictured Mary as a severe, rather stern young
woman; and she hardly knew whether to laugh or groan at the thought of
Charlie adapting himself to such a mate. Meanwhile her own position was
certainly very difficult, and she acknowledged its thorniness with a
little sigh. To begin with, the suspense was terrible; at times she
would have been almost relieved to hear that John was married beyond
recall. Then Charlie was a great and a growing difficulty. He had not
actually repeated the passionate indiscretion, of which he had been
guilty at Cannes, but more and more watchfulness and severity were
needed to keep him within the bounds proper to their relative
positions, and it was odious to be disagreeable to a fellow-traveller,
especially when he was such a good and devoted friend as Charlie.

Sir Roger loyally carried out his bargain. Lady Deane was hurried on,
leaving Marseilles, with its varied types of humanity and its profound
social significance, practically unexplored; Aries and Amphitheatre, in
spite of the beckoning "star," were dropped out of the programme, and
the next day found the party at Avignon. And now they were once more
for a moment in harmony. Dora could spare twenty-four hours; Lady Deane
and the General were mollified by conscious unselfishness; the prospect
of a fresh struggle at Paris lay well in the background and was
discreetly ignored; Charlie Ellerton, who had reached the most
desperate stage of love, looked neither back nor forward. It was enough
for him to have wrung four-and-twenty hours of Dora's company from
fate's reluctant grasp. He meant to make the most of it.

She and he sat, on the afternoon of their arrival, in the gardens, hard
by the Cathedral, where Lady Deane and the General wore doing their
duty. Sir Roger had chartered a cab and gone for a drive on the
boulevards.

"And we shall really be in Paris to-morrow night?" said Dora. "And in
England, I hope, six-and-thirty hours afterwards. I want papa to cross
the next evening. Mr. Ellerton, I believe we shall be in time."

Charlie said nothing. He seemed to be engrossed by the magnificent view
before him.

"Well? Have you nothing to say?" she asked.

"It's a sin to rush through a place like this," he observed. "We ought
to stay a week. There's no end to see. It's an education!"

By way, probably, of making the most of his brief opportunity, he went
on gazing, across the river which flowed below, now towards the heights
of Mont Ventoux, now at the ramparts of Villeneuve. Dora, on the other
hand, fixed pensive eyes on his curly hatless head, which leant forward
as he rested his elbows on his knees. He had referred to the
attractions of Avignon in tones of almost overpowering emotion.

Presently he turned his head towards her with a quick jerk.

"I don't want to be in time," he said, and, with equal rapidity, he
returned to his survey of Villeneuve.

Dora made no answer, unless a perplexed wrinkle on her brow might serve
for one. A long silence followed. It was broken at last by Charlie. He
left the landscape with a sigh of satisfaction, as though he could not
reproach himself with having neglected it, and directed his gaze into
his companion's eyes. Dora blushed and pulled the brim of her hat a
little lower down over her brow.

"What's more," said Charlie, in deliberate tones, and as if no pause
had occurred between this remark and his last, "I don't believe you do."

Dora started and straightened herself in her seat; it looked as if the
rash remark were to be met with a burst of indignation, but, a second
later, she leant back again and smiled scornfully.

"How can you be so silly, Mr. Ellerton?" she asked.

"We both of us," pursued Charlie, "see now that we made up our minds to
be very foolish; we both of us mistook our real feelings; we're
beginning--at least I began some time ago, and you're beginning now--to
understand the true state of affairs."

"Oh, I know what you mean, and I ought to be very angry, I suppose; but
it's too absurd."

"Not in the least. The absurd thing is your fancying that you care
about this follow Ashforth."

"No, you must really stop, you must indeed. I don't----"

"I know the sort of fellow he is--a dull dry chap, who makes love as if
he was dancing a minuet."

"You're quite wrong."

"And kisses you as if it was part of the church service."

This last description, applied to John Ashforth's manner of wooing, had
enough of aptness to stir Dora into genuine resentment.

"A Girl doesn't like a man less because he respects her; nor more
because he ridicules better men than himself."

"Don't be angry. I'm only saying what's true. Why should I want to run
him down?"

"I suppose--well, I suppose because----"

"Well?"

"You're a little bit--but I don't think I ought to talk about it."

"Jealous, you were going to say."

"Was I?"

"And that shows you know what I mean."

"Well, by now I suppose I do. I can't help your doing it or I would."

Charlie moved closer, and leaning forward till his face was only a yard
from hers, while his hand, sliding along the back of the seat, almost
touched her, said in a low voice, "Are you sure you would?"

Dora's answer was a laugh--a laugh with a hint of nervousness in it.
Perhaps she knew what was in it, for she looked away towards the river.

"Dolly," he whispered, "shall I go back to Cannes? Shall I?"

Perhaps the audacity of this per saltum advance from the distance of
Miss 'Bellairs' to the ineffable assumption involved in 'Dolly' made
the subject of it dumb.

"I will, if you ask me," he said, us she, was silent for a space.

Then with profile towards him and eyes away, she murmured,

"What would Miss Travers say if you turned back now?"

The mention of Mary did not on this occasion evoke any unseemly words.
On the contrary, Charlie smiled. He glanced at his companion. He
glanced behind him and round him. Then, drilling his deep design into
the semblance of an uncontrollable impulse, he seized Dora's hand in
his and, before she could stir, kissed her cheek.

She leapt to her feet.

"How dare you?" she cried.

"How could I help it?"

"I'll never speak to you again. No gentleman would have--oh, I do hope
you're ashamed of yourself!"

Her words evidently struck home. With an air of contrition he sank on
the seat.

"I'm a beast," he said ruefully. "You're quite right, Miss Bellairs.
Don't have anything more to say to me. I wish I was--I wish I had
some--some self-control--and self-respect, you know.  If I were a
fellow like Ashforth now, I should never have done that! Of course you
can't forgive me," and, in his extremity of remorse, he buried his face
in his hands.

Dora stood beside him. She made one step as if to leave him; a glance
at him brought her back, and she looked down at him for a minute.
Presently a troubled doubtful little smile appeared on her face; when
she realized it was there, she promptly banished it. Alas! It was too
late. The rascal had been peeping through his fingers, and, with a
ringing laugh, he sprang to his feet, caught both her hands, and cried,
"Shocking, wasn't it? Awful?"

"Let me go, Mr. Ellerton."

"Must I?"

"Yes, yes."

"Why? Why, when you----?"

"Sir Roger's coming. Look behind you."

"Oh, the deuce!"

An instant later they were sitting demurely at opposite ends of the
seat, inspecting Villeneuve with interest.

In another moment Deane stood before them, puffing a cigarette, and
wearing an expression of amiability tempered by boredom.

"Wonderful old place, isn't it, Deane?" asked Charlie.

"Such a view, Sir Roger!" cried Dora, in almost breathless enthusiasm.

"You certainly," assented Deane, "do see some wonderful sights on this
Promenade. I'm glad I came up. The air's given you quite a color, Miss
Dora."

"It's tea-time," declared Dora suddenly. "Take me down with you, Sir
Roger. Mr. Ellerton, go and tell the others we're going home to tea."

Charlie started off, and Sir Roger strolled along by Miss Bellairs's
side. Presently he said:

"Still anxious to get to Paris?"

"Why shouldn't I be?" she asked quickly.

"I thought perhaps the charms of Avignon would have decided you to
linger. Haven't you been tempted?"

Dora glanced at him, but his face betrayed no secondary meaning.

"Tempted? Oh, perhaps," she answered, with the same nervous little
laugh, "but not quite led astray.  I'm going on."



CHAPTER VIII

MR. AND MRS. ASHFORTH (1)


All that evening Miss Bellairs was not observed--and Deane watched her
very closely--to address a word to Charlie Ellerton; even 'good-night'
was avoided by a premature disappearance and unexpected failure to
return. Perhaps it was part of the same policy of seclusion which made
her persuade Lady Deane to travel to Paris with her in one compartment
and relegate the men to another--a proposal which the banished accepted
by an enthusiastic majority of two to one. The General foresaw an
infinity of quiet naps and Deane uninterrupted smoking; Charlie alone
chafed against the necessary interruption of his bold campaign, but, in
face of Dora's calm coldness of aspect, he did not dare to lift up his
voice.

Lady Deane was so engrossed in the study--or the search for
opportunities of study--of sides of life with which she was unfamiliar
as to be, for the most part, blind to what took place immediately
around her. General Bellairs himself (who vaguely supposed that some
man might try to make love to his daughter five years hence, and
thereupon be promptly sent off with a flea in his ear) was not more
unconscious than she that there was, had been, or might be anything, as
the phrase runs, 'between' the two junior members of the party.  Lady
Deane had no hints to give and no questions to ask; she seated herself
placidly in a corner and began to write in a large note-book.  She had
been unwillingly compelled to 'scamp' Marseilles, but, as she wrote,
she found that the rough notes she was copying, aided by fresh memory,
supplied her with an ample fund of material. Alternately she smiled
contentedly to herself, and gazed out of the window with a preoccupied
air. Clearly a plot was brewing-, and the author was grateful to Dora
for restricting her interruptions to an occasional impatient sigh and
the taking up and dropping again of her Tauchnitz.

With the men tongues moved more.

"Well, General," said Deane, "what's Miss Dora's ultimatum about your
staying in Paris?"

Charlie pricked up his ears and buried his face behind La Vie
Parisienne.

"You'll think me very weak, Deane," rejoined the General, with an
apologetic laugh, "but I've promised to go straight on if she wants me
to."

"And does she?"

"I don't know what the child has got in her head, but she says she'll
tell me when she gets to Paris. We shall have a day with you anyhow; I
don't think she's so set on not staying as she was, but I don't profess
to understand her fancies. Still, as you see, I yield to them."

"Man's task in the world," said Deane. "Eh, Charlie? What are you
hiding behind that paper for?"

"I was only looking at the pictures."

"Quite enough too. You're going to stay in Paris, aren't you?"

"Don't know yet, old fellow. It depends on whether I get a letter
calling me back or not."

"Hang it, one might as well be in a house where the shooting turns out
a fraud. Nobody knows that he won't have a wire any morning and have to
go back to town. My wife 'll be furious if you desert her, General."

"Oh, I hope it won't come to that."

"I hope awfully that I shall be able to stay," said Charlie, with
obvious sincerity.

"Then," observed Deane with a slight smile, "if the General and Miss
Bellairs leave us you can take my wife about."

"I should think you might take her yourself," and he gently kicked
Deane. He was afraid of arousing the General's dormant suspicions.

It was late at night when they arrived in Paris, but the faithful Laing
was on the platform to meet them, and received them with a warm
greeting. While the luggage was being collected by Deane's man, they
stood and talked on the platform. Presently the General, struck by a
sudden thought, asked:

"I suppose nothing came for us at Cannes, oh, Laing? You said you'd
bring anything on, you know."

Laing interrupted a pretty speech which he was trying to direct into
Dora's inattentive ears.

"Beg pardon, General?"

"No letters for any of us before you left Cannes?"

"No, Gen--" he began, but suddenly stopped. His mouth remained open and
his glass fell from his eye.

The General, not waiting to hear more than the first word, had rushed
of to hail a cab and Deane was escorting his wife. Dora and Charlie
stood waiting for the unfinished speech.

The end came slowly and with a prodigious emphasis of despair.

"Oh, by Jove!"

"Well, Mr. Laing?" said Dora.

"The morning you left--just after--there were two telegrams."

"For me?" said each of his auditors.

"One for each of you, but

"Oh, give me mine."

"Hand over mine, old chap."

"I--I haven't got 'em."

"What?"

"I--I'm awfully sorry, I.----I forgot 'em."

"Oh, how tiresome of you, Mr. Laing!"

"Send 'em round first thing to-morrow, Laing."

"But--but I don't know where I put 'em. I know I laid 'em down. Then I
took 'em up. Then I put 'em--where the deuce did I put 'em? Here's a
go, Miss Bellairs! I say, I am an ass!"

No contradiction assailed him. His victims glared reproachfully at him.

"I must have left them at Cannes. I'll wire first thing in the morning,
Miss Bellairs; I'll get up as soon as ever the office is open.  I say,
do forgive me."

"Well, Mr. Laing, I'll try, but----"

"Laing! Here! My wife wants you," shouted Sir Roger, and the criminal,
happy to escape, ran away, leaving Dora and Charlie alone.

"They must have been from _them_," murmured Dora.

"No doubt; and that fool Laing----"

"What has he done with them?"

"Lit his pipe with them, I expect."

"Oh, what shall we do?"

"I don't know."

"What--what do you think they said, Mr. Ellerton?"

"How can I tell? Perhaps that the marriage was off!"

"Oh!" escaped from Dora.

"Perhaps that it was going on."

"It's worse than ever. They may have asked for answers."

"Probably."

"And they won't have written here!"

"Sure not to have."

"And--and I shan't know what to do. I--I believe it was to say he had
broken off the marriage."

"Is the wish father to the thought?"

The lights of the station flickered, but Charlie saw, or thought he
saw, a hasty unpremeditated gesture of protest.

"Dolly!" he whispered.

"Hush, hush! How can you now--before we know?"

"The cab's waiting," called Deane. "Come along."

They got in in silence. The General and the Deanes went first, and the
three young people followed in a second vehicle. It was but just
twelve, and the boulevards were gay and full of people.

Suddenly, as they were near the Opera, they saw the tall figure of an
unmistakable Englishman walking away from them down the Avenue de
l'Opera. Dora clutched Charlie's arm with a convulsive grip.

"Hullo, what's the--" he began, but a second pinch enforced silence.

"See that chap?" asked Laing, pointing to the figure.  "He's at my
hotel."

"Is he?" said Dora in a faint voice.

"Yes, I've got a good deal of amusement out of him. He oughtn't to be
out so late though, and by himself, too!"

"Who is it?" asked Charlie.

"I don't know his name."

"And why oughtn't he to be out?"

"Because he's on his honeymoon,"

"What?" cried Dora.

"Just married," explained Laing. "Wife's a tallish girl, fair, rather
good-looking; looks standoffish though."

"You--you're sure they're married, Mr. Laing?" gasped Dora, and
Charlie, in whom her manner had awakened a suspicion of the truth, also
waited eagerly for the reply.

"What, Miss Bellairs?" asked Laing in surprise.

"Oh, I mean--I mean you haven't made a mistake?"

"Well, they're together all day, and nobody's with them except a
lady's-maid. I should think that's good enough."

With a sigh Dora sank back against the cushions. They were at the hotel
now; the others had already entered, and, bidding Laing a hearty
good-night, Dora ran in, followed closely by Charlie. He did not
overtake her before she found her father.

"Well, Dolly," said the General, "there's no letter."

"Oh," cried Dolly, "I'll stay as long as ever you like, papa."

"That's right," said Deane. "And you, Charlie?"

Charlie took his cue.

"A month if you like."

"Capital! Now for a wash--come along, Maud--and then supper!"

Dora lingered behind the others, and Charlie with her. Directly they
were alone, he asked:

"What does it all mean?"

She sat down, still panting with agitation.

"Why--why, that man we saw--the man Mr. Laing says is on his honeymoon,
is--is----"

"Yes, yes?"

"Mr. Ashforth!"

"Dolly! And his wife! By Jove! It's an exact description of Mary
Travers!"

"The telegrams were to say the marriage was to be at once."

"Yes, and--they're married!"

"Yes!"

A short pause marked the astounding conclusion. Then Charlie came up
very close and whispered:

"Are you broken-hearted, Dolly?"

She turned her face away with a blush.

"Are you, Dolly?"

"I'm very much ashamed of myself," she murmured. "Oh, Mr. Ellerton, not
just yet!" and in deference to her entreaty Charlie had the grace to
postpone what he was about to do.

When the supper was ready Sir Roger Deane looked round the table
inquiringly.

"Well," said he, "what is it to be?"

"Champagne--champagne in magnums!" cried Charlie Ellerton, with a
ringing laugh.



CHAPTER IX

MR. AND MRS. ASHFORTH (2)


Miss Bussey was much relieved when the doctor pronounced her
convalescent and allowed her to come downstairs. To fall ill on an
outing is always exasperating, but beyond that she felt that her
enforced seclusion was particularly unfortunate at the moment. Here
were two young people, not engaged nor going to be engaged to one
another; and for three days or more circumstances had abandoned them to
an inevitable and unchaperoned tête-à-tête! Mary made light of it; she
relied on the fraternal relationship, but that was, after all, a
fiction, quite incapable, in Miss Bussey's opinion, of supporting the
strain to which It had been subjected. Besides Mary's sincerity
appeared doubtful; the kind girl, anxious to spare her aunt worry, made
light of the difficulties of her position, but Miss Bussey detected a
restlessness in her manner which clearly betrayed uneasiness. Here, of
course, Miss Bussey was wrong; neither Mary nor John were the least
self-conscious; they felt no embarrassment, but, poor creatures, wore
out their spirits in a useless vigil over the letter-rack.

Miss Bussey was restored to active life on the morning after the party
from Cannes arrived in Paris, and she hastened to emphasize the fact of
her return to complete health by the unusual effort of coming down to
breakfast. She was in high feather, and her cheery conversation lifted,
to some extent, the gloom which had settled on her young friends. While
exhorting to patience she was full of hope, and dismissed as chimerical
all the darker explanations which the disconsolate lovers invented to
account for the silence their communications had met with. Under her
influence the breakfast-table became positively cheerful, and at last
all the three burst into a hearty laugh at one of the old lady's little
jokes.

At this moment Arthur Laing entered the room. His brow was clouded. He
had searched his purse, his cigar-case, the lining of his hat--in fact
every depository where a careful man would be likely to bestow
documents whose existence he wished to remember; as no careful man
would put such things in the pocket of his 'blazer', he had not
searched there; thus the telegrams had not appeared, and the culprit
was looking forward, with some alarm, to the reception which would
await him when he 'turned up' to lunch with his friends, as he had
promised to do. Hardly, however, had he sat down to his coffee when his
sombre thoughts were cleared away by the extraordinary spectacle of
young Mr. and Mrs. Ashforth hobnobbing with their maid, the latter lady
appearing quite at home and leading the gayety and the conversation.
Laing laid down his roll and his knife and looked at them in
undisguised amazement.

For a moment doubt of his cherished theory began to assail his mind.
He heard the old lady call Ashforth "John;" that was a little strange,
and it was rather strange that John answered by saying: "That must be
as you wish; I am entirely at your disposal." And yet, reflected Laing,
was it very strange, after all? In his own family they had an old
retainer who called all the children, whatever their age, by their
Christian names, and was admitted to a degree of intimacy hardly
distinguishable from that accorded to a relative.

Laing, weighing the evidence pro and contra, decided that there was an
overwhelming balance in favor of his old view, and dismissed the matter
with the comment that, if it ever befell him to go on a wedding-tour,
he would ask his wife to take a maid with rather less claims on her
kindness and his toleration.

That same morning the second pair of telegrams, forwarded by post from
Cannes, duly arrived. Dora and Charlie, reading them in the light of
their recent happy information, found them most kind and comforting,
although in reality they, apart from their missing forerunners, told
the recipients nothing at all. John's ran: "Am in Paris at European.
Please write. Anxious to hear. Everything decided for the best.--John."
Mary's to Charlie was even briefer; it said, "Am here at European.  Why
no answer to last?"

"It's really very kind of Mr. Ashforth," said Dora to Charlie, as they
strolled in the garden of the Tuileries, "to make such a point of what
I think. I expect the wire that stupid Mr. Laing lost was just to tell
me the date of the marriage."

"Not a doubt of it. Miss Tr--Mrs. Ashforth's wire to me makes that
clear. They want to hear that we're not desperately unhappy. Well, we
aren't, are we, Dolly?"

"Well, perhaps not."

"Isn't it extraordinary how we mistook our feelings? Of course, though,
it's natural in you. You had never been through anything of the sort
before. How could you tell whether it was the real thing or not?"

Dora shot a glance out of the corner of her eye at her lover, but did
not disclaim the innocence he imputed to her; she knew men liked to
think that, and why shouldn't they, poor things? She seized on his
implied admission and carried the war into his country.

"But you,--you who are so experienced--how did you come to make such a
mistake?"

Charlie was not at a loss.

"It wasn't a mistake _then_," he said. "I was quite right then. Mary
Travers was about the nicest girl I had ever seen. I thought her as
charming as a girl could be."

"Oh, you did! Then why----"

"My eyes have been opened since then."

"What did that?"

"Why don't you ever pronounce my name?"

"Never mind your name. What opened your eyes?"

"Why, yours, of course."

"What nonsense! They're very nice about it, aren't they? Do you think
we ought to call?"

"Shall you feel it awkward?"

"Yes, a little. Shan't you? Still we must let them know we're here.
Will you write to Mrs. Ashforth?"

"I suppose I'd better. After lunch 'll do, won't it?"

"Oh, yes. And I'll write a note to him. I expect they won't be staying
here long."

"I hope not. Hullo, it's a quarter past twelve. We must be getting
back. Laing's coming to lunch."

"Where arc the Deanes?"

"Lady Deane's gone to Belleville with your father to see slums, and
Roger's playing tennis with Laing. He said we weren't to wait lunch.
Are you hungry, Dolly?"

"Not very. It seems only an hour since breakfast."

"How charming of you! We've been walking here since ten o'clock."

"Mr. Ellerton, will you be serious for a minute? I want to say
something important. When we meet the Ashforths there mustn't be a word
said about--about--you know."

"Why not?"

"Oh, I couldn't! So soon! Surely you see that. Why, it would be hardly
civil to them, would it, apart from anything else?"

"Well, it might look rather casual."

"And I positively couldn't face John Ashforth. You promise, don't you?"

"It's a nuisance, because, you see, Dolly----

"You're not to get into the habit of saying 'Dolly'. At least not yet."

"Presently?"

"If you're good. Now promise!"

"All right."

"We're not engaged."

"All right."

"Nor thinking of it,"

"Rather not."

"That's very nice of you, and when the Ashforths are gone----"

"I shall be duly rewarded?"

"Oh, we'll see. Do come along. Papa hates being kept waiting for his
meals, and they must have finished their slums long ago."

They found Lady Deane and the General waiting for them, and the latter
proposed an adjournment to a famous restaurant near the Opera. Thither
they repaired, and ordered their lunch.

"Deane and Laing will find out where we've gone and follow," said the
General. "We won't wait," and he resumed his conversation with Lady
Deane on the events of the morning.

A moment later the absentees came in; Sir Roger in his usual leisurely
fashion, Laing; hurriedly. The latter held in his hand two telegrams,
or the crumpled débris thereof. He rushed up to the table and panted
out, "Found 'em in the pocket of my blazer--must have put 'em
there--stupid ass--never thought of it--put it on for tennis--awfully
sorry."

Wasting no time in reproaches, Dora and Charlie grasped their recovered
property.

"Excuse me!" they cried simultaneously, and opened the envelopes. A
moment later both leant back in their chairs, the pictures of helpless
bewilderment.

Dora had read: "Marriage broken off. Coming to you 28th. Write
directions--European, Paris."

Charlie had read: "Engagement at end. Aunt and I coming to
Paris--European, on 28th. Can you meet?"

Lady Deane was writing in her notebook. The General, Sir Roger, and
Laing were busy with the waiter, the menu, and the wine-list. Quick as
thought the lovers exchanged telegrams. They read, and looked at one
another.

"What does it mean?" whispered Dora.

"You never saw anything like the lives those ragpickers lead, Dora,"
observed Lady Deane, looking up from her task. "I was talking to one
this morning and he said----"

"Maitre d'hotel for me," broke in Sir Roger.

"I haven't a notion," murmured Charlie.

"Look here, what's your liquor, Laing?"

"Anything; with this thirst on me----"

"There are ample materials for a revolution more astonishing and
sanguinary----"

"Nonsense, General, yon must have something to drink."

"Can they have changed their minds again, Dolly?"

"They must have, if Mr. Laing is----"

"Dry? I should think I was. So would you be, if you'd been playing
tennis."

Laing cut across the currents of conversation:

"Hope no harm done, Miss Bellairs, about that wire?"

"I--I--I don't think so."

"Or yours, Charlie?"

Charlie took a hopeful view.

"Upon my honor, Laing, I'm glad you hid it."

"Oh, I see!" cried Laing. "Tip for the wrong 'un, eh, and too late to
put it on now?"

"You're not far off," answered Charlie Ellerton.

"Roger, is it to-night that the General is going to take me to the----"

"Hush! Not before Miss Bellairs, my dear! Consider her filial feelings.
You and the General must make a quiet bolt of it. We're only going to
the Palais-Royal."

The arrival of fish brought a momentary pause, but the first mouthful
was hardly swallowed when Arthur Laing started, hunted hastily for his
eyeglass, and stuck it in his eye.

"Yes, it is them," said he. "See, Charlie, that table over there.
They've got their backs to us, but lean see 'em in the mirror."

"See who?" asked Charlie in an irritable tone.

"Why, those honeymooners. I say, Lady Deane, it's a queer thing to have
a lady's-maid to breakf--Why, by Jove, she's with them now!  Look!"

His excited interest aroused the attention of the whole party, and they
looked across the long room.

"Ashforth's their name," concluded Laing. "I heard the Abigail call him
Ashforth; and the lady is----"

He was interrupted by the clatter of a knife and fork falling on a
plate. He turned in the direction whence the sound came.

Dora Bellairs leant back in her chair, her hands in her lap; Charlie
Ellerton had hidden himself behind the wine-list. Lady Deane, her
husband, and the General gazed inquiringly at Dora.

At the same instant there came a shrill little cry from the other end
of the room. The mirror had served Mary Travers as well as it had
Laing. For a moment she spoke hastily to her companion; then she and
John rose, and, with radiant smiles on their faces, advanced toward
their friends. The long-expected meeting had come; at last.

Dora sat still, in consternation. Charlie, peeping out from behind his
menu, saw the approach.

"Now, in Heaven's name," he groaned, "are they married or aren't they?"
and having said this he awaited the worst.



CHAPTER X

MR. AND NOT MRS. ASHFORTH


Suum cuique: to the Man belongeth courage in great things, but in
affairs of small moment Woman is pre-eminent. Charlie Ellerton was
speechless; Dora Bellairs, by a supreme effort, rose on shaking legs
and advanced with outstretched hands to meet John Ashforth.

"Mr. Ashforth, I declare! Who would have thought of meeting you here?"
she exclaimed; and she added in an almost imperceptible, mysterious
whisper, "Hush!"

John at once understood that he was to make no reference to the
communications which had resulted in this happy meeting. He expressed a
friendly gratification in appropriate words. Dora began to breathe
again; everything was passing off well. Suddenly she glanced from John
to Mary. Mary stood alone, about three yards from the table, gazing at
Charlie. Charlie sat as though paralyzed. He would ruin everything.

"Mr. Ellerton," she called sharply. Charlie started up, but before he
could reach Dora's side, the latter had turned to Mary and was holding
out a friendly hand. Mary responded with alacrity.

"Miss Bellairs, isn't it? We ought to know one another. I'm so glad to
meet you."

Charlie was by them now.

"And how do you do, Mr. Ellerton?" went on Mary, rivalling Dora in
composure. And she also added a barely visible and quite inaudible
"Hush!"

"Who are they?" asked Deane in a low voice.

"Their name's Ashforth," answered Laing.

"God bless my soul!" exclaimed the General. "I remember him now. We
made his acquaintance at Interlaken, but his name had slipped from my
memory. And that's his wife? Fine girl, too. I must speak to him." And
full of kindly intent he bustled off and shook John warmly by the hand.

"My dear Ashforth, delighted to meet you again, and under such
delightful conditions, too! Ah, well, it only comes once in a lifetime,
does it?--in your case anyhow, I hope. I see Dora has introduced
herself. You must present me. When was it?"

Portions of this address puzzled John considerably, but he thought it
best to do as he was told.

"Mary," he said, "let me introduce General Bellairs--Miss Bellairs's
father--to you. General Bell--"

The General interrupted him by addressing Mary with much, effusion.

"Delighted to meet you. Ah, you know our young friend Ellerton?
Everybody does, it seems to me. Come, you must join us. Waiter, two
more places. Lady Deane, let me introduce Mr. Ashforth. They're on
their----"

He paused. An inarticulate sound had proceeded from Mary's lips.

"Beg pardon?" said the General.

A pin might have been heard to drop, while Mary, recovering herself,
said coldly:

"I think there's some mistake. I'm not Mrs. Ashforth."

"Gad, it's the old 'un!" burst in a stage whisper from Arthur Laing,
who seemed determined that John Ashforth should have a wife.

The General looked to his daughter for an explanation. Dora dared not
show the emotion pictured on her face, and her back was towards the
party. Charlie Ellerton was staring with a vacant look at the lady who
was not Mrs. Ashforth. The worst had happened.

John came to the rescue. With an awkward laugh he said:

"Oh, you--you attribute too much happiness to me. This is Miss Travers.
I--I--Her aunt, Miss Bussey, and she have kindly allowed me to join
their travelling party. Miss Bussey is at that table," and he pointed
to "the old 'un."

Perhaps it was as well that at this moment the pent-up feelings which
the situation, and above all the remorseful horror with which Laing was
regarding his fictitious lady's-maid, overcame Roger Deane. He burst
into a laugh. After a moment the General followed heartily.  Laing was
the next, bettering his examples in his poignant mirth. Sir Roger
sprang up.

"Come, Miss Travers," he said, "sit down. Here's the fellow who gave
you your new name. Blame him," and he indicated Laing, Then he cried,
"General, we must have Miss Bussey, too."

The combined party, however, was not, when fully constituted by the
addition of Miss Bussey, a success. Two of its members ate nothing and
alternated between gloomy silence and forced gayety; who these were may
well be guessed. Mary and John found it difficult to surmount their
embarrassment at the contretemps which had attended the introduction,
or their perplexity over the cause of it. Laing was on thorns lest his
distributions of parts and stations in life should be disclosed. The
only bright feature was the congenial feeling which appeared at once to
unite Miss Bussey and Sir Roger Deane. They sat together, and, aided by
the General's geniality and Lady Deane's supramundane calm, carried the
meal to a conclusion without an actual breakdown, ending up with a
friendly wrangle over the responsibility for the bill. Finally it was
on Sir Roger's proposal that they all agreed to meet at five o'clock
and take coffee, or what they would, together at a café by the water in
the Bois de Boulogne. With this understanding the party broke up.

Dora and Charlie, lagging behind, found themselves alone. They hardly
dared to look at one another, lest their composure should fail.

"They're not married," said Charlie.

"No."

"They've broken it off!"

"Yes."

"Because of us."

"Yes."

"While we----"

"Yes."

"Well, in all my life, I never----"

"Oh, do be quiet."

"What an infernal ass that fellow Laing----"

"Do you think they saw anything?"

"No. I half wish they had."

"Oh, Mr. Ellerton, what shall we do? They're still in love with us!"

"Rather. They've been waiting for us."

Dora entered the hotel gates and sank into a chair in the court-yard.

"Well? she asked helplessly; but Charlie had no suggestion to offer.

"How could they?" she broke out indignantly. "How could they break off
their marriage at the last moment like that? They--they were as good as
married. It's really hardly--people should know their own minds."

She caught sight of a rueful smile on Charlie's face.

"Oh, I know, but it's different," she added impatiently. "One expects
it of you, but I didn't expect it of John Ashforth."

"And of yourself?" he asked softly.

"It's all your fault, you wicked boy," she answered.

Charlie sighed heavily.

"We must break it to them," said he. "Mary will understand; she has
such delicacy of feeling that----"

"You're always praising that girl. I believe you're in love with her
still."

"Well, you as good as told me I wasn't fit to black Ashforth's boots."

"Anyhow he wouldn't have--have--have tried to make a girl care for him
when he knew she cared for somebody else."

"Hang it, it seems to me Ashforth isn't exactly immaculate. Why, in
Switzerland----"

"Never mind Switzerland, Mr. Ellerton, please."

A silence ensued. Then Charlie remarked, with a reproachful glance at
Dora's averted face, "And this is the sequel to Avignon! I shouldn't
have thought a girl could change so in forty-eight hours."

Dora said nothing. She held her head very high in the air and looked
straight in front of her.

"When you gave me that kiss----" resumed Charlie.

Now this form of expression was undoubtedly ambiguous; to give a kiss
may mean: 1. What it literally says--to bestow a kiss. 2. To offer
one's self to be kissed. 3. To accept willingly a proffered kiss; and,
without much straining of words, 4. Merely to refrain from angry
expostulation and a rupture of acquaintance when one is kissed--this
last partaking rather of the nature of the ratification of an
unauthorized act, and being, in fact, the measure of Dora's
criminality. But the other shades of meaning caught her attention.

"You know it's untrue; I never did," she cried angrily. "I told you at
the time that no gentleman would have done it."

"Oh, you mean Ashforth, I suppose? It's always Ashforth."

"Well, he wouldn't."

"And some girls I know wouldn't forgive a man on Monday and round on
him on Wednesday."

"Oh, you needn't trouble to mention names. I know the paragon you're
thinking of!"

They were now at the hotel.

"Going in?" asked Charlie.

"Yes."

"I suppose we shall go to the Bois together?"

"I shall ask papa or Sir Roger to take me."

"Then I'll go with Lady Deane."

"I don't mind who you go with, Mr. Ellerton."

"I'll take care that you're annoyed as little as possible by my
presence,"

"It doesn't annoy me."

"Doesn't it, D----?"

"I don't notice it one way or the other."

"Oh."

"Good-by for the present, Mr. Ellerton."

"Good-by, Miss Bellairs; but I ought to thank you."

"What for?"

"For making it easy to me to do what's right," and Charlie turned on
his heel and made rapidly for the nearest café, where he ordered an
absinthe.

Dora went wearily up to her bedroom, and, sitting down, reviewed the
recent conversation. She could not make out how, or why, or where they
had begun to quarrel. Yet they had certainly not only begun but made
very fair progress, considering the time at their disposal. It had all
been Charlie's fault. He must be fond of that girl after all; if so, it
was not likely that she would let him see that she minded. Let him go
to Mary Travers, if--if he liked that sort of prim creature. She, Dora
Bellairs, would not interfere. She would have no difficulty in finding
someone who did care for her. Poor John! How happy he looked when he
saw her! It was quite touching.

He really looked almost--almost. To her sudden annoyance and alarm she
found herself finishing the sentence thus, "almost as Charlie did at
Avignon."

"Oh, he's worth a thousand of Charlie," she exclaimed, impatiently.

At half-past four Sir Roger Deane was waiting; in the hall. Presently
Dora appeared.

"Where are the others?" she asked.

"Charlie's having a drink. Your father and Maud aren't coming. They're
going to rest."

"Oh, well, we might start."

"Excuse me, Miss Dora, there's some powder on your nose."

"Oh, is there? Thanks."

"What have you been powdering for?"

"Really, Sir Roger! Besides the sun has ruined my complexion."

"Oh, the sun,"

"Yes. Don't be horrid. Do let's start."

"But Charlie--"

"I hate riding three in a cab."

"Oh, and I like riding alone in one, so----"

"No, no. You must come with me. Mr. Ellerton can follow us. He's always
drinking, isn't he? I dislike it so."

Sir Roger, with a wink at an unresponsive plaster bust of M. le
President, followed her to the door. They had just got into their
little victoria when Charlie appeared, cigarette in hand.

"Charlie," observed Deane, "Miss Bell airs thinks you'll be more
comfortable by yourself than perched on this front seat."

"Especially as you're smoking," added Dora. "Allez, cocher."

Charlie hailed another vehicle and got in. As he did so he remarked
between his teeth, "I'm d----d if I stand it."



CHAPTER XI

A DYNAMITE OUTRAGE


On one side of the Lake Dora mid John walked together, on the other
Mary and Charlie. Miss Bussey and Roger Deane sat in the garden of the
café. The scene round them was gay. Carriages constantly drove up,
discharging daintily attired ladies and their cavaliers. There was a
constant stream of bicycles, some of them steered by fair riders in
neat bloomer-suits; the road-waterers spread a grateful coolness in
their ambit, for the afternoon was hot for the time of year, and the
dust had an almost autumnal volume. Miss Bussey had been talking for
nearly ten minutes on end, and now she stopped with an exhausted air,
and sipped her coffee. Deane lit another cigar and sat silently looking
on at the life that passed and repassed before him.

"It's a curious story," he observed at last.

"Very; but I suppose it's all ended happily now. Look at them, Sir
Roger."

"Oh, I see them."

"Their troubles are over at last, poor children; and really I think
they've all behaved very well. And yet----"

"Yes?"

"I should have thought Mary and Mr. Ashforth so suited to one another.
Well, well, the heart's an unaccountable thing--to an old spinster,
anyhow."

"You're right, Miss Bussey. Take my wife and me. You wouldn't have
thought we should have hit it off, would you? First year I knew her I
hardly dared to speak to her--used to mug up Browning and--(Sir Roger
here referred to an eminent living writer) and chaps like that, before
I went to see her, you know. No use! I bored her to death. At last I
chucked it up."

"Well?"

"And I went one day and talked about the Grand National for half an
hour by the clock. Well, she asked me to come again next day, and I
went, and told her all about the last burlesque and--and so on, you
know. And then I asked her to marry me."

"And she said 'Yes'?"

"Not directly. She said there was an impassable gulf between us--an
utter want of sympathy in our tastes and an irreconcilable difference
of intellectual outlook."

"Dear me! Didn't that discourage you?"

"I said I didn't care a dash; she was the only girl I ever cared for
(all right, Miss Bussey, don't laugh), and I'd have any outlook she
liked. I said I knew I was an ass, but I thought I knew a pretty girl
when I saw one, and I'd go away if she'd show me a prettier one."

"Well?"

"Well, she didn't."

Miss Bussey laughed a little.

"Of course," resumed Sir Roger, "I've got money, you know, and all
that, and perhaps----"

"Sir Roger! What a thing to say of your wife!"

"Well, with another girl--but hang it, I don't believe Maud would.
Still, you see, it's so dashed queer that sometimes----"

"I'm sure she's very fond of you," said Miss Bussey, rather surprised
fit the nature of the confidence which she was receiving.

"I expect it's all right," resumed Deane, more cheerfully, "and that
brings us back to where we started, doesn't it?"

"And we started in bewilderment."

"You're puzzled that Dora, Bellairs and Ashforth should pair off
together, and----?"

"Well, the other combination would seem more natural, wouldn't it?
Doesn't it surprise you a little?"

"I'm never surprised at anything till I know it's true," said Sir Roger.

"What, you----?"

They were interrupted by the return of their friends, and a move was
made. Three vehicles were necessary to take them back, for the twos
could, obviously, neither be separated from one another nor united with
anybody else, and in procession, Miss Bussey and Deane leading, they
filed along the avenues back to the Arc de Triomphe.

They had hardly passed the open Place when their progress was suddenly
arrested. A crowd spread almost across the broad road, and
sergents-de-ville imperiously commanded a halt. There was a babble of
tongues, great excitement, and a thousand eager fingers pointing at a
house. The doorway was in ruins, and workmen were busy shoring it up
with beams. In the middle of the crowd there was an open circle,
surrounded by gendarmes, and kept clear of people. In the middle of it
lay a thing like a rather tall slim watering-pot, minus the handle. The
crowd, standing on tiptoe and peeping over the shoulders of their
guardians, shook their fists at this harmless-looking article and
apostrophised it with a wonderful wealth of passionate invectives.

"What in the world's the matter?" cried Miss Bussey, who was nervous in
a crowd.

"Revolution, I suppose;" responded Deane calmly, mid turning to his
nearest neighbor, he continued in the first French that came to him,
"Une autre révolution, n'est-ce-pas, Monsieur?"

The man stared, but a woman near him burst into a voluble explanation,
from the folds of which unlearned English ears disentangled, at the
third reiteration, the ominous word, "Dynamite;" and she pointed to the
watering-pot.

"Oh, it'll go off!" shrieked Miss Bussey.

"It's gone off," said Sir Roger. "We're too late," and there was a
touch of disappointment in his voice, as he turned and shouted to the
others, "Keep your seats! It's all over. Only an explosion."

"Only!" shuddered Miss Bussey. "It's a mercy we weren't killed."

It appeared that this mercy had not stopped at Miss Bussey and her
friends. Nobody had been killed--not even the magistrate on the third
floor for whose discipline and reformation the occurrence had been
arranged; and presently the carriages were allowed to proceed.

Lady Deane's grief at having missed so interesting an occasion was very
poignant.

"No, Roger," said she, "it is not a mere craving for horrors, or a
morbid love of excitement; I wish I had been there to observe the
crowd, because it's just at such moments that people reveal their true
selves. The veil is lifted--the veil of hypocrisy and convention--and
you see the naked soul."

"You could hear it too, Maud," observed Sir Roger. "Fine chance of
improving your French vocabulary. Still, I daresay you're right."

"I'm sure I am."

Deane looked at his wife meditatively.

"You think," he asked, "that being in danger might make people----"

"Reveal their inmost natures and feelings? I'm sure of it."

"Gad! Then we might try."

"What do you mean, Roger?"

"Nothing. You're going out with the General to-night? Very well, I
shall take a turn on my own hook."

As he strolled toward the smoking-room, he met Charlie Ellerton.

"Well, old fellow, had a pleasant afternoon?"

"Glorious!" answered Charlie in a husky voice.

"Are we to congratulate you?"

"I--I--well, it's not _absolutely_ settled yet, Deane, but--soon, I
hope."

"That's right. Miss Bussey told me the whole story, and I think you're
precious lucky to get such a girl."

"Yes, aren't I?"

"You don't look over and above radiant."

"Do you want me to go grinning about the hotel like an infernal hyena?"

"I think a chastened joy would be appropriate."

"Don't be an ass, Deane. I suppose you think you're funny."

Sir Roger passed on, with a smile on his lips. As he passed the
reading-room Dora Bellairs came out.

"Well, Miss Dora, enjoyed your afternoon?"

"Oh, awfully--except that dreadful explosion."

"You must excuse a friend, you know. I'm awfully glad it's all come
right in the end."

"You--you're very kind, Sir Roger. It's--it's--there's nothing quite
settled yet."

"Oh, of course not, but still----! Well, I heard all about it and I
think he's worthy of you. I can't say more. He seems a capital fellow."

"Yes, isn't he? I----"

"Yes?"

"Oh, I'm very, very, _very_ happy," and, after making this declaration
in a shaky voice, she fairly ran away down the passage. Deane watched
her as she went.

"Maud's right," said he. "She always is. There's nothing for it but
dynamite. I wonder where it's to be got?"

General Bellairs clapped him on the shoulders.

"Inclined for a turn, Deane? I'm going to see an old servant of
mine--Painter's his name. He married my poor wife's French maid, and
set up as a restaurant-keeper in the Palais-Royal. I always look him up
when I come to Paris."

"I'm your man," answered Deane, and they set out for Mr. Painter's
establishment. It proved to be a neat little place, neither of the very
cheap nor of the very sumptuous class, and the General was soon
promising to bring the whole party to dejeuner there. Painter was
profuse in thanks and called Madame to thank the General. The General
at once entered into conversation with the trim little woman.

"Nice place yours, Painter," observed Deane.

"Pleased to hear you say so, Sir Roger."

"Very nice. Ah--er--heard of the explosion?"

"Yes, Sir Roger. Abominable thing, sir. These Socialists----"

"Quite so. Never had one here, I suppose?"

"No, sir. We're pretty well looked after in here."

"Like one?" asked Deane.

"Beg pardon, sir. Ha-ha. No, sir."

"Because I want one."

"You--beg pardon, sir?"

"Look here, Painter. I'll drop in here after dinner for some coffee. I
want to talk to you. See? Not a word to the General."

"Glad to see you, Sir Roger, but----"

"All right. I'll put you up to it. Here they come. Present me to
Madame."

They went away, haying; arranged with the Painters for luncheon and a
private room on the next day but one.

"Lunch for eight," said Deane. "At least, General, I thought we might
ask our friends from the European."

"Yes--and young Laing."

"Oh, I forgot him. Yes, Laing, of course. For nine--neuf, you know,
please, madame."

"That's all right," said the General, "I'm glad to do him a turn."

"Yes, that's all right," assented Sir Roger, with the slightest
possible chuckle. "We shall have a jolly lunch, eh, General?"



CHAPTER XII

ANOTHER!


"I shall never, never forgot your generosity, John."

"No, Mary. It was your honesty and courage that did it."

"I told Mr. Ellerton the whole story, and he seemed positively
astonished."

"And Miss Bellairs admitted that when she wrote she considered such a
tiling utterly impossible. She's changed a little, Mary. She's not so
cheerful and light-hearted as she used to be."

"Think what she's gone through. I've noticed just the same in Mr.
Ellerton, but--"

"You hope to restore him soon?"

"Oh, well, I expect Miss Bellairs--what a pretty girl she is,
John--will soon revive too, now she is with you again. John, have; you
observed anything peculiar in Aunt Sarah's manner?"

"To tell you the truth, I fancied she was rather short with me once or
twice at dinner."

"I believe she is--isn't pleased at--at what's happened. She hasn't
taken much to Mr. Ellerton, and you know she liked you so much, that I
think she still wants you as one of the family."

John laughed: then he leant forward and said in a low voice:

"Have you settled anything about dates?"

"No. Mr. Ellerton--well he didn't introduce the subject: so of course I
didn't. Have you?"

"No, we haven't. I made some suggestion of the kind, but Miss Bellairs
didn't fall in with it. She won't even let me ask her father's consent
just yet."

"Mr. Ellerton proposes not to announce our--anything--for a few days."

"Well," said John, "I shall insist on an announcement very shortly, and
you ought to do the same, Mary. We know the evils--" He checked
himself, but Mary was not embarrassed.

"Of secret engagements?" she said calmly. "We do indeed."

"Besides it's a bore. I couldn't go with Miss Bellairs to the theatre
to-night, because she said it would look too marked."

"Yes, and Mr. Ellerton said that if he dined here he might as well
announce our engagement from the statue of Strasburg."

John frowned, and Mary perceiving the bent of his thoughts ventured to
say, though with a timid air unusual to her:

"I think they're the least little bit inconsiderate, don't you,
John--after all we have done for them?"

"Well, I don't mind admitting that I do feel that. I do not consider
that Miss Bellairs quite appreciates the effort I have made."

Mary sighed.

"We mustn't expect too much of them, must we?" she asked.

"I suppose not," John conceded; but he still frowned.

When we consider how simple the elements of perfect happiness appear to
be, regarded in the abstract, it becomes surprising to think how
difficult it is to attain them in the concrete. A kind magician may
grant us all we ask, may transport us whither we would go, dower us
with all we lack, bring to us one desired companion after another, but
something is wrong. We have a toothache, or in spite of our rich
curtains there's a draught, or the loved one haps not to be at the
moment congenial: and we pitifully pray the wizard to wave his wand
again. Would any magician wave his for these four troublesome folk? It
must be admitted that they hardly deserved it.

Nevertheless a magician was at work, and, with the expiration of the
next night, his train was laid. At eleven o'clock in the forenoon of
Friday, Roger Deane had a final interview with the still hesitating
Painter.

"But if the police should come, Sir Roger?" urged the fearful man.

"Why, you'll look a fool, that's all. Isn't the figure high enough?"

"Most liberal, Sir Roger, but--but it will alarm my wife."

"If you come to that, it'll alarm my wife."

"Very true, Sir Roger." Painter seemed to derive some comfort from this
indirect community of feeling with the aristocracy.

"It'll alarm everybody, I hope. That's what it's for. Now mind--2.30
sharp--and when the coffee's been in ten minutes. Not before! I must
have time for coffee."

"Very good, Sir Roger."

"Is the ladder ready?"

"Yes, Sir Roger."

"And the what's-its-name?"

"Quite ready, Sir Roger."

"Let's see it."

It was inspected and pronounced satisfactory. Then Roger Deane set out
to return to his hotel, murmuring contentedly:

"If that don't make up their minds for 'em, I don't know what will."

Then he paused suddenly.

"Gad! Will the women have hysterics?" he asked, but in a moment he
added, reassuring himself, "Maud never has, and, hang it, we must
chance the rest."

Arrived at home he found Arthur Laing kicking his heels in the
smoking-room.

"Lunching with you to-day, ain't I, somewhere in the Palais-Royal?"
asked the visitor.

"Yes, some place the General's found out. Look here, Laing, are you a
nervous man?"

"Nervous! What do you take me for?"

"Lose your head in moments of excitement?"

"I never have 'em."

"Oh, well, hang you! I say, Laing, you're not a fool. Just look here.
Anything I say--anything, mind--at lunch today, you're not to
contradict. You're to back me up."

"Right you are, old chap."

"And the more infernal nonsense it sounds, the more you're to take your
oath about it."

"I'm there."

"And finally, you're on no account to lay a finger either on Miss
Travers or on Dora Bellairs."

"Hullo! I'm not in the habit of beating women at any time, let alone at
a lunch-party."

"I mean what I say: you're not to touch either of them. If you do
you'll spoil it. You're to go for Miss Bussey."

"She's not done me any harm."

"Never mind. As soon as the row begins and I say, 'Save the ladies!'
you collar Miss Bussey. See?"

"Oh, I see. Seems to me we're going to have a lively lunch. Am I to
carry the old lady?"

"Yes."

"Oh, by Jove! How's my biceps? Just feel, will you?"

Deane felt and gravely pronounced the muscle to be equal to its task.
Laing was much gratified, and awaited the unknown future with
philosophic patience.

Sir Roger had predicted "a jolly lunch," but, in its early stages, the
entertainment hardly earned this description. Something was wrong
somewhere; Dora started by refusing, very pointedly, to sit near
Charlie Ellerton; and yet, when she found herself between Ashforth and
Laing, she was absent, silent, and melancholy. Charlie, on the other
hand, painfully practised a labored attentiveness to Mary Travers which
contrasted ill with his usual spontaneous and gay courtesy. Miss Bussey
wore an air of puzzled gravity, and Laing kept looking at her with a
calculating eye. He seemed to be seeking the best grip. Lady Deane and
the General, engrossed in a tête-à-tête discussion, did little to
promote the hilarity of the table, and it was left to Deane to maintain
the flow of conversation as he best could. Apparently he found the task
a heavy one, for, before long, he took a newspaper out of his pocket,
and, à propos to one of his own remarks, began to read a highly
decorated account of the fearful injuries under which the last victim
of the last diabolical explosion had been in danger of succumbing. Sir
Roger read his gruesome narrative with much emphasis, and as he laid
down the paper he observed:

"Well, I hope I'm not more of a coward than most men, but in face of
dynamite--ugh!" and he shuddered realistically.

"I should make for the door," said Laing.

"Yes, but in this case the bomb was at the door!"

"Then," said Laing, "I should exit by the window."

"But this poor man." remarked Mary Travers, "stayed to rescue the woman
he loved," and her eyes rested for an instant in confident affection on
Charlie Ellerton.

"We should all do as much, I trust," said John, glancing at Dora
Bellairs.

"I'm sure I hope you won't have to," said Dora, rather ungraciously.

"Think what a convincing test of affection it would be," suggested
Deane persuasively. "After that you could never doubt that the man
loved you."

"My good Sir Roger," observed Miss Bussey, "it would be common
humanity."

"Suppose there were two girls," said Laing, "and you couldn't take 'em
both!"

Deane hastily interposed.

"Haven't we had enough of this dreary subject?" he asked, and he
frowned slightly at Laing.

"Isn't it about time for coffee?" the General suggested.

Deane looked at his watch.

"What does the time matter, Deane, if we're ready?"

"Not a bit. 2.20. That's all right," and he rang the bell.

Painter came in with the coffee: the little man looked rather pale and
nervous, but succeeded in serving the company without upsetting the
cups. He came to Deane last.

"Is everything ready?" whispered that gentleman, and receiving a
trembling "Yes, sir," he added, "in ten minutes."

"This," he observed out loud, "has been a pleasant gathering--a
pleasant end to our outing."

"What? You're going?" asked Miss Bussey.

"Yes: my wife and I cross to England to-morrow."

"I shall go the next day," announced the General, "if Dora is ready."

John threw a glance toward Dora, but she was busy drinking her coffee.

"Well," said Deane, "I hope we may soon meet again, under equally
delightful circumstances, in London. At any rate," he added with a
laugh, "there we shall be safe from----"

Crash! A loud noise came from the door, as if of some metallic
substance thrown against the panels.

"Hullo!" said Laing.

"Oh, somebody tumbled downstairs," said Deane reassuringly. "Don't
move, Miss Bussey."

"Oh, but Sir Roger, what is it? What do you think? It didn't sound at
all like what you say."

The General laughed.

"Come, Miss Bussey, I don't suppose it's----"

As he spoke the form of Painter appeared at the open window. He was
breathless, and shrieked hastily:

"Dynamite, dynamite! Save yourselves! It'll be off in a minute."

"Then I shall be off in half a minute," said Laing.

There was a rush to the door, and Laing, remembering his instructions,
joined hastily in it.

"No, no. The bomb's there!" cried Painter, excitedly.

They stood still in horror for ten seconds.

"To the window, to the window, for your lives! Save the ladies!" cried
Sir Roger Deane.



CHAPTER XIII

FAITHFUL TO DEATH


The ladies looked at one another. Even in that awful moment, the
becoming, the seemly, the dignified had its claims. The window was
narrow: the ladder--Mary Travers had gone to look at it--was steep: a
little, curious, excited crowd was gathering below. Deane saw their
hesitation. He rushed to the door and cautiously opened it. The thing
was there! Across the very entrance--that villainous oblong case! And
from below came a shriek--it was Madame's voice, and a cry of "Quick!
quick!"

"This," said the General firmly (he had been through the Mutiny), "is
not a time for punctilio. Excuse me," and he lifted Lady Deane in his
stalwart arms and bore her toward the window.

With a distant reminiscence of the ball room, Arthur Laing approached
Miss Bussey, murmuring "May I have the--" and with a mighty effort
swung the good lady from the ground. She clutched his cravat wildly,
crying "Save me!"

Mary Travers was calmness itself. With quiet mien and unfaltering
voice, she laid her hand on Charlie's arm and murmured:

"I am ready, Charlie."

At the same moment John Ashforth, the light of heroism in his eye,
whispered to Dora, "You must trust yourself implicitly to me."

"Quick, quick!" cried Deane, "or it's all up with you. Quick, Ashforth!
Quick, Charlie, quick, man!"

There was one more pause. Mary's hand pressed a little harder. John's
arm was advancing towards Dora's waist. Sir Roger looked on with
apparent impatience.

"Are you never going?" he called. "Must I----"

Suddenly a loud cry rang out. It came from Miss Bellairs.

"Oh, Charlie, save me, save me!" she cried, and then and there flung
herself into his arms.

"My darling!" he whispered loudly, and catching her up made for the
window. As they disappeared through it, Deane softly and swiftly opened
the door and disappeared in his turn. Mary and John were left alone.
Then Mary's composure gave way. Sinking into a chair she cried:

"And I am left! Nobody cares for me. What shall I do?"

In an instant John's strong arm was round her. "I care for you!" he
cried, and raising her almost senseless form, he rushed to the window.
The ladder was gone!

"Gone!" he shrieked. "Where is it?"

There was no answer. The little crowd had gone too.

"We are lost," he said.

Mary opened her eyes.

"Lost!" she echoed.

"Lost! Abandoned--by those who loved--ah, no, no, Mary. In the hour of
danger--then we see the truth!"

Mary's arms clasped him closer.

"Ah, John, John," she said, "we must die together, dear."

John stooped and kissed her.

Suddenly the door was opened and Deane entered. He wore a comically
apologetic look, and carried an oblong metal vessel in his right hand.

"Excuse me," he said. "There's been--er--slight but very natural
mistake. It wasn't--er--exactly dynamite--it's--er--a preserved-peach
tin. That fool Painter----"

"Then we're safe!" cried Mary.

"Yes, thank Heaven," answered Deane fervently.

"Oh, John!" she cried.

Sir Roger, with a smile, retired and closed the door after him.

Downstairs Lady Deane and Miss Bussey, forgetful of their sufferings,
were restoring Madame Painter to her senses; Painter was uncorking a
bottle of champagne for Arthur Laing; Sir Roger Deane was talking in a
low voice and persuasive tones to an imposing representative of the
police. "What passed between them is unknown; possibly only words,
possibly something else; at any rate, after a time, Deane smiled, the
great man smiled responsively, saluted, and disappeared, murmuring
something about Anglais, milords, and drôles. The precise purport of
his reflections could not be distinctly understood by those in the
house, for civility made him inarticulate, but when he was safely
outside he looked at a piece of crisp paper in his hand, then, with his
thumb pointing over his shoulder, he gave an immense shrug, and
exclaimed:

"Mais voilà, un fou!" and to this day he considers Roger Deane the very
type of a maniac.

Mary and John descended. As soon as they appeared Dora jumped up from
her seat and ran towards John, crying, "Oh, Mr. Ashforth!"

While Charlie, advancing more timidly to Mary, murmured: "Forgive me,
but--"

Mary with a slight bow, John with a lift of his hat, both without a
halt or a word, passed through the room, arm-in-arm, and vanished from
Mr. Painter's establishment.

Sir Roger had seized on Laing's champagne and was pouring it out. He
stopped now, and looked at Dora. A sudden gleam of intelligence glanced
from her eyes. Rushing up to him, she whispered, "You did it all? It
was all a hoax?"

He nodded.

"And why?"

"Ask Charlie Ellerton," he answered.

"Oh, but Mr. Ashforth and Mary Travers are so angry!"

"With one another?"

"No, with us."

Sir Roger looked her mercilessly full in the face, regardless of her
blushes.

"That," he observed with emphasis, "is exactly what you wanted, Miss
Bellairs."

Then he turned to the company, holding a full glass in his hand.
"Ladies and gentlemen," said he, "some of us have had a narrow escape.
Whether we shall be glad of it or sorry hereafter, I don't know--do
you, Charlie? But hero's a health to----"

But Dora, glancing apprehensively at the General, whispered, "Not yet!"

"To Dynamite!" said Sir Roger Deane.



POSTSCRIPT


It should be added that a fuller, more graphic, and more sensational
account of the outrage in the Palais-Royal than this pen has been
capable of inscribing will appear, together with much other curious and
enlightening matter, in Lady Deane's next work. The author also takes
occasion in that work--and there is little doubt that the subject was
suggested by the experiences of some of her friends--to discuss the
nature, quality, and duration of the Passion of Love. She concludes--if
it be permissible thus far to anticipate the publication of her
book--that all True Love is absolutely permanent and indestructible,
untried by circumstance and untouched by time; and this opinion is, she
says, indorsed by every woman who has ever been in love. Thus
fortified, the conclusion seems beyond cavil. If, therefore, any
incidents here recorded appear to conflict with it, we must imitate the
discretion of Plato and say, either these persons were not Sons of the
Gods--that is. True Lovers--or they did not do such things.
Unfortunately, however, Lady Deane's proof-sheets were accessible too
late to allow of the title of this story being changed.  So it must
stand--"The Wheel of Love;" but if any lady (men are worse than
useless) will save the author's credit by proving that wheels do not go
round, he will be very much obliged--and will offer her every facility.




THE LADY OF THE POOL


CHAPTER I

A FIRM BELIEVER


"I see Mr. Vansittart Merceron's at the Court again, mamma."

"Yes, dear. Lady Merceron told me he was coming. She wanted to consult
him about Charlie."

"She's always consulting him about Charlie, and it never makes any
difference."

Mrs. Bushell looked up from her needlework; her hands were full with
needle and stuff, and a couple of pins protruded from her lips. She
glanced at her daughter, who stood by the window in the bright blaze of
a brilliant sunset, listlessly hitting the blind-cord and its tassel to
and fro.

"The poor boy's very young still," mumbled Mrs. Bushell through her
pins.

"He's twenty-five last month," returned Millicent. "I know, because
there's exactly three years between him and me."

The sinking rays defined Miss Bushell's form with wonderful clearness.
She was very tall, and the severe well-cut cloth gown she wore set off
the stately lines of her figure. She had a great quantity of fair hair
and a handsome face, spoilt somewhat by a slightly excessive breadth
across the cheeks; as her height demanded or excused, her hands and
feet were not small, though well shaped. Would Time have arrested his
march for ever, there would have been small fault to find with Nature's
gifts to Miss Bushell; but, as her mother said, Millie was just what
she had been at twenty-one; and Mrs. Bushell was now extremely stout.
Millie escaped the inference by discrediting her mother's recollection.

The young lady wore her hat, and presently she turned away from the
window, remarking:

"I think I shall go for a stroll. I've had no exercise to-day."

Either inclination, or perhaps that threatening possibility from which
she strove to avert her eyes, made Millie a devotee of active pursuits.
She hunted, she rode, she played lawn-tennis, and, when at the seaside,
golf; when all failed, she walked resolutely four or five miles on the
high-road, swinging along at a healthy pace, and never pausing save to
counsel an old woman or rebuke a truant urchin. On such occasions her
manner (for we may not suppose that her physique aided the impression)
suggested the benevolent yet stern policeman, and the vicar
acknowledged in her an invaluable assistant. By a strange coincidence
she seemed to suit the house she lived in--one of those large white
square dwelling's, devoid of ornament, yet possessing every substantial
merit, and attaining, by virtue of their dimensions and simplicity, an
effect of handsomeness denied to many more tricked-out building's. The
house satisfied; so did Millie, unless the judge were very critical.

"I shall just walk round by the Pool and back," she added as she opened
the door.

"My dear, it's four miles!"

"Well, it's only a little after six, and we don't dine till eight."

Encountering no further opposition than a sigh of admiration--three
hundred yards was the limit of pleasure in a walk to her mother--Millie
Bushell started on her way, dangling a neat ebony stick in her hand,
and setting her feet down with a firm decisive tread. It did not take
her long to cover the two miles between her and her destination.
Leaving the road, she entered the grounds of the Court and, following a
little path which ran steeply down hill, she found herself by the
willows and reeds fringing the edge of the Pool. Opposite to her, on
the higher bank, some seven or eight feet above the water, rose the
temple, a small classical erection, used now, when at all, as a
summer-house, but built to commemorate the sad fate of Agatha Merceron.
The sun had just sunk, and the Pool looked chill and gloomy; the deep
water under the temple was black and still. Millie's robust mind was
not prone to superstition, yet she was rather relieved to think that,
with the sun only just gone, there was a clear hour before Agatha
Merceron would come out of the temple, slowly and fearfully descend the
shallow flight of marble steps, and lay herself down in the water to
die. That happened every evening, according to the legend, an hour
after sunset--every evening, for the last two hundred years, since poor
Agatha, bereft and betrayed, had found the Pool kinder than the world,
and sunk her sorrow and her shame and her beauty there--such shame and
such beauty as had never been before or after in all the generations of
the Mercerons.

"What nonsense it all is!" said Millie aloud. "But I'm afraid Charlie
is silly enough to believe it."

As she spoke her eye fell on a Canadian canoe, which lay at the foot of
the steps. She recognized it as Charlie Merceron's, and, knowing that
approach to the temple from the other side was to be gained only by a
difficult path through a tangled wood, and that the canoe usually lay
under a little shed a few yards from where she stood, she concluded
that Charlie was in the temple. There was nothing surprising in that:
it was a favorite haunt of his. She raised her voice; and called to
him. At first no answer came, and she repeated:

"Charlie! Charlie!"

After a moment of waiting a head was thrust out of a window in the side
of the temple--a head in a straw hat.

"Hullo!" said Charlie; Merceron in tones of startled surprise. Then,
seeing the visitor, he added: "Oh, it's you, Millie! How did you know I
was here?"

"By the canoe, of course."

"Hang the canoe!" muttered Charlie, and his head disappeared. A second
later he came out of the doorway and down the steps. Standing on the
lowest, he shouted--the Pool was about sixty feet across--"What do you
want?"

"How rude you are!" shouted Miss Bushell in reply.

Charlie got into the canoe and began to paddle across. He had just
reached the other side, when Millie screamed:

"Look, look, Charlie!" she cried. "The temple!"

"What?"

"I--I saw something white at the window."

Charlie got out of the canoe; hastily.

"What?" he asked again, walking up to Miss Bushell.

"I declare I saw something white at the window. Oh, Charlie! But it's
all----"

"Bosh? Of course it is. There's nothing in the temple."

"Well, I thought--I wonder you like to be there."

"Why shouldn't I?"

The mysterious appearance not being repeated, Millie's courage returned.

"I thought you believed in the ghost," she said, smiling.

"So I do, but I don't mind it."

"You've never seen it?"

"Supposing I haven't? That doesn't prove it's not true."

"But you're often here at the time?"

"Never," answered Charlie with emphasis. "I always go away before the
time."

"Then you'd better come now. Put the canoe to bed and walk with me."

Charlie Merceron thrust his hands into his pockets and smiled at his
companion. He was tall also, and just able to look down on her.

"No," he said, "I'm not going yet."

"How rude--oh, there it is again, Charlie! I saw it! I'm--I'm
frightened," and her healthy color paled a trifle, as she laid a hand
on Charlie's arm.

"I tell you what," observed Charlie. "If you have fancies of this kind
you'd better not come here any more--not in the evening, at all events.
You know people who think they're going to see things always do see
'em."

"My heart is positively beating," said Miss Bushell. "I--I don't quite
like walking back alone."

"I'll see you as far as the road," Charlie conceded, and with
remarkable promptitude he led the way, turning his head over his
shoulder to remark:

"Really, if you're so nervous, you oughtn't to come here."

"I never will again--not alone, I mean."

Charlie had breasted the hill with such goodwill that they were already
at the road.

"And you're really going back?" she asked.

"Oh, just for a few minutes. I left my book in the temple--I was
reading there. She's not due for half an hour yet, you know."

"What--what happens if you see her?"

"Oh, you die," answered Charlie. "Goodnight;" and with a smile and a
nod he ran down the hill towards the Pool.

Miss Bushell, cavalierly deserted, made her way home at something more
than her usual rate of speed. She had never believed in that nonsense,
but there was certainly something white at that window--something white
that moved. Under the circumstances, Charlie really might have seen her
home, she thought, for the wood-fringed road was gloomy, and dusk
coming on apace. Besides, where was the hardship in being her escort?

Doubtless none, Charlie would have answered, unless a man happened to
have other fish to fry. The pace at which the canoe crossed the Pool
and brought up at its old moorings witnessed that he had no leisure to
spend on Miss Bushell. Leaping out, he ran up the stops into the
temple, crying in a loud whisper:

"She's gone!"

The temple was empty, and Charlie, looking round in vexation, added:

"So has she, by Jingo!"

He sat down disconsolately on the low marble seat that ran round the
little shrine.

There were no signs of the book of which he had spoken to Millie
Bushell. There were no signs of anybody whom he could have meant to
address. Stay! One sign there was: a long hat-pin lay on the floor.
Charlie picked it tip with a sad smile.

"Agatha's," he said to himself.

And yet, as everyone in the neighborhood knew, poor Agatha Merceron
went nightly to her phantom death bareheaded and with golden locks
tossed by the wind. Moreover, the pin was of modern manufacture;
moreover, ghosts do not wear--but there is no need to enter on
debatable ground; the pin was utterly modern.

"Now, if uncle Van," mused Charlie, "came here and saw this--!" He
carefully put the pin in his breast-pocket, and looked at his watch.
It was exactly Agatha Merceron's time; yet Charlie leant back on his
cold marble seat, put his hands in his pockets, and gazed up at the
ceiling with the happiest possible smile on his face. For one steeped
in family legends, worshipping the hapless lady's memory with warm
devotion, and reputed a sincere believer in her ghostly wanderings, he
awaited her coming with marvellous composure. In point of fact he had
forgotten all about her, and there was nothing to prevent her coming,
slipping down the steps, and noiselessly into the water, all unnoticed
by him. His eyes were glued to the ceiling, the smile played on his
lips, his ears were filled with sweet echoes, and his thoughts were far
away. Perhaps the dead lady came and passed unseen. That Charlie did
not see her was ridiculously slight evidence whereon to damn so ancient
and picturesque a legend. He thought the same himself, for that night
at dinner--he came in late for dinner--he maintained the credit of the
story with fierce conviction against Mr. Vansittart Merceron's
scepticism.



CHAPTER II

MISS WALLACE'S FRIEND


In old days the Mercerons had been great folk. They had held the
earldom of Langbury and the barony of Warmley. A failure of direct
descent in the male line extinguished the earldom; the Lady Agatha was
the daughter of the last earl, and would have been Baroness Warmley had
she lived. On her death that title passed to her cousin, and continued
in that branch till the early days of the present century.  Then came
another break. The Lord Warmley of that day, a Regency dandy, had a
son, but not one who could inherit his honors, and away went the barony
to a yet younger branch, where, falling a few years later into female
hands, it was merged in a brand-new viscounty, and was now waiting till
chance again should restore it to an independent existence. From the
Mercerons of the Court it was gone for ever, and the blot on their
escutcheon which lost it them was a sore point, from which it behooved
visitors and friends to refrain their tongues. The Regent had, indeed,
with his well-known good nature, offered a baronetcy to hide the stain;
but pride forbade, and the Mercerons now held no titles, save the
modest dignity which Charlie's father, made a K.C.B. for services in
the North-West Provinces, had left behind him to his widow. But the old
house was theirs, and a comfortable remnant of the lands, and the
pictures of the extinct earls and barons, down to him whose sins had
robbed the line of its surviving rank and left it in a position, from
an heraldic point of view, of doubtful respectability. Lady Merceron
felt so acutely on the subject that she banished this last nobleman to
the smoking-room. There was, considering everything, an appropriateness
in that position, and he no longer vexed her eyes as she sat at meat in
the dining room. She had purposed a like banishment for Lady Agatha;
but here Charlie had interceded, and the unhappy beauty hung still
behind his mother's chair and opposite his own. It was just to remember
that but for poor Agatha's fault and fate the present branch might
never have enjoyed the honors at all; so Charlie urged to Lady
Merceron, catching at any excuse for keeping Lady Agatha. Lady
Merceron's way of judging pictures may seem peculiar, but the fact is
that she lacked what is called the sense of historical perspective: she
did not see why our ancestors should be treated so tenderly and
allowed, with a charitable reference to the change in manners,
forgiveness for what no one to-day could hope to win a pardon. Mr.
Vansittart Merceron smiled at his sister-in-law and shrugged his
shoulders; but in vain. To the smoking-room went the wicked Lord
Warmley, and Lady Agatha was remarkably lucky in that she did not
follow him.

Mr. Vansittart, half-brother to the late Sir Victor, and twenty years
younger than he, was a short thick-set man, with a smooth round white
face, and a way of speaking so deliberate and weighty that it imparted
momentousness to nothings and infallibility to nonsense. When he really
had something sensible to say, and that was very fairly often, the
effect was enormous. He was now forty-four, a widower, well off by his
marriage, and a Member of Parliament. Naturally, Lady Merceron relied
much, on his advice, especially in what concerned her son; she was hazy
about the characters and needs of young men, not knowing how they
should be treated or what appealed to them. Amid her haziness, one fact
only stood out clear. To deal with a young man, you wanted a man of the
world. In this capacity Mr. Vansittart had now been sent for to the
Court, the object of his visit being nothing less than the arrangement
and satisfactory settlement of Charlie's future.

Mr. Vansittart approached the future through the present and the past.
"Yon wasted your time at school, you wasted your time at Oxford, you're
wasting your time now," he remarked, when Charlie and he were left
alone after dinner.

Charlie was looking at Lady Agatha's picture. "With a sigh he turned to
his uncle.

"That's all very well," he said tolerantly, "but what is there for me
to do?"

"If you took more interest in country pursuits it might be different.
But you don't hunt, you shoot very seldom----"

"And very badly."

"And not at all well, as you admit. You say you won't become a
magistrate, you show no interest in politics or--or--social questions.
You simply moon about."

Charlie was vividly reminded of a learned judge whom he had once heard
pronouncing sentence of death. His uncle's denunciation seemed to lack
its appropriate conclusion--that he should be hanged by the neck till
he was dead. He was roused to defend himself.

"You're quite wrong, uncle," he said. "I'm working hard. I'm writing a
history of the family."

"A history of the family!" groaned Mr. Vansittart. "Who wants one?
Who'll read one?"

"From an antiquarian point of view--" began Charlie stoutly.

"Of all ways of wasting time, antiquarianism is perhaps the most
futile;" and Mr. Vansittart wiped his mouth with an air of finality.

"Now the Agatha Merceron story," continued Charlie, "is in itself---"

"Perhaps we'd better finish our talk tomorrow. The ladies will, expect
us in the garden."

"All right," said Charlie, with much content. He enjoyed himself more
in the garden, for, while Lady Merceron and her brother in law took
counsel, he strolled through the moonlit shrubberies with Mrs. Marland,
and Mrs. Marland was very sympathetically interested in him and his
pursuits. She was a little eager woman, the very antithesis in body and
mind to Millie Bushell; she had plenty of brains but very little sense,
a good deal of charm but no beauty, and, without any counterbalancing
defect at all, a hearty liking for handsome young men. She had also a
husband in the City.

"Ghost-hunting again to-night, Mr. Merceron?" she asked, glancing up at
Charlie, who was puffing happily at a cigar.

"Yes," he answered, "I'm very regular."

"And did you see anyone?

"I saw Millie Bushell."

"Miss Bushell's hardly ghost-like, is she?"

"We'll," said Charlie meditatively, "I suppose if one was fat oneself
one's ghost would be fat, wouldn't it?"

Mrs. Marland, letting the problem alone, laughed softly.

"Poor Miss Bushell! If she heard you say that! Or if Lady Merceron
heard you!"

"It would hardly surprise my mother to hear that I thought Millie
Bushell plump. She is plump, you know;" and Charlie's eyes expressed a
candid homage to truth.

"Oh, I know what's being arranged for you."

"So do I."

"And you'll do it. Oh, you think you won't, but you will. Men always
end by doing what they're told."

"Does Mr. Marland?"

"He begins by it," laughed his wife.

"Is that why he's not coming till Saturday week?"

"Mr. Merceron! But what was Miss Bushell doing at the Pool? Did she
come to find you?"

"Oh, no; just for a walk."

"Poor girl!"

"Why--it's good for her."

"I didn't mean the walk,"

"I'd blush if there was light enough to make it any use, Mrs. Marland."

"Oh, but I know there's something. You don't go there every evening to
look for a dead lady, Mr. Merceron."

Charlie stopped short, and took his cigar from his mouth.

"What?" he asked, a little abruptly.

"Well, I shall follow you some day, and I shouldn't be surprised if I
met--not Agatha--but----"

"Well?" asked Charlie, with an uncertain smile.

"Why, poor Miss Bushell!"

Charlie laughed and replaced his cigar.

"What are we standing still for?" he said.

"I don't know. You stopped. She'd be such an ideal match for you."

"Then I should never have done for you, Mrs. Marland."

"My dear boy, I was married when you were still in Eton collars."

They had completed the circuit of the garden, and now approached where
Lady Merceron sat, enveloped in a shawl.

"Charlie!" she called. "Here's a letter from Victor Button. He's coming
to-morrow."

"I didn't know you'd asked him," said Charlie, with no sign of pleasure
at the news. Victor had been at school and college with Charlie, and
often, in his holidays, at the Court, for he was Sir Victor's godson.
Yet Charlie did not love him. For the rest, he was very rich, and was
understood to cut something of a figure in London society.

"Mr. Sutton? Oh, I know him," exclaimed Mrs. Marland. "He's charming!"

"Then you shall entertain him," said Charlie. "I resign him."

"I can't think why you're not more pleased to have him here, Charlie,"
remarked Lady Merceron. "He's very popular in London, isn't he,
Vansittart?"

"I've met him at some very good houses," answered Mr. Vansittart. And
that, he seemed to imply, is better than mere popularity.

"The Bushells were delighted with him last time he was here," continued
Lady Merceron.

"There! A rival for you!" Mrs. Marland whispered.

Charlie laughed cheerfully. Sutton would be no rival of his, he
thought; and if he and Millie liked one another, by all means let them
take one another. A month before he would hardly have dismissed the
question in so summary a fashion, for the habit of regarding Millie as
a possibility and her readiness as a fact had grown strong by the
custom of years, and, far as he was from a passion, he might not have
enjoyed seeing her allegiance transferred to Victor Sutton. Certainly
he would have suffered defeat from that hand with very bad grace. Now,
however, everything was changed.

"Vansittart," said Lady Merceron, "Charlie and I want to consult you
(she often coupled Charlie's hypothetical desire for advice with her
own actual one in appeals to Mr. Vansittart) about Mr. Prime's rent."

"Oh, at the old farm?"

"Yes. He wants another reduction."

"He'll want to be paid for staying there next."

"Well, poor man, he's had to take lodgers this summer--a thing he's
never done before. Charlie, did you know that?"

"Yes," said Charlie, interrupting an animated conversation which he had
started with Mrs. Marland.

"Do you know who they are?" pursued his mother, wandering from Mr.
Prime's rent to the more interesting subject of his lodgers.

"Ladies from London," answered Charlie.

"Rather vague," commented Mr. Vansittart. "Young ladies or old ladies,
Charlie?"

"Why does he want to know?" asked Mrs. Marland; but chaff had about as
much effect on Mr. Vansittart as it would have on an ironclad. He
seemed not to hear, and awaited an answer with a bland smile. In truth,
he thought Mrs. Marland a silly woman.

"Young, I believe," answered Charlie, in a careless tone.

"It's curious I've not seen them about," said Lady Merceron. "I pass
the farm almost every day. Who are they, Charlie?"

"One's a Miss Wallace. She's engaged to Willie Prime."

"To Willie? Fancy!"

"H'm! I think," remarked Mr. Vansittart, "that, from the point of view
of a reduction of rent, these lodgers are a delusion. Of course she
stays with Prime if she's going to many his son."

"Fancy Willie!" reiterated Lady Merceron. "Surely he can't afford to
marry? He's in a bank, you know, Vansittart, and he only gets a hundred
and twenty pounds a year."

"One blessing of the country is that everybody knows his neighbor's
income," observed Mr. Vansittart.

"Perhaps the lady has money," suggested Mrs. Marland. "But, Mr.
Merceron, who's the other lady?"

"A friend of Miss Wallace's, I believe. I don't know her name."

"Oh, they're merely friends of Prime's?" Mr. Vansittart concluded. "If
that's all he bases his claim for a reduction on---"

"Hang it! He might as well have it," interrupted Charlie. "He talks to
me about it for half an hour every time we meet."

"But, my dear Charlie, you have more time than money to waste--at
least, so it seems."

His uncle's sarcasm never affected Charlie's temper.

"I'll turn him on to you, uncle," he replied, "and you can see how you
like it."

"I'll go and call on him tomorrow. You'd better come too, Charlie."

"And then you can see the ladies from London," added Mrs. Marland.
"Perhaps the one who isn't young Mr. Prime's will be interesting."

"Or," said Charlie, "as mostly happens in this woeful world, the one
who is."

"I think the less we see of that sort of person at all, the better,"
observed Lady Merceron, with gentle decision. "They can hardly be quite
what we're accustomed to."

"That sort of person!"

Charlie went to bed with the phrase ringing in his horror-struck ears.
If to be the most beautiful, the most charming, and the most refined,
the daintiest, the wittiest and prettiest, the kindest and the
sweetest, the merriest and most provoking creature in the whole
world--if to be all this were yet not to weigh against being 'that sort
of person'--if it were not, indeed, to outweigh, banish, and obliterate
everything else why, the world was not fit to live in, and he no true
Merceron! For the Merceron men had always pleased themselves.



CHAPTER III

ALL NONSENSE


On the evening of the next day, while the sun was still on the Pool,
and its waters, forgetful of darker moods and bygone tragedies, smiled
under the tickling of darting golden gleams, a girl sat on the broad
lowest step of the temple. She had rolled the sleeves of her white gown
above her elbow, up well-nigh to her shoulder, and, the afternoon being
sultry, from time to time dipped her arms in the water and, taking them
out again, amused herself by watching the bright drops race down to her
rosy fingertips. The sport was good, apparently, for she laughed and
flung back her head so that the stray locks of hair might not spoil her
sight of it. On either side of this lowest step there was a margin of
smooth level grass, and, being unable as she sat to bathe both arms at
once, presently she moved on to the grass and lay down, sinking her
elbows in the pond and leaning her face over the edge of it. The
posture had another advantage she had not thought of, and she laughed
again when she saw her own eyes twinkling at her from the depths. As
she lay there a longing came upon her.

"If I could be sure he wouldn't come I'd dip my feet," she murmured.

As, however, he had come every evening for a fortnight past the fancy
was not to be indulged, and she consoled herself by a deeper dive yet
of her arms and by drooping her head till her nose and the extreme
fringe of her eyelashes were wetted, and the stray locks floated on
either side.

Presently, as she still looked, she saw another shadow on the water,
and exchanged with her image a confidential glance.

"You again?" she asked.

The other shadow nodded.

"Why didn't you come in the canoe?"

"Because people see it."

It struck her that her attitude was unconventional, and by a lithe
complicated movement, whereof Charlie noticed only the elegance and not
the details, she swept round and, sitting, looked up at him.

"I know who she was," she observed.

"She very nearly knew who you were. You oughtn't to have come to the
window."

"She thought I was the ghost."

"You shouldn't reckon on people being foolish."

"Shouldn't I? Yet I reckoned on your coming--or there'd have been some
more of me in the water."

"I wish I were an irregular man," said Charlie.

She was slowly turning down her sleeves, and, ignoring his remark,
said, with a question in her tones:

"Nettie Wallace says that Willie Prime says that everybody says that
you're going to marry that girl."

"I believe it's quite true."

"Oh!" and she looked across the Pool.

"True that everybody says so," added Charlie. "Why do you turn down
your sleeves?"

"How funny I must have looked, sprawling on the bank like that!" she
remarked.

"Awful!" said Charlie, sitting down.

She looked at him with uneasiness in her eye.

"Nothing but an ankle, I swear," he answered.

She blushed and smiled.

"I think you should whistle, or something, as you come."

"Not I," said Charlie, with decision.

Suddenly she turned to him with a serious face, or one that tried to be
serious.

"Why do you come?" she asked.

"Why do I eat?" he returned.

"And yet you were angry the first time."

"Nobody likes to be caught ranting out poetry especially his own."

"I believe you were frightened--you thought I was Agatha. The poetry
was about her, wasn't it?"

"It's not at all a bad poem," observed Charlie.

"You remember I liked it so much that I clapped my hands."

"And I jumped!"

The girl laughed.

"Ah, well," she said, "it's time to go home."

"Oh, dear, no," said Charlie!

"But I've promised to be early, because Willie Prime's coming, and I'm
to be introduced to him."

"Willie Prime can wait. He's got Miss Wallace to comfort him, and I've
got nobody to comfort me."

"Oh, yes. Miss Bushell."

"You know her name?"

"Yes--and yours--your surname, I mean; you told me the other."

"That's more than you've done for me."

"I told you my name was Agatha."

"Ah, but that was a joke. I'd been talking about Agatha Merceron."

"Very well. I'm sorry it doesn't satisfy you. If you won't believe
me--!"

"But your surname?"

"Oh, mine? Why, mine's Brown."

"Brown!" re-echoed Charlie, with a tinge of disappointment in his tone.

"Don't you like it?" asked Miss Agatha Brown with a smile.

"Oh, it will do for the present," laughed Charlie.

"Well, I don't mean to keep it all my life. I've spent to-day, Mr.
Merceron, in spying out your house. Nettie Wallace and I ventured quite
near. It's very pretty."

"Rather dilapidated, I'm afraid."

"What's the time, Mr. Merceron?"

"Half-past six. Oh, by Jove!"

"Well? Afraid of seeing poor Agatha?"

"I should see nobody but you, if you were here. No. I forgot that.
I've got to meet someone at the station at a quarter-past seven."

"Oh, do tell me who?"

"You'd be none the wiser. It's a Mr. Victor Sutton."

"Victor Sutton!" she exclaimed, with a glance at Charlie which passed
unnoticed by him. "Is he a friend of yours?"

"I suppose so. Of my family's, anyhow."

"Good-by. I'm going," she announced.

"You'll be here to-morrow?"

"Yes. For the last time."

She dropped this astounding thunderbolt on Charlie's head as though it
had been the most ordinary remark in the world.

"The last time! Oh, Miss---" No: somehow he could not lay his tongue to
that "Miss Brown."

"I can't spend all my life in Lang Marsh," said she.

"Agatha," he burst out.

"No, no. This is not the last time. Sha'n't we keep that?" she asked,
with a provokingly light-hearted smile.

"You promise to be here to-morrow?"

"Oh, yes."

"I shall have something to say to you then," Charlie announced with a
significant air.

"Oh, you never lack conversation."

"You'll be here at five?"

"Precisely," she answered with mock gravity; "and now I'm gone!"

Charlie took off his straw hat, stretched out his right hand, and took
hers. For a moment she drew back, but he looked very handsome and
gallant as he bowed his head down to her hand, and she checked the
movement.

"Oh, well!" she murmured; she was protesting against any importance
being attached to the incident.

Charlie, having paid his homage, walked, or rather ran, swiftly away.
To begin with, he had none too much time if he was to meet Victor
Sutton; secondly, he was full of a big resolve, and that generally
makes a man walk fast.

The lady pursued a more leisurely progress. Swinging her hat in her
hand, she made her way through the tangled wood back to the high-road,
and turned towards Mr. Prime's farm. She went slowly along, thinking
perhaps of the attractive young fellow she had left behind her,
wondering perhaps why she had promised to meet him again. She did not
know why, for there was sure to happen at that last meeting the one
thing which she did not, she supposed, wish to happen. However, a
promise is a promise. She heard the sound of wheels behind her, and,
turning, found the farmer's spring-cart hard on her heels. The farmer
was driving, and by his side sat a nice-looking girl dressed in the
extreme of fashion. On the back seat was a young man in a very light
suit, with a fine check pattern, and a new pair of brown leather shoes.
The cart pulled up.

"We can make room for ye, Miss," said old Mr. Prime.

Nettie Wallace jumped tip and stood with her foot on the step. Willie
Prime jumped down and effected her transfer to the back seat. Agatha
climbed up beside the farmer and stretched her hand back to greet
Willie. Willie took it rather timidly. He did not quite 'savvy' (as he
expressed it to himself); his fiancée's friend was very simply attired,
infinitely more simply than Nettie herself. Nettie had told him that
her friend was 'off and on'(a vague and rather obscure qualification of
the statement) in the same line as herself--namely, Court and
high-class dressmaking. Yet there was a difference between Nettie and
her friend.

"Anybody else arrived by the train?" asked Agatha.

"A visitor for the Court. A good-looking gentleman, wasn't he, Willie?"

Nettie was an elegant creature and, but for the 'gentleman' and that
slight but ineradicable twang that clings like Nessus' shirt to the
cockney, all effort and all education notwithstanding (it will even
last three generations, and is audible, perhaps, now and then in the
House of Lords), her speech was correct and even dainty in its prim
nicety.

"Ah!" said Agatha.

"His name's Sutton," said Willie; "Mr. Charles--young Mr.
Merceron--told me so when he was talking to me on the platform."

"You know young Mr. Merceron?" asked Agatha.

"Why, they was boys together," interrupted the old farmer, who made
little of the refinements of speech. In his youth no one, from the lord
to the laborer, spoke grammar in the country. "Used to larn to swim
together in the Pool, didn't you, Willie?"

"I must have a dip there to-morrow," cried Willie; and Agatha wondered
what time he would choose. "And I'll take you there, Nettie. Ever been
yet?"

"No. They--they say it's haunted, don't they, Willie?"

"That's nonsense," said Willie. London makes a man sceptical. The old
farmer shook his head and grunted doubtfully. His mother had seen poor
Agatha Merceron; this was before the farmer was born--a little while
before--and the shock had come nigh to being most serious to him. The
whole countryside knew it.

"Why do you call it nonsense, Mr. Prime?" asked Agatha.

"Oh, I don't know, Miss---"

"Miss Brown, Willie," said Nettie.

"Miss Brown. Anyway, we needn't go the time the ghost comes."

"I should certainly avoid that," laughed Agatha.

"We'll go in the morning, Nettie, and I'll have my swim in the evening."

Agatha frowned. It would be particularly inconvenient if Willie Prime
took his swim in the evening.

"Oh, don't, Willie," cried Nettie. "She--she might do you some harm."

Willie was hard to persuade. He was not above liking to appear a
daredevil; and the discussion was still raging when they reached the
farm. The two girls went upstairs to the little rooms which they
occupied. Agatha turned into hers, and Nettie Wallace followed her.

"Your Willie is very nice," said Agatha, sitting on her bed.

Nettie smiled with pleasure.

"And now that you've other company I shall go."

"You're going, Miss?"

"Not Miss."

Nettie laughed.

"I forget sometimes," she said.

"Well, you must remember just over tomorrow. I shall go next day. I
must meet my grandfather in London."

Nettie offered no opposition. On the contrary, she appeared rather
relieved.

"Nettie, did you like Mr. Sutton's looks?" asked Agatha after a pause.

"He's too black and blue for my taste," answered Nettie.

Willie Prime was red and yellow.

"Blue? Oh: you mean his cheeks?"

"Yes. But he's a handsome gentleman all the same; and you should have
seen his luggage! Such a dressing-bag--cost fifty pounds, I daresay."

"Oh, dear, me," said Agatha, "Yes, Nettie, I shall go the day after
to-morrow."

"Mr. Merceron asked to be introduced to me," said Nettie proudly. "And
he asked where you were--he said he'd seen you at the window."

"Did he?" said Agatha negligently; and Nettie, finding the conversation
flag, retired to her own room.

Agatha sat a moment longer on the bed.

"What a very deceitful young man," she exclaimed at last. "I must be a
very strict secret indeed. Well, I suppose I should be."



CHAPTER IV

A CATASTROPHE AT THE POOL


Mr. Vansittart Merceron was not quite sure that Victor Sutton had any
business to call him "Merceron." He was nearly twenty years older than
Victor, and a man of considerable position; nor was he, as some
middle-aged men are, flattered by the implication of
contemporaneousness carried by the mode of address. But it is hard to
give a hint to a man who has no inkling that there is room for one; and
when Mr. Vansittart addressed Victor as 'Mr. Sutton' the latter
graciously told him to "hang the Mister." Reciprocity was inevitable,
and the elder man asked himself, with a sardonic grin, how soon he
would be "Van."

"Coming to bathe, Merceron?" he heard under his window at eight o'clock
the next morning. "We're off to the Pool."

Mr. Vansittart shouted an emphatic negative, and the two young fellows
started off by themselves. Charlie's manner was affected by the
ceremonious courtesy which a well-bred host betrays towards a guest not
very well-beloved, but Victor did not notice this. It seldom occurred
to him that people did not like him.

"Yes," he was saying, "I'm just twenty-nine. I've had my fling,
Charlie, and now I shall get to business."

Charlie was relieved to find that according to this reckoning he had
several more years 'fling' before him.

"Next year," pursued Victor, "I shall marry; then I shall go into
Parliament, and then I shall go ahead."

"I didn't know you were engaged."

"No, I'm not, but I'm going to be. I can please myself, you see; I've
got lots of coin."

"Oh, yes, but can you please the lady?" asked Charlie.

"My dear boy," began Victor, "when you've seen a little more of the
world----

"Here we are," said Charlie. "Why, hullo! Who's that?"

A dripping head and a blowing mouth were visible in the middle of the
Pool.

"Willie Prime by Jove! 'Morning Willie;" and Charlie set about flinging
off his flannels, Victor following his example in a more leisurely
fashion.

Willie Prime was a little puzzled to know how he ought to treat
Charlie. 'Charlie' he had been in very old days--then Master Charlie
(that was Willie's mother's doing)--then Mr. Charles. But now Willie
had set up for himself. He had played billiards with a lord, and
football against the Sybarites, and, incidentally, hobnobbed with quite
great people. It is not very easy to assert a social position when one
has nothing on, and only one's head out of water, but Willie did it.

"Good-morning--er--Merceron," said he.

Victor heard him, and put up his eyeglass in amazement; but he, in his
turn, had only a shirt on, and the hauteur was a failure. Charlie
utterly failed to notice the incident.

"Is it cold?" he shouted.

"Beastly," answered Willie. The man who has got in always tells the man
who is going to get in that it is "beastly cold."

"Here goes!" cried Charlie; and a minute later he was treading water by
Willie's side.

"Miss Wallace all fit?" he asked.

"Thank you, yes, she's all right."

"And her friend?"

"All right, I believe."

"And when is it to be, old fellow?"

"Soon as I get a rise."

"What?" asked the unsophisticated Charlie, who knew the phrase chiefly
in connection with fish.

"A rise of screw, you know."

"Oh, ah, yes--what a fool I am!" and Charlie disappeared beneath the
waves.

When they were all on the bank, drying, Willie, encouraged by not being
discouraged (save by Sutton's silence) in his advances, ventured
further, and asked in a joking tone:

"And aren't you marked off yet? We've been expecting to hear of it for
the last twelve months."

"What do you mean'?"

"Why, you and Miss Bushell."

Charlie struggled through his shirt, and then answered, with his first
touch of distance:

"Nothing in it. People've got no business to gossip."

"It's damned impertinent," observed Victor Sutton in slow and
deliberate tones.

Willie flushed.

"I beg pardon," he said gruffly. "I only repeated what I heard."

"My dear fellow, no harm's done," cried Charlie. "Who was the fool?"

"Well--in fact--my father."

The situation was awkward, but they wisely eluded it by laughter. But a
thought struck Charlie.

"I say, did your father state it as a fact?"

"Oh no; but as a certainty, you know."

"When?"

"Last night at supper."

Charlie's brow clouded. Miss B--that is, Agatha, was certain to have
been at supper. However, all that could be put right in the
evening--that one blessed evening left to him. He looked at Willie and
opened his mouth to speak; but he shut it again. It did not seem to him
that he could question Willie Prime about the lady. She had chosen to
tell him nothing, and her will was his law. But he was yearning to know
what she was and how she came there. He refrained; and this time virtue
really had a reward beyond itself, for Willie would blithely have told
him that she was a dressmaker (he called Nettie, however, the manager
of a Court modiste's business), and that would not have pleased Charlie.

It was all very well for Charlie to count on that blessed evening; but
he reckoned without his host--or rather without his guests.

The Bushells came to lunch, Millie driving her terrified mother in a
lofty gig; and at lunch Millie recounted her vision of Agatha Merceron.
She did not believe it, of course; but it was queer, wasn't it? Victor
Sutton rose to the bait at once.

"We'll investigate it," he cried. "Merceron," (he meant the patient Mr.
Vansittart), "didn't yon once write an article on 'Apparitions' for
_Intellect_?"

"Yes, I proved there were none," answered Mr. Vansittart.

"That's impossible, you know," remarked Mrs. Marland gently.

"We'll put you to the proof this very evening," declared Mr. Sutton.

Charlie started.

"Are you game, Miss Bushell?" continued Victor.

"Ye--yes, if you'll keep quite near me, answered Millie, with a playful
shudder. Charlie reflected how ill playfulness became her, and frowned.
But Millie was pleased to see him frown; she enjoyed showing him that
other men liked to keep quite near to her.

"Then this evening we'll go in a body to the Pool."

"I shall not go," shuddered Mrs. Marland.

"An hour after sunset!"

"Half an hour. She might be early--and we'll stay half an hour after.
We'll give her a fair show."

"Come," thought Charlie. "I shall get an hour with Agatha."

"You'll come, Charlie?" asked Victor.

"Oh, all right," he answered, hiding all signs of vexation. He could
get back by six and join the party. But why was Mrs. Marland looking at
him?

The first step, however, towards getting back is to get there, and
Charlie found this none so easy. After lunch came lawn-tennis, and he
was impressed. Mr. Vansittart played a middle-aged game, and Victor had
found little leisure for this modest sport among his more ambitious
amusements. Charlie had to balance Millie Bushell, and he spent a very
hot and wearying afternoon. They would go on: Victor declared it was
good for him, Uncle Van delighted in a hard game (it appeared to be a
very hard game to him from the number of strokes he missed), and Millie
grew in vigor, ubiquity, and (it must be added) intensity of color as
the hours wore away. It was close on five before Charlie, with a groan,
could throw down his racquet.

"Poor boy!" said Mrs. Marland.

"Charlie, dear," called Lady Merceron, who had been talking comfortably
to Mrs. Bushell in the shade, "come and hand the tea. I'm sure you must
all want some. Millie, my dear, how hot you look!"

"She never will take any care of her complexion, complained Mrs.
Bushell.

"Take care of your stom--your health--and your complexion will take
care of itself," observed Mr. Vansittart.

"Charlie! Where; is the boy?" called Lady Merceron again.

The boy was gone. He was flying as fast as his legs would take him to
the Pool. Where was that cherished interview now? He could hope only
for a few wretched minutes--hardly enough to say good-by once--before
he must hustle--yes, positively hustle--Agatha out of sight. He had
heard that abominable Sutton remark that they might as well start
directly after tea.

He was breathless when he burst through the willows. But there he came
to a sudden, a dead stop, and then drew back into shelter again. There
on the bank, scarcely a dozen feet from it, sat two people--a. young
man with his arm round a young woman's waist. Willie Prime and Nettie
Wallace, "by all that's damnable!" as Sir Peter says! Charlie said
something quite as forcible.

He felt for his watch, but he had left it with his waistcoat on the
lawn. What was the time? Was it going quickly or slowly? Could he
afford to wait, or must he run round to the road and intercept Agatha?
Five minutes passed in vacillation.

"I'll go and stop her," he said, and began a cautious retreat. As he
moved he heard Willie's voice.

"Well, my dear, let's be off," said Willie.

Nettie rose with a sigh of content, adjusted her hat coquettishly, and
smoothed her skirts.

"I'm ready, Willie. It's been beautiful, hasn't it?"

They came towards Charlie. Evidently they intended to regain the road
by the same path as he had chosen. Indeed, from that side of the Pool
there was no choice, unless one clambered round by the muddy bank.

"We must make haste," said Willie. "Father'll want his tea."

If they made haste they would be close on his heels. Charlie shrank
back behind a willow and let them go by; then, quick as thought, rushed
to his canoe and paddled across--up the steps and into the temple he
rushed. She wasn't there! Fate is too hard for the best of us
sometimes. Charlie sat down and, stretching out his legs, stared
gloomily at his toes.

Thus he must have sat nearly ten minutes, when a head was put round the
Corinthian pilaster of the doorway.

"Poor boy! Am I very late?"

Charlie leapt up and forward, breathlessly blurting out joy tempered by
uneasiness.

Agatha gathered the difficulty of the position.

"Well," said she, smiling, "I must disappear, and you must go back to
your friends."

"No," said Charlie. "I must talk to you."

"But they may come any moment."

"I don't care!"

"Oh, but I do. Charlie, what's the matter? Oh, didn't I ever call you
'Charlie' before? Well, Charlie, if you love me (yes, I know!) you'll
not let these people see me."

"All right! Come along. I'll take you to the road and come back.
Hullo! What's that?"

"It's them!" exclaimed the lady.

It was. The pair dived back into the temple. On the opposite bank stood
Millie Bushell, Mr. Vansittart, and Victor Sutton.

"Hullo, there, Charlie, you thief!" cried Victor. "Bring that canoe
over here. Miss Bushell wants to get to the temple."

"Hush! Don't move!" whispered Agatha.

"But they know I'm here; they see that confounded canoe."

"Charlie! Charlie!" was shouted across in three voices.

"What the devil--," muttered Charlie.

"They mustn't see me," urged Agatha.

Victor Sutton's voice rose clear and distinct,

"I'll unearth him!" he cried. "I know the way round. You wait here with
Miss Bushell, Merceron."

"Oh, he's coming round!"

"I must chance it," said Charlie, and he came out of hiding. A cry
greeted him. Victor was already started, but stopped. Charlie embarked
and shot across.

"You villain! You gave us the slip," cried Uncle Van.

Miss Bushell began quietly to embark. Uncle Van followed her example.

"Oh, Mr. Merceron, you'll sink us!" cried Millie.

Charlie sat glum and silent. The situation beat him completely.

Uncle Van drew back. Millie seized the paddle and propelled the canoe
out from the bank.

"You come round with me, Merceron," called Sutton, and the two men
turned to the path. "No," added Victor. "Look here, we can climb round
here," and he pointed to the bank. There was a little narrow muddy
track, but it was enough.

The canoe was half-way across; the two men--Victor leading at a good
pace--were half-way round. Charlie glanced at the window of the temple
and caught a fleeting glance of a despairing face. "If you love me,
they mustn't see me!"

"Here, give me the paddle!" he exclaimed, and reached forward for it.

"No, I can do it," answered Millie, lifting the instrument out of his
reach.

Charlie stepped forward--rather, he jumped forward, as a man jumps over
a ditch. There was a shriek from Millie; the canoe swayed, tottered,
and upset. In a confused mass, Millie Bushell and Charlie were hurled
into the water. Victor and Uncle Van, hardly five yards from the steps,
turned in amazement.

"Help! help!" screamed Millie.

"Help!" echoed Charlie. "I can't hold her up. Victor, come and help me!
Uncle Van, come along!"

"The devil!" murmured Uncle Van,

"Quick, quick!" called Charlie; and Victor, with a vexed laugh, peeled
off his coat and jumped in. Mr. Vansittart stood with a puzzled air.
Then a happy thought struck him. He turned and trotted back the way he
had come. He would get a rope!

As he went, as Victor reached the stragglers in the water, a slim
figure in white, with a smile on her face, stole cautiously from the
temple and disappeared in the wood behind. Charlie saw her go, but he
held poor Millie's head remorselessly tight towards the other bank.

And that was the last he saw of the Lady of the Pool.

Millie Bushell landed, her dripping clothes clinging round her.  Victor
was shivering, for the evening had turned chilly. Uncle Van had a bit
of rope from the boat-shed in his hand, and a doubtful smile on his
face.

"We'd best get Miss Bushel home," he suggested, and they started in
gloomy procession. Charlie, in remorse, gave Millie his arm.

"Oh, how could you?" she murmured piteously. She was cold, she was wet,
and she was sure that she looked frightful.

I--I didn't do it on purpose, "Charlie blurted out eagerly.

"On purpose! Well, I suppose not," she exclaimed, bewildered.  Charlie
flushed. Victor shot a swift glance at him.

Half-way home they met Mrs. Marland and the whole affair had to be
explained to her. Charlie essayed the task.

"Still, I don't see how you managed to upset the canoe," observed Mrs.
Marland.

"No more do I," said Victor Sutton.  Charlie gave it up.

"I'm so sorry, Millie," he whispered. "You must try to forgive me."

So, once again, the coast was left clear for Agatha Merceron, if she
came that night. But, whether she did or not, the other Agatha came no
more, and Charlie's great resolve went unfulfilled. Yet the next
evening he went: alone to the temple, and he found, lying on the floor,
a little handkerchief trimmed with lace and embroidered with the name
of "Agatha." This he put in his pocket, thanking heaven that his
desperate manoeuvre had kept the shrine inviolate the day before.

"Poor Millie!" said he. "But then I had to do it."

"I hear," remarked Lady Merceron a few days later, "that one of Mr.
Prime's friends has left him--not Willie's young lady--the other."

"Has she?" asked Charlie.

No one pursued the subject, and, after a moment's pause, Mrs. Marland,
who was sitting next to Charlie, asked him in a low voice whether he
had been to the Pool that evening--.

"No," answered Charlie. "I don't go every night."

"Oh, poor dear Miss Bushell!" laughed Mrs. Marland; and, when Charlie
looked inquiringly at her, she shook her head.

"You see, I know something of young men," she explained.



CHAPTER V

AN UNFORESEEN CASE


"I wish to goodness," remarked the Reverend Sigismund Taylor rubbing
the bridge of his nose with a corner of the Manual, "that the Vicar had
never introduced auricular confession. It may be in accordance with the
practice of the Primitive Church, but--one does meet with such very
curious cases. There's nothing the least like it, in the Manual."

He opened the book and searched its pages over again. No, the case had
not been foreseen. It must be included in those which were "left to the
discretion of the priest."

"It's a poor Manual," said Mr. Taylor, throwing it down and putting his
hands in the pocket of his cassock. "Poor girl! She was quite
distressed, too. I must have something to tell her when she comes next
week."

Mr. Taylor had, in face of the difficulty, taken time to consider, and
the penitent had gone away in suspense. To represent oneself as a
dressmaker--well, there was nothing very outrageous in that; it was
unbecoming, but venial, to tell sundry fibs by way of supporting the
assumed character--the Manual was equal to that; but the rest of the
disclosure was the crux. Wrong, no doubt, was the conduct--but how
wrong? That made all the difference. And then there followed another
question: What ought to be done? She had asked for advice about that
also, and, although such counsel was not strictly incumbent on him, he
felt that he ought not to refuse it. Altogether he was puzzled. At
eight-and-twenty one cannot be ready for everything; yet she had
implored him to consult nobody else, and decide for her himself. "I've
such trust in you," she had said, wiping away an incipient teardrop;
and, although Mr. Taylor told her that the individual was nothing and
the Office everything, he had been rather gratified. Thinking that a
turn in the open air might clear his brain and enable him better to
grapple with this very thorny question, he changed his cassock for a
long tailed coat, put on his wide awake, and, leaving the precincts of
St. Edward Confessor, struck across Park Lane and along the Row. He
passed several people he knew, both men and women: Mrs. Marland was
there, attended by two young men, and, a little farther on, he saw old
Lord Thrapston tottering along on his stick. Lord Thrapston hated a
parson, and scowled at poor Mr. Taylor as he went by. Mr. Taylor shrank
from meeting his eye, and hurried along till he reached the Serpentine,
where he stood still for a few minutes, drinking in the fresh breeze.
But the breeze could not blow his puzzle out of his brain. Was it a
crime, or merely an escapade? What had she said to the young man? What
had her feelings been or become towards the young man?  Moreover, what
had she caused the young man's feelings to be for her?  When he came to
think it over, Mr. Taylor discovered, with a shock of surprise, that on
all these distinctly material points the confession had been singularly
incomplete. He was ashamed of this, for, of course, it was his business
to make the confession full and exhaustive. He could only plead that,
at the moment, it had seemed thorough and candid--an unreserved
revelation. Yet those points did, as a fact, remain obscure.

"I wish I knew a little more about human nature," sighed Mr. Taylor: he
was thinking of one division of human nature, and it is likely enough
that he knew next to nothing of it.

A hand clapped him on the shoulder, and, with a start, he turned round.
A tall young man, in a new frock-coat and a faultless hat, stood by
him, smiling at him.

"What, Charlie, old fellow!" cried Taylor; "where do you spring from?"

Charlie explained that he was up in town for a month or two.

"It's splendid to meet you first day! I was going to look you up," he
said.

Sigismund Taylor and Charlie had been intimate friends at Oxford,
although Charlie was, as time counts there, very considerably the
junior. For the last two or three years they had hardly met.

"But what are you up for?"

"Oh, well, you see, my uncle wants me to get called to the Bar, or
something, so I ran tip to have a look into it."

"Will that take a month?"

"Look here, old fellow, I've got nothing else to do--I don't see why I
shouldn't stretch it to three months. Besides, I want to spend some
time with my ancestors."

"With your ancestors?"

"In the British Museum: I'm writing a book about them. Queer lot some
of them were, too. Of course I'm specially interested in Agatha
Merceron; but I suppose you never heard of her."

Mr. Taylor confessed his ignorance, and Charlie, taking his arm, walked
him up and down the bank, while he talked on his pet subject.  Agatha
Merceron was always interesting, and just now anything about the Pool
was interesting; for there was one reason for his visit to London which
he had not disclosed. Nettie Wallace had, when he met her one day,
incautiously dropped a word which seemed to imply that the other Agatha
was often in London. Nettie tried to recall her words; but the mischief
was done, and Charlie became more than ever convinced that he would
grow rusty if he stayed always at Langbury Court. In fact, he could
suffer it no longer, and to town he went.

For a long while Sigismund Taylor listened with no more than average
interest to Charlie's story, but it chanced that one word caught his
notice.

"She comes out of the temple," said Charlie, in the voice of hushed
reverence with which he was wont to talk of the unhappy lady.

"Out of where?" asked Mr. Taylor.

"The temple. Oh, I forgot, the temple is--" and Charlie gave a
description which need not be repeated.

Temple! temple! Where had he heard of a temple lately? Mr. Taylor
cudgelled his brains. Why--why--yes, she had spoken of a temple. She
said they met in a temple. It was a strange coincidence: the word had
struck him at the time. But then everybody knows that, at a certain
period, it was common enough to put up these little classical erections
as a memorial or merely as an ornament to pleasure-grounds.  It must be
a mere coincidence. But--Mr. Taylor stopped short.

"What's up?" asked Charlie, who had finished his narrative, and was now
studying the faces of the ladies who rode past.

"Nothing," answered Mr. Taylor.

And really it was not much--taken by itself, entirely unworthy of
notice; even taken in conjunction with the temple, of no real
significance, that he could see. Still, it was a whimsical thing that,
as had just struck him, Charlie's spectre should be named Agatha. But
it came; to nothing: how could the name of Charlie's spectre have
anything to do with that of his penitent?

Presently Charlie, too, fell into silence. He beat his stick moodily
against his leg and looked glum and absent.

"Ah, well," he said at last, "poor Agatha was hardly used: she paid
part of the debt we owe woman."

Mr. Taylor raised his brows and smiled at this gloomily misogynistic
sentiment. He had the perception to grasp in a moment what it
indicated. His young friend was, or had lately been, or thought he was
likely to be, a lover, and an unhappy one. But he did not press
Charlie. Confessions were no luxury to him.

Presently they began to walk back, and Charlie, saying he had to dine
with Victor Button, made an appointment to see Taylor again, and left
him, striking across the Row. Taylor strolled on, and, finding Mrs.
Marland still in her seat, sat down by her. She was surprised and
pleased to hear that Charlie was in town.

"I left him at home in deep dumps. You've never been to Langbury Court,
have you?"

Taylor shook his head.

"Such a sweet old place! But, of course, rather dull for a young man,
with nobody hut his mother and just one or two slow country neighbors."

"Oh, a run 'll do him good."

"Yes; he was quite moped;" and Mrs. Marland glanced at her companion.
She wanted only a very little encouragement to impart her suspicions to
him. It must, in justice to Mrs. Marland, be remembered that she had
always found the simplest explanation of Charlie's devotion to the Pool
hard to accept, and the most elaborate demonstration of how a Canadian
canoe may be upset unconvincing.

"You're a great friend of his, aren't you?" pursued Mrs. Marland. "So I
suppose there's no harm in mentioning my suspicions to you. Indeed, I
daresay you could be of use to him--I mean, persuade him to be wise.
I'm afraid, Mr. Taylor, that he is in some entanglement."

"Dear, dear!" murmured Mr. Taylor.

"Oh, I've no positive proof, but I fear so--and a very undesirable
entanglement, too, with someone quite beneath him. Yes, I think I had
better tell you about it."

Mr. Taylor sat silent and, save for a start or two, motionless while
his companion detailed her circumstantial evidence. Whether it was
enough to prove Mrs. Marland's case or not--whether, that is, it is
inconceivable that a young man should go to any place fourteen evenings
running, and upset a friend of his youth out of a canoe, except there
be a lady involved, is perhaps doubtful; but it was more than enough to
show Mr. Sigismund Taylor that the confession he had listened to was
based upon fact, and that Charlie Merceron was the other party to those
stolen interviews, into whose exact degree of heinousness he was now
inquiring. This knowledge caused Mr. Taylor to feel that he was in an
awkward position.

"Now," asked Mrs. Marland, "candidly, Mr. Taylor, can you suppose
anything else than that our friend Charlie was carrying on a very
pronounced flirtation with this dressmaker?"

"Dressmaker?"

"Her friend was, and I believe she was too. Something of the kind,
anyhow."

"You--you never saw the--the other person?"

"No; she kept out of the way. That looks bad, doesn't it? No doubt she
was a tawdry vulgar creature. But a man never notices that!"

At this moment two people were seen approaching. One of them was a man
of middle height and perhaps five-and-thirty years of age; he was stout
and thick-built; he had a fat face with bulging cheeks; his eyes were
rather like a frog's; he leant very much forward as he walked, and
swayed gently from side to side with a rolling swagger; and as his body
rolled, his eye rolled too, and he looked this way and that with a
jovial leer and a smile of contentment and amusement on his face. The
smile and the merry eye redeemed his appearance from blank ugliness,
but neither of them indicated a spiritual or exalted mind.

By his side walked a girl, dressed, as Mrs. Marland enviously admitted,
as really very few women in London could dress, and wearing, in virtue
perhaps of the dress, perhaps of other more precious gifts, an air of
assured perfection and dainty disdain. She was listening to her
companion's conversation, and did not notice Sigismund Taylor, with
whom she was well acquainted.

"Dear me, who are those, I wonder?" exclaimed Mrs. Marland. "She's very
distinguée."

"It's Miss Glyn," answered he.

"What--Miss Agatha, Glyn?"

"Yes," he replied, wondering whether that little coincidence as to the
'Agatha' would suggest itself to anyone else.

"Lord Thrapston's granddaughter?"

"Yes."

"Horrid old man, isn't he?"

"I know him very slightly."

"And the man--who's he?"

"Mr. Calder Wentworth."

"To be sure. Why, they're engaged, aren't they? I saw it in the paper."

"I'm sure I don't know," said Mr. Taylor, in a voice more troubled than
the matter seemed to require. "I saw it in the paper too."

"He's no beauty, at any rate; but he's a great match, I suppose?"

"Oh, perhaps it isn't true."

"You speak as if you wished it wasn't. I've heard about Mr. Wentworth
from Victor Sutton--you know who I mean?" and Mrs. Marland proceeded to
give some particulars of Calder Wentworth's career.

Meanwhile that gentleman himself was telling Agatha Glyn a very
humorous story. Agatha did not laugh. Suddenly she interrupted him.

"Why don't you ask me more about it?"

"I thought you'd tell me if you wanted me to know," he answered.

"You are the most insufferable man. Don't you care in the least what I
do or where I go?"

"Got perfect confidence in you," said Calder politely.

"I don't deserve it."

"Oh, I daresay not; but it's so much more comfortable for me."

"I disappeared--simply disappeared--for a fortnight; and you've never
asked where I went, or what I did, or--or anything."

"Haven't I? Where did you go?"

"I can't tell you."

"There, you see! What the dickens was the good of my asking?"

"If you knew what I did I suppose you'd never speak to me again."

"All right. Keep it dark then, please."

"For one tiling, I met--No, I won't."

"I never asked you to, you know."

They walked on a little way in silence.

"Met young Sutton at lunch," observed Calder. "He's been rusticating
with some relations of old Van Merceron's. They've got a nice place
apparently."

"I particularly dislike Mr. Sutton."

"All right. He sha'n't come when we're married. Eh? What?"

"I didn't speak," said Miss Glyn, who had certainly done something.

"Beg pardon," smiled Calder. "Victor told me rather a joke. It appears
there's a young Merceron, and the usual rustic beauty, don't you
know--forget the name--but a fat girl, Victor said, and awfully gone on
young Merceron. Well, there's a pond or something----"

"How long will this story last?" asked Miss Glyn with a tragic air.

"It's an uncommon amusing one," protested Calder. "He upset her in the
pond, and----"

"Do you mind finishing it some other time?"

"Oh, all right. Thought it'd interest you."

"It doesn't."

"Never knew such a girl! No sense of humor!" commented Calder, with a
shake of his head and a backward roll of his eye towards his companion.

But it makes such a difference whether a story is new to the hearer.



CHAPTER VI

THERE WAS SOMEBODY


Two worlds and half a dozen industries had conspired to shower gold on
Calder Wentworth's head. There was land in the family, brought by his
grandmother; there was finance o

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