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Capricious Caroline

by Effie Adelaide Rowlands · English · Gutenberg #34166 · 509,850 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Capricious Caroline

Author: Effie Adelaide Rowlands


        
Release date: October 30, 2010 [eBook #34166]
                Most recently updated: January 7, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34166

Credits: Produced by Andrew Sly and the Online Distributed
        Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net, produced from
        scans provided by Al Haines.


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPRICIOUS CAROLINE ***




Produced by Andrew Sly and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net, produced from
scans provided by Al Haines.








CAPRICIOUS CAROLINE



BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  Susannah and One Other
  Love and Louisa
  Peter a Parasite
  The Blunder of an Innocent




CAPRICIOUS CAROLINE

BY

E. MARIA ALBANESI


  "GOD HAS A FEW OF US WHOM
  HE WHISPERS IN THE EAR"
                 BROWNING



SECOND EDITION



METHUEN & CO.

36 ESSEX STREET W.C.

LONDON




  _First Published_ . . . _September, 1904_
  _Second Edition_  . . . _May, 1905_


This story originally appeared in the Weekly Edition of _The Times_,
and is now issued in book form by arrangement with the proprietors of
that journal.



TO

THE LADY AILEEN WYNDHAM-QUIN




CAPRICIOUS CAROLINE




CHAPTER 1


As the large motor swung along with the easy velocity and assurance of
some enormous bird, Camilla Lancing nestled more cosily into the warmth
of her fur wraps.

Rupert Haverford was driving, and he looked back every now and then to
see if his guest was comfortable.

"Is this too quick for you?" he asked once; and Mrs. Lancing only shook
her head with a smile.

"It is too delightful," she answered.

The little town where they had been lunching lay far, far away in the
distance now, its ugliness softened by the mingling of sun and haze,
and the country through which they were passing was very open; in a
degree bleak. On one hand marshland and rough common ground, and on the
other the beach inland, then stretches of wet sand, and then the
restless, murmuring sea, bearing on its shimmering surface the cold
embrace of the setting November sun.

Mrs. Lancing sighed involuntarily as she looked dreamily away to where
the sky and sea seemed to meet, but her sigh was an unconscious tribute
to the graciousness of the circumstances in which she found herself.

The smooth swinging movement of the car fascinated her. As she now and
then closed her eyes, she felt as if she were being carried away from
all that constituted life to her at other times; from excitement and
pleasure and anxiety, from sordid and obtrusive care; even from the
fever of hope and the illusive charm of chance. It was a delightful
sensation.

Sometimes as the road curved the car seemed almost to approach the
water, and the white-crested waves broke within a few yards of it with
a boom; the rushing of the incoming and receding water making a musical
accompaniment to the humming sound of the motor. Then they passed from
the coastline, and the road began to wind upwards. The sea was shut
from view by a wall of chalky hillocks covered with stubbly grass, and
only the country outlook remained.

Just before, for a brief while, the world had worn a soft, an almost
rosy tint; but as the sun vanished this warmth went also, and now the
landscape stretched into the distance grey, unsympathetic, and
monotonous.

The speed of the car lessened as the ascent grew steeper; a thin mist
began to gather ahead of them. To Mrs. Lancing's imaginative eye this
mist took the form of a flock of fleecy white birds just hovering
before winging flight.

Haverford pulled up here and, relinquishing his place to the chauffeur,
climbed into the body of the car.

"Are you very cold?" he asked anxiously; "do you know, I am very much
afraid, Mrs. Lancing, that this road will put us back an hour or so. It
was foolish of me to come this way, for the country is new to me, and
the road is certainly about the worst we have struck lately."

He occupied himself in tucking the big fur rug more securely about his
guest, despite her protestations that she was quite warm enough, and
quite comfortable.

The road was certainly very bad, and though the car disposed of the
rough ground with an air of superb indifference, a certain amount of
jolting was inevitable.

Camilla Lancing only laughed, however, as she was tossed up and down
occasionally by the elastic movement of the springs.

"It is a matter of perfect indifference to me what time we arrive
home," she said. "That is the effect motoring has on me! It engenders a
heavenly sensation of irresponsibility. I simply don't care a pin what
happens. My one conscious desire is to go on, and on, and on."

Rupert Haverford sat down in the other seat and looked at her with the
sincerest pleasure; she was so delightful to look at. The tone of her
garb was a rich brown; she had on a long coat of some rough fur, but
round her throat and shoulders she wore a stole of the softest sables;
there was a small cap of sables on her brown hair, and she had tied the
brown gauze veil she wore in a cunning bow under her chin. A knot of
white flowers that Rupert Haverford had given her at luncheon was
tucked in among the fur at her breast, and was the only break in the
harmonious whole. She turned to him as she spoke lightly; she had a
bird-like trick of moving her small head that was very characteristic
and very pretty.

"But of course this sounds horribly selfish. So like me. Shall we be
very late? I am so sorry if you are sorry, otherwise I don't think it
matters. Agnes said she would expect us when she saw us.
Fortunately"--Mrs. Lancing laughed--"dinner is a movable feast at
Yelverton, or indeed anywhere where Agnes Brenton presides."

Haverford answered this very frankly.

"I am afraid I am not troubling in the very least about Mrs. Brenton or
her dinner, I am thinking entirely of you. This is the first time you
have entrusted yourself to my care, you know, and I want everything to
go smoothly."

"Can anything go crookedly with you?" asked Camilla Lancing; there was
the faintest tinge of envy in her voice.

Haverford laughed.

"Oh! I suppose so," he said. "I have certainly had more than my share
of luck up to now, but one never knows what is waiting for one round
the corner." Then he half rose and looked ahead. "What a mist!" he
said. "I hope we are not in for a sea fog. I hate fog of any sort."

They drove on in silence for a few moments, and the mist gathered
increasingly about them; the flock of birds had melted away, and the
white velvety film floated about them like smoke. Everything became
indistinct; even the broad outline of the chauffeur was veiled and
vague.

Camilla Lancing spoke first.

"Now, please don't worry about me," she said, half-petulantly,
translating his silence adroitly. "I am absolutely comfortable.
Naturally"--she added with a laugh--"I know that if I had done my duty
I should have insisted on driving back with Agnes, though she declared
she did not want me; but it is so nice _not_ to do one's duty every now
and then. Did you ever hear of the little boy who always asked to be
allowed some wickedness on Sundays, as he had to be so good all the
days of the week? I share the sentiments of that little boy, Mr.
Haverford."

The car pulled up here again, and the chauffeur got down and lit the
powerful lamps. By now they had passed completely into the embrace of
the white fog; the air was raw, and the damp cold very penetrating.

"But perhaps you mean you wanted me to go back with the others," Mrs.
Lancing murmured softly, as they moved onwards again.

Haverford just looked into her eyes, that even through the mist and her
veil shone brilliantly.

"You know perfectly well I was not likely to do that," he answered
bluntly, and yet there was a kind of restraint in his voice. Mrs.
Lancing caught that restraint, and with a sudden impatient contraction
of her brows moved almost imperceptibly nearer to him; she arranged her
veil with her small, white-gloved hand, and then left it lying for an
instant on the outside of the rug. It was very close to his; but Rupert
Haverford did not touch the hand, nor enfold it as he might so easily
have done protectingly in his large, brown, strong one.

Mrs. Lancing bit her lip.

"There is no mistake, we _are_ in for a fog," she said jerkily, and she
slipped her hand as she spoke back into the warmth of her big sable
muff. It was not the first time that this man had unconsciously
repulsed her; there were times when, in her irritation, she called him
a prig. But she misjudged him; Rupert Haverford was not a prig, he was
only a very straightforward, practical, in a sense, simple-minded man,
who, like an explorer, was advancing step by step into an unknown
world, meeting and mingling every day with elements that were not only
new to him, but that belonged to a range of things about which he had
never had occasion to think hitherto. Camilla herself was prominent
amongst these new sensations; she at once was a bewilderment and a
fascination. There had been no woman of this class in his life up to a
couple of years before; indeed, women of any kind had played but a
nominal part in the busy, uneventful, and certainly unpicturesque
existence that had been his lot since early boyhood.

Mrs. Lancing, of course, knew briefly the outlines of the story of this
working man and his sudden and unexpected accession to wealth, and
recognized clearly enough that Haverford was as far removed in thought
and social education from the various men who fluttered in and out of
her life as the sun is from the earth; but she had little
discrimination. With her it was never a question of character or
quality; fundamentally she decreed all men were alike, strong in
prejudice, weak in temptation, selfish, and even tyrannical; vain and
sentimental, uncomfortably moral at times, but amazingly loyal, and, as
a rule, sensitively moved by the potent charm of a woman of her
temperament and attractions.

She liked men very much, she had many men friends, and few women
friends, although the spontaneous effervescing sympathy, which was
perhaps her most marked characteristic, made her very attractive to
women, and accounted for her wide popularity; there was something so
disarming, so delightful about Camilla Lancing. Beauty alone would
never have given her a quarter the power she possessed; it was her
ready interest (absolutely genuine for the moment), her quickness in
associating herself with those things that were paramount with the
persons who approached her, that made her irresistible to all sorts and
kinds of people.

She had the tact of a delicately fashioned nature, and a vast amount of
endurance.

But she was not patient, and the more she saw of Rupert Haverford, the
more necessary he became to her, the less patience she had.

He puzzled her; he piqued her; he annoyed her; he made her nervous.

What were his feelings towards herself?

"He is so horribly slow," she mused now fretfully, "he ponders every
word he says. I suppose he is terribly afraid of making a mistake. I am
sure his money oppresses him. He must have been ever so much nicer when
he was working as a foreman, or drayman, or whatever he was before all
this money came to him."

She kept her eyes turned resolutely away from Haverford. For perversely
enough, though he was so slow, so silent, so dull, he was exceedingly
good to look at. Old-fashioned, or rather out of the fashion, he might
be, but his manners were irreproachable, and his speech cultured, and
he dressed very well.

It came to Camilla as an inspiration, as the car moved on cautiously
through the cold white fog, that he was only shy and perhaps stupid.

Rupert Haverford had certainly a good amount of diffidence in his
disposition, but at the present moment it was the most exquisite, and
the most real sense of hospitality that tinged even his protective
courtesy with restraint.

When their hostess had deserted the motor after luncheon, and had
insisted in making her way homeward in a hired carriage, Haverford had
been delighted because Mrs. Lancing had elected to return with him. But
this very fact--the fact that this woman, who had been charming herself
into his inmost thoughts of late, was alone with him, charged him with
a sense of responsibility, and he steeled himself carefully against
even a suggestion of the delicious intimacy with which the situation
was fraught.

"The fog is lifting," he said, after a little while; "if we can only
get off this road and turn inland, we shall drive out of it altogether."

Mrs. Lancing had her muff in front of her face; the fog made everything
damp; her veil was clinging to her face uncomfortably.

"We are going downhill now," she said indistinctly.

Haverford was really a little anxious; they were certainly on a
downward grade, and the progress was not pleasant; the road appeared to
be rougher than it had been.

He sat forward, trying to scan what lay around and ahead, but the white
gloom baffled him.

And then all at once the machine grated sharply; they shook in their
seats, and Mrs. Lancing gave a little exclamation of alarm; then the
car stood still, and the chauffeur got out hastily.

"We're done for now, sir," he said; and Rupert Haverford swallowed a
word or two.

If it had not been for Mrs. Lancing he would not have cared two pins.
Time was of no importance to him, and a breakdown rather interested
him, as he had commenced to make a study of the mechanism of his
various cars, and knew pretty well how to put them right when things
went wrong, but this accident was most inopportune and annoying under
the circumstances.

Fortunately the cold, thick mist seemed to part a little at this
moment. With a reassuring word to his guest, Mr. Haverford got out and
joined the chauffeur in his investigations.

It was very, very cold sitting in that raw, damp atmosphere, and Mrs.
Lancing began to wish heartily enough that she had done her duty and
gone back to Yelverton in the carriage with Mrs. Brenton.

She felt tired now, and even a little cross. All the pleasure vanished;
that spell of delicious forgetfulness was swept away, and the morrow,
with its wearying demands, confronted her like a phantom.

After a sharp conference with the chauffeur, Mr. Haverford approached
his guest.

He spoke as cheerily as he could.

"Something has gone wrong with the works," he said, "we can't see what
it is exactly in this gloom. I wonder if you would mind sitting here a
little while I go and find out where we are? There may be somebody on
hand who can help us to get along a bit."

Mrs. Lancing shook aside the rug.

"Do let me come with you?" she pleaded. "Really, I would much rather
go, a walk will warm me up, and I shall feel so lonely without you. I
believe I am frightened. May I come?"

Her pretty helplessness touched him, of course. And as he helped her to
alight, Rupert Haverford felt his heart stir a little. So he supposed
other men felt when they ministered to a wife or some one who had a
tender claim on them.

They set off at a brisk pace down the hill.

Decidedly the fog was less thick, the bewildering effect on the eyes
was passing, but it was still sufficiently cold and raw to make them
shiver, though they were so warmly clad. Indeed, Mrs. Lancing was
rather overweighted with her long coat, and her small feet stumbled
every now and then.

Rupert Haverford drew her arm more closely through his.

He was conscious of a very tangible sense of pleasure in the near
proximity of this pretty, womanly creature. The unconscious claim that
she made upon his strength and protection moved him to tenderness, and
her delightful affectation of indifference to any discomfort awakened
his very real admiration.

"I have not the least idea where we are, but there must be a station
somewhere near, I suppose," he said. "And if we can only borrow a trap,
perhaps we shall be able to get back to Yelverton in time for dinner,
after all. It must be somewhere about half-past four now. I am afraid
you will never come out with me again, Mrs. Lancing. You see things
_can_ go crookedly with me at times! I am certainly out of luck to-day."

"I don't call this unlucky," Camilla said softly; and she nestled a
little closer to him. She was meeting him on familiar ground at last.

They came after a while upon a kind of village, in which the lights of
the one shop--a post office and general stores combined--shone
hospitably.

The keeper of the stores, a portly, good-natured man, could suggest no
better help for the motor than to borrow a couple of horses from the
nearest farm and tow the car away from the road. He amiably consented
to lend his trap to drive Mrs. Lancing to the nearest station, distant
about three miles, and when this was arranged, Mrs. Lancing remained at
the stores, where a cup of tea was forthcoming, whilst Haverford went
back into the mist to set matters right with his chauffeur.

Divested of his heavy coat, the man had crawled under the body of the
car, from whence he emerged very red in the face and very greasy.

"Found it all right, sir," he said. "One of the nuts has sheered in the
differential shaft." He declared his ability, however, to set the whole
thing right in the course of the next few hours. Agreeing with Mr.
Haverford that it would be a good thing to get the car off the road, as
it was an obstruction, Haverford did not leave the village till he had
arranged to give his man all the assistance possible. This done, he
lifted Camilla Lancing into the tall cart that was used to dispense the
goods from the stores, and they started for the station. To exchange
the luxurious armchair of the motor for a hard, slippery seat where
balance was most difficult, over a rough country road, was not the most
delightful experience in the world; but Camilla laughed at all
discomfort. Her good nature was really marvellous. Most women would
have been tired and cross and difficult. Mrs. Lancing, however, made
the best of everything. Even when the station was reached, and they
found they would have some time to wait, and then change trains before
reaching the nearest point to Yelverton, Camilla accepted the
discomfort philosophically.

"I know you are dying to smoke. Leave me here; this is quite a cosy
place; perhaps I will go to sleep," she said, as she passed into the
waiting-room.

He obeyed her reluctantly.

She looked so pretty, so pathetic, with the pallor of fatigue robbing
her cheeks of their usual delicate bloom. He stood looking at her with
a kind of frown on his face for a moment, but he said nothing, and, to
get rid of him, she closed her eyes and leaned her head against the
hard wooden wall.

Her lips trembled as he went out and closed the door.

She was a creature who lived absolutely from moment to moment; who had
the knack of separating herself from the most tenacious trouble to bask
in the warmth and glitter of a passing gaiety. Naturally these
delightful moments were followed by spells of reaction, when her
volatile spirit would sink to such depths of depression that all
energy, all hope, would appear to be swamped. But she had the optimism
of a gambler; let chance only give her the smallest opportunity, and
she revived again.

Agnes Brenton (the woman with whom she was staying and a very old
friend) had once likened her to an indiarubber ball.

"Camilla is an enchanting creature, a dear, sweet, womanly soul, but
you can never make a lasting impression on her," she had said. "However
hardly she is flung about, however sharply she may seem dented, she is
bound to come smoothly to the surface again, and show no trace of what
has happened."

She was being sharply dented now. In this hour of fatigue and
disappointment memory forced open the door she had held closed so
resolutely all the day.

On the morrow her visit to Yelverton would end, and she must go back to
town--back to the practically impossible task of clearing her daily
path of one or two hideous obstacles.

There were some things awaiting that had to be met that sent a shiver
of dread through her now as she recalled them. She opened her eyes
after a time and sat watching Haverford's tall, long-coated figure pass
the window of the waiting-room every now and then.

"And with a scratch of a pen," she said to herself wearily, "he could
put all my difficulties straight. Why _does_ he not speak? Sometimes I
feel he cares for me more than I have ever been cared for before, then
the next moment he chills me; he almost frightens me. He is so
reserved, so deliberate. I believe he must be hard. Of course"--her lip
curled--"he is cautious, and no doubt he is mean; he is far too rich to
be generous."

She repressed her tears with difficulty. She was so truly sorry for
herself. Other women (so she pondered) had such ease in their lives;
she knew of no other woman who was so lonely as herself, so burdened,
so troubled.

She got up impatiently, and, pulling a chair forward, sat down and
stared into the fire with wet eyelashes. Her face hardened a little as
her mind drifted away from fretful generalities to the practical
outlook, to the immutable fact that two and two made four for most
people, but in her case required six to be satisfactorily disposed of.
Little by little, however, she began, as was her custom, to make a
possible pathway for herself out of the tangle of vexatious care that
awaited her.

She was amazingly skilful in this sort of thing; no matter how
hopelessly involved the future might seem, she usually found some
loophole of escape, some tiny thread which, with the ingenuous
ingenuity of a child, would be weaved, before she had done with it,
into something substantial, on which she could just stand comfortably
for a little time.

Rupert Haverford paused by the window about this time. He watched her
awhile as she sat thinking so intently, then flung away his cigar and
opened the door.

"The train is just due," he said, "and the sea fog is creeping its way
here. I shall be very glad to get you home, Mrs. Lancing; I am sure you
must be thoroughly tired out. If I might prescribe for you," he added,
as they passed out on to the platform, "I should suggest dinner in your
room to-night and early bed."

Camilla answered with quick impatience--

"Oh! I couldn't do that, I never go to bed early; and besides, we are
going to play bridge to-night. You never play," she said the next
moment. "Why, I wonder? Don't you care about the game?"

"I don't care about cards at all," he answered; "a question of habit, I
suppose. There was no time for games of any sort in my old life."

"But there is nothing to prevent you enjoying heaps of things now,"
Mrs. Lancing said restlessly, almost crossly. Then her tone changed.
"Let me teach you bridge, it would be such fun! And I don't play half
badly for a woman. You shall have your first lesson to-morrow," she
decided quite gaily.

Haverford only shook his head.

"I cannot let you waste your time. I shall never play cards."

Camilla felt the warmth and sparkle fade out of her thoughts again.

"Oh," she said, "of course, I remember now! Somebody was telling me
only the other day how good you were, that you would never speculate,
or bet, or gamble in any shape or form. Lucky man, to be able to take
so firm a stand!"

He looked at her quickly; her sneer was unmistakable; he felt
uncomfortable and pained, and he suddenly remembered how, as he had sat
apart and watched her as she had been playing cards the night before,
the expression of her delicately pretty face had given him a sense of
trouble, even of uneasiness. Now her words, or rather the tone in which
they were said, angered him a little.

They drifted into a silence till the train came, and spoke very little
during the journey to the junction, where they were to alight and pick
up the London train.

Mrs. Lancing bought a book and some papers at the bookstall. There were
any amount of papers at Yelverton, but she never could deny herself the
joy of spending.

"I believe I downright hate him," she said to herself fretfully; "he is
a real 'bourgeois.' Why does such a man come amongst us if he does not
like our ways?"

When the London train steamed in there was only one first-class
compartment, and, as Haverford opened the door for Mrs. Lancing to
enter, the only occupant, a young man, glanced up casually.

Camilla Lancing drew back imperceptibly for an instant as she caught
sight of him, but if she had intended to retreat, this intention was
frustrated, for the young man flung aside his newspaper and started to
his feet.

"Hallo, there!" he exclaimed. "Hallo! Hallo! _Hallo!_ Here's luck!
Who'd have thought of meeting you, Mrs. Lancing? I'm just home from
Yankee land, and am toddling down to Yelverton for the night. Any
chance of your being there?"

Mrs. Lancing laughingly explained the situation, and introduced the two
men.

Sir Samuel Broxbourne looked keenly at Haverford.

"So that's the factory Johnny who came into all that tin the other day,
is it? Stuck up sort of chap! Might be a parson, or an actor."

Rupert Haverford subsided into a corner and let the other two talk. He
was seeing Camilla now in another phase, and one that was not charming
to him.

Instead of resenting Broxbourne's rough, slangy jargon she seemed to
enjoy it. Her eyes grew brighter, and the colour stole back into her
cheeks.

They had so much to talk about. She even used some slang herself,
though it sounded almost pretty coming from her lips.

Having disposed of that first moment of awkwardness, even of alarm,
which the unexpected meeting with Broxbourne signified to her, she
responded instantly to the excitement of the moment; her good temper
was completely restored.

When they left the train, however, and Broxbourne had gone on ahead,
she slipped her hand confidently for a moment in Mr. Haverford's arm.

"He is such a bore, isn't he?" she whispered. "I wonder why Agnes asked
him? She said nothing to me about his coming. I have known him all my
life, we are sort of cousins," she added; and then she laughed. "Well,
after all, it is lucky Sir Samuel is here, for, do you know, we quite
forgot to wire for a carriage? I only hope they have sent a big
brougham."

"I am going to walk," Haverford said at once; but this she vetoed. In
fact, she had no desire to drive _tete-a-tete_ with the other man.

"Oh, _please_ don't," she said. "I beg you will not leave me. And you
must not forget I am in your charge to-day."

And Haverford had to yield to this argument as a matter of course.

The drive was not a pleasant one, however. They were rather crowded in
the brougham.

Camilla laughed at this discomfort as she had laughed at all the rest,
but her voice had a shrill tone; or perhaps Rupert Haverford noticed
this for the first time.

As soon as they passed into the big hall, he left Mrs. Lancing and Sir
Samuel chatting with the others and went to his room.

He suddenly felt nervous and bad tempered, and he wanted to be alone.
It was a relief not to find his man waiting.

Some letters were lying on the table, and he took them up and glanced
at them mechanically, then he threw them down and strolled to and fro
in the room in the same preoccupied way as he had paced the platform.

When his servant came hurrying in, after a while, Haverford was staring
into the fire with a rather grim look on his face.

"Have everything packed early to-morrow, Harper," he said; "I shall go
to town by the first available train in the morning."

Then he roused himself and took up his letters again. The first he
opened was written on shabby paper in handwriting that was small and
curiously formed.

It was dated the day before, and had been forwarded from town.


"Dear Sir," it ran,

"If you please, will you come and see your mother as soon as you return
from the country? There was a little accident yesterday when she was
out driving, and she was much alarmed. I am glad to say she was not
hurt, but her doctor has ordered her to keep very quiet for a day or
two.

"Yours faithfully,
    "Caroline Graniger.


"P.S. I have asked that this letter shall be forwarded to you."




CHAPTER II


When Mrs. Lancing went upstairs her hostess went with her.

"So the dear motor did go wrong, after all," observed Mrs. Brenton, a
trifle triumphantly. "I think I had the best of it in my despised
one-horse shay."

Camilla threw off her furs with a sigh.

"Dear Agnes," she said, "I hate making you conceited, but truth compels
me to admit that for once you are right. A motor is a beautiful thing
if it goes smoothly, but when it goes wrong it is just the other kind
of thing."

"Of course I am right," said Mrs. Brenton, as she stirred the fire
briskly.

She was a plain woman with a hard-riding figure and grey hair neatly
plaited, but she had a pair of handsome and kind eyes, and a delightful
voice.

"Give me horses," she said. "By-and-by, when I am in my little grave, I
have no doubt folk will be switchbacked to America and home again; but
I hate experiments--I am a little too old for them--and the best car
that is made is only a thing on trial, you know."

She helped Camilla to slip out of the big coat.

"Fortunately, you were well wrapped up," she said. "But _what_ a weight
this coat is, Camilla! How can you walk in it at all? When did you
get it? I have not seen it before!"

"Oh, haven't you?" queried Mrs. Lancing, in a tone of very real
astonishment. "Why, I have had it _ages_; got it at a Veronique sale.
It was absurdly cheap."

She told these various untruths quite glibly, and then made haste to
get away from the subject.

She was not a little afraid of Mrs. Brenton at times, although, indeed,
she would have been singularly ungrateful--and Camilla was never
ungrateful--if she had not realized that in this old friend--one who
had known her when she was a mere child--she had a staunch and a loving
ally--a friend who in sickness and in health gave her almost an anxious
affection, and whose curiosity to know what was passing with her arose
from the best motives. But Camilla always dreaded being compelled to
answer questions, or having to give an account of herself; she was so
weary of having good advice given her.

Of what use, so she argued to herself, would it be to let Agnes know
how worried she was, and into what a hopeless muddle her pretty feet
had strayed?

"Agnes cannot help me," she said to herself; "and she would only worry
and think the end of all things had come if I were to tell her how I
stand just now. And then she would scold, and talk about the future
solemnly, and oh! I know I should scream if she started the old
discussion to-night; my nerves are all on wires! If she _could_ help me
it would be another matter, but I suppose a five-pound note would be
about the utmost poor old Agnes could produce in an emergency." And
Camilla shrugged her shoulders. Just before leaving town for Yelverton
she had spent her last available five pounds at a hair-dresser's,
while, at the same time, a writ for the sables she had worn so
becomingly that day had been sent to her by registered post that
morning.

She threw off her hat and veil.

"I am rather anxious, Agnes," she said. "I have had no letter from
nurse to-day."

Mrs. Brenton took the bait instantly.

"Anxious? What about? There is no need to fuss yourself; nurse never
does write freely."

"She promised faithfully to send me word every day," said Mrs. Lancing,
half fretfully.

"Well, look here, I'll go and telephone through for you," said the
other woman; "with just a little luck I shall find the line clear. The
rush is off about this time, as a rule."

Mrs. Lancing had slipped from her outdoor clothes into a very pretty
dressing-gown by the time the telephone conversation was at an end.

"Everything is all right," Mrs. Brenton announced cheerily. "The
children are just gone to bed. They have been very good, and are quite
well."

"I miss them dreadfully," said Camilla, and her voice broke a little.
Turning, she picked up two photographs that were on the dressing-table
and kissed them passionately.

"Miss them!" said Mrs. Brenton in her brisk way, "I should think you
did! Dear little souls, I can't think why on earth you didn't bring
them with you; there is heaps of room, and children are never a bother
to me, as you know. Well, now I'll trot away again. I expect you feel
thoroughly tired out, Camilla. Dinner will be half an hour late, so you
can take it easy. Why don't you have forty winks? That is a heavenly
chair for a snooze."

Mrs. Lancing was already crouched up in the luxurious depths of the
chintz-covered chair. She yawned as she cuddled into the cushions.

"Fancy Sammy Broxbourne turning up so suddenly. Why didn't you tell me
he was coming, Agnes?" she asked, a little jerkily.

"Because I did not know it myself. He wired this morning to ask if he
could run down for a day or two, and as I was not here Dick answered
for me, saying, of course, he could come. I can't say that I think he
is much improved, and he has put on a lot of flesh. He used to be
rather a pretty boy, and now he is only a commonplace and very vulgar
young man. By the way, how did he and Rupert Haverford get on?"
inquired Mrs. Brenton, a little abruptly. She had made a move towards
the door, and now turned back again.

Camilla Lancing shrugged her shoulders.

"A very clear case of hatred at first sight! The moral Haverford sat in
a corner and scowled in silence, and, of course, Sammy used all the
swear words he knows just on purpose to make things pleasant."

Mrs. Brenton compressed her lips; there was definite disappointment in
her eyes.

She stood a moment as if she had something more she would have liked to
say; then with an imperceptible shrug of her shoulders she turned away,
and, with another command to Camilla to rest went out of the room.

Mrs. Lancing nestled herself more closely into the big chair and shut
her eyes. Just as the maid was stealing softly away she called the
woman back.

"Don't go downstairs, Dennis," she said, "but stay in the
dressing-room. I am going to try and sleep, but I may want you."

It was a relief that Agnes Brenton had gone, but she was almost afraid
of being left quite alone.

Her maid took her sewing into the dressing-room, but Mrs. Lancing had
no intention of going to sleep. She lay with closed eyes, however, and
after awhile some tears escaped from the thick lashes and rolled down
her cheeks.

"I never thought he would come back so soon," she said to herself so
wearily, so miserably; "he said he would be away for ages and ages, and
... and I had almost forgotten." She turned her face on the cushions,
and bit them as if a sudden physical pang had shot through her, and so
she lay, breathing in a sobbing fashion for some little time; then she
lifted her head and pressed her hands to her brow and to her hot eyes.

"And of _course_ this must come," she said, with fretful passion, "when
I am so worried I don't know which way to turn! Oh, how tired I am of
living, sometimes! Why didn't he write to some one, then I should have
heard he was coming, and I should have been prepared!"

She unpinned her hair, thick, short, brown hair, and lay back again on
the cushions.

"Why doesn't Rupert Haverford speak?" she asked herself in the same
fretful way, I "simply can't go on struggling and fighting in this
weary way. I was never meant to struggle and fight; and is it my fault
that I make mistakes? How _can_ I be different? I was brought up to be
what I am. When other children were given twopence a week to put into a
money-box, I was given a five-pound note to spend on dolls or make into
kites. Of course I am extravagant! Of course I get into holes! I should
be a living wonder if I didn't!"

She pushed the thick hair back from her brows, and, slipping from the
chair, bunched herself on the hearth-rug, holding her hands before her
face to shield it from the blaze.

"I won't believe he doesn't care," she said to herself, her thoughts
reverting to Haverford again. "He _does_ care, only he won't speak. And
he makes me so nervous. I feel as if he were looking at me through a
microscope. I am sure Agnes thinks he cares!" She sighed, and shut her
eyes for a moment; then her mind worked into an easier groove. "I do
believe Sammy was glad to see me!" was her next thought. "He wasn't a
bit changed. Perhaps I am worrying myself for nothing!" Her face
lightened; the lips, the eyes grew eager. As was inevitable with her,
despair began to give way slowly but surely before the invulnerable
optimism of her nature. She pinned up her hair, and sat gazing into the
fire, humming to herself softly while her mind pieced together a dozen
different possibilities, and carried her gradually but surely away from
doubt and definite fear. When the clock chimed eight she sprang to her
feet.

"My black gown, Dennis," she said. She had convinced herself that
Rupert Haverford would like his wife to wear black and sober colours.
In the same way she assured herself that he would read family prayers
every morning. If she married him she determined that she would always
breakfast in her room.

A little packet was lying on the dressing-table, and she opened it with
a smile on her lips and pleasure in her eyes.

"Look, Dennis, what Mr. Haverford bought for the children! This is for
Betty, and this for baby! Is it too late to send them to-night?...
Won't they be pleased? No," she decided; "I don't think I will send
them. Darling hearts, they will expect me to bring them something
to-morrow. Can't you see them waiting for me, Dennis?"

"They'll be in a rare state of excitement, I expect," said the maid,
with a smile.

Camilla Lancing fingered the trinkets as she sat and had her hair
dressed.

"He is really kind," she said to herself.

Contrasted with the other man, he had a new and great charm for her
to-night--a value he had not had before.

"And though he is dull, he is certainly not vulgar," she mused on; "it
is extraordinary that he should be as he is, and that Sammy should be
such a vulgarian; and yet the one is a professedly middle-class man,
and the other is connected with any amount of big people. I wish I
understood him a little better! But he puzzles me, and he worries me;"
she sighed here fretfully. "Of course I _must_ marry him if he asks me;
yet the mere thought of living all day long in such a starchy
atmosphere takes the life out of me! I thought he would have been so
easy to manage when we first met! And instead of accepting our views he
imposes his own. No wonder he is not popular! I only wish," said
Camilla, sighing again as she got up, and looked at her pretty head
critically in the mirror, "I only wish he were twenty years older, and
then I would put all my troubles before him, and ask him to help me. He
would help me now. I know that perfectly well, but I should lose him if
I told him the truth. And I don't want to lose him. I can't lose him,"
she said a little feverishly, "especially now, especially now," she
whispered.

Mrs. Lancing was one of the last down that evening--in fact, she kept
the rest of the party waiting for dinner, but when she did come she was
so charming and so apologetic and looked so fascinating that every one
forgave her.

Sir Samuel Broxbourne took her in to dinner, and she sat where she
could not see Haverford.

She could hear a little of the conversation, however, that passed at
the other end of the table, and she changed colour when she heard him
tell Mrs. Brenton that he was going to town by the first train in the
morning.

She translated this to mean a sudden retreat on his part. For there had
been a half arrangement that he should take her back to London in his
motor, and as the chauffeur had promised that the car would be at
Yelverton either late that night or very early the next morning, there
was no reason why this engagement should be broken. She ate the rest of
her dinner in a subdued manner, and as she followed the other women out
of the room she paused a moment by Haverford's side.

"So you won't motor back to-morrow?" she said hurriedly. "I am quite
disappointed.... I was looking forward to it."

His face flushed.

"I am sorry," he answered, "but I must go up quite early; my mother is
not well," he explained.

"Oh!" said Camilla; she was at once reassured "I am _so_ sorry. I hope
you are not very anxious? But you must tell me about it a little
later." And gathering her clinging black draperies in her hand she
smiled up at him and then fluttered through the doorway and vanished.

Whilst the other women were talking together, Mrs. Brenton found
herself alone with Camilla.

"I want to say something to you," she said in a low voice.

"Is it anything nice?" asked Camilla, with a faint smile.

Mrs. Brenton touched the black chiffon that bordered Camilla's
beautiful shoulders with a caressing hand.

"I don't want you to play for such heavy points to-night, darling," she
said; "it is all very well if the money comes back to you, but I am
afraid you have been losing rather heavily since you came down here,
haven't you? Sometimes I feel tempted," Mrs. Brenton went on, "to
impose a _maximum_ sum for points here, but I suppose I should get
myself well hated if I did! People would say it is a free country, and
they ought to do what they like with their own."

"That is why you are scolding me," said Camilla, with her pretty smile.

Mrs. Brenton shook her head.

"You are not other people to me, and I do hate to see you risking too
much, Camilla."

Camilla turned and just lightly kissed Mrs. Brenton's hand.

"Oh, we must risk something sometimes!" she said impatiently; then she
added, "Don't worry about me, dear old thing, I really haven't lost
very much, and I dare say I shall get it all back to-night. I feel in
luck. Look"--she held out her wrist--"isn't this a sweet thing? Sammy
has just given it to me to wear as a charm. He brought it from some
weird place in America, and declares it is a magic stone, and that I
shall have everything I want now that I wear it. I must go and show it
to Ena Bayliss," Camilla said, with a wicked smile. "She will be _so_
jealous! She rather affects Sammy, you know...."

When the men came there was no opportunity for a little chat between
Mrs. Lancing and Haverford, for the card-players seated themselves
immediately at the tables.

Mrs. Brenton, who was not a bridge fanatic, beckoned to Rupert
Haverford to come and sit with her in her pet corner.

She teased him heartily for a little while about his breakdown that
afternoon.

"You will never get _me_ in that magnificent car of yours again," she
said. "Why don't you have horses? You look just the sort of man who
would have good animals, and know how to treat them well."

"I have a few horses," Haverford answered; "you must come and see them
one day, if you will, Mrs. Brenton. I don't quite know why I took to
motoring, except that I have a leaning towards engineering, and the
mechanism of the cars interests me, and then I like rushing about. I
have not yet got used to my idle life," he said, a little restlessly.
"Old habits are very strong with me; I wake every morning of my life at
five o'clock, Mrs. Brenton, and I can't lie in bed a moment afterwards.
You see, for nearly seventeen years I was accustomed to be out and at
work by six o'clock every day."

Mrs. Brenton had taken up some knitting, and her fingers were moving
briskly, though her eyes were fixed on her companion.

"I should so like to know all about those days," she said; "I dare say
lots of people would not believe you if you were to say it, Mr.
Haverford," she added half lightly, "but I came to a conclusion about
you a long time ago, and that conclusion is, that you are the sort of
man who is only happy when he is working--working seriously, I mean,
from morning to night. But you are not always idle now, are you?"

Haverford laughed.

"I don't think I do an hour's work in a week," he said. "Very often the
old call is so strong that I turn my back on all my greatness, and I
steal away to the north, to the dirty, smoky, dull old town where I
lived so long. But"--he laughed again, this time half sadly--"there is
nothing for me to do; another man fills my old post and fills it well.
However, I am planning a different future; I have certain pet schemes
of my own which I have not yet put into working order. When I have
started them they will help at least to pass some of my time more
profitably than I pass it now."

"What sort of schemes?" asked Mrs. Brenton. He did not answer her at
once; he was looking at the card-players, at Camilla's dainty figure.
The lines of her throat and shoulders were exquisite, framed in the
black of her gown. She was laughing; he loved to hear her laugh, it was
such young laughter.

"Oh!" he said, rousing himself, "they are just some fancies that have
come to me; I will tell you about them, Mrs. Brenton, when I have them
more planned out--I am going to travel," he added a little abruptly.
"Ever since I was a boy I have longed to see the other side of the
world! I don't quite know why I have not gone long ago." He was smoking
at Mrs. Brenton's wish, and he broke off some of the cigar ash into a
silver tray.

"I got my first love of wandering when I was a very little lad," he
said in his rather abrupt way. "My father brought me up on travel books
and books of adventure. He had so longed to know other countries and
other people, but this was denied him----If he had lived----!" He broke
off sharply. Agnes Brenton looked at him; he was frowning, and he was
staring into the fire; he seemed to have drifted far, far away in his
thoughts from the light and warmth and cosy charm of his actual
surroundings.

Suddenly he turned and looked at her; his eyes were very bright.

"My father was a hero," he said--there was something in his voice that
made Mrs. Brenton bite her lip nervously--"he was a doctor--a man who
worked all day and sometimes all night in that crowded, tragically poor
factory town where I spent so many years of my life. I worshipped my
father, Mrs. Brenton; he was an enthusiast, a dreamer, a saint. He died
in harness, sacrificed to the poverty and misery of the people, who
were his first thought. There was a fearful outbreak of fever and
diphtheria, and he did superhuman work." Haverford shrugged his
shoulders; he was trying to speak evenly. "Every man's endurance has a
limit, and my father paid the natural, the inevitable penalty. That was
a great many years ago, but he lives with me almost as clearly as
though he were really in existence now! I have only one reproach
against his memory"--the young man got up restlessly. His cigar had
gone out, he found a box of matches, and lit it again. "He sent me away
to avoid the infection," he said In a low voice, "and he died before I
could get to him! That was hard! He could never have realized how hard
that was to me, or surely he would not have done it."

Mrs. Brenton's eyes were wet. It was not alone his story, the strained
tones of his voice that moved her; the man himself appealed to her
sharply, and for the first time. She marvelled as she listened, as she
looked at him now, how she could have so misunderstood him. It had
become the fashion with most people to call Rupert Haverford hard
names, to find him mean, selfish, and ungenerous; Mrs. Brenton had
never gone so far as that. She had, in truth, judged him leniently,
recognizing in his blunt fashion of speaking, in his straightforward
manner, and rather deliberate methods, only the natural influence of
his former circumstances; indeed, it had always seemed to her
remarkable that any man who had toiled as Haverford had done, whose
life had been set for so long in one narrow groove, should have taken
his new place so quietly, and have moved with such unconscious dignity
in the new world which revolved about him to-day. He was distinctly out
of the fashion, it was true, in many ways, but he was never uncouth,
and though there was at times a North Country burr in his voice, he
spoke with refinement. In physique he was refined too, and no one could
find fault with the way he dressed.

Mrs. Brenton had not gushed over him, but she had always liked him.
Nevertheless, there had been moments when he had chilled her; moments
in which the possibility of mingling Camilla Lancing's future with his
(a scheme which she cherished warmly) had seemed almost preposterous;
when he had made her both impatient and angry, and she had almost
longed to shake him out of his grave, stolid ways and practical outlook.

To-night all this was changed; he was a new man to her to-night; she
felt drawn to him very closely. She tried to say something in answer to
his last speech, but even as the words trembled on her lips Haverford
spoke on in his usual quiet way.

"When I do start on my travels I think I shall bequeath the care of my
motors to you, Mrs. Brenton. Though you hate them, I know you are too
tender-hearted to ill-treat them."

She laughed, falling in with his change of mood.

"I will take care of them if you will promise to come back. You must
come back," she said, "and marry, and go into Parliament, and generally
settle down."

"Yes, I suppose I shall marry some day," Haverford answered. He had
passed away entirely from that touch of emotion; indeed, his eyes
twinkled. "Marriage is about the one occupation that my change of
fortune has suggested to me from the very commencement. But I am not in
a hurry," he added. "Do you know why I like you, Mrs. Brenton?" he said
all at once.

She shook her head.

"I am only too glad that you do like me," she answered, with a smile.
"I don't seek to know the cause."

"Well, you appeal to me for many reasons," said Rupert Haverford, "but
particularly because you are about the only woman I know who has not
insisted on finding me a wife. It is such an absurd idea if one stops
to think about it," he said lightly; "one chooses one's own servants,
one does not go running about to one's friends to ask them if a
particular man is likely to be a good coachman or butler or gardener;
but in the matter of a wife everybody seems to consider that he or she
has a right to choose for another person."

Mrs. Brenton smiled, but only faintly.

"I believe I am just as bad at match-making as most people," she said;
"you must not endow me with unknown qualities."

They drifted into silence after this.

It was pleasant to Rupert Haverford to sit and watch Mrs. Brenton's
comely hands busying themselves with the knitting.

She wore a few good rings, but for the rest her gown was old-fashioned,
not to say shabby, and she had no other jewellery except an
insignificant brooch or two.

He was quite in earnest when he said that she was the one person out of
all his new acquaintances whom he liked the best.

There was something so thorough about her. He could quite believe the
stories of her prowess as a sportswoman and a hard rider to hounds; and
yet she was very womanly.

It gave him an extraordinary sense of pleasure to-night to realize that
she was Camilla Lancing's friend, and that she had a tender and even an
anxious interest in the woman about whom he was struggling with
himself; the woman who at once tempted and repelled him.

He smoked his cigar through, and then after a little desultory
conversation he rose and said "Good night."

"Pray tell Mrs. Lancing that my motor is at her disposal if she cares
to use it to-morrow," he said, "I don't think she need fear another
breakdown."

"You won't use it yourself?" Mrs. Brenton asked.

"No, it will take me too long to get to town. I must see my mother
before going into the City. I shall not say 'Good-bye,'" Rupert added,
as he held her hand in his, "for you are coming up to town almost
directly, are you not? And you have promised to dine with me, you know."

"I am longing to see your house," Agnes Brenton said. "I hear it is
full of beautiful things. Camilla has raved to me about it."

"It is beautiful," he agreed, and then he just smiled; "you see, I can
say that because I have had very little to do with putting it together.
I inherited nearly all my treasures."

He was gone before Mrs. Lancing, in a pause of the game, realized that
he was nowhere near. She got up from the card-table suddenly; there was
a patch of hot colour on her cheeks.

"Give me a cigarette, Agnes," she said; "now that Mr. Bogie has gone, I
can smoke in peace."

"Mr. 'Bogie,' as you call him," Mrs. Brenton said evenly, "is leaving
us very early to-morrow morning. But he wants you to use his motor if
you care about doing so."

"Thanks, no," said Mrs. Lancing; "I think I have had enough of a
motor-car for a day or two. What have you been talking about, you two?"
she asked suddenly, after a little pause. She threw away the cigarette
as she spoke; smoking with her was only a pretence.

"I don't know," said Agnes Brenton, "nothing in particular. He is the
sort of man one need never try to make conversation with. I mean to see
as much of him as I possibly can; I like him very much."

Camilla made a _moue_ at her.

"You are well matched--just two dear preachy people together," she
said. "He ought to have been a schoolmaster. I know I shock him
awfully, don't I?"

"My dear child," said Mrs. Brenton, "Mr. Haverford has not confided in
me, but if I speak the truth I don't think he troubles himself about
you much one way or the other."

Camilla Lancing was amazed and sharply hurt.

"Oh! _don't_ you?" she said. "Oh! that is quite a new idea! As a matter
of fact, I had a sort of notion he was thinking about me a great deal."

"You are a vain little person," said Mrs. Brenton, in the same even
way; "but there, trot along; they are calling for you. Sammy has
finished dealing."

No one was stirring when Rupert Haverford descended the stairs the next
morning. He breakfasted alone; but just as he was about to get into the
brougham and drive away, one of the maids brought him a little note. It
was from Camilla.


"Thank you so much," she wrote, "for wishing me to use your motor,
but I don't care to go in it without you. Do let me know how your
mother is. I hope with all my heart that you will find her better.
Don't forget you have promised to have tea with the children next week!

"Sincerely your friend,
    "C. L."


He slipped the note into his pocket-book. It was pleasant to have that
little remembrance from her.

Passing the corner of the house he bent forward unconsciously to look
at the windows of the room where she was, but the blinds were drawn; in
fact, as he took out the little note and read it again, he saw that it
was dated at three o'clock that morning. She must have scribbled it
before going to bed. He knew she had gone to her room very late, for he
had sat waiting for the sound of her voice and the swish of her gown.
Their rooms had been on the same landing.

He slipped his pocket-book back with a sigh, and as he drove rapidly
away he found himself wishing with every turn of the wheels that he was
going back again; that was the curious part of this charm which Camilla
exercised over him.

When he was near to her she vexed him, she troubled him; when he was
away he only felt the appealing claim of her beauty, of that
simplicity, that "insouciance" that was so apart from and yet, with
her, so much a part of her womanliness.

She was such a curious mixture, pre-eminently womanly, tender,
sympathetic, and, at the same time, tainted unmistakably with
pronounced worldliness. Much as he had studied her, he felt quite
unequal to gauging her character.

Once he had heard some woman declare that Camilla was "insincere." He
had felt a wholly unreasonable amount of anger against that woman. And
yet he was quite unprepared to defend her this morning against such an
accusation.

He had suffered, really suffered, when he had seen her with Broxbourne.
It was inconceivable to him that a woman so delicately fashioned as she
mentally (though not supremely intelligent, her mind had a tendency to
poetry and charm evinced unconsciously a score of times) could find
pleasure in the society of this young man with his rough voice, his
sporting look, his peculiar manners. Nevertheless, she had laughed and
sparkled and met Sir Samuel with all the ease and intimacy of a comrade.

"It is because she is alone, because she has no one to lead her," he
said to himself as he sat in the train whirling to town. But ponder as
he might, he could offer to himself nothing convincing or satisfying
where Camilla Lancing was concerned. All he knew was that no matter how
his mind might busy itself with other thoughts, it always circled back
to Camilla in some fashion or other.

As he drew nearer to the smoke and the fog of the great city he closed
his eyes and dreamed of the day before--of that wide expanse of
restless, sun-kissed sea, with the sky fading in the distance into a
glorious sweep of gold and purple and grey.

In his imagination he could hear again the break of the waves on the
wet beach mingling with the musical hum of the car, and he could feel
once again that sense of delight, almost of possessive delight, as he
had looked back ever and anon and had met the smile of Camilla's sweet
eyes and pensive lips.

She seemed to be cut away from him altogether by this darkness and
heavy atmosphere.

The yellow gloom fell like a pall on all that was bright and beautiful
and desirable.

He longed to go back to the country; above all, he longed to see her
again, and quickly.




CHAPTER III


When he reached his mother's house in Kensington, Rupert Haverford was
met with the information that Mrs. Baynhurst had left town the
preceding day.

The house was all shut up, and the servant who opened the door to him
wore no apron or cap.

He passed into the hall thoroughly vexed.

Of course by this time he ought to have been well prepared for any
startling move on the part of his mother, who never by any chance did
those things that were expected of her, or, indeed, anything that she
had announced she intended doing.

He put the parlourmaid through a cross-examination.

"I came up from the country on purpose," he said to her, naturally
irritated. "I understood from a letter that was sent on from my house
that my mother had had an accident, and that she was anything but well!"

"No more she is, sir," said the maid. "Dr. Mortlock, he was quite angry
when he come here this morning and found Mrs. Baynhurst gone; but there
was a letter come yesterday from Mr. Cuthbert, saying as he was ill in
Paris, and the mistress she fussed herself into a fever, and wouldn't
rest satisfied, so she left last night. She wasn't no more fit to
travel than this doormat, sir. You see, there was all but a smash up
with the brougham."

Rupert Haverford was frowning sharply.

"Who is with my mother?" he asked.

"She's took Stebbings, her maid that is, sir, but not Miss Graniger.
Most probable she'll have to join Mrs. Baynhurst in a day or two."

The maid rambled on loquaciously, and Rupert Haverford quickly gathered
that his mother must have had a nasty shock, as her carriage had
apparently just escaped collision with a runaway cab. She was not a
nervous or a timid woman, far from it; but of late she had been in
anything but good health, and this journey to Paris appeared to
Haverford not merely an altogether needless fatigue, but a very foolish
undertaking on her part.

In all probability his half-brother's serious illness would signify
nothing more than an ordinary cold.

It was so typical of Cuthbert Baynhurst to write in a sensational way
about himself; equally typical of their mother to take immediate alarm
when any such news reached her.

It relieved Rupert Haverford to be angry with his half-brother now. He
had made it a principle never to be angry with his mother. It was so
useless. She was a strange creature was Rupert's mother. In a sense
they were nothing more than acquaintances, for she had left his father
when he had been a baby of a few months.

Octavia Marling had married John Haverford in a hurry, and had
regretted the haste almost immediately.

Their life together had been unsupportable. It would, however, have
been a very unusual kind of man who would have found life possible with
a woman of her peculiar temperament and mental attributes, even in the
most easy-going circumstances, and when such a woman was boxed down
into the narrow limits of a struggling existence passed in a dull,
smoke-grimed, small provincial town, the result was inevitable.

Rupert's father had adored his wife, but he could not live with her.

She was a brilliant woman, a woman with the brains, the will, the
tenacious strength of a man, a woman who made rules for herself, and
quietly and firmly rebelled against the position which tradition and
nature had allotted to her sex.

When she had borne a child she had felt humiliated; motherhood was a
natural evil, she admitted so much, but there were women created
specially for the purpose, and she was assuredly not one of those
women. She put the baby away from her as she put other objectionable
things, and fell back on her work with new and deeper intentions.

She had been engaged, at the time when poor little Rupert came into the
world, on an historical work of some magnitude, a work which entailed a
considerable amount of research--indeed, which demanded that she should
move about from one country to another, untrammelled by ties of any
sort.

Perhaps the kindest letter she ever wrote to her husband was the one he
received after she had left him. She was so unutterably glad to be
free; to put the factory town, with its troops of working men and women
clattering on the rough stones past the window where she worked, far,
far behind her; to be liberated from the fretting duties and small
events in her husband's professional life; to feel that miles and miles
stretched between her and the clang of the factory bell and the
ever-whirring noise of the restless machinery....

She only saw Rupert at a few odd times during the years that stretched
between his birth and his father's death. And she was abroad when John
Haverford died.

By his father's will the boy was left to the joint care of his mother
and of a man called Matthew Woolgar.

No one knew where to find Mrs. Haverford, so the charge of the lad
passed into the hands of this Woolgar, who accepted the trust in a very
grudging spirit.

He was an ignorant, churlish man who had worked his way up from the
gutter to the command of enormous wealth; a man whose very name was a
curse in the ears of the men who served him; a man who was both feared
and hated, and credited truly with being the hardest taskmaster in the
world. It was asserted by many that the foundation of Woolgar's fortune
lay in usury--money lent to his fellow-workers at an enormous rate of
interest--but whether this was true or not no one knew. All that was
certain was that he owned more than half the town and ruled with the
hand of a tyrant.

John Haverford had written down his wishes as to his boy's education
and profession, but Matthew Woolgar sneered these wishes into thin air.

A pauper had no right to the training of a prince.

Without waiting to consult Octavia Haverford, he took matters into his
own hands, and sent the boy into the factory.

Rupert Haverford wore the common clothes as the others did, he ate the
same common food, he lived and moved and slept among these people who
adored his father, and for whose children his father had lost his life.
There was nothing outwardly to tell the difference between Rupert
Haverford and any of the others, except when Matthew Woolgar paid one
of his surprise visitations (as he was fond of doing) to the works,
when he would be certain to single out "t' poor doctor's lad" for some
sharp reproof or snarling word.

Then the mother had flashed into existence again.

She wrote from America, announcing that she was married a second time,
and peremptorily commanding Rupert to join her.

Matthew Woolgar quietly and grimly refused to permit this.

In truth, Rupert himself had no desire to go. His mother was nothing to
him, hardly a name. The passion, the intense love, of his childhood and
boyhood had been given to his father; even to live in the place where
his father had lived and died signified a sort of happiness to Rupert.
It was because he felt he was doing what John Haverford had wished him
to do that he gave his strange guardian such unquestioning obedience,
and it was certainly the loved memory of his father that sustained him,
that made life possible. Every day he toiled eight to nine hours in the
factory; every night he sat for hours studying, teaching himself. He
had dreams of his own. He would get promotion, earn more, save money,
and even yet follow that career which his father had desired for him.

It was a task of incredible difficulty, but he was his mother's child,
and the will that spurred her on to such questionable lengths ran like
a steady fire in Rupert's veins. The very work that to some would have
seemed so paralyzing, so harmful, served to urge the boy on; it gave
him grit; it taught him more than books can teach.

And he got on.

Against all odds he advanced.

He was about eighteen, a tall, raw youth with a thin resolute face,
when his mother and he met.

Mrs. Baynhurst was a widow for the second time. This was apparently not
a matter of great sorrow to her, but she was a changed woman.

For a second time also she had become a mother, a second son had been
born to her--a little, delicate, neurotic child, whose birth was not,
as Rupert's had been, merely a physical and a detestable fact, but
whose frail little existence brought to her the knowledge of those
things which neither logic, nor erudition, nor philosophy had ever
vouchsafed to her.

With the coming of this second child (the offspring of a brief, a
miserable passion), the flood of those natural yearnings which make the
sum of most women's lives had broken its barriers at last. Rupert had
been an amazement and a humiliation; Cuthbert was a delight, a
happiness so illimitable, so wondrous, that the woman trembled even at
the realization of it.

The meeting between Rupert and his mother had led to nothing. They were
as far apart as the two poles.

Mrs. Baynhurst had misunderstood the boy's attitude; she supposed that
he resented her second marriage, and in her turn she resented his right
to do this.

But Rupert was quite indifferent to anything his mother had done. Had
she had any tangible existence for him in the beginning, things, of
course, would have been different, but he had never known a mother, he
had never missed a mother; whereas even then, when at times he went to
kneel at his father's grave, his heart would contract with that old
incredulous anguish which had lived with him for so many black days
after he knew he would never see that father again.... Nevertheless,
though they parted so coldly, quietly, and indifferently, something in
the boy's bearing, in his calm submission to his fate, had struck a
reproach in the woman's heart.

She never wrote to Rupert, but she wrote very frequently to Matthew
Woolgar, who never troubled to send her a word in reply.

She began to fidget and to fret.

It was monstrous, so she declared, that her son should be working in a
factory. Such a circumstance stung her pride.

Rupert must go to a tutor's. She knew that John Haverford had left a
small sum of money, and she declared that this money should be used for
Rupert's education.

Matthew Woolgar took absolutely no notice of her wishes, and after a
time she grew tired, and left Rupert to his fate.

The care, the anxious, engrossing care that her second boy demanded of
her filled her every thought.

And so a few years rolled on, marked only for Rupert by the knowledge
that he was slowly but surely moving upwards, and sweetened by the fact
that he was following those lines which his father had laid down for
him as far as he could.

Half his wages went in books and to pay for tuition. He had put himself
into the hands of one of the masters of a school situated just outside
the town, and with this man he had worked in every spare hour he had.

His craving for knowledge amounted to greediness.

Perhaps once in a while he met Woolgar, who had grown into a surly and
suffering man; there was nothing, however, in this old man's treatment
of him to indicate even in the faintest degree the wonderful future
which awaited him.

When he was twenty-six Rupert was in a post of authority at the
factory; when he was thirty he was master of all that Matthew Woolgar
possessed--a fortune so large that no one quite knew its limits; a
young man with the world before him, and a certain section of the world
at his feet.

It was he, then, who had sought his mother.

A year or so back, when he had arrived at manhood, and had inherited
the money his father had left (which in Woolgar's hands had accumulated
to a decent sum), Rupert had made it his business to inquire into his
mother's financial position, and finding, as he had imagined, that her
circumstances were very poor, he had without hesitation immediately
passed over to her his small inheritance.

And Octavia Baynhurst had taken the money.

"Not for myself," she had written to him, "but for Cuthbert. He is so
delicate; he needs so much care, and he is so gifted! If he is properly
trained he can attain to anything, but he _must_ be in the proper
environment."

Since that bygone day when his mother had sought him with that frail,
pathetically small baby in her arms, Rupert had not met his
half-brother till the day when he reached London, after he had followed
Matthew Woolgar to the grave.

There was not the faintest possibility of sympathy or even friendship
between Octavia Baynhurst's two sons.

A portrait of Cuthbert Baynhurst was hanging over the fireplace in the
hall, and Rupert glanced up at it now as he turned to leave his
mother's house and go out into the fog again, and as he glanced he
frowned unconsciously.

There were portraits of Cuthbert all over the house. Young Baynhurst
affected the society, and in a degree the calling, of artistic life,
and was a favourite subject with most of the artists he knew; but not
one of these portraits did justice in the mother's eyes to that
strange, almost womanish beauty which the young fellow possessed. She
was blind to any defect in Cuthbert either mentally or physically.
Love, when it had come to her, had come in a wild, a primitive kind of
way; she who had carped and analyzed and sought to find the cause and
origin of all things, fell at the feet of this one creature, who
claimed her heart and accepted her destiny unquestioningly.

The fact that Cuthbert was lazy, selfish, callous, never dawned in her
comprehension. She had fashioned him out of the purest, the best of
herself. She required nothing of him, and lived merely to pour out her
love on him.

Just as he was passing out of the door Haverford looked back.

"I shall be obliged if you will ask Miss Graniger to let me have my
mother's address as soon as she gets it," he said.

He got into the cab that was waiting, and his thoughts lingered about
Cuthbert.

"Paris," he said; "I thought he was going to stay in town and work all
this winter."

Then he shrugged his shoulders.

He made it his business not to inquire too closely into anything that
Cuthbert did, in which he showed himself to be unlike the majority of
those people who give to others; and assuredly he was generous enough
to his half-brother. For Cuthbert, of course, had the major portion of
anything their mother had, and Rupert's first action (when he had
realized that he had the command of so much money) had been to put his
mother out of the reach of difficulty.

He bought her the house in which she now lived, she had her own
carriage, and a very comfortable income. He gave her, in fact, exactly
the sum equivalent to that which he spent on himself.

Matthew Woolgar had left him the money unreservedly--everything save a
legacy to his sister, an old, crippled, and humble woman, had passed
"To the son of the best man I ever knew." But Rupert himself had
certain theories. He felt convinced that this money would never have
come to him if Woolgar had not seen in him the proper medium through
which this immense wealth could be handled judiciously, and it was his
one desire, his one anxiety, that he should prove worthy of the immense
trust which had been placed in his hands.

The schemes about which he had spoken to Agnes Brenton the night before
were no paltry things; they were planned on the most generous lines.

There was scarcely a public charity to which Haverford did not already
subscribe largely, and his private expenditure of this kind was almost
without limit, but he intended to do more, much more. And his keenest,
his most living sympathy was with those people among whom he worked so
long; it was on these toilers and out of them that this great wealth
had been gleaned in the first instance, and Rupert resolved to give
back to them in full measure. Nothing was too large or too important
that dealt with their welfare and the good of their rising generation.

Already there had sprung up in that smoke-grimed factory town a
monument dedicated to the memory of the man who had enriched him and
the man who had given birth to him. It took the form of a large
institution designated for the practical education and the physical and
moral uplifting of his old comrades.

Life in the factory served to stunt the growth and stultify the
intellect of those who did not possess, like himself, that piercing,
that vitalizing determination to keep looking upwards. It was to such
as these that Haverford determined the major part of Matthew Woolgar's
money should go.

After leaving Kensington he went back to the city, where he had an
office, and it was late in the afternoon before he reached the house
that was perhaps the sole reason why he had elected to make London his
head-quarters.

Matthew Woolgar had raised up to himself a veritable palace. Money had
been lavished on this house like water. The art experts of the various
great Continental centres had been busy for months and months finding
treasures with which to garnish this lordly dwelling-place.

But Rupert Haverford's benefactor had never lived in the house. His
real home had been the shabby worker's cottage, where he had dwelt in
those far-off years before his wife and son had died, and when
greatness had not even dawned on the horizon of his future.

When first Rupert Haverford had passed through room after room of that
magnificent house which Matthew Woolgar had raised up for himself, his
feeling had been one of oppression and, in a sense, pain. Everything
was so beautiful, everything was so cold. That element of desolation,
of heart loneliness, which must have driven the wealth-burdened man to
sit and smoke in his old wooden armchair by the broken down fireplace
in that humble north-country cottage made itself felt to Rupert almost
too sharply.

That had been more than two years ago, and his influence and the
crowded, and to him wonderful, circumstances in those two years had
made a change in everything--in himself and in all that surrounded him.
Still, though the world had fluttered in and out of these rooms very
often, this wonderful house remained only a house; it was never a home.
That element of solitude, that deadness, as it were, that clings about
the atmosphere of museums and other treasure storehouses, continued to
oppress Rupert.

It was too big for one person.

And to-day, coming freshly from the cheery, sociable influence of
Yelverton, Rupert was sensibly affected by this sense of solitude, this
mockery of empty grandeur.

Happily, a vast amount of correspondence awaited him, and he set
himself at the task at once.

Letters bombarded him wherever he went--the world seemed peopled with
beggars.

It was a matter requiring great tact and discrimination, this giving to
those who asked. Naturally there were other letters. Invitations poured
in upon Rupert Haverford. There was scarcely a great house which had
not thrown open its doors to him.

Already his small dinners had taken to themselves a _cachet_. If he
had responded to all the invitations that were poured upon him he would
scarcely have had a moment to himself. As it was, he felt that he was
drifting more swiftly into the stream of society than he had any desire
or intention of doing.

Not once, but a dozen times he had told himself of late that he must
change this.

Life for him had a serious meaning. It was full of serious projects.

Sometimes when he was a guest at the table of some illustrious
personage, or sometimes when he would be standing in a ballroom
watching the dancers and listening to the strains of softest music, he
would lose himself, as it were; he would go back in his imagination to
those days when he had stood working with the humblest of the factory
hands, working and dreaming for the time when he should be free.
Working, not for this bubbling gaiety, but for those big, those noble
ambitions which his father had set before him as his ideals when he had
been a child of only a few years.

He threw aside the letters now, and leaned back in his chair.

It was perhaps the first time he had let himself challenge himself.

With one of those curious tricks that imagination plays us at times he
was suddenly wafted from the cosy warmth of his room to that cold, damp
mist of the day before. He was walking through the white fog with
Camilla Lancing nestling close to him.

If he were to turn his back on London, on society, on that life which
had been circling about him of late, he must turn his back on this
woman, for she, and she alone, was the magnet that held him so
tenaciously.

He caught his breath suddenly, like one who fights for a cold, keen
wind, and got up. It had grown to be the dominant influence of his
present life, this struggle with himself on the subject of Camilla
Lancing. How would it end?

His man came into his room at that moment, bringing a note.

It was written in pencil, and came from Camilla.

"I am waiting outside," she had scribbled. "I wonder if you would see
me? I want to see you _very_ much. I have a great favour to ask you.
Could you spare me ten minutes?"

Rupert Haverford read the note two or three times; he wanted to calm
himself and steady his voice.

"Please ask Mrs. Lancing if she will come in, Harper," he said.

She came in almost directly.

Yesterday she had been a brown fairy; to-day she seemed to be a living
violet. He never knew in detail what she wore; he was only conscious of
the exquisite effect she always made. Her near approach was heralded by
the sweetest, faintest whisper of the flowers she personified.

She had thrown back her veil. He noticed that though she was smiling
she looked pale and tired.

"How good of you to see me!" she said.

"How good of you to come!" he answered in his usual grave way--the way
she called "stodgy."

He pushed forward a chair for her near the fire, but she chose to sit
away from it in the shadows.

"Thanks. No, I won't have tea. I have had some already--two cups, and I
must not stay more than two minutes. I have some news for you," she
announced. "Agnes has come up with me; I simply refused to leave
Yelverton without her. And she only wanted an excuse to come." Camilla
laughed as she sank into a chair. "You have not an idea what a scene of
excitement there was at my house when we arrived! My children simply
adore Agnes, and she adores them. And oh, Mr. Haverford, I am charged
with all sorts of messages to you! Betty and Baby are enchanted with
your lockets and intend wearing them always, but, please, you must give
them a picture of yourself to put inside; that is what they say."

There was a little pause.

Camilla let her sables slip from her shoulders on to her arms. She had
come there with a distinct purpose, a purpose that was bound about with
the iron of most pressing fear and necessity.

True to her nature, she was not going to speak frankly.

"I can't," she said to herself; "I absolutely can't!"

Haverford was standing by the fire.

The scent of her violets, the bewildering entrancement of her presence,
made him dreamy.

How changed the room was!

The house was full of treasures--pictures, tapestries, bronzes,
inanimate things which had cost thousands--but everything was as
nothing compared with this living, breathing, beautiful woman.

How far more beautiful than all the rest she was!

"I shall be photographed on purpose," he roused himself to say; and
then he pulled himself together with a great effort. "You want me?" he
queried. "I am only too delighted to do any little thing for you, Mrs.
Lancing. Pray let me know what I can do!"

Camilla got up and moved about a little aimlessly.

"It ... it's rather a big favour, really quite an enormous one," she
said. "I ... I feel nervous...." Indeed, her voice broke a little.

"Don't be afraid," said Haverford.

She caught her breath, and then she steadied her voice.

"Well, I have come to you because a dear friend of mine is in great
trouble, Mr. Haverford," she said. "When I got home this afternoon I
found a letter waiting for me. You would not know if I were to tell you
her name. She lives in the country, and oh! she has had such a hard
life. We ... we are old, old friends, and I suppose that is why she has
turned to me now and asked me to help her.... I only wish I could..."
she broke off with a sharp sigh; "it is so hateful to feel one cannot
do things of this sort for people who really need help..." she said
half impatiently, half wearily.

He stood quietly by the fireplace looking at her; he was barely
conscious of what she was saying. The fragrance that floated about
her--her clear voice with its pretty enunciation--the realization that
she was so close, made a curious effect upon him: he felt stupid,
dazed, burningly hot one instant, strangely cold the next.

Camilla hurried on nervously.

"When I read that letter, Mr. Haverford, I thought immediately of you.
I know I have no earthly right to bother you with things that belong to
a stranger ... indeed"--she laughed faintly--"I am _quite_ prepared to
hear you say that you are surprised; that you did not think that I
should do anything of this sort I--I have come even expecting you to
refuse."

He left the fireplace and went nearer to her.

The dream dropped away from him.

"Some friend of yours is in trouble?" he asked. He smiled at her. "You
were quite right to come to me. I am only too glad to do anything for
any one in trouble, but more especially I am glad to do anything for
any one who is dear to you."

Camilla bit her lip, and moved a little away from him, approaching the
fire in her turn.

"How good you are!" she said. The words were wrung from her
involuntarily, and there were tears in her eyes and tears in her voice.
Indeed, he moved her sharply at this moment.

There was such an element of simplicity about him and yet no weakness.
He accepted her story without question. The flimsy fabrication she had
just given him was merely the truth to him, essentially so because it
was she who spoke. No other man she knew would have been deceived by
this story of a friend in the country, but Rupert was not like all
these other men. He was very far removed from being a fool, but he was
a long, long way from grasping the meaning of life as it was lived by
most of the men and women who circled about him now.

Why, he was in many things a child compared to herself!...

Haverford had set down to his writing-table.

"In any matter of this kind," he said, "I beg you will use me in every
way that may seem good to you, Mrs. Lancing. I gather that your friend
needs immediate help; pray do not let her be troubled an hour longer
than is possible."

He signed a blank cheque, and slipped it into an envelope.

As he turned and held this out to her, Camilla Lancing gave a little
shiver. She looked at him without taking the envelope.

"Oh!" she murmured, "I ... am half afraid to take this! I came ... on
... on the impulse of the moment, not because you have so much ... but
because I ... felt ... I feel you are so glad to--to help any one
but...."

"Why should there be any 'but'?" he asked, not very steadily; "by this
time I hope you know that I hold it one of my greatest pleasures, as it
is certainly an honour, to serve you whenever you will permit me to do
so. Will you remember this always?..."

Camilla bit her lip again, and then put out her hand.

Haverford bent over it and kissed it. Her hand was kissed at least once
or twice a day on the average but Rupert Haverford had never before
permitted himself this old-fashioned and gracious sign of homage. It
was with him an expression of something far, far deeper than mere
courtesy to a very delightful and very pretty woman. She divined this
instantly, and her heart began to beat nervously. As he released her
hand she pulled her sables about her and prepared to go. She wanted to
be away from him. The expression of his face troubled her. She had
chafed almost angrily at his silence, his self-repression, yet now that
she knew he would speak she dreaded to hear his words.

A thousand jarring feelings thrilled her.

Though there had been many moments recently when he had appealed to her
physically, when, indeed, she had frankly admired him, in this moment
she felt almost as though she hated him.

It was a sensation which she could not define which she would have
found practically impossible to explain to another person, but it was
very real, very oppressive.

She crushed the envelope he had given her in her hand, and hid it in
her big muff; then she began speaking gaily.

"What are you doing to-night?" she asked. "You are engaged? Oh, I am so
sorry! I thought that perhaps you would have taken Agnes and me to
dinner somewhere. We have no engagement; but never mind, we can do that
another night."

"Will you dine with me to-morrow?" he asked. He, too, was nervous. He
had not her gift of slipping into a seeming indifference. Her easy,
everyday manner separated them once again, brought back with a rush the
old uncertainty, the old unrest.

She laughed.

"Oh! delightful! And let us dine here, do, please. I simply adore this
house, and I want Agnes to see it. You know, you have always happened
to be away when she has been up in town. How enchanting everything is!
No matter where one looks one sees something that is perfect of its
kind ... and that is not what one can say of every magnificent house,
you know!" said Camilla. She had moved to the door, and he opened it.
They passed out into the wide corridor. "The fact is a man's taste is
always so much better than a woman's," she chattered on restlessly, "it
is really a most absurd idea to suppose that a house must have a woman
in it.... For the best of us will persist in filling our rooms with
rubbish. Do you know, to this day I have the greatest difficulty in
denying myself the joys of Japanese fans on the walls, and art muslin
draperies and curtains? Oh!" she said suddenly, "I quite forgot to ask
you; how is your mother? I hope she is better."

"I hope she is," said Rupert, "but I have not seen her. She has gone to
Paris. My half-brother is ill."

He went with her to the entrance door, and himself put her into the cab
that was waiting.

She stretched out her hand just before starting.

"I must _try_ and say thank you," she said nervously, "but it is not
easy to say. I shall send ... this ... on to my friend at once. You
will have the consciousness of knowing you have made one person very
happy to-night, Mr. Haverford! _A demain!_ May we dine late?... I have
such a full day to-morrow.... Good night...."

He held her hand very, very closely, and let it go reluctantly.

The light of the cab-lamp was shining on him fully. He looked very
handsome as he stood there against the dark, foggy background, a man to
make gladness to the eyes and heart of any woman. But as she rolled
away swiftly, Camilla Lancing leaned back and flung up her veil,
sighing rapidly and impatiently.

"After all, he does mean to speak ... and soon," she said to herself,
"and when he does I _must_ agree; I must say 'Yes'! How can I possibly
refuse? It would be madness. He would do everything so well there would
be no more anxiety about the children, and I should have everything I
want, no more horrible bills, no more difficulties, and an end to the
hideous dependence on Ned's father...." She pulled aside the sable
almost roughly from about her throat. The night was bitterly cold, but
she felt as if she were stifling.

"But what a life!... I don't believe I shall be able to stand it for
even a month.... I shall feel like a caged animal. My very thoughts will
not be my own.... I wanted him to love me, but not like this. He loves
me too much. He will exact too much. I shall have to give up everything
I like. No more bridge, no more freedom, no more fun. Oh, my God!" said
Camilla with fierceness, though she was crying, "I _know_ I shall never
be able to do it! I don't want that sort of man," she said, "I don't
want to stagnate and grow old, and good.... I want to live ... to
live!... And I did live before Ned left me!... How can I marry a man
like this after I have been Ned's wife? Oh, Ned, Ned, if only you had
not died!... If only I could feel you were somewhere in the world, even
though there were twenty women between us ... it ... it would be all so
different!..."

She cried unceasingly for a few moments as the cab swayed and jerked
over the greasy pavement, and then she pulled herself together.

"Oh! what an ass I am! If Agnes sees red eyes, she will want to know
all there is to know. I can imagine her expression if I were to explain
I had been crying about Ned!... that blackguard Ned!" She laughed in an
impatient stifled way. "We must go somewhere to-night," she said a
moment later; "I shall die boxed up at home. Why shouldn't we dine
somewhere and then go on to a music-hall!"

As she got out of the cab she dropped the envelope Haverford had given
her. She picked it up hurriedly, and her train of thought was changed
swiftly; a sudden sense of delicious independence thrilled her. The man
whom she feared, and the man who had shown her such chivalrous
generosity, and the man she had married and lost, passed from her
thoughts. She felt as if she were in sunshine. The cheque was blank!
She had not expected that; there were no limits to her intentions.

"I shall give Veronique something on account; that will stop the writ,"
she said as she passed into the house. "And the children shall have new
coats, dear souls; they have been looking _so_ shabby lately. Then I
shall get out my pearls and some of my rings and things first thing
to-morrow...."

In the hall there were some cards, a splendid basket of flowers, and a
square, white-coated packet. Camilla loved to find white packages and
letters and flowers waiting for her.

She shivered as she remembered the cold perfection of the hall she had
just left.

Sir Samuel's card was attached to the basket and the box of bonbons,
and he had left a note. Camilla read this and ran upstairs quickly.

"Agnes," she called gaily, putting her head in at the door of the
drawing-room, "Sammy wants us to dine with him and go afterwards to the
play. We shall just have time to change. What a bother you have to go
out to dress! Why not let me send for your things?"

Mrs. Brenton shook her head.

"Oh no. I will trot round to my rooms. As a matter of fact, I was just
going. Will you call for me, Camilla? The children are just asleep.
They tried to keep awake till you came, but they were too tired...."

Camilla threw off her furs and cloak in her room, and then stole
upstairs softly till she reached the nursery. All was still. The two
small bodies in the two small cots never stirred as she approached.

Mrs. Lancing bent over each child and lightly laid a hand as in
benediction on each little head. Then she paused a moment before
Betty's small altar. The child had arranged it carefully before going
to bed, there were white flowers in the tiny brass vases, and the red
light burning before the statue of the Virgin was the only light in the
room.

Camilla shut her eyes. She never remembered any prayers; but Betty had
just knelt there, and the child's prayers had hallowed the place; they
seemed to carry the mother's soul with them--just a little way.

As the nurse came into the room, Mrs. Lancing turned and, with her
finger on her lip, went noiselessly from the room.

She dressed for dinner in a happy mood.

Haverford's cheque was locked up in her dressing case. She had not
settled yet what sum she would inscribe on it. Certainly a small sum
would be useless. So she mused as she ordered her maid to bring her the
flowers Sir Samuel had sent, and she chose a few to wear as a
breast-knot.

"What is a thousand to him, or, for the matter of that, two?" she
queried. "And even two will not go very far. Well, that is for
to-morrow."

She pinned the flowers in her bodice and smiled at her reflection.

It was delightful not to spend a dull evening at home, and really she
was just in the mood for a good dinner!




CHAPTER IV


Though he had had short notice, Haverford managed to get together a few
interesting men for dinner the following evening.

The greater part of the large house was not open, but enough was seen
to impress and delight Mrs. Brenton.

She admired everything.

"I am full of envy," she said to him.

"So am I," said Camilla. "I want everything I see here, your servants
especially. How _do_ you bachelor people always manage to get such good
servants? That man of yours, Harper, is a perfect treasure. He is a
sort of Monte Cristo--nothing seems difficult or impossible to him. I
believe if I were to call him now and say to him, 'Harper, will you
please give me the Earth?' he would answer in that quiet way of his, 'I
have just put it in your carriage, madam.'"

She was all in white to-night, and looked languid and pensive. Rupert
Haverford asked her once if she were tired; she nodded her head.

"Just a little; but that is my own fault. I have been skating at
Prince's all the afternoon," she explained. "I wondered if you would
come there by any chance. You must promise to go with me one day. It is
really rather fun, and it gives one some exercise."

She was sitting in the place of honour. Mrs. Brenton and she were the
only ladies.

"Don't send us away," said Camilla, when coffee was brought in; "please
smoke, all of you. Agnes doesn't mind--do you, Agnes? and I love it."

As the liqueurs were being handed to him, Haverford's man addressed him
confidentially.

"Could I speak to you, sir?" he asked.

Mr. Haverford looked upwards; the request was unusual; then he just
nodded his head.

"All right, I'll come to you in a minute."

He waited a little while, and then, when the conversation was general,
and there was a movement from the dining-room, with a murmured excuse
to his two women guests, he left them.

Harper was waiting for him.

"What is the matter, Harper?" he asked impatiently enough.

"I'm sorry to bring you away, sir," said the man, "but there's a young
person that wants to see you, sir. I told her that you'd friends to
dinner, but she wouldn't be sent away. Says she must see you. She came
quite a hour ago. I put her in your study. She's come from Mrs.
Baynhurst, I think, sir," the man added. "I asked her to tell me what
she wanted, but she wouldn't do it. Insisted that she must speak to you
yourself, sir."

Rupert Haverford gave a few orders to the man about having certain
rooms lit up for Mrs. Brenton to see, and then went along the broad
passage to the room where he usually sat and smoked and worked.

The girl who awaited him was standing by the fire. She turned as the
door opened.

He had seen her once before, and recognized her as his mother's
secretary.

Naturally his thoughts flew at once to his mother.

"Is anything wrong?" he asked. "Have you news from Paris? Do you want
me?"

Caroline Graniger looked at him steadily.

She was a tall slip of a girl, with a thin, colourless face, and very
large, impressive eyes.

Her dress was shabby and meagre; she looked, indeed, as if she had
scarcely enough on for such a cold, raw night.

"I don't know whether I ought to have come to you, Mr. Haverford," she
said, "but I'm in great trouble, and as I've no one to whom I can go,
and I don't quite know what to do, I thought of you."

She spoke in a staccato kind of way. The voice was rather disagreeable
to Haverford.

"I shall be very glad to help you if I can," he said coldly; and then
he waited for her to say more.

"Mrs. Baynhurst has sent me away," the girl said; she spoke still in
that same sharp, stiff way. "A letter came from Paris this morning by a
midday post, but as I have been out all day I did not get it till late
this afternoon. I have brought it with me so that you can read it."

Mr. Haverford looked annoyed.

He objected strongly to interfere in anything which concerned his
mother.

"I am afraid it is not possible for me to go into this matter with
you," he said. "I have nothing whatever to do with Mrs. Baynhurst's
affairs."

The girl answered him sharply, authoritatively.

"Some one _must_ listen to me, and as you are her son, I consider it
your duty to do so."

At this he wheeled round.

This kind of tone was a new experience to him in these latter days,
when every one who approached him had a soft word on their lips, and a
subservient suggestion in their manner.

"I think you have made a mistake," he said, thoroughly annoyed now; "if
my mother has seen fit to dispense with your services she has, no
doubt, the very best reason for doing so. You must apply to her. As I
have just said, this is a matter in which I could not possibly
interfere at any time. And now----"

"And now," said Caroline Graniger, with a short laugh, "you want to go
back to your guests; to your dinner!" She shrugged her shoulders. "Then
go. I was a fool to come."

She left the fireplace and walked past him to the door, but before she
could get there Rupert Haverford made a move forward.

"Wait," he said. He had suddenly caught a glimpse of her face; it wore
an expression that was eloquent enough to him.

She paused, and stood biting her lip and blinking her eyes to keep back
her agitation. Young as she was, she suggested an element of strength.

"I have not very much time at my disposal," said Rupert quickly, "but
tell me exactly what has happened. If I can help you I will."

She did not answer him immediately. When she did, that sharp, almost
pert, tone had gone from her voice.

"I know quite well I have not given Mrs. Baynhurst satisfaction," she
said, "though I have tried my very best to fall in with her ways. But
she is not very easy. She does not make allowances. If it were only
that I should not complain...." She bit her lip again, "if I am not
good enough for her as a secretary she is quite right to get some one
else; but she ought to have prepared me, not dismiss me in this way. I
did not go to her of my own accord. She took me away from the school
where I have been living for so many years. I was given to understand
that she was my guardian, but I suppose that cannot be true, or she
would not write to me as she has written now," she broke off abruptly.

"What are my mother's orders?" asked Haverford very quietly.

"She says I am to go away at once, as she has no further use for me. In
her letter she writes that as she intends to remain in Paris for some
time, the house in Kensington is to be shut up immediately. In
fact"--the girl gave a shrug of her thin shoulders--"this is already
done. I find that some one has been good enough to pack my few things
in a box, and the only maid who remains informed me that she, too, had
heard from Mrs. Baynhurst, and that by her mistress's orders I was to
leave at once...."

She looked at Rupert very steadily, and there was something of contempt
in the expression of her dark eyes.

"Your mother is proverbially careless, Mr. Haverford," she said drily;
"she never troubles herself about those small things that are called
duties by other people, so I suppose it has not even dawned on her that
by cutting me adrift in this way she puts me in a very awkward
position. And yet I don't know why I should suppose her in ignorance of
this," Caroline Graniger added the next moment, "for our life together
has been so miserably uncomfortable that I dare say she is glad to have
such a good opportunity of getting rid of me. You see," she smiled
faintly, "I cannot possibly annoy her when she is so far away. She
knows, of course, that I should have not merely required, but demanded,
an explanation if she had dismissed me herself, but she hopes, no
doubt, that I shall accept the inevitable if she remains out of reach
for some time; or," with a shrug of her shoulders, "she may possibly
hope that some good chance, such as destitution, may take me out of her
way altogether. I have not a penny in the world," the girl said in that
same harsh, sharp way, "and no one to whom I can turn for advice or
help. Please understand that this is my only excuse for coming to you."

Then, before Mr. Haverford had time to speak, she went on eagerly--

"Above all things, I want to know something about myself. It is no new
thing for me to feel lonely. I have always been one by myself. Perhaps
I should have gone on accepting everything that came and asked no
questions if this had not happened, but to-night I feel so ... so lost,
so bewildered to know what to do: to understand...." She cleared her
throat and looked pleadingly at Rupert Haverford. "As you belong to
Mrs. Baynhurst, perhaps you can answer my questions, perhaps you can
tell me why she took me away from the school where I have lived ever
since I can remember, why I was told she had the right to take me away?"

Haverford had moved to the fireplace, and was standing there looking at
her with contracted brows.

He listened with a sense of the greatest discomfort, and even
uneasiness.

"Believe me," he said when he spoke, "if I could answer those questions
I would do so most gladly, but I am an absolute stranger to all that
passes in my mother's life. I know you were her secretary, but she has
had a number of secretaries, and in this, as in other things, she acts
for herself absolutely. She has never spoken to me about you." Here he
paused. "If it is true that she called herself your guardian, this is a
matter about which I know nothing. I am sorry," he finished abruptly.
"Sit down," he said all at once, "you must be tired."

She had turned very white, and she sat down in the chair. For an
instant her eyes closed, and in that spell of silence he saw how young
she was, scarcely more than a child.

He was accustomed by this time to come in contact with all sorts of
trouble, with the sordid misery of the very poor, the hopeless,
pathetic endurance of those who have to keep a brave front to the world
whilst they are literally starving. Sorrow was a well-worn study, and
there was no mistake about the story written on that young, white face.

She opened her eyes almost directly.

"I--I beg that you will not let me detain you," she said in that sharp,
proud way; then more proudly still she added, "I am sorry now that I
came."

"On the contrary," said Rupert Haverford, "I am glad that you came. You
did quite rightly. Though I have made it a principle never to mix in my
mother's affairs, this appears to me to be a matter which requires
investigation. As you have just said yourself, she acts with no
conventional basis, doubtless she does not in the least grasp the
meaning of your real position. You must permit me to charge myself with
the care of you till we have communicated with Mrs. Baynhurst."

The girl did not answer him immediately; the gaze of her dark eyes had
gone beyond him and was resting on the blaze of the fire.

"I don't want to be a trouble to anybody," she said, "I am really very
independent, and very strong. I would not have come to you to-night,"
she added, "if I had been able to go to the school where I lived for so
many years; but this is lost to me now. That is where I have been
to-day. The black fog choked me, and as I knew I was not wanted, that
there was nothing for me to do, I determined to have a little holiday.
I borrowed a few shillings from the parlourmaid, and I went down into
the country. There was no fog there. It was cold, but it was fresh and
beautiful. I walked ever so far. It was silly, but I lost my way. I did
not expect to be very warmly welcomed, for I believe I was kept out of
charity for a great number of years, but I thought perhaps _somebody_
might be glad to see me. However, when I got to the old familiar house
it was empty. There was a board saying that it was to let. It looked so
desolate!..." She sighed faintly. "It took me a long time to get back
to Kensington, and when I did arrive it was to find my box packed in
the hall, and nothing before me but the doorstep."

"Come nearer the fire," said Rupert "I am going to send you in some
dinner. I really must leave you for a little while, but I will come
back again. Won't you make yourself comfortable? You had better take
off your coat and hat...."

She got up at once and he helped her to remove the coat. She was
painfully thin. When her hat was off he saw that she had masses of dark
hair. But he scarcely realized what her appearance was, her story had
surprised and troubled him sharply. He pushed a cosy chair near the
fire, and gave her some papers to look at, and then hurried away.

His guests were scattered about the house.

On his way to join them Mr. Haverford paused to give Harper orders to
take in some food at once to Miss Graniger.

"See that she has everything that she wants," he said.

By his tone the manservant understood that the girl who had come so
unexpectedly was to be treated with the utmost courtesy.

This done, Haverford made his way up the stairs.

Mrs. Brenton was waiting for him almost impatiently.

"I shall come here every day whilst I am in town," she declared, "and
even then I am sure I shall always find something fresh to admire! I
congratulate you, Mr. Haverford; you have a beautiful home!"

"My house is beautiful," he corrected; "I sometimes feel I have no
home. All my tastes are for small and simple things. This is so large,
so much too splendid for me. It always feel so empty...."

"Oh! but you are going to change all that," Agnes Brenton said with a
little laugh.

He took her to look at the portrait of Matthew Woolgar, the work of one
of the greatest of modern painters, a _chef d'oeuvre_ in its way.

"It's a living portrait," Haverford said. "Just fancy, Mrs. Brenton, I
knew that man all my life, and I don't think he ever said a kind word
to me. There was not the slightest sign of any sort to let me feel that
he troubled himself about me one way or other." He was speaking with an
effort, for all the time his thoughts were busy with the girl whom he
had left in the study below. Naturally it was not a great astonishment
to him to hear that his mother should be careless and indifferent to
the welfare of others. The woman who could turn her back as she had
done on her own little child, could not be blessed with too much
sympathy or womanly thought; still, if this girl's story was true--and
he saw no reason to doubt it--his mother was now guilty of a definitely
cruel act, for which he failed in this moment to find any possible
explanation.

"Have you a portrait of your father?" Mrs. Brenton asked, after a
little while, as they wandered round.

"Yes, but not here," answered Rupert Haverford. "I have a few old
photographs, but those are in my bedroom, and there is a sketch of him
in water-colours in my study--that is a room downstairs," he added.

"May I see that room?" Mrs. Brenton asked.

He paused imperceptibly, and then he said in his frank way--

"I will show it to you another time. I have some one in it now."

Then all at once there flashed across him a suggestion that here was a
woman who could possibly help him out of the difficulty of the moment.

That Caroline Graniger should remain in his house was, of course,
impossible; but it was equally impossible that this young creature
could be turned outside to find some lodging for herself at this late
hour of the night. He knew Mrs. Brenton to be a practical woman, a
woman of resource, and this was essentially a matter for a woman to
deal with.

Briefly he explained to her that his mother's secretary had come to him
in trouble.

"By some curious mistake," he said, "the house has been shut up, and,
as far as I can understand, she is unable to sleep there to-night. The
question is, Where can she go? Apparently, from what she tells me, my
mother intends staying in Paris for some time. I have no news from her
of any sort, so I know nothing of her plans; but the girl has come to
me for advice, and I am not sure what to do with her. I have not a
single woman in my household. My cook is a man, and Harper has only men
under him. I suppose she had better go to an hotel."

"Oh, poor girl!" said Mrs. Brenton quickly; "she must be very much
upset" She paused an instant, and then said briskly, "The best thing
she can do is to come back with me. Dick is not coming up for a day or
two, and there is a bed in his dressing-room. We never go to an hotel,"
she explained, "we have always gone to these rooms. Practically we keep
them on during the winter. They have several advantages, the greatest
being in my eyes the fact that I am really almost next door to Camilla.
Suppose I go and speak to this young lady. What is her name?"

"Graniger," Rupert Haverford said; "but really, Mrs. Brenton," he
protested, "I hardly like to bother you to such an extent. I am almost
sorry I mentioned this. No doubt if we leave the matter to Harper he
will arrange something. You know, according to Mrs. Lancing, he is the
most marvellous man in the world."

"Oh! but this is not a case for Harper," objected Mrs. Brenton
immediately. She felt a woman's sympathy for the probably well-bred
young woman who had been so roughly treated.

"If you will tell me how I shall find my way to your study, I will go
to her at once and fix up things."

She was gone almost directly, pausing only on her way to admire the
almost priceless tapestry which lined the walls of the passage which
led to the staircase.

Harper was in the study, arranging a dainty little dinner table, and
Caroline Graniger was sitting in the chair, looking thoroughly tired
out. She turned, and then rose quickly as Mrs. Brenton advanced with
outstretched hand.

"How do you do, Miss Graniger?" said Agnes Brenton. "May I come in and
chat with you a little while? Mr. Haverford is 'on duty,' you know. I
must introduce myself," she added, as they were alone. "I am Mrs.
Brenton, a friend of Mr. Haverford's."

This kindly, warm greeting startled Caroline. It was something so new,
she hardly knew how to respond to it. She took Mrs. Brenton's hand, but
she said nothing, and the other woman was very sorry for her.

"Poor child," she thought, "she looks scared and half starved. Why, she
cannot be more than seventeen or eighteen. Fancy sending a child like
that out of the house at this time of night. It is monstrous!"

Her easy bearing made the situation almost natural.

"Now you must eat some dinner," she said, "and I will sit here, if you
will let me. Mr. Haverford has been telling me that you are alone by
yourself just now," Mrs. Brenton chattered on, "and as you don't seem
to know where to go, I have suggested that you should come home with
me, at any rate for to-night. There is a small bed in a room close to
mine. It is clean and comfortable, and that is about all that can be
said of it."

"You are very kind," said Caroline Graniger; she spoke shyly,
nervously; in the presence of this womanly sympathy she lost her
self-reliance a little; she almost felt inclined to cry. Only a long
time ago she had taught herself the futility of tears.

"I can't eat anything," she said rather abruptly the next moment; "it
is a pity to give so much trouble, for I am not a bit hungry."

"Oh! that is because you are over-tired," said Agnes Brenton. "I should
have some soup and a little fish. You won't sleep if you don't eat
something."

The girl sat down in the chair that was put for her, and as the soup
was put before her she ate it obediently.

Harper had gone, but one of his subordinates waited upon her with great
importance. Mrs. Brenton talked on pleasantly and brightly, and her
thoughts were busy.

"She looks awfully thin," she said to herself; "if she had a little
more flesh on her bones she would be rather pretty. As it is, she is
decidedly interesting. Poor little soul! She makes my heart ache, and
she is only a type after all, one of thousands who have to go out and
fight the world when they have only just left their cradle, as it were.
I should imagine she has been having a pretty rough time with Mrs.
Baynhurst. A genius is a delightful thing in its way, but not a very
comfortable thing to live with."

"Now when you have had some sweets," Mrs. Brenton announced, "I am
going to get Harper to put you in a cab, and you shall go to my rooms.
I will give you a little note to take with you." She sat down at
Haverford's writing-table and scribbled a few words, explaining that
Miss Graniger was her guest, and desiring that the dressing-room should
be made ready for her.

"Please light a fire," she wrote at the end.

"When you go in, ask for my maid, and give that to her," she said,
"then you will find everything all right." And then Mrs. Brenton stood
up and looked about her.

"This is Mr. Haverford's favourite room, I am sure," she said, "it
looks so cosy, and that must be his father." She advanced and looked up
at a portrait on the wall. "Yes, I can see a strong likeness to him,
can't you?"

"I think he is very like his mother," Caroline Graniger said, "only,"
she added, "his is a much better face. He ought to have been the
woman...."

"Oh! do you think so? I think him such a splendid man," said Mrs.
Brenton warmly, "there is not the slightest trace of effeminacy in him."

"I did not mean that," said the girl. "I mean that his mother has no
right to be a woman. Do you know her?" the girl asked abruptly.

Mrs. Brenton shook her head.

"No, I don't know her personally, but of course I know of her. As
Octavia Haverford she made a great name for herself."

"She may be a wonderful woman," said Caroline Graniger, "but she is a
very cruel one!"

"Well now," said Mrs. Brenton, "I think you had better get on your hat
and coat. I should go straight to bed. You look so tired. Ask my maid
to give you anything you want. I won't disturb you when I come home, as
you may be asleep, and I am sure to be a little late. We will have a
chat in the morning."

Harper was waiting in the passage outside, and to his care Mrs. Brenton
confided Miss Graniger.

"You are not afraid to go alone, are you?" she asked, and Caroline
Graniger only smiled as they shook hands.

"I am not afraid," she said; then she tried to say some words of
gratitude, but Agnes Brenton would not listen.

"Please don't thank me.... I am only too glad that I am able to be of
some use."

Camilla floated across one of the big rooms when Mrs. Brenton
reappeared upstairs.

"Where _have_ you been?" she asked half petulantly, as she slipped her
hand through Mrs. Brenton's arm. "Haven't you finished admiring yet? It
is all very beautiful and wonderful, and everything has cost a mint of
money, of course ... but oh! isn't it dull?... Agnes, I am ever so
tired!... All this sense of money is so oppressive. Suppose we go home."

But at this moment one of the men sat at the piano, and began to play
softly. Camilla looked round, and her eyes lit up.

"Sing something, Mr. Amherst," she commanded; and then she changed
this, "No, play a waltz." She slipped her hand from Agnes Brenton's
arm. "This will make a heavenly ballroom," she said. She paused,
looking about her, tapping the floor with her foot. Then she gathered
her white skirts in her hand, and fluttered up to Rupert Haverford.

"Listen..." she said, "this is a waltz.... I am dying to dance.... Will
you dance with me?"

Rupert looked into the laughing, radiant face, into the large blue eyes
that could be so dreamy, so full of sadness at times, but which now had
a touch of fire in them ... a look to bewilder and fascinate.

"Alas," he said, "I cannot dance, Mrs. Lancing."

Camilla struck him lightly on the arm with her fan.

"Oh! you tiresome person! You do nothing! You won't play cards ... you
can't dance; you! ... What _can_ you do?" With one of her bird-like
movements she turned to a man standing beside him. "I know _you_ can
dance," she said, "come along."

They slipped away, and Rupert Haverford stood looking after her with
his heart beating uncomfortably quickly.

He was conscious of a rush of sharp, resentful anger, and of course he
was mortified. Camilla could sting very surely when she liked.

She was laughing and chatting away to the man whom she had annexed so
calmly; he was neither young nor handsome, but he made no sort of
incongruous figure. He danced as a matter of course, as a habit.

At all times dancing as a social custom was something that startled
Rupert Haverford; now, as he saw Camilla held ever so lightly in the
arms of another man, he felt choked, hurt, almost outraged.

His face was so stern, so angry that Camilla was satisfied.

"A pity our host is so puritanical," she said to her partner; "he is
looking at us now as if he would like to annihilate us both, and all
because we are dancing! I love shocking him! He is such a nice old
maid."

"A real good sort, though, all the same," answered the man, "one of the
best...."

"I begin to hate good people, they are so wet-blankety," Camilla said
impatiently. "Isn't this a splendid floor?" she said the next moment.
"I could waltz all night. Tell me when you have had enough."

Mrs. Brenton moved across to where Rupert was standing.

"I love to see Camilla dance," she said, "she is all grace, and she
dances with the heart of a child. Indeed, to me she always remains a
child.... Sometimes when I see her with her babies I cannot realize
that she is their mother, or that she has gone through more dark
experiences as Ned Lancing's wife than happily one woman in a hundred
is called upon to endure." Mrs. Brenton was silent a moment. Then she
turned. "I think I have made things comfortable for Miss Graniger," she
said; "she looked so tired, poor child. She is an interesting-looking
child. I wonder if she is purely English?"

Rupert Haverford did not answer. He had of course warmly thanked her,
but now he scarcely heard her words. He was watching Camilla intently.

Now and then she seemed to circle so closely to him he could have
touched her floating draperies; then she was swept away from him
swiftly--far, far away. Her small white feet appeared scarcely to touch
the ground; to his jealous fancy she leaned too intimately on the arm
that embraced her.

Her blue eyes mocked him at one moment, and pleaded the next.

Sometimes she ceased laughing, and then her lips would take the pensive
expression that was so pathetic, and which moved him so.

When the music ceased, Camilla came slowly towards them--she was
panting a little.

"You must really give a ball, Mr. Haverford," she said; then,
restlessly, "Is it time to go, Agnes? I am sure it is. You look as
though you were longing to be in your little bi-bi."

They did not go immediately, however, but she kept all the men hovering
about her, and adroitly avoided being alone with Haverford for an
instant.

"Did I hear you make an assignation for to-morrow with that dear, dull
person?" she queried listlessly as Mrs. Brenton and she were swept
fleetly homewards in Haverford's electric carriage.

"Yes; he is coming to see me in the morning, or rather to see somebody
else." And then Mrs. Brenton explained further.

"I fancy his mother must be a cat," said Camilla, yawning; "they don't
seem to meet very often. I am sure I am not surprised, for he is a very
dreary person, you know, Agnes, my dear."

"Since when?" Mrs. Brenton spoke with some irritation. "I thought you
liked him so much?"

"Oh, I change my mind occasionally!" She yawned again. "The fact is, I
do like him sometimes, but then again I dislike him more often. You
see, he bores me, and life is much--much too short to be bored...."

Mrs. Brenton sat silent a moment; then she said--

"Camilla, I want to..."

"No," said Camilla, "don't! I know so exactly what you want to say. I
know it all by heart. He cares for me; he is _such_ a good man; it will
be such a _splendid_ thing for me! Don't you suppose I can hear
everybody saying this? Well, of course, it would be a splendid thing. I
am not denying that; but oh! Agnes, he depresses me so horribly. When
he talks to me I feel as though I were being prepared for confirmation,
and he has a way of sitting and looking at me that is positively
unbearable. If he only had a spice of the devil in him...."

"Like Sammy, I suppose!" said Agnes Brenton drily.

"Yes"--impatiently--"like Sammy or any other man who lives, and moves,
and is not always up in the clouds contemplating the road to Heaven. My
dear Agnes, there is no getting away from the fact that Rupert
Haverford is a bore, a distinct and definite bore!"

"Well," said Mrs. Brenton, "if that is your opinion of the man, I
should not bother about him so much."

"Now you are cross with me," said Camilla, "dear sweet old thing! Don't
you know I always speak out my thoughts with you? Oh, here we are at
your lodgings already! Look here, Agnes, you must let me help you with
this girl. Poor soul! she must feel pretty miserable, I expect. Why not
bring her in to luncheon to-morrow?"

Mrs. Brenton kissed the speaker.

"Why will you always try and make me believe you are what you are not?"
she asked, half lightly, half sadly.

"Silly Agnes," said Camilla, laughingly, "it is all your own fault; you
are so anxious to make me a saint, and all the time I am very much the
other thing. Good night, darling!"

Mrs. Lancing's maid was waiting for her mistress, and there were some
letters and a note from Sir Samuel Broxbourne.

Camilla opened the note first.

It was merely a reminder that she had promised to ride with him the
following morning if the weather was good.

Sir Samuel was, of course, lending Mrs. Lancing a horse.

"I am deadly tired, but I don't believe I shall sleep a wink, Dennis.
You had better give me some bromide," Camilla said, as she was made
ready for bed.

"If I could only be sure," she said to herself when the maid was gone;
"he _seems_ just the same, and yet now and then he looks at me in
rather an odd way." She caught her breath. "Sammy can be so hard! All
the world knows that."

She sat crouched up looking into the fire for a long time, then she
shrugged her shoulders.

"Well, if ever the worst were to happen, and he should turn nasty, I
have the money now." She got up, and stood looking into the fire once
again "Only if," she said slowly, "he will not be satisfied with money,
if he...."

She shivered, not once, but several times, and hurriedly taking up the
sleeping draught her maid had prepared, she swallowed it, and then got
into bed; where she lay staring at the shadows on the walls and ceiling
made by the dancing flames of the fire, till her eyes closed at last
unconsciously in the sleep she had commanded.




CHAPTER V


Another person lay in bed that night watching the fireglow light up the
room and make fantastic patterns and shadows on the walls.

Caroline had been thoroughly tired out when Mrs. Brenton's maid had
arranged everything and she had been left alone. But she was too tired
to sleep.

The strangeness of her surroundings, and the strangeness of her
position generally, filled her with a kind of excitement. She had not
very much in front of her of a pleasurable nature, and yet the morrow
had for her a certain glamour.

As the first sensation of alarm and indignation provoked naturally by
the treatment she had received, by the abruptness with which her life
of dependence had been ended, died away, Caroline became conscious that
there was an undoubted charm about her present situation. A day before,
the future (when she had thought about it) had stretched before her in
a grey, a monotonous, an almost desolate fashion. Now all things were
possible, and hope began almost immediately to shed a glow on her
thoughts.

It was an amazingly delightful sensation to feel that she owned no
master.

Indeed, she felt a little irritated now with herself that she should
have supported so much with such an unquestioning docility, or that
having given so much obedience she should never have tried to satisfy
herself why this should have been exacted.

At school, of course, it had been the outcome of rules, of a _regime_
which had existed ever since she could remember, but when the school
life had ended, and she had gone to Mrs. Baynhurst, there really had
been no occasion, so she told herself now, to have accepted the laws
laid down for her with the same old obedience.

"Only she really never gave me the chance to speak," the girl mused to
herself, "and then I was such a little idiot when I first met her that
she frightened me! I expect she will be furious because I went to Mr.
Haverford. Now that I have seen him and spoken with him, it is easy
enough to understand why his mother prefers to see him only on rare
occasions. He has a blunt, straightforward way about him which must be
an abomination to her. He was not too amiable to me. Still, I must do
him justice," Caroline admitted here readily; "he saw at once that I
had a sort of claim on him, and duty with him evidently counts for a
good deal."

She turned comfortably on the soft pillow.

It was her first experience of a really luxurious bed, for she had been
better housed and better fed at school than as a dependant in Mrs.
Baynhurst's household.

She ought really to have gone to sleep, but whenever she closed her
eyes some new thought of the morrow and of all the other morrows would
make them spring open again.

The events of the last few hours had been so new that they had left her
startled out of her usual quiet acquiescence. Mrs. Brenton's warm
sympathy seemed to Caroline a heaven-sent gift. She had never realized
the lack of this sympathy in her life till now, nor, in truth, all the
many other things that she had lacked--those trivial everyday things
which stock the lives of most young creatures. Her childish joys had
all been secondhand ones. She had never had holidays, never any
excitement; there had been no Christmas or birthday presents for her,
no books or work-baskets, lace collars or ribbons. As a matter of fact,
she did not even know on what date she had been born, and except for
her school friends, and the little children whom she had taught the
last two years, she had never been kissed. Yet for all this she had
been a happy child and a happy girl.

Her orphanhood had cast no blight upon her, and she had made pleasures
for herself out of her very unpromising surroundings, as most healthy
young creatures will do.

Perhaps her greatest trial since she had lived with Octavia Baynhurst
had been the fact that she had never once left London, and the call of
the country to her nature at times had been so pressing that she had
felt like a wild flower cribbed and confined in a world of bricks and
mortar.

There had not even been a green leaf on which she could look. Mrs.
Baynhurst did not care for flowers. Neither did she consider it
necessary that anybody required exercise or fresh air.

Caroline had been rather a plump girl when she had said "good-bye" to
her school, but she had wasted woefully in the last ten months. Though
she had called herself strong when she had been speaking to Rupert
Haverford, she possessed at this moment very little of her normal
physical strength, but she had the force of a powerful will (although
up to the present she had had scant opportunity of exercising this) and
great courage, and to this she added the blessed gift of a cheerful
spirit.

With the very smallest encouragement Caroline Graniger would be happy.
There was nothing lachrymose about her or subservient. She had gone to
Mrs. Baynhurst's primed with good intentions and eager to give of her
very best to the woman who had claimed her.

Her schoolmistress had evidently been relieved to pass on the
responsibility of Caroline to some other person, and, at the same time,
had been rather flattered that one of her pupils should have been
called upon to fill an important post with a person of such mental
eminence.

Reflecting now on the events of the day just gone, Caroline came to the
conclusion that she was rather glad there had been no opportunity of
speaking with her first guardian, the mistress of the school.

"She would have put me through a cross-examination, and then I should
have told her the truth, and then she would have been cross with me. I
wonder where she has gone to? I feel sorry I have not written all these
months. Perhaps she thinks me very ungrateful, for I firmly believe she
kept me for a long time without any money."

This brought her back to the thought of what lay in the immediate
future.

"I wish I knew a little more," she said restlessly to herself, "I am
really very ignorant. No wonder that Mrs. Baynhurst found me useless!
How she would sneer if she could know I have been trying to teach
myself a little all these months!... Having made up her mind to the
fact that I am a fool, she would strongly object to have to acknowledge
that she had made a mistake, and I am _not_ a fool," said Caroline to
herself, with half a sigh and half a smile.

Really the bed was very comfortable, and the room was so cosy and
pleasant. She would have liked the night to have lasted much, much
longer than its proper span of hours.

"No, I am not a fool," she determined firmly, "and I shall demonstrate
this by informing Mr. Haverford to-morrow that, whatever comes, I don't
intend to go back to his mother's house. If she _is_ my guardian, she
has proved that she is not fit for the post, and as she has practically
turned me out of doors, it is not likely that I shall go back and ask
for re-admittance. I should like to go to school again, but not here in
London, somewhere where I can breathe, where I can run if I feel I want
to. No doubt," she mused, half wearily, a little later, "Mr. Haverford
will have some suggestions to offer. I dare say he will want me to go
into one of his charity institutions. Perhaps he will send me to the
workhouse."

She laughed at this, and so, thinking and pondering, she grew drowsy by
degrees, and sleep came to her just as the day (a clear, bright frosty
day) began to creep into existence.

It had been arranged between Mrs. Brenton and Haverford that Caroline
Graniger should go to him early in the morning, but when her maid
brought the news that Caroline was still sleeping, Mrs. Brenton sent
him a telegram, asking him to call that afternoon instead.

It was nearly half-past nine before Caroline Graniger joined Mrs.
Brenton at breakfast. The girl was greatly upset.

"I never slept late in my life before," she said. "I am generally awake
about six, and I always get I up soon after I wake."

"You're like me, I expect," said Mrs. Brenton. "I never sleep very well
the first part of the night when I am in a strange place, and then, of
course, I am drowsy in the morning."

"I was so excited," said Caroline, "I could not go to sleep. It was so
strange and so delightful to be in such a nice room. I am not used to
luxury. I think I know now how the children feel on Christmas Eve, when
they hang up their stockings, or when they expect a birthday. I kept my
eye on the chimney, almost expecting Santa Claus to appear every other
moment."

She laughed as she warmed her hands by the fire.

"Perhaps he did come, after all," Agnes Brenton said, "and there is
something nice waiting for you to-day."

Caroline Graniger turned and looked at the speaker.

"You have already filled my stocking," she said, her thin face full of
colour. Mrs. Brenton noticed that her eyes were not black, but dark,
very dark blue. "It was your goodness to me last night that made
everything so wonderful, so delightful. I never knew that any one could
be so kind as you are. I have a much better opinion of the world this
morning...."

"Let us talk about yourself," said Mrs. Brenton, as she poured out the
coffee. "Of course, you are not going back to Mrs. Baynhurst?"

"No," said Caroline; she was silent a moment, and then she said "No" a
second time. "But," she added, "I don't quite know what I _am_ going to
do." She stirred her coffee, and coloured. When she had that colour in
her face she looked much younger, and rather attractive. "I have been
wondering if you would advise me," she said, with some hesitation. "I
don't think I have the right to ask you, especially as you are so
wonderfully kind to me; but people who are kind always have to pay some
penalty. I found out that much when I was a very tiny child."

"How old are you?" asked Mrs. Brenton.

Caroline knitted her brows.

"I believe I am about nineteen. But I don't really know. I only go by
what Miss Beamish told me. That is the woman who kept the school where
I lived for such a long time," she explained; "and she always said that
I was about four when I first went to her."

"Four years old," said Agnes Brenton quickly. She felt a sharp pang of
pity for that little forlorn four-year-old child of the past. "That was
starting life early with a vengeance."

"Yes," said Caroline Graniger, "but we all have to begin some time or
another, and as, apparently, there was no one to object, I began at
four." She spoke quite cheerfully. Then she smiled. "Miss Beamish has
often told me that I was a very difficult child. They could not get me
to eat anything. She declares that very often she had to sit up half
the night and nurse me because I would not go to sleep in a bed." The
smile rippled into laughter. "I have often tried to imagine Miss
Beamish nursing me," she said. "If you knew her you would realize how
funny it sounds."

"Funny!" said Agnes Brenton to herself.

She busied herself attending to the material comfort of her guest for a
minute or two. Then she said--

"Of course I will advise you, Miss Graniger, and I shall be only too
glad to help you if I can. Just tell me what you think you could do.
What would you like to do?" Mrs. Brenton asked, going straight to the
point in her practical way.

"It is difficult," said Caroline Graniger, "for I don't quite know what
I can do. I have no accomplishments. I adore music, but I was never
taught a note. Music was an extra, and I was a charity girl. I can read
and write, and do a little arithmetic; I can sew, and I can dig," she
finished with another smile. "I am really quite a good gardener," she
said. "Whatever I do, I want, if possible, to be somewhere where there
is a garden, or at any rate where I can see grass and some trees. The
oppression of bricks and mortar is a great sufferance to me! Mrs.
Baynhurst's house is built in by other houses; the rooms are so dreary.
There is no air, and the windows are never open, and I never got out. I
used to drive with her occasionally, but I never walked."

Agnes Brenton fretted her brows into a slight frown.

"Do you like children?" she asked, after a little pause.

The thin, sallow face lit up.

"Children, yes, I love children. I was a pupil-teacher two years before
I left school. There were some quite tiny tots with Miss Beamish. She
had a large Indian connection, and also children from all parts of the
world. When I left there were two dear little souls there from
Barbados. I cried at leaving them," she sighed, "and I don't often
cry," she said.

Mrs. Brenton went on eating her breakfast, and Caroline Graniger
relapsed into silence for a moment. Then, with a rush of colour to her
cheeks, she said--

"But please don't let me bother you in any way, Mrs. Brenton. You have
been already much too good. I dare say Mr. Haverford will arrange
something for me."

Agnes Brenton was about to answer this with some kindly words when they
were startled by a sharp rap with a stick on the door, and then the
door was opened and Camilla presented herself.

She was in a riding-habit, and looked slim and boyish and radiant, and
extraordinarily pretty and young.

"Oh, you lazy Agnes," she said, "not finished breakfast yet! Look at
the time--nearly ten minutes past ten, and I have been out since
half-past eight." She bent to kiss Mrs. Brenton, and then gave Caroline
a smile and a little nod, as Agnes Brenton hurriedly introduced them.

"Give me something to eat, for the Lord's sake! I am positively
famished," she declared. She threw off her riding-gloves and tossed
them, with her stick and her hat, on to the couch.

"Didn't you have anything before you went out?" asked Mrs. Brenton.

"Good heavens, no!" said Camilla.

She stood in front of the looking-glass and ruffled her hair becomingly.

"Sammy sent word at eight o'clock that he was coming at half-past
eight. He made Dennis wake me up. There was no time for anything except
a bath, and how I tumbled into these things _I_ don't know."

She sat down opposite to Caroline, and began to eat with real enjoyment.

"I am rather glad you are breakfasting late; it is a bit of luck for
me. You have no idea how lovely it was in the Park, Agnes," she said.
"There was not a scrap of fog. Thank goodness for that! Those two dear
chickies of mine will be able to get out to-day. And oh! Agnes, another
blow! Nurse came to me this morning, just as I was going out, with a
doleful story about her father, or her mother, or somebody being
dreadfully ill, and asking me if she might go and nurse the sick
person. Isn't it too tiresome? She had only been with me a few months,
but really she seemed quite a likely person. Those poor children! They
do get such chopping and changing. Oh, by the way!" said Camilla, "I
think I had better send the horse away; I can go home in a hansom. May
I ring the bell?"

She half rose from the table, but Caroline Graniger was quicker.

"May I take your message?" she asked. She spoke shyly. This young and
very pretty woman was a new experience to her. She felt a little out of
the atmosphere, and imagining swiftly that Mrs. Brenton and Mrs.
Lancing might have something to say to one another, she seized the
chance of leaving them together.

"Oh, thank you!" said Camilla; "you are very kind. Just say to the
groom that Mrs. Lancing will not ride any more to-day.--Poor little
soul," said Camilla, sympathetically as the door closed, "how miserably
thin she is; she looks as if she had not had enough to eat, and you are
in your proper quarter, Agnes, playing the part of the good Samaritan.
Well, now you must help _me_, my dear, because nurse is in earnest. I
quite expect to find that she has gone when I get back. Why on earth do
servants have parents and relations? I believe they exist on purpose to
have the most mysterious diseases at the most inconvenient moments. Did
you ever know a cook whose mother had not a bad leg, whatever that may
be? Oh, how I hate housekeeping! I feel half inclined to live in an
hotel."

"You ought to take the children into the country," said Mrs. Brenton in
her quiet way.

Camilla ate a very good breakfast, and then looked up at her friend
with a quizzical expression.

"Well, Agnes," she said, and paused.

Mrs. Brenton just smiled.

"Well, Camilla?" she answered.

Mrs. Lancing laughed as she spread some butter on some toast.

"When you look straight down your nose in that fashion it means the
wind is in a bad quarter for somebody, and I fancy that somebody is me
just now."

Agnes Brenton laughed, but only slightly, and, getting up, moved to the
fireplace.

"My dear child," she said, "I wish you would not do these sort of
things."

"What sort of things?" asked Camilla.

Mrs. Brenton took up the poker and stirred the fire vigorously.

"You know quite well what I mean," she said a little impatiently, "and
I confess I don't understand you, Camilla. I thought you really
disliked Sammy Broxbourne. You used to be always running him down, I
remember."

"Oh! it's Sammy you object to, is it?" said Camilla. "My dear, dear
soul, I do assure you there wasn't a creature about this morning! That
is why I enjoyed the ride. We flew through the Park as if we had been a
couple of birds."

"You have such a heap of people that you can go about with," said Mrs.
Brenton, half impatiently; "why choose the one man that is likely to do
you harm?"

"Oh, you know that is all rubbish, Agnes!" Mrs. Lancing said a little
impatiently in her turn. "Sammy is not a hero, but he is no worse than
any other man; and then we are connected, you know, and that goes a
long way."

"He is a second cousin of your late husband's," said Mrs. Brenton;
"that is no kind of relationship. However," she added, "I suppose you
know your own business best, and I have no right to interfere as long
as you are happy, my dear child. Happiness is the one great thing,
after all."

Camilla finished the toast, and then got up.

She sighed a quick, impatient sigh.

"If I sit here I shall eat all there is on the table, and I have driven
that girl away," she said; "she looks rather nice, Agnes. What is she
going to do?"

"I was just talking things over with her," said Mrs. Brenton, "though I
suppose really this is a matter for Mr. Haverford to settle. But she
interests me, and I feel so sorry for her. She will not go back to his
mother, that is very sure. I think she will try and get a place as
nursery governess or something of that sort. She seems devoted to
children."

"Perhaps she would do for me," said Camilla in her impulsive way.

Mrs. Brenton only smiled.

"We must go into matters a little bit more," she said, "before we can
come to any conclusion."

"Well, you are going to bring her to lunch, aren't you?"

At this moment a maid came in and handed a telegram to Mrs. Brenton.

It was from Rupert Haverford, announcing that he would be with her
directly, as in the afternoon he was unfortunately engaged.

Camilla picked up her hat and gloves in a great hurry.

"Oh, let me get away!" she said. "I don't think I will bother to have a
cab, it is such a short distance, and I can walk that far. Don't forget
lunch, one-thirty."

As she passed out, Camilla met Caroline Graniger on the stairs.

"Mrs. Brenton is going to bring you to lunch with me to-day," she said.
"I hear you like children, I am sure you will like mine. They are two
such sweethearts."

She nodded brightly, and ran down the staircase.

Mrs. Brenton handed Haverford's telegram to Caroline when the girl
joined her.

"Perhaps it is as well that he should come over early," she said, "then
we can have the rest of the day to ourselves." They chatted a little
more on the subject of Caroline's future. Mrs. Brenton wanted the girl
to have some definite scheme to propose to Haverford when he came.
While they talked she apprised Caroline's different points, and found
many things that she liked.

Caroline spoke very well. It was not the pretty, careless method of
speech which Camilla affected. She seemed to be chary of her words, as
a rule. When "no" sufficed, she said "no," and nothing more. She walked
well, and her manners were those of a lady.

"Such a girl," said Agnes Brenton to herself, "must have patience in
her bones. Not patience by nature, but by education. I am not at all
sure that she would not be the very person for Camilla's children. They
want a refined influence about them; education and all the rest can
wait a year or two; but Betty ought not to be so constantly with
uncultivated people. Camilla hardly seems to realize that the child is
no longer a baby."

When Haverford arrived, Mrs. Brenton left Miss Graniger and he together.

"I telegraphed to my mother first thing this morning," said Rupert
Haverford, breaking a slightly awkward pause as the door closed behind
Mrs. Brenton. "I hope to have some communication from her during the
day."

"Yes," said Caroline Graniger. She had fallen back into her stiff
attitude of the night before.

"I have asked her for an explanation. Meanwhile," Rupert added, "I want
to arrange something for you. Mrs. Brenton has been extremely kind, but
I feel sure you will not like to encroach on that kindness." He put
some bank-notes on the table. "I have brought you twenty pounds," he
said; "with that I dare say you can manage for a little while, and I
know of a place where you can stop till we have heard satisfactorily
from my mother."

"I don't think it matters very much what your mother writes," Caroline
Graniger said shortly; "she may have explanations to give you, and I
shall certainly require such explanations later, but I have determined
to cut myself adrift from Mrs. Baynhurst for good and all." She paused
an instant, and then, colouring vividly, she said, "I--I will borrow
five pounds, Mr. Haverford, it will be quite enough, and I shall be
very glad to stay at this place you speak of till I get some kind of
work."

"I advise you to take the twenty pounds," said Haverford a little
drily, "you may want to buy things. You can always repay me at some
future date. This is the address of the lady who will be very glad to
give you house room for a little while. She is a woman who does a great
deal of work for me, and, as she is in contact with all kinds and
conditions of people, she may be able to find you employment."

There was another pause, and then he addressed her rather abruptly.

"Has my mother never told you anything about yourself at all?"

She shook her head.

"And you have no recollection beyond the school where you lived?"

Again she shook her head, and then hurriedly she said--

"Sometimes a vague memory comes to me. If I shut my eyes I can imagine
myself being carried in some one's arms, hearing a voice singing to me,
and the sound of the sea in the near distance. It is none of it very
clear, but I have always imagined that I must have been on board a ship
at some time when I was a tiny child, because I recollect seeing the
dark sky with stars in it, and then some ropes and a tall, straight
piece of wood like a tree, that I know now must have been a mast. I am
rather fond of that old memory," Caroline Graniger said. She spoke
dreamily, as if to herself.

He looked at her sharply, and he pitied her.

She must have had a very unlovely existence in his mother's house.

Mrs. Brenton came back at that moment, and Haverford told her what he
had arranged.

"Well, I dare say that will be all right, but I cannot part with Miss
Graniger till to-morrow, or perhaps a day or so later," said Mrs.
Brenton in her brisk, pleasant manner. "As a matter of fact, I have
some ideas of my own which I should like to discuss with her. You won't
mind staying with me a little while longer, will you?" she said,
turning with a smile to Caroline. The girl did not answer; she bit her
lip sharply.

The tears that would never come for harshness or even for sorrow rushed
to her eyes now. She turned away and stood looking out of the window
while Mrs. Brenton chatted on lightly to Mr. Haverford, and in a few
minutes he took his leave.

"Now I must write some letters," Agnes Brenton said briskly. "My dear,
do ring that bell, and we will have that table cleared, and after that
we must go out, it is a shame to lose this bright morning. Just make
yourself cosy by the fire, and look at these papers. Camilla sent them.
She buys every newspaper going, and when she reads them is a mystery."

Caroline took the papers, but they lay in her lap untouched.

She sat looking at the roofs of the houses opposite. They were powdered
with the white of a hoar frost, and the red, red sun shone from behind
and made the frost a network of jewels.

A slight mist hung in the air like a veil. The sense of unreality, the
delightful excitement that had held Caroline as in a spell throughout
the night had sway with her again now; nothing was very tangible or
distinct. Rupert Haverford had brought her spirit to earth and hard
facts for a few moments, but as he had left the house the range of
resentful feeling he had roused had gone with him. She even passed away
from the vexation of having to be temporarily obliged to him. As she
rested back in the comfortable chair, looking at the glory of the
winter sky, she felt that she and happiness had really met for the
first time.

"There!" exclaimed Mrs. Brenton, "my letter to Dick is written. A very
long time ago I spoiled my husband," she said, looking back over her
shoulder; "whenever we were apart I promised to write to him every day,
and now he holds me to this bargain. I really do owe him a letter this
morning, however," said Agnes Brenton, "for I came away in such a hurry
with her. Mrs. Lancing insisted on bringing me up to town, and I had
scarcely time to explain things, or arrange my household affairs.
Happily, Dick is an old hand at housekeeping...." She broke off, and
turned again in her chair.

From the staircase beyond there came all at once the sound of an
important approach; there was a great stamping of feet, accompanied by
observations in clear, high-pitched little voices.

"Camilla's children!" said Mrs. Brenton.

As she put down her pen and rose the door was opened very widely, and
two small persons entered hand-in-hand.

Caroline had never seen two prettier little mortals, or two so daintily
attired.

They flung themselves on Mrs. Brenton, and hugged her with enthusiasm.

"Good morning, Auntie Brenny," said Betty, the eldest, and she settled
her ruffled plumage as she spoke. "How is you this morning, darling?
Aren't you very pleased to see us? We comed because we have brought you
this letter from mother, and because we promised to come." She advanced
to Caroline and took her little sister with her. "Good morning," she
said; "how d-ye-do? Say 'Good morning', Baby."

Baby put out a tiny hand in a white woollen glove with fingers that
were much too large.

"Dormez bien!" she said, with an angelic smile and a doubtful accent.

She cuddled up to Caroline to be kissed, and then, detaching herself
from her sister, went and seated herself at the table, while Betty
administered correction.

"'Dormez bien' is not 'good morning,' Baby; it's 'good night,'" she
said; then she looked at Caroline and shrugged her shoulders. "Baby
does say such extra-ninary things," she observed.

"I want somefing to eat," said Baby in a very determined voice.

Dennis, the maid who was in charge of the children, and was speaking to
Mrs. Brenton, advanced quickly.

"Oh no, Miss Baby, dear, you _can't_ want anything to eat, I am sure!
Please ma'am," appealing to Mrs. Brenton, "don't give her anything."

But Miss Baby had her own views on this subject.

"I want some 'oney and some 'am," she said, tearing off her pretty grey
fur cap and removing her gloves. "Nasty Dennis, go away! I'm awful
'ungry!"

Betty was making great friends with Caroline.

"I like you," she said candidly; "why have I never met you before? What
is your name?" Then she whispered, "I'm going to have a birthday in
March; but don't tell Baby, she'll want it too, and she does fuss so
when she wants things. How old are you?" Caroline knelt down the better
to study the child's brilliantly lovely little face.

Betty Lancing at six had all the charm and distinction of her mother.
Already she commanded homage.

"I was only born yesterday," Caroline answered the child, and her voice
was not quite steady.

"Oh!" said Betty. She stared at Caroline thoughtfully. "You look very
big for a baby," she said, "I've seen littler babies than you. Mrs.
Bates, that's the lady that cleans our kitchen sometimes, has a tiny,
tiddy little baby, and it is three months--that's older than you, a
lot. Your eyes are wet," said Betty pointedly; "are you crying? What
for? Has any one smacked you?"

Fortunately at this moment Betty was awakened to a sense of her
responsibilities, for she turned and saw her sister regaling herself at
the table.

"Baby!" she exclaimed. She darted forward and vigorously shook the
shoulder of the small person devouring bread and honey.

"Oh! you greedy greed. And you had such a lot of breakfast! I never
knowed such a child in all my life," commented Betty severely; then,
shrugging her shoulders, she turned to Mrs. Brenton. "I can't do
nothing with her!" she said.

This remark provoked a scene in which Baby amply demonstrated that
honey was excellent for strengthening the vocal cords.

Finally she consented to sit on Caroline's knee whilst her hands and
little person generally were made clean, and then--Betty having eaten
several biscuits meanwhile--the time for halting was declared at an end.

"If we don't go now we shall get no walk; and Miss Betty, please
promise to hold my hand," pleaded Dennis the maid. "She do play such
pranks, ma'am, she makes my heart fair jump, that she do."

But Betty and Baby were hanging on to Caroline.

"We want you to come out with us," was their cry; and Betty added
magniloquently, "We'll be most awful good if you'll come too."

Mrs. Brenton smiled into Caroline's eyes.

"Put on your things and have a good run with them," she said.

A few moments later three persons attempted to go down a very narrow
staircase abreast. It was a difficult occupation, and Caroline in the
centre was quite wedged in. Useless was the voice of remonstrance from
Dennis in the background, Betty and Baby refused to be separated from
their new companion.

"It must be managed some way," said Caroline, who had a resourceful
mind; and, picking up both small grey-coated figures, she carried them
down the stairs under her arms like parcels.

The result was most satisfactory.

"Do it again," said Baby delightedly. But Betty came to the rescue.

"No, no, Baby," she said, "it's cruel; can't you hear her blowing? And
just look how red she is!"

Outside in the street, Betty scanned Caroline closely and critically.

"Nurse has a jacket like that, but it's new, and she wears awful smart
gloves. She's a lot smarter than you...."

Dennis intervened piteously.

"Miss Betty ... my dear!"

But Caroline only laughed, and off they started down the street--a
little grey fairy hooked on to either arm--so quickly that Dennis had
almost to run to keep up with them.

Mrs. Brenton stood at the window and watched them with a smile till
they were out of sight, then sat down to her writing again.

"It might be the very thing both for the girl and the children," she
mused.

Then she opened the little note Betty had brought her from her mother.

Camilla wrote in a hurry.

"Such a fearful bore!... I have just had a telegram from Violet
Lancing, inviting herself to luncheon.... I know what this means! the
old story of prying and questioning, all done under a pretence of love
for 'poor Ned's children.' Don't, for Heaven's sake, fail to come. I
shall feel a little better if you are with me. Oh, how tired I am of
being overlooked by these Lancing people! Really, I do think I shall
have to do something that will make me free of this worry, at all
events. Don't the children look sweet in their new coats?

"Ever yours,
    "Camilla."

"P.S.--Of course nurse has gone. Honestly, I should like to try this
girl who is with you. She looks capable, and if she has had such a bad
time with that Baynhurst woman, I dare say she would manage to rub
along here. If you don't think she will do, then, darling, _do_ try and
find some one else."

Another postscript:

"I have half a mind to tell Violet that Miss Graniger is the
children's new governess; she is sure to pull a long face if she hears
that they are without a nurse. And it would not be _quite_ untrue. What
do you think?"




CHAPTER VI


Out in the Park Caroline found a land of veritable enchantment. The red
sun had mounted higher into a clear, cloudless sky, and it endowed the
earth with a ruddy suggestion of warmth, but it was merely a
suggestion; the keen cold of the air held its own, and the grey bloom
of the hoar-frost lay like a veil on the grass.

Dennis was left far behind. She had a pinched look, and her nose was
red.

"Keep on the path, please, Miss Betty," she feebly protested every now
and then.

But her voice was thin and weak; in any case Betty had no ears for her.

She danced, and she sang, and she curveted gracefully on the
frost-covered grass.

"Isn't it lovely? I want to roll in it!" she declared, as she paused at
last and panted for breath.

Baby looked up at Caroline with half-shut eyes.

"I want a bun," she said plaintively.

"A bun!" cried Caroline.... "What _is_ a bun?"

Both children exclaimed at this, and then proceeded to volunteer
explanations.

"You see," Betty said to Baby, and she stooped her flower-like face
confidentially to the smaller one, "she can't know as much as me and
you, 'cause she was only borned yesterday, and I don't suppose she's
ever eated a bun."

"Oh!" said Baby, looking at Caroline meditatively.

She had such an adorable air, standing with her little head on one
side, and her eyes black as sloes, full of mysterious thought, that
Caroline was obliged to hug her.

After that they had races, and Dennis watched them with pleasure and
some envy as she stood shivering in the cold wind.

"You're the proper sort to be with children, miss," she remarked to
Caroline, when at last they turned homewards. "Now I never do know what
to do with 'em, and Miss Betty she does ask such queer questions too."

Caroline returned from her walk flushed and dishevelled, but happy-eyed.

It was almost impossible to recognize in her the thin, white-faced,
rather defiant girl of the night before.

"What dear little loves!" she exclaimed, as she and Mrs. Brenton met.
She had accompanied the children back to their home, and was rather
late in making her appearance.

Another note had come from Camilla, in which Mrs. Brenton was urged to
be with Mrs. Lancing at least a quarter of an hour before lunch-time.

"Then we can have five minutes to ourselves," Camilla scribbled, "and I
shall feel fortified to meet all the catty things Violet means to say!"

Caroline rather drew back from the thought of accepting Mrs. Lancing's
invitation.

"She is really very, very kind," she said earnestly, "but still I don't
know that I ought to go to lunch."

Agnes Brenton answered this promptly.

"Of course, you must come with me. Camilla is the most hospitable
person in the world, and I know she will be very disappointed if you
don't go. She has taken a fancy to you."

Mrs. Brenton did not think it desirable to add more than this. She knew
Camilla so well.

It would be unkind to put false hopes into the girl's mind; in all
probability the suggestion Camilla had made about Miss Graniger would
have passed already from her thoughts.

So it was settled, and Caroline made her modest toilet. That is to say,
she arranged her hair carefully and put on her shabby hat and coat with
more consideration than she had ever worn them before.

When they reached Mrs. Lancing's small house, Camilla, who had
evidently been waiting for them, pounced on them both, and drew them
into the dining-room.

"Violet arrived at a quarter to one," she announced, "Isn't it like
her? I know she thought to have a good time alone with my
writing-table, but I was a little too sharp for her! I locked up
everything. She pretends she is very glad to meet you, Agnes. She has
got a cold," said Camilla, the next moment, "and looks more like a
poached egg than ever. By the way, you are going to have a wretched
lunch, my dear friends, so I warn you!... I did intend giving you
something nice, and Violet loves good things to eat, but she would
sniff at a sole if she saw it on my table, and faint if we had a
pheasant, and all the Lancing family would shake with horror at the
extravagance of a sweet and cheese at the same time! Never mind!"
Camilla added, with a sparkle in her eyes, "you shall have a lovely tea
to make up for everything. Agnes, do go up and speak to her, there's a
dear."

As Mrs. Brenton obediently went up the stairs, Camilla slipped her hand
through Caroline's arm.

"The children are quite mad about you, Miss Graniger," she said, "and
they have been entreating me to let you stay with them. I wish you
would! I am so tired of having ignorant and unsympathetic people about
them. Agnes was telling me this morning that you would like to be with
children. Why shouldn't you be with mine?"

Caroline did not find it very easy to speak.

Mrs. Lancing's manner charmed and yet startled her; it was so new, too,
and so pleasant to be addressed in this semi-familiar, easy fashion.

When she found her voice it was to make a protest.

"I do love children," she said, "and it would be a great happiness to
me to be with yours.... But you don't know anything about me. I am sure
you would want some one cleverer and better than I am, and
then"--Caroline paused an instant.... "Mrs. Baynhurst is sure to give
me a very bad character," she added hurriedly.

Camilla snapped her fingers.

"I am not going to trouble about Mrs. Baynhurst," she said. "Everybody
knows that she is a crank. Look here, we'll settle all sorts of things
afterwards. Now I must go upstairs, or I shall have my dear
sister-in-law crawling down to see what I am doing. Betty will come
down to lunch," Camilla added, "and it would be so sweet of you if you
would just keep an eye on her; she shall sit next to you. Would you
like to go up to the nursery and come down with her?"--this was
suggested with the air of one who has a sudden and happy inspiration.
"You can leave your hat and coat in my bedroom."

Caroline followed Mrs. Lancing up the stairs.

She was fascinated into compliance. Camilla's pretty ways won her heart
very much as the children had won it. There was something magnetic in
the sympathy that pervaded her.

Caroline felt bewildered, and moved, and excited, but only in a
pleasurable sense.

When they reached the drawing-room door, Mrs. Lancing smiled and
whispered.

"My room is on the floor above this," she said, "and the nursery is
above that again. Do, like a dear, see that Betty has her hair done,
and that her face and hands are washed. Her aunt always examines her as
if she were a curious insect or a mineral specimen. Babsy will have her
dinner with Dennis, and come down later."

Camilla gave a little sigh of contentment as Caroline Graniger passed
up the stairs, and she glanced at herself in a long mirror that was
placed at a convenient angle to make the staircase seem bigger.

Her appearance satisfied her. Dennis had picked out the oldest gown she
possessed, and she had carefully denuded herself of all the little
jewelry that she was accustomed to wear. But a shabby gown could not
dim the real radiance of her beauty.

Mrs. Horace Lancing was sitting bolt upright by the fire, talking to
Agnes Brenton; she was rather plump, with masses of yellowish hair, had
short-sighted eyes, and a dull white skin. She always used long,
blue-tinted glasses, and turned them on Camilla now.

It was evident that the drawing-room had been arranged for her coming.
Like Camilla's own charming person, the room had been swept of
innumerable little prettinesses, and it looked bare and almost shabby.

Sir Samuel's flowers had been carefully concealed.

"Dear Violet," Camilla said, "won't you really take off your hat? It
looks as if you were going to rush away so soon, dear, and, of course,
you are going to stay the afternoon."

Mrs. Horace Lancing shook her head stiffly.

"I have to meet Horace at the stores at three," she said, "we are going
back by the three-fifty train, so I must leave you early. Aren't the
children in yet, Camilla?"

"Betty is being made ready for luncheon, and Baby will come down
by-and-by. You have no idea, Agnes, how much I like Miss Graniger ...
the children's new governess," Camilla explained to her sister-in-law.

Mrs. Brenton half frowned and half smiled. She had not supposed that
matters would have gone so far in so short a time, and resented the
prevarication on Caroline's account and on her own. But she said
nothing.

"Isn't that a new photograph of you, Camilla?" asked Mrs. Lancing,
getting up and peering at a frame on the piano.

"A snapshot," said Camilla, lightly. She moved near to Mrs. Brenton for
an instant, and said in a low tone, "Don't glare at me so fiercely,
Agnes.... I have arranged everything; she is enchanted, and I know she
will be just the very girl for me...."

Mrs. Horace Lancing put down the portrait.

"Extremely well done for a snapshot," she said coldly. "I did not know
you went in motors; those furs are new to me."

Camilla laughed.

"I am a fraud," she cried, "dressed up in other people's possessions.
Ah! here is lunch at last! I hope you can eat leg of mutton, Violet? I
confess I am not very fond of it, but," with a sigh, "everything nice
is so dear. Don't you think life costs more and more every day?"

Out on the staircase Betty was standing with her arm entwined in
Caroline's. She allowed herself to be kissed with reluctance by her
aunt, but clung about her mother's neck ecstatically for a moment.

Camilla had done well to warn her guests; it was a very depressing
luncheon; the mutton was underdone, the greens were gritty, and the
potatoes full of water. Camilla made a few apologies.

"A good cook is quite beyond my means, you know," she said plaintively.

Mrs. Brenton tried hard not to laugh as she remembered the dainty fare
Camilla's cook usually provided.

She made the best of everything, but Mrs. Horace Lancing, who was very
hungry, looked annoyed.

"I never have cheap food," she observed, "it is not an economy."

At this Camilla opened her eyes.

"Do you really think that?" she asked; "and I am always trying to be so
very cheap."

Conversation lagged. Betty at the lower end of the table, had a good
deal to say to Caroline, but it was all said in whispers.

When, however, the suet pudding with treacle had made its round the
child demanded some dessert, and her mother, forgetful for the moment,
gave her permission to carry round a silver basket from the sideboard,
in which grapes and pears and other delightful fruits were clustered
together in picturesque fashion.

"She is learning to be useful, you see, Violet," Camilla observed
plaintively.

But Mrs. Horace Lancing was looking at the dessert through her
blue-tinted glasses.

"Peaches!" she said, her tone a mixture of satisfaction and hostile
criticism.

Camilla bit her lips, and was thankful that she had locked away her
tradesmen's books with her letters and intimate papers.

"Take care, Betty, my sweetheart," she said, and then she explained as
the child cautiously carried her burden from one to another. "A
present," she said, "Mr. Haverford often sends me fruit; it is so good
of him; such things are much appreciated by us."

"Mr. Haverford," repeated her sister-in-law, "who is he? I don't know
his name."

"He's a dear," Betty responded before her mother could speak. "I 'dore
Mr. Haverford! I wish he lived with us.... I tell you what," continued
Betty, her eyes glistening, her little voice clear and high, "I wish
he'd come and sleep with us, mumsy ... that would be really, really
fun! I'm sure he wouldn't snore like nurse does, and I know he'd tell
us a lot of stories. Oh, here is Baby! Come along, ducksie, and have a
bit of Betty's appy...." Betty was always maternal with her little
sister.

After luncheon the two children were ranged in front of Mrs. Horace
Lancing, who interrogated them with a nervous manner and in the
unnatural voice that some people think necessary to affect with
children. Betty resented her questions and was mute, and she in her
turn resented, as she always did, the little creatures' dainty
appearance.

They only wore overalls of brown holland, but no home scissors had cut
the holland, and, like their mother, they had already attained the art
of giving distinction to the most ordinary garments.

Mrs. Brenton had discreetly withdrawn, and Caroline would have gone
too, but a pleading look from Camilla restrained her.

She stood in the background, feeling amused rather than uncomfortable
as Mrs. Horace, failing in conversational efforts, scanned the two
small figures critically through her glasses.

"Don't you think you ought to have Marian's hair cut?" she queried. "It
is so bad for little children to have such long hair. And I think
Elizabeth is looking very thin," was her verdict on Betty. "Camilla, do
you give her maltine or anything nourishing?"

Camilla knelt down and took both her children in her arms;
surreptitiously she kissed her baby's bright curls.

"Now, darlings, kiss Aunt Violet, and run away. Miss Graniger, I think
it must be another walk, it is such a lovely day, but please come in
quite early."

The two little persons disappeared with a right good will, and as the
sisters-in-law were left alone they heard sounds of laughter and
singing, signs of joy at freedom, from the staircase beyond.

"I am very lucky to have such a nice governess," Camilla said.

Mrs. Horace said--

"Yes; but I always think these sort of persons want such a lot of
looking after. I never would have a governess. Mabel went to school
very early. I suppose you have good references with that girl? To me
she looks too young," she said the next moment; "and Elizabeth needs to
be in such careful hands. She is intelligent, of course, but her manner
is rather pert.... But then I suppose you never attempt to correct her,
Camilla?"

"I was never slapped when I was a child, so I don't know how to slap
other people," said Camilla.

She drew up a stool in front of the fire, and sat down on it.

She was perfectly well aware that something disagreeable was coming,
and she ranged herself to meet it with resignation.

"I have no doubt," she added, with a little laugh, "that it would have
been an excellent thing for me if daddy had spanked me now and then;
but, dear old soul, he couldn't hurt any living creature, much less me.
When I was naughty he gave me chocolates instead of the whip; but, on
the whole, I was a fairly good child. I have a theory, you know,
Violet, that sympathy can do far more than punishment. If Betty sees me
unhappy when she is naughty, it makes her wretched; that is just how I
was with daddy. Ah! well, if I had no slaps in those old days, I have
plenty now!"

"I don't think you have much to grumble at," said Violet Lancing.

Camilla looked up at her and frowned slightly, then she smiled.

"Let us get it over," she said. "I can see that you have come here to
scold to-day."

"Horace has been waiting to hear from you as you promised," said Mrs.
Horace, stiffly. "You had your quarter's allowance quite six weeks ago,
and you have never written."

Camilla frowned again, this time sharply; she was shielding her face
with her two hands. She had expected the usual tirade; not this. So
Horace had given her away! How mean of him! She had never supposed that
he would have confided in Violet.

"I am so sorry," she began, and then she stopped with a quick sigh. She
was so weary, so unutterably weary of this kind of thing! There came
upon her a reckless sort of feeling to speak out frankly, and send this
woman to the uttermost ends of the earth, or to perdition; the latter
for choice.

"I don't think you know what it means to us," said Violet Lancing,
getting agitated. "If Horace had told me about your letter when it came
in the summer, I should never have permitted him to lend you that
money. I only found it out by chance the other day, and I must say I am
surprised, Camilla, that you should have gone to Horace for help. You
know perfectly well that we have the hardest work to get along on what
we have. I suppose you think grandpa does a lot for us," ... here the
speaker laughed shortly. "As he almost ruined himself over Ned, you
see, he has no money to give to any of the rest of the family!"

"And naturally Ned's widow and children are eating him out of house and
home," Camilla said. She had grown pale. Except on occasions like this
she never spoke her dead husband's name.

"I am not grumbling about that, Camilla. You have a right to be
provided for, especially as Ned treated you so badly. But you ought to
manage better, and I can only repeat that you have no right to borrow
from us. Horace advanced you a hundred pounds last August, and you
promised _faithfully_ to give it back to him when grandpa sent you your
quarter's cheque. A hundred pounds is not a hundred pence," said Mrs.
Horace, sententiously; "it isn't to be picked up every day."

Camilla got up and kicked the stool away.

"I am horribly sorry, Violet. I give you my word of honour I intended
to send Horace the money, but you don't know how pressed I was in
September. I have an awfully hard time to make ends meet. Of course,
Ned's father is very good to allow me what he does, but the fact is it
is practically impossible to live on what I have."

"Yes, as you live, certainly," agreed Mrs. Horace Lancing; "but you
could manage splendidly if you did what you ought to do--cut down
expenses in every direction, and go into the country. You ought never
to have kept on this house."

Camilla moved about the room.

"Oh, that old, old story again!" she exclaimed impatiently. "Don't you
know how we threshed out all the ways and means when...?" She hurried
on, "Colonel Lancing himself decided that it was best for me to stay on
here, and so if you want to quarrel with any one, go to him, Violet; it
is no use coming to me...."

Mrs. Horace Lancing got a little red in the face. "I don't want to
interfere with you or your arrangements, Heaven knows," she said; "I
only want you to be just with us, for, whatever you may say, you know
as well as I do that you ought to have paid Horace back as you
arranged." There was a little pause. "I shall be very much obliged if
you will let me know what you are going to do about this, Camilla. We
are not in a position to wait indefinitely. I really came here to-day,"
Mrs. Horace Lancing said, firmly, "to ask you to let me have some of
the money at once."

Camilla stood by the window flicking the long curtains.

This subject, and the recrimination it provoked, made every nerve in
her body tingle; in such a moment the sordidness of this perpetual
difficulty with money, the ugliness of money itself, settled on her
spirit, crushing it down as by some actual physical effort.

The spell of ease and relief that Haverford's generosity had signified
had been very brief. After a good deal of deliberation, she had filled
in the blank cheque for a thousand pounds.

Her inclination and her necessity had both urged her to make it three
times that sum, but she had been temperate, feeling the need of
caution. The cheque had gone to her bank the day before, and already
she had drawn very largely against it. She dared not drain the money in
its entirety, otherwise she would leave herself unprotected should the
evil she feared (to meet which she had borrowed this sum) fall upon her.

In casting up her position, she had dealt only with those things that
were disagreeably prominent ... and she had absolutely forgotten her
obligation to her brother-in-law. She regretted now, impatiently
enough, that she had not drawn upon Haverford for a much larger amount.
If she were to give Violet even a portion of this debt, she would leave
herself without a penny of ready money once more.

Mrs. Horace Lancing was continuing to press the matter home in an
aggravating way; she enumerated the many necessities her life lacked,
and all that she would have done during the last few months if only her
husband had cultivated prudence instead of generosity.

It suddenly dawned upon Camilla that her brother-in-law must have
passed through an exceedingly unpleasant time.

"Poor Horace!" she said to herself. He was the only member of her
husband's family who had shown her a particle of sympathy, and she felt
honestly sorry in this moment that she should have trespassed so
heavily on that sympathy.

She let the curtain slip from her fingers.

"Look here, Violet, I can't possibly do anything now, really I can't;
but at Christmas I promise faithfully."

Mrs. Horace laughed.

"At Christmas! Oh yes! And when Christmas comes it will be, 'Violet
dear, I am so very sorry, but can't you possibly wait till Easter?' Oh,
I know ... I know!"

There were two bright patches of unbecoming colour on her cheeks; she
was adjusting her veil with hands that trembled.

"You have no right to say that sort of thing!" said Camilla, hotly; "it
is very unjust and very untrue."

"And you have no right to go behind my back and borrow from my
husband," said Violet Lancing. Her pale eyes looked very angry. "If you
wanted money so badly you might have asked grandpa, I think, or
somebody else. I consider it was awfully mean of you to go to Horace,
and not to let me know a word about it. We have all sorts of worries
ourselves, and the boys cost us no end of money; but you are just Ned
all over again, Camilla! Everything you want you must have without
considering any one or anything but yourself. I used to think all the
old trouble was Ned's fault, and I was awfully sorry when you were left
to fight for yourself, but now I know better!"

"Is all this necessary?" Camilla asked in a low voice.

But Mrs. Horace was wound up.

"I can't help it. You've brought it on yourself, and you ought to hear
the truth now and again. You're not only horribly selfish, you're as
deceitful as you can be.... You can't pretend so easily with me,
Camilla! I know perfectly well that your life isn't dull and miserable
as you try to make us believe, and I know, too, why you never want any
of us to come here unawares." She jerked her veil down over her chin
and tore it. "I am not a fool!" she finished, with a hard laugh,
"though you may think I am."

"You are very angry with me, and you are talking a lot of nonsense,"
said Camilla.

She looked away from the other woman.

"I am very sorry you are vexed simply because when I was in trouble I
turned to Ned's brother. It seemed the most natural thing to do. I know
if Horace had asked Ned ... to help him in the old days he would have
done it, and gladly, too!" She caught her breath, and for a moment she
could not speak; then in a low voice she said, "I shall send this money
back before Christmas; on that you may rely."

Mrs. Horace Lancing made a curious expression with her mouth, and rose
to go. Instantly Camilla's manner changed.

"I am sorry you won't stay to tea.... You had such a horrid lunch. Give
Horace my love, and tell him I am extremely hurt with him because he
did not come here and fetch you. Will you have a cab?"

Violet Lancing shook her head, she picked up her tweed coat and
squeezed herself into it with an effort. Her gloves took some time to
put on. To make conversation and relieve the strained atmosphere,
Camilla asked after the health of all the people she detested. She was
particularly anxious to know how matters were passing with Mrs.
Horace's own household, but she avoided all mention of her
father-in-law a fact Mrs. Horace quickly made a note of.

"I didn't tell grandpa I was coming here," she observed, as she
buttoned the last glove-button; it was evident she had more to say, and
she said it. "I think it only friendly to let you know, Camilla, that
grandpa is not very nice about you just now," she said. "Though you
never see him, he seems to know all that is going on. The other night
when you were being discussed at dinner-time, he was quite angry."

"He has always been nasty with me. That is nothing new," said Camilla,
quickly.

Mrs. Horace Lancing looked at her in a sly kind of way.

"Well, of course, it is none of my business, but I do think you are
foolish not to try and make friends with him. Have you ever thought
what would happen if he were to stop your allowance? I have heard him
threaten this more than once. And then he complains bitterly that you
never take the children to see him. It would help things a lot for you
if you were to do this now and then. He is an old man, you know, and
old people like to be remembered sometimes."

Camilla's eyes were bright.

"I am sorry, but the suburbs make me ill. If Colonel Lancing wants to
see the children he must come here...."

There was almost a frightened expression for an instant on the other
woman's face; evidently "grandpa" was no joking matter to her.

"Well, you can't say I haven't warned you," she said, and then she
laughed. "The suburbs have their uses all the same sometimes, haven't
they?" she observed. "Let me see. I think I left my umbrella
downstairs."

Camilla accompanied her departing guest to the door.

"Are you sure you won't have a cab; it is getting late, you know."

There was a package lying on the hall table beside Mrs. Lancing's
umbrella.

"Do you mind taking that to Mabel?" asked Camilla. "It is some
chocolate, it won't do her any harm; it came from Paris."

When she was alone she mounted the stairs slowly and sat down once more
on the stool in front of the fire. With a sigh, she clasped her hands
round one knee, and swayed backwards and forwards, shutting her eyes,
and Agnes Brenton, coming in rather softly, found her like this.

Mrs. Brenton paused a moment before advancing, and then she went
forward and put her hand gently on Camilla's shoulder.

"What is it, dear? Did she scratch you very badly?"

Camilla turned and laughed faintly.

"She always manages to upset me, and as she came on purpose to be
disagreeable, her visit has been most successful."

Mrs. Brenton pulled forward a chair, and sat down. She had left her
knitting on one of the small tables the day before, and she took it up
now mechanically, and began to move the needles to and fro.

Camilla watched her in a dreamy sort of way. Vaguely she wondered to
herself how many hundred pairs of socks Agnes had made in her life.

"I must be a horribly wicked woman," she said suddenly, "otherwise I
could not possibly have been given such a scourge as being compelled to
take bread from these people."

"I thought a long time ago," said Mrs. Brenton, in her calm, quiet way,
"you had realized what to expect from Violet Lancing. Dear child, it is
hardly possible that she should be sympathetic to you."

"I don't care two figs about her," said Camilla, "and, as a matter of
fact, I am rather sorry for her. Did you see the cut of her skirt? And
tea at the stores is the only gaiety she ever has, poor soul. If she
would only give me half a chance," Camilla added, "I should be awfully
kind to her."

After a moment's pause Camilla said--

"It's the old man whom I really hate. Ned always said his father was an
old devil, and so he is! It appears he is extra furious with me because
I never take the children to see him.... How can I? If he forgets all
the horrible things he did and said to me, I have unfortunately a much
better memory!"

Agnes Brenton took this matter up quickly.

"You have never understood Colonel Lancing," she said, "just as he
could never be expected to understand you. That he is a hard man I know
well; but I am convinced he is not so hard as you imagine. He set his
face against your marriage with Ned, not because he objected to you
personally; that would have been ridiculous," interpolated Mrs. Brenton
with a smile; "but because he knew it was going to be a miserable
business for you." Agnes Brenton paused half a moment, and then said in
a low voice, "And the result justified that belief pretty surely."

Camilla spread out her two small hands to shield her face from the fire.

"Don't deceive yourself, Agnes; there is nothing good about him; he is
hard, he is cruel, he is horrid." She moved restlessly. "I wish I could
cut them all out of my life, especially the old man. What a difference
to my daddy. Oh, Agnes, if I only had daddy with me now! Dear, good,
loving heart, why did you die?"

She bent forward suddenly and rang the bell.

"I must have the room arranged again," she said. Her pretty voice
sounded a little husky. "It looks too hideous for words, and then,
dearest, you shall have something to eat. On second thoughts, I am not
sorry that Violet had a bad lunch. I hate every one who belongs to that
old wolf! Oh, Agnes, let us talk about that girl Caroline--what's her
name?"

Mrs. Brenton turned the heel of the sock, and her needles clicked
musically for a few moments. Then she said--

"Well, I don't think you ought to do anything without consulting Mr.
Haverford."

"Good Heavens! why not?" exclaimed Camilla. "Bring back the flowers,"
she ordered to the maid who appeared at the door at this moment. She
got up and began to arrange the room in a restless fashion, unlocking
drawers, and taking out all the things she had hidden. "I really don't
see what Mr. Haverford has to do with it," she said irritably, after a
while.

"Don't you?" queried Mrs. Brenton, with a smile. "You must remember
that Miss Graniger went to him last night for advice and help."

Camilla moved impatiently.

"Oh! he will take a month to deliberate. He is so slow. Really it is
very ridiculous. You know I must have some one for the children, and
Miss Graniger wants work. Why on earth should she not come to me?"

"I don't like things done in a great hurry," said Mrs. Brenton. And
then she added again, "It may annoy Mr. Haverford."

"And what do I care if it does?" exclaimed Camilla. She was nervous,
and it did her good to speak sharply. "Anyhow, I can't very well draw
back now. I have practically engaged the girl, and I settled that we
would discuss terms and other things this afternoon. I like her, Agnes.
She is a lady, and I think she is just the very person we want for
Betty."

As the flowers were brought in and placed, Mrs. Lancing ordered tea.

"Tell cook to send up all sorts of things," she said. "I am ravenous.
How much do you think I ought to give her, Agnes?" was her next
question. "Fifty pounds a year?"

"My dear child!" said Mrs. Brenton, and then she sighed. "When will you
learn the value of money?"

"Well, look here," said Camilla, sitting down on the stool, and putting
a pleading note in her voice, "will you arrange all this for me? I
don't want to let this girl slip through my fingers."

She looked over her shoulder at this juncture; the door was half open,
and they caught the sound of the children returning.

"Well, have you been good little people?" she called aloud, and she got
up briskly and went to the door. "I hope you are not tired, Miss
Graniger? Oh, my dear! What are you doing? You must not carry that big,
big, little lump!"

Baby had climbed up into Caroline's arms, and had her arms about the
girl's neck, her head was cuddled on Caroline's shoulder.

"I is so awful tired, mammy," she said plaintively. Then Betty chimed
in--

"I telled her a heap of times she was not to ask poor Caroline to carry
her, but"--with a shrug of her shoulders--"you know what Baby is. The
most onstinant creature in the world."

But Baby only smiled, and kissed Caroline.

Even when her mother tried to entice her away, she clung to the girl
affectionately. So Camilla went up to the nursery, also scolding
tenderly as she went.

She wanted to take Miss Graniger down to have tea with her, but the
children opposed this so strenuously that she had to give way.

She did not leave them till she saw them seated at the table
luxuriating in all sorts of delicacies.

"Don't let them worry you," Camilla said to Caroline. "Dennis will take
them off your hands."

However, it seemed that Caroline had no intention of calling Dennis to
the rescue, so Mrs. Lancing went downstairs, and wore a very triumphant
expression as she entered the drawing-room.

"Believe it or not, just as you like, but it is a fact that that girl
is absolutely happy with the children," she declared. "You ought to be
pleased, Agnes. You pretended you were sorry for her. Can't you imagine
the sort of existence that she has had in Mrs. Baynhurst's house. Well,
here at least she will be treated like a human being." Then abruptly
Camilla crossed the room, and sat down at her writing-table. "I am
going to write to Mr. Haverford," she said, "and then I hope you will
be satisfied, you dear old fidgety frump."

The note written, she had it despatched by a cab, and requested that an
answer might be sent back.

"I don't see what earthly objection he can have," Camilla said, "but if
he has any--well, now let him speak, or for ever hold his peace."

The cab came back in a very little while, bringing the information that
Mr. Haverford had been called to the north unexpectedly. Further, it
appeared that the butler had added that Mr. Haverford intended going to
Paris when he came down from the north.

Mrs. Brenton smiled as she sipped her tea.

"That means he intends to see his mother, and go thoroughly into this
Graniger business. There are no half measures with him."

Camilla moved petulantly.

"Oh! we all know by this time that you think him a paragon of
perfection.... He is just your pet idea of what a man should be--solid,
stodgy, prosaic. A creature as flat, and as level, and as enduring, and
as uninteresting as a Roman road."

"Well," said Mrs. Brenton, picking up her knitting again, "there is a
good deal to be said in favour of a smooth road, whether it is Roman or
otherwise."

Camilla ate a cake, then some sandwiches, and then another piece of
cake.

"The only thing worth having in life, except food when one is hungry,
is the thing that comes unexpectedly. You can keep all your smooth
roads to yourself, Agnes; give me Piccadilly when the wood pavement is
simply honeycombed with holes, and one stands the chance of being
jerked out of a cab, and perhaps out of existence, too, every other
moment. Anyhow," she determined, brightly, "this settles matters so far
as I am concerned. Miss Graniger will now stay, and if Mr. Haverford
does not like this arrangement--well, he can lump it! Have some more
tea? No? Well, then, let us go up to the children."




CHAPTER VII


For a second time Caroline Graniger lay awake late into the night,
watching the fire-glow glint the walls and throw fantastic shadows on
the ceiling.

She had been sent to bed very early.

"You look so tired, you poor thing," Camilla had said as they had sat
at dinner.

She herself was going out to a bridge party, but she had insisted on
Agnes Brenton and Caroline sharing a dainty little dinner with her.

Of course it was at her suggestion that Miss Graniger was sleeping with
the children.

"As you are going to stay with me," she had said, when she tarried a
little while in the nursery after Mrs. Brenton had gone downstairs, "I
think we had better start as we intend to go on. Agnes, I know, wants
to carry you home again with her to-night, but Betty and Babsy want
you--don't you, darlings?"

Caroline asked for nothing better, except, indeed, that she was divided
in her desire to show deference to both these women who were so
extraordinarily kind to her.

"I only hope I shall do," she said earnestly.

Camilla had laughed at this.

Her baby had climbed on her knee, and was cuddling her very tightly.

"This is not what frightens me," she said. "I am only afraid you won't
stand our ways. This is a very funny sort of household--isn't it,
Betty?"

The child nodded her head wisely. She looked so pretty with her bright
hair screwed up in curl rags.

It was Caroline who introduced the subject of Rupert Haverford.

"I fancy Mrs. Brenton thinks I ought to have referred things to Mr.
Haverford," she had said, a little hesitatingly.

"I know," Mrs. Lancing had answered quickly, "but I don't in the least
see that. Of course you went to Mr. Haverford last night because you
did not know what else to do. But surely that does not entitle him to
order all your ways? I shall be awfully disappointed if you don't stay
with me," she finished; and Caroline had laughed softly at this.

"Then you shall not be disappointed," she had answered.

And so everything had been arranged, and when Mrs. Lancing had whisked
away for a long--and a late--evening at cards, Mrs. Brenton had kissed
the girl, and told her to go to rest.

"Camilla is right; you do look very tired," she said.

"Oh, I am always pale, but I am not really tired--I am only happy. I
don't think I could explain to you exactly how I feel. Just a little
while ago I seemed to have nothing given to me, that nothing was
possible; and now I feel almost as if I had found everything that had
been lacking all these years!"

"Only because you have settled to be the governess to two children who
are bound to be naughty and tiresome sometimes, you know?"

"No, not entirely because of that," Caroline answered.

There was something familiar to her to find herself occupying a small
bed in a room with children, but this was the only element that was
familiar; all the rest was so new and so sweet.

As she lay on the pillows and looked from one little sleeping form to
the other her eyes filled, and she had a fluttering sensation at her
heart.

After so many barren years these last few hours seemed over full with
sympathy and kindness, and with that recognition from others that
almost amounted to kinship.

She found herself endowed with a personality all at once.

It was very strange to realize that she had some defined standing; now
that the oppression of dependence had been lifted she marvelled that
she could have endured the burden so long.

"But it is too good to last," she said to herself once or twice. "I
_know_ something will happen, and I shall go out into the cold again."

Of course she could not sleep; she thought of a dozen things at the
same time.

The spell of Camilla's magnetic personality, the calm strength and
womanliness of Agnes Brenton, the charm and prattle of the children,
held her in sway alternatively, and kept alive that new sense of warmth
that had been kindled in her heart.

Every now and then, too, Rupert Haverford would come into her thoughts.

A note had been sent round from Mrs. Brenton's lodgings addressed to
herself, and given to her just as she was going upstairs. In this
Haverford had written that he regretted that he was called north on
very important matters, but that he had spoken to the lady of whom he
had told her, and that a home was arranged for her until she could make
other plans.

"My absence may delay the explanation you desire from my mother,"
Rupert had written, "but in the event of your requiring any reference,
you will of course use my name."

It was a brief and very businesslike letter, but Caroline felt grateful
to him all the same.

Assuredly he must have troubled himself about her even to have made
such arrangements.

Once indeed she felt a little qualm.

"Perhaps Mrs. Brenton was right, and I ought to have asked his advice."
The next moment, however, she dismissed this. "It cannot matter to him
how I earn my bread."

"I shall send him back the greater portion of the money he lent me,"
she determined at another moment. "I must get myself a few things to
wear. I cannot go about with the children quite so shabby as I was
to-day. But I shall not require more than half the money he lent me,
and I shall pay the other off as quickly as I can get my salary."

When she remembered his mother she laughed.

"Explanation! ... It is very evident that he does not know her as well
as I do."

It was very late before Caroline's eyes closed drowsily, and then she
had slept scarcely an hour when she was awakened with a start.

Little hands were pulling her, and a little voice was whispering out of
the darkness.

"Caloline! ... Caloline! ... may I come into your bed?"

Instantly the girl was awake.... She sat up and held out her arms.

Dennis had warned her--

"If Miss Baby wants to rouse you and creep in with you, don't you let
her, miss," she had said; "you'll want all the rest you can get, and
children shouldn't never be encouraged in such goings on."

But Caroline forgot to be sensible; rules and regulations went down
before the sweetness, the delight of holding that warm little bundle in
her arms so closely.

Baby kissed her many times, whispered sleepily for a few minutes, and
then lay quite still, one little loving hand linked in Caroline's.

      *      *      *      *      *

Mrs. Brenton went back to the country the next day.

It had been arranged that her husband would follow her to town; but
instead of doing this, he managed to contract a very bad cold, and as
he was not the strongest man in the world, his wife took alarm, and
departed in a hurry for Yelverton, notwithstanding all Camilla's
entreaties.

"But remember," Mrs. Brenton said as she went, "you have promised to
come to me for Christmas; that is understood, Camilla. It will be
delightful to have the children, and we must have a Christmas-tree and
a jolly time altogether."

"I am not sure that I shall know you in the future," replied Camilla;
then she laughed. "I don't know why I want you so much, because you are
always scolding me--aren't you? But I _do_ want you, and I think it is
horrid of you to go rushing back now, just because Dick has happened to
sneeze twice. If he had come up to town, we could have all nursed him."

Caroline saw the children's mother only intermittently during the next
two or three days.

Camilla always seemed to be in a tremendous hurry. Except for
breakfast, she did not have a single meal in the house.

Nevertheless, the atmosphere was charged with a certain sort of
excitement. The telephone bell was always ringing; so was the door-bell.

Mrs. Lancing's friends seemed to employ an army of telegraph boys, and
she herself would dash home in cabs every now and then in a violent
hurry apparently. Though she might neglect or postpone other duties,
she never forgot a flying visit to the nursery at bath-time.

The clamour of the children, however, and the nonsense and the kisses,
precluded anything further than the interchange of smiles and a few
words between Mrs. Lancing and her new governess.

It was Dennis who reported that Miss Graniger had settled down to her
work admirably; that she was a decided acquisition.

"You've never had any one near so nice, ma'am," was Dennis's opinion,
given emphatically. "She doesn't give herself airs, and isn't above
doing all sorts of little things that nurse would never have dreamed of
doing; and the way she understands children--well, there, it gets over
me! Miss Betty was in one of her tantrums this morning, but Miss
Graniger, she soon set things right. I'd 'ope, ma'am," Dennis added,
"that there'll be no change this time...."

"I never want to change, you know that," Camilla's answer was to this.

She found time to scribble a few words, conveying what Dennis had told
her, to Agnes Brenton, and added--

"As the great Mogul has never taken any notice of us since you left
town, we are left conjecturing whether he is indifferent or annoyed."

Just when she was closing this letter Camilla took out the paper again
and wrote a postscript.

"Violet Lancing scratched to some purpose the other day! I have had a
letter from the old man _command

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