← catalogue

Dodo: A Detail of the Day. Volumes 1 and 2

by E. F. Benson · English · Gutenberg #44486 · 469,402 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Dodo: A Detail of the Day. Volumes 1 and 2
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: Dodo: A Detail of the Day. Volumes 1 and 2

Author: E. F. Benson


        
Release date: December 22, 2013 [eBook #44486]
                Most recently updated: November 24, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44486

Credits: Produced by Marc D'Hooghe (Images generously made available by the Hathi Trust.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DODO: A DETAIL OF THE DAY. VOLUMES 1 AND 2 ***


DODO

A DETAIL OF THE DAY

BY

E.F. BENSON


IN TWO VOLUMES

VOL. I


FOURTH EDITION

METHUEN & CO

LONDON

1893



        And far out, drifting helplessly on that grey, angry sea, I
        saw a small boat at the mercy of the winds and waves. And my
        guide said to me, 'Some call the sea "Falsehood," and that
        boat "Truth," and others call the sea "Truth," and the boat
        "Falsehood;" and, for my part, I think that one is right as the
        other.'--The Professor of Ignorance.




CHAPTER ONE


Poets of all ages and of all denominations are unanimous in assuring
us that there was once a period on this grey earth known as the Golden
Age. These irresponsible bards describe it in terms of the vaguest,
most poetic splendour, and, apart from the fact, upon which they are
all agreed, that the weather was always perfectly charming, we have to
reconstruct its characteristics in the main for ourselves. Perhaps if
the weather was uniformly delightful, even in this nineteenth century,
the golden age might return again. We all know how perceptibly our
physical, mental and spiritual level is raised by a few days of really
charming weather; but until the weather determines to be always golden,
we can hardly expect it of the age. Yet even now, even in England, and
even in London, we have every year a few days which must surely be
waifs and strays from the golden age, days which have fluttered down
from under the hands of the recording angel, as he tied up his reports,
and, after floating about for years in dim, interplanetary space,
sometimes drop down upon us. They may last a week, they have been known
to last a fortnight; again, they may curtail themselves into a few
hours, but they are never wholly absent.

At the time at which this story opens, London was having its annual
golden days; days to be associated with cool, early rides in the
crumbly Row, with sitting on small, green chairs beneath the trees
at the corner of the Park; with a general disinclination to exert
oneself, or to stop smoking cigarettes; with a temper distinctly above
its normal level, and a corresponding absence of moods. The crudeness
of spring had disappeared, but not its freshness; the warmth of the
summer had come, but not its sultriness; the winter was definitely
over and past, and even in Hyde Park the voice of the singing bird was
heard, and an old gentleman, who shall be nameless, had committed his
annual perjury by asserting in the _Morning Post_ that he had heard a
nightingale in the elm-trees by the Ladies' Mile, which was manifestly
impossible.

The sky was blue; the trees, strange to say, were green, for the leaves
were out, and even the powers of soot which hover round London had not
yet had time to shed their blackening dew upon them. The season was in
full swing, but nobody was tired of it yet, and "all London" evinced
a tendency to modified rural habits, which expressed themselves in
the way of driving down to Hurlingham, and giving water parties at
Richmond.

To state this more shortly, it was a balmy, breezy day towards the
middle of June. The shady walks that line the side of the Row were full
of the usual crowds of leisurely, well-dressed people who constitute
what is known as London. Anyone acquainted with that august and
splendid body would have seen at once that something had happened; not
a famine in China, nor a railway accident, nor a revolution, nor a
war, but emphatically "something." Conversation was a thing that made
time pass, not a way of passing the time. Obviously the larger half
of London was asking questions, and the smaller half was enjoying its
superiority, in being able to give answers. These indications are as
clear to the practised eye as the signs of the weather appear to be to
the prophet Zadkiel. To the amateur one cloud looks much like another
cloud: the prophet, on the other hand, lays a professional finger on
one and says "Thunder," while the lurid bastion, which seems fraught
with fire and tempest to the amateur, is dismissed with the wave of a
contemptuous hand.

A tall, young man was slowly making his way across the road from the
arch. He was a fair specimen of "the exhausted seedlings of our effete
aristocracy"--long-limbed, clean-shaven, about six feet two high,
and altogether very pleasant to look upon. He wore an air of extreme
leisure and freedom from the smallest touch of care or anxiety, and it
was quite clear that such was his normal atmosphere. He waited with
serene patience for a large number of well-appointed carriages to
go past, and then found himself blocked by another stream going in
the opposite direction. However, all things come to an end, even the
impossibility of crossing from the arch at the entrance of the Park to
the trees on a fine morning in June, and on this particular morning I
have to record no exception to the rule. A horse bolting on to the Row
narrowly missed knocking him down, and he looked up with mild reproach
at its rider, as he disappeared in a shower of dust and soft earth.

This young gentleman, who has been making his slow and somewhat
graceful entrance on to our stage, was emphatically "London," and he
too saw at once that something had happened. He looked about for an
acquaintance, and then dropped in a leisurely manner into a chair by
his side.

"Morning, Bertie," he remarked; "what's up?"

Bertie was not going to be hurried. He finished lighting a cigarette,
and adjusted the tip neatly with his fingers.

"She's going to be married," he remarked.

Jack Broxton turned half round to him with a quicker movement than he
had hitherto shown.

"Not Dodo?" he said.

"Yes."

Jack gave a low whistle.

"It isn't to you, I suppose?"

Bertie Arbuthnot leaned back in his chair with extreme languor. His
enemies, who, to do him justice, were very few, said that if he hadn't
been the tallest man in London, he would never have been there at all.

"No, it isn't to me."

"Is she here?" said Jack, looking round.

"No I think not; at least I haven't seen her."

"Well, I'm----" Jack did not finish the sentence.

Then as an after-thought he inquired: "Whom to?"

"Chesterford," returned the other.

Jack made a neat little hole with the ferrule of his stick in the
gravel in front of him, and performed a small burial service for the
end of his cigarette. The action was slightly allegorical.

"He's my first cousin," he said. "However, I may be excused for
not feeling distinctly sympathetic with my first cousin. Must I
congratulate him?"

"That's as you like," said the other. "I really don't see why you
shouldn't. But it is rather overwhelming, isn't it? You know Dodo is
awfully charming, but she hasn't got any of the domestic virtues.
Besides, she ought to be an empress," he added loyally.

"I suppose a marchioness is something," said Jack. "But I didn't expect
it one little bit. Of course he is hopelessly in love. And so Dodo has
decided to make him happy."

"It seems so," said Bertie, with a fine determination not to draw
inferences.

"Ah, but don't you see----" said Jack.

"Oh, it's all right," said Bertie. "He is devoted to her, and she is
clever and stimulating. Personally I shouldn't like a stimulating wife.
I don't like stimulating people, I don't think they wear well. It would
be like sipping brandy all day. Fancy having brandy at five o'clock
tea. What a prospect, you know! Dodo's too smart for my taste."

"She never bores one," said Jack.

"No, but she makes me feel as if I was sitting under a flaming
gas-burner, which was beating on to what Nature designed to be my
brain-cover."

"Nonsense," said Jack. "You don't know her. There she is. Ah!"

A dog-cart had stopped close by them, and a girl got out, leaving a
particularly diminutive groom at the pony's head. If anything she was a
shade more perfectly dressed than the rest of the crowd, and she seemed
to know it. Behind her walked another girl, who was obviously intended
to walk behind, while Dodo was equally obviously made to walk in front.

Just then Dodo turned round and said over her shoulder to her,--

"Maud, tell the boy he needn't wait. You needn't either unless you
like."

Maud turned round and went dutifully back to the dog-cart, where she
stood irresolutely a few moments after giving her message.

Dodo caught sight of the two young men on the chairs, and advanced to
them. The radiant vision was evidently not gifted with that dubious
quality, shyness.

"Why, Jack," she exclaimed in a loudish voice, "here I am, you see, and
I have come to be congratulated! What are you and Bertie sitting here
for like two Patiences on monuments? Really, Jack, you would make a
good Patience on a monument.

"Was Patience a man? I never saw him yet. I would come and sketch you
if you stood still enough. What are you so glum about? You look as if
you were going to be executed. I ought to look like that much more than
you. Jack, I'm going to be a married woman, and stop at home, and mend
the socks, and look after the baby, and warm Chesterford's slippers
for him. Where's Chesterford? Have you seen him? Oh, I told Maud to go
away. Maud," she called, "come back and take Bertie for a stroll: I
want to talk to Jack. Go on, Bertie; you can come back in half an hour,
and if I haven't finished talking then, you can go away again--or go
for a drive, if you like, with Maud round the Park. Take care of that
pony, though; he's got the devil of a temper."

"I suppose I may congratulate you first?" asked Bertie.

"That's so dear of you," said Dodo graciously, as if she was used to
saying it. "Good-bye; Maud's waiting, and the pony will kick himself
to bits if he stands much longer. Thanks for your congratulations.
Good-bye."

Bertie moved off, and Dodo sat down next Jack.

"Now, Jack, we're going to have a talk. In the first place you haven't
congratulated me. Never mind, we'll take that as done. Now tell me
what you think of it. I don't quite know why I ask you, but we are old
friends."

"I'm surprised," said he candidly; "I think it's very odd."

Dodo frowned.

"John Broxton," she said solemnly, "don't be nasty. Don't you think I'm
a very charming girl, and don't you think he's a very charming boy?"

Jack was silent for a minute or two, then he said,--

"What is the use of this, Dodo? What do you want me to say?"

"I want you to say what you think. Jack, old boy, I'm very fond of you,
though I couldn't marry you. Oh, you must see that. We shouldn't have
suited. We neither of us will consent to play second fiddle, you know.
Then, of course, there's the question of money. I must have lots of
money. Yes, a big must _and_ a big lot. It's not your fault that you
haven't got any, and it wouldn't have been your fault if you'd been
born with no nose; but I couldn't marry a man who was without either."

"After all, Dodo," said he, "you only say what every one else thinks
about that. I don't blame you for it. About the other, you're wrong. I
am sure I should not have been an exacting husband. You could have had
your own way pretty well."

"Oh, Jack, indeed no," said she;--"we are wandering from the point,
but I'll come back to it presently. My husband must be so devoted to
me that anything I do will seem good and charming. You don't answer
that requirement, as I've told you before. If I can't get that--I have
got it, by the way--I must have a man who doesn't care what I do. You
would have cared, you know it. You told me once I was in dreadfully bad
form. Of course that clinched the matter. To my husband I must never
be in bad form. If others did what I do, it might be bad form, but
with me, no. Bad form is one of those qualities which my husband must
think impossible for me, simply because I am I. Oh, Jack, you must see
that--don't be stupid! And then you aren't rich enough. It's all very
well to call it a worldly view, but it is a perfectly true one for me.
Don't you see I must have everything I want. It is what I live on, all
this," she said, spreading her hands out. "All these people must know
who I am, and that they should do that, I must have everything at my
command. Oh, it's all very well to talk of love in a cottage, but just
wait till the chimney begins to smoke."

Dodo nodded her head with an air of profound wisdom.

"It isn't for you that I'm anxious," said Jack, "it's for Chesterford.
He's an awfully good fellow. It is a trifle original to sing the
husband's praise to the wife, but I do want you to know that. And he
isn't one of those people who don't feel things because they don't show
it--it is just the other way. The feeling is so deep that he can't. You
know you like to turn yourself inside out for your friend's benefit,
but he doesn't do that. And he is in love with you."

"Yes, I know," she said, "but you do me an injustice. I shall be very
good to him. I can't pretend that I am what is known as being in love
with him--in fact I don't think I know what that means, except that
people get in a very ridiculous state, and write sonnets to their
mistress's front teeth, which reminds me that I am going to the dentist
to-morrow. Come and hold my hand--yes, and keep withered flowers and
that sort of thing. Ah, Jack, I wish that I really knew what it did
mean. It can't be all nonsense, because Chesterford's like that, and
he is an honest man if you like. And I do respect and admire him
very much, and I hope I shall make him happy, and I hear he's got a
delightful new yacht; and, oh! do look at that Arbuthnot girl opposite
with a magenta hat. It seems to me inconceivably stupid to have a
magenta hat. Really she is a fool. She wants to attract attention, but
she attracts the wrong sort. Now _she_ is in bad form. Bertie doesn't
look after his relations enough."

"Oh, bother the Arbuthnot girl," said Jack angrily. "I want to have
this out with you. Don't you see that that sort of thing won't do with
Chesterford? He is not a fool by any means, and he knows the difference
between the two things."

"Indeed he doesn't," said Dodo. "The other day he was talking to me,
and I simply kept on smiling when I was thinking of something quite
different, and he thought I was adorably sympathetic. And, besides, I
am not a fool either. He is far too happy for me to believe that he is
not satisfied."

"Well, but you'll have to keep it up," said Jack. "Don't you see I'm
not objecting to your theory of marriage in itself--though I think it's
disgusting--but it strikes me that you have got the wrong sort of man
to experiment upon. It might do very well if he was like you."

"Jack, you sha'n't lecture me," said Dodo; "I shall do precisely as
I like. Have you ever known me make a fool of myself? Of course you
haven't. Well, if I was going to make a mess of this, it would be
contrary to all you or anyone else knows of me. I'm sorry I asked your
opinion at all. I didn't think you would be so stupid."

"You told me to tell you what I thought," said Jack in self-defence.
"I offered to say what you wanted, or to congratulate or condole or
anything else; it's your own fault, and I wish I'd said it was charming
and delightful, and just what I had always hoped."

Dodo laughed.

"I like to see you cross, Jack," she remarked, "and now we'll be
friends again. Remember what you have said to-day--we shall see in time
who is right, you or I. If you like to bet about it you may--only you
would lose. I promise to tell you if you turn out to be right, even if
you don't see it, which you must if it happens, which it won't, so you
won't," she added with a fine disregard of grammar.

Jack was silent.

"Jack, you are horrible," said Dodo impatiently, "you don't believe in
me one bit. I believe you are jealous of Chesterford; you needn't be."

Then he interrupted her quickly.

"Ah, Dodo, take care what you say. When you say I needn't be, it
implies that you are not going to do your share. I want to be jealous
of Chesterford, and I am sorry I am not. If I thought you loved him,
or would ever get to love him, I should be jealous. I wish to goodness
I was. Really, if you come to think of it, I am very generous. I want
this to be entirely a success. If there is one man in the world who
deserves to be happy it is Chesterford. He is not brilliant, he does
not even think he is, which is the best substitute. It doesn't much
matter how hard you are hit if you are well protected. Try to make him
conceited--it is the best you can do for him."

He said these words in a low tone, as if he hardly wished Dodo to hear.
But Dodo did hear.

"You don't believe in me a bit," she said. "Never mind, I will force
you to. That's always the way--as long as I amuse you, you like me well
enough, but you distrust me at bottom. A woman's a bore when she is
serious. Isn't it so? Because I talk nonsense you think I am entirely
untrustworthy about things that matter."

Dodo struck the ground angrily with the point of her parasol.

"I have thought about it. I know I am right," she went on. "I shall
be immensely happy as his wife, and he will be immensely happy as my
husband."

"I don't think it's much use discussing it," said he. "But don't be
vexed with me, Dodo. You reminded me that we were old friends at the
beginning of this extremely candid conversation. I have told you that
I think it is a mistake. If he didn't love you it wouldn't matter.
Unfortunately he does."

"Well, Jack," she said, "I can't prove it, but you ought to know me
well enough by this time not to misjudge me so badly. It is not only
unjust but stupid, and you are not usually stupid. However, I am not
angry with you, which is the result of my beautiful nature. Come, Jack,
shake hands and wish me happiness."

She stood up, holding out both her hands to him. Jack was rather moved.

"Dodo, of course I do. I wish all the best wishes that my nature can
desire and my brain conceive, both to you and him, him too; and I hope
I shall be outrageously jealous before many months are over."

He shook her hands, and then dropped them. She stood for a moment with
her eyes on the ground, looking still grave. Then she retreated a step
or two, leaned against the rail, and broke into a laugh.

"That's right, Jack, begone, dull care. I suppose you'll be
Chesterford's best man. I shall tell him you must be. Really he is an
excellent lover; he doesn't say too much or too little, and he lets me
do exactly as I like. Jack, come and see us this evening; we're having
a sort of Barnum's Show, and I'm to be the white elephant. Come and be
a white elephant too. Oh, no, you can't; Chesterford's the other. The
elephant is an amiable beast, and I am going to be remarkably amiable.
Come to dinner first, the Show begins afterwards. No, on the whole,
don't come to dinner, because I want to talk to Chesterford all the
time, and do my duty in that state of life in which it has pleased
Chesterford to ask me to play my part. That's profane, but it's only
out of the Catechism. Who wrote the Catechism? I always regard the
Catechism as only a half-sacred work, and so profanity doesn't count,
at least you may make two profane remarks out of the Catechism, which
will only count as one. I shall sing, too. Evelyn has taught me two
little nigger minstrel songs. Shall I black my face? I'm not at all
sure that I shouldn't look rather well with my face blacked, though I
suppose it would frighten Chesterford. Here are Maud and Bertie back
again. I must go. I'm lunching somewhere, I can't remember where, only
Maud will know. Maud, where are we lunching, and have you had a nice
drive, and has Bertie been making love to you? Good-bye, Jack. Remember
to come this evening. You can come, too, Bertie, if you like. I have
had a very nice talk with Jack, and he has been remarkably rude, but I
forgive him."

Jack went with her to her dog-cart, and helped her in.

"This pony's name is Beelzebub," she remarked, as she took the reins,
"because he is the prince of the other things. Good-bye."

Then he went back and rejoined Bertie.

"There was a scene last night," said Bertie. "Maud told me about it.
She came home with Dodo and Chesterford, and stopped to open a letter
in the hall, and when she went upstairs into the drawing-room, she
found Dodo sobbing among the sofa cushions, and Chesterford standing
by, not quite knowing what to do. It appeared that he had just given
her the engagement ring. She was awfully-pleased with it, and said it
was charming, then suddenly she threw it down on the floor, and buried
her face in the cushions. After that she rushed out of the room, and
didn't appear again for a quarter of an hour, and then went to the
Foreign Office party, and to two balls."

Jack laughed hopelessly for a few minutes. Then he said,--

"It is too ridiculous. I don't believe it can be all real. That was
drama, pure spontaneous drama. But it's drama for all that. I'm sure I
don't know why I laughed, now I come to think of it. It really is no
laughing matter. All the same I wonder why she didn't tell me that. But
her sister has got no business to repeat those kind of things. Don't
tell anyone else, Bertie."

Then after a minute he repeated to himself, "I wonder why she didn't
tell me that."

"Jack," said Bertie after another pause, "I don't wish you to think
that I want to meddle in your concerns, and so don't tell me unless you
like, but was anything ever up between you and Dodo? Lie freely if you
would rather not tell me, please."

"Yes," he said simply. "I asked her to marry me last April, and she
said 'No.' I haven't told anyone till this minute, because I don't
like it to be known when I fail. I am like Dodo in that. You know
how she detests not being able to do anything she wants. It doesn't
often happen, but when it does, Dodo becomes damnable. She has more
perseverance than I have, though. When she can't get anything, she
makes such a fuss that she usually does succeed eventually. But I do
just the other thing. I go away, and don't say anything about it. That
was a bad failure. I remember being very much vexed at the time."

Jack spoke dreamily, as if he was thinking of something else. It was
his way not to blaze abroad anything that affected him deeply. Like
Dodo he would often dissect himself in a superficial manner, and act as
a kind of showman to his emotions; but he did not care to turn himself
inside out with her thoroughness. And above all, as he had just said,
he hated the knowledge of a failure; he tried to conceal it even from
himself. He loved to show his brighter side to the world. When he was
in society he always put on his best mental and moral clothes, those
that were newest and fitted him most becomingly; the rags and tatters
were thrown deep into the darkest cupboard, and the key sternly turned
on them. Now and then, however, as on this occasion, a friend brought
him the key with somewhat embarrassing openness, and manners prevented
him from putting his back to the door. But when it was unlocked he
adopted the tone of, "Yes, there are some old things in there, I
believe. May you see? Oh, certainly; but please shut it after you, and
don't let anyone else in. I quite forget what is in there myself, it's
so long since I looked."

Bertie was silent. He was on those terms of intimacy with the other
that do not need ordinary words of condolence or congratulation.
Besides, from his own point of view, he inwardly congratulated Jack,
and this was not the sort of occasion on which to tell him that
congratulation rather than sympathy was what the event demanded. Then
Jack went on, still with the air of a spectator than of a principal
character,--

"Dodo talked to me a good deal about her marriage. I am sorry about it,
for I think that Chesterford will be terribly disillusioned. You know
he doesn't take things lightly, and he is much too hopelessly fond of
Dodo ever to be content with what she will grant him as a wife. But we
cannot do anything. I told her what I thought, not because I hoped to
make any change in the matter, but because I wished her to know that
for once in her life she has made a failure--a bad, hopeless mistake.
That has been my revenge. Come, it's after one, I must go home. I shall
go there this evening; shall I see you?"




CHAPTER TWO


Jack went home meditating rather bitterly on things in general. He
had a sense that Fate was not behaving very prettily to him. She
had dealt him rather a severe blow in April last, which had knocked
him down, and, having knocked him down, she now proceeded in a most
unsportsmanlike way to kick him. Jack had a great idea of fair play,
and Fate certainly was not playing fair. He would have liked to have
a few words with her on the subject. The world had been very kind on
the whole to him. He had always been popular, and his life, though
perhaps rather aimless, was at least enjoyable. And since the world had
been kind to him, he was generous to the world in general, and to his
friends in particular. It had always held a high opinion of him, as a
thoroughly healthy-minded and pleasant companion, and he was disposed
to hold a similar opinion of it. Consequently, when Dodo had refused
him that spring, he had not thought badly of her. He did not blame
her, or get bitter about it; but though he had flattered himself that
he was used to Dodo's ways, and had always recognised her capabilities
in the way of surprising her friends, he had not been quite prepared
for the news of her engagement. In fact, he was surprised, and also
rather resentful, chiefly against the general management of mundane
affairs, but partly also against Dodo herself. Dodo had not told him
of her engagement; he had been left to find it out for himself. Then,
again, she was engaged to a man who was hopelessly and entirely in
love with her, and for whom, apart from a quiet, unemotional liking,
she did not care two straws, except in so far as he was immensely rich
and had a title, two golden keys which unlocked the most secret doors
of that well-furnished apartment known as Society, which constituted
Dodo's world. Hitherto her position had been precarious: she had felt
that she was on trial. Her personality, her great attractiveness
and talents, had secured for herself a certain footing on the very
daïs of that room; but she had always known that unless she married
brilliantly she would not be sure of her position. If she married a
man who would not be always certain of commanding whatever money and
position--for she would never have married a wealthy brewer--could
command, or, worst of all, if in her unwillingness to accept anything
but the best she could get, she did not marry at all, Dodo knew that
she never would have that unquestioned position that she felt was
indispensable to her. Jack knew all this perfectly well--in fact Dodo
had referred to it that morning--and he accepted it philosophically as
being inevitable. But what he did not like was being told that he would
not have done on general grounds, that he was too fond of his own way,
that he would not have given Dodo rein enough. He had known Dodo too
long and too well, when he proposed to her, to have any of a lover's
traditional blindness to the faults of his love. He knew that she was,
above all things, strongly dramatic, that she moved with a view to
effect, that she was unscrupulous in what she did, that her behaviour
was sometimes in questionable taste; but this he swallowed whole, so to
speak. He was genuinely attached to her, and felt that she possessed
the qualities that he would most like to have in his wife. Bertie had
said to him that morning that she was stimulating, and would not wear
well. Stimulating she certainly was--what lovable woman is not?--and
personally he had known her long, and she did wear well. The hidden
depths and unsuspected shallows were exactly what he loved her for;
no one ever fell in love with a canal; and though the shallows were
commoner than the depths, and their presence was sometimes indicated
by a rather harsh jarring of the keel, yet he believed, fully and
sincerely, in the dark, mysterious depths for love to lose itself
in. Besides, a wife, whose actions and thoughts were as perfectly
calculable and as accurately calculated as the trains in a Bradshaw,
was possessed of sterling qualities which, however estimable, were more
suited to a housekeeper than a mistress.

These reflections were the outcome of an intimate knowledge of Dodo in
the mind of a man who was in the habit of being honest with himself
and the object of his love, a quality rare enough whether the lover is
rejected or accepted.

He had had time to think over the matter quietly to himself. He knew,
and had known for many weeks, that Dodo was out of his reach, and he
sat down and thought about the inaccessible fruit, not with the keen
feelings of one who still hoped to get it, but with a resignation which
recognised that the fruit was desirable, but that it must be regarded
from a purely speculative point of view.

And to do him justice, though he was very sorry for himself, he was
much more sorry for Chesterford. Chesterford was his cousin, they had
been brought up together at Eton and Oxford, and he knew him with that
intimacy which is the result of years alone.

Chesterford's old friends had all a great respect and liking for
him. As Dodo had said, "He was an honest man if you like." Slight
acquaintances called him slow and rather stupid, which was true
on purely intellectual grounds. He was very loyal, and very much
devoted to what he considered his duty, which consisted in being an
excellent landlord and J.P. of his county, in voting steadily for
the Conservative party in the House of Lords, in giving largely and
anonymously to good objects, in going to Church on Sunday morning,
where he sang hymns with fervour, and read lessons with respect, in
managing a hunt in a liberal and satisfactory manner, and in avoiding
any introspection or speculation about problems of life and being.
He walked through the world with an upright gait, without turning
his eyes or his steps to the right hand or the left, without ever
concerning himself with what was not his business, but directing all
his undoubtedly sterling qualities to that. He had a perfect genius
for doing his duty. Nobody had ever called him shallow or foolish, but
nobody on the other hand had ever, called him either deep or clever.
He had probably only made one real mistake in his life, and that was
when he asked Dodo to marry him; and we have seen that Jack, who knew
Dodo well, and whose opinion might be considered to be based on good
grounds, thought that Dodo had committed her first grand error in
accepting him. The worst of the business certainly was that he was
in love with Dodo. If he had been a different sort of man, if he had
proposed to Dodo with the same idea that Dodo had, when she accepted
him, if he had wanted a brilliant and fascinating woman to walk through
life with, who could not fail to be popular, end who would do the
duties of a mistress of a great house in a regal fashion, he could not
have chosen better. But what he wanted in a wife was someone to love.
He loved Dodo, and apparently it had not entered his calculations that
she, in accepting him, might be doing it from a different standpoint
from his own in proposing to her. Dodo had smiled on him with the
air of a benignant goddess who marries a mortal, when he offered her
his hand and heart, and he had taken that smile as a fulfilment of
his own thought. Decidedly Jack might have justification for feeling
apprehensive.

Jack's only hope lay in that vein which did exist in Dodo, and which
she had manifested in that outburst of tears the night before. He put
it down to her dramatic instincts to a large extent, but he knew there
was something besides, for Dodo did not care to play to an empty house,
and the presence of her future husband alone constituted anything but
a satisfactory audience. Jack had always had a considerable belief
in Dodo: her attractiveness and cleverness were, of course, beyond
dispute, and required proof no more than the fact that the sun rose
in the morning; but he believed in something deeper than this, which
prompted such actions as these. He felt that there was some emotion
that she experienced at that moment, of which her tears were the
legitimate outcome, and, as he thought of this, there occurred to him
the remark that Dodo had made that morning, when she expressed her
regret at never having felt the sort of love that she knew Chesterford
felt for her.

Mrs. Vane was perhaps perfectly happy that night. Was not her
daughter engaged to a marquis and a millionaire? Was not her house
going to be filled with the brightest and best of our land? She had
often felt rather resentful against Dodo, who alternately liked and
despised people whom Mrs. Vane would have given her right hand to be
in a position to like, and both hands to be in a position to despise.
Dodo was excellent friends with "London," only "London" did not come
and seek her at her own house, but preferred asking her to theirs.
Consequently, on Mrs. Vane and Maud devolved the comparatively menial
duty of leaving their cards and those of Dodo, and attending her in
the capacity of the necessary adjunct. They would be asked to the
same houses as Dodo, but that was all; when they got there they had
the privilege of seeing Dodo performing her brilliant evolutions, but
somehow none of Dodo's glory got reflected on to them. To be the mirror
of Dodo was one of Mrs. Vane's most cherished ideas, and she did not
recollect that there are many substances whose nature forbids their
acting as such to the most brilliant of illuminations. Mr. Vane was
kept still more in the background. It was generally supposed that he
was looking after his affairs in the country, whilst the rest of the
family were amusing themselves in London. It was well known that he was
the proprietor of a flourishing iron foundry somewhere in Lancashire,
and apparently the iron needed special care during the months of May,
June and July. In any case he was a shadow in the background, rather
than a skeleton at the banquet, whom it was not necessary to ignore,
because he never appeared in a position in which he could be ignored.
Mrs. Vane had two principal objects in life, the first of which was
to live up to Dodo, and the second to obtain, in course of time, a
suitable brilliant son-in-law. The latter of these objects had been
practically obtained by Dodo herself, and the first of them was in a
measure realised by the large and brilliant company who assembled in
her rooms that night.

Mrs. Vane was a large, high-coloured woman of about middle age, whose
dress seemed to indicate that she would rather not, but that, of
course, may only have been the fault of the dressmaker. She had an
effusive manner, which sometimes made her guests wonder what they
could have done to have made her so particularly glad to see them. She
constantly lamented Mr. Vane's absence from London, and remarked, with
a brilliant smile, that she felt quite deserted. Mrs. Vane's smile
always suggested a reformed vampire, who had permanently renounced
her bloodthirsty habits, but had not quite got out of the way of
gloating on what would have been her victims in the unregenerate days.
It is only fair to say that this impression was due to the immensity
of her smile, which could hardly be honestly accounted for by this
uncharitable world. She was busily employed in receiving her guests
when Jack came, and was, perhaps, more stupendously cordial than ever.

"So kind of you to come," she was just saying to a previous arrival
when Jack came in. "I know Dodo was dying to see you and be
congratulated. Darling," she said, turning to Maud, "run and tell Dodo
that Lord Burwell has arrived. So good of you to come. And how do you
do, dear Mr. Broxton? Of course Dodo has told you of our happiness.
Thanks, yes--we are all charmed with her engagement. And the Marquis
is your cousin, is he not? How nice! May I tell Maud she may call you
Cousin Jack? _Such_ pleasure to have you. Dodo is simply expiring to
see you. Did she see you this morning? Really! she never told me of it,
and my sweet child usually tells me everything."

Dodo was playing the amiable white elephant to some purpose. She was
standing under a large chandelier in the centre of the room, with
Chesterford beside her, receiving congratulations with the utmost
grace, and talking nonsense at the highest possible speed. Jack thought
to himself that he had never seen anyone so thoroughly charming and
brilliant, and almost wondered whether he had not been doing her an
injustice all day. He saw it was impossible to get near her for the
present, so he wandered off among other groups, exchanging greetings
and salutations. He had made the circuit of the room, and was standing
about near the door, feeling a little lonely, when Dodo came quickly
towards him. She was looking rather white and impatient.

"Come away out of this, Jack," she said; "this is horrible. We've done
our duty, and now I want to talk. I've been smiling and grinning till
my cheeks are nearly cracked, and everyone says exactly the same
thing. Come to my room--come." She turned round, beckoning to him, and
found herself face to face with Chesterford. "Dear old boy," she said
to him, "I'm not going to bore you any more to-night. I shall bore you
enough after we are married. Jack and I are going away to talk, and
he's going to tell me to be a good girl, and do as his cousin bids me.
Good-night; come again to-morrow morning."

"I came here on purpose to congratulate you," said Jack, grasping
Chesterford's hand, "and I wish you all joy and prosperity."

"Come, Jack," said Dodo. "Oh, by the way, Chesterford, ask Jack to be
your best man. You couldn't have a better, and you haven't got any
brother, you know."

"I was just going to," said Chesterford. "Jack, you will be, won't you?
You must."

"Of course I will," said Jack. "All the same we're all awfully jealous
of you, you know, for carrying Dodo off."

"So you ought to be," said he, enthusiastically. "Why, I'm almost
jealous of myself. But now go and talk to Dodo, if she wants you."

The sight of Chesterford with Dodo made Jack groan in spirit. He had
accepted Dodo's rejection of him as quite final, and he never intended
to open that closed book again. But this was too horrible. He felt a
genuine impulse of pure compassion for Chesterford, and an irritated
disgust for Dodo. Dodo was an admirable comrade, and, for some, he
thought, an admirable wife. But the idea of her in comradeship with
Chesterford was too absurd, and if she could never be his comrade, by
what perversity of fate was it that she was going to become his wife?
Jack's serenity was quite gone, and he wondered what had become of it.
All he was conscious of was a chafing refusal to acquiesce just yet,
and the anticipation of a somewhat intimate talk with Dodo. He felt
half inclined to run away from the house, and not see her again, and
as he followed her up to her room, he began to think that his wisdom
had followed his serenity. After all, if he asked her again about her
resolution to marry Chesterford, what was he doing but continuing the
conversation they had in the Park that morning, in which Dodo herself
had taken the initiative. "These things are on the knees of the gods,"
thought Jack to himself piously, as the door of Dodo's room closed
behind him. Dodo threw herself down in a low arm-chair with an air of
weariness.

"Go on talking to me, Jack," she said. "Interest me, soothe me, make
me angry if you like. Chesterford's very nice. Don't you like him
immensely? I do."

Jack fidgeted, lit a match and blew it out again. Really it was not his
fault that the conversation was going to be on this subject. He again
laid the responsibility on the knees of the gods. Then he said,--

"Dodo, is this irrevocable? Are you determined to marry this man? I
swear I don't ask you for any selfish reasons, but only because I am
sincerely anxious for your happiness and his. It is a confounded
liberty I am taking, but I sha'n't apologise for it. I know that it
isn't any business of mine, but I risk your displeasure."

Dodo was looking at him steadily. Her breath came rather quickly, and
the look of weariness had left her face.

"Jack," she said, "don't say this sort of thing to me again. You are
quite right, it is a confounded liberty, as you say. I shall do as I
please in this matter. Ah, Jack, don't be angry with me," she went on
as he shrugged his shoulders, and half turned away. "I know you are
sincere, but I must do it. I want to be safe. I want to be married.
Chesterford is very safe. Jack, old boy, don't make me quarrel with
you. You are the best friend I have, but I'm sure you're wrong about
this."

She rose and stood by him, and laid one hand on his as it lay on the
mantelpiece. He did not answer her. He was disappointed and baffled.
Then she turned away from him, and suddenly threw up her arms.

"Oh, my God," she said, "I don't know what to do. It isn't my fault
that I am made like this. I want to know what love is, but I can't--I
can't. You say I shall make him unhappy, and I don't want to do that.
I don't believe I shall. Jack, why did you come here suggesting these
horrible things?"

There was a great anger in her voice, and she stood trembling before
him.

Just then the door opened, and a middle-aged lady walked in. She did
not seem at all surprised. Nobody who had known Dodo long was often
surprised.

She walked up to Dodo and kissed her.

"I came late," she said, "and your mother said you were in your room,
so I came up to congratulate you with all my heart."

"Thank you very much," said Dodo, returning the kiss. "Jack, do you
know Mrs. Vivian?--Mr. Broxton."

Mrs. Vivian bowed, and Jack bowed, and then nobody seemed quite to know
what to say next. Mrs. Vivian recovered herself first.

"I wish you would show me the necklace Lord Chesterford has given you,"
she said to Dodo. "Mrs. Vane said the diamonds were magnificent."

"Certainly, I will fetch it," said Dodo, with unusual docility. "Don't
go away, Jack."

Dodo left the room, and Mrs. Vivian turned to Jack.

"My dear young man," she said, "I am old enough to be your mother,
and you mustn't mind what I am going to say. This sort of thing won't
do at all. I know who you are perfectly well, and I warn you that you
are playing with fire. You were at liberty to do so before Dodo was
engaged, and I daresay you have burned your fingers already. Several
young men have--but now it won't do. Besides that, it isn't fair on
either Chesterford or Dodo herself."

Jack wanted to think "what an impertinent old woman," but there was
something in her manner that forbade it.

"I believe you are right," he said simply; "but it wasn't wholly my
fault."

Then he felt angry with himself for having shifted any of the blame on
to Dodo.

"_Honi soit_," said the other ambiguously. "I don't mean that--Ah, here
is Dodo."

The diamonds were duly shown and admired, and the three went downstairs
again.

Mrs. Vivian took her leave shortly. She was very gracious to Jack, and
as they parted she said,--

"Come and see me at any time; I should like to talk to you. Here is my
address."

Jack sought Mrs. Vane to inquire who Mrs. Vivian was. Mrs. Vane was
even more effusive than usual.

"Oh, she is quite one of our leading people," she said.--"She has
not been in London, or, in fact, in England for two years. She was
unhappily married. Her husband was a scamp, and after his death she
suddenly left London, and has only just returned. She is quite an
extraordinary woman--everyone used to rave about her. She never gave
herself airs, but somehow she was more looked up to than anyone else.
Quite royal in fact. I feel immensely honoured by her presence here. I
hardly dared to ask her--so fascinating, and so clever."

Dodo came up to Jack before he left.

"Jack," she said, "I was angry with you, and I am sorry. Don't bear me
malice. If Mrs. Vivian had not come in, I should have said something
abominable. I am afraid of her. I don't quite know why. She always
seems to be taking stock of one, and noticing how very small one is.
Don't forget to-morrow. We're all going on a water-party at Richmond.
Mind you come."

"I think I had better not," said Jack bluntly.

Dodo lifted her eyebrows in surprise that may have been genuine.

"Why not?" she asked.

Jack had no reasonable answer to give her.

"What did Mrs. Vivian say to you?" asked Dodo suddenly.

Jack paused.

"A few polite nothings," he said; "and half the royal motto. Mrs. Vane
said she was quite royal, which, of course, explains it."

"I can't conceive what you're talking about," remarked Dodo. "It seems
to me to be sheer nonsense."

Jack smiled.

"On the whole, I think it is sheer nonsense," he said. "Yes, I'll come."

Dodo swept him the prettiest little curtsey.

"How good of you," she said. "Good-night, Jack. Don't be cross, it
really isn't worth while, and you can behave so prettily if you like.
Oh, such a nice gentleman!"

"No, I expect it isn't worth while," said Jack.




CHAPTER THREE


There is a particular beauty about the Thames valley for which you may
search for years elsewhere, and not find; a splendid lavishness in
the way that the woods are cast down broadcast along the river, and a
princely extravagance of thick lush hayfields, that seem determined not
to leave a spare inch of land between them and the water. The whole
scene has been constructed with a noble disregard of expense, in the
way of water, land, and warm wood-land air. The tall, clean-limbed
beech-trees have room to stretch their great, lazy arms without being
prosecuted for their clumsy trespasses, and the squirrels that chatter
at you from their green houses seem to have a quite unusual sleekness
about them, and their insolent criticisms to each other about your
walk, and general personal unattractiveness, are inspired by a larger
share of animal spirits than those of other squirrels. As you row
gently up in the middle of the stream, you may see a heron standing in
the shallows, too lazy to fish, too supremely confident to mind the
approach of anything so inferior as yourself, and from the cool shadow
of the woods you may hear an old cock pheasant talking to himself, and
not troubling to practise a new and original method of rocketing in
June, for he knows that his time is not yet.

At this time of year, too, you need not trouble to look round, to see
if there are large boats full of noisy people bearing down on you; like
the pheasant, their time is not yet. But now and then the long strings
of creamy bubbles appearing on the deep, quiet water, and a sound rich
in associations of cool plunges into frothy streams, warns you that a
lock is near. And above you may see some small village clustering down
to the river's edge, to drink of its sweet coolness, or a couple of
shaggy-footed cart-horses, looking with mild wonder at this unexpected
method of locomotion, lifting their dripping noses from the bright
gravelly shallows to stare at you, before they proceed to finish their
evening watering.

Dodo was very fond of the Thames valley, and she really enjoyed giving
up a day of June in London to the woods and waters. They were to
start quite early in the morning, Dodo explained, and everyone was
to wear their very oldest clothes, for they were going to play ducks
and drakes, and drink milk in dairies, and pick buttercups, and get
entirely covered with freckles. Dodo herself never freckled, and she
was conscious of looking rather better for a slight touch of the sun,
and it would be very dear of Mrs. Vivian if she would come too, if she
didn't mind being silly all day; and, if so, would she call for them,
as they were on her way? Chesterford, of course, was going, and Jack,
and Maud and her mother; it was quite a small party; and wasn't Jack a
dear?

Mrs. Vane had got hold of a certain idea about Mrs. Vivian, distinctly
founded on fact. She was one of those women who cannot help making an
impression. How it is done, or exactly what it is, one would be puzzled
to define, but everyone noticed when she came info a room, and was
aware when she went out. It was not her personal appearance, for she
was short rather than tall, stout rather than graceful, and certainly
middle-aged rather than young. Dodo has mentioned the effect she
produced on her, and many people felt in the same way that Mrs. Vivian
was somehow on a higher plane than they, that her mind was cast in a
larger mould. Happily for our peace of mind such people are not very
common; most of our fellow-men are luckily much on the same level, and
they are not more than units among units. But Mrs. Vivian was much more
than a unit. Dodo had said of her that she was two or three at least.
And evidently nothing was further from Mrs. Vivian's wishes than trying
to make an impression, in fact, the very impressive element was rather
due to her extreme naturalness. We are most of us so accustomed to see
people behave, and to behave ourselves, in a manner not quite natural,
that to see anyone who never does so, is in itself calculated to make
one rather nervous.

Mrs. Vivian evidently intended to take her life up again at the point
where she had left off, so to speak--in other words, at the period
before her marriage. Of her husband, perhaps, the less said the better.
He died, owing to an accident, after ten years of married unhappiness,
and left Mrs. Vivian poorer than she had been before. After his
death she had travelled abroad for two years, and then returned to
England to live with her sister, who had married a rich judge and kept
house rather magnificently in Prince's Gate. Lady Fuller had always
disapproved of her sister's marriage, and she was heartily glad to
see her well quit of her husband, and, on her return to England,
received her with open arms, and begged her, on behalf of her husband
and herself, to make their home hers. Mrs. Vivian accordingly settled
down in the "extremely commodious" house in Prince's Gate, and, as I
said, took up her life where it had left off. A standing grievance that
her husband had had with her was, that she interested herself in the
poor, and in the East End slums, that she went to cabmen's shelters,
and espoused the cause of overdriven factory girls. He had told her
that it was meddling with other people's business; that nothing was
so objectionable as an assumption of charitable airs; that a woman
who went to balls and dinner-parties was a hypocrite if she pretended
to care about the state of the poor, and that she only did it because
she wished to appear unlike other people. But he altogether failed to
perceive that her actions were entirely uninfluenced by the impression
they were to make, and mistook her extreme naturalness for the subtlest
affectation. However, Mrs. Vivian resolutely banished from her mind
the remembrance of those ten years, and, being unable to think of her
husband with tenderness or affection, she preferred to forget her
married life altogether. The Vanes had been their neighbours in the
country for many years, and she had known Dodo since she was a child.
Dodo had once asked to accompany her in her visits to the East End,
and had been immensely struck by what she saw, and determined to be
charitable too. This sort of thing seemed extremely chic to Dodo's
observant mind. So she took up a factory of miserable match-girls, and
asked them all to tea, and got Mrs. Vivian to promise her help; but
when the afternoon came, Dodo particularly wished to go to a morning
concert, and on Mrs. Vivian's arrival she found, indeed, plenty of
match-girls, but no Dodo. Dodo came back later and made herself
extremely fascinating. She kissed the cleanest of the girls, and patted
the rest on the shoulder, and sang several delightful little French
songs to them to her own accompaniment on the banjo, and thanked
Mrs. Vivian for being "such a dear about the slums." But on the next
occasion when she had nothing to do, and called on Mrs. Vivian to ask
to be taken to another of those "darling little slums," Mrs. Vivian
hinted that, though she would be charmed to take her, she thought that
Dodo had perhaps forgotten that the Four-in-hand Club met that day in
Hyde Park. Dodo had forgotten it, and, as she had bespoken the box
seat on one of her friends' coaches, she hurried home again, feeling
it freshly borne in upon her that Mrs. Vivian thought she was very
contemptible indeed.

Altogether Mrs. Vivian knew Dodo well, and when she went home that
evening, she thought a good deal about the approaching marriage. She
was glad to have had that occasion of speaking to Jack, he seemed to
her to be worth doing it for. She knew that she ran the risk of being
told, in chillingly polite English, that she was stepping outside her
province, and that Jack did not belong to the East End class who
welcomed any charitable hand; but she had a remarkably keen eye, and
her intuitive perception told her at once that Jack's sense of the
justice of her remark would stifle any feeling he might have that she
was officious and meddlesome, and the event had justified her decision.

In the course of the next few days she met Jack several times.
They both went to the water-party Dodo spoke of, and she took the
opportunity to cultivate his acquaintance.

They were sitting on the bank of the river below the Clivedon woods, a
little apart from the others, and she felt that as he had behaved so
well, she owed him some apology.

"It was very nice of you, Mr. Broxton," she said, "to be so polite to
me last night. To tell you the truth, I did know you, though you didn't
know me. I was an old friend of your mother's, but I hadn't time to
explain that, and you were good enough to take me without explanations.
I always wonder what our attitude towards old friends of our mothers
ought to be. I really don't see why they should have any claim upon
one."

Jack laughed.

"The fact was that I knew you were right as soon as you spoke to me,
though I wanted to resent it. I had been putting it differently to
myself; that was why I spoke to Dodo."

"Tell me more," she said. "From the momentary glance I had of you and
her, I thought you had been remonstrating with her, and she had been
objecting. I don't blame you for remonstrating in the general way.
Dodo's conduct used not to be always blameless. But it looked private,
and that was what I did object to. I daresay you think me a tiresome,
impertinent, old woman."

Jack felt more strongly than ever that this woman could not help being
well-bred in whatever she did.

"It sounds disloyal to one's friends, I know," he said, "but it was
because I really did care for both of them that I acted as I did. What
will happen will be that he will continue to adore her, and by degrees
she will begin to hate him. He will not commit suicide, and I don't
think Dodo will make a scandal. Her regard for appearances alone would
prevent that. It would be a confession of failure."

Mrs. Vivian looked grave.

"Did you tell Dodo this?"

"More or less," he replied. "Except about the scandal and the suicide."

Mrs. Vivian's large, grey, serious eyes twinkled with some slight
amusement.

"I think while I was about it I should have told her that too," she
said; "that's the sort of argument that appeals to Dodo. You have to
scream if you want her to listen to what she doesn't want to hear. But
I don't think it was quite well judged of you, you know."

"I think she ought to know it," said Jack, "though I realise I ought to
have been the last person to tell her, for several reasons."

Mrs. Vivian looked at him inquiringly.

"You mean for fear of her putting a wrong construction on it? I see,"
she said.

Jack felt that it could not have been more delicately done.

"How did you know?"

"Oh," she said, "that is the kind of intuition which is the only
consolation we women have for getting old. We are put on the shelf, no
doubt, after a certain age, but we get a habit of squinting down into
the room below. That is the second time I have shown myself a meddling
old woman, and you have treated me very nicely both times. Let us join
the others. I see tea is ready."

Dodo meanwhile had walked Chesterford off among the green cool woods
that bordered the river. She had given Jack's remarks a good deal of
consideration, and, whether or no she felt that he was justified in
them on present data, she determined that she would make the event
falsify his predictions. Dodo had an unlimited capacity for interfering
in the course of destiny. She devoted herself to her aims, whatever
they might be, with a wonderful singleness of purpose, and since it
is a fact that one usually gets what one wants in this world, if one
tries hard enough, it followed that up to this time she had, on the
whole, usually got her way. But she was now dealing with an unknown
quantity, which she could not gauge. She had confessed to Jack her
inability to understand what love meant, and it was with a certain
sense of misgiving that she felt that her answers for the future would
be expressed in terms of that unknown quantity "x." To Dodo's concrete
mind this was somewhat discouraging, but she determined to do her best
to reduce things to an equation in which the value of "x" could be
found in terms of some of those many symbols which she did know.

Dodo had an inexhaustible fund of vivacity, which was a very useful
instrument to her; like a watch-key that fits all watches, she was
able to apply it as required to very different pieces of mechanism.
When she wished to do honour to a melancholy occasion, for instance,
her vivacity turned any slight feeling of sorrow she had into
hysterical weeping; when the occasion was joyful, it became a torrent
of delightful nonsense. To-day the occasion was distinctly joyful.
She had a large sense of success. Chesterford was really a very
desirable lover; his immense wealth answered exactly the requirements
of Dodo's wishes. Furthermore, he was safe and easily satisfied; the
day was charming; Jack was there; she had had a very good lunch,
and was shortly going to have a very good tea; and Chesterford had
given orders for his yacht to be in readiness to take them off for
a delightful honeymoon, directly after their marriage--in short,
all her circumstances were wholly satisfactory. She had said to him
after lunch, as they were sitting on the grass, "Come away into those
delicious woods, and leave these stupid people here," and he was
radiant in consequence, for, to tell the truth, she had been rather
indulgent of his company than eager for it the last day or two. She was
in the highest spirits as they strolled away.

"Oh do give me a cigarette," she said, as soon as they had got out of
sight. "I didn't dare smoke with that Vivian woman there. Chesterford,
I am frightened of her. She is as bad as the Inquisition, or that
odious man in Browning who used to walk about, and tell the king if
anything happened. I am sure she puts it down in a book whenever I say
anything I shouldn't. You know that's so tantalising. It is a sort
of challenge to be improper. Chesterford, if you put down in a book
anything I do wrong, I swear I shall go to the bad altogether."

To Chesterford this seemed the most attractive nonsense that ever
flowed from female lips.

"Why, you can't do anything wrong, Dodo," he said simply; "at least not
what I think wrong. And what does it matter what other people think?"

Dodo patted his hand, and blew him a kiss approvingly.

"That's quite right," she said; "bear that in mind and we shall
never have a quarrel. Chesterford, we won't quarrel at all, will we?
Everybody else does, I suppose, now and then, and that proves it's
vulgar. Mrs. Vivian used to quarrel with her husband, so she's vulgar.
Oh, I'm so glad she's vulgar. I sha'n't care how much she looks at me
now. Bother! I believe it was only her husband that used to swear at
her. Never mind, he must have been vulgar to do that, and she must
have vulgar tastes to have married a vulgar person. I don't think I'm
vulgar, do you? Really it's a tremendous relief to have found out that
she's vulgar. But I am afraid I shall forget it when I see her again.
You must remind me. You must point at her and say V, if you can manage
it. Or are you afraid of her too?"

"Oh, never mind Mrs. Vivian," said he, "she can wait."

"That's what she's always doing," said Dodo. "Waiting and watching with
large serious eyes. I can't think why she does it, for she doesn't make
use of it afterwards. Now when I know something discreditable of a
person, if I dislike him, I tell everybody else, and if I like him, I
tell him that I know all about it, and I am _so_ sorry for him. Then he
thinks you are charming and sympathetic, and you have a devoted admirer
for life."

Chesterford laughed. He had no desire to interrupt this rapid monologue
of Dodo's. He was quite content to play the part of the Greek chorus.

"I'm going to sit down here," continued Dodo. "Do you mind my smoking
cigarettes? I'm not sure that it is in good form, but I mean to make
it so. I want to be the fashion. Would you like your wife to be the
fashion?"

He bent over her as she sat with her head back, smiling up at him.

"My darling," he said, "do you know, I really don't care a straw
whether you are the fashion or not, as long as you are satisfied. You
might stand on your head in Piccadilly if you liked, and I would come
and stand too. All I care about is that you are you, and that you have
made me the happiest man on God's earth."

Dodo was conscious again of the presence of this unknown quantity. She
would much prefer striking it out altogether; it seemed to have quite
an unreasonable preponderance.

Chesterford did not usually make jokes, in fact she had never heard him
make one before, and his remark about standing on his head seemed to
be only accounted for by this perplexing factor. Dodo had read about
love in poems and novels, and had seen something of it, too, but it
remained a puzzle to her. She hoped her calculations might not prove
distressingly incorrect owing to this inconvenient factor. But she
laughed with her habitual sincerity, and replied,--

"What a good idea; let's do it to-morrow morning. Will ten suit you?
We can let windows in all the houses round. I'm sure there would be a
crowd to see us. It really would be interesting, though perhaps not a
very practical thing to do. I wonder if Mrs. Vivian would come. She
would put down a very large bad mark to me for that, but I shall tell
her it was your suggestion."

Chesterford laughed with pure pleasure.

"Dodo," he said, "you are not fair on Mrs. Vivian. She is a very good
woman."

"Oh, I don't doubt that," said Dodo, "but, you see, being good doesn't
necessarily make one a pleasant companion. Now, I'm not a bit good, but
you must confess you would rather talk to me than to the Vivian."

"Oh, you are different," said he rapturously. "You are Dodo."

Dodo smiled contentedly. This man was so easy to please. She had felt
some slight dismay at Jack's ill-omened prophecies, but Jack was
preposterously wrong about this.

They rejoined the others in course of time. Dodo made fearful ravages
on the eatables, and after tea she suddenly announced,--

"Mrs. Vivian, I'm going to smoke a cigarette. Do you feel dreadfully
shocked?"

Mrs. Vivian laughed.

"My dear Dodo, I should never venture to be shocked at anything you
did. You are so complete that I should be afraid to spoil you utterly,
if I tried to suggest corrections."

Dodo lit a cigarette with a slightly defiant air. Mrs. Vivian's manner
had been entirely sincere, but she felt the same sort of resentment
that a prisoner might feel if the executioner made sarcastic remarks to
him. She looked on Mrs. Vivian as a sort of walking Inquisition.

"My darling Dodo," murmured Mrs. Vane, "I do so wish you would, not
smoke, it will ruin your teeth entirely."

Dodo turned to Mrs. Vivian.

"That means you think it would be very easy to spoil me, as you call
it."

"Not at all," said that lady. "I don't understand you, that's all, and
I might be pulling out the key-stone of the arch unawares. Not that I
suppose your character depends upon your smoking."

Dodo leaned back and laughed.

"Oh, this is too dreadfully subtle," she exclaimed. "I want to unbend
my mind. Chesterford, come and talk to me, you are deliciously
unbending."




CHAPTER FOUR


Lord and Lady Chesterford were expected home on the 6th of December.
The marriage took place late in August, and they had gone off on the
yacht directly afterwards, in order to spend a few warm months in the
Mediterranean. Dodo had written home occasionally to Mrs. Vane, and now
and then to Jack. To Jack her letters had never been more than a word
or two, simply saying that they were enjoying themselves enormously,
and that Jack had been hopelessly wrong. Mrs. Vane also had much reason
to be satisfied. She had spent her autumn in a variety of fashionable
watering-places, where her dresses had always been the awe and wonder
of the town; she had met many acquaintances, to whom she had poured
out her rapture over Dodo's marriage; had declared that Chesterford
was most charming, and that he and Dodo were quite another Adam and
Eve in Paradise, and that she was really quite jealous of Dodo. When
they left England, they had intended to spend the winter abroad and
not come back till February, but early in December a telegram had
arrived at Winston, Lord Chesterford's country house, saying that they
would be back in ten days. About the same time Jack received a letter,
saying that their change of plans was solely owing to the fact that
Dodo was rather tired of the sea, and the weather was bad, and that
she had never been so happy in her life. Dodo's eagerness to assure
Jack of this struck him as being in rather bad taste. She ought to have
entirely ignored his warnings. The happiness of a newly-married woman
ought to be so absorbing, as to make her be unaware of the existence
of other people; and this consciousness in Dodo of her triumphant
superiority of knowledge, led him to suppose he was right rather than
wrong. He was unfeignedly sorry not to be sure that she had been right.
When he told Dodo that he wished to be jealous of Chesterford, he was
quite sincere. Since he could not have Dodo himself, at any rate let
her make someone happy. Dodo also informed him that they were going to
have a house-party that Christmas and that he must come, and she had
asked Mrs. Vivian, to show that she wasn't afraid of her any longer,
and that Maud was coming, and she wished Jack would marry her. Then
followed a dozen other names belonging to Dodo's private and particular
set, who had all been rather disgusted at her marrying what they chose
to call a Philistine. It had been quite hoped that she would marry
Jack. Jack was not a Philistine at all, though the fact of his having
proposed to her remained a secret. Maud, on the other hand, was a
Philistine; and it was one of Dodo's merits that she did not drop those
who originally had claims on her, when she became the fashion. She was
constantly trying to bring Maud into notice, but Maud resisted the
most well-meant shoves. She had none of Dodo's vivacity and talents;
in fact, her talents lay chiefly in the direction of arranging the
places at a dinner-party, and in doing a great deal of unnecessary
worsted work. What happened to her worsted work nobody ever knew. It
was chiefly remarkable for the predominance of its irregularities,
and a suggestion of damaged goods about it, in consequence of much
handling. To Dodo it seemed an incredible stupidity that anyone should
do worsted work, or, if they did do it, not do it well. She used to
tell Maud that it was done much more cheaply in shops, and much better.
Then Maud would drop it for a time, and take to playing the piano, but
that was even more oppressively stupid to Dodo's mind than the worsted
work. Maud had a perfect genius for not letting her right hand know
what her left hand was doing, a principle which was abhorrent to Dodo
in every application. The consequence of all this was, that Dodo was
apt to regard her sister as a failure, though she still, as in the
present instance, liked giving Maud what she considered a helping hand.
It must be confessed that Dodo's efforts were not altogether unselfish.
She liked her environment to be as great a success as herself, as it
thus added to her own completeness, just as a picture looks better in
a good frame than in a shabby one. Maud, however, had no desire to
be a success. She was perfectly happy to sit in the background and
do the worsted work. She longed to be let alone. At times she would
make her escape to the iron works and try to cultivate the domestic
virtues in attending to her father. She thought with a kind of envy
of the daughters of country clergymen, whose mediocre piano-playing
was invaluable to penny readings and village concerts, and for whose
worsted work there was a constant demand, in view of old women and
almshouses. She had hoped that Dodo's slumming experiences would bring
her into connection with this side of life, and had dispensed tea and
buns with a kind of rapture on the occasion of Dodo's tea-party, but
her sister had dropped her slums, as we have seen, at this point, and
Maud was too shy and uninitiative to take them up alone. She had an
excellent heart, but excellent hearts were out of place in Mrs. Vane's
establishment. Dodo had confessed her inability to deal with them.

Dodo's general invitation to Jack was speedily followed by a special
one from Winston, naming the first week in January as the time of the
party. Jack was met on his arrival by Chesterford, and as they drove
back the latter gave him particulars about the party in the house.

"They are chiefly Dodo's friends," he said. "Do you know, Jack, except
for you, I think I am rather afraid of Dodo's friends, they are so
dreadfully clever, you know. Of course they are all very charming, but
they talk about character. Now I don't care to talk about character.
I know a good man when I see him, and that's all that matters as far
as I can judge. Dodo was saying last night that her potentiality for
good was really much stronger than her potentiality for evil, and that
her potentiality for evil was only skin deep, and they all laughed,
and said they didn't believe it. And Dodo said, 'Ask Chesterford if it
isn't,' and God only knows what I said."

Jack laughed.

"Poor old fellow," he said, "you and I will go to the smoking-room, and
talk about nothing at all subtle. I don't like subtleties either."

"Ah, but they expect great things of you," said Chesterford ruefully.
"Dodo was saying you were an apostle. Are you an apostle, Jack?"

"Oh, that's only a nickname of Dodo's," he said, smiling. "But who are
these dreadfully clever people?"

"Oh, there's Ledgers--you know him, I suppose--and a Miss Edith
Staines, and a girl whom I don't know, called Miss Grantham, whom
Ledgers said, when she was out of the room last night, that he had
'discovered.' What he meant Heaven knows. Then there's Maud, who is a
nice girl. She went round to the keeper's with me this afternoon, and
played with the baby. Then there's Bertie Arbuthnot, and I think that's
all."

Jack laughed.

"I don't think we need mind them," he said. "We'll form a square to
resist cavalry.".

"Bertie's the best of the lot," said Chesterford, "and they laughed at
him rather, I think. But he is quite unconscious of it."

They drove on in silence a little way. Then. Chesterford said,--

"Jack, Dodo makes me the happiest of men. I am afraid sometimes
that she is too clever, and wishes I was more so, but it makes no
difference. Last night, as I was in the smoking-room she sent to say
she wanted to see me, and I went up. She said that she wanted to talk
to me, now she had got rid of all those tiresome people, and said so
many charming things that I got quite conceited, and had to stop her.
I often wonder, Jack, what I have done to deserve her. And she went on
talking about our yachting, and those months in London when we were
first engaged, and she told me to go on smoking, and she would have a
cigarette too. And we sat on talking, till I saw she was tired, and
then I went away, though she would hardly let me."

This communication had only the effect of making Jack rather
uncomfortable. Knowing what he did, he knew that this was not all
genuine on Dodo's part. It was obviously an effort to keep it up, to
use a vulgar term. And since it was not all genuine, the doubt occurred
as to whether any of it was. Jack had a profound belief in Dodo's
dramatic talents. That the need for keeping it up had appeared already
was an alarming symptom, but the real tragedy would begin on that day
when Dodo first failed to do so. And from that moment Jack regarded his
prophecy as certain to be fulfilled. The overture had begun, and in
course of time the curtain would rise on a grim performance.

They drove up to the door, and entered the large oak-panelled hall,
hung all round with portraits of the family. The night was cold, and
there was a fire sparkling in the wide, open grate. As they entered,
an old collie, who was enjoying the fruits of a well-spent life on the
hearthrug, stretched his great, tawny limbs, and shoved a welcoming
nose into Chesterford's hand. This produced heartburnings of the
keenest order in the mind of a small fox-terrier pup, who consisted
mainly of head and legs, which latter he evidently considered at
present more as a preventive towards walking than an aid. Being unable
to reach his hand the puppy contented himself with sprawling over his
boots, and making vague snaps at the collie. It was characteristic of
Chesterford that all animals liked him. He had a tender regard for
the feelings of anything that was dependent on him. Dodo thought this
almost inexplicable. She disliked to see animals in pain, because they
usually howled, but the dumb anguish of a dog who considers himself
neglected conveyed nothing to her. From within a door to the right,
came sounds of talking and laughter.

There was something pathetic in the sight of this beautiful home,
and its owner standing with his back to the fire, as Jack divested
himself of his coat. Chesterford was so completely happy, so terribly
unconscious of what Jack felt sure was going on. He looked the model
of the typical English gentleman, with his tall stature and well-bred
face. Jack remembered passing on the road a labourer who was turning
into his cottage. The firelight had thrown a bright ray across the
snow-covered road, and inside he had caught a momentary glimpse of
the wife with a baby in her arms, and a couple of girls laying the
table-cloth. He remembered afresh Dodo's remark about waiting until
the chimney smoked, and devoutly hoped that the chimney of this
well-appointed house was in good order.

Chesterford led the way to the drawing-room door, and pushed it open
for Jack to enter. Dodo was sitting at the tea-table, talking to some
half-dozen people who were grouped round her.

As Jack entered, she rose and came towards him with a smile of welcome.

"Ah, Jack," she said, "this is delightful; I am tremendously glad to
see you! Let's see, whom do you know? May I introduce you to Miss
Grantham? Mr. Broxton. I think you know everybody else. Chesterford,
come here and sit by me at once. You've been an age away. I expect
you've been getting into mischief." She wheeled a chair up for him, and
planted him down in it. He looked radiantly happy.

"Now, Jack," she went on, "tell us what you've been doing all these
months. It's years since we saw you. I think you look all right. No
signs of breaking down yet. I hoped you would have gone into a rapid
consumption, because I was married, but it doesn't seem to have made
any difference to anybody except Chesterford and me. Jack, don't you
think I shall make an excellent matron? I shall get Maud to teach
me some of her crochet-stitches. Have you ever been here before?
Chesterford, you shut it up, didn't you, for several years, until you
thought of bringing me here? Sugar, Jack? Two lumps? Chesterford, you
mustn't eat sugar, you're getting quite fat already. You must obey me,
you know. You promised to love, honour and obey. Oh, no; I did that.
However, sugar is bad for you."

"Dodo keeps a tight hand on me, you see," said Chesterford, from the
depths of his chair. "Dodo, give me the sugar, or we shall quarrel."

Dodo laughed charmingly.

"He would quarrel with his own wife for a lump of sugar," said Dodo
dramatically; "but she won't quarrel with him. Take it then."

She glanced at Jack for a moment as she said this, but Jack was talking
to Miss Grantham, and either did not see, or did not seem to. Jack
had a pleasant impression of light hair, dark grey eyes, and a very
fair complexion. But somehow it produced no more effect on him than do
those classical profiles which are commoner on the lids of chocolate
boxes than elsewhere. Her "discoverer" was sitting in a chair next her,
talking to her with something of the air of a showman exhibiting the
tricks of his performing bear. His manner seemed to say, "See what an
intelligent animal." The full sublimity of Lord Ledgers' remark had not
struck him till that moment.

Miss Grantham was delivering herself of a variety of opinions in a
high, penetrating voice.

"Oh, did you never hear him sing last year?" she was saying to Lord
Ledgers. "Mr. Broxton, you must have heard him. He has the most lovely
voice. He simply sings into your inside. You feel as if someone had
got hold of your heart, and was stroking it. Don't you know how some
sounds produce that effect? I went with Dodo once. She simply wept
floods, but I was too far gone for that. He had put a little stopper on
my tear bottle, and though I was dying to cry, I couldn't."

"I always wonder how sorry we are when we cry," said Lord Ledgers in
a smooth, low voice. "It always strikes me that people who don't cry
probably feel most."

"Oh, you are a horrid, unfeeling monster," remarked Miss Grantham;
"that's what comes of being a man. Just because you are not in the
habit of crying yourself, you think that you have all the emotions,
but stoically repress them. Now I cultivate emotions. I would walk ten
miles any day in order to have an emotion. Wouldn't you, Mr. Broxton?"

"It obviously depends on what sort of emotion I should find when I
walked there," said Jack. "There are some emotions that I would walk
further to avoid."

"Oh, of course, the common emotions, 'the litany things,' as Dodo calls
them," said Miss Grantham, dismissing them lightly with a wave of her
hand. "But what I like is a nice little sad emotion that makes you
feel so melancholy you don't know what to do with yourself. I don't
mean deaths and that sort of thing, but seeing someone you love being
dreadfully unhappy and extremely prosperous at the same time."

"But it's rather expensive for the people you love," said Jack.

"Oh, we must all make sacrifices," said Miss Grantham. "It's quite
worth while if you gratify your friends. I would not mind being acutely
unhappy, if I could dissect my own emotions, and have them photographed
and sent round to my friends."

"What a charming album we might all make," said Lord Ledgers. "Page 1.
Miss Grantham's heart in the acute stage. Page 2. Mortification setting
in. Page 3. The lachrymatory gland permanently closed by a tenor voice."

"Poor old Chesterford," thought Jack, "this is rather hard on him."

But Chesterford was not to be pitied just now, for Dodo was devoting
her exclusive conversation to him in defiance of her duties as hostess.
She was recounting to him how she had spent every moment of his absence
at the station. Certainly she was keeping it up magnificently at
present.

"And Mrs. Vivian comes to-morrow," she was saying. "You like her, don't
you, Chesterford? You must be awfully good to her, and take her to see
all the drunken idlers in the village. That will be dear of you. It's
just what she likes. She has sort of passion for drunken cabmen, who
stamp on their wives. If you stamped on me a little every evening, she
would cultivate you to any extent. Shall I lie down on the floor for
you to begin?"

Chesterford leant back in his chair in a kind of ecstasy.

"Ah, Dodo," he said, "you are wonderfully good to me. But I must go and
write two notes before dinner; and you must amuse your guests. I am
very glad Jack has come. He is a very good chap. But don't make him an
apostle."

Dodo laughed.

"I shall make a little golden hoop for him like the apostles in the
Arundels, and another for you, and when nobody else is there you can
take them off, and play hoops with them. I expect the apostles did that
when they went for a walk. You couldn't wear it round your hat, could
you?"

Miss Grantham instantly annexed Dodo.

"Dodo," she said, "come and take my part. These gentlemen say you
shouldn't cultivate emotions."

"No, not that quite," corrected Jack. "I said it was expensive for your
friends if they had to make themselves miserable, in order to afford
food for your emotions."

"Now, isn't that selfish?" said Miss Grantham, with the air of a martyr
at the stake. "Here am I ready to be drawn and quartered for anyone's
amusement, and you tell me you are sorry for your part, but that it
costs too much. Maud, come off that sofa, and take up the daggers for a
too unselfish woman."

"I expect I don't know much about these things," said Maud.

"No; Maud would not go further than wrapping herself in a
winding-sheet of blue worsted," remarked Dodo incisively.

Maud flushed a little.

"Oh, Dodo!" she exclaimed deprecatingly.

"It's no use hitting Maud," said Dodo pensively. "You might as well hit
a feather bed. Now, if you hit Jack, he will hit back."

"Well, I'd prefer you hit me," said Jack, "than that you should hit
anyone who can't hit back."

"Can't you see that I have determined not to hit feather beds," said
Dodo in a low tone. "Really, Jack, you do me an injustice."

Jack looked up at her quickly.

"Do you say that already?" he asked.

"Oh, if you are going to whisper, I shall whisper too," remarked Miss
Grantham calmly. "Lord Ledgers, I want to tell you a secret."

"I was only telling. Jack he was stupid," said Dodo. "I thought I would
spare him before you all, but I see I have to explain. Have you seen
Bertie yet, Jack? He's in the smoking-room, I think. Edith Staines
is probably there too. She always smokes after tea, and Chesterford
doesn't like it in the drawing-room. You know her, don't you? She's
writing a symphony or something, and she's no use except at meal-times.
I expect she will play it us afterwards. We must make Bertie sing too.
There's the dressing-bell. I'm going to be gorgeous to-night in honour
of you, Jack."

Jack found himself making a quantity of reflections, when he retired
to his room that night. He became aware that he had enjoyed himself
more that evening than he had done for a very long time. He questioned
himself as to when he had enjoyed himself so much, and he was
distinctly perturbed to find that the answer was, when he had last
spent an evening with Dodo. He had formed an excellent habit of being
exactly honest with himself, and he concluded that Dodo's presence had
been the cause of it. It was a very unpleasant blow to him. He had
accepted her refusal with an honest determination to get over it. He
had not moped, nor pined, nor striven, nor cried. He had no intentions
of dying of a broken heart, but the stubborn fact remained that Dodo
exercised an unpleasantly strong influence over him. He could have
repeated without effort all she had said that night. She had not said
anything particularly remarkable, but somehow he felt that the most
striking utterances of other men and women would not have produced any
such effect on him. It really was very inconvenient. Dodo had married
a man who adored her, for whom she did not care two pins' heads, and
this man was one of his oldest friends. Decidedly there was something
left-handed about this particular disposition of destiny. And the worst
of it was that Chesterford was being hopelessly duped. About that he
felt no doubt. Dodo's acting was so remarkably life-like, that he
mistook it at present for reality. But the play must end some time,
and the sequel was too dark and involved to be lightly followed out.
He could not conceive why this elaborate drama on Dodo's part did
not disgust him more. He wished he had been deceived by it himself,
but having been behind the scenes, he had seen Dodo, as it were, in
the green-room, putting on the rouge and powder. But failing that, he
wished that a wholesome impulse of disgust and contempt had superseded
his previous feelings with regard to her. But he believed with her that
under the circumstances it was the best thing to do. The marriage was a
grand mistake, true, but given that, was not this simply so many weeks
of unhappiness saved? Then he had an immense pity for Dodo's original
mistake. She had told him once that she was no more responsible for her
philosophy than for the fact that she happened to be five foot eight
in height, and had black eyes and black hair. "It was Nature's doing,"
she had said; "go and quarrel with her, but don't blame me. If I had
made myself, I should have given myself a high ideal; I should have
had something to live up to. Now, I have no ideal. The whole system
of things seems to me such an immense puzzle, that I have given up
trying to find a solution. I know what I like, and what I dislike.
Can you blame me for choosing the one, and avoiding the other? I like
wealth and success, and society and admiration. In a degree I have
secured them, and the more I secure them the more reason I have to be
satisfied. To do otherwise would be like putting on boots that were too
large for me--they are excellent for other people, but not for me. I
cannot accept ideals that I don't feel. I can understand them, and I
can sympathise with them, and I can and do wish they were mine; but,
as Nature has denied me them, I must make the best of what I have."

Jack felt hopeless against this kind of reasoning, and angry with
himself for letting this woman have such dominion over him. In a
measure he felt himself capable of views bounded by a horizon not
so selfishly fatalistic, and the idea of the smoking chimney in the
cottage did not seem to matter, provided that Dodo was sitting on
the other side of the hearthrug. He would willingly have sacrificed
anything else, to allow himself to give full reins to his thought on
this point. But the grand barrier which stood between him and Dodo,
was not so much her refusal of him, but the existence of her husband.
At this Jack pulled himself up sharp. There are certain feelings of
loyalty that still rank above all other emotions. Miss Grantham would
certainly have classed such among the litany things. There was nothing
heroic about it. It simply consisted in a sturdy refusal to transgress,
even in vaguest thought, a code which deals with the most ordinary and
commonplace virtues and vices. There is nothing heroic in a street boy
passing by the baker's cart without a grab at the loaves, and it sounds
almost puritanical to forbid him to cast a glance at them, or inhale
a sniff of their warm fragrance. "Certainly this side of morality is
remarkably dull," thought Jack; and the worst of it is, that it is
not only dull but difficult. With practice most of us could become
a Simeon Stylites, provided we are gifted with a steady head, and
a constitution that defies showers. It is these commonplace acts of
loyalty, the ordinary and rational demands of friendship and society,
that are so dreadfully taxing to most of us who have the misfortune not
to be born saints. Then Jack began to feel ill-used. "Why the deuce
should Chesterford be born a marquis and not I? What has he done to
have a title and fortune and Dodo that I have been given the chance to
do?" It struck him that his reflections were deplorably commonplace,
and that his position ought to be made much more of. He wondered
whether this sort of situation was always so flat. In novels there is
always a touch of the heroic in the faithful friend who is loyal to
his cousin, and steadily avoids his cousin's wife; but here he is in
identically the same situation, feeling not at all heroic, but only
discontented and quarrelsome with this ill-managed world. Decidedly he
would go to bed.

Owing to a certain habit that he had formed early in life he slept
soundly, and morning found him not only alive, but remarkably well and
hearty, and with a certain eagerness to follow up what he had thought
out on the previous night. He was in an excellently managed household,
which imposed no rules on its inhabitants except that they should
do what they felt most inclined to do; he was in congenial company,
and his digestion was good. It is distressing how important those
material matters are to us. The deeper emotions do but form a kind of
background to our coarser needs. We come down in the morning feeling
rather miserable, but we eat an excellent breakfast, and, in spite of
ourselves, we are obliged to confess that we feel distinctly better.

As Jack crossed the hall, he met a footman carrying a breakfast tray
into the drawing-room. The door was half open, and there came from
within the sounds of vigorous piano-playing, and now and then a bar
or two of music sung in a rich, alto voice. These tokens seemed to
indicate that Miss Edith Staines was taking her breakfast at the piano.
Jack found himself smiling at the thought; it was a great treat to
find anyone so uniformly in character as Miss Staines evidently was.
He turned into the dining-room, where he found Miss Grantham sitting
at the table alone. Dodo was lolling in a great chair by the fire, and
there were signs that Lord Chesterford had already breakfasted. Dodo
was nursing a little Persian kitten with immense tenderness. Apparently
she had been disagreeing with Miss Grantham on some point, and had made
the kitten into a sort of arbitrator.

"Oh, you dear kitten," she was saying, "you must agree with me, if you
think it over. Now, supposing you were very fond of a tom-cat that
had only the woodshed to lie in, and another very presentable torn
belonging to the Queen came--Ah, Jack, here you are. Chesterford's
breakfasted, and there's going to be a shoot to-day over the home
covers. Edith is composing and breakfasting. She says she has--an idea.
So Grantie and I are going to bring you lunch to the keeper's cottage
at half-past one."

"And Bertie?" asked Jack.

"Oh, you must get Edith to tell you what Bertie's going to do. Perhaps
she'll want him to turn over the pages for her, or give her spoonfuls
of egg and bacon, while she does her music. He's in the drawing-room
now. Edith's appropriated him. She usually does appropriate somebody.
We told Chesterford to get Bertie to come if possible, but Edith's
leave is necessary. Maud is going to meet Mrs. Vivian, who comes this
afternoon, and, as she has some shopping to do, she will lunch in
Harchester, and drive out afterwards; Ledgers has had a telegram, and
has made a blasphemous departure for town. He comes back this evening."

"Well, Dodo," remarked Miss Grantham, "now let's go on with what we
were discussing. Mr. Broxton will make a much better umpire than the
kitten."

"Oh, shut up, Grantie," said Dodo, with fine candour, "Jack agrees with
neither of us."

"Tell me what it is," said Jack, "and then I'll promise to agree with
somebody."

"I don't care about your agreeing with me," said Miss Grantham. "I know
I'm right, so it doesn't signify what anybody else thinks."

Miss Grantham, it may be noticed, showed some signs of being ruffled:

"Oh, now, Grantie's angry," said Dodo. "Grantie, do be amiable. Call
her Grantie, Jack," she added with feeling.

"Dodo, darling," said Miss Grantham, "you're really foolish, now and
then. I'm perfectly amiable. But, you know, if you don't care for a
man at all, and he does care for you a great deal, it's sure to be a
failure. I can't think of any instance just now, but I know I'm right."

Dodo looked up and caught Jack's eye for a moment. Then she turned to
Miss Grantham.

"Dear Grantie, please shut up. It's no use trying to convince me. I
know a case in point just the other way, but I am not at liberty to
mention it. Am I, Jack?"

"If you mean the same as the case I'm thinking of, certainly not," said
Jack.

"Well, I'm sure this is very pleasant for me," said Miss Grantham, in
high, cool tones.

At this moment a shrill voice called Dodo from the drawing-room.

"Dodo, Dodo," it cried, "the man brought me two tepid poached eggs! Do
send me something else. Is there such a thing as a grilled bone?"

These remarks were speedily followed up by the appearance of Miss
Staines at the dining-room door. In one hand she held the despised
eggs, in the other a quire of music paper. Behind her followed a
footman with her breakfast-tray, in excusable ignorance as to what was
required of him.

"Dear Dodo," she went on, "you know when I'm composing a symphony I
want something more exciting than two poached eggs. Mr. Broxton, I
know, will take my side. You couldn't eat poached eggs at a ball--could
you? They might do very well for a funeral march or a nocturne,
but they won't do for a symphony, especially for the scherzo. A
brandy-and-soda and a grilled bone is what one really wants for a
scherzo, only that would be quite out of the question."

Edith Staines talked in a loud, determined voice, and emphasised her
points with little dashes and nourishes of the dish of poached eggs. At
this moment one of them flew on to the floor and exploded. But it is an
ill wind that blows nobody any good, and at any rate this relieved the
footman from his state of indecision. His immediate mission was clearly
to remove it.

Dodo threw herself back in her chair with a peal of laughter.

"Go on, go on," she cried, "you are too splendid. Tell us what you
write the presto on."

"I can't waste another moment," said Edith. "I'm in the middle of the
most entrancing motif, which is working out beautifully. Do you mind
my smoking in the drawing-room? I am awfully sorry, but it makes all
the difference to my work. Burn a little incense there afterwards. Do
send me a bone, Dodo. Come and hear me play the scherzo later on. It's
the best thing I've ever done. Oh, by the way, I telegraphed to Herr
Truffen to come to-morrow--he's my conductor, you know. You can put
him up in the village or the coal-hole, if you like. He's quite happy
if he gets enough beer. He's my German conductor, you know. I made him
entirely. I took him to the Princess the other day when I was at Aix,
and we all had beer together in the verandah of the Beau Site. You'll
be amused with him."

"Oh, rather," said Dodo; "that will be all right. He can sleep in the
house. Will he come early to-morrow? Let's see--to-morrow's Sunday.
Edith, I've got an idea. We'll have a dear little service in the
house--we can't go to church if it snows--and you shall play your Mass,
and Herr What's-his-name shall conduct, and Bertie, and Grantie, and
you and I will sing. Won't it be lovely? You and I will settle all that
this afternoon. Telegraph to Truffler, or whatever his name is, to come
by the eight-twenty. Then he'll be here by twelve, and we'll have the
service at a quarter past."

"Dodo, that will be grand," said Edith. "I can't wait now. Good-bye.
Hurry up my breakfast--I'm awfully sharp-set."

Edith went back to the drawing-room, whistling in a particularly shrill
manner.

"_Oh_, did you ever!" said Dodo, who was laughing feebly in her chair.
"Edith really is splendid. She is so dreadfully sure of herself, and
she tells you so. And she does talk so loud--it goes right through your
head like a chirping canary. Chesterford can't bear her."

Jack laughed.

"She was giving him advice about the management of his kennels at
dinner last night," he said. "I heard her say to him impressively, as
she left the room, 'Try brimstone.' It took Chesterford at least five
minutes to recover. He was dreadfully depressed."

"He must take Mrs. Vivian in to-night," said Dodo. "You'll hear them
talking about slums, and over-crowding, and marriage among minors, and
the best cure for dipsomaniacs. The other night they were talking about
someone called 'Charlie,' affectionately but gravely, and I supposed
they meant your brother, Jack, but it was the second laundress's young
man. Oh, they shook their heads over him."

"I don't think common people are at all interesting," said Miss
Grantham. "They only think about things to eat, and heaven, and three
aces, and funerals."

She had by this time finished her breakfast, and stood warming her back
in a gentlemanly manner by the fire.

The door opened and Lord Chesterford came in.

"Morning, Jack," he said, "what a lazy chap you are. It's half-past
ten, and you're still breakfasting. Dodo, what a beastly smell of
smoke."

"Oh, it's Edith," remarked Dodo. "You mustn't mind her, dear. You know
she's doing a symphony, and she has to smoke to keep the inspiration
going. Dear old boy, you are so sweet about these things; you've never
made a fuss since I knew you first. You look very nice this morning.
I wish I could dress in a homespun Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers.
Grantie and I are going to bring you lunch. What should you like? You'd
better have some champagne. Don't step in that egg, dear; it will make
your nice brown boots all beastly. It's awfully cold. You'd better have
two bottles. Tell Raikes to send you two. Chesterford, I wish you'd
tell Raikes to cut off the end of his nose. I'm always afraid he'll
hit me with it when he hands things. He might have it grafted into his
chin, you know; he hasn't got any chin. Jack, have you finished? Yes,
you'd better start. We'll meet you at the bothy. I'll go and ask Edith
if she can spare Bertie."

"What does she want Bertie for?" said Chesterford.

"Oh, I expect she'll let him come," remarked Dodo; "she's really busy
this morning. She's been composing since a quarter past eight."

Dodo went across the hall and opened the drawing-room door. Edith was
completely absorbed in her work. The grilled bone lay untouched on a
small table by the piano. Bertie was sitting before the fire.

"Bertie," said Dodo, "are you coming shooting?"

This woke Edith up.

"Oh, it's splendid," she said. "Dodo, listen to this."

She ran her hands over the piano, and then broke out into a quick,
rippling scherzo. The music flew on, as if all the winds of heaven
were blowing it; then it slowed down, halted a moment, and repeated
itself till Dodo burst out: "Oh, Edith, it's lovely! I want to dance."
She wheeled a table out of the way, kicked a chair across the room,
and began turning and twisting with breathless rapidity. Her graceful
figure looked admirable in the quick movements of her impromptu dance.
Bertie thought he had never seen anything so deliciously fresh. Dodo
danced with peculiar abandon. Every inch of her moved in perfect time
and harmony to the music.

She had caught up a thin, Indian shawl from one of the sofas, and
passed it behind her back, round her head, this way and that, bending,
till at one moment it swept the ground in front of her, at another
flew in beautiful curves high above her head, till at last the music
stopped, and she threw herself down exhausted in an arm-chair.

"Oh, that was glorious," she panted. "Edith, you are a genius. I never
felt like that before. I didn't dance at all, it was the music that
danced, and pulled me along with it."

"That was the best compliment my music has ever received," said Edith.
"That scherzo was meant to make you want to dance. Now, Dodo, could I
have done that after eating two poached eggs?"

"You may have grilled bones seven times a day," said Dodo, "if you'll
compose another scherzo."

"I wanted a name for the symphony," said Edith, "and I shall call
it the 'Dodo.' That's a great honour, Dodo. Now, if you only feel
miserable during the 'Andante,' I shall be satisfied. But you came
about something else, I forget what."

"Oh, about Bertie. Is he coming shooting?".

"I wish it was right for women to shoot," said Edith. "I do shoot when
I'm at home, and there's no one there. Anyhow I couldn't to-day. I
must finish this. Dodo, if you are going to take lunch with them, I'll
come with you, if you don't go too early. You know this music makes
me perfectly wild, but it can't be done on poached eggs. Now set me
down at the Handel Festival, and I'll be content with high tea, cold
meat and muffins, you know. Handel always reminds me of high tea,
particularly the muffins. He must have written the 'Messiah' between
tea and dinner on Sunday evening, after an afternoon service in summer.
I've often thought of taking the Salvation Army hymn-book and working
the tunes up into fugual choruses, and publishing them as a lost work
of Handel's, Noah, or Zebedee's children, or the Five Foolish Virgins.
I don't believe anyone would know the difference."

Dodo was turning over the leaves of Edith's score book.

"I give it up," she said at last; "you are such a jumble of opposites.
You sit down and write a Sanctus, which makes one feel as if one wants
to be a Roman Catholic archbishop, and all the time you are smoking
cigarettes and eating grilled bone."

"Oh, everyone's a jumble of opposites," said Edith, "when you come to
look at them. It's only because my opposites are superficial, that
you notice them. A Sanctus is only a form of expression for thoughts
which everyone has, even though their tastes appear to lie in the
music-hall line; and music is an intelligible way of expressing these
thoughts. Most people are born dumb with regard to their emotions, and
you therefore conclude that they haven't got any, or that they are
expressed by their ordinary actions."

"No, it's not that," said Dodo. "What I mean is that your Sanctus
emphasises an emotion I should think you felt very little."

"I!" said Edith with surprise. "My dear Dodo, you surely know me
better than that. Just because I don't believe that grilled bones are
necessarily inconsistent with deep religious feeling, you assume that I
haven't got the feeling."

Dodo laughed.

"I suppose one associates the champions of religion with
proselytising," she said. "You don't proselytise, you know."

"No artist does," said Edith; "it's their business to produce--to give
the world an opportunity of forming conclusions, not to preach their
own conclusions to the world."

"Yes; but your music is the expression of your conclusions, isn't it?"

"Yes, but I don't argue about it, and try to convert the world to it.
If someone says to me, 'I don't know what you mean! Handel seems to me
infinitely more satisfactory, I can understand him,' I simply say, 'For
Heaven's sake, then, why don't you go to hear Handel? Why leave a creed
that satisfies you?' Music is a conviction, but Handel's music has
nothing to do with my convictions, nor mine with Handel's."

Edith sat down sternly, and buried herself in heir convictions.




CHAPTER FIVE


It was a perfect winter's day, and when, two hours afterwards, Dodo
and the others drove off to meet the shooting-party, the grass in the
shadow was still crisp with the light, hoar frost, but where the sun
had touched it, the fields were covered with a moist radiance. It had
just begun to melt the little pieces of ice that hung from the bare,
pendulous twigs of the birch-trees, and send them, shivering to the
ground. Through the brown bracken you could hear the startled scuttle
of the rabbit, or the quick tapping of a pheasant, who had realised
that schemes were on foot against him. A night of hard frost had turned
the wheel-ruts into little waves and billows of frozen mud, which the
carriage wheels levelled as they passed over them.

They caught up the shooting party shortly before lunch, and, as it was
cold, Edith and Dodo got out, leaving Miss Grantham, who preferred
being cold to walking under any circumstances, to gather up the extra
rugs round her.

"See that there's a good fire, Grantie," called Dodo after her, "and
tell them to have the champagne opened."

The sight of abundant game was too much for Edith, and, as Lord
Chesterford fell out of line to join Dodo, she asked him if she might
have a couple of shots.

The keeper's face expressed some reasonable surprise when he observed
Edith snapping the cartridges into her gun with a practised hand.
His previous views with regard to women in connection with guns were
based upon the idea that most women screamed, when they saw a gun, and
considered it a purely unaccountable weapon, which might go off without
the least encouragement or warning, and devastate the country for miles
round. He was still more surprised when he saw her pick off a couple of
pheasants with precision and deadliness of aim. She gave her gun back
to Lord Chesterford as they neared the lodge, and volunteered to join
them after lunch for an hour, if they didn't mind. Chesterford stole an
appealing glance, at Dodo, who, however, only gave him a half-amused,
half-pitying look, and nodded assent.

"The worst of it is," said Edith, "I care for such lots of things.
There's my music, and then there's any sort of game--have you ever seen
me play tennis?--and there isn't time for everything. I am a musician,
and a good shot, and an excellent rider, and a woman, and heaps of
other things. It isn't conceit when I say so--I simply know it."

Dodo laughed.

"Well, you know, Edith, you're not modest. Your worst enemies don't
accuse you of that. I don't mean to say that I am, for that matter. Did
you ever play, the game of marking people for beauty, and modesty, and
cleverness, and so on? We played it here the night before you came,
and you didn't get a single mark from anybody for modesty. I only got
eleven, and five of those were from Chesterford, and six from myself.
But I don't believe your husband will ever give you five. You see,
Bertie didn't give you any, if you're thinking of marrying him."

"Oh, I'm not going to marry anybody," said Edith. "You know I get
frightfully attached to someone about three times a week, and after
that never think of any of them again. It isn't that I get tired of
them, but somebody else turns up, and I want to know him too. There are
usually several good points about everyone, and they show those to new
acquaintances first; after that, you find something in them you don't
like, so the best thing is to try somebody else."

"Oh, that depends on the people," said Dodo, meditatively. "Some
people wear well, you know, and those improve on acquaintance. Now I
don't. The first time a man sees me, he usually thinks I'm charming,
and sympathetic, and lively. Well, so I am, to do myself justice. That
remains all through. But it turns out that I've got a bad temper, that
I smoke and swear, and only amuse myself. Then they begin to think they
rated me too high at first, and if they happen to be people who wear
well themselves, it is just then that you begin to like them, which is
annoying. So one goes on, disgusting the people one wants to like, and
pleasing people whom one doesn't like at all. It's fate, I suppose."

Dodo plucked a piece of dead bracken, and pulled it to bits with a
somewhat serious air.

"You oughtn't to complain, Dodo," said Edith. "You're married to a man
who, I am sure, wears well, as you call it, though it's a dreadfully
coarse expression, and he doesn't seem to get tired of you. I always
wonder if it's really worth while trotting oneself out or analysing
one's nature in this way. I don't think it is. It makes one feel small
and stupid."

"Ah, but it's better to do it yourself, than to feel that other people
think you small and stupid," said Dodo. "That's disagreeable, if you
like. Wait till Mrs. Vivian comes, and she'll do it for you. She's the
only person who makes me feel really cheap--about three-halfpence a
dozen, including the box."

"Oh, but she won't make me feel small," said Edith coolly, "because I'm
not small really. It's only myself that makes me feel small."

"I don't think I should call you morbidly modest," said Dodo. "But
here's the keeper's cottage. I'm awfully hungry. I hope they've brought
some _pâté,_ Don't you like _pâté_? Of course one's very sorry for the
poor, diseased goose with a bad inside, but there are so many other
things to think about besides diseased geese, that it doesn't signify
much. Come on, Chesterford, they can count the dead things afterwards.
Grantie's waiting. Jack, pick up that pheasant by you. Have you shot
well? Look at the sun through those fir-trees--isn't it lovely? Edith,
why aren't we two nice, little simple painters who could sit down,
and be happy to paint that, instead of turning ourselves inside out?
But, after all, you know, one is much more interesting than anybody or
anything else, at least I am. Aren't you? What a blessing it is one
didn't happen to be born a fool!"

Dodo was sitting alone late in the afternoon. The shooting-party had
come back, and dispersed to their rooms to wash and dress. "You all
look remarkably dirty and funny," Dodo had said when they came in, "and
you had better have tea sent up to you. Does shooting bring on the
inspiration, Edith? Take a bath."

Edith had gone up to her room, after insisting on having two of
Dodo's bottles of eau-de-cologne in her hot bath. "There is nothing
so refreshing," she said, "and you come out feeling like a goddess."
Certainly Edith looked anything but a goddess just now. Her hat was
pushed rakishly on to the side of her head, there was a suggestion of
missing hair-pins about her hair; she wafted with her about the room
a fine odour of tobacco and gunpowder; she had burned her dress with
a fusee head that had fallen off; her boots were large and unlaced,
and curiously dirty, and her hands were black with smoke and oil,
and had a sort of trimming in the way of small feathers and little
patches of blood. Decidedly, if she came out feeling or looking like a
goddess, the prescription ought to want no more convincing testimonial.
But she insisted she had never enjoyed herself so much, she talked,
and screamed, and laughed as if nothing serious had occurred since
breakfast. As Dodo sat in the drawing-room, opening a few letters and
skipping all except the shortest paragraphs in the _Times_, she heard
the noise of wheels outside, and hurried into the hall to meet Mrs.
Vivian. Somehow she looked forward to Mrs. Vivian's coming with a
good deal of pleasure and interest. She was aware that another strain
in the house might be advisable. Bertie and Jack, and Miss Grantham
and Edith, were all somewhat on the same lines. Personally, she very
much preferred those lines; and it was chiefly for her husband's sake
that she wanted the new arrival. Lord Chesterford had done his duty
nobly, but Dodo's observant eye saw how great an effort it was to him;
at lunch he had been silent, at tea even more so. Dodo acknowledged
that Edith had relieved the party from any sense of the necessity of
supporting conversation, but it was obvious to her that Chesterford was
hopelessly out of his element, and she felt a keen desire to please
him. She had sat by him after lunch, as they smoked and talked, before
resuming the shooting, and Dodo had patted his hand and called him a
"dear old darling" when nobody happened to be listening, but she had
a distinct sense of effort all day in attending to him, and enjoying
the company of the others as much as she wished. There was certainly
a want of balance in the party, and Mrs. Vivian's weight would tend
to keep things even. Dodo had even aroused herself to a spasmodic
interest in the new curate, but Lord Chesterford had exhibited such
unmistakable surprise at this new departure, that she at once fell back
on the easier and simpler expedient of blowing smoke rings at him, and
drinking out of the same glass by mistake.

Mrs. Vivian was extremely gracious, and apparently very much pleased to
see Dodo. She kissed her on both cheeks, and shook both her hands, and
said what a pleasant drive she had had with dear Maud, and she hoped
Lord Chesterford was as well and happy as Dodo appeared to be, and they
both deserved to be.

"And you must have a great talk with me, Dodo," she said, "and tell me
all about your honeymoon."

Dodo was pleased and rather flattered. Apparently Mrs. Vivian had left
off thinking she was very small. Anyhow, it was a good thing to have
her. Lord Chesterford would be pleased to see her, and he was building
some charming almshouses for old women, who appeared to Dodo to be
supremely uninteresting and very ugly. Dodo had a deep-rooted dislike
for ugly things, unless they amused her very much. She could not bear
babies. Babies had no profiles, which seemed to her a very lamentable
deficiency, and they were not nearly so nice to play with as kittens,
and they always howled, unless they were eating or sleeping. But Mrs.
Vivian seemed to revel in ugly things. She was always talking to
drunken cabmen, or workhouse people, or dirty little boys who played in
the gutter. Dodo's cometic interest in the East End had been entirely
due to her. That lady had a masterly and efficient way of managing,
that won Dodo's immediate admiration, and had overcome for the moment
her distaste for the necessary ugliness. Anything masterly always
found a sympathetic audience in Dodo. Success was of such paramount
importance in her eyes, that even a successful organiser of days in the
country for match-girls was to be admired, and even copied, provided
the other circumstances of success were not too expensive.

Mrs. Vivian was a complete and immediate success on this occasion. Dodo
made a quantity of mental notes on the best way to behave, when you
have the misfortune to become middle-aged and rather plain. Everyone
who already knew her seemed to consider her arrival as the last drop
in their cup of happiness. Lord Chesterford, on entering the room,
had said, "My dear Mrs. Vivian, this is too delightful of you. We are
all charmed to see you," and he had sat down by her, and quite seemed
to forget that Dodo was sitting on the other side of the fire. Jack
also had, so to speak, flown into her arms. Dodo immediately resolved
to make a friend of her; a person who could be as popular among
the aristocracy as she was among cabmen was distinctly a person to
cultivate. She decidedly wanted the receipt.

"It is so good of you, Dodo, to ask me like this," said Mrs. Vivian,
when Dodo went and sat by her. "It always seems to me a great
compliment to ask people quietly to your house when only a few friends
are there. If you have a great houseful of people, it does not matter
much whom you ask, but I mean to take this as a sign that you consider
me an old friend."

Dodo was always quick at seeing what was required of her.

"Of course I do," she answered. "Who are my old friends if you are not?"

"That is so nice of you," said Mrs. Vivian. "I want to have a long
talk with you, and learn all about you. I am going to stay with
your mother next week, and she will never forgive me unless I give
a full and satisfactory account of you. Satisfactory it cannot help
being." She looked across to Lord Chesterford, who was talking to Miss
Grantham, and laughing politely at her apostolic jokes. "Oh, Dodo, you
ought to be very happy!"

Dodo felt that this was rather like the ten minutes before dinner. She
had a vague idea of telling Chesterford to sound the gong, but she was
skilled at glances with meaning, and she resorted to this method.

"Lord Chesterford tells me you have Miss Staines with you," continued
Mrs. Vivian. "I am so anxious to meet her. She has a wonderful gift for
music, I hear."

At this moment the sound of hurrying feet was heard in the hall. The
drawing-room door flew open and Edith entered. Dodo laughed inwardly
and hopelessly. Edith began to talk at the top of her voice, before,
she was fairly inside the room.

"Dodo, Dodo," she screamed, "we must settle about the service at once.
I have heard from Herr Truffen, and he, will be here by twelve; and we
must have everything ready, and we'd better do my Mass in G flat; on
the whole it's the easiest. I suppose you couldn't hire four or five
French horns in the village. If you could, we might do the one in A;
but we must have them for the Gloria. We must have a practice to-night.
Have you got any musical footmen or housemaids?"

"Mrs. Vivian, Miss Edith Staines," remarked Dodo sweetly.

There was a moment's silence, and then Dodo broke down.

"Oh, Edith, you are a good chap; isn't she, Mrs. Vivian? Mrs. Vivian
was just talking about you, and you came in so opportunely that, until
you began talking about Masses, I really thought you must be the other
thing. Oh, Chesterford, I haven't told you. We're going to have a
delicious little service in the drawing-room to-morrow morning, and
we are going to sing a Mass. Grantie can't possibly go to church in
this weather, and Jack and Bertie are not as good about it as they
might be, so you see it would be really removing the temptation of not
going to church if we have church here, and can you sing, Mrs. Vivian?
Will you come, Chesterford? You might go to church first, and then
come in here afterwards; that will be two services. How dreadfully
unbearably conceited you will be all the afternoon. You might read the
second lesson for us; no, I think I shall read both. Yes, Edith, I'll
come in a few minutes. I don't know of any musical footmen. You might
have them up one by one and make them sing scales, and Jack can try
the housemaids' voices. I'm awfully glad Herr Truffen is coming. He's
a tremendous German swell, Mrs. Vivian, and conducts at the Crystal
Palace, and St. James's, and St. Paul's and everywhere."

"That will be charming," said Mrs. Vivian. "I shall certainly avail
myself of it, Dodo, if I may, only I think I shall go to church first
with Lord Chesterford. He has promised to show me all his schemes for
the village. I think Maud means to go too. But if you will let me,
I will go to my room, and write a few letters, and then you will be
free to practise. It will be a great pleasure to hear your Mass, Miss
Staines; I am very fortunate in coming just in time."

"Really, Dodo," said Edith, "you ought to cultivate the musical talents
of your establishment. Last winter I was in the Pyrenees, and there
was only an old sexton, who was also a charcoal burner, and my maid,
and Charlie and his valet and his wife, but we had magnificent music,
and a midnight service on New Year's Eve. Charlie took tenor, and
Sybil treble, and I alto, and the sexton bass. You have no idea of the
trouble it was to get the sexton to learn his part. I had to hunt him
up in those little brutal sheds, and thrust the book into his hand, and
forbid him to eat chestnuts, and force him to drink porter and Spanish
liquorice. Come on; let's begin."

The practice went off satisfactorily, and Edith expressed herself as
pleased. She and Dodo then had a talk to arrange what Dodo called the
"Play-bill." Dodo had arranged to read the lessons, and wished to make
a small selection of prayers, but there Edith put her foot down.

"No, Dodo," she said, "you're taking a wrong idea of it. I don't
believe you're serious. Now I am. I want to do this Mass because I
believe we can do it well, but I haven't the least confidence in your
reading prayers well, or caring at all about them. I am rather in
doubt about the lessons, but I suppose we can have those."

It was distinctly news to Dodo that Edith was serious. For herself she
had only wished to have a nice little amusement for Sunday morning,
which, in Dodo's experience, was rather a tiresome time if you stopped
at home, but on the whole preferable there than at a country church.
But Edith was really in earnest whatever she did, whether it was
shooting, or music, or playing lawn-tennis. Frivolity, was the one
charge she could not brook for a moment. Her amusements might, indeed,
be frivolous, but she did them with all her heart. So the service was
arranged to consist of a lesson, a Mass, and another lesson. The choice
of lessons was left to Dodo. Accordingly, next morning Lord Chesterford
and Mrs. Vivian drove off with Maud to eleven o'clock church, leaving
the others still at breakfast. After that meal was over Dodo announced
she was going to get the drawing-room ready.

"We must move all the sofas out of the room, because they don't look
religious," she said; "and I shall cover up the picture of Venus and
Adonis. I have got the sweetest little praying-table upstairs, and a
skull. Do you think we'd better have the skull, Edith? I think it makes
one feel Sunday-like. I shall put the praying-table in the window, and
shall read the lessons from there. Perhaps the skull might frighten old
Truffler. I have found two dreadfully nice lessons. I quite forgot the
Bible was such a good book. I think I shall go on with it. One of them
is about the bones in Ezekiel, which were very dry--you know it--and
the other is out of the Revelation. I think----"

"Dodo," broke in Edith, "I don't believe you're a bit serious. You
think it will be rather amusing, and that's all. If you're not serious
I sha'n't come."

"Dear Edith," said Dodo demurely, "I'm perfectly serious. I want it all
to be just as nice as it can be. Do you think I should take all the
trouble with the praying-table and so on, if I wasn't?"

"You want to make it dramatic," said Edith decidedly. "Now, I mean
to be religious. You are rather too dramatic at times, you know, and
this isn't an occasion for it. You can be dramatic afterwards, if you
like. Herr Truffen is awfully religious. I used to go with him to Roman
Catholic services, and once to confession. I nearly became a Roman
Catholic."

"Oh, I should like to be a nice little nun," said Dodo; "those black
and white dresses are awfully becoming, with a dear trotty rosary,
you know, on one side, and a twisty cord round one's waist, and an
alms-box. But I must go and arrange the drawing-room. Tell me when your
conductor comes. I hope he isn't awfully German. Would he like some
beer first? I think the piano is in tune. I suppose he'll play, won't
he? Make him play a voluntary, when we come in. I'm afraid we can't
have a procession though. That's a pity. Oh, I'm sorry, Edith. I'm
really going to be quite serious. I think it will be charming."

Dodo completed her arrangements in good time, and forebore to make
any more frivolous allusions to the service. She was sitting in the
drawing-room, regarding her preparations with a satisfied air, when
Herr Truffen was announced. Dodo greeted him in the hall as if it was
the most natural thing in the world that he should be called upon to
accompany Edith's Mass.

"We're going to have service directly, if you're ready. We want you to
accompany Miss Staines's Mass in G flat, but you mustn't take the Kyrie
too quick, if you don't mind. Bertie Arbuthnot's singing tenor, and
he's not very quick--are you, Bertie? Oh, by the way, this is Bertie.
His other name is Mr. Arbuthnot."

Herr Truffen was most gratified by so charming an arrangement, and so
great a musical treat. When Edith came down she greeted him effusively.

"My dear Professor, this is delightful," she said. "It's quite like old
times, isn't it? We're going to do the Mass in G flat. I wanted the
one in A, only there are no French horns in the village--isn't that
benighted? And would you believe it, Lady Chesterford has positively
got not one musical footman."

Herr Truffen was a large, spectacled German, who made everyone else
look unnecessarily undersized.

He laughed and fitted his fingers together with great nicety.

"Are we to begin at once?" he asked. "The congregation--haf they
arrived?"

"Oh, there's no congregation," explained Dodo; "we are all performers.
It is only a substitute for going to church. I hope you aren't shocked;
it was such a disgusting morning."

"Lady Chesterford is surely a congregation in herself," remarked Herr
Truffen, with elephantine elegance.

"Lord Chesterford is coming by-and-by," continued Dodo. "He has gone to
church. I don't know whether he will be in time for the Mass."

"Then you haf all the service in a little chapel here, no doubt," said
the Professor.

"Oh, no," said Dodo; "we're going to have two lessons and the Mass, and
there isn't a chapel, it's only in the drawing-room. I'm going to read
the lessons."

Herr Truffen bowed with undiminished composure, and Dodo led the way
back into the drawing-room.

Miss Grantham and Jack were introduced, and Dodo took her place at the
praying-table, and Herr Truffen at the piano. Dodo gave out the lesson,
and read the chapter through..

"Oh, it is nice!" she exclaimed. "Sha'n't I go on to the next chapter?
No, I think I won't."

"It would spoil the delightful impression of the very dry bones?"
interrogated Herr Truffen from the piano. "Ah, that is splendid; but
you should hear it in the Fatherland tongue."

"Now, Dodo, come here," said Edith. "We must go on with this. You can
discuss it afterwards. On the third beat. Will you give us the time,
Professor?"

The Mass had scarcely begun when Lord Chesterford came in, followed
by Mrs. Vivian and Maud. The Professor, who evidently did not quite
understand that he was merely a sort of organist, got up and shook
hands all round with laboured cordiality. Edith grew impatient.

"Come," she said, "you mustn't do that. Remember you are practically in
church, Professor. Please begin again."

"Ah, I forgot for the moment," remarked the Professor; "this beautiful
room made me not remember. Come--one, two. We must begin better than
that. Now, please."

This time the start was made in real earnest. Edith's magnificent
voice, and the Professor's playing, would alone have been sufficient
to make it effective. The four performers knew their parts well, and
when it was finished, there followed that silence which is so much more
appreciative than applause. Then Herr Truffen turned to Edith.

"Ah, how you have improved," he said. "Who taught you this? It is
beyond me. Perhaps you prayed and fasted, and then it came to you."

As Edith had chiefly written the Mass while smoking cigarettes after a
hearty breakfast she merely said,--

"How does anything come to anyone? It is part of oneself, as much as
one's arms and legs. But the service is not over yet."

Dodo meanwhile had gone back to the praying-table.

"I can't find it," she said, in a distracted whisper. "It's a chapter
in the Revelation about a grey horse and a white horse."

"Dodo," said Edith, in an awful voice.

"Yes, dear," said Dodo. "Ah, here it is."

Dodo read the chapter with infinite feeling in her beautiful clear,
full voice.

Chesterford was charmed. He had not seen this side of Dodo before.
After she had finished, he came and sat by her side, while the others
got up and began talking among themselves.

"Dodo," he said, "I never knew you cared about these things. What an
unsympathetic brute I must seem to you. I never talked to you about
such things, because I thought you did not care. Will you forgive me?"

"I don't think you need forgiveness much," said Dodo softly. "If you
only knew----" She stopped and finished her sentence by a smile.

"Dodo," he said again, "I've often wanted to suggest something to you,
but I didn't quite like to. Why don't we have family prayers here? I
might build a little chapel."

Dodo felt a sudden inclination to laugh. Her æsthetic pleasure in
the chapter of Revelation was gone. She felt annoyed and amused at
this simple-minded man, who thought her so perfect, and ascribed such
fatiguingly high interpretations to all her actions. He really was a
little stupid and tiresome. He had broken up all her little pleasant
thoughts.

"Oh, family prayers always strike me as rather ridiculous," she said,
with a half yawn. "A row of gaping servants is not conducive to the
emotions."

She got up and joined the other groups, and then suddenly became aware
that, for the first time, she had failed in her part. Jack was watching
her, and saw what had happened. Chesterford had remained, seated at
the window, pulling his long, brown moustache, with a very perceptible
shade of annoyance on his face. Dodo felt a sudden impulse of anger
with herself at her stupidity. She went back to Chesterford.

"Dear old boy," she said, "I don't know why I said that. I was thinking
of something else. I don't know that I like family prayers very much.
We used to have them at home, when my father was with us, and it really
was a trial to hear him read the Litany. I suppose it is that which has
made me rather tired of them. Come and talk to the Professor."

Then she went across to Jack.

"Jack," she said, in a low voice, "don't look as if you thought you
were right."




CHAPTER SIX

The same afternoon Chesterford took Mrs. Vivian off to see "almshouses
and drunkards," as Dodo expressed it to Jack. She also told him that
Edith and her Herr were playing a sort of chopsticks together in the
drawing-room. Maud had, as usual, effaced herself, and Bertie was
consuming an alarming number of cigarettes in the smoking-room, and
pretending to write letters.

It was natural, therefore, that when Jack strolled into the hall, to
see what was going on, he should find Dodo there with her toes on the
fender of the great fireplace, having banished the collie to find other
quarters for himself. Dodo was making an effort to read, but she was
not being very successful, and hailed Jack's entrance with evident
pleasure.

"Come along," she said; "I sent the dog off, but I can find room for
you. Sit here, Jack."

She moved her chair a little aside, and let him pass.

"I can't think why a merciful providence sends us a day like this,"
she said. "I want to know whom it benefits to have a thick snowfall.
Listen at that, too," she added, as a great gust of wind swept round
the corner of the house, and made a deep, roaring sound up in the heart
of the chimney.

"It makes it all the more creditable in Chesterford and Mrs. Vivian to
go to see the drunkards," remarked Jack.

"Oh, but that's no credit," said Dodo. "They like doing it, it gives
them real pleasure. I don't see why that should be any better, morally
speaking, than sitting here and talking. They are made that way, you
and I are made this. We weren't consulted, and we both follow our
inclinations. Besides, they will have their reward, for they will have
immense appetites at tea."

"And will give us something to talk about now," remarked Jack lazily.

"Don't you like Grantie, Jack?" asked Dodo presently. "She and Ledgers
are talking about life and being in my room. I went to get a book from
here, and the fire was so nice that I stopped."

"I wish Ledgers wouldn't treat her like a menagerie, and put her
through her tricks," said Jack. "I think she is very attractive, but
she belongs too much to a class."

"What class?" demanded Dodo.

"Oh, the class that prides itself on not being of any class--the all
things to all men class."

"Oh, I belong to that," said Dodo.

"No, you don't," said he. "You are all things to some men, I grant, but
not to all."

"Oh, Jack, that's a bad joke," said Dodo, reprovingly.

"It's quite serious all the same," said he.

"I'm all things to the only man to whom it matters that I should be,"
said Dodo complacently.

Jack felt rather disgusted.

"I wish you would not state things in that cold-blooded way," he said.
"Your very frankness to me about it shows you know that it is an
effort."

"Yes," she said, "it is an effort sometimes, but I don't think I want
to talk about it. You take things too ponderously. Don't be ponderous;
it doesn't suit you in the least. Besides, there is nothing to be
ponderous about."

Dodo turned in her chair and looked Jack full in the face. Her face had
a kind of triumph about it.

"I want to say something more," said Jack.

"Well, I'm magnanimous to-day," said Dodo. "Go on."

"All you are doing," said he gravely, "is to keep up the original
illusion he had about you. It is not any good keeping up an illusion,
and thinking you're doing your whole duty."

"Jack, that's enough," said Dodo, with a certain finality in her
tone. "If you go on, you may make me distrust myself. I do not mean
that as a compliment to your powers, but as a confession to a stupid
superstitious weakness in myself. I am afraid of omens."

They sat silent a minute or two, until a door at the far end of the
hall opened and Miss Grantham came through, with her showman in tow.

"Lord Ledgers and I were boring each other so," said Miss Grantham,
"that we came to bore someone else. When you are boring people you may
as well do it wholesale. What a pity it is that one hasn't got a tail
like a dog, that cannot help wagging if the owner is pleased, and which
stops wagging when he isn't."

"I shall certainly buy a tail," said Dodo, with grave consideration.
"One or two, in case the first gets out of order. Must you wag it
whenever you are pleased, Grantie? Is it to be an honest tail? Suppose
you only think you are pleased, when you are not really, what does the
tail do then? Oh, it's very complicated."

"The tail shares the same illusions as the dog," said Miss Grantham.

"Jack and I were talking about illusions," said Dodo.

"I'm going to get a quantity of illusions," said Miss Grantham. "In any
case, what did you find to say about them?"

"Jack said it was a bad thing to keep an illusion up," said Dodo,
broadly.

Miss Grantham was staring pensively at the fire.

"I saw two boys sitting on a gate yesterday," she said, "and they
pushed each other off, and each time they both roared with laughter.
I'm sure it was an illusion that they were amused. I would go and sit
on a gate with pleasure and get my maid to push me off, if I thought it
would amuse either of us. Mr. Broxton, would you like me to push you
off a gate?"

"Oh, I'm certain that the people with many illusions are the happiest,"
said Dodo. "Consequently, I wouldn't willingly destroy any illusion
anyone held about anything."

"What a lot of anys," said Miss Grantham.

Lord Ledgers was leaning back in his chair with a sense of pleased
proprietorship. It really was a very intelligent animal. Jack almost
expected him to take a small whip from his pocket and crack it at her.
But his next remark, Jack felt, was a good substitute; at any rate, he
demanded another performance.

"What about delusions, Miss Grantham?" he said.

"Oh, delusions are chiefly unpleasant illusions," she said. "Madmen
have delusions that somebody wants to kill them, or they want to kill
somebody, or that King Charles's head isn't really cut off, which would
be very unsettling now."

"Grantie, I believe you're talking sheer, arrant nonsense," said Dodo.
"It's all your fault, Tommy. When one is asked a question, one has to
answer it somehow or other in self-defence. If you asked me about the
habits of giraffes I should say something. Edith is the only really
honest person I know. She would tell you she hadn't any idea what a
giraffe was, so would Chesterford, and you would find him looking up
giraffes in the _Encyclopædia_ afterwards."

Lord Ledgers laughed a low, unpleasant laugh.

"A very palpable hit," he murmured.

The remark was inaudible to all but Jack. He felt quite unreasonably
angry with him, and got up from his chair.

Dodo saw something had happened, and looked at him inquiringly. Jack
did not meet her eye, but whistled to the collie, who flopped down at
his feet.

"I really don't know where I should begin if I was going to turn
honest," said Miss Grantham. "I don't think I like honest people.
They are like little cottages, which children draw, with a door in
the middle, and a window at each side, and a chimney in the roof with
smoke coming out. Long before you know them well, you are perfectly
certain of all that you will find inside them. They haven't got any
little surprises, or dark passages, or queer little cupboards under the
stairs."

"Do you know the plant called honesty, Grantie?" asked Dodo. "It's a
very bright purple, and you can see it a long way off, and it isn't at
all nicer when you get close than it looks from a distance."

"Oh, if you speak of someone as an honest man," said Miss Grantham, "it
implies that he's nothing particular besides. I don't mind a little
mild honesty, but it should be kept in the background."

"I've got a large piece of honesty somewhere about me," said Jack. "I
can't always lay my hand on it, but every now and then I feel it like a
great lump inside me."

"Yes," said Dodo, "I believe you are fundamentally honest, Jack. I've
always thought that."

"Does that mean that he is not honest in ordinary matters?" asked Miss
Grantham. "I've noticed that people who are fundamentally truthful,
seldom tell the truth."

"In a way it does," said Dodo. "But I'm sure Jack would be honest in
any case where it really mattered."

"Oh, I sha'n't steal your spoons, you know," said Miss Grantham.

"That's only because you don't really want them," remarked Dodo. "I can
conceive you stealing anything you wanted."

"Trample on me," said Miss Grantham serenely. "Tell us what I should
steal."

"Oh, you'd steal lots of things," said Dodo. "You'd steal anyone's
self-respect if you could manage to, and you couldn't get what you
wanted any other way. Oh, yes, you'd steal anything important. Jack
wouldn't. He'd stop just short of that; he would never be really
disloyal. He'd finger things to any extent, but I am pretty sure that
he would drop them at the last minute."

"How dreadfully unpleasant I am really," said Miss Grantham
meditatively. "A kind of Eugene Aram."

Jack was acutely uncomfortable, but he had the satisfaction of
believing that what Dodo said about him was true. He had come to the
same conclusion himself two nights ago. He believed that he would stop
short of any act of disloyalty, but he did not care about hearing Dodo
give him so gratuitous a testimonial before Miss Grantham and the
gentleman whom he mentally referred to as "that ass of a showman."

The front door opened, and a blast of cold wind came blustering round
into the inner hall where they were sitting, making the thick tapestry
_portière_ belly and fill like a ship's sail, when the wind first
catches it. The collie pricked his ears, and thumped his tail on the
floor with vague welcome.

Mrs. Vivian entered, followed by Lord Chesterford. He looked absurdly
healthy and happy.

"It's a perfectly beastly day," he said cheerfully, advancing to the
fireplace. "Mrs. Vivian, let Dodo send you some tea up to your room.
You must be wet through. Surely it is tea-time, Dodo."

"I told you so," said Dodo to Jack.

"Has Jack been saying it isn't tea-time?" asked Chesterford.

"No," said Dodo. "I only said that your virtue in going to see
almshouses would find its immediate reward in an appetite for tea."

Mrs. Vivian laughed.

"You mustn't reduce our virtues to the lowest terms, as if we were two
vulgar fractions."

"Do you suppose a vulgar fraction knows how vulgar it is?" asked Miss
Grantham.

"Vulgar without being funny," said. Jack, with the air of helping her
out of a difficulty.

"I never saw anything funny in vulgar fractions," remarked Lord
Ledgers. "Chesterford and I used to look up the answers at the end of
the book, and try to make them correspond with the questions."

Dodo groaned.

"Oh, Chesterford, don't tell me you're not honest either."

"What do you think about honesty, Mrs. Vivian?" asked Miss Grantham.

Mrs. Vivian considered.

"Honesty is much maligned by being called the best policy," she said;
"it' isn't purely commercial. Honesty is rather fine sometimes."

"Oh, I'm sure Mrs. Vivian's honest," murmured Miss Grantham. "She
thinks before, she tells you her opinion. I always give my opinion
first, and think about it afterwards."

"I've been wanting to stick up for honesty all the afternoon," said
Dodo to Mrs. Vivian, "only I haven't dared. Everyone has been saying
that it is dull and obtrusive, and like labourers' cottages. I believe
we are all a little honest, really. No one has got any right to call
it the best policy. It makes you feel as if you were either a kind of
life assurance, or else a thief."

Chesterford looked a trifle puzzled.

Dodo turned to him.

"Poor old man," she said, "did they call him names? Never mind. We'll
go and be labelled 'Best policy. No others need apply.'"

She got up from her chair, and pulled Chesterford's moustache.

"You look so abominably healthy, Chesterford," she said. "How's Charlie
getting on? Tell him if he beats his wife anymore, I shall; beat you.
You wouldn't like that, you know. Will you ring for tea, dear? Mrs.
Vivian, I command you to go to your room. I had your fire lit, and I'll
send tea up. You're a dripping sop."

Mrs. Vivian pleaded guilty, and vanished. Sounds of music still came
from the drawing-room. "It's no use telling Edith to come to tea,"
remarked Dodo. "She said the other day that if anyone ever proposed
to her, whom she cared to marry, she will feel it only fair to tell
him that the utmost she can offer him, is to play second fiddle to her
music."

Edith's music was strongly exciting, and in the pause that followed,
Dodo went to the door and opened it softly, and a great tangle of
melody poured out and filled the hall. She was playing the last few
pages of the overture to an opera that she had nearly completed. The
music was gathering itself up for the finale. Note after note was
caught up, as it were, to join an army of triumphant melody overhead,
which grew fuller and more complete every moment, and seemed to hover,
waiting for some fulfilment. Ah, that was it. Suddenly from below
crashed out a great kingly motif, strong with the strength of a man who
is pure and true, rising higher and higher, till it joined the triumph
overhead, and moved away, strong to the end.

There was a dead silence; Dodo was standing by the door, with her
lips slightly parted, feeling that there was something in this world
better and bigger, perhaps, than her own little hair-splittings and
small emotions. With this in her mind, she looked across to where
Chesterford was standing. The movement was purely instinctive, and she
could neither have accounted for it, nor was she conscious of it, but
in her eyes there was the suggestion of unshed tears, and a look of
questioning shame. Though a few bars of music cannot change the nature
of the weakest of us, and Dodo was far from weak, she was intensely
impressionable, and that moment had for her the germ of a possibility
which might--who could say it could not?--have taken root in her and
borne fruit. The parable of the mustard seed is as-old and as true as
time. But Chesterford was not musical; he had taken a magazine from the
table, and was reading about grouse disease.




CHAPTER SEVEN


Dodo was sitting in a remarkably easy-chair in her own particular
room at the house in Eaton Square. As might have been expected, her
room was somewhat unlike other rooms. It had a pale orange-coloured
paper, with a dado of rather more intense shade of the same colour, an
orange-coloured carpet and orange-coloured curtains. Dodo had no reason
to be afraid of orange colour just yet. It was a room well calculated
to make complete idleness most easy. The tables were covered with a
mass of albums, vases of flowers, and a quantity of entirely useless
knick-knacks. The walls were hung with several rather clever sketches,
French prints and caricatures of Dodo's friends. A small bookcase
displayed a quantity of flaring novels and a large tune hymn-book, and
in a conspicuous corner was Dodo's praying-table, on which the skull
regarded its surroundings with a mirthless and possibly contemptuous
grin. The mantelpiece was entirely covered with photographs, all signed
by their prototypes. These had found their quarters gradually becoming
too small for them, and had climbed half way up the two-sides of a
Louis Quinze mirror, that formed a sort of overmantel. The photographs
were an interesting study, and included representatives from a very
wide range of classes. No one ever accused Dodo of being exclusive.
In the corner of the room were a heap of old cotillion toys, several
hunting-whips, and a small black image of the Virgin, which Dodo
had picked up abroad. Above her head a fox's mask grinned defiantly
at another fox's brush opposite. On the writing table there was an
inkstand made of the hoof of Dodo's favourite hunter, which had joined
the majority shortly after Christmas, and the "Dodo" symphony, which
had just come out with great _éclat_ at the Albert Hall, leant against
the wall. A banjo case and a pair of castanets, with a dainty silver
monogram on them, perhaps inspired Dodo when she sat down to her
writing-table.

Dodo's hands were folded on her lap, and she was lazily regarding
a photograph of herself which stood oh the mantelpiece. Though the
afternoon was of a warm day in the end of May, there was a small fire
on the hearth which crackled pleasantly. Dodo got up and looked at
the photograph more closely. "I certainly look older," she thought to
herself, "and yet that was only taken a year ago. I don't feel a bit
older, at least I sha'n't when I get quite strong again. I wish Jack
could have been able to come this afternoon. I am rather tired of
seeing nobody except Chesterford and the baby. However, Mrs. Vivian
will be here soon."

Dodo had made great friends with Mrs. Vivian during the last months.
Her sister and brother-in-law had been obliged to leave England for a
month at Easter, and Dodo had insisted that Mrs. Vivian should spend
it with them, and to-day was the first day that the doctor had let her
come down, and she had written to Jack and Mrs. Vivian to come and have
tea with her.

A tap was heard at the door, and the nurse entered, bearing the three
weeks' old baby. Dodo was a little disappointed; she had seen a good
deal of the baby, and she particularly wanted Mrs. Vivian. She stood
with her hands behind her back, without offering to take it. The baby
regarded her with large wide eyes, and crowed at the sight of the fire.
Really it was rather attractive, after all.

"Well, Lord Harchester," remarked Dodo, "how is your lordship to-day?
Did it ever enter your very pink head that you were a most important
personage? Really you have very little sense of your dignity. Oh, you
_are_ rather, nice. Come here, baby."

She held out her arms to take it, but his lordship apparently did not
approve of this change. He opened his mouth in preparation for a decent
protest.

"Ah, do you know, I don't like you when you howl," said Dodo; "you
might be an Irish member instead of a piece of landed interest. Oh, do
stop. Take him please, nurse; I've got a headache, and I don't like
that noise. There, you unfilial scoundrel, you're quiet enough now."

Dodo nodded at the baby with the air of a slight acquaintance.

"I wonder if you'll be like your father," she said; "you've got his big
blue eyes. I rather wish your eyes were dark. Do a baby's eyes change
when he gets older? Ah, here's your godmother. I am so glad to see
you," she went on to Mrs. Vivian. "You see his lordship has come down
to say how do you do."

"Dear Dodo," said Mrs. Vivian, "you are looking wonderfully better.
Why don't they let you go out this lovely day?"

"Oh, I've got a cold," said Dodo, "at least I'm told so.
There--good-bye, my lord. You'd better take him upstairs again, nurse.
I am so delighted to see you," she continued; pouring out tea. "I've
been rather dull all day. Don't you know how, when you particularly
want to see people; they never come. Edith looked in this morning, but
she did nothing but whistle and drop things. I asked Jack to come, but
he couldn't."

"Ah," said Mrs. Vivian softly, "he has come back, has he?"

"Yes," said Dodo, "and I wanted to see him. Did you ever hear of
anything so ridiculous as his going off in that way. You know he left
England directly after his visit to us in January, and he's only just
back. It's too absurd for Jack to pretend he was ill. He swore his
doctor had told him to leave England for three months. Of course that's
nonsense. It was very stupid of him."

Mrs. Vivian sipped her tea reflectively without answering.

"Chesterford is perfectly silly about the baby," Dodo went on. "He's
always afraid it's going to be ill, and he goes up on tiptoe to the
nursery, to see if it's all right. Last night he woke me up about
half-past ten, to say that he heard it cough several times, and did I
think it was the whooping cough."

Mrs. Vivian did not seem to be listening.

"I heard from Mr. Broxton once," she said; "he wrote from Moscow, and
asked how you were, and three weeks ago he telegraphed, when he heard
of the birth of the baby."

"I don't know what's the matter with Jack," said Dodo, rather
petulantly. "He wrote to me once, the silliest letter you ever saw,
describing the Kremlin, and Trèves Cathedral, and the falls of the
Rhine. The sort of letter one writes to one's great-aunt. Now I'm not
Jack's great-aunt at all."

There was another tap at the door.

"That's Chesterford," remarked Dodo, "he always raps now, and if I
don't answer he thinks I'm asleep, and then he goes away. You just see."

The tap came again, and after a moment's interval the door opened.

"Jack!" exclaimed Dodo.

She got up from her chair and went quickly towards him. Jack was pale,
and his breath came rather short, as if he had been running.

"Why, Dodo," he cried, "I thought I couldn't come, and then I thought I
could, so I did."

He broke off rather lamely, and greeted Mrs. Vivian.

"Dear old Jack," said Dodo, "it does me good to see you. Your face is
so nice and familiar, and I've wanted you awfully. Jack, what do you
mean by writing me such a stupid letter? especially when I'd written
to you so nicely. Really, I'm not your grand-mother yet, though I am a
mother. Have you seen the baby? It isn't particularly interesting at
present, though of course it's rather nice to think that that wretched
little morsel of flesh and bones is going to be one of our landed
proprietors. He'll be much more important than you will ever be, Jack.
Aren't you jealous?"

Dodo was conscious of quite a fresh tide of interest in her life.
Her intellectual faculties, she felt, had been neglected. She could
not conceive why, because she had a husband and baby, she should be
supposed not to care for other interests as well. Chesterford was an
excellent husband, with a magnificent heart; but Dodo had told herself
so often that he was not very clever, that she had ceased trying to
take an intellectual pleasure in his society, and the baby could not
be called intellectual by the fondest parent at present. There were
a quantity of women who were content to pore on their baby's face
for hour after hour, with no further occupation than saying "Didums"
occasionally. Dodo had given what she considered a fair trial to
this treatment, and she found it bored her to say "Didums" for an
indefinite period, and she did not believe it amused the baby. She had
a certain pride in having given birth to the son and heir of one of the
largest English properties, and she was extremely glad to have done
so, and felt a certain pleased sort of proprietorship in the little
pink morsel, but she certainly had experienced none of the absorbing
pleasures of maternity. She had got used to not being in love with her
husband, and she accepted as part of this same deficiency the absence
of absorbing pleasure in the baby. Not that she considered it a
deficiency, it was merely another type turned out of Nature's workshop.
Dodo laid all the blame on Nature. She shrugged her shoulders and said:
"You made me so without consulting me. It isn't my fault!" But Dodo was
aware that Nature had given her a brain, and she found a very decided
pleasure in the company of clever people. Perhaps it was the greatest
pleasure of her life to be admired and amused by clever people. Of
course Chesterford always admired her, but he was in love with her, and
he was not clever. Dodo had felt some difficulty before her marriage in
dealing with this perplexing unknown quantity, and she had to confess
it puzzled her still. The result was, that when it occurred, she had to
admit her inability to tackle it, and as soon as possible to turn to
another page in this algebra of life.

But she still felt that her marriage had been a great success.
Chesterford had entirely fulfilled what she expected of him: he was
immensely rich, he let her do as she liked, he adored her. Dodo quite
felt that it was better that he should adore her. As long as that
lasted, he would be blind to any fault of hers, and she acknowledged
that, to a man of Chesterford's character, she must seem far from
faultless, if he contemplated her calmly. But he was quite unable to
contemplate her calmly. For him she walked in a golden cloud that
dazzled and entranced him. Dodo was duly grateful to the golden cloud.

But she felt that the element which Jack, and Mrs. Vivian, and other
friends of hers brought, had been conspicuously absent, and she
welcomed its return with eagerness.

"You know we haven't been leading a very intellectual life lately,"
Dodo continued. "Chesterford is divinely kind to me, but he is careful
not to excite me. So he talks chiefly about the baby, and how he lost
his umbrella at the club; it is very soothing, but I have got past
that now. I want stimulating. Sometimes I go to sleep, and then he
sits as still as a mouse till I wake again. Pity me, Jack, I have had
a dull fortnight; and that is worse than anything else. I really never
remember being bored before!"

Dodo let her arms drop beside her with a little hopeless gesture.

"I know one's got no business to be bored, and it's one's own fault as
a rule if one is," she went on. "For instance, that woman in the moated
Grange ought to have swept away the blue fly that buzzed in the pane,
and set a mouse-trap for the mouse that shrieked, and got the carpenter
to repair the mouldering wainscot, and written to the Psychical
Research, how she had heard her own sad name in corners cried, and it
couldn't have been the cat, or she would have caught the shrieking
mouse. Oh, there were a hundred things she might have done, before she
sat down and said, 'He cometh not,' But I have had a period of enforced
idleness. If I had set a trap for the mouse, the doctor would have told
me not to exert myself so much.' I used to play Halma with Chesterford,
only I always beat him; and then nobody ever cried my name in sad
corners, that I remember; it would have been quite interesting."

Jack laughed.

"What a miserable story, Dodo," he said. "I always said--you had none
of the domestic virtues, and I am right, it seems."

"Oh, it isn't that," said Dodo, "but I happen to have a brain as
well, and if I don't use it, it decays, and when it decays, it breeds
maggots. I've got a big maggot in my head now, and that is, that the
ineffable joys of maternity are much exaggerated. Don't look shocked,
Geraldine. I know it's a maggot, and simply means that I haven't
personally experienced them, but the maggot says, 'You are a woman,
and if you don't experience them, either they don't exist, or you are
abnormal.' Well, the maggot lies, I know it, I believe they do exist,
and I am sure I am not abnormal. Ah, this is unprofitable, isn't it.
You two have come to drive the maggot out."

Mrs. Vivian felt a sudden impulse of anger, which melted into pity.

"Poor Dodo," she said, "leave the maggot alone, and he will die of
inanition. At present give me some more tea. This really is very good
tea, and you drink it the proper way, without milk or sugar, and with a
little slice of lemon."

"Tea is such a middle-aged thing any other way," said Dodo, pouring out
another cup. "I feel like an old woman in a workhouse if I put milk and
sugar in it. Besides, you should only drink tea at tea. It produces the
same effect as tobacco, a slight soothing of the nerves. One doesn't
want to be soothed at breakfast, otherwise the tedious things we all
have to do in the morning are impossible. Chesterford has a passion
for the morning. He quoted something the other day about the divine
morning. It isn't divine, it is necessary; at least you can't get to
the evening without a morning, in this imperfect world. Now if it had
only been 'the evening and the evening were the first day,' what a
difference it would have made."

Mrs. Vivian laughed.

"You always bring up the heavy artillery to defend a small position,
Dodo," she said. "Keep your great guns for great occasions."

"Oh, I always use big guns," said Jack. "They do the work quicker.
Besides, you never can tell that the small position is not the key to
the large. The baby, for instance, that Dodo thinks very extremely
insignificant now, may be horribly important in twenty years."

"Yes, I daresay Chesterford and I will quarrel about him," said Dodo.
"Supposing he falls in love with a curate's daughter, Chesterford will
say something about love in a cottage, and I shall want him to marry a
duke's daughter, and I shall get my way, and everybody concerned will
be extremely glad afterwards."

"Poor baby," said Mrs. Vivian, "you little think what a worldly mother
you have."

"Oh, I know I am worldly," said Dodo. "I don't deny it for a moment.
Jack and I had it out before my marriage. But I believe I am capable
of an unworldly action now and then. Why, I should wish Maud to marry
a curate very much. She would do her part admirably, and no one could
say it was a worldly fate. But I like giving everybody their chance.
That is why I have Maud to stay with me, and let her get a good look at
idle worldly people like Jack. After a girl has seen every sort, I wish
her to choose, and I am unworldly enough to applaud her choice, if it
is unworldly; only I shouldn't do it myself. I have no ideal; it was
left out."

Jack was conscious of a keen resentment at Dodo's words. He had
accepted her decision, but he didn't like to have it flaunted before
him in Dodo's light voice and careless words. He made an uneasy
movement in his chair. Dodo saw it.

"Ah, Jack, I have offended you," she said; "it was stupid of me. But I
have been so silent and lonely all these days, that it is such a relief
to let my tongue wag at all, whatever it says. Ah, here's Chesterford.
What an age you have been! Here am I consoling myself as best I can.
Isn't it nice to have Jack again?"

Chesterford saw the fresh light in her eyes, and the fresh
vivaciousness in her speech, and he was so unfeignedly glad to see her
more herself again, that no thought of jealousy entered his heart. He
thought without bitterness, "How glad she must be to have her friends
about her again! She looks better already. Decidedly I am a stupid old
fellow, but I think Dodo loves me a little."

He shook hands with Jack, and beamed delightedly on Dodo.

"Jack, it is good of you to come so soon," he said; "Dodo has missed
you dreadfully. Have you seen the boy? Dodo, may I have him down?"

"Oh, he's been down," said she, "and has only just gone up again. He's
rather fractious to-day. I daresay it's teeth. It's nothing to bother
about; he's as well as possible."

Lord Chesterford looked disappointed, but ac-quiesced.

"I should like Jack to see him all the same," he remarked. "May he come
up to the nursery?"

"Oh, Jack doesn't care about babies," said Dodo, "even when they belong
to you and me. Do you, Jack? I assure you it won't amuse you a bit."

"I can't go away without seeing the baby," said Jack, "so I think I'll
go with Chesterford, and then I must be off. Good-bye, Dodo. Get well
quickly. May I come and see you to-morrow?"

"I wish Chesterford wouldn't take Jack off in that way," said Dodo
rather querulously, as they left the room. "Jack came to see me, and
I wanted to talk more to him--I'm very fond of Jack. If he wasn't so
fearfully lazy, he'd make no end of a splash. But he prefers talking to
his friends to talking to a lot of Irish members. I wonder why he came
after he said he wouldn't. Jack usually has good reasons."

Dodo lay back in her chair and reflected.

"You really are the most unnatural mother," said Mrs. Vivian, with a
laugh. "I am glad Mr. Broxton went with your husband, or he would have
been disappointed, I think."

Dodo looked a little anxious.

"He wasn't vexed, was he?" she asked. "I hate vexing people, especially
Chesterford. But he really is ridiculous about the baby. It is absurd
to suppose it is interesting yet."

"I don't suppose he would call it interesting," said Mrs. Vivian. "But
you know there are other things beside that."

Dodo grew a trifle impatient.

"Ah, that's a twice-told tale," she said. "I consider I have done
my duty admirably, but just now I confess I am pining for a little
amusement. I have been awfully dull. You know one can't exist on pure
love."

Mrs. Vivian rose to go.

"Well, I must be off," she said. "Good-night, Dodo; and remember this,
if ever anything occurs on which you want advice or counsel, come to me
for it. You know I have been through all this; and--and remember Lord
Chesterford loves you very deeply."

Dodo looked up inquiringly.

"Yes, of course, I know that," she said, "and we get on magnificently
together. In any case I should always ask you for advice. You know I
used to be rather afraid of you."

Mrs. Vivian stood looking out of the window. Her eyes suddenly filled
with tears.

"Ah, my dear, don't be afraid of me," she said.

Dodo wondered, when she had gone, what made her so suddenly grave.
Her own horizon was singularly free from clouds. She had been through
an experience which she had looked forward to with something like
dread. But that was over; she and the baby were both alive and
well. Chesterford was more devoted than ever, and she?--well, she
was thoroughly satisfied. And Jack had come back, and all was going
delightfully.

"They all talk about love as if it were something very dreadful,"
she thought. "I'm sure it isn't dreadful at all. It is rather a bore
sometimes; at least one can have enough of it, but that is a fault on
the right side."

The door opened softly, and Chesterford came in.

"I am glad to find you alone, darling," he said, "I haven't seen you
all day. You are looking much better. Get Jack to come and see you
again as soon as he can."

Dodo smiled benignantly on him.

"The baby really is wonderful," he continued. "It was sitting up with
its bottle just now, and I really believe it winked at me when it saw
me. Do you think it knows me?"

"Oh, I daresay it does," said Dodo; "it sees enough of you anyhow."

"Isn't it all wonderful," he went on, not noticing her tone. "Just
fancy. Sometimes I wonder whether it's all real."

"It's real enough when it cries," said Dodo. "But it is rather
charming, I do think."

"It's got such queer little fists," said he, "with nice pink nails."

Dodo laughed rather wearily.

"Are you a little tired, darling?" he said. "Won't you go to bed? You
know you've been up quite a long time. Perhaps you'd like to see the
baby before you go."

"Oh, I said good-night to the baby," said Dodo. "I think I will go to
bed. I wish you'd send Wilkins here."

He bent over her and kissed her forehead softly.

"Ah, my darling, my darling," he whispered.

Dodo lay with half-shut eyes.

"Good-night, dear," she said languidly.




CHAPTER EIGHT


The questions about which a man is apt to, say that he alone can judge,
are usually exactly those questions in which his judgment is most
likely to be at fault, for they concern him very intimately--a truth
which he expresses by saying that he alone can judge about them, and
for that very reason his emotions are apt to colour what he considers
his sober decision.

Jack was exactly in this position when he left the Chesterfords' door
that afternoon. It was only six o'clock when he went away, and he
wished to be alone, and to think about it. But the house seemed stuffy
and unsuggestive, and he ordered a horse, and sat fuming and frowning
till it came round. It fidgeted and edged away from the pavement
when he tried to mount it, and he said, "Get out, you brute," with
remarkable emphasis, and asked the groom whether he hadn't yet learned
to hold a horse quiet. This was sufficient to show that he was in a
perturbed frame of mind.

The Row was rather empty, for a great race meeting was going on, and
Jack cantered quickly up to the end, and cursed his stupidity for not
having gone to Sandown. Then he put his horse to a quiet pace, and
determined to think the matter out.

He had left the Chesterfords in January with a full realisation of his
position. He was in love with Dodo, perhaps more deeply than ever,
and Dodo was hopelessly, irrevocably out of his reach. The only thing
left to be done was to get over it; but his ordinary circle and its
leisurely duties were quite impossible just at present, and he adopted
the traditional English method of travelling, and shooting unoffending
animals. Whether the absence of faith was responsible, is an open
question; at any rate, the remedy did not result in a cure. He was
intensely bored with foreign countries; they were quite as distasteful
as England, and, on the whole, had less to offer. And he came back to
London again as suddenly as he had left it. He only remembered one
incident in his four months abroad which gave him any pleasure; that
was when he received a letter from Dodo at Berlin, which said nothing
particular, and wound up with a little mild chaff on the absurdity of
his going abroad at all. "I hope you are really better," wrote Dodo,
"though I didn't know that you were in any immediate danger of breaking
down when you left us. Anyhow, come back. London is particularly
wholesome, and, to tell you the truth, it's just a wee bit dull. Don't
be conceited."

Of course he came back; it was no good remaining abroad, and yawning in
front of the Sistine Madonna, who, in her impossible serene mildness,
had no message whatever for him. He wanted to see Dodo; why on earth
shouldn't he? She was the only thing he really cared about, and she was
quite out of his reach. Where was the harm?

For two days after his arrival in London he was still undecided, and
made no effort to see her, and on the third day her note came. London
was as bad as Dresden, and again, where was the harm? He wrote a note
saying he would come, then he tore that up and sent a refusal, offering
no excuse; and after all, he had gone, and parted from her with the
words that he would come again the next day. But ah, how sweet it was
to see her again! Such were the facts upon which Jack wished to form a
conclusion. All this indecision was really too annoying. What was the
use of a conscience that took the sugar out of your tea, and yet could
not prevent you from drinking it? It was not strong enough to prevent
him going to see Dodo, and it took the malicious line of making the
visit as little enjoyable as possible. Well, it must be settled one way
or the other.

The problem obviously depended on one question. Did his desire for
Dodo grow stronger with seeing her? He decided that it did not make
much difference to the quality or degree of his longing, but, on the
other hand, her society gave him an inestimable pleasure. When she
had refused him a year ago, he had gone on seeing her day after day,
without the horrible, unsatisfied emptiness he had felt abroad. That
absorbing craving for her, he remembered, began when she was on her
wedding tour. Then why not see her freely and frequently? No harm
could possibly come out of it. Dodo, he thought, cared for him only as
she cared for a dozen other friends, why should he, then, who cared
so deeply for her, cut himself off from her? Again his deep-rooted
affection and respect for her husband was an immense safeguard.
Quixotism was a doubtful virtue at the best, and decidedly out of
date, and besides, what would Dodo think if she suddenly found that
one of her best friends invariably declined to meet her under any
circumstances? She would certainly guess the reason, and if there was
one possible solution of this stupid problem more undesirable than
another, it was that. And Jack made up his mind.

Well, that was settled, and here was Bertie riding down upon him. He
felt as if he wished to record a deliberate and sober conclusion. They
joined forces and rode up together.

Then Jack said suddenly,--

"Bertie, I have been making a fool of myself, but I am better now."

"That's good," said Bertie placidly.

There was something indefinably soothing about Bertie's manner. Jack
determined to be more explicit. It is often a relief to tell a friend
one's own resolutions, especially if one does not expect unseasonable
objections.

"It's about Dodo," he said. "You see I'm dreadfully in love with her.
Awkward, isn't it?"

"Devilish," said Bertie, without a shade of emotion passing over his
face.

"And the less I see of her," said Jack, "the worse I get, so I've
determined that the more I see of her in the ordinary way, the better.
It sounds an unusual treatment, I know, but you must acknowledge I gave
the other method a fair chance. I went and killed pigs in Austria, and
climbed the Matterhorn, but it wouldn't do."

They rode on a little time in silence. Then Bertie said,--

"Do you want my advice?"

"Well, yes," said Jack rather dubiously.

"Then I'm dashed if I like it, Jack," he said. "It's too dangerous.
Just think----"

But Jack broke in,--

"Don't you see my friendship for Chesterford is an absolute safeguard.
Dodo gives me more pleasure than anyone I know, and when I can't see
her, life becomes unbearable. Chesterford is one of those men to whom
one couldn't do a mean thing, and, furthermore, Dodo doesn't love
me. If those two facts don't ensure safety, I don't know what would.
Besides, Bertie, I'm not a rascal."

"I can't like it," said Bertie. "If one has a propensity for falling
into the fire, it's as well to keep off the hearthrug. I know you're
not a rascal, but this is a thing one can't argue about. It is a matter
of feeling."

"I know," said Jack, "I've felt it too. But I think it's outweighed by
other considerations. If I thought any mischief could come of it, I
should deserve to be horse-whipped."

"I don't like it," repeated Bertie stolidly.

Jack went to see Dodo the next afternoon, and for many afternoons
during the next fortnight he might have been seen on Chesterford's
doorstep, either coming or going. Her husband seemed almost as glad
as Dodo that Jack should come often. His visits were obviously very
pleasant to her, and she had begun to talk nonsense again as fluently
as ever. With Jack, however, she had some rather serious talks; his
future appeared to be exercising her mind somewhat. Jack's life at this
time was absolutely aimless. Before he had gone abroad he had been at
the Bar, and had been called, but his chambers now knew him no more. He
had no home duties, being, as Dodo expressed it, "a poor little orphan
of six foot two," and he had enough money for an idle bachelor life.
Dodo took a very real interest in the career of her friends. It was
part of her completeness, as I have said before, to be the centre of
a set of successful people. Jack could do very well, she felt, in the
purely ornamental line, and she by no means wished to debar him from
the ornamental profession, but yet she was vaguely dissatisfied. She
induced him one day to state in full, exactly the ideas he had about
his own future.

"You dangle very well indeed," she said to him, "and I'm far from
wishing you not to dangle, but, if it's to be your profession, you
must do it more systematically. Lady Wrayston was here yesterday, and
she said no one ever saw you now. That's lazy; you're neglecting your
work."

Jack was silent a few minutes. The truth of the matter was that he
was becoming so preoccupied with Dodo, that he was acquiring a real
distaste for other society. His days seemed to have dwindled down to
an hour or two hours each, according to the time he passed with Dodo.
The interval between his leaving the house one day and returning to it
the next, had got to be merely a tedious period of waiting, which he
would gladly have dispensed with. In such intervals society appeared
to him not a distraction, but a laborious substitute for inaction, and
labour at any time was not congenial to him. His life, in fact, was
a series of conscious pulses with long-drawn pauses in between. He
was dimly aware that this sort of thing could not go on for ever. The
machine would stop, or get quicker or slower, and there were endless
complications imminent in either case.

"I don't know that I really care for dangling," said Jack
discontentedly. "At the same time it is the least objectionable form of
amusement."

"Well, you can't dangle for ever in any case," said Dodo. "You ought
to marry and settle down. Chesterford is a sort of apotheosis of a
dangler. By performing, with scrupulous care, a quantity of little
things that don't matter much, like being J.P., and handing the
offertory plate, he is in a way quite a busy man, to himself at least,
though nothing would happen if he ceased doing any or all of these
things; and the dangler, who thinks himself busy, is the happiest of
men, because he gets all the advantages of dangling, and none of the
disadvantages, and his conscience--have you got a conscience, Jack?--so
far from pricking him, tells him he's doing the whole duty of man. Then
again he's married--to me, too. That's a profession in itself."

"Ah, but I can't be married to you too," remarked Jack.

"You're absurd," said Dodo; "but really, Jack, I wish you'd marry
someone else. I sha'n't think you unfaithful."

"I don't flatter myself that you would," said Jack, with a touch of
irritation.

Dodo looked up rather surprised at the hard ring in his voice. She
thought it wiser to ignore this last remark.

"I never can quite make out whether you are ambitious or not," she
said. "Now and then you make me feel as if you would rather like to go
and live in a small cathedral town----"

"And shock the canons?" suggested Jack.

"Not necessarily; but cultivate sheer domesticity. You're very
domestic in a way. Bertie would do admirably in a cathedral town. He'd
be dreadfully happy among dull people. They would all think him so
brilliant and charming, and the bishop would ask him over to dine at
the palace whenever anyone came down from London."

"I'm not ambitious in the way of wanting to score small successes,"
said Jack. "Anyone can score them. I don't mind flying at high game and
missing. If you miss of course you have to load again, but I'd sooner
do that than make a bag of rabbits. Besides, you can get your rabbits
sitting, as you go after your high game. But I don't want rabbits."

"What is your high game?" asked Dodo.

Jack considered.

"It's this," he said. "You may attain it, or at any rate strive after
it, by doing nothing, or working like a horse. But, anyhow, it's being
in the midst of things, it's seeing the wheels go round, and forming
conclusions as to why they go round, it's hearing the world go rushing
by like a river in flood, it's knowing what everyone thinks about, it's
guessing why one woman falls in love with one man, and why another man
falls in love with her. You don't get that in cathedral towns. The
archdeacon's daughter falls in love with the dean's son, and nobody
else is at all in love with either of them. The world doesn't rattle
in cathedral towns, they take care to oil it; the world doesn't come
down in flood in cathedral towns, there is nothing so badly regulated
as that. I don't know why I should choose cathedral towns particularly
to say these things about. I think you suggested that I should live in
one. If you like you can plunge into the river in flood and go down
with it--that's what they call having a profession--but it's just
as instructive to stand on the bank and watch it; more instructive,
perhaps, because you needn't swim, and can give your whole attention to
it. On the whole, that is what I mean to do."

"That's good, Jack," said Dodo; "but you're not consistent. The fact
that you haven't been going out lately, shows that you're standing
with your back to it, with your hands in your pocket. After all, what
you say only comes to this, that you are interested in the problem of
human life. Well, there's just as much human life in your cathedral
town."

"Ah, but there's no go about it," said he. "It's no more like life than
a duck pond is to the river in flood."

"Oh, you're wrong there," said Dodo. "It goes on just the same, though
it doesn't make such a fuss. But in any case you are standing with your
back to it now, as I said."

"I'm going into details, just at present," said Jack.

"How do you mean?"

"I'm watching a little bit of it."

"I suppose you mean Chesterford and me. Do you find us very
interesting?" demanded Dodo.

"Very."

Jack was rather uncomfortable. He wanted to say more, and wished he
hadn't said so much. He wondered how Dodo would take it.

Dodo did not take it at all. She was, for the time at any rate, much
more interested in Jack's prospects as they concerned him, than as they
bore on herself.

"What is the upshot of all your observations?" she asked.

Jack hardly knew whether to feel relieved or slighted. Was Dodo's
apparent unconsciousness of the tenor of what he had said genuine or
affected? On that he felt a great deal depended. But whether it was
genuine or not, the matter was closed for the present. Dodo repeated
her question.

"My observations on you, or on the world in general?" he asked.

"Either will do," said Dodo; "we're very normal. Any conclusion you
have formed about the rest of the world will apply to us."

"My conclusion is that you are not quite normal," said he.

Dodo laughed.

"Oh, I'm dreadfully normal," she said; "all my inconsistencies lie on
the surface--I'm married, I've got a baby, I'm honest, I'm lazy. I'm
all I should and shouldn't be. And Chesterford----"

"Oh, then Chesterford's normal too," said Jack.




CHAPTER NINE


June was drawing to a close in a week of magnificent weather. It was
too hot to do much during the middle of the day, and the Park was full
of riders every morning from eight till ten. Dodo' was frequently to be
seen there, usually riding a vicious black mare, that plunged and shied
more than Lord Chesterford quite liked. But Dodo insisted on riding it.

"The risks one runs every moment of one's life," she told him, "are so
many, that one or two more really don't matter. Besides, I can manage
the brute."

On this particular morning Dodo descended the stairs feeling unusually
happy. The period of enforced idleness was over, and she was making
up for lost time with a vengeance. They had given a dance the night
before, and Dodo had not gone to bed till after four; but for all
that she was down again at half-past eight, and her mare was waiting
for her. She turned into the dining-room to have a cup of tea before
starting, and waited somewhat impatiently for Lord Chesterford to join
her. He came in, in the course of a few minutes, looking rather worried.

"You look as if you had not gone to bed for a week," said Dodo, "and
your hair is dreadfully untidy. Look at me now. Here I am a weak little
woman, and I feel fit to move mountains, and you look as if you wanted
quinine and iron. Don't come, if you'd rather not. Stop at home and
play with the baby."

"I'm all right," said he, "but I'm rather worried about the boy. The
nurse says he's not been sleeping much all night, but kept waking and
crying, and he looks rather flushed. I think I'll send for the doctor."

Dodo felt a little impatient.

"He's as right as possible," she said. "You shouldn't worry so,
Chesterford. You've wanted to send for the doctor a hundred times in
the last month, either for him or me. But don't come if you'd rather
not. Vivy is coming to breakfast at half-past nine; I quite forgot
that. If you feel inclined to stop, you might give her breakfast, and
I'll lengthen my ride. I shall be back at half-past ten. She's going
to take me to see Wainwright's new Turner."

"Are you sure you don't mind, Dodo?" said he, still wavering. "If you
don't, I really think I will stop, and perhaps see the doctor about
him. The nurse says she would like to have the doctor here."

"Just as you like," said Dodo. "You'll have to pay a swinging bill
anyhow. Good-bye, old boy. Don't worry your silly old head. I'm sure
it's all right."

Dodo went off perfectly at ease in her mind. Chesterford was rather
fussy, she thought, and she congratulated herself on not being nervous.
"A pretty pair we should make if I encouraged him in his little ways,"
she said to herself. "We should one of us, live in the nursery." She
put her horse into a quick trot, and felt a keen enjoyment in managing
the vicious animal. The streets were somewhat crowded even at this
hour, and Dodo had her work cut out for her.

However, she reached the Park in safety, and went up the Row at a
swinging gallop, with her horse tearing at the rein and tossing its
head. After a time the brute grew quieter, and Dodo joined a well-known
figure who was riding some way in front of her.

"Good old Jack," she cried, "isn't it splendid! I had no idea how I
loved motion and exercise and dancing and all that till I began again.
Didn't you think our ball went off rather well? Did you stop, to the
end? Oh, of course you did. That silly dowager What's-her-name was
quite shocked at me, just because we had the looking-glass figure in
the cotillion. It's the prettiest of the lot, I think. Old Major Ewart
gave me a pair of ivory castanets with silver mountings last night,
the sweetest things in the world. I really think he is seriously gone
on me, and he must be sixty if he's an hour. I think I shall appeal to
Chesterford for protection. What fun it would be to make Chesterford
talk to him gravely like a grandson. He stopped at home this morning
to look after the baby. I think I shall get jealous of the nurse, and
pretend that he's sweet on her, and that's why he goes to the nursery
so much."

Jack laughed.

"Between you, you hit the right average pretty well," he said. "If it
wasn't for Chesterford, the baby would certainly have fallen downstairs
half a dozen times. You don't half realise how important he is."

"Oh, you're entirely wrong, Jack," said Dodo calmly. "It's just that
which I do recognise; what I don't recognise is that I should be
supposed to find ineffable joys in watching it eat and sleep and howl.
You know one baby is very much like another."

"In other words, supposing the boy had no expectations," said Jack,
"and was not the heir-apparent of half Staffordshire, you would find
him much less interesting."

"Would you think me very heartless if I said 'Yes'?" asked Dodo.

"Well, I never held a very high opinion of your heart, you know," said
Jack, laughing, "and I don't know that I think much worse of it now."

"You judge so stupidly," said Dodo; "you elevate matrimony into a
sacrament. Now I don't. It is a contract for mutual advantage. The
husband gives wealth, position and all that, and the wife gives him a
housekeeper, and heirs to his property. Don't frown, Jack. That's my
eminently common-sense view of the question. It answers excellently,
as I find by experience. But, of course, there are marriages for
love. I suppose most of the lower middle-class marry for love, at
least they haven't got any position or wealth to marry for. But we,
the disillusioned and unromantic upper classes, see beyond that. I
daresay our great grandfathers married for love, but the fact that so
many of us don't, shows that ours is the more advanced and probably
correct view. You know all wine-tasters agree on the superiority
of one wine, and the inferiority of another. That's the result of
education. The amateur thinks they are all more or less alike, and very
probably prefers some sweet bad kind. That's the middle-class view
of love-marriages. The more I think of it, the more I feel that love
is an illusion. Think of all the people who marry for love, and get
eternally tired of each other afterwards. They can't keep it up. The
lovers grow into friends, and the friends into enemies. Those are the
enviable ones who remain friends; but it is better to marry as a friend
than as a lover, because in the latter case there is a reaction and a
disappointment, which may perhaps ruin the friendship. Aren't I a wise
woman, Jack? I think I shall set up a general advice office."

Jack was, rather pale, and his fingers twitched nervously at his reins.

"Have you never felt that illusion?" he asked, in a low voice.

"Really, Jack," said Dodo, "you behave as if you were the inquisition.
But I don't see why I shouldn't tell you. For Chesterford I never
have. He is the most excellent husband, and I esteem and admire him
immensely. Don't make your horse so fidgety, Jack. As I was saying,
I don't see why I shouldn't tell you, considering you proposed to me
once, and confessed to the same illusion yourself. Have you got over
it, by the way? If I had married you, you certainly would have by this
time."

There was a long pause. Then Jack said,--

"No, Dodo, I have never got over it."

The moment after he had said it, he would have given his right hand to
have it unsaid. Dodo was silent for a moment, and Jack found himself
noticing the tiny, trivial things about him. He observed a fly trying
to alight oh his horse's ear, but the animal flicked it off with a
little jerk, before it got fairly settled. He wondered whether the fly
had illusions about that ear, and whether it imagined that it would be
happy for ever and ever, if it could once settle there.

"You know we are saying the most frightfully unconventional things
to each other," said Dodo. "I am very sorry for you, Jack, and I
will administer consolation. When I said 'No' to you, I did it with
real regret, with quite a different sort of feeling to that which I
should have had if I had said 'No' to Chesterford. It was quite an
unreasonable feeling, I couldn't define it, but I think it must have
been because----"

Then Jack recovered his self-respect in a moment, by one of those
strange contradictions in our nature, which urged him to stop his ears
to what, a week before, he had been almost tempting her to say.

"Ah, stop, stop," he said, "you don't know what you are saying. Dodo,
this won't do. Think of Chesterford."

"Chesterford and the baby," said Dodo softly. "I believe you are right,
Jack. This is unprofitable. But, Jack, since we renounce that, let us
still be friends. Don't let this have made any difference to us. Try
and realise that it is all an illusion."

Dodo half turned towards him, with a long glance in her brown eyes, and
a little smile playing about her mouth.

"Yes, yes," said Jack, laughing nervously. "I told Bertie so the other
day. I have been a madman for half an hour, but that is over. Shall we
turn?"

They wheeled their horses round, and cantered down the Row.

"Oh, this beautiful world," exclaimed Dodo. "You've no idea what it is
to me to come out of the house again, and ride, and dance and sing. I
really believe, Jack, that I enjoy things more than anyone else I know.
Everything that enjoys itself appeals to me. Jack, do enjoy yourself,
although we settled you mustn't appeal to me. Who is that girl standing
there with the poodle? I think I shall get Chesterford to buy me a
poodle. There's a woman next her awfully like Vivy, do you see, shading
her eyes with her hand. It is Vivy."

Dodo's face suddenly grew grave and frightened. She reined her horse in
opposite to where Mrs. Vivian was standing.

"Quick, quick," she said, "tell me what has happened!"

Mrs. Vivian looked up at Dodo with infinite compassion in her eyes.

"Dodo, darling," she said, "give your horse to the groom. Please help
her to dismount, Mr. Broxton."

Dodo got off, and Mrs. Vivian led her to a seat. Dodo had a sudden
flash of remembrance of how she had sat here with Jack a year ago.

"Tell me quickly," she said again.

"My poor Dodo," said Mrs. Vivian, softly stroking the back of Dodo's
hand. "You will be brave, won't you? It is worth while being brave. It
is all over. The baby died this morning, half an hour after you had
gone."

Dodo's first feeling was one of passionate anger and resentment. She
felt she had been duped and tricked in a most unjustifiable manner.
Fate had led her to expect some happy days, and she had been cruelly
disappointed. It was not fair; she had been released from two tedious
months of inactivity, only to be caught again. It was like a cat
playing with a mouse. She wanted to revenge herself on something.

"Oh, it is too awful," she said. "Vivy, what can I do? It is cruel."
Then her better nature came to her aid. "Poor Chesterford, poor dear
old boy," she said simply.

Mrs. Vivian's face grew more tender.

"I am glad you thought of him," she said. "His first thought was for
you. He was there all the time. As soon as it was over he said to
himself, 'Please, God, help Dodo to bear it.' You bear it very well,
dear. Come, the carriage is waiting."

"Oh, I can't, I can't," said Dodo passionately; "let me sit here a
little while, and then go away somewhere else. I can bear it better
alone. I can't see Chesterford."

"No, Dodo," she said, "you must not be cowardly. I know it is the worst
part of it for you. But your duty lies with him. You must comfort him.
You must make him feel that he has got you left. He is terribly broken,
but he will be brave for your sake. Be brave for his."

Dodo sighed wearily.

"I suppose you are right," she said; "I will come."

She turned and looked round on to the gay scene. The Row was full of
riders, and bright with the flooding sunlight.

"Oh, it is cruel," she said. "I only wanted to be happy, and I mayn't
even be that. What is the good of it all, if I mayn't enjoy it? Why
was the baby ever born? I wish it never had been. What good does it do
anyone that I should suffer?"

Mrs. Vivian felt horribly helpless and baffled. How could she appeal to
this woman, who looked at everything from only her own standpoint?

"Come, Dodo," she said.

They drove back in silence. Chesterford was standing in the hall as
they entered, waiting for them. He came forward to meet Dodo.

"My poor, poor darling," he said, "it is very hard on you. But we can
bear it together, Dodo."

Dodo turned from him passionately, and left him standing there.



Dodo was sitting in the window of her morning-room late on the same
afternoon. She and Lord Chesterford had been together to look at the
baby as it lay there, with the little features that had been racked and
distorted with pain, calm and set again, as if it only slept; and Dodo
had at that moment one real pang of grief. Her first impulse, as we
have seen, was one of anger and impatience at the stupidity of destiny.
She had been enjoying herself, in a purely animal way so intensely,
at that moment when she saw Mrs. Vivian waiting for her under the
trees. She was just released from a tedious period of inactivity, and
inactivity was to Dodo worse than anything in the Inferno.

"I daresay I should get accustomed to being roasted," she had said
once to Miss Grantham. "It really would be rather interesting seeing
your fingers curling up like fried bacon, but imagine being put in a
nicely-furnished room with nobody to talk to, and a view over Hyde
Park one side and Melton Mowbray the other, and never being able to
get out! The longer that lasted, the worse it would become." And so
she had felt the sort of rapture with which "the prisoner leaps to
loose his chains" when she had gone out that morning, and again knew
the infinite delight of feeling a fine horse answer to her hand, under
a sort of playful protest. Then this had come upon her, and Dodo felt
that language, failed her to express her profound contempt and dislike
for the destiny that shapes our ends.

But her generosity and sense of fair play had come to her aid. She was
not alone in this matter, and she quite realised that it was worse for
Chesterford than herself.

Chesterford had evinced the most intense interest in the baby in
itself. Dodo, on the other hand, had frankly declared that the baby's
potentialities possessed a far greater attraction, for her than its
actualities. But she had voluntarily linked her life with his; and
she must do her part--they had had a great loss, and he must not feel
that he bore it alone. Dodo shook her head hopelessly over the unknown
factor, that made her so much to him, and left him so little to her,
but she accepted it as inevitable. Almost immediately after she had
left him in the hall, she felt angry with herself for haying done so,
just as she had been vexed at her reception of his proposal of family
prayers, and a few minutes afterwards she sent for him, and they had
gone together to see the baby. And then, because she was a woman,
because she was human, because she was genuinely sorry for this honest
true man who knelt beside her and sobbed as if his heart was broken,
but with a natural instinct turned to her, and sorrowed more for her
than for himself, her intense self-centredness for the time vanished,
and with a true and womanly instinct she found her consolation in
consoling him.

Dodo felt as if she had lived years since this morning, and longed to
cut the next week out of her life, to lose it altogether. She wanted
to get away out of the whole course of events, to begin again without
any past. From a purely worldly point of view she was intensely vexed
at the baby's death; she had felt an immense pride in having provided
an heir, and it was all no use; it was over, it might as well never
have been born. And, as the day wore on, she felt an overwhelming
disgust of all the days that were to follow, the darkened house, the
quieted movements, the enforced idleness. If only no one knew, Dodo
felt that she would fling herself at once, this very minute, into the
outside world again. What was the use of all this retirement? It only
made a bad job worse. Surely, when misfortune comes on one, it is best
to forget it as soon as possible, and Dodo's eminently practical way
of forgetting anything was to absorb herself in something else. "What
a sensible man David was," she thought. "He went and oiled himself,
which, I suppose, is the equivalent of putting on one's very best
evening dress." She felt an inward laughter, more than half hysterical,
as to what would happen if she went and oiled Chesterford.

She got up and went languidly across to the window. Lord Chesterford's
room was on the story below, and was built on a wing by itself, and a
window looked out on her side of the house. Looking down she saw him
kneeling at his table, with his face buried in his hands. Dodo was
conscious of a lump rising in her throat, and she went back to her
chair, and sat down again.

"He is such a good, honest old boy," she thought, "and somehow,
in a dim-lit way, he finds consolation in that. It is a merciful
arrangement."

She walked downstairs to his study, and went in. He had heard her step,
and stood near the door waiting to receive her. Dodo felt infinitely
sorry for him. Chesterford drew her into a chair, and knelt down beside
her.

"You've no idea what a help you have been to me, darling," he said. "It
makes me feel as if I was an awful coward, when I see you so brave."

Dodo stroked his hand.

"Yes, yes," she said, "we must both be brave, we must help one another."

"Ah, my own wife," he said, "what should I have done if it had been
you? and I was dreadfully afraid at one time! You know you are both the
baby and yourself to me now, and yet I thought before you were all you
could be."

Dodo felt horribly uncomfortable. She had been aware before that there
had been moments when, as Jack expressed it, she was "keeping it up,"
but never to this extent.

"Tell me about it, Chesterford," she said.

"It was only half an hour after you went," he said, "that he suddenly
got worse. The doctor came a few minutes after that. It was all
practically over by then. It was convulsions, you know. He was quite
quiet, and seemed out of pain for a few minutes before the end, and he
opened his eyes, and put out his little arms towards me. Do you think
he knew me, Dodo?"

"Yes, dear, yes," said Dodo softly.

"I should be so happy to think he did," said Lord Chesterford. "Poor
little chap, he always took to me from the first, do you remember? I
hope he knew me then. Mrs. Vivian came very soon after, and she offered
to go for you, and met you in the Park, didn't she?"

"Yes," said Dodo; "Jack and I were together. She is very good to us.
Would you like to see her to-night?"

"Ah no, Dodo," he said, "I can't see anyone but your dear self. But
make her come and see you if you feel inclined, only come and talk to
me again afterwards."

"No, dear," said Dodo. "I won't have her, if you feel against it."

"Then we shall have an evening together again, Dodo," he said. "I seem
to have seen you so little, since you began to go about again," he
added wistfully.

"Oh, it must be so," said Dodo; "you have one thing to do, and I have
another. I've seen so many different people this last week, that I
feel as if I had seen no one person."

"You are so active," he said; "you do half a dozen things while I am
doing one."

"Oh, but you do great important man things," said Dodo, "and I do silly
little woman things."

She felt the conversation was becoming much more bearable.

Chesterford smiled. Dodo seized on it as a favourable omen.

"I like seeing you smile, old boy," she said; "you look more yourself
than you did two hours ago."

He looked at her earnestly.

"Dodo, you will not think me preaching or being priggish, will you,
darling? You know me too well for that. There is one way of turning
this into a blessing. We must try and see why this was sent us, and
if we cannot see why, we must take it in faith, and go on living our
lives simply and straightforwardly, and then, perhaps, we shall know
sometime. Ah, my darling, it has taught me one thing already, for I
never knew before how much I loved you. I loved you all I could before
this, but it has somehow given me fresh power to love. I think the love
I had for the boy has been added to the love I had for you, and it is
yours, darling, all of it, always."




CHAPTER TEN


That same evening Edith Staines and Miss Grantham were seated together
in a box at the opera. The first act was just over, and Edith, who had
mercilessly silenced every remark Miss Grantham had made during it,
relaxed a little. Miss Grantham's method of looking at an opera was
to sit with her hack to the stage, so as to command a better view of
the house, and talk continuously. But Edith would not st

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/44486