Mary unfolded her hands suddenly and drew them up and down her apron as

if trying to dry them. Victoria sat as if frozen, looking at her

wide-eyed. Then she relapsed on the pillow. Everything swam for a

second, then she felt Mary raising her head.

'Go away,' whispered Victoria. 'Leave me for a minute. I'm all right.'

Mary hesitated for a moment, then obeyed, softly closing the door.

Victoria lay staring at the ceiling. Cairns was dead, shot. Awful. A

week ago his heavy frame was outlined under these very blankets. She

shuddered. But why, how? It wasn't true, it couldn't be true. She sat up

as if impelled by a spring, and rang the bell violently. The broken rope

fell on her face in a coil. With both hands she seized her chin as if to

stop a scream.

'The paper! get me the paper!' she gasped as Mary came in. The girl

hesitated. Victoria's face frightened her. Victoria looked at her

straight, and she ran out of the room. In another minute she had laid

the open paper before her mistress.

Victoria clutched at it with both hands. It was true. True. It was true.

The headlines were all she could see. She tried to read the text, but

the letters danced. She returned to the headlines.

SHOCKING OUTRAGE IN IRELAND

* * * *

LANDLORD SHOT

In the next column:--

M. C. C.'s HARD TASK

Her heart's action was less violent now. She understood; every second

increased her lucidity. Shot. Cairns was shot. Oh, she knew, he had

carried strife with him and some tenant had had his revenge. She took up

the paper and could read it now. Cairns had refused to make terms, and

on the morning of his death had served notices of eviction on eighteen

cottagers. The same night he was sitting at a window of his bailiff's

house. Then two shots from the other side of the road, another from

lower down. Cairns was wounded twice, in the lung and throat, and died

within twenty minutes. A man was under arrest.

Victoria put down the paper. Her mind was quite clear again. Poor old

Tom! She felt sorry but above all disturbed; every nerve in her body

seemed raw. Poor old Tom, a good fellow! He had been kind to her; and

now, there he was. Dead when he was thinking of coming back to her. He

would never see her again, the little house and things he loved. Yes, he

had been kind; he had saved her from that awful life . . . . Victoria's

thoughts turned into another channel. What was going to become of her.

'Old girl,' she said aloud, 'you're in the cart.'

She realised that she was again adrift, alone, face to face with the

terrible world. Cairns was gone; there was nobody to protect her against

the buffeting waves. A milkman's cart rattled by; she could hear the

distant rumble of the Underground, a snatch carried by the wind from a

German band. Well, the time had come; it had to come. She could not have

held Cairns for ever; and now she had to prove her mettle, to show

whether she had learned enough of the world, whether she had grit. The

thought struck cold at her, but an intimate counsellor in her brain was

already awake and crying out:

'Yes, yes, go on! you can do it yet.'

Victoria threw down the paper and jumped out of bed. She dressed

feverishly in the clothes and linen she had thrown in a heap on a chair

the night before, twisting her hair up into a rough coil. Just before

leaving the room she remembered she had not even washed her hands. She

did so hurriedly; then, seeing the cold cup of tea, drank it off at a

gulp; her throat felt parched.

She pushed back the untasted dish on the breakfast table. Her head

between her hands, she tried to think. At intervals she poured out cups

of tea and drank them off quickly.

Snoo and Poo, after vainly trying to induce her to play with them, lay

in a heap in an armchair snuffling as they slept.

The better she realised her position the greater grew her fears. Once

more she was the cork tossed in the storm; and yet, rudderless, she must

navigate into the harbour of liberty. If Cairns had lived and she had

seen her power over him wane, she would have taken steps; she did not

know what steps, but felt she surely would have done something. But

Cairns was dead; in twenty minutes she had passed from comparative

security into the region where thorns are many and roses few.

Poor old Tom! She felt a tiny pang; surely this concern with herself

when his body still lay unburied was selfish, ugly. But, pooh! why make

any bones about it? As Cairns had said himself, he liked to see her

beautiful, happy, well clad. His gifts to her were gifts to himself: she

was merely his vicar.

Victoria drank some more cold tea. Good or bad, Cairns belonged to the

past and the past has no virtues. None, at any rate, for those whose

present is a wind-swept table-land. Men must come and go, drink to the

full of the cup and pay richly for every sip, so that she might be free,

hold it no longer to their lips. There was no time to waste, for already

she was some hours older; some of those hours which might have been

transmuted into gold, that saving gold. She must take steps.

The 'steps to be taken,' a comforting sentence, were not easy to evolve.

But another comforting catch ward, 'reviewing the situation,' saved her

from perplexity. She went into the little boudoir and took out her two

pass books. The balance seemed agreeably fat, but she did not allow

herself to be deluded; she checked off the debit side with the foils of

her cheque book and found that two of the cheques had not been

presented. These she deducted, but the result was not unsatisfactory;

she had exactly three hundred pounds in one bank and a few shillings

over fifty pounds in the other. Three hundred and fifty pounds. Not so

bad. She had done pretty well in these nine months. Of course that

banker's order of Cairns would be stopped. She could hardly expect the

executors to allow it to stand. Thus her capital was three hundred and

fifty pounds. And there was jewellery too, worth a couple of hundred

pounds, perhaps, and lace, and furs. The jewellery might come in handy;

it could be 'gopherised.' The furniture wasn't bad either.

Of course she must go on with the house. It was no great responsibility,

being held on a yearly agreement. Victoria then looked through her

accounts; they did not amount to much, for Barbezan Soeurs, though

willing to assist in extracting money by means of bogus invoices, made

it a rule to demand cash for genuine purchases. Twenty pounds would

cover all the small accounts. The rent was all right, as it would not be

due until the end of September. The rates were all right too, being

payable every half year; they could be ignored until the blue notice

came, just before Christmas.

Victoria felt considerably strengthened by this investigation. At a

pinch she could live a year on the present footing, during which

something must turn up. She tried to consider for a moment the various

things that might turn up. None occurred to her. She settled the

difficulty by going upstairs again to dress. When she rang for Mary to

do her hair, the girl was surprised to find her mistress perfectly cool.

Without a word, however, Mary restored her hair to order. It was a

beautiful and elegant woman, perhaps a trifle pale and open mouthed,

who, some minutes later, set out to walk to Regent's Park.

Victoria sat back in her chair. Peace was upon her soul. Perhaps she had

just passed through a crisis, perhaps she was entering upon one, but

what did it matter? The warmth of July was in the clear air, the canal

slowly carried past her its film of dust. No sound broke through the

morning save the cries of little boys fishing for invisible fishes, and,

occasionally, a raucous roar from some prisoner in the Zoo. Now that she

had received the blow and was recovering she was conscious of a curious

feeling of lightness; she felt freer than the day before. Then she was a

man's property, tied to him by the bond of interest; now she was able to

do what she chose, know whom she chose, so long as that money lasted.

Ah, it would be good one day when she had enough money to be able to

look the future in the face and flaunt in its forbidding countenance the

fact that she was free, for ever free.

Victoria was no longer a dreamer; she was a woman of action. The natural

sequence of her thoughts brought her up at once against the means to the

triumphant end. Three hundred and fifty pounds, say six hundred if she

realised everything, would not yield enough to feed a superannuated

governess. She would need quite eight or ten thousand pounds before she

could call herself free and live her dreams.

'I'll earn it,' she said aloud, 'yes, sure enough.'

A little Aberdeen terrier came bounding up to her, licked her hand and

ran away after his master. A friendly omen. Six hundred pounds was a

large sum in a way. She could aspire to a partnership in some business

now. A vision arose before her; Victoria Ferris, milliner. The vision

grew; Victoria Ferris and Co., Limited, wholesalers; then Ferris'

Stores, for clothes and boots and cheese and phonographs, with a branch

of Cook's agency, a Keith Prowse ticket office; Ferris' Stores as an

octopus, with its body in Knightsbridge and a tentacle hovering over

every draper from Richmond to Highgate.

Yes, that was all very well, but what if Victoria Ferris failed? 'No

good,' she thought, 'I can't afford to take risks.' Of course the idea

of seeking employment was absurd. No more ten hours a day for eight bob

a week for her. Besides, no continuous references and a game leg . . .

The situations crowded into and out of Victoria's brain like dissolving

views. She could see herself in the little house, with another man, with

other men, young men, old men; and every one of them was rocked in the

lap of Delilah, who laughingly shore off their golden locks.

'By Jove,' she said aloud, bringing her gloved fist down on her knee,

'I'll do it.'

Of course the old life could not begin again just now. She did not know

a man in London who was worth capturing. She must go down into the

market, stand against the wall as a courtesan of Alexandria and nail a

wreath of roses against the highest bid. The vision she saw was now no

longer the octopus. She saw a street with its pavements wet and

slithering, flares, barrows laden with greens; she could smell frying

fish, rotting vegetables, burning naptha; a hand opened the door of a

bar and, in the glare, she could see two women with vivid hair, tired

eyes, smiling mouths, each one patiently waiting before a little table

and an empty glass. Then she saw once more the courtesan of Alexandria,

dim in the night, not lit up by the sun of sweet Egypt, but clad in

mercerised cotton and rabbit's fur, standing, watching like a shadow

against a shop door in Regent Street.

No, she had not come to that. She belonged to the upper stratum of the

profession, and, knowing it, could not sink. Consciousness was the

thing. She was not going into this fight soft-handed or softhearted. She

knew. There was high adventure in store for her yet. If she must fish it

should be for trout not chub. Like a wise woman, she would not love

lightly, but where money is. There should be no waiting, no hesitating.

That very night she would sup at the Hotel Vesuvius . . . all in black

. . . like an ivory Madonna set in ebony . . . with a tea rose in her hair

as a foil to her shoulders . . . and sweeping jade earrings which would

swim like butterflies in the heavy hair. Ah, it would be high adventure

when Demetrious knelt at the feet of Aphrodite with jewels in his

sunburnt palm, when Croesus bargained away for a smile a half of his

Lydian wealth.

She got up, a glow in her veins as if the lust of battle was upon her.

Quickly she walked out of the park to conquer the town. A few yards

beyond the gates newspaper placards shouted the sensation of the day;

placards pink, brown, green, all telling the tale of murder, advertising

for a penny the transitory joy of the fact. Victoria smiled and walked

on. She let herself into the house. It was on the stroke of one. She sat

down at the table, pressing the bell down with her foot.

'Hurry up, Mary,' she said, 'I'm as hungry as a hunter.'

A voice floated through the window like an echo: 'Irish murder; latest

details.'

'Shut the window, Mary,' she said sharply.

CHAPTER VII

THE Hotel Vesuvius is a singular place. It stands on the north side of

Piccadilly, and for the general its stuccoed front and severe sash

windows breathe an air of early Victorian respectability. Probably it

was once a ducal mansion, for it has all the necessary ugliness,

solidity and size; now it is the most remarkable instance of what can be

done by a proprietor who remembers that an address in Piccadilly exempts

him from the rules which govern Bloomsbury. One enters it through a

small hall all alight with white and gold paint. Right and left are the

saloon bar and the buffet; this enables the customer to select either

without altering the character of his accommodation, while assuming

superiority for a judicious choice. A broad straight staircase leads up

to the big supper room on the first floor. Above are a score of private

dining-rooms.

Victoria jumped out of the cab and walked up the steps, handing the

liveried commissionaire two shillings to pay the cabman. This was an

inspiration calculated to set her down at once with the staff as one who

knew the ropes. In the white and gold hall she halted for a moment,

puzzled and rather nervous. She had never set foot in the Vesuvius; she

had never heard it mentioned without a smile or a wink. Now, a little

flushed and her heart beating, she realised that she did not know her

way about.

Victoria need have had no fears. Before she had time to take in the

scene, a tall man with a perfectly groomed head and a well fitting

evening dress bowed low before her.

'Madame wishes no doubt to deposit her wrap,' he said in gentle tones.

His teeth flashed white for a moment.

'Yes,' said Victoria, . . . 'Yes, where is the cloak room?'

'This way, madame. If madame will permit me. . . .' He pointed towards

the end of the hall and preceded her steps. An elderly woman behind the

counter received Victoria's wrap and handed her a brass token without

looking at her. While she pulled up her gloves she looked round

curiously. The cloak room was small; behind the counter the walls were

covered by a mahogany rack with some hundred pigeon-holes. The fiercer

light of an unshaded chandelier beat down upon the centre of the room.

Victoria was conscious of an extraordinary atmosphere, a blend of many

scents, tobacco smoke, leather; most of the pigeon-holes were bursting

with coloured wraps, many of them vivid blue or red; here and there long

veils, soiled white gloves hung out of them; a purple ostrich feather

hung from an immense black hat over a white and silver Cingalese shawl.

Victoria turned sharply. The man was inspecting her coolly with an air

of intentness that showed approval.

'Where does madame wish to go?' he asked as they entered the hall. 'In

the buffet perhaps?'

He opened the door. Victoria saw for a second a long counter laden with

bottles, at which stood a group of men, some in evening dress, some in

tweed suits; she saw a few women among them, all with smiles upon their

faces. Behind the counter she had time to see the barmaid, a beautiful

girl with dark eyes and vivid yellow hair.

'No, not there,' she said quickly. It reminded her of the terrible

little bar of which Farwell had given her a glimpse. 'You are the

manager, I believe . . . I want to go up into the supper room.'

'Certainly, madame; will madame come this way?'

The manager preceded her up to the first floor. On the landing, two men

in tweeds suddenly stopped talking as she passed. A porter flung the

glazed door open. A short man in evening dress looked at her, then at

the manager. After a second's hesitation the two men in tweeds followed

her in.

The manager put his hands in his pockets, walked up to the other man and

nodded towards the door.

'_Pas mal, hein?_'

'_Epatante,_' said the short man. '_Du chic. Et une peau!_'

The manager smiled and turned to go downstairs. '_Surveillez moi ca

Anatole,_' he said.

Victoria, meanwhile, had stopped for a moment on the threshold, a little

dazed by the scene. Though it was only half-past ten, the eighty tables

of the Vesuvius were almost every one occupied; the crowd looked at

first like a patchwork quilt. The room was all white and gold like the

hall; a soft radiance fell from the lights hidden in the cornice; two

heavy chandeliers with faintly pink electric bulbs and a few pink shaded

lights on the table diffused a roseate glow over the scene. Victoria

felt like an intruder, and her discomfiture was heightened by the

gripping hot perfume. But already a waiter was by her side; she let him

be her pilot. In a few seconds she found herself sitting at a small

table alone, near the middle of the room. The waiter reappeared almost

at once carrying on a tray a liqueur glass containing some colourless

fluid. She had ordered nothing, but his adroitness relieved her. Clearly

the expert had divined her inexperience and had resolved to smooth her

way.

She lifted the glass to her lips and sipped at it. It was good stuff,

rather strong. The burn on her palate seemed to brace her; she looked

round the room. It was a peculiar scene; for the Vesuvius is a luxurious

place, and a provincial might well be excused for thinking it was the

Carlton or the Savoy; indeed there was something more outwardly opulent

about it. It suggested a place where men not only spent what they had

but spent more. But for a few men in frock-coats and tweeds it would

have been almost undistinguishable from the recognised resorts of

fashion. Victoria took stock of her surroundings; of the shining plate

and glass, the heavy red carpet, the red and gold curtains, drawn but

fluttering at the open windows. The guests, however, interested her

more. At half the tables sat a woman and a man, at others a woman alone

before a little glass. What struck her above all was the beauty of the

women, the wealth they carried on their bodies. Hardly one of them

seemed over thirty; most of them had golden or vivid red hair, though a

few tables off Victoria could see a tall woman of colour with black hair

stiffened by wax and pierced with massive ivory combs. They mostly wore

low-necked dresses, many of them white or faintly tinted with blue or

pink. She could see a dark Italian-looking girl in scarlet from whose

ears long coral earrings drooped to her slim cream-coloured shoulders.

There was an enormously stout woman with puffy pink cheeks, strapped

slightly into a white silk costume, looking like a rose at the height of

its bloom. There were others too! short dark women with tight hair;

minxish French faces and little shrewd dark eyes; florid Dutch and

Belgian women with massive busts and splendid shoulders, dazzlingly

white; English girls too, most of them slim with long arms and rosy

elbows and faintly outlined collar bones. Many of these had the

aristocratic nonchalance of 'art' photographs. Opposite Victoria, under

the other chandelier, a splendid creature, white as a lily, with

flashing green eyes, copper coloured hair, had thrown herself back in

her armchair and was laughing at a man's joke. Her head was bent back,

and as she laughed her splendid bust rose and fell and her throat filled

out. An elderly man with a close clipped grey moustache, immaculate in

his well-cut dress clothes, leaned towards her with a smile on his brown

face.

Victoria turned her eyes away from the man, (a soldier, of course), and

looked at the others. They, too, were a mixed collection. There were a

good many youths, all clean shaven and mostly well-groomed; these talked

loudly to their partners and seemed to fill the latter with merriment;

now and then they stared at other women with the boldness of the shy.

There were elderly men too; a few in frock coats in spite of the heat,

some very stout and red, some bald and others half concealing their

scalps under cunning hair arrangements. The elderly men sat mostly with

two women, some with three, and lay back smiling like courted pachas. By

far the greater number of the guests, however, were anything between

thirty and forty; and seemed to cover every type from the smart young

captain with the tanned face, bold blue eyes and a bristly moustache, to

ponderous men in tweeds or blue reefer jackets who looked about them

with a mixture of nervousness and bovine stolidity.

From every corner came a steady stream of loud talk; continually little

shrieks of laughter pierced the din and then were smothered by the

rattling of the plates. The waiters flitted ghostly through the room

with incredible speed, balancing high their silver trays. Then Victoria

became conscious that most of the women round her were looking at her;

for a moment she felt her personality shrivel up under their gaze. They

were analysing her, speculating as to the potentialities of a new rival,

stripping off her clothes too and her jewels. It was horrible, because

their look was more incisive than the merely brutal glance by which a

man takes stock of a woman's charms.

She pulled herself together however, and forced herself to return the

stares. 'After all,' she thought, 'this is the baptism of fire.' She

felt strengthened, too, as she observed her rivals more closely.

Beautiful as most of them seemed at first sight, many of them showed

signs of wear. With joyful cruelty Victoria noted here and there faint

wrinkles near their eyes, relaxed mouths, cheekbones on which rosacia

had already set its mark. She could not see more than half a dozen whose

beauty equalled hers; she threw her head up and drew back her shoulders.

In the full light of the chandelier she looked down at the firm white

shapeliness of her arms.

'Well, how goes it?'

Victoria started and looked up from her contemplation. A man had sat

down at her table. He seemed about thirty, fairish, with a rather ragged

moustache. He wore a black morning coat and a grey tie. His hands and

wrists were well kept and emerged from pale blue cuffs. There was a not

unkindly smile upon his face. His tip tilted nose gave him a cheerful,

rather impertinent expression.

'Oh, I'm all right,' said Victoria vaguely. Then with an affectation of

ease. 'Hot, isn't it?'

'Ra-_ther_,' said the man. 'Had your supper?'

'No,' said Victoria, 'I don't want any.'

'Now, come, really that's too bad of you. Thought we were going to have

a nice little family party and you're off your feed.'

'I'm sorry,' said Victoria smiling. 'I had dinner only two hours ago.'

This man was not very attractive; there was something forced in his

ease.

'Well, have a drink with me,' he said.

'What's yours?' asked Victoria. That was an inspiration. The plunge

braced her like a cold bath. The man laughed.

'Pop, of course. Unless you prefer a Pernot. You know "absinthe makes

the . . ."' He stopped and laughed again. Victoria did likewise without

understanding him. She saw that the other women laughed when men did.

They filled their glasses. Victoria liked champagne. She watched the

little bubbles rise, and drank the glass down. It was soft and warm. How

strong she felt suddenly. The conversation did not flag. The man was

leaning towards her across the table, talking quickly. He punctuated

every joke with a high laugh.

'Oh, I say, give us a chance,' floated from the next table. Victoria

looked. It was one of the English girls. She was propped up on one elbow

on the table; her legs were crossed showing a long slim limb and slender

ankle in a white open work stocking. A man in evening dress with a

foreign looking dark face was caressing her bare arm.

'Penny for your thoughts,' said Victoria's man.

'Wasn't thinking,' she said. 'I was looking.'

'Looking? are you new here?'

'Yes, it's the first time I've come.'

'By Jove! It _must_ be an eye-opener.' He laughed.

'It is rather. It doesn't seem half bad.'

'You're right there. I'm an old stager.' A slightly complacent

expression came over his face. He filled up the glasses. 'You don't

spoil the collection, you know,' he added. 'You're a bit of all right.'

He looked at her approvingly.

'Am I?' She looked at him demurely. Then, plunging once more, 'I hope

you'll still think so by and by.' The man's eyes dwelled for a moment on

her face and neck, his breath became audible suddenly. She felt his

foot softly stroke hers. He drew his napkin across his lips.

'Well,' he said with an assumption of ease, 'shall we go?'

'I don't mind,' said Victoria getting up.

It was with a beating heart that Victoria climbed into the cab. As soon

as he got in the man put his arm round her waist and drew her to him.

She resisted gently but gave way as his arm grew more insistent.

'Coy little puss.' His face was very near her upturned eyes. She felt it

come nearer. Then, suddenly, he kissed her on the lips. She wanted to

struggle; she was a little frightened. The lights of Piccadilly filled

her with shame. They spoke very little. The man held her close to him.

As the cab rattled through Portland Place, he seized her once more. She

fought down the repulsion with which his breath inspired: it was scented

with strong cigars and champagne. Victoriously she coiled one arm round

his neck and kissed him on the mouth. In her disgust there was a blend

of triumph; not even her own feelings could resist her will.

As she waited on the doorstep while he paid the cabman a great fear came

upon her. She did not know this man. Who was he? Perhaps a thief. She

suddenly remembered that women of her kind were sometimes murdered for

the sake of their jewellery. As the man turned to come up the steps she

pulled herself together. 'After all,' she thought, 'it's only

professional risk.'

They stood for a moment in the hall of the silent house. She felt

awkward. The man looked at her and mistook her hesitation.

'It's all right,' he faltered. He looked about him, then, quickly

whipping out a sovereign purse, he drew out two sovereigns with a click

and laid them on the hall table.

'You see,' he said '. . . a girl like you. . . . three more to-morrow

morning. . . . I'm square you know.'

Victoria smiled and, after a second's hesitation, picked up the money.

'So'm I,' she said. Then she switched on the light and pointed

upstairs.

CHAPTER VIII

VICTORIA'S new career did not develop on unkindly lines. Every night she

went to the Vesuvius, where she soon had her appointed place full under

one of the big chandeliers. She secured this spot without difficulty,

for most of her rivals were too wise to affront the glare; as soon as

she realised this she rather revelled in her sense of power, for she now

lived in a world where the only form of power was beauty. She felt sure

of her beauty now she had compared it minutely with the charms of the

preferred women. She was finer, she had more breed. Almost every one of

those women showed a trace of coarseness: a square jaw, not moulded in

big bone like hers but swathed in heavy flesh; a thick ankle or wrist;

spatulate fingertips; red ears. Her pride was in the courage with which

she welcomed the flow of the light on her neck and shoulders; round her

chandelier the tables formed practically into circles, the nearest being

occupied by the very young and venturesome, a few by the oldest who

desperately clung to their illusion of immortal youth; then came the

undecided, those who are between ages, who wear thick veils and sit with

their backs to the light; the outer fringe was made up of those who

remembered. Their smiles were hard and fixed.

She was fortunate enough too. She never had to sit long in front of the

little glass which she discovered to be kummel; the waiter always

brought it unasked. Sometimes they would chat for a moment, for

Victoria was assimilating the lazy familiarity of her surroundings. He

talked about the weather, the latest tips for Goodwood, the misfortune

of Camille de Valenciennes who had gone off to Carlsbad with a barber

who said he was a Russian prince and had left her there stranded.

Her experiences piled up, and, after a few weeks she found she had

exhausted most of the types who frequented the Vesuvius. Most of them

were of the gawky kind, being very young men out for the night and

desperately anxious to get off on the quiet by three o'clock in the

morning; of the gawky kind too were the Manchester merchants paying a

brief visit to town on business and who wanted a peep into the inferno;

these were easily dealt with and, if properly primed with champagne,

exceedingly generous. Now and then Victoria was confronted with a racier

type which tended to become rather brutal. It was recruited largely from

obviously married men whose desires, dammed and sterilised by monotonous

relations, seemed suddenly to burst their bonds.

In a few weeks her resources developed exceedingly. She learned the

scientific look that awakes a man's interest: a droop of the eyelid

followed by a slow raising of it, a dilation of the pupil, then again a

demure droop and the suspicion of a smile. She learned to prime herself

from the papers with the proper conversation; racing, the latest divorce

news, ragging scandals, marriages of the peerage into the chorus. She

learned to laugh at chestnuts and to memorise such stories as sounded

fresh; a few judicious matinees put her up to date as to the latest

musical comedies. On the whole it was an easy life enough. Six hours in

the twenty-four seemed sufficient to afford her a good livelihood, and

she did not doubt that by degrees she would make herself a connection

which might be turned to greater advantage; as it was she had two

faithful admirers whom she could count on once a week.

The life itself often struck her as horrible, foul; still she was

getting inured to the inane and could listen to it with a tolerant

smile; sometimes she looked dispassionately into men's fevered eyes with

a little wonder and an immense satisfaction in her power and the value

of her beauty. Sometimes a thrill of hatred went through her and she

loathed those whose toy she was; then she felt tempted to drink, to

drugs, to anything that would deaden the nausea; but she would rally:

the first night, when she had drunk deep of champagne after the kummel,

had given her a racking headache and suggested that beauty does not

thrive on mixed drinks.

Another painful moment had been the third day after her new departure.

It seemed to force realisation upon her. Tacitly the early cup of tea

had been stopped. Mary now never came to the door, but breakfast was

laid for two in the dining-room at half past nine; the hot course stood

on a chafing dish over a tiny flame; the teapot was stocked and a kettle

boiled on its own stand. Neither of the servants ever appeared. On the

third day, however, as Victoria lay in her boudoir, reading, preparatory

to ringing the cook to give her orders for the day, there was a knock at

the door.

'Come in,' said Victoria a little nervously. She was still in the mood

of feeling awkward before her servants.

Mary came in. For a moment she tugged at her belt. There was a slight

flush on her sallow face.

'Well Mary?' asked Victoria, still nervous.

'If you please, mum, may I speak to you? I've been talking to cook, mum,

and--'

'And?'

'Oh, mum, I hope you won't think it's because we're giving ourselves

airs but it isn't the same as it was here before, mum--'

'Well?'

'Well, mum, we think we'd rather go mum. There's my young man, mum,

and--and--'

'And he doesn't like your being associated with a woman of my kind? Very

right and proper.'

'Oh, mum, I don't mean that. You've always been kind to me. Cook too,

she says she feels it very much, mum. When the major was alive, mum, it

was different. It didn't seem to matter then, mum, but now--'

Mary stopped. For a moment the eyes behind the glasses looked as if they

were going to cry.

'Don't trouble to explain, Mary,' said her mistress with some asperity.

'I understand. You and cook can't afford to jeopardise your characters.

From the dizzy heights of trained domesticity, experts in your own line,

you are justified in looking down upon an unskilled labourer. I have no

doubt that you have considered the social problem in all its aspects,

that you fully realise the possibilities of a woman wage-earner and her

future. By all means go where your moral sense calls you: I shall give

you an excellent character and demand none in exchange. There! I don't

want to hurt your feelings, Mary, I spoke hastily,' she added as the

maid's features contracted, 'you only do this to please your young man;

that is woman's profession, and I of all people must approve of what you

do. If you don't mind, both of you, you will leave on Saturday. You

shall have your full month and a month's board allowance. Now send up

cook, I want to order lunch.'

She could almost have wept as she lay with her face in the cushion. Her

servants had delivered an ultimatum from womankind, and lack of supplies

compelled her to pick up the guage of battle. Mary and cook were links

between her and all those women who shelter behind one man only, and

from that vantage ground hurl stones at their sisters beyond the gates.

The significance of it was not that their services were lost to her, but

that she must now be content to associate with another class. Soon,

however, her will was again supreme. 'After all,' she thought, 'I have

done with Society. I'm a pirate; Society 'll be keen enough when I've

won.'

Within three days she had readjusted her household. She had decided to

make matters easy by engaging two German girls. Laura, the cook, said at

once that it was all one to her who came to the house and who didn't, so

long as they left her alone in the kitchen, and provided she might bring

her large tabby cat. Augusta the maid, a long lanky girl with strong

peasant hands and carroty hair, declared herself willing to oblige the

_herrschaft_ in any way; she thereupon demanded an increase on the wages

scheduled for her at the registry office. She also confided to her new

mistress that she had a _kerl_ in Germany, and that she would do

anything to earn her dowry.

Thus the establishment settled down again. Laura cooked excellently.

Augusta never flinched when bringing in the tea tray. Her big blue Saxon

eyes seemed to allow everything to pass through them leaving her mind

unsoiled, so armoured was her heart by the thought of that dowry. As for

Snoo and Poo: they chased the tabby cat all over the house most of the

day, which very soon improved their figures.

Thus the even tenour of Victoria's life continued. She was quite a

popular favourite. As soon as she sat down under the chandelier

half-a-dozen men were looking at her. Sometimes men followed her into

the Vesuvius; but these she seldom encouraged, for her instinct told her

that so beautiful a woman as she was should set a high price on herself,

and high prices were not to be found in Piccadilly. Among her faithful

was a bachelor of forty, whom she only knew as Charlie. This, by the

way, was a characteristic of her acquaintances. She never discovered

their names; some in fact were so guarded that they had apparently

discarded their watches before coming out, so as to conceal even their

initials. None ever showed a pocketbook. Charlie was dark and burned by

the sun of the tropics; there was something bluff and good-natured about

him, great strength too. He had sharp grey eyes and a dark moustache. He

spoke extraordinarily fast, talked loosely of places he had been to:

China, Mozambique, South America. Victoria rather liked him; he was

totally dull, inclined to be coarse; but as he invariably drank far too

much before and when he came to the Vesuvius, he made no demands on her

patience, slept like a log and went early, leaving handsome recognition

behind him.

There was Jim too, a precise top-hatted city clerk who had forced

himself on her one Saturday afternoon as she crossed Piccadilly Circus.

He seemed such a pattern of rectitude, was so perfectly trim and brushed

that she allowed herself to be inveigled into a cab and driven to a

small flat in Bayswater. He was too prudent to visit anybody else's

rooms, he said; he had his flat on a weekly tenancy. Jim kept rather a

hold on her. He was neither rich nor generous; in fact Victoria's social

sense often stabbed her for what she considered undercutting, but Jim

used to hover about the Vesuvius five minutes before closing time, and

once or twice when Victoria had had no luck he succeeded like the

vulture on the stricken field.

Most of the others were dream figures; she lost count of them. After a

month she could not remember a face. She even forgot a big fellow whom

she had called Black Beauty, who came down from somewhere in Devonshire

for a monthly bust; he was so much offended that she had the

mortification of seeing him captured by one of the outer circle who sit

beyond the lights.

In the middle of August the streets she called London were deserted.

Steamy air, dust laden, floated over the pavements. The Vesuvius was

half empty, and she had to cut down her standards. Just as she was

contemplating moving to Folkestone for a month, however, she received a

letter from solicitors in the Strand, Bastable, Bastable & Sons,

informing her that 're Major Cairns deceased,' they were realising the

estate on behalf of the administrators, and that they would be obliged

if she would say when it would be convenient for her to convey the

furniture of Elm Tree Place into their hands. This perturbed Victoria

seriously. The furniture had a value, and besides it was the plant of a

flourishing business.

'Pity he died suddenly,' she thought, 'he'd have done something for me.

He was a good sort, poor old Tom.'

She dressed herself as becomingly and quietly as she could, and, after

looking up the law of intestacy in Whitaker, concluded that Marmaduke

Cairns's old sisters must be the heirs. Then she sallied forth to beard

the solicitor in his den. The den was a magnificent suite of offices

just off the Strand. She was ushered into a waiting-room partitioned off

from the general office by glass. It was all very frowsy and hot. There

was nothing to read except the _Times_ and she was uncomfortably

conscious of three clerks and an office boy who frequently turned round

and looked through the partition. At last she was ushered in. The

solicitor was a dry-looking man of forty or so; his parchment face,

deeply wrinkled right and left, his keen blue eyes and high forehead

impressed her as dangerous. He motioned her to an armchair on the other

side of his desk.

'Well, Mrs Ferris,' he said, 'to what do I owe the honour of this

visit?' He sat back in his armchair and bit his penholder. A smile

elongated his thin lips. This was his undoing, for he looked less

formidable and Victoria decided on a line of action. She had come

disturbed, now she was on her mettle.

'Mr Bastable,' she said, plunging at once into the subject, 'you ask me

to surrender my furniture. I'm not going to.'

'Oh?' The solicitor raised his eyebrows. 'But, my dear madame, surely

you must see . . .'

'I do. But I'm not going to.'

'Well,' he said, 'I hardly see . . . My duty will compel me to take

steps . . .'

'Of course,' said Victoria smiling, 'but if you refuse to let me alone I

shall go out of this office, have the furniture moved to-day and put up

at auction to-morrow.'

A smile came over the solicitor's face. By Jove, she was a fine woman,

and she had some spirit.

'Besides,' she added, 'all this would cause me a great deal of

annoyance. Major Cairns's affairs are still very interesting to the

public. I shall be compelled, if you make me sell, to write a serial,

say _My Life with an Irish Martyr_ for a Sunday paper.'

Mr Bastable laughed frankly.

'You want to be nasty, I see. But you know, we can stop your sale by an

application to a judge in chambers this afternoon. And as for your

serial, well, Major Cairns is dead, he won't mind.'

'No, but his aunts will. Their name is Cairns. As regards the sale,

perhaps you and the other lawyers can stop it. Very well, either you

promise or I go home and . . . perhaps there'll be a fire to-night and

perhaps there won't. I'm fully insured.'

'By Jove!' Bastable looked at her critically. Cairns had been a lucky

man. 'Well, Mrs Ferris,' he added, 'we're not used to troublesome

customers like you. I don't suppose the furniture is valuable, is it?'

'Oh, a couple of hundred,' said Victoria dishonestly.

'M'm. Do you absolutely want me to pledge myself?'

'Absolutely.'

'Well, Mrs Ferris, I can honestly promise you that you won't hear

anything more about it. I . . . I don't think it would pay us.'

Victoria laughed. A great joy of triumph was upon her. She liked

Bastable rather, now she had brought him to heel.

'All right,' she said, 'it's a bargain.' Then she saw that his mouth was

smiling still and his eyes fixed on her face.

'There's no quarrel between us, is there?'

'No, of course not. All in the way of business, you know.'

He bent across the table; she heard him breathe in her perfume.

'Then,' she said slowly, getting up and pulling on her gloves, 'I'm not

doing anything to-night. You know my address. Seven o'clock. You may

take me out to dinner.'

CHAPTER IX

WITHIN a few days of her victory over Mr Bastable, Victoria found

herself in an introspective mood. The solicitor was the origin of it,

though unimportant in himself as the grain of sand which falls into a

machine, and for a fraction of a second causes a wheel to rasp before

the grain is crunched up. She reflected, as she looked out over her

garden, that she was getting very hard. She had brought this man to his

knees by threats; she had vulgarly bullied him by holding exposure over

his head; she had behaved like a tragedy queen. Finally, with sardonic

intention, she had turned the contest to good account by entangling him

while he was still under the influence of her personality.

All this was not what disturbed her; for after all she had only lied to

Bastable, bullied him, threatened him, bluffed as to her intentions: she

had been perfectly businesslike. Thoughtfully she opened the little door

at the end of the hall and stepped out on the outer landing where the

garden steps ended. Snoo and Poo, asleep in a heap in the August blaze,

raised heavy eyelids, and, yawning and stretching, followed her down the

steps.

This was a joyful little garden. The greater part of it was a lawn,

close cut, but disfigured in many places by Snoo and Poo's digging.

Flower beds ran along both sides and the top of the lawn, while the

bottom was occupied by the pergola, now covered with massive red blooms;

an acacia tree, and an elder tree, both leafy but refusing to flower,

shaded the bottom of the garden, which was effectively cut off by a

hedge of golden privet. It was a tidy garden, but it showed no traces of

originality. Victoria had ordered it to be potted with geraniums,

carnations, pinks, marguerites; and was quite content to observe that

somebody had put in sweet peas, clematis and larkspur. Hers was not the

temperament which expresses itself in a garden; there was no sense of

peace in her idea of the beautiful. If she liked the garden to look

pretty at all, it was doubtless owing to her heredity.

Victoria picked up a couple of stones and threw them towards the end of

the garden. Snoo and Poo rushed into the privet, snuffling excitedly,

while their mistress drew down a heavy rose-laden branch from the

pergola and breathed the blossoms. Yes, she was hard, and it was

beginning to make her nervous. In the early days she had sedulously

cultivated the spirit which was making a new woman out of the quiet,

refined, rather shy girl she had been. There had been a time when she

would have shuddered at the idea of a quarrel with a cabman about an

overcharge; now, if it were possible, she felt coldly certain that she

would cheat him of his rightful fare. This process she likened to the

tempering of steel, and called a development of the mental muscles. She

rather revelled in this development in the earlier days, because it gave

her a sense of power; she benefited by it too, for she found that by

cultivating this hardness she could extort more money by stooping to

wheedle, by accepting snubs, by flattery and lies too. The consciousness

of this power redeemed the exercise of it; she often felt herself lifted

above this atmosphere of deceit by looking coldly at the deed she was

about to do, recognising its nature and doing it with her eyes open.

A realization of another kind, however, was upon Victoria that rich

August day. In a sense she was doing well. Her capital had not been

touched; in fact it had probably increased, and this in spite of town

being empty. She had not yet found the man who would make her fortune;

but she had no doubt that he would appear if she continued on her even

road, selecting without passion, judging values and possibilities. For

the moment she brushed aside the question of success; it was assured.

But, after success, what then? Say she had four or five hundred a year

at thirty and retired into the country or went to America. What use

would she be to herself or to anybody if she had learned exclusively to

bide her time and to strike for her own advantage? Life was a contest

for the poor and for the rich alike; but the first had to fight to win

and to use any means, fair or foul, while the latter could accept

knightly rules, be magnanimous when victorious, graceful when defeated.

'Yes,' said Victoria, 'I must keep myself in trim. It's all very well to

win and I've got to be as hard as nails to men, but . . .'

She stopped abruptly. The problem had solved itself. 'Hard as nails to

men,' did not include women, for 'men' seldom means mankind when the

talk is of rights. She did not know what her mission might be. Perhaps,

after she had succeeded, she would travel all over Europe, perhaps

settle on the English downs where the west winds blow, perhaps even be

the pioneer of a great sex revolt; but whatever she did, if her triumph

was not to be sterile, she would need sympathy, the capacity to love.

Thus she amended her articles of war: 'Woman shall be spared, and I

shall remember that, as a member of a sex fighting another sex, I must

understand and love my sister warrior.'

It was in pursuance of her new policy that, on her way to the Vesuvius,

Victoria dawdled for a moment at the entrance of Swallow Street, under

its portico. A few yards beyond her stood a woman whom she knew by sight

as having established practically a proprietary right to her beat. She

was a dark girl, good-looking enough, well set up in her close fitting

white linen blouse, drawn tight to set off her swelling bust. In the dim

light Victoria could see that her face was rather worn, and that the

ravages of time had been clumsily repaired. The girl looked at her

curiously at first; then angrily, evidently disliking the appearance of

what might be a dangerous rival in her own preserves. Victoria walked up

and down on the pavement. The girl watched her every footstep. Once she

made as if to speak to her. It was ghostly, for passers-by in Regent

Street came to and fro beyond the portico like arabesques. A passing

policeman gave the girl a meaning look. She tossed her head and walked

away down Regent Street, while Victoria nervously continued down Swallow

Street to Piccadilly.

These two women were to meet, however. About a week later, Victoria,

happening to pass by at the same hour, saw the girl and stopped under

the arch. In another second the girl was by her side.

'What are you following me about for?' she snarled. 'If you're a grote

it's no go. You won't teach the copper anything he doesn't know.'

'Oh, I'm not following you,' said Victoria. 'Only I saw you about and

thought I'd like to talk to you.'

The girl shot a dark glance at her.

'What's your game?' she asked. 'You're not one of those blasted sisters.

Too toffish. Seen you come out of the Vez', besides.'

'I'm in the profession,' said Victoria coolly. 'But that doesn't mean

I've got to be against the others.'

'Doesn't it!' The girl's eyes glowed. 'You don't know your job. Of

course you've got to be against the others. We were born like that. Or

got like that. What's it matter?'

'Matter? oh, a lot,' said Victoria. 'We want friends, all of us.'

'Friends. Oh, Lord! The likes of you and me don't have friends. Women,

they won't know us . . . too good. Except our sort. We can't talk; we

got nothing to talk of, except money and the boys. And the boys, what's

the good of them? There's the sort you pick up and all you've got to

do's to get what you can out of them. Haven't fallen in love with one,

have you?' The girl's voice broke a little, then she went on. 'Then,

there's the other sort, like my Hugo, p'raps you've heard of him?'

'No,' she said, 'I haven't. What is he like?'

'Bless you, he's a beauty.' The girl smiled; her face was full of pride.

'Does he treat you well?'

'So so. Sometimes.' The shadow had returned. 'Not like my first. Oh,

it's hard you know, beginning. He left me with a baby after three

months. I was in service in Pembridge Gardens--such a swell house! I had

to keep baby. It died then, jolly good thing too! Couldn't go back to

service. Everybody knew.'

The girl burst into tears and Victoria putting an arm round her drew her

against her breast.

'Everybody knew, everybody knew!' wailed the girl.

Victoria had the vision of a thousand spectral eyes, all full of

knowledge, gazing at the housemaid caught by them sinning. The girl

rested her head against Victoria's shoulder for a moment, holding one of

her hands. Suddenly she raised her head again and cleared her throat.

'There,' she said, 'let me go. Hugo's waiting for me at the Carcassonne.

Never mind me. We've all got to live, he-he!'

She turned into Regent Street and another 'he-he' floated back. Victoria

felt a heavy weight at her heart; poor girl, weak, the sport of one man,

deceived, then a pirate made to disgorge her gains by another man;

handsome, subtle, playing upon her affections and her fears. What did it

matter? Was she not in the same position, but freer because conscious;

poor slave soul. But the time had come for Victoria to make for the

Vesuvius. 'It must be getting late,' she thought, putting up her hand to

her little gold watch-brooch.

It was gone. She had it on when she left, but it could not have dropped

out, for the lace showed two long rips; it had just been torn out.

Victoria stood frozen for a moment. So this was the result of a first

attempt at love. She recovered, however. She was not going to generalise

from one woman. 'Besides,' she thought bitterly, 'the girl's theories

are the same as mine. She merely has no reservations or hesitations. The

bolder pirate, she is perhaps the better brain.'

Then she walked down Swallow Street into Piccadilly, and at once a young

man in loud checks was at her side. She looked up into his face, her

smile full of covert promise as they went into the Vesuvius together.

Victoria was now at home in the market place, and could exchange a quip

with the frequenters. Languidly she dropped her cloak into the hands of

the porter and preceded the young man into the supper-room. As they sat

at the little table before the liqueur, her eyes saw the garish room

through a film. How deadening it all was, and how lethal the draughts

sold here. An immense weariness was upon her, an immense disgust, as she

smiled full-toothed on the young man in checks. He was a cheerful

rattle, suggested the man who has got beyond the retail trade without

reaching the professions, a house agent's clerk perhaps.

'Oh, yes, I'm a merry devil, ha! ha!' He winked a pleasant grey eye.

Victoria noticed that his clothes were too new, his boots too new, his

manners too a recent acquisition.

'Don't worry. That's how you keep young, ha! ha! Besides, don't have

much time to mope in my trade!'

'What's that?' asked Victoria vacuously. Men generally lied as to their

occupation, but she had noticed that when their imagination was

stimulated their temper improved.

'Inspector of bun-punchers, ha! ha!'

'Bun-punchers?'

'Yes, bun-punchers. South Eastern Railway, you know. Got to have them

dated now. New Act of Parliament, ha! ha!'

Victoria laughed, for his cockney joviality was infectious. Then again

the room faded and rematerialised as his voice rose and fell.

'The wife don't know I'm out on the tiles, ha! ha! She's in Streatham,

looking after the smalls. . . . Oh, no, none of your common or garden

brass fenders. . . .'

Victoria pulled herself together. This was what she could not bear.

Brutality, the obscene even, were preferable to this dreary trickling of

the inane masquerading as wit. Yet she smiled at him.

'You're saucy,' she said. 'You're my fancy to-night.'

A shadow passed over the man's face. Then again he was rattling along.

'Talk of inventions? What'd you think of mine: indiarubber books to read

in your bath? ha! ha! . . .'

But these are only the moths that flutter round the lamp, too far off to

burn their wings. They love to breathe perfume, to touch soft hands,

gaze at bright eyes and golden hair; then they flutter away, and the

hand that would stay their flight cannot rob them even of a few specks

of golden dust. In a few minutes Victoria sat philosophically before

her empty glass while Fascination Fledgeby was by the side of a rival,

being 'an awful dog,' for the benefit of his fellow clerks on the

morrow. She was in the mood when it did not matter whether she was

unlucky or not. There were quite two women present for every man this

hot August night. At the next table sat a woman known as 'Duckie,' fair,

very fat and rosy; she was the vision bursting from a white dress which

Victoria had seen the first night. On the first night she had embodied

for Victoria--so large, so fat, so coarsely animal was she--the very

essence of her trade; now she knew her better she found that Duckie was

a good sort, careless, generous, perfectly incapable of doing anybody an

ill turn. She was _bonne fille_ even, so unmercenary as sometimes to

accede good humouredly to the pleadings of an impecunious youth. Her one

failing was a fondness for 'a wet.' She was drinking her third whisky

and soda; if she was invited to supper she would add to that at least

half a bottle of champagne, follow that up by a couple of liqueurs and a

peg just before going to bed. She carried her liquor well; she merely

grew a little vague.

'Hot,' remarked Duckie.

'Rather,' said Victoria. 'I'm going soon, can't stick it.'

'Good for you. I've got to stay. Always harder for grandmas like me when

the fifth form boy's at the seaside.' Duckie laughed, without cynicism

though; she had the reasoning powers of a cow.

Victoria laughed too. A foreign-looking girl in scarlet bent over from

the next table, her long coral earrings sliding down over her

collar-bones.

'Tight again,' said the girl.

'As a drum, Lissa, old girl!' said Duckie good temperedly.

'Nothing to what you'll be by and by,' added Lissa with the air of a

comforter.

'Nothing like, old dear! Have one with me, Lissa? No? No offence. You,

Zoe, have a _tord boyaux_?'

'No thanks.' Zoe was a good-looking short girl; her French nationality

written in every line of her round face, plump figure, and hands. Her

hair was pulled away from the fat nape of her neck. She looked competent

and wide awake. A housewife gone astray. Lissa, dark and Italian looking

in her red dress and coral earrings, was more languid than the others.

She was really a Greek, and all the grace of the East was in every

movement of her slim figure. In a moment the four women had clustered

together, forgetting strife.

Lissa had had a 'Bank of Engraving' note palmed off on her by a

pseudo-South American planter, and was rightly indignant. They were

still talking of Camille de Valenciennes and of her misfortunes with the

barber. Boys, the latest tip for Gatwick, 'what I said to him,' the

furriers' sales, boys again . . . Victoria listened to the conversation.

It still seemed like another world and yet her world. Here they were,

she and the other atoms, hostile every one, and a blind centripetal

force was kneading them together into a class. Yet any class was better

than the isolation in which she lived. Why not go further, hear more?

'I say, you girls,' she said suddenly, 'you've never been to my place.

Come and . . . no, not dine, it won't work . . . come and lunch with me

next week.'

Duckie smiled heavily.

'I don' min',' she said thickly.

Zoe looked suspicious for a moment.

'Can I bring Fritz?' asked Lissa.

'No, we can't have Fritz,' said Victoria smiling. 'Ladies only.'

'I'm on,' said Zoe suddenly. 'I was afraid you were going to have a lot

of swells in. Hate those shows. Never do you any good and you get so

crumpled.'

'You might let me bring Fritz,' said Lissa querulously.

'No men,' said Victoria firmly. 'Wednesday at one o'clock. All square?'

'Thatawright,' remarked Duckie. 'Shut it Lissa. Fritzawright. Tellm its

biz . . . bizness.'

With some difficulty they hoisted Duckie into a cab and sent her off to

Bloomsbury. As it drove off she popped her head out.

'Carriage paid,' she spluttered, 'or C. O. D.?'

Zoe and Lissa walked away to the circus. On her little hall table, as

Victoria went into her house, she found a note scrawled in pencil on

some of her own notepaper. It was from Betty. It said that Farwell had

been stricken down by a sudden illness and was sinking fast. His address

followed.

CHAPTER X

IN a bed sitting-room at the top of an old house off the Waterloo Road

three women were watching by the bedside of a man. One was dressed in

rusty black; she was pale faced, crowned with light hair; the other,

shifting uneasily from one foot to the other, was middle-aged and very

stout; her breast rolled like a billow in her half buttoned bodice. The

third was beautiful, all in black, her sumptuous neck and shoulders

bare. None of them moved for a moment. Then the beautiful woman threw

back her cloak and her long jade earrings tinkled. The face on the

pillow turned and opened its eyes.

'Victoria,' said a faint voice.

'Yes . . . are you better?' Victoria bent over the bed. The face was

copper coloured; every bone seemed to start out. She could hardly

recognise Farwell's rough hewn features.

'Not yet . . . soon,' said Farwell. He closed his eyes once more.

'What is it, Betty?' whispered Victoria.

'I don't know . . . hemorrhage they say.'

'It's all up mum,' whispered the landlady in Victoria's ear. 'Been ill

two days only. Doctor said he wouldn't come again.'

Victoria bent over the bed once more. She could feel the eyes of the

landlady probing her personality.

'Can't you do something?' she asked savagely.

'Nothing.' Farwell opened his eyes again and faintly smiled. 'And what's

the good, Victoria?'

Victoria threw herself on her knees by the side of the bed. 'Oh, you

musn't!' she whispered. 'You . . . the world can't spare you!'

'Oh, yes . . . it can . . . you know . . . the world is like men . . .

it spends everything on luxuries . . . it can't afford necessaries.'

Victoria smiled and felt as if she were going to choke. The last

paradox.

'Are you in pain?' she asked.

'No, not just now. . . . I shall be, soon. Let me speak while I can.'

His voice grew firmer suddenly.

'I have asked you to come so that you may be the last thing I see; you,

the fairest. I love you.'

Not one of the three women moved.

'I have not spoken before, because when I could speak we were slaves.

Now you are free and I a slave. It is too late, so it is time for me to

speak. For I cannot influence you.'

Farwell shut his eyes. But soon his voice rose again.

'You must never influence anybody. That is my legacy to you. You cannot

teach men to stand by giving them a staff. Let the halt and the lame

alone. The strong will win. You must be free. There is nothing worth

while. . . .' A shiver passed over him, his voice became muffled.

'No, nothing at all . . . freedom only. . . .'

He spoke quicker. The words could not be distinguished. Now and then he

groaned.

'Wait,' whispered Betty, 'it will be over in a minute.' For two minutes

they waited.

Victoria's eyes fastened on a basin by the bedside, full of reddish

water. Then Farwell's face grew lighter in tone. His voice came faint as

the sound of a spinet.

'There will be better times. But before then fighting . . . the coming

to the top of the leaders . . . gold will be taken from the rich . . .

given to the vile . . . pictures burnt . . . chaos . . . woman rise as

a tyrant . . . there will be fighting . . . the coming to the top. . ..'

His voice thinned down to nothing as his wandering mind repeated his

prediction. Then he spoke again.

'You are a rebel . . . you will lead . . . you have understood . . .

only by understanding are you saved. I asked you to come here to tell

you to go on . . . earn your freedom . . . at the expense of others.'

'Why at the expense of others?' asked Betty, leaning over the bed.

Farwell was hypnotising her. His eyes wandered to her face.

'Too late . . .' he said, 'you do not see . . . you are a slave . . . a

woman has only one weapon . . . otherwise, a slave . . . ask . . . ask

Victoria.' He closed his eyes but went on speaking.

'There is not freedom for everybody . . . capitalism means freedom for a

few . . . you must have freedom, like food . . . food for the soul . . .

you must capture the right to respect . . . a woman may not toil . . .

make money . . .'

Then again. 'I am going into the blackness . . . before Death . . . the

Judge . . . Death will judge me. . . .'

''E's thinking of his Maker, poor genelman,' said the landlady hoarsely.

Victoria and Betty looked at one another. Agnostic or indifferent in

their cooler moments, the superstition of their ancestors worked in

their blood, powerfully assisted by the spectacle of this being passing

step by step into an unknown. There must be life there, feeling, loving.

There must be Something.

The voice stopped. Betty had seized Victoria's arm and now clutched it

violently. Victoria could feel through her own body the shudders that

shook the girl's frame. Then Farwell's voice rose again, louder and

louder, like the upward flicker of a dying candle.

'Yes, freedom's my message, the right to live. This world into which we

are evolved by a selfish act of joy, into which we are dragged unwilling

with pain for our usher, it is a world which has no justification save

the freedom to enjoy it as we may. I have lived a stoic, but it is a

hedonist I die. Unshepherded I go into a perhaps. But I regret nothing

. . . all the certainties of the past are not worth the possible of the

future. Behind me others tread the road that leads up the hill.'

He paused for breath. Then again his voice arose as a cry, proclaiming

his creed.

'On the top of the hill. There I see the unknown land, running with milk

and honey. I see a new people; beautiful young, beautiful old. Its

fathers have ground the faces of the helots; they have fought and

lusted, they have suffered contumely and stripes. Now they know the Law,

the Law that all may keep because they are beyond the Law. They do not

desire, for they have, they do not weigh, for they know. They have not

feared, they have dared; they have spared no man, nor themselves. Ah!

now they have opened the Golden Gates. . . .'

The man's voice broke, he coughed, a thin stream of blood trickled from

the side of his mouth. Victoria felt a film come over her eyes. She

leant over him to staunch the flow. They saw one another then. Farwell's

voice went down to a whisper.

'Victoria . . . victorious . . . my love . . . never more. . . .'

She looked into his glazing eyes.

'Beyond . . .' he whispered; then his head fell to one side and his jaw

dropped.

Betty turned away. She was crying. The landlady wiped her hands on her

apron. Victoria hesitatingly took hold of Farwell's wrist. He was dead.

She looked at him stupidly for a moment, then drew her cloak round her

shivering shoulders. The landlady too was crying now.

'Oh, mum, sich a nice genelman,' she moaned. 'But 'e did go on so!'

Victoria smiled pitifully. What an epitaph for a sunset! She drove away

with Betty and, as the horse trotted through the deserted streets,

hugged the girl in her arms. Betty was shuddering violently, and nestled

close up to her. They did not speak. Everything seemed to have become

loose in Victoria's mind and to be floating on a black sea. The pillar

of her individualism was down. Her codes were in the melting pot; a man,

the finest she had known, had confessed his love in his extremity, and

before she could respond passed into the shadow. But Farwell had left

her as a legacy the love of freedom for which he died, for which she was

going to live.

When they arrived at Elm Tree Place, Victoria forced Betty to drink some

brandy, to tell her how Farwell had sent her a message, asking her to

send him Victoria, how she had waited for her.

'Oh, it was awful,' whispered Betty, 'the maid said you'd be late . . .

she said I mustn't wait because you might not . . .'

'Not come home alone?' said Victoria in a frozen voice.

'Oh, I can't bear it, I can't bear it.' Betty flung herself into her

friend's arms, wildly weeping.

Victoria soothed her, made her undress. As Betty grew more collected she

let drop a few words.

'Oh, so then you too are happy?' said Victoria smiling faintly.

'You love?' A burning blush rose over Betty's face.

That night, as in the old Finsbury days, they lay in one another's arms

and Victoria grappled with her sorrow. Gentle, almost motherly, she

watched over this young life; blushing, full of promise, preparing

already to replace the dead.

CHAPTER XI

THE death of Farwell seemed to leave Victoria struggling and gasping for

breath, like a shipwrecked mariner who tries to secure his footing on

shifting sand while waves knock him down every time he rises to his

knees. Though she hardly ever saw him and though she had no precise idea

that he cared for her more than does the scientist for the bacteria he

observes, he had been her tower of strength. He was there, like the

institutions which make up civilisation, the British Constitution, the

Bank and the Established Church. Now he was gone and she saw that the

temple of life was empty. He was the last link. Cairns's death had

turned her out among the howling wolves; now Farwell seemed to have

carried away with him her theory of life. Above all, she now knew

nobody; save Betty, who counted as a charming child. It was then she

began to taste more cruelly the isolation of her class.

In the early days, when she paced up and down fiercely in the room at

Portsea Place, she had already realised that she was alone, but then she

was not an outcast; the doors of society were, if not open, at any rate

not locked against her. Then the busy hum of the Rosebud and the P.R.R.,

the back-breaking work, the hustle, the facile friendships with City

beaus--all this had drawn a veil over her solitude. Now she was really

alone because none knew and none would know her. Her beauty, her fine

clothes, contributed to clear round her a circle as if she were a

leper. At times she would talk to a woman in a park, but before a few

sentences had passed her lips the woman would take in every detail of

her, her clean gloves, her neat shoes, her lace handkerchief, her costly

veil; then the woman's face would grow rigid, and with a curt 'good

morning' she would rise from her seat and go.

Victoria found herself thrust back, like the trapper in the hands of Red

Indians; like him she ran in a circle, clubbed back towards the centre

every time she tried to escape. She was of her class, and none but her

class would associate with her. Women such as herself gladly talked to

her, but their ideas sickened her, for life had taught them nothing but

the ethics of the sex-trade. Their followers too--barbers, billiard

markers, shady bookmakers, unemployed potmen; who sometimes dared to

foist themselves on her--filled her with yet greater fear and disgust,

for they were the only class of man alternative to those on whose bounty

she lived. Thus she withdrew herself away from all; sometimes a craving

for society would throw her into equivocal converse with Augusta, whose

one idea was the dowry she must take back to Germany. Then, tiring of

her, she would snatch up Snoo and Poo and pace round and round her tiny

lawn like a squirrel in its wheel.

A chance meeting with Molly emphasised her isolation, like the flash of

lightning which leaves the night darker. She was standing on the steps

of the Sandringham Tea House in Bond Street, looking into the side

window of the photographer who runs a print shop on the ground floor.

Some sprawling Boucher beauties in delicate gold frames fascinated her.

She delighted in the semi-crude, semi-sophisticated atmosphere, the

rotundity of the well-fed bodies, their ribald rosy flesh. As she was

wondering whether they would not do for the stairs the door opened

suddenly and a plump little woman almost rushed into her arms. The

little woman apologised, giving her a quick look. Then the two looked at

one another again.

'Victoria!' cried Molly, for it was she, with her wide open blue eyes,

small nose, fair frizzy hair.

A thrill of joy and fear ran through Victoria. She felt her personality

criddle up like a scorched moth, then expand like a flower under gentle

dew. She was found out; the terrible female instinct was going to detect

her, then to proclaim her guilt. However, bravely enough, she braced

herself up and held out her hand.

'Oh, Vic, why haven't you written to me for, let me see, three years,

isn't it?'

'I've been away, abroad,' said Victoria slowly. She seemed to float in

another world. Molly was talking vigorously; Victoria's brain,

feverishly active, was making up the story which would have to be told

when Molly's cheerful egotism had had its way.

'Don't let's stay here on the doorstep,' she interrupted, 'let's go

upstairs and have tea. You haven't had tea yet?'

'I should love to,' said Molly, squeezing her arm. 'Then you can tell me

about yourself.'

Seated at a little table Molly finished her simple story. She had

married an army chaplain, but he had given up his work in India and was

now rector of Pontyberis in Wales. They had two children. Molly was up

in town merely to break the journey, as she was going down to stay with

her aunt in Kent. Oh, yes, she was very happy, her husband was very

well.

'They're talking of making him Dean of Ffwr,' she added with unction.

'But that's enough about me. How have you been getting on, Vic? I

needn't ask how you are; one only has to look at you.' Molly's eyes

roved over her friend's beautiful young face, her clothes which she

appraised with the skill of those poor who are learned in the fashions.

'I? Oh, I'm very well,' said Victoria hysterically.

'Yes, but how have you been getting on? Weren't you talking about having

to work when you came over?'

'Yes, but I've been lucky . . . a week after I got here an aunt of my

mother's died of whom I never even heard before. They told me at Dick's

lawyers a month later, and you wouldn't believe it, there was no will

and I came in for . . . well something quite comfortable.'

Molly put out her hand and stroked Victoria's.

'I'm so glad,' she said. . . . 'Oh, you don't know how hard it is to

have to work for your living. I see something of it in Wales. Oh, if you

only knew. . . .'

Victoria pressed her lips together, as if about to cry or laugh.

'But what did you do then? You only wrote once. You didn't tell me?'

'No, I only heard a month after, you know. Oh, I had a lot to do. I

travelled a lot. I've been in America a good deal. In fact my home is in

. . . Alabama.' She plunged for Alabama, feeling sure that New York was

unsafe.

'Oh, how nice,' said Molly ingenuously. 'You might have sent me picture

postcards, you know.'

Skilfully enough Victoria explained that she had lost Molly's address.

Her friend blissfully accepted all she said, but a few other women less

ingenuous than the clergyman's wife were casting sharp glances at her.

When they parted, Victoria audaciously giving her address as 'care of

Mrs Ferris, Elm Tree Place,' she threw herself back on the cushions of

the cab and told herself that she could not again go through with the

ordeal of facing her own class. She almost hungered for the morrow, when

she was to entertain the class she had adopted.

CHAPTER XII

THE Fulton household had always been short of money, for Dick spent too

much himself to leave anything for entertaining; thus Victoria had very

little experience of lunch parties. Since she had left the Holts she

hardly remembered a bourgeois meal. The little affair on the Wednesday

was therefore provocative of much thought. Mutton was dismissed as

common, beef in any form as coarse; Laura's suggestion (for Laura and

Augusta had been called in) of a savoury sauerkraut ('mit Blutwurst,

Frankfurter, Leberwurst, etc.'), was also dismissed. Both servants took

a keen interest in the occasion.

'But why no gentleman come?' asked Laura, who was clearly ill-disposed

to do her best for her own sex.

'In the house I was . . .' began Augusta . . . then she froze up under

Victoria's eye. Her mistress still had a strain of the prig in her.

Then Augusta suggested hors d'oeuvres, smoked salmon, anchovies,

olives, radishes; Laura forced forward fowl _a la Milanaise_ to be

preceded by baked John Dory cayenne. Then Augusta in a moment of

inspiration thought of French beans and vegetable marrow . . . stuffed

with chestnuts. The three women laughed, Laura clapped her hands with

the sheer joy of the creative artist.

When Victoria came into the dining-room at half-past twelve she was

almost dazzled by her own magnificence. Neither the Carlton nor the

Savoy could equal the blaze of her plate, the brilliant polish of her

tablecloths. The dahlias blazed dark red in cut glass by the side of

pale belated roses from the garden. On the sideboard fat peaches were

heaped in a modern Lowestoft bowl, and amber-coloured plums lay like

portly dowagers in velvet.

A few minutes before the hour Zoe and Lissa arrived together. They were

nervous; not on account of Victoria's spread, for they were of the upper

stratum, but because they were in a house. Accustomed to their small

flats off Shaftesbury Avenue, where tiny kitchens jostled with bedroom

and boudoir, they were frightened by the suggestion of a vast basement

out of which floated the savoury aroma of the John Dory baking. Victoria

tried to put them at their ease, took their parasols away and showed

them into the boudoir. There they sat in a triangle, the hot sun blazing

in upon them, stiff and starched with the formality of those who are

seldom formal.

'Have a Manhattan cocktail?' asked the hostess.

'No thanks; very hot, isn't it?' said Lissa in her most refined manner.

She was looking very pretty, dark, slim and snaky in her close-fitting

lemon coloured frock.

'Very hot,' chimed in Zoe. She was sitting unnecessarily erect. Her flat

French back seemed to abhor the easy chair. Her tight hair, her trim

hands, her well boned collar, everything breathed neatness, well laced

stays, a full complement of hooks and eyes. She might have been the

sedate wife of a prosperous French tradesman.

'Yes, it is hot,' said Victoria.

Then the conversation flagged. The hostess tried to draw out her guests.

They were obviously anxious to behave. Lissa posed for 'The Sketch,' Zoe

remained _tres correcte_.

'Do you like my pictures?' asked Victoria pointing to the French

engravings.

'They are very pretty,' said Lissa.

'I am very interested in engravings,' said Zoe, looking at the rosewood

clock. There was a longish pause.

'I must show you my little dogs,' cried Victoria. She must do something.

She went out to the landing and opened the garden door. There she met

Augusta carrying a trayful of finger bowls. She felt inspired to

overturn it if only to break the ice. Snoo and Poo rushed in, but in the

boudoir they also instinctively became very well-bred.

'I am very fond of dogs,' said Lissa. Snoo lay down on her back.

'She is very pretty,' remarked Zoe.

Victoria punched the dogs in the ribs, rolled them over. It was no good.

They would do nothing but gently wag their tails. She felt she would

like to swear, when suddenly the front door was slammed, a cheerful

voice rang in the hall.

'Hulloa, here's Duckie,' said Lissa.

The door opened loudly and Duckie seemed to rush in as if seated on a

high wind.

'Here we are again!' cried the buxom presence in white. Every one of her

frills rattled like metal. 'Late as usual. Oh, Vic, what angel pups!'

Duckie was on her knees. In a moment she had stirred up the Pekingese.

They forgot their manners. They barked vociferously; and Zoe's starch

was taken out of her by Poo, who rushed under her skirts. Lissa laughed

and jumped up.

'Here Vic,' said Duckie ponderously, 'give us a hand, old girl. Never

can jump about after gin and bitters,' she added confidentially as they

helped her up.

The ice was effectually broken. They filed into the dining-room in

pairs, Victoria and Lissa being slim playing the part of men. How they

gobbled up the hors d'oeuvres and how golden the John Dory was; the

flanks of the fish shone like an old violin. Augusta flitted about

quick but noisy. There was a smile on her face.

'Steady on, old love,' said Duckie to her as the maid inadvertently

poured her claret into a tumbler.

'Never you mind, Gussie,' cried Zoe, bursting with familiarity, 'she'll

be having it in a bucket by and by.'

Augusta laughed. What easy going _herrschaft_!

The talk was getting racier now. By the time they got to the dessert the

merriment was rather supper than lunch-like.

'Victoria plums,' said Lissa, 'let us name them _Bonne Hotesse_.'

The idea was triumphant. Duckie insisted on drinking a toast in hock,

for she never hesitated to mix her wines. Victoria smiled at them

indulgently. The youth of all this and the jollity, the ease of it; all

that was not of her old class.

'Confusion to the puritans,' she cried, and drained her glass. Snoo and

Poo were fighting for scraps, for Duckie was already getting uncertain

in her aim. Lissa and Zoe, like nymphs teasing Bacchus, were pelting her

with plum stones, but she seemed quite unconscious of their pranks. They

had some difficulty in getting her into the boudoir for coffee and

liqueurs; once on the sofa she tried to go to sleep. Her companions

roused her, however; the scent of coffee, acrid and stimulating, stung

their nostrils; the liqueurs shone wickedly, green and golden in their

glass bottles; talk became more individual, more reminiscent. Here and

there a joke shot up like a rocket or stuck quivering in Duckie's placid

flanks.

'Well Vic,' said Zoe, 'you are very well _installee_.' She slowly

emptied of cigarette smoke her expanded cheeks and surveyed the

comfortable little room.

'Did you do it yourself?' asked Lissa. 'It must have cost you a lot of

money.'

'Oh, I didn't pay.' Victoria was either getting less reticent or the

liqueur was playing her tricks. 'I began with a man who set me up

here,' she added; 'he was . . . he died suddenly' she went on more

cautiously.

'Oh!' Zoe's eyebrows shot up. 'That's what I call luck. But why do you

not have a flat? It is cheaper.'

'Yes, but more inconvenient,' said Lissa. 'Ah, Vic. I do envy you. You

don't know. We're always in trouble. We are moving every month.'

'But why?' asked Victoria. 'Why must you move?'

'Turn you out. Neighbours talk and then the landlord's conscience begins

to prick him,' grumbled Duckie from the sofa.

'Oh, I see,' said Victoria. 'But when they turn you out what do you do?'

'Go somewhere else, softy,' said Duckie.

'But then what good does it do?'

All the women laughed.

'Law, who cares?' said Duckie. 'I dunno.'

'It is perfectly simple,' began Zoe in her precise foreign English. 'You

see the landlord he will not let flats to ladies. When the police began

to watch it would cause him _des ennuis_. So he lets to a gentleman who

sublets the flats, you see? When the trouble begins, he doesn't know.'

'But what about the man who sublets?' asked the novice.

'Him? Oh, he's gone when it begins,' said Lissa. 'But they arrest the

hall porter.'

'Justice must have its way, I see,' said Victoria.

'What you call justice,' grumbled Duckie, 'I call it damned hard lines.'

For some minutes Victoria discussed the housing problem with the fat

jolly woman. Duckie was in a cheerful mood. One could hardly believe,

when one looked at her puffy pink face, that she had seen fifteen years

of trouble.

'Landladies,' she soliloquised, 'it's worse. You take my tip Vic, you

steer clear of them. You pay as much for a pigsty as a man pays for a

palace. If you do badly they chuck you out and stick to your traps and

what can you do? You don't call a policeman. If you do well, they raise

the rent, steal your clothes, charge you key money, and don't give 'em

any lip if you don't want a man set at you. Oh, Lor!'

Duckie went on, and as she spoke her bluntness caused Victoria to

visualise scene after scene, one more horrible than another: a tall

dingy house in Bloomsbury with unlit staircases leading up to black

landings suggestive of robbery and murder; bedrooms with blinded

windows, reeking with patchouli, with carpets soiled by a myriad ignoble

stains. The house Duckie pictured was like a warren in every corner of

which soft-handed, rosy-lipped harpies sucked men's life-blood; there

was drinking in it, and a piano played light airs; below in the ground

floor, through the half open door, she could see two or three

foreigners, unshaven, dirty-cuffed, playing cards in silence like

hunters in ambush. She shuddered.

'Yes, but Fritz isn't so bad,' broke in Lissa. She had all this time

been wrangling with Zoe.

'No good,' snapped Zoe, 'he's a . . . a _bouche inutile_.' Her pursed-up

lips tightened. Fritz was swept away to limbo by her practical French

philosophy.

'I like him because he is not useful' said Lissa dreamily. Zoe shrugged

her shoulders. Poor fool, this Lissa.

'Who is this Fritz you're always talking about?' asked Victoria.

'He's a . . . you know what they call them,' said Duckie brutally.

'You're a liar,' screamed Lissa jumping up. 'He's . . . oh, Vic, you do

not understand. He's the man I care for; he is so handsome, so clever,

so gentle . . .'

'Very gentle,' sneered Zoe, 'why did you not take off your long gloves

last week, _hein_? Perhaps you had blue marks?'

Lissa looked about to cry. Victoria put her hand on her arm.

'Never mind them,' she said, 'tell me.'

'Oh, Vic, you are so good.' Lissa's face twitched, then she smiled like

a child bribed with a sweet. 'They do not know; they are hard. It is

true, Fritz does not work, but if we were married he would work and I

would do nothing. What does it matter?' They all smiled at the theory,

but Lissa went on with heightened colour.

'Oh, it is so good to forget all the others; they are so ugly, so

stupid. It is infernal. And then, Fritz, the man that I love for himself

. . .'

'And who loves you for . . .' began Zoe.

'Shut up, Zoe,' said Duckie, her kindly heart expanding before this

idealism, 'leave the kid alone. Not in my line of course. You take my

tip, all of you, you go on your own. Don't you get let in with a

landlady and don't you get let in with a man. It's _them_ you've got to

let in.'

'That's what I say,' remarked Zoe. 'We are successful because we take

care. One must be economical. For instance, every month I can. . . .'

She stopped and looked round suspiciously; with economy goes distrust,

and Zoe was very French. 'Well, I can manage,' she concluded vaguely.

'And you need not talk, Duckie,' said Lissa savagely. 'You drink two

quid's worth every week.'

'Well, s'pose I do,' grumbled the cherub. 'Think I do it for pleasure?

Tell you what, if I hadn't got squiffy at the beginning I'd have gone

off me bloomin' chump. I was in Buenos Ayres, went off with a waiter to

get married. He was in a restaurant, Highgate way, where I was in

service. I found out all about it when I got there. O Lor! Why, we

jolly well _had_ to drink, what with those Argentines who're half

monkeys and the good of the house! Oh, Lor!' She smiled. 'Those were

high old times,' she said inconsequently, overwhelmed by the glamour of

the past. There was silence.

'I see,' said Victoria suddenly. 'I've never seen it before. If you want

to get on, you've got to run on business lines. No ties, no men to bleed

you. Save your money. Don't drink; save your looks. Why, those are good

rules for a bank cashier! If you trip, down you go in the mud and

nobody'll pick you up. So you've got to walk warily, not look at

anybody, play fair and play hard. Then you can get some cash together

and then you're free.'

There was silence. Victoria had faced the problem too squarely for two

of her guests. Lissa looked dreamily towards the garden, wondering where

Fritz was, whether she was wise in loving; Duckie, conscious of her

heavy legs and incipient dropsy, blushed, then paled. Alone, Zoe, stiff

and energetic like the determined business woman she was, wore on her

lips the enigmatic smile born of a nice little sum in French three per

cents.

'I must be going,' said Duckie hoarsely. She levered herself off the

sofa. Then, almost silently, the party broke up.

CHAPTER XIII

LIFE pursued its even tenour; and Victoria, watching it go by, was

reminded of the endless belt of a machine. The world machine went on

grinding, and every breath she took was grist thrown for ever into the

intolerable mill. It was October again, and already the trees in the

garden were shedding fitful rains of glowing leaves. Alone the elder

tree stood almost unchanged, a symbol of the everlasting. Now and then

Victoria walked round the little lawn with Snoo and Poo, who were too

shivery to chase the fat spiders. Often she stayed there for an hour,

one hand against a tree trunk, looking at nothing, bathed in the mauve

light of the dying year. Already the scents of decay, of wetness, filled

the little garden and struck cold when the sun went down.

Every day now Victoria felt her isolation more cruelly. Solitude was no

longer negative; it had materialised and had become a solid inimical

presence. When the sun shone and she could walk the milky way of the

streets, alone but feeling with every sense the joy of living time,

there was not much to fear from solitude; there were things to look at,

to touch, to smell. Now solitude no longer lurked round corners; at

times a gust of wind carried its icy breath into her bones.

She was suffering, too, a little. She felt heavy in the legs, and a vein

in her left calf hurt a little in the evening if she had walked or stood

much. Soon, though it did not increase, the pain became her daily

companion, for even when absent it haunted her. She would await a twinge

for a whole day, ready and fearful, bracing herself up against a shock

which often found her unprepared. At all times too the obsession seemed

to follow her now. Perhaps she was walking through Regent's Park,

buoyant and feeling capable of lifting a mountain, but the thought would

rush upon her, perhaps it was going to hurt. She would lie awake too,

oblivious of the heavy breathing by her side, rested, all her senses

asleep, and then though she felt no pain the fear of it would come upon

her and she would wrestle with the thought that the blow was about to

fall.

Sometimes she would go out into the streets, seeking variety even in a

wrangle between her Pekingese and some other dog. This meant that she

must separate them, apologise to the owner, exchange perhaps a few

words. Once she achieved a conversation with an old lady, a kindly soul,

the mistress of a poodle. They walked together along the Canal, and the

futile conversation fell like balm on Victoria's ears. The freshness of

a voice ignorant of double meanings was soft as dew. They were to meet

again, but the old lady was a near neighbour and she must have heard

something of Victoria's reputation, for when they met again opposite

Lord's, the old lady crossed over and the poodle followed her haughtily,

leaving Snoo and Poo disconsolate and wondering on the edge of the

pavement.

One morning Augusta came into the boudoir about twelve, carrying a

visiting card on a little tray.

'Miss Emma Welkin,' read Victoria. 'League of the Rights of Women. What

does she want, Augusta?'

'She says she wants to see Mrs Ferris, Mum.'

'League of the Rights of Women? Why, she must be a suffragist.'

'Yes, Mum. She wear a straw hat, Mum,' explained Augusta with a slight

sniff.

'And a tweed coat and skirt, I suppose,' said Victoria smiling.

'Oh, yes, Mum. Shall I say go away?'

'M'm. No, tell her to come in.'

While Augusta was away Victoria settled herself in the cushions. Perhaps

it might be interesting. The visitor was shown in.

'How do you do?' said Victoria holding out her hand. 'Please sit down.

Excuse my getting up, I'm not very well.'

Miss Welkin looked about her, mildly surprised. It was a pretty room,

but somehow she felt uncomfortable. Victoria was looking at her. A

capable type of femininity this; curious, though, in its thick man-like

clothes, its strong boots. She was not bad looking, thirty perhaps, very

erect and rather flat. Her face was fresh, clean, innocent of powder;

her eyes were steady behind glasses; her hair was mostly invisible,

being tightly pulled back. There were firm lines about her mouth. A

fighting animal.

'I hope you'll excuse this intrusion,' said the suffragist, 'but I got

your name from the directory and I have come to . . . to ascertain your

views about the all-important question of the vote.' There was a queer

stiltedness about the little speech. Miss Welkin was addressing the

meeting.

'Oh? I'm very much interested,' said Victoria. 'Of course I don't know

anything about it except what I read in the papers.'

The grey eyes glittered. Evangelic fervour radiated from them. 'That's

what we want,' said the suffragist. 'It's just the people who are ready

to be our friends who haven't heard our side and who get biassed. Mrs

Ferris, I'm sure you'll come in with us and join the Marylebone branch?'

'But how can I?' asked Victoria. 'You see I know nothing about it all.'

'Let me give you these pamphlets,' said the suffragist. Victoria

obediently took a leaflet on the marriage law, a pamphlet on 'The Rights

of Women,' a few more papers too, some of which slipped to the floor.

'Thank you,' she said, 'but first of all tell me, why do you want the

vote?'

The suffragist looked at her for a second. This might be a keen recruit

when she was converted. Then a flood of words burst from her.

'Oh, how can any woman ask, when she sees the misery, the subjection in

which we live. We say that we want the vote because it is the only means

we have to attain economic freedom . . . we say to man: "Put your weapon

in our hands and we will show you what we can do." We want to have a

voice in the affairs of the country. We want to say how the taxes we pay

shall be spent, how our children shall be educated, whether our sons

shall go to war. We say it's wrong that we should be disfranchised

because we are women . . . it is illogical . . . we must have it.'

The suffragist stopped for a second to regain breath.

'I see,' said Victoria, 'but how is the vote going to help?'

'Help,' echoed Miss Welkin. 'It will help because it will enable women

to have a voice in national affairs.'

'You must think me awfully stupid,' said Victoria sweetly, 'but what use

will it be to us if we do get a voice in national affairs?'

Miss Welkin ignored the interruption.

'It is wrong that we should not have a vote if we are reasonable beings;

we can be teachers, doctors, chemists, factory inspectors, business

managers, writers; we can sit on local authorities, and we can't cast a

vote for a member of Parliament. It's preposterous, it's . . .'

'Yes, I understand, but what will the vote do for us? Will it raise

wages?'

'It must raise wages. Men's wages have risen a lot since they got the

vote.'

'Do you think that's because they got the vote?'

'Yes. Well, partly. At any rate there are things above wages,' said the

suffragist excitedly. 'And you know, we know that the vote is wanted

especially because it is an education; by inducing women to take an

interest in politics we will broaden their minds, teach them to combine

and then automatically their wages will rise.'

'Oh, yes.' Victoria was rather struck by the argument. 'Then,' she said,

'you admit men are superior to women?'

'Well, yes, at any rate at present,' said the suffragist rather sulkily.

'But you must remember that men have had nearly eighty years training in

political affairs. That's why we want the vote; to wake women up. Oh,

you have no idea what it will mean when we get it. We shall have fresh

minds bearing on political problems, we shall have more adequate

protection for women and children, compulsory feeding, endowment of

mothers, more education, shorter hours, more sanitary inspection. We

shall not be enslaved by parties; a nobler influence, the influence of

pure women will breathe an atmosphere of virtue into this terrible

world.'

The woman's eyes were rapt now, her hands tightly clenched, her lips

parted, her cheeks a little flushed. But Victoria's face had hardened

suddenly.

'Miss Welkin,' she said quietly, 'has anything struck you about this

house, about me?'

The suffragist looked at her uneasily.

'You ought to know whom you are talking to,' Victoria went on, 'I am a

. . . I am a what you would probably call . . . well, not respectable.'

A dull red flush spread over Miss Welkin's face, from the line of her

tightly pulled hair to her stiff white collar; even her ears went red.

She looked away into a corner.

'You see,' said Victoria, 'it's a shock, isn't it? I ought not to have

let you in. It wasn't quite fair, was it?'

'Oh, it isn't that, Mrs Ferris,' burst out the suffragist, 'I'm not

thinking of myself. . . .'

'Excuse me, you must. You can't help it. If you could construct a scale

with the maximum of egotism at one end, and the maximum of altruism at

the other and divide it, say into one hundred degrees, you would not, I

think, place your noblest thinkers more than a degree or two beyond the

egotistic zero. Now you, a pure girl, have been entrapped into the house

of a woman of no reputation, whom you would not have in your

drawing-room. Now, would you?'

Miss Welkin was silent for a moment; the flush was dying away as she

gazed round eyed at this beautiful woman lying in her piled cushions,

talking like a mathematician.

'I haven't come here to ask you into my drawing-room,' she answered. 'I

have come to ask you to throw in your labour, your time, your money,

with ours in the service of our cause.' She held her head higher as the

thought rose in her like wine. 'Our cause,' she continued, 'is not the

cause of rich women or poor women, of good women or bad; it's the cause

of woman. Thus, it doesn't matter who she is, so long as there is a

woman who stands aloof from us there is still work to do.'

Victoria looked at her interestedly. Her eyes were shining, her lips

parted in ecstasy.

'Oh, I know what you think,' the suffragist went on; 'as you say, you

think I despise you because you . . . you. . . .' The flush returned

slightly. . . . 'But I know that yours is not a happy life and we are

bringing the light.'

'The light!' echoed Victoria bitterly. 'You have no idea, I see, of how

many people there are who are bringing the light to women like me. There

are various religious organisations who wish to rescue us and to house

us comfortably under the patronage of the police, to keep us nicely and

feed us on what is suitable for the fallen; they expect us to sew ten

hours a day for these privileges, but that is by the way. There are also

many kindly souls who offer little jobs as charwomen to those of us who

are too worn out to pursue our calling; we are offered emigration as

servants in exchange for the power of commanding a household; we are

offered poverty for luxury, service for domination, slavery to women

instead of slavery to men. How tempting it is! And now here is the light

in another form: the right to drop a bit of paper into a box every four

years or so and settle thereby whether the Home Secretary who

administers the law of my trade shall live in fear of buff prejudice or

blue.'

The suffragist said nothing for a second. She felt shaken by Victoria's

bitterness.

'Women will have no party,' she said lamely, 'they will vote as women.'

'Oh? I have heard somewhere that the danger of giving women the vote is

that they will vote solid "as women," as you say and swamp the men. Is

that so?'

'No, I'm afraid not,' said the suffragist unguardedly, 'of course women

will split up into political parties.'

'Indeed? Then where is this woman vote which is going to remould the

world? It is swamped in the ordinary parties.'

The suffragist was in a dilemma.

'You forget,' she answered, wriggling on the horns, 'that women can

always be aroused for a noble cause. . . .'

'Am I a noble cause?' asked Victoria, smiling. 'So far as I can see

women, even the highest of them, despise us because we do illegally

what they do legally, hate us because we attract, envy us because we

shine. I have often thought that if Christ had said, "Let her who hath

never sinned . . ." the woman would have been stoned. What do you

think?'

The suffragist hesitated, cleared her throat.

'That will all go when we have the vote, women will be a force, a nobler

force; they will realise . . . they will sympathise more . . . then they

will cast their vote for women.'

Victoria shook her head.

'Miss Welkin,' she said, 'you are an idealist. Now, will you ask me to

your next meeting if you are satisfied as to my views, announce me for

what I am and introduce me to your committee?'

'I don't see . . . I don't think,' stammered the suffragist, 'you see

some of our committee. . . .'

Victoria laughed.

'You see. Never mind. I assure you I wouldn't go. But, tell me,

supposing women get the vote, most of my class will be disfranchised on

the present registration law. What will you women do for us?'

The suffragist thought for a minute.

'We shall raise the condition of women,' she said. 'We shall give them a

new status, increase the respect of men for them, increase their respect

for themselves; besides, it will raise wages and that will help. We

shall . . . we shall have better means of reform too.'

'What means?'

'When women have more sympathy.'

'Votes don't mean sympathy.'

'Well, intelligence then. Oh, Mrs Ferris, it's not that that matters;

we're going to the root of it. We're going to make women equal to men,

give them the same opportunities, the same rights. . . .'