CHAPTER VI

There was the faint sound of a distant door's opening, and there was a

glimpse of the old butler. But before he could reach the French window

with his announcement, his own colourless presence was masked, wiped

out--not as the company had expected by the apparition of a man, but by

a tall, lightly-moving young woman with golden-brown eyes, and wearing a

golden-brown gown that had touches of wallflower red and gold on the

short jacket. There were only wallflowers in the small leaf-green toque,

and except for the sable boa in her hand (which so suddenly it was too

warm to wear) no single thing about her could at all adequately account

for the air of what, for lack of a better term, may be called accessory

elegance that pervaded the golden-brown vision, taking the low sunlight

on her face and smiling as she stepped through the window.

It was no small tribute to the lady had she but known it, that her

coming was not received nor even felt as an anti-climax.

As she came forward, all about her rose a significant Babel: 'Here's

Miss Levering!' 'It's Vida!' 'Oh, how do you _do_!'--the frou-frou of

swishing skirts, the scrape of chairs pushed back over stone flags, and

the greeting of the host and hostess, cordial to the point of

affection--the various handshakings, the discreet winding through the

groups of a footman with a fresh teapot, the Bedlington's first attack

of barking merged in tail-wagging upon pleased recognition of a friend;

and a final settling down again about the tea-table with the air full of

scraps of talk and unfinished questions.

'You didn't see anything of my brother and his wife?' asked Lord

Borrodaile.

'Oh, yes,' his host suddenly remembered. 'I thought the Freddys were

coming by that four-thirty as well as----'

'No--nobody but me.' She threw her many-tailed boa on the back of the

chair that Paul Filey had drawn up for her between the hostess and the

place where Borrodaile had been sitting.

'There are two more good trains before dinner----' began Lord John.

'Oh, didn't I tell you,' said his wife, as she gave the cup just filled

for the new-comer into the nearest of the outstretched hands--'didn't I

tell you I had a note from Mrs. Freddy by the afternoon post? They

aren't coming.'

Out of a little chorus of regret, came Borrodaile's slightly mocking,

'Anything wrong with the precious children?'

'She didn't mention the children--nor much of anything else--just a

hurried line.'

'The children were as merry as grigs yesterday,' said Vida, looking at

their uncle across the table. 'I went on to the Freddys' after the Royal

Academy. No!' she put her cup down suddenly. 'Nobody is to ask me how I

like my own picture! The Tunbridge children----'

'That thing Hoyle has done of you,' said Lord Borrodaile, deliberately,

'is a very brilliant and a very misleading performance.'

'Thank you.'

Filey and Lord John, in spite of her interdiction, were pursuing the

subject of the much-discussed portrait.

'It certainly is one aspect of you----'

'Don't you think his Velasquez-like use of black and white----'

'The tiny Tunbridges, as I was saying,' she went on imperturbably, 'were

having a teafight when I got there. I say "fight" advisedly.'

'Then I'll warrant,' said their uncle, 'that Sara was the aggressor.'

'She was.'

'You saw Mrs. Freddy?' asked Lady John, with an interest half amused,

half cynical, in her eyes.

'For a moment.'

'She doesn't confess it, I suppose,' the hostess went on, 'but I imagine

she is rather perturbed;' and Lady John glanced at Borrodaile with her

good-humoured, worldly-wise smile.

'Poor Mrs. Freddy!' said Vida. 'You see, she's taken it all quite

seriously--this Suffrage nonsense.'

'Yes;' Mrs. Freddy's brother-in-law had met Lady John's look with the

same significant smile as that lady's own--'Yes, she's naturally feeling

rather crestfallen--perhaps she'll _see_ now!'

'Mrs. Freddy crestfallen, what about?' said Farnborough. But he was much

preoccupied at that moment in supplying Lady Sophia with bits of toast

the exact size for balancing on the Bedlington's nose. For the benefit

of his end of the table Paul Filey had begun to describe the new one-man

show of caricatures of famous people just opened in Bond Street. The

'mordant genius,' as he called it, of this new man--an American

Jew--offered an irresistible opportunity for phrase-making. And still on

the other side of the tea urn the Ullands were discussing with

Borrodaile and Miss Levering the absent lady whose 'case' was obviously

a matter of concern to her friends.

'Well, let us hope,' Lord John was saying as sternly as his urbanity

permitted--'let us hope this exhibition in the House will be a lesson to

her.'

'_She_ wasn't concerned in it!' Vida quickly defended her.

'Nevertheless we are all hoping,' said Lady John, 'that it has come just

in time to prevent her from going over the edge.'

'Over the edge!' Farnborough pricked up his ears at last in good

earnest, feeling that the conversation on the other side had grown too

interesting for him to be out of it any longer. 'Over what edge?'

'The edge of the Woman Suffrage precipice,' said Lady John.

'You call it a precipice?' Vida Levering raised her dark brows in a

little smile.

'Don't you?' demanded her hostess.

'I should say mud-puddle.'

'From the point of view of the artist'--Paul Filey had begun laying down

some new law, but turning an abrupt corner, he followed the wandering

attention of his audience--'from the point of view of the artist,' he

repeated, 'it would be interesting to know what the phenomenon is, that

Lady John took for a precipice and that Miss Levering says is a

mud-puddle.'

'Oh,' said Lord John, thinking it well to generalize and spare Mrs.

Freddy further rending, 'we've been talking about this public

demonstration of the unfitness of women for public affairs.'

'Give me some more toast dice!' Sophia said to Farnborough. 'You haven't

seen Joey's new accomplishment. They're only discussing that idiotic

scene the women made the other night.'

'Oh, in the gallery of the House of Commons?'

'Yes, wasn't it disgustin'?' said Paul Filey, facing about suddenly with

an air of cheerful surprise at having at last hit on something that he

and Lady Sophia could heartily agree about.

'Perfectly revolting!' said Hermione Heriot, not to be out of it. For it

is well known that, next to a great enthusiasm shared, nothing so draws

human creatures together as a good bout of cursing in common. So with

emphasis Miss Heriot repeated, 'Perfectly revolting!'

Her reward was to see Paul turn away from Sophia and say, in a tone

whose fervour might be called marked--

'I'm glad to hear you say so!'

She consolidated her position by asking sweetly, 'Does it need saying?'

'Not by people like you. But it _does_ need saying when it comes to

people we know----'

'Like Mrs. Freddy. Yes.'

That unfortunate little lady seemed to be 'getting it' on all sides.

Even her brother-in-law, who was known to be in reality a great ally of

hers--even Lord Borrodaile was chuckling as though at some reflection

distinctly diverting.

'Poor Laura! She was being unmercifully chaffed about it last night.'

'I don't myself consider it any longer a subject for chaff,' said Lord

John.

'No,' agreed his wife; '_I_ felt that before this last outbreak. At the

time of the first disturbance--where was it?--in some town in the North

several weeks ago----'

'Yes,' said Vida Levering; 'I almost think that was even worse!'

'Conceive the sublime impertinence,' said Lady John, 'of an ignorant

little factory girl presuming to stand up in public and interrupt a

speech by a minister of the Crown!'

'I don't know what we're coming to, I'm sure!' said Borrodaile, with a

detached air.

'Oh, _that_ girl--beyond a doubt,' said his host, with conviction--'that

girl was touched.'

'Oh, beyond a doubt!' echoed Mr. Farnborough.

'There's something about this particular form of feminine folly----'

began Lord John.

But he wasn't listened to--for several people were talking at once.

After receiving a few preliminary kicks, the subject had fallen, as a

football might, plump into the very midst of a group of school-boys. Its

sudden presence there stirred even the sluggish to unwonted feats. Every

one must have his kick at this Suffrage Ball, and manners were for the

nonce in abeyance.

In the midst of an obscuring dust of discussion, floated fragments of

condemnation: 'Sexless creatures!' 'The Shrieking Sisterhood!' etc., in

which the kindest phrase was Lord John's repeated, 'Touched, you know,'

as he tapped his forehead--'not really responsible, poor wretches.

Touched.'

'Still, everybody doesn't know that. It must give men a quite horrid

idea of women,' said Hermione, delicately.

'No'--Lord Borrodaile spoke with a wise forbearance--'we don't confound

a handful of half-insane females with the whole sex.'

Dick Farnborough was in the middle of a spirited account of that earlier

outbreak in the North--

'She was yelling like a Red Indian, and the policeman carried her out

scratching and spitting----'

'Ugh!' Hermione exchanged looks of horror with Paul Filey.

'Oh, yes,' said Lady John, with disgust, 'we saw all that in the

papers.'

Miss Levering, too, had turned her face away--not as Hermione did, to

summon a witness to her detestation, but rather as one avoiding the eyes

of the men.

'You see,' said Farnborough, with gusto, 'there's something about women's

clothes--_especially_ their hats, you know--they--well, they ain't built

for battle.'

'They ought to wear deer-stalkers,' was Lady Sophia's contribution to

the New Movement.

'It is quite true,' Lady John agreed, 'that a woman in a scrimmage can

never be a heroic figure.'

'No, that's just it,' said Farnborough. 'She's just funny, don't you

know!'

'I don't agree with you about the fun,' Borrodaile objected. 'That's why

I'm glad they've had their lesson. I should say there was almost nothing

more degrading than this public spectacle of----' Borrodaile lifted his

high shoulders higher still, with an effect of intense discomfort. 'It

never but once came my way that I remember, but I'm free to own,' he

said, 'there's nothing that shakes my nerves like seeing a woman

struggling and kicking in a policeman's arms.'

But Farnborough was not to be dissuaded from seeing humour in the

situation.

'They say they swept up a peck of hairpins after the battle!'

As though she had had as much of the subject as she could very well

stand, Miss Levering leaned sideways, put an arm behind her, and took

possession of her boa.

'They're just ending the first act of _Siegfried_. How glad I am to be

in your garden instead of Covent Garden!'

Ordinarily there would have been a movement to take the appreciative

guest for a stroll.

Perhaps it was only chance, or the enervating heat, that kept the

company in their chairs listening to Farnborough--

'The cattiest one of the two, there she stood like this, her clothes

half torn off, her hair down her back, her face the colour of a lobster

and the crowd jeering at her----'

'I don't see how you could stand and look on at such a hideous scene,'

said Miss Levering.

'Oh--I--I didn't! I'm only telling you how Wilkinson described it. He

said----'

'How did Major Wilkinson happen to be there?' asked Lady John.

'He'd motored over from Headquarters to move a vote of thanks to the

chairman. He said he'd seen some revolting things in his time, but the

scrimmage of the stewards and the police with those women----!'

Farnborough ended with an expressive gesture.

'If it was as horrible as that for Major Wilkinson to look on at--what

must it have been for those girls?' It was Miss Levering speaking. She

seemed to have abandoned the hope of being taken for a stroll, and was

leaning forward, chin in hand, looking at the fringe of the teacloth.

Richard Farnborough glanced at her as if he resented the note of

wondering pity in the low tone.

'It's never so bad for the lunatic,' he said, 'as for the sane people

looking on.'

'Oh, I don't suppose _they_ mind,' said Hermione--'women like _that_.'

'It's flattery to call them women. They're sexless monstrosities,' said

Paul Filey.

'You know some of them?' Vida raised her head.

'_I?_' Filey's face was nothing less than aghast at the mere suggestion.

'But you've seen them----?'

'Heaven forbid!'

'But I suppose you've gone and listened to them haranguing the crowds.'

'Now _do_ I look like a person who----'

'Well, you see we're all so certain they're such abominations,' said

Vida, 'I thought maybe some of us knew something about them.'

Dick Farnborough was heard saying to Lord John in a tone of cheerful

vigour--

'Locking up is too good for 'em. I'd give 'em a good thrashin'.'

'Spirited fellow!' said Miss Levering, promptly, with an accent that

brought down a laugh on the young gentleman's head.

He joined in it, but with a _naif_ uneasiness. What's the matter with

the woman?--his vaguely bewildered face seemed to inquire. After all,

I'm only agreeing with her.

'Few of us have time, I imagine,' said Filey, 'to go and listen to their

ravings.'

As Filey was quite the idlest of men, without the preoccupation of being

a tolerable sportsman or even a player of games, Miss Levering's little

laugh was echoed by others beside Lady Sophia.

'At all events,' said Vida to Lord Borrodaile, as she stood up, and he

drew her chair out of her way, 'even if we don't know much about these

women, we've spent a happy hour denouncing them.'

'Who's going to have a short round before sundown?' said Lady Sophia,

getting up briskly. '_You_, of course, Mr. Filey. Or are you too

"busy"?'

'Say too thirsty. May I?' He carried his cup round to Lady John, not

seeming to see Hermione's hospitable hand held out for it.

In the general shuffle Farnborough found himself carried off by Sophia

and Lord John.

'Who is our fourth?' said Lady Sophia, suddenly.

'Oh, Borrodaile!' Lord John stopped halfway across the lawn and called

back, 'aren't you coming?'

'It's not a bit of use,' said Sophia. 'You'll see. He's safe to sit

there and talk to Miss Levering till the dressing-bell rings.'

'Isn't she a _nice_ creature!' said Lord John. 'I can't think how a

woman like that hasn't got some nice fella to marry her!'

* * * * *

'Would you like to see my yellow garden, Vida?' Lady John asked. 'It's

rather glorious at this moment.'

Obvious from the quick lifting of the eyes that the guest was on the

point of welcoming the proposal, had Filey not swallowed his belated cup

of tea with surprising quickness after saying, 'What's a yellow garden?'

in the unmistakable tone of one bent upon enlarging his experience. Lady

John, with all her antennae out, lost no time in saying to Vida--

'Perhaps you're a little tired. Hermione, you show Mr. Filey the garden.

And maybe, Lord Borrodaile would like to see it, too.'

Although the last-named failed to share the enthusiasm expected in a

gardener, he pulled his long, slackly-put-together figure out of the

chair and joined the young people.

When they were out of earshot, 'What's the matter?' asked Lady John.

'Matter?'

'Yes, what did poor Paul say to make you fall upon him like that?'

'I didn't "fall upon" him, did I?'

'Well, yes, I rather thought you did.'

'Oh, I suppose I--perhaps it did jar on me, just a little, to hear a

cocksure boy----'

'He's not a boy. Paul is over thirty.'

'I was thinking of Dick Farnborough, too--talking about women like that,

before women.'

'Oh, all they meant was----'

'Yes, I know. Of course we _all_ know they aren't accustomed to treating

our sex in general with overmuch respect when there are only men

present--but--do you think it's quite decent that they should be so free

with their contempt of women before us?'

'But, my dear Vida! _That_ sort of woman! Haven't they deserved it?'

'That's just what nobody seems to know. I've sat and listened to

conversations like the one at tea for a week now, and I've said as much

against those women as anybody. Only to-day, somehow, when I heard that

boy--yes, I was conscious I didn't like it.'

'You're behaving exactly as Dr. Johnson did about Garrick. You won't

allow any one to abuse those women but yourself.'

Lady John cleared the whole trivial business away with a laugh.

'Now, be nice to Paul. He's dying to talk to you about his book. Let us

go and join them in the garden. See if you can stand before my yellow

blaze and not feel melted.'

The elder woman and the younger went down the terrace through a little

copse to her ladyship's own area of experimentation. A gate of old

Florentine scrolled iron opened suddenly upon a blaze of yellow in all

the shades from the orange velvet of the wallflower through the shaded

saffron of azalias and a dozen tints of tulip to the palest primrose and

jonquil.

The others were walking round the enclosing grass paths that served as

broad green border, and Filey, who had been in all sorts of queer

places, said the yellow garden made him think of a Mexican serape--'one

of those silk scarves, you know--native weaving made out of the

pineapple fibre.'

But Vida only said, 'Yes. It's a good scheme of colour.'

She sat on the rustic seat while Lady John explained to Lord Borrodaile,

whose gardens were renowned, how she and Simonson treated this and that

plant to get so fine a result. Filey had lost no time in finding a place

for himself by Miss Levering, while Hermione trailed dutifully round the

garden with the others. Occasionally she looked over her shoulder at the

two on the seat by the sunken wall--Vida leaning back in the corner

motionless, absolutely inexpressive; Filey's eager face bent forward. He

was moving his hands in a way he had learned abroad.

'You were rather annoyed with me,' he was saying. 'I saw that.'

The lady did not deny the imputation.

'But you oughtn't to be. Because you see it's only because my ideal of

woman is'--again that motion of the hands--'_what_ it is, that when I

see her stepping down from her pedestal I----' the hands indicated

consternation, followed hard by cataclysmic ruin. 'Of course, lots of

men don't care. I _do_. I care enormously, and so you must forgive me.

Won't you?' He bent nearer.

'Oh, _I've_ nothing to forgive.'

'I know without your telling me, I feel instinctively, _you_ more than

most people--you'd simply loathe the sort of thing we were talking about

at tea--women yelling and fighting men----'

'Yes--yes, don't go all over that.'

'No, of course I won't,' he said soothingly. 'I can feel it to my very

spine, how you shrink from such horrors.'

Miss Levering, raising her eyes suddenly, caught the look Hermione cast

backward as Lady John halted her party a moment near the pansy-strip in

the gorgeous yellow carpet spread out before them.

'Don't you want to sit down?' Vida called out to the girl, drawing aside

her gown.

'What?' said Hermione, though she had heard quite well. Slowly she

retraced her steps down the grass path as if to have the words repeated.

But if Miss Levering's idea had been to change the conversation, she was

disappointed. There was nothing Paul Filey liked better than an

audience, and he had already the impression that Miss Heriot was what he

would have scorned to call anything but 'simpatica.'

'I'm sure you've shown the new garden to dozens already,' Miss Levering

said to the niece of the house. 'Sit down and confess you've had enough

of it!'

'Oh, I don't think,' began Hermione, suavely, 'that one ever gets too

much of a thing like that!'

'There! I'm glad to hear you say so. How can we have too much beauty!'

exclaimed Filey, receiving the new occupant of the seat as a soul worthy

of high fellowship. Then he leaned across Miss Heriot and said to the

lady in the corner, 'I'm making that the theme of my book.'

'Oh, I heard you were writing something.'

'Yes, a sort of plea for the aesthetic basis of society! It's the only

cure for the horrors of modern civilization--for the very thing we were

talking about at tea! What is it but a loss of the sense of beauty

that's to blame?' Elbows on knees, he leaned so far forward that he

could see both faces, and yet his own betrayed the eye turned

inward--the face of the one who quotes. The ladies knew that he was

obliging them with a memorized extract from 'A Plea for the AEsthetic

Basis.' 'Nothing worse can happen to the world than loss of its sense of

Beauty. Men, high and low alike, cling to it still as incarnated in

women.' (Hermione crossed her pointed toes and lowered her long

eyelashes.) 'We have made Woman the object of our deepest adoration! We

have set her high on a throne of gold. We have searched through the

world for jewels to crown her. We have built millions of temples to our

ideal of womanhood and called them homes. We have fought and wrought and

sung for her--and all we ask in return is that she should tend the

sacred fire, so that the light of Beauty might not die out of the

world.' He was not ill-pleased with his period. 'But women'--he leaned

back, and illustrated with the pliant white hands that were ornamented

with outlandish rings--'women are not content with their high and holy

office.'

'_Some_ women,' amended Hermione, softly.

'There are more and more every day who are not content,' he said

sternly; then, for an instant unbending and craning a little forward,

'Of course I don't mean you--_you_ are exceptions--but of women in the

mass! Look at them! They force their way into men's work, they crowd

into the universities--yes, yes' (in vain Hermione tried to reassure him

by 'exceptions')--'Beauty is nothing to them! They fling aside their

delicate, provocative draperies, they cast off their scented sandals.

They pull on brown boots and bicycling skirts! They put man's yoke of

hard linen round their ivory throats, and they scramble off their

jewelled thrones to mount the rostrum and the omnibus!'

'Why? _Why_ do they?' Vida demanded, laughing. 'Nobody ever tells me

why. I can't believe they're as unselfish as _you_ make out.'

'I!'

'You ought to admire them if they voluntarily give up all those

beautiful things--knowing beforehand they'll only win men's scorn. For

you've always warned them!'

He didn't even hear. 'Ah, Ladies, Ladies!' half laughing, but really

very much in earnest, he apostrophized the peccant sex, 'I should like

to ask, are we men to look upon our homes as dusty din-filled camps on

the field of battle, or as holy temples of Peace? Ah!' He leaned back in

his corner, stretched out his long legs, and thrust his restless hands

in his pockets. 'If they knew!'

'Women?' asked Hermione, with the air of one painstakingly brushing up

crumbs of wisdom.

Paul Filey nodded.

'Knew----?'

'They would see that in the ugly scramble they had let fall their

crowns! If they only knew,' he repeated, 'they would go back to their

thrones, and, with the sceptre of beauty in one hand and the orb of

purity in the other, they would teach men to worship them again.'

'And then?' said Miss Levering.

'Then? Why, men will fall on their knees before them.' As Miss Levering

made no rejoinder, 'What greater victory do women want?' he demanded.

For the first time Miss Levering bent her head forward slightly as

though to see how far he was conscious of the fatuity of his climax. But

his flushed face showed a childlike good faith.

'Eh? Will any one tell me what they _want_?'

'Since you need to ask,' said the gently smiling woman in the corner,

'perhaps there's more need to show than I'd quite realized.'

'I don't think you quite followed,' he began, with an air of

forbearance. 'What I mean is----'

Miss Levering jumped up. 'Lord Borrodaile!' He was standing at the

little iron gate waiting for his hostess, who had stopped to speak to

one of the gardeners. 'Wait a moment!' Vida called, and went swiftly

down the grass path. He had turned and was advancing to meet her. 'No,

come away,' she said under her breath, 'come away quickly'--(safe on the

other side of the gate)--'and talk to me! Tell me about old,

half-forgotten pictures or about young rose trees.'

'Is something the matter?'

'I'm ruffled.'

'Who has ruffled you?' His tone was as serene as it was sympathetic.

'Several people.'

'Why, I thought you were never ruffled.'

'I'm not, often.'

They turned down into a little green aisle between two dense thickets of

rhododendrons.

'It's lucky you are here,' she said irrelevantly.

He glanced at her face.

'It's not luck. It's foresight.'

'Oh, you arranged it? Well, I'm glad.'

'So am I,' he answered quietly. 'We get on rather well together,' he

added, after a moment.

She nodded half absently. 'I feel as if I'd known you for years instead

of for months,' she said.

'Yes, I have rather that feeling, too. Except that I'm always a little

nervous when I meet you again after an interval.'

'Nervous,' she frowned. 'Why nervous?'

'I'm always afraid you'll have some news for me.'

'What news?'

'Oh, the usual thing. That a pleasant friendship is going to be

interrupted if not broken by some one's carrying you off. It would be a

pity, you know.'

'Then you don't agree with Lord John.'

'Oh, I suppose you _ought_ to marry,' he said, with smiling impatience,

'and I'm very sure you will! But I shan't like it'--he wound up with an

odd little laugh--'and neither will you.'

'It's an experiment I shall never try.'

He smiled, but as he glanced at her he grew grave. 'I've heard more than

one young woman say that, but you look as if it might really be so.'

'It is so.'

He waited, and then, switching at the wild hyacinths with his stick--

'Of course,' he said, 'I have no right to suppose you are going to give

me your reasons.'

'No. That's why I shall never even consider marrying--so that I shall

not have to set out my reasons.'

He had never seen that look in her face before. He made an effort to put

aside the trouble of it, saying almost lightly--

'I often wonder why people can't be happy as they are!'

'They think of the future, I suppose.'

'There's no such thing as the future.'

'You can't say there's no such thing as growth. If it's only a garden,

it's natural to like to see life unfolding--that's the future.'

'Yes, in spite of resolutions, you'll be trying the great experiment.'

He said it wearily.

'Why should you mind so?' she asked curiously; 'you are not in love with

me.'

'How do you know?'

'Because you give me such a sense of rest.'

'Thank you.' He caught himself up. 'Or perhaps I should thank my grey

hair.'

'Grey hair doesn't bring the thing I mean. I've sometimes wished it did.

But our friendship is an uncommonly peaceful one, don't you think?'

'Yes; I think it is,' he said. 'All the same, you know there's a touch

of magic in it.' But, as though to condone the confession, 'You haven't

told me why you were ruffled.'

'It's nothing. I dare say I was a little tired.'

They had come out into the park. 'I hurried so to catch the train. My

sister's new coachman is stupid about finding short cuts in London, and

we got blocked by a procession--a horrible sort of demonstration, you

know.'

'Oh, the unemployed.'

'Yes. And I got so tired of leaning out of the window and shouting

directions that I left the maid and the luggage to come later. I got out

of the brougham and ran through a slum, or I'd have lost my train. I

nearly lost it anyway, because I saw a queer picture that made me stop.'

She stopped again at the mere memory of it.

'In a second-hand shop?'

He turned his pointed face to her, and the grey-green eyes wore a gleam

of interest that few things could arouse in their cool depths.

'No, not in a shop.' She stopped and leaned against a tree. 'In the

street. It was a middle-aged workman. When I caught sight of his back

and saw his worn clothes--the coat went up in the middle, and had that

despairing sag on both sides--it crossed my mind, here's another of

those miserable, unemployed wastrels obstructing my way! Then he looked

round and I saw--solid content in his face!' She stopped a moment.

'So he _wasn't_ one of the----'

'Well, I wondered. I couldn't see at first what it was he had looked

round at. Then I noticed he had a rope in his hand, and was dragging

something. As the people who had been between us hurried on I saw--I saw

a child, two or three years old, in a flapping, pink sun-bonnet. He was

sitting astride a toy horse. The horse was clumsily made, and had lost

its tail. But it had its head still, and the board it was mounted on had

fat, wooden rollers. The horse was only about that long, and so near the

ground that, for all his advantage in the matter of rollers, still the

little rider's feet touched the pavement. They even trailed and lurched,

as the horse went on, in that funny, spasmodic gait. The child had to

half walk, or, rather, make the motions--you know, without actually

bearing any of even his own weight. The slack-shouldered man did it all.

I crossed to the other side of the street, and stood and watched them

till, as I say, I nearly lost my train. The dingy workman, smoking

imperturbably, dragging the grotesque, almost hidden, horse--the

delighted child in the flapping sun-bonnet--the crisis when they came to

the crossing! The man turned and called out something. The child

declined to budge. I wondered what would happen. So did the man. He

waited a moment, and puffed smoke and considered. The baby dug his heels

in the pavement and shouted. Then I saw the man carefully tilt the toy

horse up by the rope. I stood and watched the successful surmounting of

the obstacle, and the triumphant progress as before--sun-bonnet

flapping, smoke curling. Of course the man was content! He had lost the

battle. You saw that in his lined face. What did it matter? _He held the

future by a string._'

Lord Borrodaile lifted his eyes and looked at her. Without a word the

two walked on.

The first to speak after the silence was the man. He pointed out a

curious effect of the light, and reminded her who had painted it best--

'Corot could do these things!'--and he flung a stone in passing at the

New Impressionists.

At the Lodge Gate they found Lady John with Filey and Hermione.

'We thought if we walked this way we might meet Jean and her bodyguard.

But I mustn't go any further.' Lady John consulted her watch. 'The rest

of you can take your time, but I have to go and receive my other guest.'

Filey and Hermione were still at the gate. The girl had caught sight of

Farnborough being driven by the park road to the station.

'Oh, I do believe it's the new mare they're trying in the dogcart,' said

Hermione. 'Let's wait and see her go by.'

Borrodaile and his companion kept at Lady John's side.

'I'm glad,' said Vida, 'that I shall at last make acquaintance with your

Jean.'

'Yes; it's odd your never having met, especially as she knows your

cousins at Bishopsmead so well.'

'I've been so little in England----'

'Yes, I know. A great business it is,' Lady John explained to Lord

Borrodaile, 'each time to get that crusty old Covenanter, Jean's

grandfather, to allow her to stay at Bishopsmead. So it's the sadder for

them to have her visit cut short.'

'Why is it cut short?' he asked.

'Because the hostess took to her bed yesterday with a chill, and her

temperature was a hundred and one this afternoon.'

'Really?' said Miss Levering. 'I hadn't heard----'

'She is rather bad, I'm afraid. We are taking over another of her

guests. Of course you know him--Geoffrey Stonor.'

'Taking him over?' Miss Levering repeated.

'Yes; he was originally going to Bishopsmead this week-end, but as he's

been promising for ages to come here, it's been arranged that we should

take him off their hands. Of course we're delighted.'

Miss Levering walked on, between her two companions, looking straight in

front of her. As Lady John, with a glance at her watch, quickened the

pace--

'I'm rather unhappy at what you tell me about my cousin,' said Vida.

'She's a delicate creature.' Then, as though acting on a sudden impulse,

Vida paused. 'You mustn't mind, Lady John, but I shall have to go to

her. Can I have a trap of some sort to take me over?'

She put aside the objections with a gentle but unmistakable decision

that made Lady John say--

'I'm sure I've alarmed you more than there was the least need for. But

the carriage shall wait and bring you back just as soon as you've

satisfied yourself.'

'I can't tell, of course, till I've seen Mary. But may my maid be told

not to unpack----'

'Not unpack!'

'In case I have to send for my things.'

'My _dear_!' Lady John stopped short for very vexation. '_Don't_ desert

us! I've been so congratulating myself on having you, since I knew

Geoffrey Stonor was coming.' Again she glanced nervously at her watch.

'He is due in ten minutes! John won't like it if I'm not there.'

As she was about to hurry on, the other slackened pace. She seemed to be

revolving some further plan.

'Why shouldn't'--she turned suddenly--'why shouldn't the dogcart take me

on after dropping Mr. Farnborough at the station? Yes, that will be

simplest. Mr. Farnborough!' she waved to him as the cart came in sight,

'Wait! Good-bye! Forgive my rushing off, won't you?' she called back

over her shoulder, and then with that swift, light step of hers, she

covered by a short cut the little distance that lay between her and the

lodge gate.

'I wish I'd held my tongue,' said Lady John almost angrily as she

hastened in the opposite direction. Already some sense seemed to reach

her of the hopelessness of expecting Vida's return.

'I didn't _dream_ she cared so much for that dull cousin of hers!'

'Do you think she really does?' said Borrodaile, dryly.