"Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear."
Joseph Jagenal and his charge were the last arrivals at Mrs.
Cassilis's dinner. It was not a large party. There were two ladies of
the conventional type, well dressed, well looking, and not
particularly interesting; with them their two husbands, young men of
an almost preternatural solemnity--such solemnity as sometimes results
from a too concentrated attention to the Money Market. They were there
as friends of Mr. Cassilis, whom they regarded with the reverence
justly due to success. They longed to speak to him privately on
investments, but did not dare. There were also two lions, newly
captured. Ladds, the "Dragoon" of the joint literary venture--"THE
LITTLE SPHERE, by the Dragoon and the Younger Son"--is standing
in that contemplative attitude by which hungry men, awaiting the
announcement of dinner, veil an indecent eagerness to begin. The
other, the "Younger Son," is talking to Mr. Cassilis.
Phillis remarked that the room was furnished in a manner quite beyond
anything she knew. Where would be the dingy old chairs, sofas, and
tables of Mr. Dyson's, or the solid splendour of Joseph Jagenal's
drawing-room, compared with the glories of decorative art which Mrs.
Cassilis had called to her aid? She had no time to make more than a
general survey as she went to greet her hostess.
Mrs. Cassilis, for her part, observed that Phillis was dressed
carefully, and was looking her best. She had on a simple white dress
of that soft stuff called, I think, Indian muslin, which falls in
graceful folds. A pale lavender sash relieved the monotony of the
white, and set off her shapely figure. Her hair, done up in the
simplest fashion, was adorned with a single white rose. Her cheeks
were a little flushed with excitement, but her eyes were steady.
Phillis stole a glance at the other ladies. They were dressed, she was
glad to observe, in the same style as herself, but not better. That
naturally raised her spirits.
Then Mrs. Cassilis introduced her husband.
When Phillis next day attempted to reproduce her impressions of the
evening, she had no difficulty in recording the likeness of Mr.
Gabriel Cassilis with great fidelity. He was exactly like old Time.
The long lean limbs, the pronounced features, the stooping figure, the
forelock which our enemy will _not_ allow us to take, the head, bald
save for that single ornamental curl and a fringe of gray hair over
the ears--all the attributes of Time were there except the scythe.
Perhaps he kept that at his office.
He was a very rich man. His house was in Kensington Palace Gardens, a
fact which speaks volumes; its furnishing was a miracle of modern art;
his paintings were undoubted; his portfolios of water-colours were
worth many thousands; and his horses were perfect.
He was a director of many companies--but you cannot live in Kensington
Palace Garden by directing companies and he had an office in the City
which consisted of three rooms. In the first were four or five clerks,
always writing; in the second was the secretary, always writing; in
the third was Mr. Gabriel Cassilis himself, always giving audience.
He married at sixty-three, because he wanted an establishment in his
old age. He was too old to expect love from a woman, and too young to
fall in love with a girl. He did not marry in order to make a pet of
his wife--indeed, he might as well have tried stroking a statue of
Minerva as petting Victoria Pengelley; and he made no secret of his
motive in proposing for the young lady. As delicately as possible he
urged that, though her family was good, her income was small; that it
is better to be rich and married than poor and single; and he offered,
if she consented to become his wife, to give her all that she could
wish for or ask on the material and artistic side of life.
Victoria Pengelley, on receipt of the offer, which was communicated by
a third person, her cousin, behaved very strangely. She first refused
absolutely; then she declared that she would have taken the man, but
that it was now impossible; then she retracted the last statement,
and, after a week of agitation, accepted the offer.
"And I must say, Victoria," said her cousin, "that you have made a
strange fuss about accepting an offer from one of the richest men in
London. He is elderly, it is true; but the difference between eight
and twenty and sixty lies mostly in the imagination. I will write to
Mr. Cassilis to-night."
Which she did, and they were married.
She trembled a great deal during the marriage ceremony. Mr. Cassilis
was pleased at this appearance of emotion, which he attributed to
causes quite remote from any thought in the lady's mind. "Calm to all
outward seeming," he said to himself, "Victoria is capable of the
deepest passion."
They had now been married between two and three years. They had one
child--a boy.
It is only to be added that Mr. Cassilis settled the sum of fifteen
thousand pounds upon the wedding-day on his wife, and that they lived
together in that perfect happiness which is to be expected from
well-bred people who marry without pretending to love each other.
Their dinners were beyond praise; the wine was incomparable; but their
evenings were a little frigid. A sense of cold splendour filled the
house--the child which belongs to new things and to new men.
The new man thirty years ago was loud, ostentatious, and vulgar. The
new man now--there are a great many more of them--is very often quiet,
unpretending, and well-bred. He understands art, and is a patron; he
enjoys the advantages which his wealth affords him; he knows how to
bear his riches with dignity and with reserve. The only objection to
him is that he wants to go where other men, who were new in the last
generation, go, and do what they do.
Mr. Cassilis welcomed Miss Fleming and Joseph Jagenal, and resumed his
conversation with Jack Dunquerque. That young man looked much the same
as when we saw him last on the slopes of the Sierra Nevada. His tall
figure had not filled out, but his slight moustache had just a little
increased in size. And now he looked a good deal bored.
"I have never, I confess," his host was saying, wielding a double
eye-glass instead of his scythe,--"I have never been attracted by the
manners and customs of uncivilised people. My sympathies cease, I
fear, where Banks end."
"You are only interested in the country of Lombardy?"
"Yes; very good: precisely so."
"Outside the pale of Banks men certainly carry their money about with
them----"
"Which prevents the accumulation of wealth, my dear sir. Civilisation
was born when men learned to confide in each other. Modern history
begins with the Fuggers, of whom you may have read."
"I assure you I never did," said Jack truthfully.
Then dinner was announced.
Phillis found herself on the right of Mr. Cassilis. Next to her sat
Captain Ladds. Mr. Dunquerque was at the opposite corner of the
table--he had given his arm to Mrs. Cassilis.
Mrs. Cassilis, Phillis saw, was watching her by occasional glances.
The girl felt a little anxious, but she was not awkward. After all,
she thought, the customs of society at a dinner-table cannot be very
different from those observed and taught her by Mr. Dyson. Perhaps her
manner of adjusting things was a little wanting in finish and
delicacy--too downright. Also, Mrs. Cassilis observed she made no
attempt to talk with Captain Ladds, her neighbour, but was, curiously
enough, deeply interested in the conversation of Mr. Cassilis.
Ladds was too young for Phillis, despite his five and thirty years.
Old men and greybeards she knew. Young men she did not know. She could
form no guess what line of talk would be adopted by a young man--one
who had a deep bass voice when he spoke, and attacked his dinner with
a vigour past understanding. Phillis was interested in him, and a
little afraid lest he should talk to her.
Others watched her too. Jack Dunquerque, his view a little intercepted
by the _épergne_, lifted furtive glances at the bright and pretty
girl at the other end of the table. Joseph Jagenal looked at her with
honest pride in the beauty of his ward.
They talked politics, but not in the way to which she was accustomed.
Mr. Dyson and his brother greybeards were like Cassandra, Elijah,
Jeremiah, and a good many prophets of the present day, inasmuch as the
more they discussed affairs the more they prophesied disaster. So that
Phillis had learned from them to regard the dreadful future with
terror. Every day seemed to make these sages more dismal. Phillis had
not yet learned that the older we get the wiser we grow, and the wiser
we grow the more we tremble; that those are most light-hearted who
know the least. At this table, politics were talked in a very
different manner; they laughed where the sages wagged their heads and
groaned; they even discussed, with a familiarity which seemed to drive
out anxiety, the favorite bugbear of her old politicians, the
continental supremacy of Germany.
The two young City men, who were as solemn as a pair of Home
Secretaries, listened to their host with an eager interest and
deference which the other two, who were not careful about investments,
did not imitate. Phillis observed the difference, and wondered what it
meant. Then Mr. Cassilis, as if he had communicated as many ideas
about Russia as he thought desirable, turned the conversation upon
travelling, in the interests of the Dragoon and the younger son.
"I suppose," he said, addressing Jack, "that in your travels among the
islanders you practised the primitive mode of Barter."
"We did; and they cheated us when they could. Which shows that they
have improved upon the primitive man. I suppose he was honest."
"I should think not," said the host. "The most honest classes in the
world are the richest. People who want to get things always have a
tendency to be dishonest. England is the most honest nation, because
it is the richest. France is the next. Germany, you see, which is a
poor country, yielded to the temptations of poverty and took
Sleswick-Holstein, Alsace and Lorraine. I believe that men began with
dishonesty."
"Adam, for example," said Ladds, "took what he ought not to have
taken."
"O Captain Ladds!" this was one of two ladies, she who had read up
the new book before coming to the dinner, and had so far an advantage
over the other--"that is just like one of the wicked things, the
delightfully wicked things, in the _Little Sphere_. Now we know which
of the two did the wicked things."
"It was the other man," said Ladds.
"Is it fair to ask," the lady went on, "how you wrote the book?"
She was one of those who, could she get the chance, would ask
Messieurs Erckmann and Chatrian themselves to furnish her with a list
of the paragraphs and the ideas due to each in their last novel.
Ladds looked as if the question was beyond his comprehension.
At last he answered slowly--
"Steel pen. The other man had a gold pen."
"No--no; I mean did you write one chapter and your collaborateur the
next, or how?"
"Let me think it over," replied Ladds, as if it were a conundrum.
Mrs. Cassilis came to the rescue.
"At all events," she said, "the great thing is that the book is a
success. I have not read it, but I hear there are many clever and
witty things in it. Also some wicked things. Of course, if you write
wickedness you are sure of an audience. I don't think, Mr.
Dunquerque," she added, with a smile, "that it is the business of
gentlemen to attack existing institutions."
Jack shook his head.
"It was not my writing. It was the other man. I did what I could to
tone him down."
"Have you read the immortal work?" Ladds asked his neighbour. He had
not spoken to her yet, but he had eyes in his head, and he was
gradually getting interested in the silent girl who sat beside him,
and listened with such rapt interest to the conversation.
This great and manifest interest was the only sign to show that
Phillis was not accustomed to dinners in society.
Ladds thought that she must be some shy maiden from the country--a
little "rustical" perhaps. He noticed now that her eyes were large and
bright, that her features were clear and delicate, that she was
looking at himself with a curious pity, as if, which was indeed the
case, she believed the statement about his having written the wicked
things. And then he wondered how so bright a girl had been able to
listen to the prosy dogmatics of Mr. Cassilis. Yet she had listened,
and with pleasure.
Phillis was at that stage in her worldly education when she would have
listened with pleasure to anybody--Mr. Moody, a lecture on astronomy,
a penny-reading, an amateur dramatic performance, or an essay in the
_Edinburgh_. For everything was new. She was like the blind man who
received his sight and saw men, like trees, walking. Every new face
was a new world; every fresh speaker was a new revelation. No one to
her was stupid, was a bore, was insincere, was spiteful, was envious,
or a humbug, because no one was known. To him who does not know, the
inflated india-rubber toy is as solid as a cannon-ball.
"I never read anything," said Phillis, with a half blush. Not that she
was ashamed of the fact, but she felt that it would have pleased
Captain Ladds had she read his book. "You see, I have never learned to
read."
"Oh!"
It was rather a facer to Ladds. Here was a young lady, not being a
Spaniard, or a Sicilian, or a Levantine, or a Mexican, or a
Paraguayan, or a Brazilian, or belonging to any country where such
things are possible, who boldly confessed that she could not read.
This in England; this in the year 1875; this in a country positively
rendered unpleasant by reason of its multitudinous School Boards and
the echoes of their wrangling!
Jack Dunquerque, in his place, heard the statement and looked up
involuntarily as if to see what manner of young lady this could be--a
gesture of surprise into which the incongruity of the thing startled
him. He caught her full face as she leaned a little forward, and his
glance rested for a moment on a cheek so fair that his spirits fell.
Beauty disarms the youthful squire, and arms him who has won his
spurs. I speak in an allegory.
Mrs. Cassilis heard it and was half amused, half angry.
Mr. Cassilis heard it, opened his mouth, as if to make some remark
about Mr. Dyson's method of education, but thought better of it.
The two ladies heard it and glanced at her curiously. Then they looked
at each other with the slightest uplifting of the eyebrow, which
meant, "Who on earth can she be?"
Mrs. Cassilis noted that too, and rejoiced, because she was going to
bring forward a girl who would make everybody jealous.
Ladds was the only one who spoke.
"That," he said feebly, "must be very jolly."
He began to wonder what could be the reason of this singular
educational omission. Perhaps she had a crooked back; could not sit up
to a desk, could not hold a book in her hand; but no, she was like
Petruchio's Kate:
"Like the hazel twig.
As straight and slender."
Perhaps her eyes were weak; but no, her eyes were sparkling with the
"right Promethean fire." Perhaps she was of weak intellect; but that
was ridiculous.
Then the lady who had read the book began to ask more questions. I do
not know anything more irritating than to be asked questions about
your own book.
"Will you tell us, Mr. Dunquerque, if the story of the bear-hunt is a
true one, or did you make it up?"
"We made up nothing. That story is perfectly true. And the man's name
was Beck."
"Curious," said Mr. Cassilis. "An American named Beck, Mr. Gilead P.
Beck, is in London now, and has been recommended to me. He is
extremely rich. I think, my dear, that you invited him to dinner
to-day?'
"Yes. He found he could not come at the last moment. He will be here
in the evening."
"Then you will see the very man," said Jack, "unless there is more
than one Gilead P. Beck, which is hardly likely."
"This man has practically an unlimited credit," said the host.
"And talks, I suppose, like, well, like the stage Americans, I
suppose," said his wife.
"You know," Jack explained, "that the stage American is all nonsense.
The educated American talks a great deal better than we do. He can
string his sentences together; we can only bark."
"Perhaps our bark is better than their bite," Ladds remarked.
"A man who has unlimited credit may talk as he pleases," said Mr.
Cassilis dogmatically.
The two solemn young men murmured assent.
"And he always did say that he was going to have luck. He carried
about a Golden Butterfly in a box."
"How deeply interesting!" replied the lady who had read the book. "And
is that other story true, that you found an English traveller living
all alone in a deserted city?"
"Quite true."
"Really. And who was it? Anybody one has met?"
"I do not know whether you have ever met him. His name is Lawrence
Colquhoun."
Mrs. Cassilis flushed suddenly, and then her pale face became paler.
"Lawrence Colquhoun, formerly of ours," said Ladds, looking at her.
Mrs. Cassilis read the look to ask what business it was of hers, and
why she changed colour at his name.
"Colquhoun!" she said softly. Then she raised her voice and addressed
her husband: "My dear, it is an old friend of mine of whom we are
speaking, Mr. Lawrence Colquhoun."
"Yes!" he had forgotten the name. "What did he do? I think I
remember----" He stopped, for he remembered to have heard his wife's
name in connection with this man. He felt a sudden pang of jealousy, a
quite new and rather curious sensation. It passed, but yet he rejoiced
that the man was out of England.
"He is my guardian," Phillis said to Ladds. "And you actually know
him? Will you tell me something about him presently?"
When the men followed, half an hour later, they found the four ladies
sitting in a large semi-circle round the fire. The centre of the space
so formed was occupied by a gentleman who held a cup of tea in one
hand and declaimed with the other. That is to say, he was speaking in
measured tones, and as if he were addressing a large room instead of
four ladies: and his right hand and arm performed a pump-handle
movement to assist and grace his delivery. He had a face so grave that
it seemed as if smiles were impossible; he was apparently about forty
years of age. Mrs. Cassilis was not listening much. She was
considering, as she looked at her visitor, how far he might be useful
to her evenings. Phillis was catching every word that fell from the
stranger's lips. Here was an experience quite new and startling. She
knew of America; Mr. Dyson, born not so very many years after the War
of Independence, and while the memory of its humiliations was fresh in
the mind of the nation, always thought and spoke of Americans as
England's hereditary and implacable enemies. Yet here was one of the
race talking amicably, and making no hostile demonstrations whatever.
So that another of her collection of early impressions evidently
needed reconsideration.
When he saw the group at the door, Mr. Gilead Beck--for it was
he--strode hastily across the room, and putting aside Mr. Cassilis,
seized Jack Dunquerque by the hand and wrung it for several moments.
"You have not forgotten me!" he said. "You remember that lucky shot?
You still think of that Grisly?"
"Of course I do," said Jack; "I shall never forget him."
"Nor shall I, sir; never." And then he went through the friendly
ceremony with Ladds.
"You are the other man, sir?"
"I always am the other man," said Ladds, for the second time that
evening. "How are you, Mr. Beck, and how is the Golden Butterfly?"
"That Inseck, captain, is a special instrument working under
Providence for my welfare. He slumbers at my hotel, the Langham, in a
fire-proof safe."
Then he seized Jack Dunquerque's arm, and led him to the circle round
the fire.
"Ladies, this young gentleman is my preserver. He saved my life. It is
owing to Mr. Dunquerque that Gilead P. Beck has the pleasure of being
in this drawing-room."
"O Mr. Dunquerque," said the lady who had read the book, "that is not
in the volume!"
"Clawed I should have been, mauled I should have been, rubbed out I
should have been, on that green and grassy spot, but for the crack of
Mr. Dunquerque's rifle. You will not believe me, ladies, but I thought
it was the crack of doom."
"It was a most charming, picturesque spot in which to be clawed," said
Jack, laughing. "You could not have selected a more delightful place
for the purpose."
"There air moments," said Mr. Beck, looking round the room solemnly,
and letting his eyes rest on Phillis, who gazed at him with an
excitement and interest she could hardly control--"there air moments
when the soul is dead to poetry. One of those moments is when you feel
the breath of a Grisly on your cheek. Even you, young lady, would, at
such a moment, lose your interest in the beauty of Nature."
Phillis started when he addressed her.
"Did he save your life?" she asked, with flashing eyes.
Jack Dunquerque blushed as this fair creature turned to him with looks
of such admiration and respect as the queen of the tournament bestowed
upon the victor of the fight. So Desdemona gazed upon the Moor when he
spake
"Of most disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents by flood and field."
Mrs. Cassilis affected a diversion by introducing her husband to Mr.
Beck.
"Mr. Cassilis, sir," he said, "I have a letter for you from one of our
most prominent bankers. And I called in the City this afternoon to
give it you. But I was unfortunate. Sir, I hope that we shall become
better acquainted. And I am proud, sir, I am proud of making the
acquaintance of a man who has the privilege of life partnership with
Mrs. Cassilis. That is a great privilege, sir, and I hope you value
it."
"Hum--yes; thank you, Mr. Beck," replied Mr. Cassilis, in a tone which
conveyed to the sharp-eared Phillis the idea that he thought
considerable value ought to be attached to the fact of having a life
partnership with _him_. "And how do you like our country?"
The worst of going to America, if you are an Englishman, or of
crossing to England, if you are an American is that you can never
escape that most searching and comprehensive question.
Said Mr. Gilead Beck:
"Well, sir, a dollar goes a long way in this country--especially in
cigars and drinks."
"In drinks!" Phillis listened. The other ladies shot glances at each
other.
"Phillis, my dear"--Mrs. Cassilis crossed the room and interrupted her
rapt attention--"let me introduce Mr. Ronald Dunquerque. Do you think
you could play something?"
She bowed to the young hero with sparkling eyes and rose to comply
with the invitation. He followed her to the piano. She played in that
sweet spontaneous manner which the women who have only been
_taught_ hear with despair; she touched the keys as if she loved
them and as if they understood her; she played one or two of the
"Songs without Words;" and then, starting a simple melody, she began
to sing, without being asked, a simple old ballad. Her tone was low at
first, because she did not know the room, not because she was afraid;
but it gradually rose as she felt her power, till the room filled with
the volumes of her rich contralto voice. Jack Dunquerque stood beside
her. She looked up in his face with eyes that smiled a welcome while
she went on singing.
"You told us you could not read," said the young man when she
finished.
"It is quite true, Mr. Dunquerque. I cannot."
"How, then, can you play and sing?"
"Oh, I play by ear and by memory. That is nothing wonderful."
"Won't you go on playing?"
She obeyed, talking in low, measured tones, in time with the air.
"I think you know my guardian, Mr. Lawrence Colquhoun. Will you tell
me all about him? I have never seen him yet."
This unprincipled young man saw his chance, and promptly seized the
opportunity.
"I should like to very much, but one cannot talk here before all these
people. If you will allow me to call to-morrow, I will gladly tell you
all I know about him."
"You had better come at luncheon-time," she replied, "and then I shall
be very glad to see you."
Mr. Abraham Dyson usually told his friends to come at luncheon-time,
so she could not be wrong. Also, she knew by this time that the Twins
were always asleep at two o'clock, so that she would be alone; and
it was pleasant to think of a talk, _sola cum solo_, with this
interesting specimen of newly-discovered humanity--a young man who had
actually saved another man's life.
"Is she an outrageous flirt?" thought Jack, "or is she deliciously and
wonderfully simple?"
On the way home he discussed the problem with Ladds.
"I don't care which it is," he concluded, "I must see her again.
Ladds, old man, I believe I could fall in love with that girl. 'Ask me
no more, for at a touch I yield.' Did you notice her, Tommy? Did you
see her sweet eyes--I must say she has the sweetest eyes in all the
world--looking with a pretty wonder at our quaint Yankee friend? Did
you see her trying to take an interest in the twaddle of old Cassilis?
Did you----"
"Have we eyes?" Ladds growled. "Is the heart at five and thirty a
log?"
"And her figure, tall and slender, lissom and _gracieuse_. And
her face, 'the silent war of lilies and of roses.' How I love the
brunette faces! They are never insipid."
"Do you remember the half-caste Spanish girl in Manilla?"
"Ladds, don't dare to mention that girl beside this adorable angel of
purity. I have found out her Christian name--it is Phillis--rhymes to
lilies; and am going to call at her house to-morrow--Carnarvon
Square."
"And I am going to have half an hour in the smoking-room," said Ladds,
as they arrived at the portals of the club.
"So am I," said Jack. "You know what Othello says of Desdemona:
"'O thou weed,
Who art so lovely fair, and smell'st so sweet
That the sense aches at thee!'
"I mean Phillis Fleming, of course, not your confounded tobacco."