'Mr. Frederick Warren'--so Merton read the card presented to him on a
salver of Limoges enamel by the office-boy.
'Show the gentleman in.'
Mr. Warren entered. He was a tall and portly person, with a red face,
red whiskers, and a tightly buttoned frock-coat, which more expressed
than hid his goodly and prominent proportions. He bowed, and Merton
invited him to be seated. It struck Merton as a singular circumstance
that his visitor wore on each arm the crimson badge of the newly
vaccinated.
Mr. Warren sat down, and, taking a red silk handkerchief out of the crown
of his hat, he wiped his countenance. The day was torrid, and Mr. Merton
hospitably offered an effervescent draught.
'Without the whisky, if you please, sir,' said Mr. Warren, in a
provincial accent. He pointed to a blue ribbon in the buttonhole of his
coat, indicating that he was conscientiously opposed to the use of
alcoholic refreshment in all its forms.
'Two glasses of Apollinaris water,' said Merton to the office-boy; and
the innocent fluid was brought, while Merton silently admired his
client's arrangement in blue and crimson. When the thirst of that
gentleman had been assuaged, he entered upon business thus:
'Sir, I am a man of principle!'
Merton congratulated him; the age was lax, he said, and principle was
needed. He wondered internally what he was going to be asked to
subscribe to, or whether his vote only was required.
'Sir, have you been vaccinated?' asked the client earnestly.
'Really,' said Merton, 'I do not quite understand your interest in a
matter so purely personal.'
'Personal, sir? Not at all. It is the first of public duties--the debt
that every man, woman, and child owes to his or her country. Have you
been vaccinated, sir?'
'Why, if you insist on knowing,' said Merton, 'I have, though I do not
see--'
'Recently?' asked the visitor.
'Yes, last month; but I cannot conjecture why--'
'Enough, sir,' said Mr. Warren. 'I am a man of principle. Had you not
done your duty in this matter by your country, I should have been
compelled to seek some other practitioner in your line.'
'I was not aware that my firm had any competitors in our line of
business,' said Merton. 'But perhaps you have come here under some
misapprehension. There is a firm of family solicitors on the floor
above, and next them are the offices of a company interested in a patent
explosive. If your affairs, or your political ideas, demand a legal
opinion, or an outlet in an explosive which is widely recommended by the
Continental Press--'
'For what do you take me, sir?' asked Mr. Warren.
'For a Temperance Anarchist,' Merton would have liked to reply, 'judging
by your colours'; but he repressed this retort, and mildly answered,
'Perhaps it would be as much to the purpose to ask, for what do you take
_me_?'
'For the representative of Messrs. Gray & Graham, the specialists in
matrimonial affairs,' answered the client; and Merton said that he would
be happy if Mr. Warren would enter into the details of his business.
'I am the ex-Mayor of Bulcester,' said Mr. Warren, 'and, as I told you, a
man of principle. My attachment to the Temperance cause'--and he
fingered his blue ribbon--'procured for me the honour of a defeat at the
last general election, but endeared me to the consciences of the
Nonconformist element in the constituency. Yet, sir, I am at this moment
the most unpopular man in Bulcester; but I shall fight it out--I shall
fight it to my latest breath.'
'Is Bulcester, then, such an intemperate constituency? I had understood
that the Nonconformist interest was strong there,' said Merton.
'So it is, sir, so it is; but the interest is now bound to the chariot
wheels of the truckling Toryism of our time--to the sycophants who basely
made vaccination permissive, and paltered with the Conscientious
Objector. These badges, sir'--the client pointed to his own crimson
decorations--'proclaim that I have been vaccinated on _both_ arms, as a
testimony to the immortal though, in Bulcester, maligned discovery of the
great Jenner. Sir, I am hooted in the public streets of my native town,
where Anti-vaccinationism is a frenzy. Mr. Rider Haggard, the author of
_Dr. Therne_, has been burned in effigy for his thrilling and manly
protest to which I owe my own conversion.'
'Then the conversion is relatively recent?' asked Merton.
'It dates since my reading of that powerful argument, sir; that appeal to
reason which overcame my prejudice, for I was a prominent A. V.'
'_Ave_?' asked Merton.
'A. V., sir--Anti-Vaccinationist. A. C. D. A. too, and always,' he added
proudly; but Merton did not think it prudent to ask for further
explanations.
'An A. V. I was, an A. V. I am no longer; and I defy popular clamour,
accompanied by brickbats, to shake my principles.'
'_Justum et tinacem propositi virum_,' murmured Merton, adding, 'All that
is very interesting, but, my dear sir, while I admire the tenacity of
your principles, will you permit me to ask, what has vaccination to do
with the special business of our firm?'
'Why, sir, I have a family, and my eldest son--'
'Does he decline to be vaccinated?' asked Merton, in a sympathetic voice.
'No, sir, or he would never darken my doorway,' exclaimed this more than
Roman father. 'But he is engaged, and I can never give my consent; and
if he marries that girl, the firm ceases to be "Warren & Son, wax-cloth
manufacturers." That's all, sir--that's all.'
Mr. Warren again applied his red handkerchief to his glowing features.
'And what, may I ask, are the grounds of your objection to this
engagement? Social inequality?' asked Merton.
'No, the young lady is the daughter of one of our leading ministers, Mr.
Truman--author of _The Bishops to the Block_--but principles are
concerned.'
'You cannot mean that the young lady is excessively addicted to the--wine
cup?' asked Merton gravely. 'In melancholy cases of that kind Mr. Hall
Caine, in a romance, has recommended hypnotic treatment, but we do not
venture to interfere.'
'You misunderstand me, sir,' replied Mr. Warren, frowning. 'The young
woman, on principle, as they call it, has never been vaccinated. Like
most of our prominent citizens, her father (otherwise an excellent man)
objects to what he calls "The Worship of the Calf" on grounds of
conscience.'
'Conscience! It is a hard thing to constrain the conscience,' murmured
Merton, quoting a remark of Queen Mary to John Knox.
'What is conscience without knowledge, sir?' asked the client,
using--without knowing it--the very argument of Mr. Knox to the Queen.
'You have no other objections to the alliance?' asked Merton.
'None whatever, sir. She is a good and good-looking girl. On most
important points we are thoroughly agreed. She won a prize essay on
Bacon's authorship of Shakespeare's plays. Of course Shakespeare could
not have written them--a thoroughly uneducated man, who never could have
passed the fourth standard. But look at the plays! There are things in
them that, with all our modern advantages, are beyond me. I admit they
are beyond me. "To be, and to do, and to suffer,"' declaimed Mr. Warren,
apparently under the impression that this is part of Hamlet's
soliloquy--'Shakespeare could never have written _that_. Where did _he_
learn grammar?'
'Where, indeed?' replied Merton. 'But as the lady is in all other
respects so suitable a match, cannot this one difficulty be got over?'
'Impossible, sir; my son could not slice the sleeve in her dress and
inflict this priceless boon on her with affectionate violence. Even the
hero of _Dr. Therne_ failed there--'
'And rather irritated his pretty Jane,' added Merton, who remembered this
heroic adventure. 'It is a very hard case,' he went on, 'but I fear that
our methods are powerless. The only chance would be to divert young Mr.
Warren's affections into some other more enlightened channel. That
expedient has often been found efficacious. Is he very deeply enamoured?
Would not the society of another pretty and intelligent girl perhaps work
wonders?'
'Perhaps it might, sir, but I don't know where to find any one that would
attract my James. Except for political meetings, and a literary lecture
or two, with a magic-lantern and a piano, we have not much social
relaxation at Bulcester. We object to promiscuous dancing, on grounds of
conscience. Also, of course, to the stage.'
'Ah, so you _do_ allow for the claims of conscience, do you?'
'For what do you take me, sir? Only, of course the conscience must be
enlightened,' said Mr. Warren, as other earnest people usually do.
'Certainly, certainly,' said Merton; 'nothing so dangerous as the
unenlightened conscience. Why, in this very matter of marriage the
conscience of the Mormons leads them to singular aberrations, while that
of the Arunta tribe--but I should only pain you if I pursued the subject.
You said that your Society indulged in literary lectures: is your
programme for the season filled up?'
'I am President of the Bulcester Literary Society,' said Mr. Warren, 'and
I ought to know. We have a vacancy for Friday week; but why do you
inquire? In fact I want a lecturer on "The Use and Abuse of Novels," now
you ask. Our people, somehow, always want their literary lectures to be
about novels. I try to make the lecturers take a lofty moral tone, and
usually entertain them at my house, where I probe their ideas, and warn
them that we must have nothing loose. Once, sir, we had a lecturer on
"The Oldest Novel in the World." He gave us a terrible shock, sir! I
never saw so many red cheeks in a Bulcester audience. And the man seemed
quite unaware of the effect he was producing.'
'Short-sighted, perhaps?' said Merton.
'Ever since we have been very careful. But, sir, we seem to have got
away from the subject.'
'It is only seeming,' said Merton. 'I have an idea which may be of
service to you.'
'Thank you, most kindly,' said Mr. Warren. 'But as how?'
'Does your Society ever employ lady lecturers?'
'We prefer them; we are all for enlarging the sphere of woman's
activity--virtuous activity, I mean.'
'That is fortunate,' remarked Merton. 'You said just now that to try the
plan of a counter-attraction was difficult, because there was little of
social relaxation in your Society, and you knew no lady who had the
opportunities necessary for presenting an agreeable alternative to the
charms of Miss Truman. A young man's fancy is often caught merely by the
juxtaposition of a single member of the opposite sex, with whom he
contracts a custom of walking home from chapel.'
'That's mostly the way at Bulcester,' said Mr. Warren.
'Well,' Merton went on, 'you are in the habit of entertaining the
lecturers at your house. Now, I know a young lady--one of our staff, in
fact--who is very well qualified to lecture on "The Use and Abuse of
Novels." She is a novelist herself; one of the most serious and
improving of our younger writers. In her works virtue (after struggles)
is always rewarded, and vice (especially if gilded) is held up to
execration, though never allowed to display itself in colours which would
bring a blush to the cheek of--a white rabbit. Here is her portrait,'
said Merton, taking up a family periodical, _The Young Girl_. This
blameless journal was publishing a serial story by Miss Martin, one of
the ladies who had been enlisted at the dinner given by Logan and Merton
when they founded their Society. A photograph of Miss Martin, in white
and in a large shadowy hat, was published in _The Young Girl_, and
certainly no one could have recognised in this conscientiously innocent
and domestic portrait the fair author of romances of social adventure and
unimagined crime. 'There you see our young friend,' said Merton; 'and
the magazine, to which she is a regular contributor, is a voucher for her
character as an author.'
Mr. Warren closely scrutinised the portrait, which displayed loveliness
and candour in a very agreeable way, and arranged in the extreme of
modest simplicity.
'That is a young woman who bears her testimonials in her face,' said Mr.
Warren. 'She is one whom a father can trust--but has she been
vaccinated?'
'Early and often,' answered Merton reassuringly. 'Girls with faces like
hers do not care to run any risks.'
'Jane Truman does, though my son has put it to her, I know, on the ground
of her looks. "_Nothing_," she said, "will ever induce me to submit to
that filthy, that revolting operation."'
'"Conscience doth make cowards of us all," as Bacon says,' replied
Merton, 'or at least of such of us as are unenlightened. But to come to
business. What do you think of asking our young friend down to
lecture--on Friday week, I think you said--on the Use and Abuse of
Novels? You could easily persuade her, I dare say, to stay over
Sunday--longer if necessary--and then young Mr. Warren would at least
find out that there is more than one young woman in the world.'
'I shall be delighted to see your friend,' answered Mr. Warren. 'At
Bulcester we welcome intellect, and a real novelist of moral tendencies
would make quite a sensation in our midst.'
'They are but too scarce at present,' Merton answered--'novelists of high
moral tone.'
'She is not a Christian Scientist?' asked Mr. Warren anxiously. 'They
reject vaccination, like all other means appointed, and rely on miracles,
which ceased with the Apostolic age, being no longer necessary.'
'The lady, I can assure you, is not a Christian Scientist,' said Merton
'but comes of an Evangelical family. Shall I give you her address? In
my opinion it would be best to write to her from Bulcester, on the
official paper of the Literary Society.' For Merton wished to acquaint
Miss Martin with the nature of her mission, lecturing being an art which
she had never cultivated.
'There is just one thing,' remarked Mr. Warren hesitatingly. 'This young
lady, if our James lets his affections loose on her--how would _that_ be,
sir?'
Merton smiled.
'Why, no great harm would be done, Mr. Warren. You need not fear any
complication: any new matrimonial difficulty. The affection would be all
on one side, and that side would not be the lady lecturer's. I happen to
know that she has a prior attachment.'
'Vaccinated!' cried Mr. Warren, letting a laugh out of him.
'Exactly,' said Merton.
Mr. Warren now gladly concurred in the plan of his adviser, after which
the interview was concerned with financial details. Merton usually left
these vague, but in Mr. Warren he saw a client who would feel more
confidence if everything was put on a strictly business footing. The
client retired in a hopeful frame of mind, and Merton went to look for
Miss Martin at her club, where she was usually to be found at the hour of
tea.
He was fortunate enough to find her, dressed by no means after the style
of her portrait in _The Young Girl_, but still very well dressed. She
offered him the refreshment of tea and toast--very good toast, Merton
thought--and he asked how her craft as a novelist was prospering. Friends
of Miss Martin were obliged to ask, for they did not read _The Young
Girl_, or the other and less domestic serials in which her works
appeared.
'I am doing very well, thank you,' said Miss Martin. 'My tale _The
Curate's Family_ has raised the circulation of _The Young Girl_; and,
mind you, it is no easy thing for a novelist to raise the circulation of
any periodical. For example, if _The Quarterly Review_ published a new
romance, even by Mr. Thomas Hardy, I doubt if the end would justify the
proceedings.'
'It would take about four years to get finished in a quarterly,' said
Merton.
'And the nonagenarians who read quarterlies,' said Miss Martin, with the
flippancy of youth, 'would go to their graves without knowing whether the
heroine found a lenient jury or not. I have six heroines in _The
Curate's Family_, and I own their love affairs tend to get a little
mixed. I have rigged up a small stage, with puppets in costume to
represent the characters, and keep them straight in my mind; but
Ethelinda, who is engaged to the photographer, as nearly as possible
eloped with the baronet last week.'
'Anything else on?' asked Merton.
'An up-to-date story, all heredity and evolution,' said Miss Martin. 'The
father has his legs bitten off by a shark, and it gets on the nerves of
his wife, the Marchioness, and two of the girls are born like mermaids.
They have immense popularity at bathing-places on the French coast, but
it is not easy for them to go into general society.'
'What nonsense!' exclaimed Merton.
'Not worse than other stuff that is highly recommended by eminent
reviewers,' said Miss Martin.
'Anything else?'
'Oh, yes; there is "The Pope's Poisoner, a Tale of the Borgias." That is
a historical romance, I got it up out of Histories of the Renaissance.
The hero (Lionardo da Vinci) is the Pope's bravo, and in love with
Lucrezia Borgia.'
'Are the dates all right?' asked Merton.
'Oh, bother the dates! Of course he is a bravo _pour le bon motif_, and
frustrates the pontifical designs.'
'I want you,' said Merton, 'you have such a fertile imagination, to take
part in a little plot of our own. Beneficent, of course, but I admit
that my fancy is baffled. Could we find a room less crowded? This is
rather private business.'
'There is never anybody in the smoking-room at the top of the house,'
said Miss Martin, 'because--to let out a secret--none of us ever smoke,
except at public dinners to give tone. But _you_ may.'
She led Merton to a sepulchral little chamber upstairs, and he told her
all the story of Mr. Warren, his son, and the daughter of the minister.
'Why don't they elope?' asked Miss Martin.
'The Nonconformist conscience is unfriendly to elopements, and the young
man has no accomplishment by which he could support his bride except the
art of making oilcloth.'
'Well, what do you want me to do?'
Merton unfolded the scheme of the lady lecturer, and prepared Miss Martin
to receive an invitation from Mr. Warren.
'Can you write a lecture on "The Use and Abuse of Novels" before Friday
week?' he asked.
'Say seven thousand words? I could do it by to-morrow morning,' said
Miss Martin.
'You know you must be very careful?'
'Style of answers to correspondents in _The Young Girl_,' said Miss
Martin. 'I know my way about.'
'Then you really will essay the adventure?'
'Like a bird,' answered the lady. 'It will be great fun. I shall pick
up copy about the habits of the middle classes in the Midlands.'
'They won't recognise you as the author of your more criminal romances?'
'How can they? I sign them "Passion Flower" and "Nightshade," and "La
Tofana," and so on.'
'You will dress as in your photograph in _The Young Girl_?'
'I will, and take a _fichu_ to wear in the evening. They always wear
_fichus_ in evening dress. But, look here, do you want a happy ending to
this romance?'
'How can it be happy if you are to be successful? Miss Jane Truman will
be miserable, and Mr. James Warren will die of remorse and a broken
heart, when you--'
'Fail to crown his flame, and Jane has too much pride to welcome back the
wanderer?'
'I'm afraid that, or something like that, will be the end of it,' said
Merton, 'and, perhaps, on reflection, we had better drop the affair.'
'But suppose I could manage a happy ending? Suppose I reconcile Mr.
Warren to the union? I am all for happy endings myself. I drink to King
Charles II., who declared that while _he_ was king all tragedies should
end happily.'
'You don't mean that you can persuade Jane to be vaccinated?'
'One never knows till one tries. You'll find that I shall make a happy
conclusion to my Borgia novel, and _that_ is not so easy. You see
Lionardo goes to the Pope's jeweller and exchanges the--'
Miss Martin paused and remained absorbed in thought.
Suddenly she danced round the room with much grace and _abandon_, while
Merton, smoking in an arm-chair that had lost a castor, gently applauded
the performance.
'You have your idea?' he asked.
'I have it. Happy ending! Hurrah!'
Miss Martin spun round like a dancing Dervish, and finally fell into
another arm-chair, overcome by the heat and the intoxication of genius.
'We owe a candle to Saint Alexander Borgia!' she said, when she recovered
her breath.
'Miss Martin,' said Merton gravely, 'this is a serious matter. You are
not going, I trust, to poison the lemons for the elder Mr. Warren's lemon
squash? He is strictly Temperance, you know.'
'Poison the lemons? With a hypodermic syringe?' asked Miss Martin. 'No;
that is good business. I have made one of my villains do _that_, but
that is not my idea. Perfectly harmless, my idea.'
'But sensational, I fear?' asked Merton.
'Some very cultured critics might think so,' the lady admitted. 'But I
am sure to succeed, and I hear the merry, merry wedding bells of the
Bulcester tabernacle ringing a peal for the happy pair.'
'Well, what is the plan?'
'That is my secret.'
'But I _must_ know. I am responsible. Tell me, or I telegraph to Mr.
Warren: "Lecturer never vaccinated; sorry for my mistake."'
'That would not be true,' said Miss Martin.
'A noble falsehood,' said Merton.
'But I assure you that if my plan fails no harm can possibly be caused or
suspected. And if it succeeds then the thing is done: either Mr. Warren
is reconciled to the marriage, or--the marriage is broken off, as he
desires.'
'By whom?'
'By the Conscientious Objectrix, if that is the feminine of Objector--by
Miss Jane Truman.'
'Why should Jane break it off if the old gentleman agrees?'
'Because Jane would be a silly girl. Mr. Merton, I will promise you one
thing. The plan shall not be tried without the approval of the lover
himself. None but he shall be concerned in the affair.'
'You won't hypnotise the girl and let him vaccinate her when she is in
the hypnotic sleep?'
'No, nor even will I give her a post-hypnotic suggestion to vaccinate
herself, or go to the doctor's and have it done when she is awake;
though,' said Miss Martin, 'that is not bad business either. I must make
a note of that. But I can't hypnotise anybody. I tried lots of girls
when I was at St. Ursula's and nothing ever came of it. Thank you for
the idea all the same. By the way, I first must sterilise the
pontifical--' She paused.
'The what?'
'That is my secret! Don't you see how safe it is? None but the lover
shall have his and her fate in his hands. _C'est a prendre ou a
laisser_.'
Merton was young and adventurous.
'You give me your word that your idea is absolutely safe and harmless? It
involves no crime?'
'None; and if you like,' said Miss Martin, 'I will bring you the highest
professional opinion,' and she mentioned an eminent name in the craft of
healing. 'He was our doctor when we were children,' said the lady, 'and
we have always been friends.'
'Well,' Merton said, 'what is good enough for Sir Josiah Wilkinson is
good enough for me. But you will bring me the document?'
'The day after to-morrow,' said Miss Martin, and with that assurance
Merton had to be content.
Sir Josiah was almost equally famous in the world as a physician and, in
a smaller but equally refined circle, as a virtuoso and collector of
objects of art. His opinions about the beneficent effects of vaccination
were known to be at the opposite pole from those of the intelligent
population of Bulcester.
On the next day but one Miss Martin again entertained Merton at her club,
and demurely presented him with three documents. These were Mr. Warren's
invitation, her reply in acceptance, and a formal signed statement by Sir
Josiah that her scheme was perfectly harmless, and commanded his admiring
approval.
'Now!' said Miss Martin.
'I own that I don't like it,' said Merton. 'Logan thinks that it is all
right, but Logan is a born conspirator. However, as you are set on it,
and as Sir Josiah's opinion carries great weight, you may go. But be
very careful. Have you written your lecture?'
'Here is the scenario,' said Miss Martin, handing a typewritten synopsis
to Merton.
'USE AND ABUSE OF NOVELS.
'All good things capable of being abused. Alcohol not one of these;
alcohol _always_ pernicious. Fiction, on the other hand, a good
thing. Antiquity of fiction. In early days couched in verse.
Civilisation prefers prose. Fiction, from the earlier ages, intended
to convey Moral Instruction. Opinion of Aristotle defended against
that of Plato. Morality in mediaeval Romance. Criticism of Mr.
Frederic Harrison. Opinion of Moliere. Yet French novels usually
immoral, and why. Remarks on Popery. To be avoided. Morality of
Richardson and of Sir Walter Scott. Impropriety re-introduced by
Charlotte Bronte. Unwillingness of Lecturer to dwell on this Topic.
The Novel is now the whole of Literature. The people have no time to
read anything else. Responsibilities of the Novelist as a Teacher.
The Novel the proper vehicle of Theological, Scientific, Social, and
Political Instruction. Mr. Hall Caine, Miss Corelli. Fallacy of
thinking that the Novel should Amuse. Abuse of the Novel as a source
of mischievous and false Opinions. Case of _The Woman Who Did_.
Sacredness of Marriage. Study of the Novel becomes an abuse if it
leads to the Neglect of the Morning and Evening Newspapers. Sir
Walter Besant on the Novel. None but the newest Novels ought to be
read. Mr. W. D. Howells on this subject. Experience of the Lecturer
as a Novelist. Gratifying letters from persons happily influenced by
the Lecturer. Anecdotes. Case of Miss A--- C---. Case of Mr. J---
R---. Unhappy Endings demoralising. Marriage the true End of the
Novel, but the beginning of the happy life. Lecturer wishes her
audience happy Endings and true Beginnings. Conclusion.'
'Will _that_ do?' asked Miss Martin anxiously.
'Yes, if you don't exceed your plan, or run into chaff.'
'I won't,' said Miss Martin. 'It is all chaff, but they won't see it.'
'I think I would drop that about Popery,' said Merton--'it may lead to
letters in the newspapers; and _do_ be awfully careful about impropriety
in novels.'
'I'll put in "Vice to be Condemned, not Described,"' said Miss Martin,
pencilling a note on the margin of her paper.
'That seems safe,' said Merton. 'But it cuts out some of our most
powerful teachers.'
'Serve them right!' said Miss Martin. 'Teachers! the arrant humbugs.'
'You will report at once on your return?' said Merton. 'I shall be on
tenter-hooks till I see you again. If I knew what you are really about,
I'd take counsel's opinion. Medical opinion does not satisfy me: I want
legal.'
'How nervous you are!' said Miss Martin. 'Counsel would be rather stuck
up, I think; it is a new kind of case,' and the lady laughed in an
irritating way. 'I'll tell you what I'll do,' she said. 'I'll telegraph
to you on the Monday morning after the lecture. If everything goes well,
I'll telegraph, "Happy ending." If anything goes wrong--but it
can't--I'll telegraph, "Unhappy ending."'
'If you do, I shall be off to Callao.
'_On no condition_
_Is Extradition_
_Allowed in Callao_!'
said Merton.
'But if there is any uncertainty--and there _may_ be,' said Miss Martin,
'I'll telegraph, "Will report."'
* * * * *
Merton passed a miserable week of suspense and perplexity of mind. Never
had he been so imprudent; he felt sure of that, and it was the only thing
of which he did feel sure. The newspapers contained bulletins of an
epidemic of smallpox at Bulcester. How would that work into the plot?
Then the high animal spirits and daring fancy of Miss Martin might carry
her into undreamed-of adventures.
'But they won't let her have even a glass of champagne,' reflected
Merton. 'One glass makes her reckless.'
It was with a trembling hand that Merton, about ten on the Monday
morning, took the telegraphic envelope of Fate.
'I can't face it,' he said to Logan. 'Read the message to me.' Merton
was unmanned!
Logan carelessly opened the envelope and read:
'_Happy ending_, _but awfully disappointed. Will call at one o'clock_.'
'Oh, thanks to all gracious Powers,' said Merton falling limply on to a
sofa. 'Ring, Logan, and order a small whisky-and-soda.'
'I won't,' said Logan. 'Horrid bad habit. Would you like me to send out
for smelling-salts? Be a man, Merton! Pull yourself together!'
'You don't know that awful girl,' said Merton, slowly recovering self-
control. 'However, as she is disappointed though the ending is happy,
her infernal plan must have been miscarried, whatever it was. It _must_
be all right, though I sha'n't be quite happy till I see her. I am no
coward, Logan' (and Merton was later to prove that he possessed coolness
and audacity in no common measure), 'but it is the awful sense of
responsibility. She is quite capable of getting us into the newspapers.'
'You funk being laughed at,' said Logan.
Merton lay on the sofa, smoking too many cigarettes, till, punctually at
one o'clock, a peal at the bell announced the arrival of Miss Martin. She
entered, radiant, smiling, and in her costume of innocence she looked
like a sylph.
'It is all right--they are engaged, with Mr. Warren's full approval,' she
exclaimed.
'Were we on the stage, I should embrace you!' exclaimed Merton
rapturously.
'We are not on the stage,' replied Miss Martin demurely. 'And _I_ have
no occasion to congratulate myself. My plot did not come off; never had
a look in. Do you want to be vaccinated? If so, shake hands,' and Miss
Martin extended her own hands ungloved.
'I do not want to be vaccinated,' said Merton.
'Then don't shake hands,' said Miss Martin.
'What on earth do you mean?' asked Merton.
'Look there!' said the lady, lifting her hand to his eyes. Merton kissed
it.
'Oh, _take care_!' shrieked Miss Martin. 'It would be awkward--on the
lips. Do you see my ring?'
Merton and Logan examined her ring. It was a beautiful _cinque cento_
jewel in white and blue enamel, with a high gold top containing a pointed
ruby.
'It's very pretty,' said Merton--'quite of the best period. But what is
the mystery?'
'It is a poison ring of the Borgias,' said Miss Martin. 'I borrowed it
from Sir Josiah Wilkinson. If it scratched you' (here she exhibited the
mechanism of the jewel), 'why, there you are!'
'Where? Poisoned?'
'No! Vaccinated!' said Miss Martin. 'It is full of the stuff they
vaccinate you with, but it is quite safe as far as the old poison goes.
Sir Josiah sterilised it, in case of accidents, before he put in the
glycerinated lymph. My own idea! He was delighted. Shall I shake hands
with the office-boy?--it might do him good--or would Kutuzoff give a
paw?'
Kutuzoff was the Russian cat.
'By no means--not for worlds,' said Merton. 'Kutuzoff is a Conscientious
Objector. But were you going to shake hands with Miss Truman with that
horrible ring? Sacred emblems enamelled on it,' said Merton, gingerly
examining the jewel.
'No; I was not going to do that,' replied Miss Martin. 'My idea was to
acquire the confidence of the lover--the younger Mr. Warren--explain to
him how the thing works, lend it to him, and then let him press his
Jane's wrist with it in some shady arbour. Then his Jane would have been
all that the heart of Mr. Warren _pere_ could desire. But it did not
come off.'
'Thank goodness!' ejaculated Merton. 'There might have been an awful
row. I don't know what the offence would have been in the eye of the
law. Vaccinating a Conscientious Objector, without consent, yet without
violence,--what would the law say to _that_?'
'We might make it _hamesucken under trust_ in Scotland,' said Logan, 'if
it was done on the premises of the young lady's domicile.'
'We have not that elegant phrase in England,' said Merton. 'Perhaps it
would have been a common assault; but, anyhow, it would have got into the
newspapers. Never again be officer of mine, Miss Martin.'
'But how did all end happily?' asked Logan.
'Why, _you_ may call it happily and so may the lovers, but _I_ call it
very disappointing,' said Miss Martin.
'Tell us all about it!' cried Logan.
'Well, I went down, simple as you see me.'
'_Simplex munditiis_!' said Merton.
'And was met at the station by young Mr. Warren. His father, with the
wisdom of a Nonconformist serpent, had sent him alone to make my
acquaintance and be fascinated. My things were put on a four-wheeler. I
was all young enthusiasm in the manner of _The Young Girl_. He was a
good-looking boy enough, though in a bowler hat, with turn-down collar.
But he was gloomy. I was curious about the public buildings, ecstatic
about the town hall, and a kind of Moeso-Gothic tabernacle (if it was not
Moeso-Gothic in style I don't know what it was) where the Rev. Mr. Truman
holds forth. But I could not waken him up, he seemed miserable. I soon
found out the reason. The placards of the local newspapers shrieked in
big type with
SPREAD OF SMALLPOX.
135 CASES.