"These abnormal people are so interesting!" she was wont to say. "These

prodigies and things! I love them! They're often quite ugly and have

rude manners--Beethoven used to eat with his fingers I believe; wasn't

it wonderful of him! Such a relief from the conventional way! When I

was quite a girl I used to adore a man in Paris who played the 'cello

divinely--a perfect marvel!--but he wouldn't comb his hair or blow his

nose properly--and it wasn't very nice!--not that it mattered much, he

was such a wonderful artist! Oh yes, I know! it wouldn't have lessened

his genius to have wiped his nose with a handkerchief instead of--!

well!--perhaps we'd better not mention it!" And she would laugh

charmingly and again murmur, "These deaf abnormal people!"

With Innocent, however, she was somewhat put off her usual line of

conduct; the girl was too graceful and easy-mannered to be called

"abnormal" or eccentric; she was perfectly modest, simple and

unaffected, and the Duchess was a trifle disappointed that she was not

ill-dressed, frowsy, frumpish and blue-spectacled.

"She's so young too!" thought her Grace, half crossly--"Almost a

child!--and not in the least 'bookish.' It seems quite absurd that such

a baby-looking creature should be actually a genius, and famous at

twenty! Simply amazing!"

And she watched the little "lion" or lioness of the evening with keen

interest and curiosity, whimsically vexed that it did not roar, snort,

or make itself as noticeable as certain other animals of the literary

habitat whom she had occasionally entertained. Just then a mirthful,

mellow voice spoke close beside her.

"Where is the new Corinne? The Sappho of the Leucadian rock of London?

Has she met her Phaon?"

"How late you are, Amadis!" and the Duchess smiled captivatingly as she

extended her hand to Jocelyn, who gallantly stooped and kissed the

perfectly fitting glove which covered it. "If you mean Miss Armitage,

she is just over there talking to two old fogies. I think they're

Cabinet ministers--they look it! She's quite the success of the

evening,--and pretty, don't you think?"

Jocelyn looked, and saw the small fair head rising like a golden flower

from sea-blue draperies; he smiled enigmatically.

"Not exactly," he answered, "But spirituelle--she has what some

painters might call an imaginative head--she could pose very well for

St. Dorothy. I can quite realise her preferring the executioner's axe

to the embraces of Theophilus."

The Duchess gave him a swift glance and touched his arm with the edge

of her fan.

"Are you going to make love to her?" she asked. "You make love to every

woman--but most women understand your sort of love-making--"

"Do they?" and his blue eyes flashed amusement. "And what do they think

of it?"

"They laugh at it!" she answered, calmly. "But that clever child would

not laugh--she would take it au grand serieux."

He passed his hand carelessly through the rough dark hair which gave

his ruggedly handsome features a singular softness and charm.

"Would she? My dear Duchess, nobody takes anything 'au grand serieux'

nowadays. We grin through every scene of life, and we don't know and

don't care whether it's comedy or tragedy we're grinning at! It doesn't

do to be serious. I never am. 'Life is real, life is earnest' was the

line of conduct practised by my French ancestors; they cut up all their

enemies with long swords, and then sat down to wild boar roasted whole

for dinner. That was real life, earnest life! We in our day don't cut

up our enemies with long swords--we cut them up in the daily press.

It's so much easier!"

"How you love to hear yourself talk!" commented the Duchess. "I let you

do it--but I know you don't mean half you say!"

"You think not? Well, I'm going to join the court of Corinne--she's not

the usual type of Corinne--I fancy she has a heart--"

"And you want to steal it if you can, of course!" and the Duchess

laughed. "Men always long for what they haven't got, and tire of what

they have!"

"True, O Queen! We are made so! Blame, not us, but the Creator of the

poor world-mannikins!"

He moved away and was soon beside Innocent, who blushed into a pretty

rose at sight of him.

"I thought you were never coming!" she said, shyly. "I'm so glad you

are here!"

He looked at her with an admiring softness in his eyes.

"May I have the first dance?" he said. "I timed myself to gain the

privilege."

She gave him her dance programme where no name was yet inscribed. He

took it and scribbled his name down several times, then handed it back

to her. Several of the younger men in the group which had gathered

about her laughed and remonstrated.

"Give somebody else a chance, Miss Armitage!"

She looked round upon them, smiling.

"But of course! Mr. Amadis de Jocelyn has not taken all?"

They laughed again.

"His name dominates your programme, anyhow!"

Her eyes shone softly.

"It is a beautiful name!" she said.

"Granted! But show a little mercy to the unbeautiful names!" said one

man near her. "My name, for instance, is Smith--can you tolerate it?"

She gave a light gesture of protest.

"You play with me!" she said--"Of course! You will find a dance, Mr.

Smith!--and I will dance it with you!"

They were all now ready for fun, and taking her programme handed it

round amongst themselves and soon filled it. When it came back to her

she looked at it, amazed.

"But I shall never dance all these!" she exclaimed.

"No, you will sit out some of them," said Jocelyn, coolly--"With me!"

The ball-room doors were just then thrown invitingly open and

entrancing strains of rhythmical music came swinging and ringing in

sweet cadence on the ears. He passed his arm round her waist.

"We'll begin the revelry!" he said, and in another moment she felt

herself floating deliciously, as it were, in his arms--her little feet

flying over the polished floor, his hand warmly clasping her slim soft

body--and her heart fluttered wildly like the beating wings of a snared

bird as she fell into the mystic web woven by the strange and pitiless

loom of destiny. The threads were already tangling about her--but she

made no effort to escape. She was happy in her dream; she imagined that

her Ideal had been found in the Real.

CHAPTER IV

The first waltz over, Jocelyn led his partner out of the ball-room.

"Come into the garden," he said. "It's quite a real garden for

London--and I know every inch of it. We'll find a quiet corner and sit

down and rest."

She answered nothing--she was flushed, and breathing quickly from the

excitement of the dance, and he paused on his way to pick up a light

wrap he found on one of the sofas, and put it round her shoulders.

"You mustn't catch a chill," he went on. "But it's not a cold night--in

fact it's very close and sultry--almost like thunder. A little air will

be good for us."

They went together, pacing along slowly--she meanwhile thinking of her

previous walk in that same garden!--what would he, Amadis de Jocelyn,

say of it and of her "mother" if he knew! He looked at her sideways now

and then, curiously moved by mingled pity, admiration and desire,--the

cruelty latent in every man made him long to awaken the first spark of

passion in that maidenly soul,--and with the full consciousness of a

powerful personality, he was perfectly aware that he could do so if he

chose. But he waited, playing with the fire of his own inclinations,

and talking lightly and charmingly of things which he knew would

interest her sufficiently to make her, in her turn, talk to him

naturally and candidly, thereby displaying more or less of her

disposition and temperament. With every word she spoke he found her

more and more fascinating--she had a quaint directness of speech which

was extremely refreshing after the half-veiled subtleties conveyed in

the often dubious conversation of the women he was accustomed to meet

in society--while there was no doubt she was endowed with extraordinary

intellectual grasp and capacity. Her knowledge of things artistic and

literary might, perhaps, have been termed archaic, but it was based

upon the principles which are good and true for all time--and as she

told him quite simply and unaffectedly of her studies by herself among

the old books which had belonged to the "Sieur Amadis" of Briar Farm,

he was both touched and interested.

"So you made quite a friend of the Sieur Amadis!" he said. "He was your

teacher and guide! I'm jealous of him!"

She laughed softly. "He was a spirit," she said--"You are a man."

"Well, his spirit has had a good innings with you!" and, taking her

hand, he drew it within his arm--"I bear his name, and it's time I came

in somewhere!"

She laughed again, a trifle nervously.

"You think so? But you do come in! You are here with me now!"

He bent his eyes upon her with an ardour he did not attempt to conceal,

and her heart leaped within her--a warmth like fire ran swiftly through

her veins. He heard her sigh,--he saw her tremble beneath his gaze.

There was an elf-like fascination about her child-like face and figure

as she moved glidingly beside him--a "belle dame sans merci" charm

which roused the strongly amorous side of his nature. He quickened his

steps a little as he led her down a sloping path, shut in on either

side by tall trees, where there was a seat placed invitingly in the

deepest shadow and where the dim uplifted moon cast but the faintest

glimmer, just sufficiently to make the darkness visible.

"Shall we stay here a little while?" he said, in a low tone.

She made no reply. Something vaguely sweet and irresistible overpowered

her,--she was barely conscious of herself, or of anything, save that

"Amadis de Jocelyn" was beside her. She had lived so long in her dream

of the old French knight, whose written thoughts and confessions had

influenced her imagination and swayed her mind since childhood, that

she could not detach herself from the idealistic conception she had

formed of his character,--and to her the sixteenth-century "Amadis" had

become embodied in this modern man of brilliant but erratic genius,

who, if the truth were told, had nothing idealistic about him but his

art, which in itself was more the outcome of emotionalism than

conviction. He drew her gently down beside him, feeling her quiver like

a leaf touched by the wind, and his own heart began to beat with a

pleasurable thrill. The silence around them seemed waiting for speech,

but none came. It was one of those tense moments on which sometimes

hangs the happiness or the misery of a lifetime--a stray thread from

the web of Chance, which may be woven into a smooth pattern or knotted

into a cruel tangle,--a freakish circumstance in which the human beings

most concerned are helplessly involved without any conscious

premonition of impending fate. Suddenly, yielding to a passionate

impulse, he caught her close in his arms and kissed her.

"Forgive me!" he whispered--"I could not help it!"

She put him gently back from her with two little hands that caressed

rather than repulsed him, and gazed at him with startled, tender eyes

in which a new and wonderful radiance shone,--while he in

self-confident audacity still held her in his embrace.

"You are not angry?" he went on, in quick, soft accents. "No! Why

should you be? Why should not love come to you as to other women! Don't

analyse!--don't speak! There is nothing to be said--we know all!"

Silently she clung to him, yielding more and more to the sensation of

exquisite joy that poured through her whole being like sunlight--her

heart beat with new and keener life,--the warm kindling blood burned

her cheeks like the breath of a hot wind--and her whole soul rose to

meet and greet what she in her poor credulousness welcomed as the crown

and glory of existence--love! Love was hers, she thought--at last!--she

knew the great secret,--the long delight that death itself could not

destroy,--her ideal of romance was realised, and Amadis de Jocelyn, the

brave, the true, the chivalrous, the strong, was her very own!

Enchanted with the ease of his conquest, he played with her pretty hair

as with a bird's wing, and held her against his heart, sensuously

gratified to feel her soft breast heaving with its pent-up emotion, and

to hear her murmured words of love confessed.

"How I have wished and prayed that you might love me!" she said,

raising her dewy eyes to his in the darkness. "Is it good when God

grants one's prayers? I am almost afraid! My Amadis! It is a dream come

true!"

He was amused at her fidelity to the romance which surrounded his name.

"Dear child, I am not a 'knight of old'--don't think it!" he said. "You

mustn't run away with that idea and make me a kind of sixteenth-century

sentimentalist. I couldn't live up to it!"

"You are more than a knight of old," she answered, proudly--"You are a

great genius!"

He was embarrassed by her simple praise.

"No," he answered--"Not even that--sweet soul as you are!--not even

that! You think I am--but you do not know. You are a clever,

imaginative little girl--and I love to hear you praise me--but--"

Her lips touched his shyly and sweetly.

"No 'buts!'" she said,--"I shall always stop your mouth if you put a

'but' against any work you do!"

"In that way?" he asked, smiling.

"Yes! In that way."

"Then I shall put a 'but' to everything!" he declared.

They laughed together like children.

"Where is Miss Leigh all this while?" he queried.

She started, awaking suddenly to conventions and commonplaces.

"Poor little godmother! She must be wondering where I am! But I did not

leave her,--she left me when the Duke took charge of me--I lost sight

of her then."

"Well, we must go and find her now"--and Jocelyn again folded his arms

closely round the dainty, elf-like figure in its moonlight-blue

draperies. "Innocent, look at me!"

She lifted her eyes, and as she met his, glowing with the fervent fire

of a new passion, her cheeks grew hot and she was thankful for the

darkness. His lips closed on hers in a long kiss.

"This is our secret!" he said--"You must not speak of it to anyone."

"How could I speak of it?" she asked, wonderingly.

He let her go from his embrace, and taking her hand began to walk

slowly with her towards the house.

"You might do so," he continued--"And it would not be wise!--neither

for you in your career, nor for me in mine. You are famous,--your name

is being talked of everywhere--you must be very careful. No one must

know we are lovers."

She thrilled at the word "lovers," and her hand trembled in his.

"No one shall know," she said.

"Not even Miss Leigh," he insisted.

"If I say 'no one' of course I mean 'no one,'" she answered,

gently--"not even Miss Leigh."

He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it, relieved by this

assurance. He wanted his little "amour" to go on without suspicion or

interference, and he felt instinctively that if this girl made any sort

of a promise she would fulfil it.

"You can keep a secret then?" he said, playfully--"Unlike most women!"

She looked up at him, smiling.

"Do men keep secrets better?" she asked. "I think not! Will you, for

instance, keep mine?"

"Yours?" And for a moment he was puzzled, being a man who thought

chiefly of himself and his own pleasure for the moment. "What is your

secret?"

She laughed. "Oh, 'Sieur Amadis'! You pretend not to know! Is it not

the same as yours? You must not tell anybody that I--I--"

He understood-and pressed hard the little hand he held.

"That you--well? Go on! I must not tell anybody--what?"

"That I love you!" she said, in a tone so grave and sweet and

angelically tender, that for a second he was smitten with a sudden

sense of shame.

Was it right to steal all this unspoilt treasure of love from a heart

so warm and susceptible? Was it fair to enter such an ivory castle of

dreams and break open all the "magic casements opening on the foam, Of

perilous seas in fairy lands forlorn"? He was silent, having no

response to give to the simple ardour of her utterance. What he felt

for her was what all men feel for each woman who in turn attracts their

wandering fancies--the desire of conquest and possession. He was moved

to this desire by the irritating fact that this girl had startled an

apathetic public on both sides of the Atlantic by the display of her

genius in the short space of two years--whereas he had been more than

fifteen years intermittently at work without securing any such fame. To

throw the lasso of Love round the flying Pegasus on which she rode so

lightly and securely, would be an excitement and amusement which he was

not inclined to forgo--a triumph worth attaining. But love such as she

imagined love to be, was not in his nature--he conceived of it merely

as a powerful physical attraction which exerted its influence between

two persons of opposite sexes and lasted for a certain time--then waned

and wore off--and he recognised marriage as a legal device to safeguard

a woman when the inevitable indifference and coldness of her mate set

in, making him no longer a lover, but a household companion of habit

and circumstance, lawfully bound to pay for the education of children

and the necessary expenses of living. In his inmost consciousness he

knew very well that Innocent was not of the ordinary feminine

mould--she had visions of the high and unattainable, and her ideals of

life were of that pure and transcendental quality which belongs to

finer elements unseen. The carnal mind can never comprehend

spirituality,--nevertheless, Jocelyn was a man cultured and clever

enough to feel that though he himself could not enter, and did not even

care to enter the uplifted spheres of thought, this strange child with

a gift of the gods in her brain, already dwelt in them, serenely

unconscious of any lower plane. And she loved him!--and he would, on

that ground of love, teach her many things she had never known--he

would widen her outlook,--warm her senses--increase her

perceptions--train her like a wild rose on the iron trellis of his

experience--while thus to instruct an unworldly soul in worldliness

would be for him an interesting and pleasurable pastime.

"And I can make her happy"--was his additional thought--"in the only

way a woman is ever happy--for a little while!"

All this ran through his mind as he held her hand a moment longer, till

the convincing music of the band and the brilliant lights of the house

warned them to break away from each other.

"We had better go straight to the ball-room and dance in," he said. "No

one will have missed us long. We've only been absent about a quarter of

an hour."

"So much in such a little time!" she said, softly.

He smiled, answering the adoring look of her eyes with his own amorous

glance, and in another few seconds they were part of the brilliant

whirl of dancers now crowding the ball-room and swinging round in a

blaze of colour and beauty to the somewhat hackneyed strains of the

"Fruhlings Reigen." And as they floated and flew, the delight of their

attractiveness to each other drew them closer together till the sense

of separateness seemed lost and whelmed in a magnetic force of mutual

comprehension.

When this waltz was finished she was claimed by many more partners, and

danced till she was weary,--then, between two "extras," she went in

search of Miss Leigh, whom she found sitting patiently in one of the

great drawing-rooms, looking somewhat pale and tired.

"Oh, my godmother!" she exclaimed, running up to her. "I had forgotten

how late it is getting!"

Miss Lavinia smiled cheerfully.

"Never mind, child!" she said. "You are young and ought to enjoy

yourself. I am old, and hardly fit for these late assemblies--and how

very late they are too! When I was a girl we never stayed beyond

midnight--"

"And is it midnight now?" asked Innocent, amazed, turning to her

partner, a young scion of the aristocracy, who looked as if he had not

been to bed for a week.

He smiled simperingly, and glanced at his watch.

"It's nearly two o'clock," he said. "In fact it's tomorrow morning!"

Just then Jocelyn came up.

"Are you going?" he inquired. "Well, perhaps it's time! May I see you

to your carriage?"

Miss Leigh gratefully accepted this suggestion--and Innocent, smiling

her "good-night" to partners whom she had disappointed, walked with her

through the long vista of rooms, Jocelyn leading the way. They soon ran

the gauntlet of the ladies' cloak-room and the waiting mob of footmen

and chauffeurs that lined the long passage leading to the

entrance-hall, and Jocelyn, going out into the street succeeded in

finding their modest little hired motor-brougham and assisting them

into it.

"Good-night, Miss Leigh!" he said, leaning on the door of the vehicle

and smiling at them through the open window--"Good-night, Miss

Armitage! I hope you are not very tired?"

"I am not tired at all!" she answered, with a thrill of joy in her

voice like the note of a sweet bird. "I have been so very happy!"

He smiled. His face was pale and looked unusually handsome,--she

stretched one little hand out to him.

"Good-night, 'Sieur Amadis!'"

He bent down and kissed it.

"Good-night!"

The motor began to move--another moment, and they were off. Innocent

sank back in the brougham with a sigh.

"You are tired, child!--you must be!" said Miss Leigh.

"No, godmother mine! That sigh was one of pleasure. It has been a most

wonderful evening!--wonderful!"

"It was certainly very brilliant," agreed Miss Leigh. "And I'm glad you

were made so much of, my dear! That was as it ought to be. Lord Blythe

told me he had seldom met so charming a girl!"

Innocent sat up suddenly. "Lord Blythe? Do you know him?"

"No, I cannot say I really know him," replied Miss Leigh. "I've met him

several times--and his wife too--there was some scandal about her years

and years ago before she was married--nobody ever knew exactly what it

was, and her people hushed it up. I daresay it wasn't very much. Anyhow

Lord Blythe married her--and he's a very fine man with a great

position. I thought I saw you talking to Lady Blythe?"

"Yes"--Innocent spoke almost mechanically--"I had a few minutes'

conversation with her."

"She's very handsome," went on Miss Leigh. "She used to be quite

beautiful. A pity she has no children."

Innocent was silent. The motor-brougham glided along.

"You and Mr. Jocelyn seem to get on very well together," observed the

old lady, presently. "He is a very 'taking' man--but I wonder if he is

quite sincere?"

Innocent's colour rose,--fortunately the interior of the brougham was

too dark for her face to be seen.

"Why should he not be?" she asked--"Surely with his great art, he would

be more sincere than most men?"

"Well, I hope so!" and Miss Leigh's voice was a little tremulous; "But

artists are very impressionable, and live so much in a world of their

own that I sometimes doubt whether they have much understanding or

sympathy with the world of other people! Even Pierce Armitage--who was

very dear to me--ran away with impressions like a child with toys. He

would adore a person one day--and hate him, or her, the next!"--and she

laughed softly and compassionately--"He would indeed, poor fellow! He

was rather like Shelley in his likes and dislikes--you've read all

about your Shelley of course?"

"Indeed I have!" the girl answered,--"A glorious poet!--but he must

have been difficult to live with!"

"Difficult, if not impossible!"--and the gentle old lady took her hand

and held it in a kind, motherly clasp--"You are a genius yourself--but

you are a human little creature, not above the sweet and simple ways of

life,--some of the poets and artists were and are in-human! Now Mr.

Jocelyn--"

"HE is human!" said Innocent, quickly--"I'm sure of that!"

"You are sure? Well, dear, you like him very much and you have made a

friend of him,--which is quite natural considering the long association

you have had with his name--such a curious and romantic

coincidence!--but I hope he won't disappoint you."

Innocent laughed, happily.

"Don't be afraid, you dear little godmother!" she said--"I don't expect

anything of him, so no disappointment is possible! Here we are!"

The brougham stopped and they alighted. Opening the house-door with a

latch-key they entered, and pausing one moment in the drawing-room,

where the lights had been left burning for their return, Miss Leigh

took Innocent tenderly by the arm and pointed to the portrait on the

harpsichord.

"There was a true genius!" she said--"He might have been the greatest

artist in England to-day if he had not let his impressions and

prejudices overmaster his judgment. You know--for I have told you my

story--that he loved me, or thought he did--and I loved him and knew I

did! There was the difference between us! He tired of me--all artists

tire of the one face--they want dozens!--and he lost his head over some

woman whose name I never knew. The result must have been fatal to his

career, for it stopped short just when he was succeeding;--for me, it

only left me resolved to be true to his memory till the end. But, my

child, it's a hard lot to be alone all one's days, with only the

remembrance of a past love to keep one's heart from growing cold!"

There was a little sob in her voice,--Innocent, touched to the quick,

kissed her tenderly.

"Why do you talk like this so sadly to-night?" she asked--"Has

something reminded you of--of HIM?" And she glanced half nervously

towards the portrait.

"Yes," answered the old lady, simply--"Something has reminded me--very

much--of him! Good-night, dear little child! Keep your beautiful dreams

and ideals as long as you can! Sleep well!"

She turned off the lights, and they went upstairs together to their

several rooms.

Once alone, Innocent flung off her dainty ball attire,--released her

bright hair from the pins that held it bound in rippling waves about

her shapely head, and slipping on a loose white wrapper sat down to

think. She had to realise the unpleasing fact that against her own wish

and will she had become involved in mysteries,--secrets which she dared

not, for the sake of others, betray. Her parentage could not be

divulged, because her father was Pierce Armitage, the worshipped memory

of Miss Leigh's heart,--while her mother, Lady Blythe, occupied a high

social position which must not be assailed. And now--now, Amadis de

Jocelyn was her lover!--yet no one must know, because he did not wish

it. For some cause or other which she could not determine, he insisted

on secrecy. So she was meshed in nets of others' weaving, and could not

take a step to disentangle herself and stand clear. Of her own accord

she would have been frank and open as the daylight,--but from the

first, a forward fate appeared to have taken delight in surrounding her

with deceptions enforced by the sins of others. Her face burned as she

thought of Jocelyn's passionate kisses--she must hide all that joy!--it

had already become almost a guilty secret. He was the first man that

had ever kissed her since her "Dad" died,--the first that had ever

kissed her as a lover. Her mind flew suddenly and capriciously back to

Briar Farm--to Robin Clifford who had longed to kiss her, and yet had

refused to do so unless she could have loved him. She had never loved

him--no!--and yet the thought of him just now gave her a thrill of

remorseful tenderness. She knew in herself at last what love could

mean,--and with that knowledge she realised what Robin must have

suffered.

"To love without return--without hope!" she mused--"Oh, it would be

torture!--to me, death! Poor Robin!"

Poor Robin, indeed! He would not have dared to caress her with the wild

and tender audacity of Amadis de Jocelyn!

"My love!" she whispered to the silence.--"My love!" she repeated, as

she knelt down to say her prayers, sending the adored and idealised

name up on vibrations of light to the throne of the Most High,--and "My

love!" were the last words she murmured as she nestled into her little

bed, her fair head on its white pillow looking like the head of one of

Botticelli's angels. Her own success,--her celebrity as a genius in

literature,--her dreams of fame--these now were all as naught!--less

than the clouds of a night or the mists of a morning--there was nothing

for her in earth or heaven save "My love!"

CHAPTER V

Lord Blythe was sitting alone in his library. He was accustomed to sit

alone, and rather liked it. It was the evening after that of the

Duchess of Deanshire's reception; his wife had gone to another similar

"crush," but had graciously excused his attendance, for which he was

honestly grateful. He was old enough, at sixty-eight, to appreciate the

luxury of peace and quietness,--he had put on an old lounge coat and an

easy pair of slippers, and was thoroughly enjoying himself in a

comfortable arm-chair with a book and a cigar. The book was by "Ena

Armitage"--the cigar, one of a choice brand known chiefly to fastidious

connoisseurs of tobacco. The book, however, was a powerful rival to the

charm of the fragrant Havana--for every now and again he allowed the

cigar to die out and had to re-light it, owing to his fascinated

absorption in the volume he held. He was an exceedingly clever

man--deeply versed in literature and languages, and in his younger days

had been a great student,--he had read nearly every book of note, and

was as familiar with the greatest authors as with his greatest friends,

so that he was well fitted to judge without prejudice the merits of any

new aspirant to literary fame. But he was wholly unprepared for the

power and the daring genius which stamped itself on every page of the

new writer's work,--he almost forgot, while reading, whether it was man

or woman who had given such a production to the world, so impressed was

he by the masterly treatment of a simple subject made beautiful by a

scholarly and incisive style. It was literature of the highest

kind,--and realising this with every sentence he perused, it was with a

shock of surprise that he remembered the personality of the author--the

unobtrusive girl who had been the "show animal" at Her Grace of

Deanshire's reception and dance.

"Positively, I can scarcely believe it!" he exclaimed sotto-voce--"That

child I met last night actually wrote this amazing piece of work! It's

almost incredible! A nice child too,--simple and perfectly

natural,--nothing of the blue-stocking about her. Well, well! What a

career she'll make!--what a name!--that is, if she takes care of

herself and doesn't fall in love, which she's sure to do! That's the

worst of women--God occasionally gives them brains, but they've

scarcely begun to use them when heart and sentiment step in and

overthrow all reason. Now, we men--"

He paused,--thinking. There had been a time in his life--long ago, when

he was very young--when heart and sentiment had very nearly overthrown

reason in his own case--and sometimes he was inclined to regret that

such overthrow had been averted.

"For the moment it is perhaps worth everything else!" he

mused--"But--for the moment only! The ecstasy does not last."

His cigar had gone out again, and he re-lit it. The clock on the

mantelpiece struck twelve with a silvery clang, and almost at the same

instant he heard the rustle of a silk gown and a light footstep,--the

door opened, and his wife appeared.

"Are you busy?" she enquired--"May I come in?"

He rose, with the stately old-fashioned courtesy habitual to him.

"By all means come in!" he said--"You have returned early?"

"Yes." She loosened her rich evening cloak, lined with ermine, and let

it fall on the back of the chair in which she seated herself--"It was a

boresome affair,--there were recitations and music which I hate--so I

came away. You are reading?"

"Not now"--and he closed the volume on the table beside him--"But I

HAVE been reading--that amazing book by the young girl we met at the

Deanshires' last night--Ena Armitage. It's really a fine piece of work."

She was silent.

"You didn't take to her, I'm afraid?" he went on--"Yet she seemed a

charming, modest little person. Perhaps she was not quite what you

expected?"

Lady Blythe gave a sudden harsh laugh.

"You are right! She certainly was not what I expected! Is the door well

shut?"

Surprised at her look and manner, he went to see.

"The door is quite closed," he said, rather stiffly. "One would think

we were talking secrets--and we never do!"

"No!" she rejoined, looking at him curiously--"We never do. We are

model husband and wife, having nothing to conceal!"

He took up his cigar which he had laid down for a minute, and with

careful minuteness flicked off the ash.

"You have something to tell me," he remarked, quietly--"Pray go on, and

don't let me interrupt you. Do you object to my smoking?"

"Not in the least."

He stood with his back to the fireplace, a tall, stately figure of a

man, and looked at her expectantly,--she meanwhile reclined in a

cushioned chair with the folds of her ermine falling about her, like a

queen of languorous luxury.

"I suppose," she began--"hardly anything in the social life of our day

would very much surprise or shock you--?"

"Very little, certainly!" he answered, smiling coldly--"I have lived a

long time, and am not easily surprised!"

"Not even if it concerned some one you know?"

His fine open brow knitted itself in a momentary line of puzzled

consideration.

"Some one I know?" he repeated--"Well, I should certainly be very sorry

to hear anything of a scandalous nature connected with the girl we saw

last night--she looked too young and too innocent--"

"Innocent--oh yes!" and Lady Blythe again laughed that harsh laugh of

suppressed hysterical excitement--"She is innocent enough!"

"Pardon! I thought you were about to speak of her, as you said she was

not what you expected--"

He paused,--startled by the haggard and desperate expression of her

face.

"Richard," she said--"You are a good man, and you hold very strong

opinions about truth and honour and all that sort of thing. I don't

believe you could ever understand badness--real, downright

badness--could you?"

"Badness? ... in that child?" he exclaimed.

She gave an impatient, angry gesture.

"Dear me, you are perfectly obsessed by 'that child,' as you call her!"

she answered--"You had better know the truth then at once,--'that

child' is my daughter!"

"Your daughter?--your--your--"

The words died on his lips--he staggered slightly as though under a

sudden physical blow, and gripped the mantelpiece behind him with one

hand.

"Good God!" he half whispered--"What do you mean?--you have had no

children--"

"Not by you,--no!" she said, with a flash of scorn--"Not in marriage,

that church-and-law form of union!--but by love and passion--yes!

Stop!--do not look at me like that! I have not been false to you--I

have not betrayed you! Your honour has been safe with me! It was before

I met you that this thing happened."

He stood rigid and very pale.

"Before you met me?"

"Yes. I was a silly, romantic, headstrong girl,--my parents were

compelled to go abroad, and I was left in the charge of one of my

mother's society friends--a thoroughly worldly, unprincipled woman

whose life was made up of intrigue and gambling. And I ran away with a

man--Pierce Armitage--"

"Pierce Armitage!"

The name broke from him like a cry of agony.

"Yes--Pierce Armitage. Did you know him?"

He looked at her with eyes in which there was a strange horror.

"Know him? He was my best friend!"

She shrugged her shoulders, and a slight weary smile parted her lips.

"Well, you never told me,--I have never heard you mention his name. But

the world is a small place!--and when I was a girl he was beginning to

be known by a good many people. Anyhow, he threw up everything in the

way of his art and work, and ran away with me. I went quite

willingly--I took a maid whom we bribed,--we pretended we were married,

and we had a charming time together--a time of real romance, till he

began to get tired and want change--all men are like that! Then he

became a bore with a bad temper. He certainly behaved very well when he

knew the child was coming, and offered to marry me in real earnest--but

I refused."

"You refused!" Lord Blythe echoed the words in a kind of stupefied

wonderment.

"Of course I did. He was quite poor--and I should have been miserable

running about the world with a man who depended on art for a living.

Besides he was ceasing to be a lover--and as a husband he would have

been insupportable. We managed everything very well--my own people were

all in India--and my mother's friend, if she guessed my affair, said

nothing about it,--wisely enough for her own sake!--so that when my

time came I was able to go away on an easy pretext and get it all over

secretly. Pierce came and stayed in a hotel close at hand--he was

rather in a fright lest I should die!--it would have been such an

awkward business for him!--however, all went well, and when I had quite

recovered he took the child away from me, and left it at an old

farmhouse he had once made a drawing of, saying he would call back for

it--as if it were a parcel!" She laughed lightly. "He wrote and told me

what he had done and gave me the address of the farm--then he went

abroad, and I never heard of him again--"

"He died," interposed Lord Blythe, slowly--"He died--alone and very

poor--"

"So I was told," she rejoined, indifferently--"Oh yes! I see you look

at me as if you thought I had no heart! Perhaps I have not,--I used to

have something like one,--your friend Armitage killed it in me. Anyhow,

I knew the child had been adopted by the farm people as their own, and

I took no further trouble. My parents came home from India to inherit

an unexpected fortune, and they took me about with them a great

deal--they were never told of my romantic escapade!--then I met

you--and you married me."

A sigh broke from him, but he said nothing.

"You are sorry you did, I suppose!" she went on in a quick, reckless

way--"Anyhow, I tried to do my duty. When I heard by chance that the

old farmer who had taken care of the child was dead, I made up my mind

to go and see what she was like. I found her, and offered to adopt

her--but she wouldn't hear of it--so I let her be."

Lord Blythe moved a little from his statuesque attitude of attention.

"You told her you were her mother?"

"I did."

"And offered to 'adopt' your own child?" She gave an airy gesture.

"It was the only thing to do! One cannot make a social scandal."

"And she refused?"

"She refused."

"I admire her for it," said Lord Blythe, calmly.

She shot an angry glance at him. He went on in cold, deliberate accents.

"You were unprepared for the strange compensation you have

received?--the sudden fame of your deserted daughter?"

Her hands clasped and unclasped themselves nervously.

"I knew nothing of it! Armitage is not an uncommon name, and I did not

connect it with her. She has no right to wear it."

"If her father were alive he would be proud that she wears

it!--moreover he would give her the right to wear it, and would make it

legal," said Lord Blythe sternly--"Out of old memory I can say that for

him! You recognised each other at once, I suppose, when I presented her

to you at the Duchess's reception?"

"Of course we did!" retorted his wife--"You yourself saw that I was

rather taken aback,--it was difficult to conceal our mutual

astonishment--"

"It must have been!" and a thin ironic smile hovered on his lips--"And

you carried it off well! But--the poor child!--what an ordeal for her!

You can hardly have felt it so keenly, being seasoned to hypocrisy for

so many years!" Her eyes flashed up at him indignantly. He raised his

hand with a warning gesture.

"Permit me to speak, Maude! You can scarcely wonder that I am--well!--a

little shaken and bewildered by the confession you have made,--the

secret you have--after years of marriage--suddenly divulged. You

suggested--at the beginning of this interview--that perhaps there was

nothing in the social life of our day that would very much shock or

surprise me--and I answered you that I was not easily surprised--but--I

was thinking of others.--it did not occur to me that--that my own

wife--" he paused, steadying his voice,--then continued--"that my own

wife's honour was involved in the matter--" he paused again. "Sentiment

is of course out of place--nobody is supposed to feel anything

nowadays--or to suffer--or to break one's heart, as the phrase

goes,--that would be considered abnormal, or bad form,--but I had the

idea--a foolish one, no doubt!--that though you may not have married me

for love on your own part, you did so because you recognised the

love,--the truth--the admiration and respect--on mine. I was at any

rate happy in believing you did!--I never dreamed you married me for

the sake of convenience!--to kill the memory of a scandal, and

establish a safe position--"

She moved restlessly and gathered her ermine cloak about her as though

to rise and go.

"One moment!" he went on--"After what you have told me I hope you see

clearly that it is impossible we can live together under the same roof

again. If YOU could endure it, _I_ could not!"

She sprang up, pale and excited.

"What? You mean to make trouble? I, who have kept my own counsel all

these years, am to be disgraced because I have at last confided in you?

You will scandalise society--you will separate from me--"

She stopped, half choked by a rising paroxysm of rage.

He looked at her as he might have looked at some small angry animal.

"I shall make no trouble," he answered, quietly--"and I shall not

scandalise society. But I cannot live with you. I will go away at once

on some convenient excuse--abroad--anywhere--and you can say whatever

you please of my prolonged absence. If I could be of any use or

protection to the girl I saw last night--the daughter of my friend

Pierce Armitage--I would stay, but circumstances render any such

service from me impossible. Besides, she needs no one to assist

her--she has made a position for herself--a position more enviable than

yours or mine. You have that to think about by way of--consolation?--or

reproach?"

She stood drawn up to her full height, looking at him.

"You cannot forgive me, then?" she said.

He shuddered.

"Forgive you! Is there a man who could forgive twenty years of

deliberate deception from the wife he thought the soul of honour?

Maude, Maude! We live in lax times truly, when men and women laugh at

principle and good faith, and deal with each other less honestly than

the beasts of the field,--but for me there is a limit!--a limit you

have passed! I think I could pardon your wrong to me more readily than

I can pardon your callous desertion of the child you brought into the

world--your lack of womanliness--motherliness!--your deliberate refusal

to give Pierce Armitage the chance of righting the wrong he had

committed in a headstrong, heart-strong rush of thoughtless

passion!--he WOULD have righted it, I know, and been a loyal husband to

you, and a good father to his child. For whatever his faults were he

was neither callous nor brutal. You prevented him from doing this,--you

were tired of him--your so-called 'love' for him was a mere selfish

caprice of the moment--and you preferred deceit and a rich marriage to

the simple duty of a woman! Well!--you may find excuses for

yourself,--I cannot find them for you! I could not remain by your side

as a husband and run the risk of coming constantly in contact, as we

did last night, with that innocent girl, placed as she is, in a

situation of so much difficulty, by the sins of her parents--her

mother, my wife!--her father, my dead friend! The position is, and

would be untenable!"

Still she stood, looking at him.

"Have you done?" she asked.

He met her fixed gaze, coldly.

"I have. I have said all I wish to say. So far as I am concerned the

incident is closed. I will only bid you good-night--and farewell!"

"Good-night--and farewell!" she repeated, with a mocking drawl,--then

she suddenly burst into a fit of shrill laughter. "Oh dear, oh dear!"

she cried, between little screams of hysterical mirth--"You are so very

funny, you know! Like--what's-his-name?--Marius in the ruins of

Carthage!--or one of those antique classical bores with their household

gods broken around them! You--you ought to have lived in their

days!--you are so terribly behind the times!" She laughed recklessly

again. "We don't do the Marius and Carthage business now--life's too

full and too short! Really, Richard, I'm afraid you're getting very

old!--poor dear!--past sixty I know!--and you're quite prehistoric in

some of your fancies!--'Good-night!'--er--'and farewell!' Sounds so

stagey, doesn't it!" She wiped the spasmodic tears of mirth from her

eyes, and still shaking with laughter gathered up her rich ermine wrap

on one white, jewelled arm. "Womanliness--motherliness!--good Lord,

deliver us!--I never thought you likely to preach at me--if I had I

wouldn't have told you anything! I took you for a sensible man of the

world--but you are only a stupid old-fashioned thing after all!

Good-night!--and farewell!"

She performed the taunting travesty of an elaborate Court curtsey and

passed him--a handsome, gleaming vision of satins, laces and glittering

jewels--and opening the door with some noise and emphasis, she turned

her head gracefully over her shoulder. Unkind laughter still lit up her

face and hard, brilliant eyes.

"Good-night!--farewell!" she said again, and was gone.

For a moment he stood inert where she left him--then sinking into a

chair he covered his face with his hands. So he remained for some

time--silently wrestling with himself and his own emotions. He had to

realise that at an age when he might naturally have looked for a

tranquil home life--a life tended and soothed into its natural decline

by the care and devotion of the wife he had undemonstratively but most

tenderly loved, he was suddenly cast adrift like the hulk of an old

battleship broken from its moorings, with nothing but solitude and

darkness closing in upon his latter days. Then he thought of the

girl,--his wife's child--the child too of his college chum and dearest

friend,--he saw, impressed like a picture on the cells of his brain,

her fair young face, pathetic eyes and sweet intelligence of

expression,--he remembered how modestly she wore her sudden fame, as a

child might wear a wild flower,--and, placed by her parentage in a

difficulty for which she was not responsible, she must have suffered

considerable pain and sorrow.

"I will go and see her to-morrow," he said to himself--"It will be

better for her to know that I have heard all her sad little

history--then--if she ever wants a friend she can come to me without

fear. Ah!--if only she were MY daughter!"

He sighed,--his handsome old head drooped,--he had longed for children

and the boon had been denied.

"If she were my daughter," he repeated, slowly--"I should be a proud

man instead of a sorrowful one!"

He turned off the lights in the library and went upstairs to his

bedroom. Outside his wife's door he paused a moment, thinking he heard

a sound,--but all was silent. Imagining that he probably would not

sleep he placed a book near his bedside--but nature was kind to his age

and temperament, and after about an hour of wakefulness and sad

perplexity, all ruffling care was gradually smoothed away from his

mind, and he fell into a deep and dreamless slumber.

Meanwhile Lady Blythe had been disrobed by a drowsy maid whom she

sharply reproached for being sleepy when she ought to have been wide

awake, though it was long past midnight,--and dismissing the girl at

last, she sat alone before her mirror, thinking with some pettishness

of the interview she had just had with her husband.

"Old fool!" she soliloquised--"He ought to know better than to play the

tragic-sentimental with me at his time of life! I thought he would

accept the situation reasonably and help me to tackle it. Of course it

will be simply abominable if I am to meet that girl at every big

society function--I don't know what I shall do about it! Why didn't she

stay in her old farm-house!--who could ever have imagined her becoming

famous! I shall go abroad, I think--that will be the best thing to do.

If Blythe leaves me as he threatens, I shall certainly not stay here by

myself to face the music! Besides, who knows?--the girl herself may

'round' on me when her head gets a little more swelled with success.

Such a horrid bore!--I wish I had never seen Pierce Armitage!"

Even as she thought of him the vision came back to her of the handsome

face and passionate eyes of her former lover,--again she saw the

romantic little village by the sea where they had dwelt together as in

another Eden,--she remembered how he would hurry up from the shore

bringing with him the sketch he had been working at, eager for her eyes

to look at it, thrilling at her praise, and pouring out upon her such

tender words and caresses such as she had never known since those wild

and ardent days! A slight shiver ran through her--something like a pang

of remorse stung her hardened spirit.

"And the child," she murmured--"The child--it clung to me and I kissed

it!--it was a dear little thing!"

She glanced about her nervously--the room seemed full of wandering

shadows.

"I must sleep!" she thought--"I am worried and out of sorts--I must

sleep and forget--"

She took out of a drawer in her dressing-table a case of medicinal

cachets marked "Veronal."

"One or two more or less will not hurt me," she said, with a pale,

forced smile at herself in the mirror--"I am accustomed to it--and I

must have a good long sleep!"

********

******

****

She had her way. Morning came,--and she was still sleeping. Noon--and

nothing could waken her. Doctors, hastily summoned, did their best to

rouse her to that life which with all its pains and possibilities still

throbbed in the world around her--but their efforts were vain.

"Suicide?" whispered one.

"Oh no! Mere accident!--an overdose of veronal--some carelessness--quite

a common occurrence. Nothing to be done!"

No!--nothing to be done! Her slumber had deepened into that strange

stillness which we call death,--and her husband, a statuesque and rigid

figure, gazed on her quiet body with tearless eyes.

"Good-night!" he whispered to the heavy silence--"Good-night! Farewell!"

CHAPTER VI

One of the advantages or disadvantages of the way in which we live in

these modern days is that we are ceasing to feel. That is to say we do

not permit ourselves to be affected by either death or misfortune,

provided these natural calamities leave our own persons unscathed. We

are beginning not to understand emotion except as a phase of bad

manners, and we cultivate an apathetic, soulless indifference to events

of great moment whether triumphant or tragic, whenever they do not

involve our own well-being and creature comforts. Whole boatloads of

fishermen may go forth to their doom in the teeth of a gale without

moving us to pity so long as we have our well-fried sole or grilled cod

for breakfast,--and even such appalling disasters as the wicked

assassination of hapless monarchs, or the wrecks of palatial

ocean-liners with more than a thousand human beings all whelmed at once

in the pitiless depths of the sea, leave us cold, save for the

uplifting of our eyes and shoulders during an hour or so,--an

expression of slight shock, followed by forgetfulness. Air-men,

recklessly braving the spaces of the sky, fall headlong, and are

smashed to mutilated atoms every month or so, without rousing us to

more than a passing comment, and a chorus of "How dreadful!" from

simpering women,--and the greatest and best man alive cannot hope for

long remembrance by the world at large when he dies. Shakespeare

recognised this tendency in callous human nature when he made his

Hamlet say--

"O heavens! Die two months ago and not forgotten yet? Then there's hope

a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year, but by 'r lady,

he must build churches then, or else shall he suffer not thinking on."

Wives recover the loss of their husbands with amazing

rapidity,--husbands "get over" the demise of their wives with the

galloping ease of trained hunters leaping an accustomed fence--families

forget their dead as resolutely as some debtors forget their

bills,--and to express sorrow, pity, tenderness, affection, or any sort

of "sentiment" whatever is to expose one's self to derision and

contempt from the "normal" modernist who cultivates cynicism as a fine

art. Many of us elect to live, each one, in a little back-yard garden

of selfish interests--walled round carefully, and guarded against

possible intrusion by uplifted spikes of conventionalism,--the door is

kept jealously closed--and only now and then does some impulsive spirit

bolder than the rest, venture to put up a ladder and peep over the

wall. Shut in with various favourite forms of hypocrisy and cowardice,

each little unit passes its short life in mistrusting its neighbour

unit, and death finds none of them wiser, better or nearer the utmost

good than when they were first uselessly born.

Among such vain and unprofitable atoms of life Lady Maude Blythe had

been one of the vainest and most unprofitable,--though of such "social"

importance as to be held in respectful awe by tuft-hunters and

parasites, who feed on the rich as the green-fly feeds on the rose. The

news of her sudden death briefly chronicled by the fashionable

intelligence columns of the press with the usual--"We deeply

regret"--created no very sorrowful sensation--a few vapid people idly

remarked to one another--"Then her great ball won't come

off!"--somewhat as if she had retired into the grave to avoid the

trouble and expense of the function. Cards inscribed--"Sympathy and

kind enquiries"--were left for Lord Blythe in the care of his dignified

butler, who received them with the impassiveness of a Buddhist idol and

deposited them all on the orthodox salver in the hall--and a few

messages of "Deeply shocked and grieved. Condolences"--by wires, not

exceeding sixpence each, were despatched to the lonely widower,--but

beyond these purely formal observances, the handsome brilliant society

woman dropped out of thought and remembrance as swiftly as a dead leaf

drops from a tree. She had never been loved, save by her two deluded

dupes--Pierce Armitage and her husband,--no one in the whole wide range

of her social acquaintance would have ever thought of feeling the

slightest affection for her. The first announcement of her death

appeared in an evening paper, stating the cause to be an accidental

overdose of veronal taken to procure sleep, and Miss Leigh, seeing the

paragraph by merest chance, gave a shocked exclamation--

"Innocent! My dear!--how dreadful! That poor Lady Blythe we saw the

other night is dead!"

The girl was standing by the tea-table just pouring out a cup of tea

for Miss Leigh--she started so nervously that the cup almost fell from

her hand.

"Dead!" she repeated, in a low, stifled voice. "Lady Blythe? Dead?"

"Yes!--it is awful! That horrid veronal! Such a dangerous drug! It

appears she was accustomed to take it for sleep--and unfortunately she

took an over-dose. How terrible for Lord Blythe!"

Innocent sat down, trembling. Her gaze involuntarily wandered to the

portrait of Pierce Armitage--the lover of the dead woman, and her

father! The handsome face with its dreamy yet proud eyes appeared

conscious of her intense regard--she looked and looked, and longed to

speak--to tell Miss Leigh all--but something held her silent. She had

her own secret now--and it restrained her from disclosing the secrets

of others. Nor could she realise that it was her mother--actually her

own mother--who had been taken so suddenly and tragically from the

world. The news barely affected her--nor was this surprising, seeing

that she had never entirely grasped the fact of her mother's

personality or existence at all. She had felt no emotion concerning

her, save of repulsion and dislike. Her unexpected figure had appeared

on the scene like a strange vision, and now had vanished from it as

strangely. Innocent was in very truth "motherless"--but so she had

always been--for a mother who deserts her child is worse than a mother

dead. Yet it was some few minutes before she could control herself

sufficiently to speak or look calmly--and her eyes were downcast as

Miss Leigh came up to the tea-table, newspaper in hand, to discuss the

tragic incident.

"She was a very brilliant woman in society," said the gentle old lady,

then--"You did not know her, of course, and you could not judge of her

by seeing her just one evening. But I remember the time when she was

much talked of as 'the beautiful Maude Osborne'--she was a very

lively, wilful girl, and she had been rather neglected by her parents,

who left her in England in charge of some friends while they were in

India. I think she ran rather wild at that time. There was some talk of

her having gone off secretly somewhere with a lover--but I never

believed the story. It was a silly scandal--and of course it stopped

directly she married Lord Blythe. He gave her a splendid position,--and

he was devoted to her--poor man!"

"Yes?" murmured Innocent, mechanically. She did not know what to say.

"If she had been blessed with children--or even one child," went on

Miss Leigh--"I think it would have been better for her. I am sure she

would have been happier! He would, I feel certain!"

"No doubt!" the girl answered in the same quiet tone.

"My dear, you look very pale!" said Miss Leigh, with some anxiety--"Have

you been working too hard?"

She smiled.

"That would be impossible!" she answered. "I could not work too

hard--it is such happiness to work--one forgets!--yes--one forgets all

that one does not wish to remember!"

The anxious expression still remained on Miss Lavinia's face,--but,

true to the instincts of an old-fashioned gentlewoman, she did not

press enquiries where she saw they might be embarrassing or unwelcome.

And though she now loved Innocent as much as if she had been her own

child, she never failed to remember that after all, the girl had earned

her own almost wealthy independence, and was free to do as she liked

without anybody's control or interference, and that though she was so

young she was bound to be in all respects untrammelled in her life and

actions. She went where she pleased--she had her own little hired

motor-brougham--she also had many friends who invited her out without

including Miss Leigh in the invitations, and she was still the "paying

guest" at the little Kensington house,--a guest who was never tired of

doing kindly and helpful deeds for the benefit of the sweet old woman

who was her hostess. Once or twice Miss Leigh had made a faint

half-hearted protest against her constant and lavish generosity.

"My dear," she had said--"With all the money you earn now you could

live in a much larger house--you could indeed have a house of your own,

with many more luxuries--why do you stay here, showering advantages on

me, who am nothing but a prosy old body?--you could do much better!"

"Could I really?" And Innocent had laughed and kissed her. "Well!--I

don't want to do any better--I'm quite happy as I am. One thing

is--(and you seem to forget it!)--that I'm very fond of you!--and when

I'm very fond of a person it's difficult to shake me off!"

So she stayed on--and lived her life with a nun-like simplicity and

economy--spending her money on others rather than herself, and helping

those in need,--and never even in her dress, which was always

exquisite, running into vagaries of extravagance and follies of

fashion. She had discovered a little French dressmaker, whose husband

had deserted her, leaving her with two small children to feed and

educate, and to this humble, un-famous plier of the needle she

entrusted her wardrobe with entirely successful results. Worth, Paquin,

Doucet and other loudly advertised personages were all quoted as

"creators" of her gowns, whereat she was amused.

"A little personal taste and thought go so much further in dress than

money," she was wont to say to some of her rather envious women

friends. "I would rather copy the clothes in an old picture than the

clothes in a fashion book."

Odd fancies about her dead mother came to her when she was alone in her

own room--particularly at night when she said her prayers. Some

mysterious force seemed compelling her to offer up a petition for the

peace of her mother's soul,--she knew from the old books written by the

"Sieur Amadis" that to do this was a custom of his creed. She missed it

out of the Church of England Prayer-book, though she dutifully followed

the tenets of the faith in which Miss Leigh had had her baptised and

confirmed--but in her heart of hearts she thought it good and right to

pray for the peace of departed souls--

"For who can tell"--she would say to herself--"what strange confusion

and sorrow they may be suffering!--away from all that they once knew

and cared for! Even if prayers cannot help them it is kind to pray!"

And for her mother's soul she felt a dim and far-off sense of

pity--almost a fear, lest that unsatisfied spirit might be lost and

wandering in a chaos of dark experience without any clue to guide or

any light to shine upon its dreadful solitude. So may the dead come

nearer to the living than when they also lived!

Some three or four weeks after Lady Blythe's sudden exit from a world

too callous to care whether she stayed in it or went from it, Lord

Blythe called at Miss Leigh's house and asked to see her. He was

admitted at once, and the pretty old lady came down in a great flutter

to the drawing-room to receive him. She found him standing in front of

the harpsichord, looking at the portrait upon it. He turned quickly

round as she entered and spoke with some abruptness.

"I must apologise for calling rather late in the afternoon," he

said--"But I could not wait another day. I have something important to

tell you--" He paused--then went on--"It's rather startling to me to

find that portrait here!--I knew the man. Surely it is Pierce Armitage,

the painter?"

"Yes"--and Miss Leigh's eyes opened in a little surprise and

bewilderment--"He was a great friend of mine--and of yours?" "He was my

college chum"--and he walked closer to the picture and looked at it

steadfastly--"That must have been taken when he was quite a young

man--before--" He paused again,--then said with a forced

smile--"Talking of Armitage--is Miss Armitage in?"

"No, she is not"--and the old lady looked regretful--"She has gone out

to tea--I'm sorry--"

"It's just as well"--and Lord Blythe took one or two restless paces up

and down the little room--"I would rather talk to you alone first.

Yes!--that portrait of Pierce must have been taken in early days--just

about the time he ran away with Maude Osborne--"

Miss Leigh gazed at him enquiringly.

"With Maude Osborne?"

"Yes--with Maude Osborne, who afterwards became my wife."

Miss Leigh trembled and drew back, looking about her in a dazed way as

though seeking for some place to hide in. Lord Blythe saw her agitation.

"I'm afraid I'm worrying you!" he said, kindly. "Sit down,

please,"--and he placed a chair for her. "We are both elderly folk and

shocks are not good for us. There!"--and he took her hand and patted it

gently--"As I was saying, that portrait must have been taken about

then--did he give it to you?"

"Yes," she answered, faintly--"He did. We were engaged--"

"Engaged! Good God! You?--to Pierce?--My dear lady, forgive me!--I'm

very sorry!--I had no idea--"

But Miss Leigh composed herself very quickly.

"Please do not mind me!" she said--"It all happened so very long ago!

Yes--Pierce Armitage and I were engaged--but he suddenly went away--and

I was told he had gone with some very beautiful girl he had fallen head

over ears in love with--and I never saw him again. But I never

reproached him--I--I loved him too well!"

Silently Lord Blythe took the worn little hand and raised it to his

lips.

"Pierce was more cruel than I thought was possible to him"--he said, at

last, very gently--"But--you have the best of him with you in--his

daughter!"

"His daughter!"

She sprang up, white and scared.

He gripped her arm and held it fast to support her.

"Yes," he said--"His daughter! That is what I have come to tell you!

The girl who lives with you--the famous author whose name is just now

ringing through the world is his child!--and her mother was my wife!"

There was a little stifled cry--she dropped back in her chair and

covered her face with her hands to hide the tears that rushed to her

eyes.

"Innocent!" she murmured, sobbingly--"His child!--Innocent!"

He was silent, watching her, his own heart deeply moved. He thought of

her life of unbroken fidelity--wasted in its youth--solitary in its

age--all for the sake of one man. Presently, mastering her quiet

weeping, she looked up.

"Does she--the dear girl!--does she know this?" she asked, in a half

whisper.

"She has known it all the time," he answered--"She knew who her mother

was before she came to London--but she kept her own counsel--I think to

save the honour of all concerned. And she has made her name famous to

escape the reproach of birth which others fastened upon her. A brave

child!--it must have been strange to her to find her father's portrait

here--did you ever speak of him to her?"

"Often!" replied Miss Leigh. "She knows all my story!"

He smiled, very kindly

"No wonder she was silent!" he said.

Just then they heard the sound of a latch-key turning in the lock of

the hall door--there was a light step in the passage--they looked at

one another half in wonder, half in doubt. A moment more and Innocent

entered, radiant and smiling. She stopped on the threshold, amazed at

the sight of Lord Blythe.

"Why, godmother"--she began. Then, glancing from one to the other, her

cheeks grew pale--she hesitated, instinctively guessing at the truth.

Lord Blythe advanced and took her gently by both hands.

"Dear child, your secret is ours!" he said, quietly. "Miss Leigh knows,

and _I_ know that you are the daughter of Pierce Armitage, and that

your mother was my late wife. No one can be dearer to us both than you

are--for your father's sake!"

CHAPTER VII

Startled and completely taken aback, she let her hands remain passively

in his for a moment,--then quietly withdrew them. A hot colour rushed

swiftly into her cheeks and as swiftly receded, leaving her very pale.

"How can you know?" she faltered--"Who has told you?"

"Your mother herself told me on the night she died," he answered--"She

gave me all the truth of herself,--at last--after long years!"

She was silent--standing inert as though she had received a numbing

blow. Miss Leigh rose and came tremblingly towards her.

"My dear, my dear!" she exclaimed--"I wish I had known it all

before!--I might have done more--I might have tried to be kinder--"

The girl sprang to her side and impulsively embraced her.

"You would have tried in vain!" she said, fondly, "No one on earth

could have been kinder than my beloved little godmother! You have been

the dearest and best of friends!"

Then she turned towards Lord Blythe.

"It is very good of you to come here and say what you have said"--and

she spoke in soft, almost pathetic accents--"But I am sorry that anyone

knows my story--it is no use to know it, really! I should have always

kept it a secret--for it chiefly concerns me, after all,--and why

should my existence cast a shadow on the memory of my father? Perhaps

you may have known him--"

"I knew him and loved him!" said Lord Blythe, quickly.

She looked at him with wistful, tear-wet eyes.

"Well then, how hard it must be for you to think that he ever did

anything unworthy of himself!" she said--"And for this dear lady it is

cruel!--for she loved him too. And what am I that I should cause all

this trouble! I am a nameless creature--I took his name because I

wanted to kindle a little light of my own round it--I have done that!

And then I wanted to guard his memory from any whisper of scandal--will

you help me in this? The secret must still be kept--and no one must

ever know I am his daughter. For though your wife is dead her name must

not be shamed for the long ago sin of her youth--nor must I be branded

as what I am--base-born."

Profoundly touched by the simple straightforward eloquence of her

appeal, Lord Blythe went up to her where she stood with one arm round

Miss Leigh.

"My dear child," he said, earnestly--"believe me, I shall never speak

of your parentage or give the slightest hint to anyone of the true

facts of your history--still less would I allow you to be lightly

esteemed for what is no fault of your own. You have made a brilliant

name and fame for yourself--you have the right to that name and fame. I

came here to-day for two reasons--one to tell you that I was fully

acquainted with all you had endured and suffered--the other to ask if

you will let me be your guardian--your other father--and give me some

right to shelter you from the rough ways of the world. I may perhaps in

this way make some amends to you for the loss of mother-love and

father-love--I would do my best--"

He stopped--a little troubled by unusual emotion. Innocent, drawing her

embracing arm away from Miss Leigh, looked at him with wondering,

grateful eyes.

"How good you are!" she said, softly--"You would take care of me--you

with your proud name and place!--and I--the poor, unfortunately born

child of your dead friend! Ah, you kind, gentle heart!--I thank

you!--but no!--I must not accept such a sacrifice on your part--"

"It would be no sacrifice"--he interrupted her, eagerly--"No,

child!--it would be pure selfishness!--for I'm getting old and am

lonely--and--and I want someone to look after me!" He laughed a little

awkwardly. "Why not come to me and be my daughter?"

She smiled--caught his hand and kissed it.

"I will be a daughter to you in affection and respect," she said--"But

I will not take any benefits from you--no, none! Oh, I know well all

you could and would do for me!--you would place me in the highest ranks

of that society where you are a leader, and you would surround me with

so many advantages and powerful friends that I should forget my duty,

which is to work for myself, and owe nothing to any man! Dear, kind

Lord Blythe!--do not think me ungrateful! But I have made my own little

place in the world, and I must keep it--independently! Am I not right,

my godmother?"

Miss Leigh looked at her anxiously, and sighed.

"My dear, you must think well about it," she said--"Lord Blythe would

care for you as his own child, I am sure--and his home would be a safe

and splendid one for you--but there!--do not ask ME!" and the old lady

wiped away one or two trickling tears from her eyes--"I am

selfish!--and now I know you are Pierce's daughter I want to keep you

for myself!--to have you near me!--to look at you and love you!--"

Her voice broke--her gaze instinctively wandered to the portrait of the

man whose memory she had cherished so long and so fondly.

"What did you think--what must you have thought the first day you came

here when I asked you if you were any relation to Pierce Armitage, and

told you that was his portrait!" she said, wistfully.

"I thought that God had guided me to you," the girl answered, in soft,

grave accents--"And that my father's spirit had not forsaken me!"

There was a moment's silence. Then she spoke more lightly--

"Dear Lord Blythe," she said--"Now that you know so much may I tell you

my own story? It will not take long! Come and sit here--yes!"--and she

placed a comfortable arm-chair for him, while she drew Miss Leigh

gently down on the sofa and sat next to her--"It is nothing of a

story!--my little life is not at all like the lives lived by all the

girls of my age that I have ever met or seen--it's all in the past, as

it were,--the old, very old past!--as far back as the days of

Elizabeth!"

She laughed, but there were tears in her eyes--she brushed them away

and holding Miss Leigh's hand in her own, she told with simple truth

and directness the narrative of her childhood's days--her life on

Briar Farm--how she had been trained by Priscilla to bake, and brew,

and wash and sew,--and how she had found her chief joy and relaxation

from household duties in the reading of the old books she had found

stowed away in the dower-chests belonging to the "Sieur Amadis de

Jocelin."

As she pronounced the name with an unconsciously tender accentuation

Lord Blythe interrupted her.

"Why, that's a curious thing! I know a rather clever painter named

Amadis de Jocelyn--and surely you were dancing with him on the evening

I first met you?"

A wave of rosy colour swept over her cheeks.

"Yes!--that is what I was just going to tell you!" she said. "He is

another Amadis de Jocelyn!--and he is actually connected with a branch

of the same family! HIS ancestor was the brother of that very Amadis

who lies buried at Briar Farm! Is it not strange that I should have met

him!--and he is going to paint my portrait!"

"Is he indeed!" and Lord Blythe did not look impressed--"I thought he

was a landscape man."

"So he is," she explained, with eagerness--"But he can do

portraits--and he wishes to make a picture of me, because I have been a

student of the books written by one of his ancient line. Those books

taught me all I know of literature. You see, it is curious, isn't it?"

"It is," he agreed, rather hesitatingly--"But I've never quite liked

Jocelyn--he's clever--yet he has always struck me as being intensely

selfish,--a callous sort of man--many artists are."

Her eyes drooped, and her breath came and went quickly.

"I suppose all clever men get self-absorbed sometimes!" she said, with

a quaint little air of wisdom--"But I don't think he is really

callous--" She broke off, and laughed brightly--"Anyhow we needn't

discuss him--need we? I just wanted to tell you what an odd experience

it has been for me to meet and to know someone descended from the

family of the old French knight whose spirit was my instructor in

beautiful things! The little books of his own poems were full of

loveliness--and I used to read them over and over again. They were all

about love and faith and honour--"

"Very old-fashioned subjects!" said Lord Blythe, with a slight

smile--"And not very much in favour nowadays!"

Miss Leigh looked at him questioningly.

"You think not?" she said.

He gave a quick sigh.

"It is difficult to know what to think," he answered--"But I have lived

a long life--long enough to have seen the dispersal of many illusions!

I fear selfishness is the keynote of the greater part of humanity.

Those who do the kindest deeds are invariably the worst rewarded--and

love in its highest form is so little known that it may be almost

termed non-existent. You"--and he looked at Innocent--"you write in a

very powerful and convincing way about things of which you can have had

no real experience--and therein lies your charm! You restore the lost

youth of manhood by idealisation, and you compel your readers to

'idealise' with you--but 'to idealise' is rather a dangerous verb!--and

its conjugation generally means trouble and disaster. Ideals--unless

they are of the spiritual kind unattainable on this planet--are apt to

be very disappointing."

Innocent smiled.

"But love is an ideal which cannot disappoint, because it is

everlasting!" she said, almost joyously. "The story of the old French

knight is, in its way, a proof of that. He loved his ideal all his

life, even though he could not win her."

"Very wonderful if true!" he answered--"But I cannot quite believe it!

I am too familiar with the ways of my own sex! Anyhow, dear child, I

should advise you not to make too many ideals apart from the characters

in the books you write. Fortunately your special talent brings you an

occupation which will save you from that kind of thing. You have

ambition as an incentive, and fame for a goal."

She was silent for a moment. In relating the story of her life at Briar

Farm she had not spoken of Robin Clifford,--some instinct told her that

the sympathies of her hearers might be enlisted in his favour, and she

did not want this.

"Well, now you know what my 'literary education' has been," she went

on--"Since I came to London I have tried to improve myself as much as I

can--and I have read a great many modern books--but to me they seem to

lack the real feeling of the old-time literature. For instance, if you

read the account of the battle of the Armada by a modern historian it

sounds tame and cold,--but if you read the same account in Camden's

'Elizabeth'--the whole scene rises before you,--you can almost see

every ship riding the waves!"

Her cheeks glowed and her eyes shone,--Lord Blythe smiled approvingly.

"I see you are an enthusiast!" he said--"And you could not have better

teachers than the Elizabethans. They lived in a great age and they were

great men. Our times, though crowded with the splendid discoveries of

science, seem small and poor compared to theirs. If you ever come to

me, I can give you the run of a library where you will find many

friends."

She thanked him by a look, and he went on--

"You will come and see me often, will you not?--you and Miss

Leigh--by-and-by, when the conventional time of mourning for my poor

wife is over. Make my house your second home, both of you!--and when I

return from Italy--"

"Oh!" the girl exclaimed, impulsively--"Are you going to Italy?"

"For a few weeks--yes!--will you come with me--you and your godmother?"

His old heart beat,--a sudden joy lighted his eyes. It would have been

like the dawn of a new day to him had she consented, but she shook her

fair little head decisively.

"I must not!" she said-"-I am bound to finish some work that I have

promised. But some day--ah, yes!--some day I should love to see Italy!"

The light went slowly from his face.

"Some day!--well!--I hope I may live to be with you on that 'some day.'

I ought not to leave London just now--but the house is very lonely--and

I think I am best away for a time--"

"Much best!" said Miss Leigh, sympathetically--"And if there is

anything we can do--"

"Yes--there is one thing that will please me very much," said Lord

Blythe, drawing from his pocket a small velvet case--"I want my friend

Pierce's daughter to wear this--it was my first gift to her mother."

Here he opened the case and showed an exquisite pendant, in the shape

of a dove, finely wrought in superb brilliants, and supported on a thin

gold chain. "I gave it as an emblem of innocence"--a quick sigh escaped

him--"I little knew!--but you, dear girl, are the one to wear it now!

Let me fasten it round your neck."

She stooped forward, and he took a lingering pleasure in putting the

chain on and watching the diamonds flash against her fair skin. She was

too much moved to express any worded thanks--it was not the value or

the beauty of the gift that touched her, but its association and the

way it was given. And then, after a little more desultory conversation,

he rose to go.

"Remember!" he said, taking her tenderly by both hands--"Whenever you

want a home and a father, both are ready and waiting for you!" And he

kissed her lightly on the forehead. "You are famous and independent,

but the world is not always kind to a clever woman even when she is

visibly known to be earning her own living. There are always spiteful

tongues wagging in the secret corners and byways, ready to assert that

her work is not her own and that some man is in the background, helping

to keep her!"

He then shook hands warmly with Miss Leigh.

"If she ever comes to me"--he went on--"you are free to come with

her--and be assured of my utmost friendship and respect. I shall feel I

am in some way doing what I know my old friend Pierce Armitage would,

in his best moments, approve, if I can be of the least service to you.

You will not forget?"

Miss Leigh was too overcome by the quiet sweetness and dignity of his

manner to murmur more than a few scarcely audible words of gratitude in

reply--and when at last he took his leave, she relieved her heart by

throwing her arms round Innocent and having what she called "a good

cry."

"And you Pierce's child!" she half laughed, half sobbed--"Oh, how could

he leave you at that farm!--poor little thing!--and yet it might have

been much worse--"

"Indeed I should think so!" and Innocent soothed her fondly with the

tenderest caresses--"Very much worse! Why, if I had not been left at

Briar Farm, I should never have known Dad!--and he was one of the best

of men--and I should never have learned how to think, and write my

thoughts, from the teaching of the Sieur Amadis de Jocelin!"

There was a little thrill of triumph in her voice--and Miss Leigh,

wiping away her tears, looked at her timidly and curiously.

"How you dwell on the memory of that French knight!" she said. "When

are you going to have your portrait painted by the modern Amadis?"

Innocent smiled.

"Very soon!" she answered--"We are to begin our sittings next week. I

am to wear a white frock--and I told him about my dove Cupid, and how

it used to fly from the gables of the house to my hand--and he is going

to paint the bird as well as me!"

She laughed with the joy of a child.

"Fancy! Cupid will be there!"

"Cupid?" echoed Miss Leigh, wonderingly.

"Yes--Cupid!--usually known as the little god of love,--but only a dove

this time!--so much more harmless than the god!"

Miss Leigh touched the diamond pendant at the girl's neck.

"You have a dove there now," she said--"All in jewels! And in your

heart, dear child, I pray there is a spiritual dove of holy purity to

guard you from all evil and keep your sweet soul safe and clean!"

A startled look came into the girl's soft grey-blue eyes,--a deep flush

of rose flew over her cheeks and brow.

"A blessing or a warning, godmother mine?" she said.

Miss Leigh drew her close in her arms and kissed her.

"Both!" she answered, simply.

There was a moment's silence.

Then Innocent, her face still warm with colour, walked close up to the

harpsichord where her father's picture stood.

"Let us talk of HIM!" she said--"Now that you know I am his daughter,

tell me all you remember of him!--how he spoke, how he looked!--what

sort of pictures he painted--and what he used to say to you! He loved

you once, and I love you now!--so you must tell me everything!"

CHAPTER VIII

Fame, or notoriety, whichever that special noise may be called when the

world like a hound "gives tongue" and announces that the quarry in some

form of genius is at bay, is apt to increase its clamour in proportion

to the aloofness of the pursued animal,--and Innocent, who saw nothing

remarkable in remaining somewhat secluded and apart from the ordinary

routine of social life so feverishly followed by more than half her

sex, was very soon classified as "proud"--"eccentric"--"difficult" and

"vain," by idle and ignorant persons who knew nothing about her, and

only judged her by their own limited conceptions of what a successful

author might or could possibly be like. Some of these, more foolish

than the rest, expressed themselves as afraid or unwilling to meet

her--"lest she should put them into her books"--this being a common

form of conceit with many individuals too utterly dull and

uninteresting to "make copy" for so much as the humblest paragraphist.

It was quite true that she showed herself sadly deficient in the

appreciation of society functions and society people,--to her they

seemed stupid and boresome, involving much waste of precious time,--but

notwithstanding this, she was invited everywhere, and the accumulation

of "R.S.V.P." cards on her table and desk made such a formidable heap

that it was quite a business to clear them, as she did once a week,

with the assistance of the useful waste-paper basket. As a writer her

popularity was unquestionable, and so great and insistent was the

public demand for anything from her pen that she could command her own

terms from any publishing quarter. Her good fortune made very little

effect upon her,--sometimes it seemed as if she hardly realised or

cared to realise it. She had odd, almost child-like ways of spending

some of her money in dainty "surprise" gifts to her friends--that is to

say, such friends as had shown her kindness,--beautiful flowers and

fruit for invalids--choice wines for those who needed yet could not

afford them,--a new drawing-room carpet for Miss Leigh, which was, in

the old lady's opinion, a most important and amazing affair!--costly

furs, also for Miss Leigh,--and devices and adornments of all sorts for

the pleasure, beauty or comfort of the house--but on herself personally

she spent nothing save what was necessary for such dress and appearance

as best accorded with her now acknowledged position. Dearly as she

would have loved to shower gifts and benefits on the inhabitants of

never-forgotten Briar Farm, she knew that if she did anything of the

kind poor lonely old Priscilla Friday and patiently enduring Robin

Clifford were more likely to be hurt than gratified. For a silence had

fallen between that past life, which had been like a wild rose

blossoming in a country lane, and the present one, which resembled a

wonderful orchid flower, flaming in heat under glass,--and though she

wrote to Robin now and again, and he replied, his letters were

restrained and formal--almost cold. He knew too well how far she was

removed from him by more than distance, and bravely contented himself

with merely giving her such news of the farm and her former home

surroundings as might awaken her momentary interest without recalling

too many old memories to her mind.

She seemed, and to a very great extent she was, unconscious of the

interest and curiosity both her work and her personality excited--the

more so now as the glamour and delight of her creative imagination had

been obscured by what she considered a far greater and more lasting

glory--that of love!--the golden mirage of a fancied sun, which for a

time had quenched the steadier shining of eternal stars. Since that

ever memorable night when he had suddenly stormed the fortress of her

soul, and by the mastery of a lover's kiss had taken full possession,

Amadis de Jocelyn had pursued his "amour" with admirable tact,

cleverness and secrecy. He found a new and stimulating charm in making

love to a tender-hearted, credulous little creature who seemed truly

"of such stuff as dreams are made of"--and to a man of his particular

type and temperament there was an irresistible provocation to his

vanity in the possibility of being able to lure her gradually and

insidiously down from the high ground of intellectual ambition and

power to the low level of that pitiful sex-submission which is

responsible for so much more misery than happiness in this world.

Little by little, under his apparently brusque and playful, but really

studied training, she began to think less and less of her work,--the

books she had loved to read and refer to, insensibly lost their

charm,--she went reluctantly to her desk, and as reluctantly took up

her pen,--what she had written already, appeared to her utterly

worthless,--and what she attempted to write now was to her mind poor

and unsatisfying. She was not moved by the knowledge, constantly

pressed upon her, that she was steadily rising, despite herself, to the

zenith of her career in such an incredibly swift and brilliant way as

to be the envy of all her contemporaries,--she was hardly as grateful

for her honours as weary of them and a little contemptuous. What did it

all matter to her when half of her once busy working mornings were now

often passed in the studio of Amadis de Jocelyn! He was painting a

full-length portrait of her--a mere excuse to give her facilities for

visiting him, and ensure his own privacy and convenience in receiving

her--and every day she went to him, sometimes late in the afternoons as

well as the mornings, slipping in and out familiarly and quite

unnoticed, for he had given her a key to the private door of his

studio, which was reached through a small, deeply shaded garden,

abutting on an old-fashioned street near Holland Park. She could enter

at any time, and thought it was the customary privilege accorded by an

artist to his sitter, while it saved the time and trouble of the

rheumatic "odd man" or servant whose failing limbs were slow to respond

to a summons at the orthodox front entrance. She would come in, dressed

in her simple navy blue serge walking costume, and then in a little

room just off the studio would change and put on the white dress which

her lover had chosen as the most suitable for his purpose, and which he

called the "portrait gown." It was simple, and severely Greek, made of

the softest and filmiest material which fell gracefully away in

enchanting folds from her childishly rounded neck and arms,--it gave

her the appearance of a Psyche or an Ariadne,--and at the first

sitting, when he had posed her in several attitudes before attempting

to draw a line, she had so much sweet attractiveness about her that he

was hardly to be blamed for throwing aside all work and devoting

himself to such ardent delight in woman's fairness as may sometimes

fall to the lot of man. While moving from one position to another as he

suggested or commanded, she had playfully broken off one flower from a

large plant of "marguerite" daisies growing in a quaint Japanese pot,

close at hand, and had begun pulling off the petals according to the

old fanciful charm--"Il m'aime!--un peu!--beaucoup!--passionement!--pas

du tout!" He stopped her at the word "passionement," and caught her in

his arms.

"Not another petal must be plucked!" he whispered, kissing her soft

warm neck--"I will not have you say 'Pas du tout!'"

She laughed delightedly, nestling against him.

"Very well!" she said--"But suppose--"

"Suppose what?"

"Suppose it ever came to that?"--and she sighed as she spoke--"Then the

last petal must fall!"

"Do you think it ever will or can come to that?" he asked, pressing a

kiss on the sweet upturned lips--"Does it seem like it?"

She was too happy to answer him, and he was too amorous just then to

think of anything but her soft eyes, dewy with tenderness--her white,

ivory-smooth skin--her small caressing hands, and the fine bright

tendrils of her waving hair--all these were his to play with as a child

plays with beautiful toys unconscious of or indifferent to their value.

Many such passages of love occupied their time--though he managed to

make a good show of progressive work after the first rough outline

drawing of the picture was completed. He was undeniably a genius in his

way, uncertain and erratic of impulse, but his art was strong because

its effects were broad and simple. He had begun Innocent's portrait out

of the mere desire to have her with him constantly,--but as day after

day went on and the subject developed under his skilled hand and brush

he realised that it would probably be "the" picture of the Salon in the

following year. As this conviction dawned upon him, he took greater

pains, and worked more carefully and conscientiously with the happiest

results, feeling a thrill of true artistic satisfaction as the picture

began to live and smile in response to his masterly touch and

treatment. Its composition was simple--he had drawn the girl as though

she were slowly advancing towards the spectator, giving her figure all

the aerial grace habitual to it by nature,--one little daintily shaped

hand held a dove lightly against her breast, as though the bird had

just flown there for protection from its own alarm,--her face was

slightly uplifted,--the lips smiled, and the eyes looked straight out

at the world with a beautiful, clear candour which was all their own.

Yet despite the charm and sweetness of the likeness there was a strange

pathos about it,--a sadness which Jocelyn had never set there by his

own will or intention.

"You are a puzzling subject," he said to her one day--"I wanted to give

you a happy expression--and yet your portrait is actually growing

sad!--almost reproachful! ... do you look at me like that?"

She opened her pretty eyes wonderingly.

"Amadis! Surely not! I could not look sad when I am with you!--that is

impossible!"

He paused, palette in hand.

"Nor reproachful?"

"How? When I have nothing to reproach you for?" she answered.

He put his palette aside and came and sat at her feet on the step of

the dais where he had posed her.

"You may rest," he said, smiling up at her--"And so may I." She sat

down beside him and he folded her in his arms. "How often we rest in

this way, don't we!" he murmured--"And so you think you have nothing to

reproach me for! Well,--I'm not so sure of that--Innocent!"

She looked at him questioningly.

"Are you talking nonsense, my 'Sieur Amadis'?--or are you serious?" she

asked.

"I am quite serious--much more serious than is common with me," he

replied, taking one of her hands and studying it as the perfect model

it was--"I believe I am involving you in all sorts of trouble--and you,

you absurd little child, don't see it! Suppose Miss Leigh were to find

out that we make the maddest love to each other in here--you all alone

with me--what would she say?"

"What COULD she say?" Innocent demanded, simply--"There is no

harm!--and I should not mind telling her we are lovers."

"I should, though!" was his quick thought, while he marvelled at her

unworldliness.

"Besides"--she continued--"she has no right over me."

"Who HAS any right over you?" he asked, curiously.

She laughed, softly.

"No one!--except you!"

"Oh, hang me!" he exclaimed, impatiently--"Leave me out of the

question. Have you no father or mother?"

She was a little hurt at his sudden irritability.

"No," she answered, quietly--"I have often told you I have no one. I am

alone in the world--I can do as I like." Then a smile brightened her

face. "Lord Blythe would have me as a daughter if I would go to him."

He started and loosened her from his embrace.

"Lord Blythe! That wealthy old peer! What does he want with you?"

"Nothing, I suppose, but the pleasure of my company!" and she

laughed--"Doesn't that seem strange?"

He rose and went back to work at his easel.

"Rather!" he said, slowly--"Are you going to accept his offer?"

Her eyes opened widely.

"I? My Amadis, how can you think it? I would not accept it for all the

world! He would load me with benefits--he would surround me with

luxuries--but I do not want these. I like to work for myself and be

independent." He laid a brush lightly in colour and began to use it

with delicate care.

"You are not very wise," he then said--"It's a great thing for a young

girl like you who are all alone in the world, to be taken in hand by

such a man as Blythe. He's a statesman,--very useful to his

country,--he's very rich and has a splendid position. His wife's sudden

death has left him very lonely as he has no children,--you could be a

daughter to him, and it would be a great leap upwards for you, socially

speaking. You would be much better off under his care than scribbling

books."

She drew a sharp breath of pain,--all the pretty colour fled from her

cheeks.

"You do not care for me to scribble books!" she said, in low, stifled

accents.

He laughed.

"Oh, I don't mind!--I never read them,--and in a way it amuses me! You

are such an armful of sweetness--such a warm, nestling little bird of

love in my arms!--and to think that you actually write books that the

world talks about!--the thing is so incongruous--so 'out of drawing'

that it makes me laugh! I don't like writing women as a rule--they give

themselves too many airs to please me--but you--"

He paused.

"Well, go on," she said, coldly.

He looked at her, smiling.

"You are cross? Don't be cross,--you lose your enchanting expression!

Well--you don't give yourself any airs, and you seem to play at

literature like a child playing at a game: of course you make money by

it,--but--you know better than I do that the greatest writers"--he

emphasized the word "greatest" slightly--"never make money and are

never popular."

"Does failure constitute greatness?" she asked, with a faintly

satirical inflection in her sweet voice which he had never heard before.

"Sometimes--in fact pretty often," he replied, dabbing his brush busily

on his canvas--"You should read about great authors--"

"I HAVE read about them," she said--"Walter Scott was popular and made

money,--Charles Dickens was popular and made money--Thackeray was

popular and made money--Shakespeare himself seemed to have had the one

principal aim of making sufficient money enough to live comfortably in

his native town, and he was 'popular' in his day--indeed he 'played to

the gallery.' But he was not a 'failure'--and the whole world

acknowledges his greatness now, though in his life-time he was

unconscious of it."

Surprised at her quick eloquence, he paused in his work.

"Very well spoken!" he remarked, condescendingly--"I see you take a

high view of your art! But like all women, you wander from the point.

We were talking of Lord Blythe--and I say it would be far better for

you to be--well!--his heiress!--for he might leave you all his

fortune--than go on writing books."

Her lips quivered: despite her efforts, tears started to her eyes. He

saw, and throwing down his brush came and knelt beside her, passing his

arm round her waist.

"What have I said?" he murmured, coaxingly--"Innocent--sweet little

love! Forgive me if I have--what?"--and he laughed softly--"rubbed you

up the wrong way!"

She forced a smile, and her delicate white hands wandered caressingly

through his hair as he laid his head against her bosom.

"I am sorry!" she said, at last--"I thought--I hoped--you might be

proud of my work, Amadis! I was planning it all for that! You see"--she

hesitated--"I learned so much from the Sieur Amadis de Jocelin--the

brother of your ancestor!--that I have been thinking all the time how I

could best show you that I was worthy of his teaching. The world--or

the public--you know the things they say of me--but I do not want their

praise. I believe I could do something really great if YOU cared!--for

now it is only to please you that I live."

A sense of shame stung him at this simple avowal.

"Nonsense!" he said, almost brusquely--"You have a thousand other

things to live for--you must not think of pleasing me only. Besides I'm

not very--keen on literature,--I'm a painter."

"Surely painting owes something to literature?" she queried--"We should

not have had all the wonderful Madonnas and Christs of the old masters

if there had been no Bible!"

"True!--but perhaps we could have done without them!" he said,

lightly--"I'm not at all sure that painting would not have got on just

as well without literature at all. There is always nature to

study--sky, sea, landscape and the faces of lovely women and

children,--quite enough for any man. Where is Lord Blythe now?"

"In Italy," she replied--"He will be away some months."

She spoke with constraint. Her heart was heavy--the hopes and ambitions

she had cherished of adding lustre to her fame for the joy and pride of

her lover, seemed all crushed at one blow. She was too young and

inexperienced to realise the fact that few men are proud of any woman's

success, especially in the arts. Their attitude is one of amused

tolerance when it is not of actual sex-jealousy or contempt. Least of

all can any man endure that the woman for whom he has a short spell of

passionate fancy should be considered notable, or in an intellectual

sense superior to himself. He likes her to be dependent on him alone

for her happiness,--for such poor crumbs of comfort he is pleased to

give her when the heat of his first passion has cooled,--but he is not

altogether pleased when she has sufficient intelligent perception to

see through his web of subterfuge and break away clear of the

entangling threads, standing free as a goddess on the height of her own

independent attainment. Innocent's idea of love was the angelic dream

of truth and everlastingness set forth by poets, whose sweet singing

deludes themselves and others,--she was ready to devote all the unique

powers of her mind and brain to the perfecting of herself for her

lover's delight. She wished to be beautiful, brilliant, renowned and

admired, simply that he might take joy in knowing that this beautiful,

brilliant, renowned and admired creature was HIS, body and

soul--existing solely for him and content to live only so long as he

lived, to work only so long as he worked,--to be nothing apart from his

love, but to be everything he could desire or command while his love

environed her. She thought of the eternal union of souls,--while he had

no belief in the soul at all, his half French materialism persuading

him that there was nothing eternal. And like all men of his type he

estimated her tenderness for him, her clinging arms, and the lingering

passion of her caresses, to be chiefly the outflow of pleased

vanity--the kittenish satisfaction of being stroked and fondled--the

sense of her own sex-attractiveness,--but of anything deep and closely

rooted in the centre of a more than usually sensitive nature he had not

the faintest conception, taking it for granted that all women, even

clever ones, were more or less alike, easily consoled by new millinery

when lovers failed.

Sometimes, during the progress of their secret amour, a thrill of

uneasiness and fear ran coldly through her veins--a wondering doubt

which she repelled with indignation whenever it suggested itself.

Amadis de Jocelyn was and must be the very embodiment of loyalty and

honour to the woman he loved!--it could not be otherwise. His

tenderness was ardent,--his passion fiery and eager,--yet she

wondered--timidly and with deep humiliation in herself for daring to

think so far--why, if he loved her so much as he declared, did he not

ask her to be his wife? She supposed he would do so,--though she had

heard him depreciate marriage as a necessary evil. Evidently he had his

own good reasons for deferring the fateful question. Meanwhile she made

a little picture-gallery of ideal joys in her brain,--and one of her

fancies was that when she married her Amadis she would ask Robin

Clifford to let her buy Briar Farm.

"He could paint well there!" she thought, happily, already seeing in

her mind's eye the "Great Hall" transformed into an artist's

studio--"and I almost think _I_ could carry on the farm--Priscilla

would help me,--and we know just how Dad liked things to be

done--if--if Robin went away. And the master of the house would again

be a true Jocelyn!"

The whole plan seemed perfectly natural and feasible. Only one obstacle

presented itself like a dark shadow on the brightness of her dream--and

that was her own "base" birth. The brand of illegitimacy was upon

her,--and whereas once she alone had known what she judged to be a

shameful secret, now two others shared it with her--Miss Leigh and Lord

Blythe. They would never betray it--no!--but they could not alter what

unkind fate had done for her. This was one reason why she was glad that

Amadis de Jocelyn had not as yet spoken of their marriage.

"For I should have to tell him!" she thought, woefully--"I should have

to say that I am the illegitimate daughter of Pierce Armitage--and

then--perhaps he would not marry me--he might change--ah no!--he could

not!--he would not!--he loves me too dearly! He would never let me

go--he wants me always! We are all the world to each other!--nothing

could part us now!"

And so the time drifted on--and with its drifting her work drifted too,

and only one all-absorbing passion possessed her life with its close

and consuming fire. Amadis de Jocelyn was an expert in the seduction of

a soul--little by little he taught her to judge all men as worthless

save himself, and all opinions unwarrantable and ill-founded unless he

confirmed them. And, leading her away from the contemplation of high

visions, he made her the blind worshipper of a very inadequate idol.

She was happy in her faith, and yet not altogether sure of happiness.

For there are two kinds of love--one with strong wings which lift the

soul to a dazzling perfection of immortal destiny,--the other with

gross and heavy chains which fetter every hope and aspiration and drag

the finest intelligence down to dark waste and nothingness.

CHAPTER IX

In affairs of love a woman is perhaps most easily ensnared by a man who

can combine passion with pleasantry and hot pursuit with social tact

and diplomacy. Amadis de Jocelyn was an adept at this kind of thing--he

was, if it may be so expressed, a refined libertine, loving women from

a purely physical sense of attraction and pleasure conveyed to himself,

and obtusely ignorant of the needs or demands of their higher natures.

From a mental or intellectual standpoint all women to him were alike,

made to be "managed" alike, used alike, and alike set aside when their

use was done with. The leaven of the Jew or the Turk was in the

temperament of this descendant of a long line of French nobles, who had

gained their chief honours by killing men, ravishing women and

plundering their neighbours' lands--though occasional flashes of

bravery and chivalry had glanced over their annals in history like the

light from a wandering will o' the wisp flickering over a morass.

Gifted in his art, but wholly undisciplined in his nature, he had lived

a life of selfish aims to selfish ends, and in the course of it had

made love to many women,--one especially, on whose devoted affections

he had preyed like an insect that ungratefully poisons the flower from

which it has sucked the honey. This woman, driven to bay at last by his

neglect and effrontery, had roused the scattered forces of her pride

and had given him his conge--and he had been looking about for a fresh

victim when he met Innocent. She was a complete novelty to him, and

stimulated his more or less jaded emotions,--he found her quaint and

charming as a poet's dream of some nymph of the woodlands,--her manner

of looking at life and the things of life was so deliciously

simple--almost mediaeval,--for she believed that a man should die

rather than break his word or imperil his honour, which to Jocelyn was

such a primitive state of things as to seem prehistoric. Then there was

her fixed and absurd "fancy" about the noble qualities and manifold

virtues of the French knight who had served the Duc d'Anjou,--and who

had been to her from childhood a kind of lover in the spirit,--a being

whom she had instinctively tried to serve and to please; and he had

sufficient imagination to understand and take advantage of the feeling

aroused in her when she had met one of the same descent, and bearing

the same name, in himself. He had run through the gamut of many

emotions and sentiments,--he had joined one or two of the new schools

of atheism and modernism started by certain self-opinionated young

University men, and in the earlier stages of his career had in the

cock-sure impulse of youth designed schemes for the regeneration of the

world, till the usual difficulties presented themselves as opposed to

such vast business,--he had associated himself with men who followed

what is called the "fleshly school" of poetry and art generally, and

had evolved from his own mentality a comfortable faith of which the

chief tenet was "Self for Self"--a religion which lifts the mind no

higher than the purely animal plane;--and in its environment of

physical consciousness and agreeable physical sensations, he was

content to live.

With such a temperament and disposition as he possessed, which swayed

him hither and thither on the caprice or impulse of the moment, his

intentions toward Innocent were not very clear even to himself. When he

had begun his "amour" with her he had meant it to go just as far as

should satisfy his own whim and desire,--but as he came to know her

better, he put a check on himself and hesitated as one may hesitate

before pulling up a rose-bush from its happy growing place and flinging

it out on the dust-heap to die. She was so utterly unsuspicious and

unaware of evil, and she had placed him on so high a pedestal of

honour, trusting him with such perfect and unquestioning faith, that

for very manhood's sake he could not bring himself to tear the veil

from her eyes. Moreover he really loved her in a curious, haphazard way

of love,--more than he had ever loved any one of her sex,--and, when

in her presence and under her influence, he gained a glimmering of

consciousness of what love might mean in its best and purest sense.

He laughed at himself however for this very thought. He had always

pooh-pooh'd the idea of love as having anything divine or uplifting in

its action,--nevertheless in his more sincere moments he was bound to

confess that since he had known Innocent his very art had gained a

certain breadth and subtlety which it had lacked before. It was a

pleasure to him to see her eyes shine with pride in his work, to hear

her voice murmur dulcet praises of his skill, and for a time he took

infinite pains with all his subjects, putting the very best of himself

into his drawing and colouring with results that were brilliant and

convincing enough to ensure success for all his efforts.

Sometimes--lost in a sudden fit of musing--he wondered how his life

would shape itself if he married her? He had avoided marriage as a man

might avoid hanging,--considering it, not without reason, the possible

ruin of an artist's greater career. Among many men he had known, men of

undoubted promise, it had proved the fatal step downward from the high

to the low. One particular "chum" of his own, a gifted painter, had

married a plump rosy young woman with "a bit o' money," as the country

folks say,--and from that day had been steadily dragged down to the

domestic level of sad and sordid commonplace. Instead of studying form

and colour, he was called upon to examine drains and superintend the

plumber, mark house linen and take care of the children--his wife

believing in "making a husband useful." Of regard for his art or

possible fame she had none,--while his children were taught to regard

his work in that line as less important than if he had been a

bricklayer at so much pence the hour.

"Children!" thought Jocelyn--"Do I want them? ... No--I think not!

They're all very well when they're young--really young!--two to five

years old is the enchanting age,--but, most unfortunately, they grow!

Yes!--they grow,--often into hideous men and women--a sort of human

vultures sitting on their fathers' pockets and screaming 'Give! Give!'

The prospect does not attract me! And she?--Innocent? I don't think I

could bear to watch that little flower-like face gradually enlarging

into matronly lines and spreading into a double chin! Those pretty eyes

peering into the larder and considering the appearance of uncooked

bacon! Perish the thought! One might as well think of Shakespeare's

Juliet paying the butcher's bill, or worse still, selecting the

butcher's meat! Forbid it, O ye heavens! Of course if ideals could be

realised, which they never are, I can see myself wedded for pure love,

without a care, painting my pictures at ease, with a sweet woman

worshipping me, ever at my beck and call, and shielding me from trouble

with all the tender force of her passionate little soul!--but

commonplace life will net fit itself into these sort of beatific

visions! Babies, and the necessary provision of food and clothes and

servants--this is what marriage means--love having sobered down to a

matter-of-fact conclusion. No--no! I will not marry her! It would be

like catching a fairy in the woods, cutting off its sunbeam wings and

setting it to scrub the kitchen floor!"

It was curious that while he pleased himself with this fanciful

soliloquy it did not occur to him that he had already caught the "fairy

in the woods," and ever since the capture had been engaged in cutting

off its "sunbeam wings" with all a vivisector's scientific

satisfaction. And in his imaginary pictures of what might have been if

"ideals" were realised, he did not for a moment conceive HIMSELF as

"worshipping" the woman who was to worship HIM, or as being at HER

"beck and call," or as shielding HER from trouble--oh no! He merely

considered himself, and how she would care for HIM,--never once did he

consider how he would care for HER.