THE PROFESSOR’S EXPERIMENT
MRS. HUNGERFORD’S NOVELS
‘_Mrs. Hungerford has well deserved the title of being one of the most
fascinating novelists of the day. The stories written by her are the
airiest, lightest, and brightest imaginable, full of wit, spirit, and
gaiety; but they contain, nevertheless, touches of the most exquisite
pathos. There is something good in all of them._’—ACADEMY.
=A MAIDEN ALL FORLORN=, and other Stories. Post 8vo., illustrated
boards, 2s.; cloth limp, 2s. 6d.
‘There is no guile in the novels of the authoress of “Molly Bawn,” nor
any consistency or analysis of character; but they exhibit a faculty
truly remarkable for reproducing the rapid small-talk, the shallow but
harmless “chaff” of certain strata of modern fashionable
society.’—_Spectator._
=IN DURANCE VILE=, and other Stories. Post 8vo., illustrated boards,
2s.; cloth limp, 2s. 6d.
‘Mrs. Hungerford’s Irish girls have always been pleasant to meet upon
the dusty pathways of fiction. They are flippant, no doubt, and often
sentimental, and they certainly flirt, and their stories are told often
in rather ornamental phrase and with a profusion of the first person
singular. But they are charming all the same.’—_Academy._
=A MENTAL STRUGGLE.= Post 8vo., illustrated boards, 2s.; cloth limp,
2s. 6d.
‘She can invent an interesting story, she can tell it well, and she
trusts to honest, natural, human emotions and interests of life for her
materials.’—_Spectator._
=A MODERN CIRCE.= Post 8vo., illustrated boards, 2s.; cloth limp, 2s.
6d.
‘Mrs. Hungerford is a distinctly amusing author.... In all her books
there is a “healthy absenteeism” of ethical purpose, and we have derived
more genuine pleasure from them than probably the most earnest student
has ever obtained from a chapter of “Robert Elsmere.”’—_Saturday
Review._
=MARVEL.= Post 8vo., illustrated boards, 2s.; cloth, 2s. 6d.
‘The author has long since created an imaginary world, peopled with more
or less natural figures; but her many admirers acknowledge the easy
grace and inexhaustible _verve_ that characterize her scenes of
Hibernian life, and never tire of the type of national heroine she has
made her own.’—_Morning Post._
=LADY VERNER’S FLIGHT.= Crown 8vo., cloth extra, 3s. 6d.; post 8vo.,
illustrated boards, 2s.; cloth limp, 2s. 6d.
‘There are in “Lady Verner’s Flight” several of the bright young
people who are wont to make Mrs. Hungerford’s books such very
pleasant reading.... In all the novels by the author of “Molly Bawn”
there is a breezy freshness of treatment which makes them most
agreeable.’—_Spectator._
=THE RED-HOUSE MYSTERY.= Crown 8vo., cloth extra, 3s. 6d.
‘Mrs. Hungerford is never seen to the best advantage when not dealing
with the brighter sides of life, or seeming to enjoy as much as her
readers the ready sallies and laughing jests of her youthful personages.
In her present novel, however, the heroine, if not all smiles and mirth,
is quite as taking as her many predecessors, while the spirit of
uncontrolled mischief is typified in the American heiress.’—_Morning
Post._
=THE THREE GRACES.= 2 vols., crown 8vo., 10s. net.
‘It is impossible to deny that Mrs. Hungerford is capable of writing a
charming love-story, and that she proves her capacity to do so in “The
Three Graces.”’—_Academy._
LONDON: CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY.
THE
PROFESSOR’S EXPERIMENT
=A Novel=
BY
MRS. HUNGERFORD
AUTHOR OF
‘MOLLY BAWN,’ ‘THE RED-HOUSE MYSTERY,’ ‘THE THREE GRACES,’ ‘LADY
VERNER’S FLIGHT,’ ETC.
[Illustration]
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. III.
=London=
CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY
1895
THE
PROFESSOR’S EXPERIMENT
CHAPTER XL.
‘Heart’s-ease I found where love-lies-bleeding
Empurpled all the ground;
Whatever flower I missed, unheeding,
Heart’s-ease I found.’
The day is still lingering, but one can see that night is beginning to
coquet with it. Tender shadows lie here and there in the corners of the
curving road, and in and among the beech-trees that overhang it birds
are already rustling with a view to slumber. The soft coo-coo of the
pigeon stirs the air, and on the river down below, ‘Now winding bright
and full with naked banks,’ the first faint glimmer of a new moon is
falling—falling as though sinking through it to a world beneath.
‘What are you thinking of, Susan?’ asks Crosby at last, when the sound
of their feet upon the road has been left unbroken for quite five
minutes. Susan has chatted to him quite gaily all down the avenue, and
until the gates are left behind, but after that she has grown—well,
thoughtful.
‘Thinking?’ She looks up at him as if startled out of a reverie.
‘Yes. What have you been thinking of so steadily for the past five
minutes?’
Thus brought to book, Susan gives him the truest answer.
‘I was thinking of Lady Muriel Kennedy. I was thinking that I had never
seen anyone so beautiful before.’
‘That’s high praise.’
‘You think so too?’
‘Well—hardly. She is handsome, very handsome, but not altogether the
most beautiful person I have ever seen.’
‘To me she is,’ says Susan simply.
‘That only shows to what poor use you have put your looking-glass,’ says
he, and Susan laughs involuntarily as at a most excellent joke. Crosby,
glancing at her and noting her sweet unconsciousness, feels a strong
longing to take her hand and draw it within his arm and hold it, but
from such idyllic pleasures he refrains.
The dusky shades are growing more pronounced now: ‘Eve saddens into
night.’ The long and pretty road, bordered by overhanging trees, though
still full of light just here, looks black in the distance, and overhead
‘The pale moon sheds a softer day,
Mellowing the woods beneath its pensive beam.’
After a little silence Susan turns her head and looks frankly at him.
‘Are you going to be married to her?’ asks she, gently and quite
naturally.
‘What!’ says Crosby. He is honestly amazed, and conscious of some other
feeling, too, that brings a pucker to his forehead. ‘Good heavens, no!
what put that into your head?’
‘I don’t know. I——’ She has grown all at once confused, and a pink flush
is warming her cheek. ‘Of course I shouldn’t have asked you that. But
she is so lovely, and I thought—I fancied——I am afraid’—her eyes growing
rather misty as they meet his in mute appeal—‘you think me very rude.’
‘I never think you anything but just what you are,’ says Crosby slowly.
‘I wonder if you could be rude if you tried. I doubt it. However, don’t
try. It would spoil you. As for Lady Muriel, she wouldn’t look at me.’
Susan remains silent, pondering over this. Would he look at her?
‘Should you like her to?’ asks she at last.
‘To look at me?’ Crosby is now openly amused. ‘A cat may look at a king,
you know.’
‘Oh, but she——’
‘Is not the cat? That’s rude, any way. Susan, I take back all the
handsome things I said of you just now. So I’m the cat, and she is the
queen, I suppose. Well, no; I don’t want Queen Muriel to look at me. It
would be rather embarrassing, considering all things. She is a very high
and mighty young lady, you know, and I’m terribly shy. On the whole,
Susan’—he pauses, and studies her a minute—‘I should prefer you to look
at me.’
His studying goes for naught; not a vestige of blush appears on Susan’s
face or any emotion whatever. His little flattery has gone by her.
‘Oh, you know what I mean,’ says she.
‘Do I? You are often very deep, you know; but if you mean that perhaps I
should like to marry Lady Muriel—well, I shouldn’t.’
‘How strange!’ says Susan. ‘I think if I were a man I should be
dreadfully in love with her.’
Crosby laughs.
‘So you think you could be dreadfully in love?’ says he.
Susan’s lips part in a little smile.
‘Oh, not as it is. I was only thinking of Lady Muriel ... and you—that
you ought to be——’
‘Dreadfully in love? How do you know I am not—with somebody else?’
She shakes her head.
‘No, you are not,’ says she. ‘After all, I think you are just as little
likely to be dreadfully in love with anyone as I am.’
‘Susan! You are growing positively profound,’ says he.
They are now drawing near to the Rectory gates, and Susan’s fingers are
stealing into her pocket and out again with nervous rapidity. Oh, she
must give it to him now or never! To-morrow it will be too late. One
can’t give a birthday gift the day after the birthday. But it is such a
ridiculous little bag, and she has seen so many of his presents up at
the Hall, and all so lovely, and in such good taste. Still, to let him
think, after all his kindness, that she had not even remembered his
birthday——
‘Mr. Crosby,’ says she, and now the hand that comes from the pocket has
something in it. ‘I—all day, I’—tremulously—‘have been wanting to give
you something for your birthday. I know’—she pauses, and slowly and
reluctantly, and in a very agony of shyness, now holds out to him the
little silken bag filled with fragrant lavender—‘I know’—tears filling
her eyes—‘after what I saw to-day ... those other gifts, that it is not
worth giving, but—I made it for you.’
She holds it out to him, and Crosby, who has coloured a dark red, takes
it from her, but never a word comes from him.
The dear, darling child! To think of her having done this for him!... To
Susan his silence sounds fatal.
‘Of course,’ says she, ‘I knew you wouldn’t care for it. But——’
‘Care for it! Oh, Susan! To call yourself my friend and so misjudge me!
I care for it a good deal more, I can tell you, than for all those other
things up there put together.’
There is no mistaking the genuine ring in his tone. Indeed, his delight
and secret emotion amaze even himself. Susan’s spirits revive.
‘Oh no,’ protests she.
‘Yes, though! No one else,’ says Crosby, ‘took the trouble to make me
anything! That’s the difference, you see. To make it for me—with your
own hands. It is easy to buy a thing—there is no trouble there.’ He
looks at her present, turning and twisting it with unmistakable
gratification. ‘What a lovely little bag, and filled with lavender, eh?’
‘It is to put in your drawer with your handkerchiefs,’ says Susan, shyly
still; but she is smiling now, and looking frankly delighted. ‘Betty
made me one last year, and I keep it with mine.’
‘So we have a bag each,’ says Crosby, and somehow he feels a ridiculous
pleasure in the knowledge that he and she have bags alike, and that both
their handkerchiefs will be made sweet with the same perfume. And now
his eyes fall on the worked words that lie criss-cross in one of the
corners: ‘Mr. Crosby, from Susan.’
‘Do you mean to say you actually did that too?’ asks he, with such
extreme astonishment that Susan grows actually elated.
‘Oh yes,’ says she, taking a modest tone, though her conceit is rising;
‘it is quite easy.’
‘To me it seems impossible. To do that, and only with one’s fingers; it
beats typewriting,’ says he. ‘It is twice as legible. Do you mean to say
you wrote—worked, I mean—that with a common needle and thread?’
‘I did indeed,’ says Susan earnestly, her heart again knowing a throb of
exultation. Why, if he could only see the cushion she worked for Lady
Millbank’s bazaar!
‘It must have taken a long time,’ says he thoughtfully. And then, ‘And
to think of you doing it for me!’
‘Oh, for you,’ says Susan—‘you who have been so kind to us all!
I’—growing shy again—‘I am very glad you really like that little bag;
but it is nothing—nothing. And I was delighted to make it for you, and
to think of you all the time as I made it.’
‘Were you, Susan?’ says Crosby, as gratefully as possible, though he
feels his heart in some silly way is sinking.
‘I was—I was indeed!’ says Susan openly, emphatically. ‘So you must not
trouble yourself about that.’ Crosby’s heart falls another fathom or
two.
‘I’ll try not to,’ says he, with a somewhat melancholy reflection of his
usual lightheartedness. They have arrived at the gate now, and Susan
holds out her hand to him.
‘Remember you have promised to bring up the boys to-morrow for their
gipsy tea,’ says he, holding it.
‘Yes.’ She hesitates and flushes warmly. ‘Might I bring Betty, too?’
‘Why, of course’—eagerly. ‘Give my love to her, and tell her from—my
sister that we can’t have a gipsy tea without her.’
‘And Lady Forster?’ Susan grows uncertain about the propriety of asking
Betty without Lady Forster’s consent.
‘Now, Susan! As if you aren’t clever enough to know that Katherine
delights in nothing so much as young people—she’s quite as young as the
youngest herself—and that she will be only too pleased to see a sister
of yours.’
There is emphasis on the last word.
‘You think that she likes me?’ Susan’s tone is anxious.
‘I think she has fallen in love with you.’ She smiles happily and moves
a step away. But his voice checks her: ‘Not the only one either, Susan.’
‘Oh, not Captain Lennox again! I have had one lecture.’ Susan looks
really saucy, for once in her life, and altogether delightful, as she
defies him from under her big straw hat.
‘No. I was thinking of——’
‘Yes?’—gaily.
‘Never mind.’
He turns and walks away, and Susan, laughing to herself at his inability
to accuse her further, runs down the little avenue to her home. There is
a rush from the lawn as she comes in sight.
‘Oh, there you are, Susan!’
‘How did it go off?’
‘Were they all nice? Were you nervous?’
‘Is the house lovely?’
‘Oh, it is!’ says Susan, now having reached a seat, and feeling a little
consequential with all of them sitting round her and waiting on her
words. ‘You never saw such a house! Much, much more beautiful than Lady
Millbank’s.’
‘Well, we all know it’s twice—four times the size; but Lady Millbank’s
furniture was——’
‘Oh, that’s all changed. Mr. Crosby has furnished his house all over
again from beginning to end. Of course we’ve been through it many times
when he was away, but now you wouldn’t know it. It appears he has had
things stored up after his travels—left in their cases, indeed—that
lately have been brought to light. The drawing-room is perfect, and—the
pictures——’
‘And the people?’ asks Betty impatiently; she is distinctly material.
‘Very, very nice too—that is, most of them. Miss Prior was there.
She—well, I can’t bring myself to like her.’
‘What did she do to you?’ asks Dom.
‘Oh, nothing; nothing really, only——’
‘That’s enough,’ says Carew. ‘You didn’t hit it off with her,
evidently.’
Susan hesitates, and as usual is lost.
‘I can’t bear her,’ says she.
‘And that lovely girl who drove home with Mr. Crosby?’ asks Betty.
‘Ah, she is even lovelier than I thought,’ says Susan, with increased
enthusiasm. She finds it quite easy to praise her now. ‘And so charming!
She wished particularly to be introduced to me, and——’
‘Did she?’—from Betty. ‘What a good thing that she likes you! If she
marries Mr. Crosby she may be very useful to us.’
‘I don’t think she is going to marry him,’ says Susan thoughtfully.
‘No?’—with growing interest. ‘They’—casting back her thoughts—‘looked
very like it on Sunday. How do you know?’
‘I asked him,’ says Susan simply.
‘What!’ They all sit up in a body. ‘You—asked him?’
‘Yes. Does it sound dreadful?’ Poor Susan grows very red.
‘It’—nervously—‘didn’t sound a bit dreadful when I did it.
And’—desperately—‘I did, any way.’
‘It wasn’t a bit dreadful,’ says Carew good-naturedly.
‘Not a bit. Go on, Susan.’ Dom regards her with large encouragement.
‘Did you ask him any more questions? Did you ask him if he would like to
marry you? There wouldn’t be a bit of harm in that, either, and——’
‘Dominick!’ says Susan in an outraged tone.
Here Betty promptly catches his ear, and, pulling him down beside her,
begins to pommel him within an inch of his life.
‘Never mind him, Susan. He’s got no brains. They were left out when he
was born. Tell us more about your luncheon-party.’
‘There is so little to tell,’ says Susan in a subdued voice. Her pretty
colour has died away, and she is looking very pale.
‘What about the poet?’
‘Oh, the poet! His name is Jones, of all the names in the world!’
Here she revives a little, and at certain recollections of the
illustrious Jones, in spite of herself, her smiles break forth again.
‘He——’ She bursts out laughing. ‘It sounds horribly conceited, but I
really think he believes he is in love with me. Such nonsense, isn’t
it?’
(Oh, too pretty Susan! who wouldn’t be in love with you?)
‘I don’t know about that,’ says Dom, who has escaped from Betty’s
wrathful hands and is prepared to go any length to prevent a recurrence
of the late ceremonies. ‘He might do worse!’
‘And so the house is lovely,’ says Betty, with a regretful sigh. Now if
only they would ask her there; but of course nobody remembers second
girls.
‘Yes, lovely. The halls are all done up; and there are paintings on the
walls; and as for the marbles, they are exquisite!’
‘Nice simple people, apparently,’ says Dom. ‘Were they glass or stone,
Susan? Alleys or stony taws? Did you have a game yourself? I’m afraid
our education has been a little neglected in that line; but, still, I
can recollect your doing a little flutter in the way of marbles about
half a decade or so ago; and you won, too!’
‘I suppose you think you’re funny,’ says Betty, which is about the most
damping speech that anyone can make, but Mr. Fitzgerald is hard to damp.
He gives her a reproachful glance and sinks back with the air of one
thoroughly misunderstood.
‘For the matter of games, I suppose they’—Betty is alluding to Mr.
Crosby’s guests—‘wouldn’t play one to save their lives; quite
fashionable people, of course!’ Betty plainly knows little of
fashionable people. ‘Hardly even tennis, I dare say. They would call
that, no doubt, fatiguing. Were they—were they very starchy?’
‘So far from that,’ says Susan, ‘that——’ She hesitates. ‘I’m almost sure
I heard quite right—and certainly Lady Forster asked Mr. Crosby to let
me stay on this evening, and sleep there, so that I might take part
in——’
She pauses.
‘Private theatricals?’ cries Betty excitedly.
‘No. I think it was a “pillow-scuffle” they called it.’
There is a solemn silence after this, and then, ‘A pillow-scuffle!’ says
Betty faintly. ‘Are they so nice as that?’
‘They are. They are very nice, just like ourselves.’
This flagrant bit of self-appreciation goes for a wonder unnoticed
beneath the weight of the late announcement.
‘Why on earth don’t they ask us to go up?’ says Dominick, who has many
reasons for knowing he could do much with a pillow.
‘Well, they have asked you,’ cries Susan eagerly; ‘not for a
pillow-match, but for afternoon tea in the woods to-morrow. She—Lady
Forster, you know—was delighted when she heard of you boys, and she said
I was to be sure and bring you. And there is to be a fire lit, and——’
‘Oh, Susan!’ cries Betty, in a deplorable tone, tears fast rising to her
eyes; ‘I think you might have said you had a sister.’
‘So I did—so I did’—eagerly; ‘and you are to come too; and——’
‘Oh no! Not really!’
‘Yes, really.’
‘Oh, darling Susan!’