STORY THE FOURTH--Miss Ramsbotham gives her Services

To regard Miss Ramsbotham as a marriageable quantity would have occurred

to few men. Endowed by Nature with every feminine quality calculated to

inspire liking, she had, on the other hand, been disinherited of every

attribute calculated to excite passion. An ugly woman has for some men

an attraction; the proof is ever present to our eyes. Miss Ramsbotham

was plain but pleasant looking. Large, healthy in mind and body,

capable, self-reliant, and cheerful, blessed with a happy disposition

together with a keen sense of humour, there was about her absolutely

nothing for tenderness to lay hold of. An ideal wife, she was an

impossible sweetheart. Every man was her friend. The suggestion that

any man could be her lover she herself would have greeted with a clear,

ringing laugh.

Not that she held love in despite; for such folly she was possessed of

far too much sound sense. "To have somebody in love with you--somebody

strong and good," so she would confess to her few close intimates, a

dreamy expression clouding for an instant her broad, sunny face, "why, it

must be just lovely!" For Miss Ramsbotham was prone to American

phraseology, and had even been at some pains, during a six months'

journey through the States (whither she had been commissioned by a

conscientious trade journal seeking reliable information concerning the

condition of female textile workers) to acquire a slight but decided

American accent. It was her one affectation, but assumed, as one might

feel certain, for a practical and legitimate object.

"You can have no conception," she would explain, laughing, "what a help I

find it. 'I'm 'Muriken' is the 'Civis Romanus sum' of the modern woman's

world. It opens every door to us. If I ring the bell and say, 'Oh, if

you please, I have come to interview Mr. So-and-So for such-and-such a

paper,' the footman looks through me at the opposite side of the street,

and tells me to wait in the hall while he inquires if Mr. So-and-So will

see me or not. But if I say, 'That's my keerd, young man. You tell your

master Miss Ramsbotham is waiting for him in the showroom, and will take

it real kind if he'll just bustle himself,' the poor fellow walks

backwards till he stumbles against the bottom stair, and my gentleman

comes down with profuse apologies for having kept me waiting three

minutes and a half.

"'And to be in love with someone," she would continue, "someone great

that one could look up to and honour and worship--someone that would fill

one's whole life, make it beautiful, make every day worth living, I think

that would be better still. To work merely for one's self, to think

merely for one's self, it is so much less interesting."

Then, at some such point of the argument, Miss Ramsbotham would jump up

from her chair and shake herself indignantly.

"Why, what nonsense I'm talking," she would tell herself, and her

listeners. "I make a very fair income, have a host of friends, and enjoy

every hour of my life. I should like to have been pretty or handsome, of

course; but no one can have all the good things of this world, and I have

my brains. At one time, perhaps, yes; but now--no, honestly I would not

change myself."

Miss Ramsbotham was sorry that no man had ever fallen in love with her,

but that she could understand.

"It is quite clear to me." So she had once unburdened herself to her

bosom friend. "Man for the purposes of the race has been given two kinds

of love, between which, according to his opportunities and temperament,

he is free to choose: he can fall down upon his knees and adore physical

beauty (for Nature ignores entirely our mental side), or he can take

delight in circling with his protecting arm the weak and helpless. Now,

I make no appeal to either instinct. I possess neither the charm nor

beauty to attract--"

"Beauty," reminded her the bosom friend, consolingly, "dwells in the

beholder's eye."

"My dear," cheerfully replied Miss Ramsbotham, "it would have to be an

eye of the range and capacity Sam Weller frankly owned up to not

possessing--a patent double-million magnifying, capable of seeing through

a deal board and round the corner sort of eye--to detect any beauty in

me. And I am much too big and sensible for any man not a fool ever to

think of wanting to take care of me.

"I believe," remembered Miss Ramsbotham, "if it does not sound like idle

boasting, I might have had a husband, of a kind, if Fate had not

compelled me to save his life. I met him one year at Huyst, a small,

quiet watering-place on the Dutch coast. He would walk always half a

step behind me, regarding me out of the corner of his eye quite

approvingly at times. He was a widower--a good little man, devoted to

his three charming children. They took an immense fancy to me, and I

really think I could have got on with him. I am very adaptable, as you

know. But it was not to be. He got out of his depth one morning, and

unfortunately there was no one within distance but myself who could swim.

I knew what the result would be. You remember Labiche's comedy, _Les

Voyage de Monsieur Perrichon_? Of course, every man hates having had his

life saved, after it is over; and you can imagine how he must hate having

it saved by a woman. But what was I to do? In either case he would be

lost to me, whether I let him drown or whether I rescued him. So, as it

really made no difference, I rescued him. He was very grateful, and left

the next morning.

"It is my destiny. No man has ever fallen in love with me, and no man

ever will. I used to worry myself about it when I was younger. As a

child I hugged to my bosom for years an observation I had overheard an

aunt of mine whisper to my mother one afternoon as they sat knitting and

talking, not thinking I was listening. 'You never can tell,' murmured my

aunt, keeping her eyes carefully fixed upon her needles; 'children change

so. I have known the plainest girls grow up into quite beautiful women.

I should not worry about it if I were you--not yet awhile.' My mother

was not at all a bad-looking woman, and my father was decidedly handsome;

so there seemed no reason why I should not hope. I pictured myself the

ugly duckling of Andersen's fairy-tale, and every morning on waking I

would run straight to my glass and try to persuade myself that the

feathers of the swan were beginning at last to show themselves." Miss

Ramsbotham laughed, a genuine laugh of amusement, for of self-pity not a

trace was now remaining to her.

"Later I plucked hope again," continued Miss Ramsbotham her confession,

"from the reading of a certain school of fiction more popular twenty

years ago than now. In these romances the heroine was never what you

would call beautiful, unless in common with the hero you happened to

possess exceptional powers of observation. But she was better than that,

she was good. I do not regard as time wasted the hours I spent studying

this quaint literature. It helped me, I am sure, to form habits that

have since been of service to me. I made a point, when any young man

visitor happened to be staying with us, of rising exceptionally early in

the morning, so that I always appeared at the breakfast-table fresh,

cheerful, and carefully dressed, with, when possible, a dew-besprinkled

flower in my hair to prove that I had already been out in the garden. The

effort, as far as the young man visitor was concerned, was always thrown

away; as a general rule, he came down late himself, and generally too

drowsy to notice anything much. But it was excellent practice for me. I

wake now at seven o'clock as a matter of course, whatever time I go to

bed. I made my own dresses and most of our cakes, and took care to let

everybody know it. Though I say it who should not, I play and sing

rather well. I certainly was never a fool. I had no little brothers and

sisters to whom to be exceptionally devoted, but I had my cousins about

the house as much as possible, and damaged their characters, if anything,

by over-indulgence. My dear, it never caught even a curate! I am not

one of those women to run down men; I think them delightful creatures,

and in a general way I find them very intelligent. But where their

hearts are concerned it is the girl with the frizzy hair, who wants two

people to help her over the stile, that is their idea of an angel. No

man could fall in love with me; he couldn't if he tried. That I can

understand; but"--Miss Ramsbotham sunk her voice to a more confidential

tone--"what I cannot understand is that I have never fallen in love with

any man, because I like them all."

"You have given the explanation yourself," suggested the bosom friend--one

Susan Fossett, the "Aunt Emma" of _The Ladies' Journal_, a nice woman,

but talkative. "You are too sensible."

Miss Ramsbotham shook her head, "I should just love to fall in love. When

I think about it, I feel quite ashamed of myself for not having done so."

Whether it was this idea, namely, that it was her duty, or whether it was

that passion came to her, unsought, somewhat late in life, and therefore

all the stronger, she herself would perhaps have been unable to declare.

Certain only it is that at over thirty years of age this clever,

sensible, clear-seeing woman fell to sighing and blushing, starting and

stammering at the sounding of a name, as though for all the world she had

been a love-sick girl in her teens.

Susan Fossett, her bosom friend, brought the strange tidings to Bohemia

one foggy November afternoon, her opportunity being a tea-party given by

Peter Hope to commemorate the birthday of his adopted daughter and sub-

editor, Jane Helen, commonly called Tommy. The actual date of Tommy's

birthday was known only to the gods; but out of the London mist to

wifeless, childless Peter she had come the evening of a certain November

the eighteenth, and therefore by Peter and his friends November the

eighteenth had been marked upon the calendar as a day on which they

should rejoice together.

"It is bound to leak out sooner or later," Susan Fossett was convinced,

"so I may as well tell you: that gaby Mary Ramsbotham has got herself

engaged."

"Nonsense!" was Peter Hope's involuntary ejaculation.

"Precisely what I mean to tell her the very next time I see her," added

Susan.

"Who to?" demanded Tommy.

"You mean 'to whom.' The preeposition governs the objective case,"

corrected her James Douglas McTear, commonly called "The Wee Laddie," who

himself wrote English better than he spoke it.

"I meant 'to whom,'" explained Tommy.

"Ye didna say it," persisted the Wee Laddie.

"I don't know to whom," replied Miss Ramsbotham's bosom friend, sipping

tea and breathing indignation. "To something idiotic and incongruous

that will make her life a misery to her."

Somerville, the briefless, held that in the absence of all data such

conclusion was unjustifiable.

"If it had been to anything sensible," was Miss Fossett's opinion, "she

would not have kept me in the dark about it, to spring it upon me like a

bombshell. I've never had so much as a hint from her until I received

this absurd scrawl an hour ago."

Miss Fossett produced from her bag a letter written in pencil.

"There can be no harm in your hearing it," was Miss Fossett's excuse; "it

will give you an idea of the state of the poor thing's mind."

The tea-drinkers left their cups and gathered round her. "Dear Susan,"

read Miss Fossett, "I shall not be able to be with you to-morrow. Please

get me out of it nicely. I can't remember at the moment what it is.

You'll be surprised to hear that I'm _engaged_--to be married, I mean, I

can hardly _realise_ it. I hardly seem to know where I am. Have just

made up my mind to run down to Yorkshire and see grandmamma. I must do

_something_. I must _talk_ to _somebody_ and--forgive me, dear--but you

_are_ so sensible, and just now--well I don't _feel_ sensible. Will tell

you all about it when I see you--next week, perhaps. You must _try_ to

like him. He is _so_ handsome and _really_ clever--in his own way. Don't

scold me. I never thought it possible that _anyone_ could be so happy.

It's quite a different sort of happiness to _any_ other sort of

happiness. I don't know how to describe it. Please ask Burcot to let me

off the antequarian congress. I feel I should do it badly. I am so

thankful he has _no_ relatives--in England. I should have been so

_terribly_ nervous. Twelve hours ago I could not have _dreamt_ of it,

and now I walk on tiptoe for fear of waking up. Did I leave my

chinchilla at your rooms? Don't be angry with me. I should have told

you if I had known. In haste. Yours, Mary."

"It's dated from Marylebone Road, and yesterday afternoon she did leave

her chinchilla in my rooms, which makes me think it really must be from

Mary Ramsbotham. Otherwise I should have my doubts," added Miss Fossett,

as she folded up the letter and replaced it in her bag.

"Id is love!" was the explanation of Dr. William Smith, his round, red

face illuminated with poetic ecstasy. "Love has gone to her--has

dransformed her once again into the leedle maid."

"Love," retorted Susan Fossett, "doesn't transform an intelligent,

educated woman into a person who writes a letter all in jerks, underlines

every other word, spells antiquarian with an 'e,' and Burcott's name,

whom she has known for the last eight years, with only one 't.' The

woman has gone stark, staring mad!"

"We must wait until we have seen him," was Peter's judicious view. "I

should be so glad to think that the dear lady was happy."

"So should I," added Miss Fossett drily.

"One of the most sensible women I have ever met," commented William

Clodd. "Lucky man, whoever he is. Half wish I'd thought of it myself."

"I am not saying that he isn't," retorted Miss Fossett. "It isn't him

I'm worrying about."

"I preesume you mean 'he,'" suggested the Wee Laddie. "The verb 'to

be'--"

"For goodness' sake," suggested Miss Fossett to Tommy, "give that man

something to eat or drink. That's the worst of people who take up

grammar late in life. Like all converts, they become fanatical."

"She's a ripping good sort, is Mary Ramsbotham," exclaimed Grindley

junior, printer and publisher of _Good Humour_. "The marvel to me is

that no man hitherto has ever had the sense to want her."

"Oh, you men!" cried Miss Fossett. "A pretty face and an empty head is

all you want."

"Must they always go together?" laughed Mrs. Grindley junior, _nee_

Helvetia Appleyard.

"Exceptions prove the rule," grunted Miss Fossett.

"What a happy saying that is," smiled Mrs. Grindley junior. "I wonder

sometimes how conversation was ever carried on before it was invented."

"De man who would fall in love wid our dear frent Mary," thought Dr.

Smith, "he must be quite egsceptional."

"You needn't talk about her as if she was a monster--I mean were,"

corrected herself Miss Fossett, with a hasty glance towards the Wee

Laddie. "There isn't a man I know that's worthy of her."

"I mean," explained the doctor, "dat he must be a man of character--of

brain. Id is de noble man dat is attracted by de noble woman."

"By the chorus-girl more often," suggested Miss Fossett.

"We must hope for the best," counselled Peter. "I cannot believe that a

clever, capable woman like Mary Ramsbotham would make a fool of herself."

"From what I have seen," replied Miss Fossett, "it's just the clever

people--as regards this particular matter--who do make fools of

themselves."

Unfortunately Miss Fossett's judgment proved to be correct. On being

introduced a fortnight later to Miss Ramsbotham's fiance, the impulse of

Bohemia was to exclaim, "Great Scott! Whatever in the name of--" Then

on catching sight of Miss Ramsbotham's transfigured face and trembling

hands Bohemia recollected itself in time to murmur instead: "Delighted,

I'm sure!" and to offer mechanical congratulations. Reginald Peters was

a pretty but remarkably foolish-looking lad of about two-and-twenty, with

curly hair and receding chin; but to Miss Ramsbotham evidently a

promising Apollo. Her first meeting with him had taken place at one of

the many political debating societies then in fashion, attendance at

which Miss Ramsbotham found useful for purposes of journalistic "copy."

Miss Ramsbotham, hitherto a Radical of pronounced views, he had succeeded

under three months in converting into a strong supporter of the

Gentlemanly Party. His feeble political platitudes, which a little while

before she would have seized upon merrily to ridicule, she now sat

drinking in, her plain face suffused with admiration. Away from him and

in connection with those subjects--somewhat numerous--about which he knew

little and cared less, she retained her sense and humour; but in his

presence she remained comparatively speechless, gazing up into his

somewhat watery eyes with the grateful expression of one learning wisdom

from a master.

Her absurd adoration--irritating beyond measure to her friends, and which

even to her lover, had he possessed a grain of sense, would have appeared

ridiculous--to Master Peters was evidently a gratification. Of selfish,

exacting nature, he must have found the services of this brilliant woman

of the world of much practical advantage. Knowing all the most

interesting people in London, it was her pride and pleasure to introduce

him everywhere. Her friends put up with him for her sake; to please her

made him welcome, did their best to like him, and disguised their

failure. The free entry to a places of amusement saved his limited

purse. Her influence, he had instinct enough to perceive, could not fail

to be of use to him in his profession: that of a barrister. She praised

him to prominent solicitors, took him to tea with judges' wives,

interested examiners on his behalf. In return he overlooked her many

disadvantages, and did not fail to let her know it. Miss Ramsbotham's

gratitude was boundless.

"I do so wish I were younger and better looking," she sighed to the bosom

friend. "For myself, I don't mind; I have got used to it. But it is so

hard on Reggie. He feels it, I know he does, though he never openly

complains."

"He would be a cad if he did," answered Susan Fossett, who having tried

conscientiously for a month to tolerate the fellow, had in the end

declared her inability even to do more than avoid open expression of

cordial dislike. "Added to which I don't quite see of what use it would

be. You never told him you were young and pretty, did you?"

"I told him, my dear," replied Miss Ramsbotham, "the actual truth. I

don't want to take any credit for doing so; it seemed the best course.

You see, unfortunately, I look my age. With most men it would have made

a difference. You have no idea how good he is. He assured me he had

engaged himself to me with his eyes open, and that there was no need to

dwell upon unpleasant topics. It is so wonderful to me that he should

care for me--he who could have half the women in London at his feet."

"Yes, he's the type that would attract them, I daresay," agreed Susan

Fossett. "But are you quite sure that he does?--care for you, I mean."

"My dear," returned Miss Ramsbotham, "you remember Rochefoucauld's

definition. 'One loves, the other consents to be loved.' If he will

only let me do that I shall be content. It is more than I had any right

to expect."

"Oh, you are a fool," told her bluntly her bosom friend.

"I know I am," admitted Miss Ramsbotham; "but I had no idea that being a

fool was so delightful."

Bohemia grew day by day more indignant and amazed. Young Peters was not

even a gentleman. All the little offices of courtship he left to her. It

was she who helped him on with his coat, and afterwards adjusted her own

cloak; she who carried the parcel, she who followed into and out of the

restaurant. Only when he thought anyone was watching would he make any

attempt to behave to her with even ordinary courtesy. He bullied her,

contradicted her in public, ignored her openly. Bohemia fumed with

impotent rage, yet was bound to confess that so far as Miss Ramsbotham

herself was concerned he had done more to make her happy than had ever

all Bohemia put together. A tender light took up its dwelling in her

eyes, which for the first time it was noticed were singularly deep and

expressive. The blood, of which she possessed if anything too much, now

came and went, so that her cheeks, in place of their insistent red, took

on a varied pink and white. Life had entered her thick dark hair, giving

to it shade and shadow.

The woman began to grow younger. She put on flesh. Sex, hitherto

dormant, began to show itself; femininities peeped out. New tones,

suggesting possibilities, crept into her voice. Bohemia congratulated

itself that the affair, after all, might turn out well.

Then Master Peters spoiled everything by showing a better side to his

nature, and, careless of all worldly considerations, falling in love

himself, honestly, with a girl at the bun shop. He did the best thing

under the circumstances that he could have done: told Miss Ramsbotham the

plain truth, and left the decision in her hands.

Miss Ramsbotham acted as anyone who knew her would have foretold.

Possibly, in the silence of her delightful little four-roomed flat over

the tailor's shop in Marylebone Road, her sober, worthy maid dismissed

for a holiday, she may have shed some tears; but, if so, no trace of them

was allowed to mar the peace of mind of Mr. Peters. She merely thanked

him for being frank with her, and by a little present pain saving them

both a future of disaster. It was quite understandable; she knew he had

never really been in love with her. She had thought him the type of man

that never does fall in love, as the word is generally understood--Miss

Ramsbotham did not add, with anyone except himself--and had that been the

case, and he content merely to be loved, they might have been happy

together. As it was--well, it was fortunate he had found out the truth

before it was too late. Now, would he take her advice?

Mr. Peters was genuinely grateful, as well he might be, and would consent

to any suggestion that Miss Ramsbotham might make; felt he had behaved

shabbily, was very much ashamed of himself, would be guided in all things

by Miss Ramsbotham, whom he should always regard as the truest of

friends, and so on.

Miss Ramsbotham's suggestion was this: Mr. Peters, no more robust of body

than of mind, had been speaking for some time past of travel. Having

nothing to do now but to wait for briefs, why not take this opportunity

of visiting his only well-to-do relative, a Canadian farmer. Meanwhile,

let Miss Peggy leave the bun shop and take up her residence in Miss

Ramsbotham's flat. Let there be no engagement--merely an understanding.

The girl was pretty, charming, good, Miss Ramsbotham felt sure; but--well,

a little education, a little training in manners and behaviour would not

be amiss, would it? If, on returning at the end of six months or a year,

Mr. Peters was still of the same mind, and Peggy also wishful, the affair

would be easier, would it not?

There followed further expressions of eternal gratitude. Miss Ramsbotham

swept all such aside. It would be pleasant to have a bright young girl

to live with her; teaching, moulding such an one would be a pleasant

occupation.

And thus it came to pass that Mr. Reginald Peters disappeared for a while

from Bohemia, to the regret of but few, and there entered into it one

Peggy Nutcombe, as pretty a child as ever gladdened the eye of man. She

had wavy, flaxen hair, a complexion that might have been manufactured

from the essence of wild roses, the nose that Tennyson bestows upon his

miller's daughter, and a mouth worthy of the Lowther Arcade in its days

of glory. Add to this the quick grace of a kitten, with the appealing

helplessness of a baby in its first short frock, and you will be able to

forgive Mr. Reginald Peters his faithlessness. Bohemia looked from one

to the other--from the fairy to the woman--and ceased to blame. That the

fairy was as stupid as a camel, as selfish as a pig, and as lazy as a

nigger Bohemia did not know; nor--so long as her figure and complexion

remained what it was--would its judgment have been influenced, even if it

had. I speak of the Bohemian male.

But that is just what her figure and complexion did not do. Mr. Reginald

Peters, finding his uncle old, feeble, and inclined to be fond, deemed it

to his advantage to stay longer than he had intended. Twelve months went

by. Miss Peggy was losing her kittenish grace, was becoming lumpy. A

couple of pimples--one near the right-hand corner of her rosebud mouth,

and another on the left-hand side of her tip-tilted nose--marred her baby

face. At the end of another six months the men called her plump, and the

women fat. Her walk was degenerating into a waddle; stairs caused her to

grunt. She took to breathing with her mouth, and Bohemia noticed that

her teeth were small, badly coloured, and uneven. The pimples grew in

size and number. The cream and white of her complexion was merging into

a general yellow. A certain greasiness of skin was manifesting itself.

Babyish ways in connection with a woman who must have weighed about

eleven stone struck Bohemia as incongruous. Her manners, judged alone,

had improved. But they had not improved her. They did not belong to

her; they did not fit her. They sat on her as Sunday broadcloth on a

yokel. She had learned to employ her "h's" correctly, and to speak good

grammar. This gave to her conversation a painfully artificial air. The

little learning she had absorbed was sufficient to bestow upon her an

angry consciousness of her own invincible ignorance.

Meanwhile, Miss Ramsbotham had continued upon her course of rejuvenation.

At twenty-nine she had looked thirty-five; at thirty-two she looked not a

day older than five-and-twenty. Bohemia felt that should she retrograde

further at the same rate she would soon have to shorten her frocks and

let down her hair. A nervous excitability had taken possession of her

that was playing strange freaks not only with her body, but with her

mind. What it gave to the one it seemed to take from the other. Old

friends, accustomed to enjoy with her the luxury of plain speech,

wondered in vain what they had done to offend her. Her desire was now

towards new friends, new faces. Her sense of humour appeared to be

departing from her; it became unsafe to jest with her. On the other

hand, she showed herself greedy for admiration and flattery. Her former

chums stepped back astonished to watch brainless young fops making their

way with her by complimenting her upon her blouse, or whispering to her

some trite nonsense about her eyelashes. From her work she took a good

percentage of her brain power to bestow it on her clothes. Of course,

she was successful. Her dresses suited her, showed her to the best

advantage. Beautiful she could never be, and had sense enough to know

it; but a charming, distinguished-looking woman she had already become.

Also, she was on the high road to becoming a vain, egotistical,

commonplace woman.

It was during the process of this, her metamorphosis, that Peter Hope one

evening received a note from her announcing her intention of visiting him

the next morning at the editorial office of _Good Humour_. She added in

a postscript that she would prefer the interview to be private.

Punctually to the time appointed Miss Ramsbotham arrived. Miss

Ramsbotham, contrary to her custom, opened conversation with the weather.

Miss Ramsbotham was of opinion that there was every possibility of rain.

Peter Hope's experience was that there was always possibility of rain.

"How is the Paper doing?" demanded Miss Ramsbotham.

The Paper--for a paper not yet two years old--was doing well. "We expect

very shortly--very shortly indeed," explained Peter Hope, "to turn the

corner."

"Ah! that 'corner,'" sympathised Miss Ramsbotham.

"I confess," smiled Peter Hope, "it doesn't seem to be exactly a right-

angled corner. One reaches it as one thinks. But it takes some getting

round--what I should describe as a cornery corner."

"What you want," thought Miss Ramsbotham, "are one or two popular

features."

"Popular features," agreed Peter guardedly, scenting temptation, "are not

to be despised, provided one steers clear of the vulgar and the

commonplace."

"A Ladies' Page!" suggested Miss Ramsbotham--"a page that should make the

woman buy it. The women, believe me, are going to be of more and more

importance to the weekly press."

"But why should she want a special page to herself?" demanded Peter Hope.

"Why should not the paper as a whole appeal to her?"

"It doesn't," was all Miss Ramsbotham could offer in explanation.

"We give her literature and the drama, poetry, fiction, the higher

politics, the--"

"I know, I know," interrupted Miss Ramsbotham, who of late, among other

failings new to her, had developed a tendency towards impatience; "but

she gets all that in half a dozen other papers. I have thought it out."

Miss Ramsbotham leaned further across the editorial desk and sunk her

voice unconsciously to a confidential whisper. "Tell her the coming

fashions. Discuss the question whether hat or bonnet makes you look the

younger. Tell her whether red hair or black is to be the new colour,

what size waist is being worn by the best people. Oh, come!" laughed

Miss Ramsbotham in answer to Peter's shocked expression; "one cannot

reform the world and human nature all at once. You must appeal to

people's folly in order to get them to listen to your wisdom. Make your

paper a success first. You can make it a power afterwards."

"But," argued Peter, "there are already such papers--papers devoted to--to

that sort of thing, and to nothing else."

"At sixpence!" replied the practical Miss Ramsbotham. "I am thinking of

the lower middle-class woman who has twenty pounds a year to spend on

dress, and who takes twelve hours a day to think about it, poor creature.

My dear friend, there is a fortune in it. Think of the advertisements."

Poor Peter groaned--old Peter, the dreamer of dreams. But for thought of

Tommy! one day to be left alone to battle with a stony-eyed, deaf world,

Peter most assuredly would have risen in his wrath, would have said to

his distinguished-looking temptress, "Get thee behind me, Miss

Ramsbotham. My journalistic instinct whispers to me that your scheme,

judged by the mammon of unrighteousness, is good. It is a new departure.

Ten years hence half the London journals will have adopted it. There is

money in it. But what of that? Shall I for mere dross sell my editorial

soul, turn the temple of the Mighty Pen into a den of--of milliners! Good

morning, Miss Ramsbotham. I grieve for you. I grieve for you as for a

fellow-worker once inspired by devotion to a noble calling, who has

fallen from her high estate. Good morning, madam."

So Peter thought as he sat tattooing with his finger-tips upon the desk;

but only said--

"It would have to be well done."

"Everything would depend upon how it was done," agreed Miss Ramsbotham.

"Badly done, the idea would be wasted. You would be merely giving it

away to some other paper."

"Do you know of anyone?" queried Peter.

"I was thinking of myself," answered Miss Ramsbotham.

"I am sorry," said Peter Hope.

"Why?" demanded Miss Ramsbotham. "Don't you think I could do it?"

"I think," said Peter, "no one could do it better. I am sorry you should

wish to do it--that is all."

"I want to do it," replied Miss Ramsbotham, a note of doggedness in her

voice.

"How much do you propose to charge me?" Peter smiled.

"Nothing."

"My dear lady--"

"I could not in conscience," explained Miss Ramsbotham, "take payment

from both sides. I am going to make a good deal out of it. I am going

to make out of it at least three hundred a year, and they will be glad to

pay it."

"Who will?"

"The dressmakers. I shall be one of the most stylish women in London,"

laughed Miss Ramsbotham.

"You used to be a sensible woman," Peter reminded her.

"I want to live."

"Can't you manage to do it without--without being a fool, my dear."

"No," answered Miss Ramsbotham, "a woman can't. I've tried it."

"Very well," agreed Peter, "be it so."

Peter had risen. He laid his shapely, white old hand upon the woman's

shoulder. "Tell me when you want to give it up. I shall be glad."

Thus it was arranged. _Good Humour_ gained circulation and--of more

importance yet--advertisements; and Miss Ramsbotham, as she had

predicted, the reputation of being one of the best-dressed women in

London. Her reason for desiring such reputation Peter Hope had shrewdly

guessed. Two months later his suspicions were confirmed. Mr. Reginald

Peters, his uncle being dead, was on his way back to England.

His return was awaited with impatience only by the occupants of the

little flat in the Marylebone Road; and between these two the difference

of symptom was marked. Mistress Peggy, too stupid to comprehend the

change that had been taking place in her, looked forward to her lover's

arrival with delight. Mr. Reginald Peters, independently of his

profession, was in consequence of his uncle's death a man of means. Miss

Ramsbotham's tutelage, which had always been distasteful to her, would

now be at an end. She would be a "lady" in the true sense of the

word--according to Miss Peggy's definition, a woman with nothing to do

but eat and drink, and nothing to think of but dress. Miss Ramsbotham,

on the other hand, who might have anticipated the home-coming of her

quondam admirer with hope, exhibited a strange condition of alarmed

misery, which increased from day to day as the date drew nearer.

The meeting--whether by design or accident was never known--took place at

an evening party given by the proprietors of a new journal. The

circumstance was certainly unfortunate for poor Peggy, whom Bohemia began

to pity. Mr. Peters, knowing both women would be there and so on the

look-out, saw in the distance among the crowd of notabilities a superbly

millinered, tall, graceful woman, whose face recalled sensations he could

not for the moment place. Chiefly noticeable about her were her

exquisite neck and arms, and the air of perfect breeding with which she

moved, talking and laughing, through the distinguished, fashionable

throng. Beside her strutted, nervously aggressive, a vulgar, fat,

pimply, shapeless young woman, attracting universal attention by the

incongruity of her presence in the room. On being greeted by the

graceful lady of the neck and arms, the conviction forced itself upon him

that this could be no other than the once Miss Ramsbotham, plain of face

and indifferent of dress, whose very appearance he had almost forgotten.

On being greeted gushingly as "Reggie" by the sallow-complexioned, over-

dressed young woman he bowed with evident astonishment, and apologised

for a memory that, so he assured the lady, had always been to him a

source of despair.

Of course, he thanked his stars--and Miss Ramsbotham--that the engagement

had never been formal. So far as Mr. Peters was concerned, there was an

end to Mistress Peggy's dream of an existence of everlasting breakfasts

in bed. Leaving the Ramsbotham flat, she returned to the maternal roof,

and there a course of hard work and plain living tended greatly to

improve her figure and complexion; so that in course of time, the gods

smiling again upon her, she married a foreman printer, and passes out of

this story.

Meanwhile, Mr. Reginald Peters--older, and the possessor, perhaps, of

more sense--looked at Miss Ramsbotham with new eyes, and now not

tolerated but desired her. Bohemia waited to assist at the happy

termination of a pretty and somewhat novel romance. Miss Ramsbotham had

shown no sign of being attracted elsewhere. Flattery, compliment, she

continued to welcome; but merely, so it seemed, as favourable criticism.

Suitors more fit and proper were now not lacking, for Miss Ramsbotham,

though a woman less desirable when won, came readily to the thought of

wooing. But to all such she turned a laughing face.

"I like her for it," declared Susan Fossett; "and he has improved--there

was room for it--though I wish it could have been some other. There was

Jack Herring--it would have been so much more suitable. Or even Joe, in

spite of his size. But it's her wedding, not ours; and she will never

care for anyone else."

And Bohemia bought its presents, and had them ready, but never gave them.

A few months later Mr. Reginald Peters returned to Canada, a bachelor.

Miss Ramsbotham expressed her desire for another private interview with

Peter Hope.

"I may as well keep on the Letter to Clorinda," thought Miss Ramsbotham.

"I have got into the knack of it. But I will get you to pay me for it in

the ordinary way."

"I would rather have done so from the beginning," explained Peter.

"I know. I could not in conscience, as I told you, take from both sides.

For the future--well, they have said nothing; but I expect they are

beginning to get tired of it."

"And you!" questioned Peter.

"Yes. I am tired of it myself," laughed Miss Ramsbotham. "Life isn't

long enough to be a well-dressed woman."

"You have done with all that?"

"I hope so," answered Miss Ramsbotham.

"And don't want to talk any more about it?" suggested Peter.

"Not just at present. I should find it so difficult to explain."

By others, less sympathetic than old Peter, vigorous attempts were made

to solve the mystery. Miss Ramsbotham took enjoyment in cleverly evading

these tormentors. Thwarted at every point, the gossips turned to other

themes. Miss Ramsbotham found interest once again in the higher branches

of her calling; became again, by slow degrees, the sensible, frank, 'good

sort' that Bohemia had known, liked, respected--everything but loved.

Years later, to Susan Fossett, the case was made clear; and through Susan

Fossett, a nice enough woman but talkative, those few still interested

learned the explanation.

"Love," said Miss Ramsbotham to the bosom friend, "is not regulated by

reason. As you say, there were many men I might have married with much

more hope of happiness. But I never cared for any other man. He was not

intellectual, was egotistical, possibly enough selfish. The man should

always be older than the woman; he was younger, and he was a weak

character. Yet I loved him."

"I am glad you didn't marry him," said the bosom friend.

"So am I," agreed Miss Ramsbotham.

"If you can't trust me," had said the bosom friend at this point,

"don't."

"I meant to do right," said Miss Ramsbotham, "upon my word of honour I

did, in the beginning."

"I don't understand," said the bosom friend.

"If she had been my own child," continued Miss Ramsbotham, "I could not

have done more--in the beginning. I tried to teach her, to put some

sense into her. Lord! the hours I wasted on that little idiot! I marvel

at my own patience. She was nothing but an animal. An animal! she had

only an animal's vices. To eat and drink and sleep was her idea of

happiness; her one ambition male admiration, and she hadn't character

enough to put sufficient curb upon her stomach to retain it. I reasoned

with her, I pleaded with her, I bullied her. Had I persisted I might

have succeeded by sheer physical and mental strength in restraining her

from ruining herself. I was winning. I had made her frightened of me.

Had I gone on, I might have won. By dragging her out of bed in the

morning, by insisting upon her taking exercise, by regulating every

particle of food and drink she put into her mouth, I kept the little

beast in good condition for nearly three months. Then, I had to go away

into the country for a few days; she swore she would obey my

instructions. When I came back I found she had been in bed most of the

time, and had been living chiefly on chocolate and cakes. She was curled

up asleep in an easy-chair, snoring with her mouth wide open, when I

opened the door. And at sight of that picture the devil came to me and

tempted me. Why should I waste my time, wear myself out in mind and

body, that the man I loved should marry a pig because it looked like an

angel? 'Six months' wallowing according to its own desires would reveal

it in its true shape. So from that day I left it to itself. No, worse

than that--I don't want to spare myself--I encouraged her. I let her

have a fire in her bedroom, and half her meals in bed. I let her have

chocolate with tablespoonfuls of cream floating on the top: she loved it.

She was never really happy except when eating. I let her order her own

meals. I took a fiendish delight watching the dainty limbs turning to

shapeless fat, the pink-and-white complexion growing blotchy. It is

flesh that man loves; brain and mind and heart and soul! he never thinks

of them. This little pink-and-white sow could have cut me out with

Solomon himself. Why should such creatures have the world arranged for

them, and we not be allowed to use our brains in our own defence? But

for my looking-glass I might have resisted the temptation, but I always

had something of the man in me: the sport of the thing appealed to me. I

suppose it was the nervous excitement under which I was living that was

changing me. All my sap was going into my body. Given sufficient time,

I might meet her with her own weapons, animal against animal. Well, you

know the result: I won. There was no doubt about his being in love with

me. His eyes would follow me round the room, feasting on me. I had

become a fine animal. Men desired me, Do you know why I refused him? He

was in every way a better man than the silly boy I had fallen in love

with; but he came back with a couple of false teeth: I saw the gold

setting one day when he opened his mouth to laugh. I don't say for a

moment, my dear, there is no such thing as love--love pure, ennobling,

worthy of men and women, its roots in the heart and nowhere else. But

that love I had missed; and the other! I saw it in its true light. I

had fallen in love with him because he was a pretty, curly-headed boy. He

had fallen in love with Peggy when she was pink-and-white and slim. I

shall always see the look that came into his eyes when she spoke to him

at the hotel, the look of disgust and loathing. The girl was the same;

it was only her body that had grown older. I could see his eyes fixed

upon my arms and neck. I had got to grow old in time, brown skinned, and

wrinkled. I thought of him, growing bald, fat--"

"If you had fallen in love with the right man," had said Susan Fossett,

"those ideas would not have come to you."

"I know," said Miss Ramsbotham. "He will have to like me thin and in

these clothes, just because I am nice, and good company, and helpful.

That is the man I am waiting for."

He never came along. A charming, bright-eyed, white-haired lady occupies

alone a little flat in the Marylebone Road, looks in occasionally at the

Writers' Club. She is still Miss Ramsbotham.

Bald-headed gentlemen feel young again talking to her: she is so

sympathetic, so big-minded, so understanding. Then, hearing the clock

strike, tear themselves from her with a sigh, and return home--some of

them--to stupid shrewish wives.

STORY THE FIFTH--Joey Loveredge agrees--on certain terms--to join the

Company

The most popular member of the Autolycus Club was undoubtedly Joseph

Loveredge. Small, chubby, clean-shaven, his somewhat longish, soft,

brown hair parted in the middle, strangers fell into the error of

assuming him to be younger than he really was. It is on record that a

leading lady novelist--accepting her at her own estimate--irritated by

his polite but firm refusal to allow her entrance into his own editorial

office without appointment, had once boxed his ears, under the impression

that he was his own office-boy. Guests to the Autolycus Club, on being

introduced to him, would give to him kind messages to take home to his

father, with whom they remembered having been at school together. This

sort of thing might have annoyed anyone with less sense of humour. Joseph

Loveredge would tell such stories himself, keenly enjoying the jest--was

even suspected of inventing some of the more improbable. Another fact

tending to the popularity of Joseph Loveredge among all classes, over and

above his amiability, his wit, his genuine kindliness, and his

never-failing fund of good stories, was that by care and inclination he

had succeeded in remaining a bachelor. Many had been the attempts to

capture him; nor with the passing of the years had interest in the sport

shown any sign of diminution. Well over the frailties and distempers so

dangerous to youth, of staid and sober habits, with an ever-increasing

capital invested in sound securities, together with an ever-increasing

income from his pen, with a tastefully furnished house overlooking

Regent's Park, an excellent and devoted cook and house-keeper, and

relatives mostly settled in the Colonies, Joseph Loveredge, though

inexperienced girls might pass him by with a contemptuous sniff, was

recognised by ladies of maturer judgment as a prize not too often dangled

before the eyes of spinsterhood. Old foxes--so we are assured by kind-

hearted country gentlemen--rather enjoy than otherwise a day with the

hounds. However that may be, certain it is that Joseph Loveredge,

confident of himself, one presumes, showed no particular disinclination

to the chase. Perhaps on the whole he preferred the society of his own

sex, with whom he could laugh and jest with more freedom, to whom he

could tell his stories as they came to him without the trouble of having

to turn them over first in his own mind; but, on the other hand, Joey

made no attempt to avoid female company whenever it came his way; and

then no cavalier could render himself more agreeable, more unobtrusively

attentive. Younger men stood by, in envious admiration of the ease with

which in five minutes he would establish himself on terms of cosy

friendship with the brilliant beauty before whose gracious coldness they

had stood shivering for months; the daring with which he would tuck under

his arm, so to speak, the prettiest girl in the room, smooth down as if

by magic her hundred prickles, and tease her out of her overwhelming

sense of her own self-importance. The secret of his success was,

probably, that he was not afraid of them. Desiring nothing from them

beyond companionableness, a reasonable amount of appreciation for his

jokes--which without being exceptionally stupid they would have found it

difficult to withhold--with just sufficient information and intelligence

to make conversation interesting, there was nothing about him by which

they could lay hold of him. Of course, that rendered them particularly

anxious to lay hold of him. Joseph's lady friends might, roughly

speaking, be divided into two groups: the unmarried, who wanted to marry

him to themselves; and the married, who wanted to marry him to somebody

else. It would be a social disaster, the latter had agreed among

themselves, if Joseph Loveredge should never wed.

"He would make such an excellent husband for poor Bridget."

"Or Gladys. I wonder how old Gladys really is?"

"Such a nice, kind little man."

"And when one thinks of the sort of men that _are_ married, it does seem

such a pity!"

"I wonder why he never has married, because he's just the sort of man

you'd think _would_ have married."

"I wonder if he ever was in love."

"Oh, my dear, you don't mean to tell me that a man has reached the age of

forty without ever being in love!"

The ladies would sigh.

"I do hope if ever he does marry, it will be somebody nice. Men are so

easily deceived."

"I shouldn't be surprised myself a bit if something came of it with

Bridget. She's a dear girl, Bridget--so genuine."

"Well, I think myself, dear, if it's anyone, it's Gladys. I should be so

glad to see poor dear Gladys settled."

The unmarried kept their thoughts more to themselves. Each one, upon

reflection, saw ground for thinking that Joseph Loveredge had given proof

of feeling preference for herself. The irritating thing was that, on

further reflection, it was equally clear that Joseph Loveredge had shown

signs of preferring most of the others.

Meanwhile Joseph Loveredge went undisturbed upon his way. At eight

o'clock in the morning Joseph's housekeeper entered the room with a cup

of tea and a dry biscuit. At eight-fifteen Joseph Loveredge arose and

performed complicated exercises on an indiarubber pulley, warranted, if

persevered in, to bestow grace upon the figure and elasticity upon the

limbs. Joseph Loveredge persevered steadily, and had done so for years,

and was himself contented with the result, which, seeing it concerned

nobody else, was all that could be desired. At half-past eight on

Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, Joseph Loveredge breakfasted on one cup

of tea, brewed by himself; one egg, boiled by himself; and two pieces of

toast, the first one spread with marmalade, the second with butter. On

Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays Joseph Loveredge discarded eggs and

ate a rasher of bacon. On Sundays Joseph Loveredge had both eggs and

bacon, but then allowed himself half an hour longer for reading the

paper. At nine-thirty Joseph Loveredge left the house for the office of

the old-established journal of which he was the incorruptible and

honoured City editor. At one-forty-five, having left his office at one-

thirty, Joseph Loveredge entered the Autolycus Club and sat down to

lunch. Everything else in Joseph's life was arranged with similar

preciseness, so far as was possible with the duties of a City editor.

Monday evening Joseph spent with musical friends at Brixton. Friday was

Joseph's theatre night. On Tuesdays and Thursdays he was open to receive

invitations out to dinner; on Wednesdays and Saturdays he invited four

friends to dine with him at Regent's Park. On Sundays, whatever the

season, Joseph Loveredge took an excursion into the country. He had his

regular hours for reading, his regular hours for thinking. Whether in

Fleet Street, or the Tyrol, on the Thames, or in the Vatican, you might

recognise him from afar by his grey frock-coat, his patent-leather boots,

his brown felt hat, his lavender tie. The man was a born bachelor. When

the news of his engagement crept through the smoky portals of the

Autolycus Club nobody believed it.

"Impossible!" asserted Jack Herring. "I've known Joey's life for fifteen

years. Every five minutes is arranged for. He could never have found

the time to do it."

"He doesn't like women, not in that way; I've heard him say so,"

explained Alexander the Poet. "His opinion is that women are the artists

of Society--delightful as entertainers, but troublesome to live with."

"I call to mind," said the Wee Laddie, "a story he told me in this verra

room, barely three months agone: Some half a dozen of them were gong home

together from the Devonshire. They had had a joyous evening, and one of

them--Joey did not notice which--suggested their dropping in at his place

just for a final whisky. They were laughing and talking in the dining-

room, when their hostess suddenly appeared upon the scene in a costume--so

Joey described it--the charm of which was its variety. She was a nice-

looking woman, Joey said, but talked too much; and when the first lull

occurred, Joey turned to the man sitting nighest to him, and who looked

bored, and suggested in a whisper that it was about time they went.

"'Perhaps you had better go,' assented the bored-looking man. 'Wish I

could come with you; but, you see, I live here.'"

"I don't believe it," said Somerville the Briefless. "He's been cracking

his jokes, and some silly woman has taken him seriously."

But the rumour grew into report, developed detail, lost all charm,

expanded into plain recital of fact. Joey had not been seen within the

Club for more than a week--in itself a deadly confirmation. The question

became: Who was she--what was she like?

"It's none of our set, or we should have heard something from her side

before now," argued acutely Somerville the Briefless.

"Some beastly kid who will invite us to dances and forget the supper,"

feared Johnny Bulstrode, commonly called the Babe. "Old men always fall

in love with young girls."

"Forty," explained severely Peter Hope, editor and part proprietor of

_Good Humour_, "is not old."

"Well, it isn't young," persisted Johnny.

"Good thing for you, Johnny, if it is a girl," thought Jack Herring.

"Somebody for you to play with. I often feel sorry for you, having

nobody but grown-up people to talk to."

"They do get a bit stodgy after a certain age," agreed the Babe.

"I am hoping," said Peter, "it will be some sensible, pleasant woman, a

little over thirty. He is a dear fellow, Loveredge; and forty is a very

good age for a man to marry."

"Well, if I'm not married before I'm forty--" said the Babe.

"Oh, don't you fret," Jack Herring interrupted him--"a pretty boy like

you! We will give a ball next season, and bring you out, if you're

good--get you off our hands in no time."

It was August. Joey went away for his holiday without again entering the

Club. The lady's name was Henrietta Elizabeth Doone. It was said by the

_Morning Post_ that she was connected with the Doones of Gloucestershire.

Doones of Gloucestershire--Doones of Gloucestershire mused Miss

Ramsbotham, Society journalist, who wrote the weekly Letter to Clorinda,

discussing the matter with Peter Hope in the editorial office of _Good

Humour_. "Knew a Doon who kept a big second-hand store in Euston Road

and called himself an auctioneer. He bought a small place in

Gloucestershire and added an 'e' to his name. Wonder if it's the same?"

"I had a cat called Elizabeth once," said Peter Hope.

"I don't see what that's got to do with it."

"No, of course not," agreed Peter. "But I was rather fond of it. It was

a quaint sort of animal, considered as a cat--would never speak to

another cat, and hated being out after ten o'clock at night."

"What happened to it?" demanded Miss Ramsbotham.

"Fell off a roof," sighed Peter Hope. "Wasn't used to them."

The marriage took place abroad, at the English Church at Montreux. Mr.

and Mrs. Loveredge returned at the end of September. The Autolycus Club

subscribed to send a present of a punch-bowl, left cards, and waited with

curiosity to see the bride. But no invitation arrived. Nor for a month

was Joey himself seen within the Club. Then, one foggy afternoon, waking

after a doze, with a cold cigar in his mouth, Jack Herring noticed he was

not the only occupant of the smoking-room. In a far corner, near a

window, sat Joseph Loveredge reading a magazine. Jack Herring rubbed his

eyes, then rose and crossed the room.

"I thought at first," explained Jack Herring, recounting the incident

later in the evening, "that I must be dreaming. There he sat, drinking

his five o'clock whisky-and-soda, the same Joey Loveredge I had known for

fifteen years; yet not the same. Not a feature altered, not a hair on

his head changed, yet the whole face was different; the same body, the

same clothes, but another man. We talked for half an hour; he remembered

everything that Joey Loveredge had known. I couldn't understand it.

Then, as the clock struck, and he rose, saying he must be home at half-

past five, the explanation suddenly occurred to me: _Joey Loveredge was

dead_; _this was a married man_."

"We don't want your feeble efforts at psychological romance," told him

Somerville the Briefless. "We want to know what you talked about. Dead

or married, the man who can drink whisky-and-soda must be held

responsible for his actions. What's the little beggar mean by cutting us

all in this way? Did he ask after any of us? Did he leave any message

for any of us? Did he invite any of us to come an see him?"

"Yes, he did ask after nearly everybody; I was coming to that. But he

didn't leave any message. I didn't gather that he was pining for old

relationships with any of us."

"Well, I shall go round to the office to-morrow morning," said Somerville

the Briefless, "and force my way in if necessary. This is getting

mysterious."

But Somerville returned only to puzzle the Autolycus Club still further.

Joey had talked about the weather, the state of political parties, had

received with unfeigned interest all gossip concerning his old friends;

but about himself, his wife, nothing had been gleaned. Mrs. Loveredge

was well; Mrs. Loveredge's relations were also well. But at present Mrs.

Loveredge was not receiving.

Members of the Autolycus Club with time upon their hands took up the

business of private detectives. Mrs. Loveredge turned out to be a

handsome, well-dressed lady of about thirty, as Peter Hope had desired.

At eleven in the morning, Mrs. Loveredge shopped in the neighbourhood of

the Hampstead Road. In the afternoon, Mrs. Loveredge, in a hired

carriage, would slowly promenade the Park, looking, it was noticed, with

intense interest at the occupants of other carriages as they passed, but

evidently having no acquaintances among them. The carriage, as a general

rule, would call at Joey's office at five, and Mr. and Mrs. Loveredge

would drive home. Jack Herring, as the oldest friend, urged by the other

members, took the bull by the horns and called boldly. On neither

occasion was Mrs. Loveredge at home.

"I'm damned if I go again!" said Jack. "She was in the second time, I

know. I watched her into the house. Confound the stuck-up pair of

them!"

Bewilderment gave place to indignation. Now and again Joey would creep,

a mental shadow of his former self, into the Club where once every member

would have risen with a smile to greet him. They gave him curt answers

and turned away from him. Peter Hope one afternoon found him there

alone, standing with his hands in his pockets looking out of window.

Peter was fifty, so he said, maybe a little older; men of forty were to

him mere boys. So Peter, who hated mysteries, stepped forward with a

determined air and clapped Joey on the shoulder.

"I want to know, Joey," said Peter, "I want to know whether I am to go on

liking you, or whether I've got to think poorly of you. Out with it."

Joey turned to him a face so full of misery that Peter's heart was

touched. "You can't tell how wretched it makes me," said Joey. "I

didn't know it was possible to feel so uncomfortable as I have felt

during these last three months."

"It's the wife, I suppose?" suggested Peter.

"She's a dear girl. She only has one fault."

"It's a pretty big one," returned Peter. "I should try and break her of

it if I were you."

"Break her of it!" cried the little man. "You might as well advise me to

break a brick wall with my head. I had no idea what they were like. I

never dreamt it."

"But what is her objection to us? We are clean, we are fairly

intelligent--"

"My dear Peter, do you think I haven't said all that, and a hundred

things more? A woman! she gets an idea into her head, and every argument

against it hammers it in further. She has gained her notion of what she

calls Bohemia from the comic journals. It's our own fault, we have done

it ourselves. There's no persuading her that it's a libel."

"Won't she see a few of us--judge for herself? There's Porson--why

Porson might have been a bishop. Or Somerville--Somerville's Oxford

accent is wasted here. It has no chance."

"It isn't only that," explained Joey; "she has ambitions, social

ambitions. She thinks that if we begin with the wrong set, we'll never

get into the right. We have three friends at present, and, so far as I

can see, are never likely to have any more. My dear boy, you'd never

believe there could exist such bores. There's a man and his wife named

Holyoake. They dine with us on Thursdays, and we dine with them on

Tuesdays. Their only title to existence consists in their having a

cousin in the House of Lords; they claim no other right themselves. He

is a widower, getting on for eighty. Apparently he's the only relative

they have, and when he dies, they talk of retiring into the country.

There's a fellow named Cutler, who visited once at Marlborough House in

connection with a charity. You'd think to listen to him that he had

designs upon the throne. The most tiresome of them all is a noisy woman

who, as far as I can make out, hasn't any name at all. 'Miss Montgomery'

is on her cards, but that is only what she calls herself. Who she really

is! It would shake the foundations of European society if known. We sit

and talk about the aristocracy; we don't seem to know anybody else. I

tried on one occasion a little sarcasm as a corrective--recounted

conversations between myself and the Prince of Wales, in which I

invariably addressed him as 'Teddy.' It sounds tall, I know, but those

people took it in. I was too astonished to undeceive them at the time,

the consequence is I am a sort of little god to them. They come round me

and ask for more. What am I to do? I am helpless among them. I've

never had anything to do before with the really first-prize idiot; the

usual type, of course, one knows, but these, if you haven't met them, are

inconceivable. I try insulting them; they don't even know I am insulting

them. Short of dragging them out of their chairs and kicking them round

the room, I don't see how to make them understand it."

"And Mrs. Loveredge?" asked the sympathetic Peter, "is she--"

"Between ourselves," said Joey, sinking his voice to a needless whisper,

seeing he and Peter were the sole occupants of the smoking-room--"I

couldn't, of course, say it to a younger man--but between ourselves, my

wife is a charming woman. You don't know her."

"Doesn't seem much chance of my ever doing so," laughed Peter.

"So graceful, so dignified, so--so queenly," continued the little man,

with rising enthusiasm. "She has only one fault--she has no sense of

humour."

To Peter, as it has been said, men of forty were mere boys.

"My dear fellow, whatever could have induced you--"

"I know--I know all that," interrupted the mere boy. "Nature arranges it

on purpose. Tall and solemn prigs marry little women with turned-up

noses. Cheerful little fellows like myself--we marry serious, stately

women. If it were otherwise, the human race would be split up into

species."

"Of course, if you were actuated by a sense of public duty--"

"Don't be a fool, Peter Hope," returned the little man. "I'm in love

with my wife just as she is, and always shall be. I know the woman with

a sense of humour, and of the two I prefer the one without. The Juno

type is my ideal. I must take the rough with the smooth. One can't have

a jolly, chirpy Juno, and wouldn't care for her if one could."

"Then are you going to give up all your old friends?"

"Don't suggest it," pleaded the little man. "You don't know how

miserable it makes me--the mere idea. Tell them to be patient. The

secret of dealing with women, I have found, is to do nothing rashly." The

clock struck five. "I must go now," said Joey. "Don't misjudge her,

Peter, and don't let the others. She's a dear girl. You'll like her,

all of you, when you know her. A dear girl! She only has that one

fault."

Joey went out.

Peter did his best that evening to explain the true position of affairs

without imputing snobbery to Mrs. Loveredge. It was a difficult task,

and Peter cannot be said to have accomplished it successfully. Anger and

indignation against Joey gave place to pity. The members of the

Autolycus Club also experienced a little irritation on their own account.

"What does the woman take us for?" demanded Somerville the Briefless.

"Doesn't she know that we lunch with real actors and actresses, that once

a year we are invited to dine at the Mansion House?"

"Has she never heard of the aristocracy of genius?" demanded Alexander

the Poet.

"The explanation may be that possibly she has seen it," feared the Wee

Laddie.

"One of us ought to waylay the woman," argued the Babe--"insist upon her

talking to him for ten minutes. I've half a mind to do it myself."

Jack Herring said nothing--seemed thoughtful.

The next morning Jack Herring, still thoughtful, called at the editorial

offices of _Good Humour_, in Crane Court, and borrowed Miss Ramsbotham's

Debrett. Three days later Jack Herring informed the Club casually that

he had dined the night before with Mr. and Mrs. Loveredge. The Club gave

Jack Herring politely to understand that they regarded him as a liar, and

proceeded to demand particulars.

"If I wasn't there," explained Jack Herring, with unanswerable logic,

"how can I tell you anything about it?"

This annoyed the Club, whose curiosity had been whetted. Three members,

acting in the interests of the whole, solemnly undertook to believe

whatever he might tell them. But Jack Herring's feelings had been

wounded.

"When gentlemen cast a doubt upon another gentleman's veracity--"

"We didn't cast a doubt," explained Somerville the Briefless. "We merely

said that we personally did not believe you. We didn't say we couldn't

believe you; it is a case for individual effort. If you give us

particulars bearing the impress of reality, supported by details that do

not unduly contradict each other, we are prepared to put aside our

natural suspicions and face the possibility of your statement being

correct."

"It was foolish of me," said Jack Herring. "I thought perhaps it would

amuse you to hear what sort of a woman Mrs. Loveredge was like--some

description of Mrs. Loveredge's uncle. Miss Montgomery, friend of Mrs.

Loveredge, is certainly one of the most remarkable women I have ever met.

Of course, that isn't her real name. But, as I have said, it was foolish

of me. These people--you will never meet them, you will never see them;

of what interest can they be to you?"

"They had forgotten to draw down the blinds, and he climbed up a lamp-

post and looked through the window," was the solution of the problem put

forward by the Wee Laddie.

"I'm dining there again on Saturday," volunteered Jack Herring. "If any

of you will promise not to make a disturbance, you can hang about on the

Park side, underneath the shadow of the fence, and watch me go in. My

hansom will draw up at the door within a few minutes of eight."

The Babe and the Poet agreed to undertake the test.

"You won't mind our hanging round a little while, in case you're thrown

out again?" asked the Babe.

"Not in the least, so far as I am concerned," replied Jack Herring.

"Don't leave it too late and make your mother anxious."

"It's true enough," the Babe recounted afterwards. "The door was opened

by a manservant and he went straight in. We walked up and down for half

an hour, and unless they put him out the back way, he's telling the

truth."

"Did you hear him give his name?" asked Somerville, who was stroking his

moustache.

"No, we were too far off," explained the Babe. "But--I'll swear it was

Jack--there couldn't be any mistake about that."

"Perhaps not," agreed Somerville the Briefless.

Somerville the Briefless called at the offices of _Good Humour_, in Crane

Court, the following morning, and he also borrowed Miss Ramsbotham's

Debrett.

"What's the meaning of it?" demanded the sub-editor.

"Meaning of what?"

"This sudden interest of all you fellows in the British Peerage."

"All of us?"

"Well, Herring was here last week, poring over that book for half an

hour, with the _Morning Post_ spread out before him. Now you're doing

the same thing."

"Ah! Jack Herring, was he? I thought as much. Don't talk about it,

Tommy. I'll tell you later on."

On the following Monday, the Briefless one announced to the Club that he

had received an invitation to dine at the Loveredges' on the following

Wednesday. On Tuesday, the Briefless one entered the Club with a slow

and stately step. Halting opposite old Goslin the porter, who had

emerged from his box with the idea of discussing the Oxford and Cambridge

boat race, Somerville, removing his hat with a sweep of the arm, held it

out in silence. Old Goslin, much astonished, took it mechanically,

whereupon the Briefless one, shaking himself free from his Inverness

cape, flung it lightly after the hat, and strolled on, not noticing that

old Goslin, unaccustomed to coats lightly and elegantly thrown at him,

dropping the hat, had caught it on his head, and had been, in the

language of the prompt-book, "left struggling." The Briefless one,

entering the smoking-room, lifted a chair and let it fall again with a

crash, and sitting down upon it, crossed his legs and rang the bell.

"Ye're doing it verra weel," remarked approvingly the Wee Laddie. "Ye're

just fitted for it by nature."

"Fitted for what?" demanded the Briefless one, waking up apparently from

a dream.

"For an Adelphi guest at eighteenpence the night," assured him the Wee

Laddie. "Ye're just splendid at it."

The Briefless one, muttering that the worst of mixing with journalists

was that if you did not watch yourself, you fell into their ways, drank

his whisky in silence. Later, the Babe swore on a copy of _Sell's

Advertising Guide_ that, crossing the Park, he had seen the Briefless one

leaning over the railings of Rotten Row, clad in a pair of new kid

gloves, swinging a silver-headed cane.

One morning towards the end of the week, Joseph Loveredge, looking twenty

years younger than when Peter had last seen him, dropped in at the

editorial office of _Good Humour_ and demanded of Peter Hope how he felt

and what he thought of the present price of Emma Mines.

Peter Hope's fear was that the gambling fever was spreading to all

classes of society.

"I want you to dine with us on Sunday," said Joseph Loveredge. "Jack

Herring will be there. You might bring Tommy with you."

Peter Hope gulped down his astonishment and said he should be delighted;

he thought that Tommy also was disengaged. "Mrs. Loveredge out of town,

I presume?" questioned Peter Hope.

"On the contrary," replied Joseph Loveredge, "I want you to meet her."

Joseph Loveredge removed a pile of books from one chair and placed them

carefully upon another, after which he went and stood before the fire.

"Don't if you don't like," said Joseph Loveredge; "but if you don't mind,

you might call yourself, just for the evening--say, the Duke of

Warrington."

"Say the what?" demanded Peter Hope.

"The Duke of Warrington," repeated Joey. "We are rather short of dukes.

Tommy can be the Lady Adelaide, your daughter."

"Don't be an ass!" said Peter Hope.

"I'm not an ass," assured him Joseph Loveredge. "He is wintering in

Egypt. You have run back for a week to attend to business. There is no

Lady Adelaide, so that's quite simple."

"But what in the name of--" began Peter Hope.

"Don't you see what I'm driving at?" persisted Joey. "It was Jack's idea

at the beginning. I was frightened myself at first, but it is working to

perfection. She sees you, and sees that you are a gentleman. When the

truth comes out--as, of course, it must later on--the laugh will be

against her."

"You think--you think that'll comfort her?" suggested Peter Hope.

"It's the only way, and it is really wonderfully simple. We never

mention the aristocracy now--it would be like talking shop. We just

enjoy ourselves. You, by the way, I met in connection with the movement

for rational dress. You are a bit of a crank, fond of frequenting

Bohemian circles."

"I am risking something, I know," continued Joey; "but it's worth it. I

couldn't have existed much longer. We go slowly, and are very careful.

Jack is Lord Mount-Primrose, who has taken up with anti-vaccination and

who never goes out into Society. Somerville is Sir Francis Baldwin, the

great authority on centipedes. The Wee Laddie is coming next week as

Lord Garrick, who married that dancing-girl, Prissy Something, and

started a furniture shop in Bond Street. I had some difficulty at first.

She wanted to send out paragraphs, but I explained that was only done by

vulgar persons--that when the nobility came to you as friends, it was

considered bad taste. She is a dear girl, as I have always told you,

with only one fault. A woman easier to deceive one could not wish for. I

don't myself see why the truth ever need come out--provided we keep our

heads."

"Seems to me you've lost them already," commented Peter; "you're

overdoing it."

"The more of us the better," explained Joey; "we help each other.

Besides, I particularly want you in it. There's a sort of superior

Pickwickian atmosphere surrounding you that disarms suspicion."

"You leave me out of it," growled Peter.

"See here," laughed Joey; "you come as the Duke of Warrington, and bring

Tommy with you, and I'll write your City article."

"For how long?" snapped Peter. Incorruptible City editors are not easily

picked up.

"Oh, well, for as long as you like."

"On that understanding," agreed Peter, "I'm willing to make a fool of

myself in your company."

"You'll soon get used to it," Joey told him; "eight o'clock, then, on

Sunday; plain evening dress. If you like to wear a bit of red ribbon in

your buttonhole, why, do so. You can get it at Evans', in Covent

Garden."

"And Tommy is the Lady--"

"Adelaide. Let her have a taste for literature, then she needn't wear

gloves. I know she hates them." Joey turned to go.

"Am I married?" asked Peter.

Joey paused. "I should avoid all reference to your matrimonial affairs

if I were you," was Joey's advice. "You didn't come out of that business

too well."

"Oh! as bad as that, was I? You don't think Mrs. Loveredge will object

to me?"

"I have asked her that. She's a dear, broad-minded girl. I've promised

not to leave you alone with Miss Montgomery, and Willis has had

instructions not to let you mix your drinks."

"I'd have liked to have been someone a trifle more respectable," grumbled

Peter.

"We rather wanted a duke," explained Joey, "and he was the only one that

fitted in all round."

The dinner a was a complete success. Tommy, entering into the spirit of

the thing, bought a new pair of open-work stockings and assumed a languid

drawl. Peter, who was growing forgetful, introduced her as the Lady

Alexandra; it did not seem to matter, both beginning with an A. She

greeted Lord Mount-Primrose as "Billy," and asked affectionately after

his mother. Joey told his raciest stories. The Duke of Warrington

called everybody by their Christian names, and seemed well acquainted

with Bohemian society--a more amiable nobleman it would have been

impossible to discover. The lady whose real name was not Miss Montgomery

sat in speechless admiration. The hostess was the personification of

gracious devotion.

Other little dinners, equally successful, followed. Joey's

acquaintanceship appeared to be confined exclusively to the higher

circles of the British aristocracy--with one exception: that of a German

baron, a short, stout gentleman, who talked English well, but with an

accent, and who, when he desired to be impressive, laid his right

forefinger on the right side of his nose and thrust his whole face

forward. Mrs. Loveredge wondered why her husband had not introduced them

sooner, but was too blissful to be suspicious. The Autolycus Club was

gradually changing its tone. Friends could no longer recognise one

another by the voice. Every corner had its solitary student practising

high-class intonation. Members dropped into the habit of addressing one

another as "dear chappie," and, discarding pipes, took to cheap cigars.

Many of the older _habitues_ resigned.

All might have gone well to the end of time if only Mrs. Loveredge had

left all social arrangements in the hands of her husband--had not sought

to aid his efforts. To a certain political garden-party, one day in the

height of the season, were invited Joseph Loveredge and Mrs. Joseph

Loveredge, his wife. Mr. Joseph Loveredge at the last moment found

himself unable to attend. Mrs. Joseph Loveredge went alone, met there

various members of the British aristocracy. Mrs. Joseph Loveredge,

accustomed to friendship with the aristocracy, felt at her ease and was

natural and agreeable. The wife of an eminent peer talked to her and

liked her. It occurred to Mrs. Joseph Loveredge that this lady might be

induced to visit her house in Regent's Park, there to mingle with those

of her own class.

"Lord Mount-Primrose, the Duke of Warrington, and a few others will be

dining with us on Sunday next," suggested Mrs. Loveredge. "Will not you

do us the honour of coming? We are, of course, only simple folk

ourselves, but somehow people seem to like us."

The wife of the eminent peer looked at Mrs. Loveredge, looked round the

grounds, looked at Mrs. Loveredge again, and said she would like to come.

Mrs. Joseph Loveredge intended at first to tell her husband of her

success, but a little devil entering into her head and whispering to her

that it would be amusing, she resolved to keep it as a surprise, to be

sprung upon him at eight o'clock on Sunday. The surprise proved all she

could have hoped for.

The Duke of Warrington, having journalistic matters to discuss with

Joseph Loveredge, arrived at half-past seven, wearing on his shirt-front

a silver star, purchased in Eagle Street the day before for eight-and-

six. There accompanied him the Lady Alexandra, wearing the identical

ruby necklace that every night for the past six months, and twice on

Saturdays, "John Strongheart" had been falsely accused of stealing. Lord

Garrick, having picked up his wife (Miss Ramsbotham) outside the Mother

Redcap, arrived with her on foot at a quarter to eight. Lord

Mount-Primrose, together with Sir Francis Baldwin, dashed up in a hansom

at seven-fifty. His Lordship, having lost the toss, paid the fare. The

Hon. Harry Sykes (commonly called "the Babe") was ushered in five minutes

later. The noble company assembled in the drawing-room chatted blithely

while waiting for dinner to be announced. The Duke of Warrington was

telling an anecdote about a cat, which nobody appeared to believe. Lord

Mount-Primrose desired to know whether by any chance it might be the same

animal that every night at half-past nine had been in the habit of

climbing up his Grace's railings and knocking at his Grace's door. The

Honourable Harry was saying that, speaking of cats, he once had a sort of

terrier--when the door was thrown open and Willis announced the Lady Mary

Sutton.

Mr. Joseph Loveredge, who was sitting near the fire, rose up. Lord Mount-

Primrose, who was standing near the piano, sat down. The Lady Mary

Sutton paused in the doorway. Mrs. Loveredge crossed the room to greet

her.

"Let me introduce you to my husband," said Mrs. Loveredge. "Joey, my

dear, the Lady Mary Sutton. I met the Lady Mary at the O'Meyers' the

other day, and she was good enough to accept my invitation. I forgot to

tell you."

Mr. Loveredge said he was delighted; after which, although as a rule a

chatty man, he seemed to have nothing else to say. And a silence fell.

Somerville the Briefless--till then. That evening has always been

reckoned the starting-point of his career. Up till then nobody thought

he had much in him--walked up and held out his hand.

"You don't remember me, Lady Mary," said the Briefless one. "I met you

some years ago; we had a most interesting conversation--Sir Francis

Baldwin."

The Lady Mary stood for a moment trying apparently to recollect. She was

a handsome, fresh-complexioned woman of about forty, with frank,

agreeable eyes. The Lady Mary glanced at Lord Garrick, who was talking

rapidly to Lord Mount-Primrose, who was not listening, and who could not

have understood even if he had been, Lord Garrick, without being aware of

it, having dropped into broad Scotch. From him the Lady Mary glanced at

her hostess, and from her hostess to her host.

The Lady Mary took the hand held out to her. "Of course," said the Lady

Mary; "how stupid of me! It was the day of my own wedding, too. You

really must forgive me. We talked of quite a lot of things. I remember

now."

Mrs. Loveredge, who prided herself upon maintaining old-fashioned

courtesies, proceeded to introduce the Lady Mary to her fellow-guests, a

little surprised that her ladyship appeared to know so few of them. Her

ladyship's greeting of the Duke of Warrington was accompanied, it was

remarked, by a somewhat curious smile. To the Duke of Warrington's

daughter alone did the Lady Mary address remark.

"My dear," said the Lady Mary, "how you have grown since last we met!"

The announcement of dinner, as everybody felt, came none too soon.

It was not a merry feast. Joey told but one story; he told it three

times, and twice left out the point. Lord Mount-Primrose took sifted

sugar with _pate de foie gras_ and ate it with a spoon. Lord Garrick,

talking a mixture of Scotch and English, urged his wife to give up

housekeeping and take a flat in Gower Street, which, as he pointed out,

was central. She could have her meals sent in to her and so avoid all

trouble. The Lady Alexandra's behaviour appeared to Mrs. Loveredge not

altogether well-bred. An eccentric young noblewoman Mrs. Loveredge had

always found her, but wished on this occasion that she had been a little

less eccentric. Every few minutes the Lady Alexandra buried her face in

her serviette, and shook and rocked, emitting stifled sounds, apparently

those of acute physical pain. Mrs. Loveredge hoped she was not feeling

ill, but the Lady Alexandra appeared incapable of coherent reply. Twice

during the meal the Duke of Warrington rose from the table and began

wandering round the room; on each occasion, asked what he wanted, had

replied meekly that he was merely looking for his snuff-box, and had sat

down again. The only person who seemed to enjoy the dinner was the Lady

Mary Sutton.

The ladies retired upstairs into the drawing-room. Mrs. Loveredge,

breaking a long silence, remarked it as unusual that no sound of

merriment reached them from the dining-room. The explanation was that

the entire male portion of the party, on being left to themselves, had

immediately and in a body crept on tiptoe into Joey's study, which,

fortunately, happened to be on the ground floor. Joey, unlocking the

bookcase, had taken out his Debrett, but appeared incapable of

understanding it. Sir Francis Baldwin had taken it from his unresisting

hands; the remaining aristocracy huddled themselves into a corner and

waited in silence.

"I think I've got it all clearly," announced Sir Francis Baldwin, after

five minutes, which to the others had been an hour. "Yes, I don't think

I'm making any mistake. She's the daughter of the Duke of Truro, married

in '53 the Duke of Warrington, at St. Peter's, Eaton Square; gave birth

in '55 to a daughter, the Lady Grace Alexandra Warberton Sutton, which

makes the child just thirteen. In '63 divorced the Duke of Warrington.

Lord Mount-Primrose, so far as I can make out, must be her second cousin.

I appear to have married her in '66 at Hastings. It doesn't seem to me

that we could have got together a homelier little party to meet her even

if we had wanted to."

Nobody spoke; nobody had anything particularly worth saying. The door

opened, and the Lady Alexandra (otherwise Tommy) entered the room.

"Isn't it time," suggested the Lady Alexandra, "that some of you came

upstairs?"

"I was thinking myself," explained Joey, the host, with a grim smile, "it

was about time that I went out and drowned myself. The canal is handy."

"Put it off till to-morrow," Tommy advised him. "I have asked her

ladyship to give me a lift home, and she has promised to do so. She is

evidently a woman with a sense of humour. Wait till after I have had a

talk with her."

Six men, whispering at the same time, were prepared with advice; but

Tommy was not taking advice.

"Come upstairs, all of you," insisted Tommy, "and make yourselves

agreeable. She's going in a quarter of an hour."

Six silent men, the host leading, the two husbands bringing up the rear,

ascended the stairs, each with the sensation of being twice his usual

weight. Six silent men entered the drawing-room and sat down on chairs.

Six silent men tried to think of something interesting to say.

Miss Ramsbotham--it was that or hysterics, as she afterwards

explained--stifling a sob, opened the piano. But the only thing she

could remember was "Champagne Charlie is my Name," a song then popular in

the halls. Five men, when she had finished, begged her to go on. Miss

Ramsbotham, speaking in a shrill falsetto, explained it was the only tune

she knew. Four of them begged her to play it again. Miss Ramsbotham

played it a second time with involuntary variations.

The Lady Mary's carriage was announced by the imperturbable Willis. The

party, with the exception of the Lady Mary and the hostess, suppressed

with difficulty an inclination to burst into a cheer. The Lady Mary

thanked Mrs. Loveredge for a most interesting evening, and beckoned Tommy

to accompany her. With her disappearance, a wild hilarity, uncanny in

its suddenness, took possession of the remaining guests.

A few days later, the Lady Mary's carriage again drew up before the

little house in Regent's Park. Mrs. Loveredge, fortunately, was at home.

The carriage remained waiting for quite a long time. Mrs. Loveredge,

after it was gone, locked herself in her own room. The under-housemaid

reported to the kitchen that, passing the door, she had detected sounds

indicative of strong emotion.

Through what ordeal Joseph Loveredge passed was never known. For a few

weeks the Autolycus Club missed him. Then gradually, as aided by Time

they have a habit of doing, things righted themselves. Joseph Loveredge

received his old friends; his friends received Joseph Loveredge. Mrs.

Loveredge, as a hostess, came to have only one failing--a marked coldness

of demeanour towards all people with titles, whenever introduced to her.