III

“At lunch on Friday,” Mrs Pryce resumed, “the steward told us that we

were expected to reach Queenstown about one o’clock in the morning, and

we all began discussing whether we should sit up. The old travellers

scoffed at the idea, and mamma, though she wasn’t an old traveller, said

she would never think of being so silly. But I and the two other girls

at the table--they were Americans on their first trip over--said that we

certainly should, and one of them asked Mr Walsh if he meant to. ‘I

must,’ he said, smiling. ‘In fact, I expect to land there--that is, if I

get the telegram I expect to get. Of course he glanced at me as he

spoke, so that I knew what he meant, though the others hadn’t the least

idea. What would they have said?”

“I suppose they did say they were very sorry he wasn’t going on to

Liverpool?”

“Yes, and even mamma said how sorry we were to part from him. Fancy

mamma saying that! It was fun! Only after lunch she was terribly

aggravating; she kept me down in the writing-room all the afternoon,

writing letters for her to all sorts of stupid people in America and at

home, saying we’d arrived safely. Of course we’d arrived safely! But if

mamma so much as crosses the Channel without sinking, she writes to all

her friends as if she’d come back from the North Pole. Some people are

like that, aren’t they?”

“Yes; and they’re generally considered attentive. You may get a great

reputation for good manners by writing unnecessary letters.”

“Yes. So I didn’t see him again till dinner. Nothing much happened

then--at least I don’t remember much. The end had begun, I think, and I

wasn’t feeling so jolly as I had been all the way across. But everybody

else was in high spirits, and he was the gayest of all of us. I expect

he saw that I was rather blue, and he followed me on deck soon after

dinner, and there we had our last little talk. He told me that he

thought everything would be done quite quietly; he meant to tell the

purser where to find him in case of inquiry, and to be ready to go

ashore at once. He was sure they’d take him ashore; but if by chance

they didn’t, he would stay in his cabin, so that, anyhow, this was

‘Good-bye.’ So I said ‘Good-bye’ and wished him good luck. ‘Are you

going to sit up?’ he said. I looked at him for a moment and then said

‘No.’ He smiled in an apologetic sort of way and gave that little wave

of his hands. ‘It’s foolish of me to care, I suppose, but--thank you for

that.’ I was a little surprised, because I really hadn’t thought he

would mind me seeing; but I was pleased too. He held out both his

hands, and I took them and pressed them. Then I opened my hands and

looked at his as they lay there. He was smiling at me with his lips and

his eyes. ‘Slim-Fingered Jim!’ he whispered. ‘Don’t quite forget him,

little friend.’ ‘I suppose I shall never see you again?’ I said. ‘Better

not,’ he told me. ‘But let’s remember this voyage. We’ll put a little

fence round it, won’t we? and keep all the rest of life out, and just

let this stand by itself--on its own merits. Shall we, dear little

friend?’”

Mrs Pryce stayed her narrative for a moment. But my curiosity was

merciless.

“What did you say?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I think I murmured something like ‘Oh, my dear, my dear!’

and then I let go of his hands and turned away to the sea; and when I

looked round again, he was gone.”

“And that was the end?”

“No. The end was lying in the berth above mamma, who was sound asleep,

and--well, snoring rather--lying there and feeling the ship slowing down

and then stopping, and hearing the mail-boat come alongside, and all the

noise and the shouting and the bustle. I knew I could hear

nothing--there would be nothing to hear--but I couldn’t help listening.

I listened very hard all the time, but of course I heard nothing; and at

last--after hours and hours, as it seemed--we began to move again. That

was the real end. I knew it had happened then; and so it had. He wasn’t

at breakfast. But luckily nobody on the ship--none of the passengers, I

mean--found out about it till we got to Liverpool; and as mamma and I

weren’t going on to London, it didn’t matter.”

“And he got off?”

“Yes, he got off--that time.”

“I’m afraid this great man had one foible,” I observed. “He was proud of

those hands! Well, Cæsar didn’t like getting bald, so I learnt at

school.”

“I always remember them as they lay in mine,” she said. “His hands and

his eyes--that’s what I remember.”

“Ever seen him again?”

“Of course not.” She sat where she was for a moment longer, then rose.

“Shall we go in?”

“I think we may as well,” said I.

So we went into the billiard-room. They were still playing pool. I made

for the whisky-and-soda and mixed myself a tumbler and drank thereof.

When I set the tumbler down and turned round to the table Charlie Pryce

was engaged in making a shot of critical importance. Everybody was

looking at him. His wife was standing at the end of the table and

looking at him too. She seemed as much interested in the shot as any of

them. But was she? For before he played she raised her eyes and looked

across at me with a queer little smile. I couldn’t help returning it. I

knew what she was thinking. The billiard-table is a high trial.

When Charlie had brought off his shot--which he did triumphantly--his

wife came and kissed him. This pleased him very much. He did not

recognise the Kiss Penitential, which is, however, a well-ascertained

variety.

I’m afraid that the magnetic current of immorality which seemed to

emanate from Mr James Painter Walsh passed through the sympathetic

medium of Mrs Pryce’s memory and infected, in some small degree, my more

hardened intellect; for even now I can’t help hoping that Slim-Fingered

Jim is being put to some light form of labour. But it’s a difficult

business! Even the laundry--a most coveted department, as I am given to

understand--would spoil them hopelessly.

THE GREY FROCK

The rights and wrongs of the matter are perhaps a little obscure, and it

is possible to take his side as well as hers. Or perhaps there is really

no question of sides at all--no need to condemn anybody; only another

instance of the difficulty people have in understanding one another’s

point of view. But here, with a few lines added by way of introduction,

are the facts as related in her obviously candid and sincere narrative.

Miss Winifred Petheram’s father had an income from landed estate of

about five thousand a year, and spent, say, six or thereabouts; his

manor house was old and beautiful, the gardens delightful, the stables

handsome and handsomely maintained, the housekeeping liberal,

hospitable, almost lavish. Mr Petheram had three sons and four

daughters; but the sons were still young, and not the cause of any great

expense. Mrs Petheram was a quiet body, the two girls in the schoolroom

were no serious matter; in fact, apart from the horses, Mildred and

Winifred were, in a pecuniary point of view, the most serious burden on

the family purse. For both were pretty girls, gay and fond of society,

given to paying frequent visits in town and country, and in consequence

needing many frocks and a considerable supply of downright hard cash.

But everybody was very comfortable; only it was understood that at a

period generally referred to as “some day” there would be very little

for anybody except the eldest son. “Some day,” meant, of course, when Mr

Petheram reluctantly died, and thereby brought his family into less

favourable worldly circumstances.

From this brief summary of the family’s position the duty of Mildred

and Winifred (and, in due course of time, of the two girls in the

schoolroom also) stands forth salient and unmistakable. Mildred

performed it promptly at the age of nineteen years. He was the second

son of a baronet, and his elder brother was sickly and unmarried; but,

like a wise young man, he took no chances, went on the Stock Exchange,

and became exceedingly well-to-do in an exceedingly brief space of

time--something, in fact, “came off” in South Africa, and when that

happens ordinary limits of time and probability are suspended. So with

Mildred all was very well; and it was odds that one of the boys would be

provided for by his brother-in-law. Winifred had just as good

chances--nay, better; for her sensitive face and wondering eyes had an

attraction that Mildred’s self-possessed good looks could not exert. But

Winifred shilly-shallied (it was her father’s confidential after-dinner

word) till she was twenty-one, then refused Sir Barton Amesbury (in

itself a step of doubtful sanity, as was generally observed), and

engaged herself to Harold Jackson, who made two hundred a year and had

no prospects except the doubtful one of maintaining his income at that

level--unless, that is, he turned out a genius, when it was even betting

whether a mansion or the workhouse awaited him; for that depends on the

variety of genius. Having taken this amazing course, Winifred was

resolute and radiantly happy; her relatives, after the necessary amount

of argument, shrugged their shoulders--the very inadequate _ultima

ratio_ to which a softening civilisation seems to have reduced relatives

in such cases.

“I can manage two hundred a year for her while I live,” said Mr

Petheram, wiping his brow and then dusting his boots; he was just back

from his ride. “After that----”

“The insurance, my dear?” Mrs Petheram suggested. But her husband shook

his head; that little discrepancy above noted, between five and six

thousand a year, had before this caused the insurance to be a very

badly broken reed.

Harold Jackson--for in him the explanation of Winifred’s action must be

sought--was tall, good-looking, ready of speech, and decidedly

agreeable. There was no aggressiveness about him, and his quiet manners

repelled any suspicion of bumptiousness. But it cannot be denied that to

him Winifred’s action did not seem extraordinary; he himself accounted

for this by saying that she, like himself, was an Idealist, the boys by

saying that he was “stuck-up,” Mr Petheram by a fretful exclamation that

in all worldly matters he was as blind as a new-born puppy. Whatever the

truth of these respective theories, he was as convinced that Winifred

had chosen for her own happiness as that she had given him his. And in

this she most fully agreed. Of course, then, all the shrugging of

shoulders in the universe could not affect the radiant contentment of

the lovers, nor could it avert the swift passage of months which soon

brought the wedding-day in sight, and made preparations for it urgent

and indispensable.

Married couples, even though they have only a precarious four hundred a

year, must live somewhere--no idealism is independent of a roof; on the

contrary, it centres round the home, so Harold said, and the word “home”

seemed already sacred to Winifred as her glance answered his. It was the

happiest day of her life when she put on her dainty new costume of

delicate grey, took her parasol and gloves, matched to a shade with her

gown, and mounted into the smart dog-cart which Jennie, the new chestnut

mare, was to draw to the station. A letter had come from Harold to say

that, after long search, he had found a house which would suit them, and

was only just a trifle more expensive than the maximum sum they had

decided to give for rent. Winifred knew that the delicate grey became

her well, and that Harold would think her looking very pretty; and she

was going to see her home and his. Her face was bright as she kissed her

father and jumped down from the dog-cart; but he sighed when she had

left him, and his brow was wrinkled as he drove Jennie back. He felt

himself growing rather old; “some day” did not seem quite as remote as

it used, and pretty Winnie--well, there was no use in crying over it

now. Wilful girls must have their way; and it was not his fault that

confounded agitators had played the deuce with the landed interest. The

matter passed from his thoughts as he began to notice how satisfactorily

Jennie moved.

Winifred’s lover met her in London, and found her eyes still bright from

the reveries of her journey. To-day was a gala day--they drove off in a

hansom to a smart restaurant in Piccadilly, joking about their

extravagance. Everything was perfect to Winifred, except (a small

exception, surely!) that Harold failed to praise, seemed almost not to

notice, the grey costume; it must have been that he looked at her face

only!

“It’s not a large house, you know,” he said at lunch, smiling at her

over a glass of Graves.

“Well, I sha’n’t be wanting to get away from you,” she answered,

smiling. “Not very far, Harold!”

“Are your people still abusing me?”

He put the question with a laugh.

“They never abused you, only me.” Then came the irrepressible question:

“Do you like my new frock? I put it on on purpose--for the house, you

know.”

“Our home!” he murmured, rather sentimentally, it must be confessed. The

question about the frock he did not answer; he was thinking of the home.

Winifred was momentarily grateful to a stout lady at the next table, who

put up her glass, looked at the frock, and with a nod of approval called

her companion’s attention to it. This was while Harold paid the bill.

Then they took another cab, and headed north--through Berkeley Square,

where Winifred would have liked, but did not expect, to stop, and so up

to Oxford Street. Here they bore considerably to the east, then plunged

north again and drove through one or two long streets. Harold, who had

made the journey before, paid no heed to the route, but talked freely of

delightful hours which they were to enjoy together, of books to read and

thoughts to think, and of an intimate sympathy which, near as they were

already to one another, the home and the home life alone could enable

them fully to realise. Winifred listened; but far down in her mind now

was another question, hardly easier to stifle than that about the frock.

“Where are we going to?” would have been its naked form; but she yielded

no more to her impulse than to look about her and mark and wonder. At

last they turned by a sharp twist from a long narrow street into a short

narrower street, where a waggon by the curbstone forced the cab to a

walk, and shrill boys were playing an unintelligible noisy game.

“What queer places we pass through!” she cried with a laugh, as she laid

her hand on his arm and turned her face to his.

“Pass through! We’re at home,” he answered, returning her laugh. “At

home, Winnie!” He pointed at a house on the right-hand side, and,

immediately after, the cab stopped. Winifred got out, holding her skirt

back from contact with the wheel. Harold, in his eagerness to ring the

door bell, had forgotten to render her this service. She stood on the

pavement for a moment looking about her. One of the boys cried: “Crikey,

there’s a swell!” and she liked the boy for it. Then she turned to the

house.

“It wants a lick of paint,” said Harold cheerfully, as he rang the bell

again.

“It certainly does,” she admitted, looking up at the dirty walls.

An old woman opened the door; she might be said, by way of metaphor, to

need the same process as the walls; a very narrow passage was disclosed

behind her.

“Welcome!” said Harold, giving Winifred his hand and then presenting her

to the old woman. “This is my future wife,” he explained. “We’ve come to

look at the house. But we won’t bother you, Mrs Blidgett, we’d rather

run over it by ourselves. We shall enjoy that, sha’n’t we, Winnie?”

Winnie’s answer was a little scream and a hasty clutch at her gown; a

pail of dirty water, standing in the passage, had threatened ruin; she

recoiled violently from this peril against the opposite wall and drew

away again, silently exhibiting a long trail of dark dust on her new

grey frock. Harold laughed as he led the way into a small square room

that opened from the passage.

“That’s the parlour,” said the old woman, wiping her arms with her

apron. “You can find your way upstairs; nothing’s locked.” And with this

remark she withdrew by a steep staircase leading underground.

“She’s the caretaker,” Harold explained.

“She doesn’t seem to have taken much care,” observed Winifred, still

indignant about her gown and holding it round her as closely as drapery

clings to an antique statue.

Miss Petheram’s account of the house, its actual dimensions,

accommodation, and characteristics, has always been very vague, and

since she refused information as to its number in the street,

verification of these details has remained impossible. Perhaps it was a

reasonably capacious, although doubtless not extensive, dwelling;

perhaps, again, it was a confined and well-nigh stifling den. She

remembered two things--first, its all-pervading dirt; secondly, the

remarkable quality which (as she alleged) distinguished its atmosphere.

She thought there were seven “enclosures,” this term being arrived at

(after discussion) as a compromise between “rooms” and “pens”; and she

knew that the windows of each of these enclosures were commanded by the

windows of several other apparently similar and very neighbouring

enclosures. Beyond this she could give no account of her first half-hour

in the house; her exact recollection began when she was left alone in

the enclosure on the first floor, which Harold asserted to be the

drawing-room, Harold himself having gone downstairs to seek the old

woman and elicit from her some information as to what were and what were

not tenant’s fixtures in the said enclosure. “You can look about you,”

he remarked cheerfully, as he left her, “and make up your mind where

you’re going to have your favourite seat. Then you shall tell me, and I

shall have the picture of you sitting there in my mind.” He pointed to a

wooden chair, the only one then in the room. “Experiment with that

chair,” he added, laughing. “I won’t be long, darling.”

Mechanically, without considering things which she obviously ought to

have considered, Winifred sank into the designated seat, laid her

parasol on a small table, and leant her elbows on the same piece of

furniture as she held her face between her gloved hands. The atmosphere

again asserted its peculiar quality; she rose for a moment and opened

the window; fresh air was gained at the expense of spoilt gloves, and

was weighted with the drawbacks of a baby’s cries and an inquisitive

woman’s stare from over the way. Shutting the window again, she returned

to her chair--the symbol of what was to be her favourite seat in days to

come, her chosen corner in the house which had been the subject of so

many talks and so many dreams. There were a great many flies in the

room; the noise of adjacent humanity in street and houses was

miscellaneous and penetrating; the air was very close. And this house

was rather more expensive than their calculations had allowed. They had

immensely enjoyed making those calculations down there in the country,

under the old yew hedge and in sight of the flower beds beneath the

library window. She remembered the day they did it. There was a cricket

match in the meadow. Mildred and her husband brought the drag over, and

Sir Barton came in his tandem. It was almost too hot in the sun, but

simply delightful in the shade. She and Harold had had great fun over

mapping out their four hundred a year and proving how much might be done

with it--at least compared with anything they could want when once they

had the great thing that they wanted.

The vision vanished; she was back in the dirty little room again; she

caught up her parasol; a streak across the dust marked where it had lain

on the table; she sprang up and twisted her frock round, craning her

neck back; ah, that she had reconnoitred that chair! She looked at her

gloves; then with a cry of horror she dived for her handkerchief, put it

to her lips, and scrubbed her cheeks; the handkerchief came away soiled,

dingy, almost black. This last outrage overcame her; the parasol dropped

on the floor, she rested her arms on the table and laid her face on

them, and she burst into sobs, just as she used to in childhood when her

brothers crumpled a clean frock or somebody spoke to her roughly. And

between her sobs she cried, almost loudly, very bitterly: “Oh, it’s too

mean and dirty and horrid!”

Harold had stolen softly upstairs, meaning to surprise the girl he

loved, perhaps to let a snatched kiss be her first knowledge of his

return. He flushed red, and his lips set sternly; he walked across the

room to her with a heavy tread. She looked up, saw him, and knew that

her exclamation had been overheard.

“What in the world is the matter?” he asked in a tone of cold surprise.

It was very absurd--she couldn’t stop crying; and from amid her weeping

nothing more reasonable, nothing more adequate, nothing less trivial

would come than confused murmurs of “My frock, Harold!” “My parasol!”

“Oh, my face, my gloves!” He smiled contemptuously. “Don’t you see?”

she exclaimed, exhibiting the gloves and parasol.

“See what? Are you crying because the room’s dirty?” He paused and then

added, “I’m sorry you think it mean and horrid. Very sorry, Winifred.”

Offence was deep and bitter in his voice; he looked at her with a sort

of disgust; she stopped sobbing and regarded him with a gaze in which

fright and expectation seemed mingled, as though there were a great

peril, and just one thing that might narrowly avert it. But his eyes

were very hard. She dried her tears, and then forlornly scrubbed her

cheeks again. He watched her with hostile curiosity, appearing to think

her a very strange spectacle. Presently he spoke. “I thought you loved

me. Oh, I daresay you thought so too till I came into competition with

your new frock. I beg pardon--I must add your gloves and your parasol.

As for the house, it’s no doubt mean and horrid; we were going to be

poor, you see.” He laughed scornfully, as he added, “You might even have

had to do a little dusting yourself now and then! Horrible!”

“I just sat there and looked at him.” That was Winifred’s own account of

her behaviour. It is not very explicit and leaves room for much

conjecture as to what her look said or tried to say. But whatever the

message was he did not read it. He was engrossed in his own indignation,

readier to hurt than to understand, full of his own wrong, of the

mistake he had made, of her extraordinary want of love, of courage, of

the high soul. Very likely all this was a natural enough state of mind

for him to be in. Justice admits his provocation; the triviality of her

spoken excuses gave his anger only too fine an opportunity. He easily

persuaded himself that here was a revelation of the real woman, a flash

of light that showed her true nature, showing, too, the folly of his

delusion about her. Against all this her look and what it asked for had

very little chance, and she could find no words that did not aggravate

her offence.

“This is really rather a ludicrous scene,” he went on. “Is there any use

in prolonging it?” He waited for her to speak, but she was still

tongue-tied. “The caretaker needn’t be distressed by seeing the awful

effects of her omission to dust the room; but, if you’re composed

enough, we might as well go.” He looked round the room. “You’ll be glad

to be out of this,” he ended.

“I know what you must think of me,” she burst out, “but--but you don’t

understand--you don’t see----”

“No doubt I’m stupid, but I confess I don’t. At least there’s only one

thing I see.” He bowed and waved his hand towards the door. “Shall we

go?” he asked.

She led the way downstairs, her skirt again held close and raised clear

of her ankles; her care for it was not lost on Harold as he followed

her, for she heard him laugh again with an obtrusive bitterness that

made his mirth a taunt. The old caretaker waited for them in the

passage.

“When’ll you be coming, sir?” she asked.

“I don’t know. It’s not certain we shall come,” said he. “The lady is

not much taken with the house.”

“Ah, well!” sighed the old woman resignedly.

For an account of their drive back to the station materials are, again,

sadly wanting. “He hardly said a word, and I did nothing but try to get

my face clean and my gloves presentable,” was Winifred’s history of

their journey. But she remembered--or chose to relate--a little more of

what passed while they waited for the train on the platform at Euston.

He left her for a few minutes on pretext of smoking a cigarette, and she

saw him walking up and down, apparently in thought. Then he came back

and sat down beside her. His manner was grave now; to judge by his

recorded words, perhaps it was even a little pompous; but when may

young men be pompous, if not at such crises as these?

“It’s no use pretending that nothing has happened, Winifred,” he said.

“That would be the hollowest pretence, not worthy, I think, of either of

us. Perhaps we had better take time to consider our course and--er--our

relations to one another.”

“You don’t want to marry me now?” she asked simply.

“I want to do what is best for our happiness,” he replied. “We cannot

forget what has happened to-day.”

“I know you would never forget it,” she said.

He did not contradict her; he looked first at his watch, then along the

platform for the approach of her train. To admit that he might forget it

was impossible to him; in such a case forgetfulness would be a negation

of his principles and a slur on his perception. It would also be such a

triumph over his vanity and his pride as it did not lie in him to

achieve, such a forgiveness as his faults and virtues combined to put

beyond the power of his nature. She looked at him; and “I smiled,” she

said, not seeming herself to know why she had smiled, but conscious

that, in the midst of her woe, some subtly amusing thought about him had

come into her mind. She had never been amused at him before; so she,

too, was getting some glimmer of a revelation out of the day’s

experience--not the awful blaze of light that had flashed on Harold’s

eyes, but a dim ray, just enough to give cause to that puzzled smile for

which she could not explicitly account.

So they parted, and for persons who have followed the affair at all

closely it is hardly necessary to add that they never came together

again. This issue was obvious, and Winifred seems to have made up her

mind to it that very same evening, for she called her mother into her

room (as the good lady passed on the way to bed) and looked up from the

task of brushing the grey frock which she had spread out on the sofa.

“I don’t think I shall marry Mr Jackson now, mother,” she said.

Mrs Petheram looked at her daughter and at her daughter’s gown.

“You’d better tell me more about it to-morrow. You look tired to-night,

dear,” she replied.

But Winifred never told her any more--in the first place, because the

family was too delighted with the fact to care one straw about how it

had come to pass, and, in the second place, on the more important ground

that the thing was really too small, too trivial, and too absurd to bear

telling--at least to the family. To me, for some reason or other,

Winifred did tell it, or some of it--enough, anyhow, to enable me, with

the help of a few touches of imagination, to conjecture how it occurred.

“Don’t you think it was very absurd?” she asked at the end of her story.

We were sitting by the yew hedge, near the library windows, looking

across the flower beds to the meadow; it was a beautiful day, and the

old place was charming. “Because,” she added, “I did love him, you know;

and it seems a small thing to separate about, doesn’t it?”

“If he had behaved differently----” I began.

“I don’t see how he could be expected to,” she murmured.

“You expected him to,” I said firmly. She turned to me with an

appearance of interest, as though I might be able to interpret to her

something that had been causing her puzzle. “Or you wouldn’t have looked

at him as you say you did--or smiled at him, as you admit you did. But

you were wrong to expect him to, because he’s not that kind of man.”

“What kind of man?”

“The kind of man to catch you in his arms, smother you in kisses (allow

me the old phrase), tell you that he understood all you felt, knew all

you were giving up, realised the great thing you were doing for him.”

Winifred was listening. I went on with my imaginary scene of romantic

fervour.

“That when he contrasted that mean little place with the beauties you

were accustomed to, with the beauties which were right and proper for

you, when he saw your daintiness soiled by that dust, that gown whose

hem he would willingly----”

“He needn’t say quite as much as that,” interrupted Winifred, smiling a

little.

“Well, or words to that effect,” said I. “That when he did all this and

saw all this, you know, he loved you more, and knew that you loved him

more than he had dared to dream, with a deeper love, a love that gave up

for him all that you loved next best and second only to him; that after

seeing your tears he would never doubt again that you would face all

trials and all troubles with him at your side--Don’t you think, if he’d

said something of that kind, accompanying his words with the appropriate

actions----” I paused.

“Well?” asked Winifred.

“Don’t you think you might have been living in that horrid little house

now, instead of being about to contract an alliance with Sir Barton

Amesbury?”

“How do you know I shall do that?” she cried.

“It needs,” I observed modestly, “little skill to discern the approach

of the inevitable.” I looked at her thoughtful face and at her eyes;

they had their old look of wondering in them. “Don’t you think that if

he’d treated the situation in that way----?” I asked.

“Perhaps,” she said softly. “But he wouldn’t think of all that. He was

such an Idealist.”

I really do not know why she applied that term to him at that moment,

except that he used to apply it to himself at many moments. But since it

seemed to her to explain his conduct, there is no need to quarrel with

the epithet.

“And I hope,” said I, “that the grey frock wasn’t irretrievably

ruined?”

“I’ve never worn it again,” she murmured.

So I suppose it was ruined--unless she has some other reason. But she

would be right to treat it differently from other frocks; it must mean a

good deal to her, although it failed to mean anything except its own

pretty self to Mr Jackson.

FOREORDAINED

“I don’t say,” observed the Colonel, “that limited liability companies

haven’t great advantages. In fact, I’m a director myself--it’s a big

grocery--and draw three hundred a year--a very welcome addition to my

half-pay--and, for all I know, I may supply some of you fellows with

your morning bacon. If I do, it just exemplifies the point I was about

to make; which is this--When it comes to limited companies, you never

know who anybody is. I could tell you a little story to illustrate that;

it’s rather a sad one, though.”

The club smoking-room was cheerfully lighted, the fire burned brightly,

we each had a cigar and a drink. We intimated to the Colonel that we

felt in a position to endure a touch of tragedy.

“It’s some years ago now,” he said, “but it affected me considerably at

the time. Do any of you go to Stretchley’s for your clothes?”

Three of us shook our heads wistfully. The fourth--a young man, and a

new member, whom none of us knew, but who had a legal look about him and

wore admirable trousers of a delicate grey--answered the Colonel’s

question in the affirmative.

“If I may say so, you and Stretchley do one another credit, sir,” said

the Colonel, with an approving glance at the new member’s trousers. “And

I needn’t tell you that Stretchley’s have few equals--and no superiors.

When you say Stretchley’s, you say everything. I have never gone to them

myself: partly because I couldn’t afford it, more perhaps from motives

of delicacy--from consideration for poor George Langhorn’s feelings. He

has always preferred not to act professionally for his personal friends,

even though he lost money in consequence.”

“How does George Langhorn come in?” I ventured to ask.

“He is Stretchley’s, to all intents and purposes. It’s a small family

company. The business was founded by George’s maternal grandfather, and

carried to greatness by his mother’s brother, Fred Stretchley, whom I

used to see at Brighton years ago. Fred made it into a company, but of

course kept the bulk of the shares to himself, besides the entire

control; and when he died he left all he had to George, on

condition--mark you, on condition--that George remained in the business,

and in active control of it. He did that because he knew that George

hated it, and, at the same time, had a wonderful turn for it.”

“Rather odd, that!” the new member observed.

“I don’t think so, sir,” said the Colonel. “He had a knack for it,

because it was in his blood; and he hated it, because he’d had it

crammed down his throat all his life. He’d been right through the mill

from a boy; the only holiday he’d ever had from it was a year at

Bonn--and that was to learn German, with a view to business. It was at

Bonn that I became acquainted with him, and a very nice fellow he

was--quite a gentleman, and extremely well-informed. We became great

friends. His only fault was his exaggerated dislike of his own

occupation. On that subject he was morbid--and, I’m afraid I must add, a

trifle snobbish. All the same, he was unmistakably proud of

Stretchley’s. He was quite alive to the fact that, if he had to be a

tailor, it was a fine thing to be Stretchley’s, and in moments of

confidence he would thank Heaven that he hadn’t been born in the

ready-made line--‘reach-me-downs,’ he called it. ‘It might have been

worse,’ he would say manfully. At those times I felt a great respect for

him.”

“They do know how to make a pair of breeches,” murmured the new member,

regarding his own legs with pensive satisfaction.

“Nobody better, nobody better,” the Colonel agreed, with a solemn

cordiality--and we all looked at the new member’s legs for some moments.

“Well, as I was saying,” the Colonel then resumed, “George Langhorn and

I became real friends; but I was abroad on service for two or three

years after he came back from Bonn and got into harness in Savile Row,

and so I lost sight of him for a bit. But after I’d been home a few

months, I was passing through town on my way to the Riviera, on six

weeks’ leave, and I dropped in at his place and saw him. I found him in

a sad way--very depressed and down in the mouth, railing against the

business, utterly sick of it. He told me he couldn’t endure the sight of

a frock-coat, and spent all his time at home in pyjamas and a

dressing-gown--just because those were portions of apparel not supplied

by Stretchley’s. Morbid, of course, but sad, very sad! It looked to me

as if he was on the verge of a breakdown, and I took a strong line with

him. I told him that he owed it to himself to take a complete

holiday--to get right away from the shop for a bit, to forget all about

it, to put plenty of money in his pocket, and give himself a real

holiday--he told me he hadn’t taken more than a week here and there for

two years. I said: ‘I’m just off to Monte Carlo. You come with me. Sink

the shop--dismiss it from your mind--and come along.’ Well, he saw how

wise I was, made his arrangements, and joined me at Charing Cross three

days later. Off we went, and a very good time we had of it. George was a

handsome young fellow of four or five and twenty, with lots to say for

himself, and a very taking way with women. Nobody knew who he was, but I

and my friends gave him a good start, and he could take care of the rest

for himself. In point of fact I received a great many compliments on the

good taste I showed in choosing my travelling companion. Ah, yes, we had

very good fun!” The Colonel leant back in his chair for a moment, with

a smile of pleasant--possibly of roguish--reminiscence.

“No signs of the tragedy yet, Colonel,” said I.

“Wait a bit; I’m just coming to it. When we’d been there about a

fortnight, a young lady appeared on the scene. She was one of the

prettiest creatures I ever saw--and I’ve seen some in my day--and as

merry as she was pretty. Besides that, she was evidently uncommonly well

off; she travelled with a companion, a maid, and a toy-poodle, and threw

away her money at the tables as if she were made of it. I needn’t tell

you that such a girl didn’t want for attentions at Monte Carlo, of all

places in the world. The fortune-hunters were hot on her track, besides

all the young fellows who were genuinely smitten with her. If I’d been

ten years younger, I’d have had a shot myself. But it wouldn’t have been

any use. From the very first George was the favourite, just as from the

first George had been drawn to her. There seemed really to be what they

call an affinity between them. I never saw an affair go so quickly or so

prosperously. Yes, there seemed to be an affinity. George was carried

right off his feet, and I was intensely pleased to see it. He wasn’t

thinking of Stretchley’s now, and he was putting on weight every day! My

treatment was being a brilliant success, and I didn’t mind admitting

that more than half the credit was due to pretty Miss Minnie

Welford--that was her name.

“I was only waiting to hear the happy news when one morning George came

down looking decidedly pale and with a face as long as your arm. I made

sure he’d received a telegram calling him back to Savile Row. But it

wasn’t that. This was it. In conversation, in the garden of the Casino

the evening before, somebody had begun talking about _mésalliances_ and

that sort of thing. One took one side, and one another--the people who

had nothing in particular to boast about in the family way being the

loudest in declaring they’d never make a low marriage, as they generally

are. Minnie, who was sitting next George, took the high romantic line.

She said that if she loved a man (George told me she blushed adorably as

she said this--you can believe that or not, as you like) neither family

nor fortune would weigh for a minute with her. That made George happy,

as you can imagine. Then some fellow said: ‘You’d marry the

chimney-sweep, would you, Miss Welford?’ ‘Yes, if I loved him,’ says

she. ‘Absolutely nobody barred?’ the man asked, laughing. She blushed

again (or so George said) and laughed a little and said: ‘Well, just

one--just one class of man; but I won’t tell you which it is.’ And no

more she would, though they all tried to guess, and chaffed her, and

worried her to tell. When the talk had drifted off to something else,

George seized his opportunity--he told me he had a horrid sort of

presentiment--and whispered in her ear: ‘Tell me!’ She looked at him

with eyes full of fun and said: ‘Well, I’ll tell you; but it’s a secret.

Swear to keep it!’ George swore to keep it, and then she leant over to

him, put her lips close to his ear, and whispered---- Well, of course,

you’ve guessed what she whispered?”

“Tailors!” said the new member in a reflective tone.

“Yes, ‘tailors,’” said the Colonel mournfully. “She just whispered

‘Tailors!’ and ran off with a merry glance (so George said)--a merry

glance. And he hadn’t had a wink of sleep all night, and came to tell me

the first thing in the morning. I never saw a man so broken up.”

“Had she found out about him?” I asked.

“No, no, sir; not a hint--not an idea. You’ll see later on that she

couldn’t have had the least idea. But there it was--tailors! And what

the dickens was poor George Langhorn to do? He took one view, I urged

the other. His was the high-flying line. He must tell her the whole

truth before he breathed as much as a word of love to her! Fatal, of

course, but he said it was the only line an honourable man could take. I

denied that. I said: ‘Tell her you love her first. Get her

consent--because you will get it. Let the matter rest for a week or

two--let her love grow, let the thing become fully settled and accepted,

so that to break it off would cause talk and so on. Then, when it’s all

settled, just casually observe, in a laughing kind of way, that you’re

sorry she has a prejudice against a certain estimable occupation,

because you happen to be indirectly connected with it.’ Machiavellian,

you’ll say, no doubt; but effective, very effective! ‘Indirectly

connected’ I consider was justifiable. Yes, I do. I am, as I said a

little while ago, a director of a grocery business, but I don’t consider

myself directly--not directly--connected with lard and sugar. No, I

didn’t go beyond the limits of honour, though possibly I skirted them.

In helping one’s friends, one does. However, George wouldn’t have it,

and at last I had to be content with a compromise. He wasn’t to speak of

the business before he spoke of love, nor to speak of love before he

spoke of the business. He was to speak of them both at once. That was

what we decided.”

“Rather difficult,” commented the new member, with that reflective smile

which I began to recognise as habitual.

“Pray, sir, would you expect such a thing to be easy?” demanded the

Colonel, with an approach to warmth. “We did the best we could, sir,

under exceptionally awkward and delicate circumstances.” The Colonel

leant back again and took a sip of barley-water. That is his tipple.

We all waited in silence for the Colonel to resume his narrative. I

remember that, owing perhaps to the associations of the subject, my

regard was fixed on the new member’s grey trousers, to which he himself

continued to pay a thoughtful attention. The Colonel took up the tale

again in impressive tones.

“It has been my lot,” he said, “to witness many instances of the

perverse working of what we call fate or destiny, and of the cruel

freaks which it plays with us poor human creatures. I may mention, just

in passing, the case of my old friend Major Vincent, who, himself a

vegetarian, married a woman whom he subsequently discovered to be

constitutionally unable so much as to sit in the same room with a

cabbage. But neither that case nor any other within my experience equals

the story which I am now telling you. You will agree with me when you

hear the _dénoûement_, which is of a nature impossible for any of you to

anticipate.”

“I think I know it,” observed the new member.

“It’s impossible that you should, sir,” said the Colonel firmly, though

courteously: “and when you have heard me out, you yourself will be the

first to admit as much. Where was I? Ah, I remember. Well, George

Langhorn left me in the condition which I have attempted to describe,

and with the understanding which I have mentioned. How, precisely, he

carried out that understanding, I am, of course, unable to say, as his

interview with Miss Welford was naturally a private one, and he never

volunteered any detailed account of it, while it would have been

absolute cruelty to press him on the subject; for if his state of mind

was lamentable when he left me, it was as nothing to the dismay and

horror which held possession of him on his return some two hours later.

He rushed into my room really like a man distraught--I am in the habit

of measuring my words, and I don’t use that one unadvisedly--plumped

himself down on my sofa, and ejaculated: ‘Merciful heavens, she owns

half the Sky-high!’”

At this climax--for such his manner obviously indicated it to be--the

Colonel looked round on us in sombre triumph. We were all gravely

attentive (except the new member, who still smiled), and the Colonel

continued, well satisfied with the effect which he had produced.

“There’s fate for you, if you like!” he exclaimed, with uplifted

forefinger. “There’s the impossibility of evading destiny or escaping

from a foreordained environment! Out of all the girls in the world,

George had fixed his affections on that particular one; he had gone

straight to her, as it were; and, for my part, I can’t doubt that the

very thing he hated, and she hated too, had, all the same, served in

some mysterious way to bring them together. And there was the situation!

Not only was George, as a man, forbidden the escape which he had prayed

for, but Stretchley’s was brought into contact with the ‘Sky-high

Tailoring Company’! No doubt you are all familiar with its

advertisements--chubby boys in sailor suits, square-legged little girls

in velveteen, dress-suits at thirty-seven and sixpence! I need not

enlarge on the subject; it’s distasteful. It is enough to say that any

connection between Stretchley’s and the Sky-high was to George’s mind

almost unthinkable. Observe, then, the curious and distressing

psychological situation. As a man, he hated Stretchley’s; as

Stretchley’s, he loathed and despised the Sky-high. His love--his most

unfortunate love--was in conflict at once with his personal feelings and

with his professional pride. And what of her? When he grew calmer,

George entered on that subject with some fulness. She had suffered,

exactly as he had, from the obsession of the family business, in the

shadow of which she had been bred, to a half-share in which she had

succeeded on her father’s death. In early days, before fortune came, she

had even been dressed from the stock! Like George, she had looked to

marriage for a complete change of life and associations. It was not to

be. And, more than that, she was acutely conscious of what George must

feel. Her training and the family atmosphere had not failed to teach her

that. She knew only too well how Stretchley’s would feel towards the

Sky-high. And George was Stretchley’s, and she was the Sky-high! One

sometimes reads of _mésalliances_ in the papers or meets them among

one’s acquaintance. Never have I met one like this. The very fact of the

occupation being in essence the same intensified the discrepancy and the

contrast. Which, gentlemen, would surprise and, I may say, shock you

more--that a duke should marry oil or soap, or that a really first-class

purveyor should take his bride from a fried fish shop? No man of

perception can hesitate. It is within the bounds of the same occupation

that the greatest contrasts, the greatest distance, the greatest gulfs

of feeling are to be found. I value an otherwise painful experience

because it exhibited that philosophic truth in so vivid and striking a

manner. You would sooner ask the Commander-in-Chief to lend a hand with

a wheelbarrow than propose to him to take command of a corporal’s guard.

Your _chef_ would no doubt put on the coals to oblige a lady, but not to

oblige a thousand ladies would he wash the dishes!”

“I daresay that’s all true,” I made bold to observe, “but, nevertheless,

your pair of lovers seem to me rather ridiculous.”

“Exactly, sir,” said the Colonel--and I was relieved that he took my

interruption so well. “They would seem to you ridiculous. Probably the

_chef_ seems ridiculous too? A man of another profession can’t have the

feeling in its full intensity. It seems ridiculous! But think--doesn’t

that very fact increase the tragedy? To suffer from a feeling deep and

painful, and to be aware that it is in the eyes of the world at large

ridiculous--can you imagine anything more distressing?”

“Your story illustrates more than one great truth, I perceive, Colonel.”

“If it did not, sir, I should never have troubled you with it,” he

answered with lofty courtesy.

“And what happened? Did love triumph over all?”

“I hesitate to describe the issue in those terms,” said he, with a

slight frown. “They are conventional--designedly, no doubt--and I don’t

think that they fit this particular case. George and Miss Welford were,

beyond question, deeply attached to one another, and they got married in

due course--nor am I aware that the marriage has turned out otherwise

than well in the ordinary sense. Mrs Langhorn is a very charming woman.

But was it a triumph of love? I look deeper, gentlemen. In my view love

was but an instrument in the hands of Fate. The triumph was the triumph

of Fate, and I am persuaded that, when they went to the altar,

resignation to destiny was the most prominent feeling in the minds of

both of them. That is why I said at the beginning that the story was

rather a sad one. The very night before the wedding I found George

poring over the Sky-high’s illustrated catalogue! What does that fact

carry to your minds?”

“It looks bad,” I admitted, with a sigh.

“It speaks volumes,” said the Colonel briefly, and he finished his

barley-water.

The new member flung the end of his cigar into the grate and rose to his

feet. His face still wore the reflective smile which had decorated it

throughout the Colonel’s story.

“And what,” I asked the Colonel, “are the present relations between

Stretchley’s and the Sky-high?”

“It would be curious to know,” he answered; “but as to that I have no

information. I’ve never ventured to interrogate George Langhorn on the

point.”

“I think I can answer the question,” said the new member, flicking an

ash off his trousers. “The two companies were privately amalgamated last

week. I drew the articles of association myself. Mr Langhorn is to be

chairman of the joint concern.”

The Colonel might plausibly have resented a silence so long maintained

as to border on deceit. He showed no anger. He nodded his head gravely,

as though to say: “Here is the Epilogue! Here is the Catastrophe

complete!”

“Stretchley’s and the Sky-high!” he murmured. “Poor George Langhorn!

Poor George!”

I went home to dinner really quite depressed.

PRUDENCE AND THE BISHOP

Miss Prudence was astonishingly pretty; it was far from tedious to lie

on the bank of the stream and watch her, while her second brother--a

lanky youth of fifteen--fished for non-existent trout with an entirely

unplausible fly.

“So Clara Jenkins said that about me?”

I nodded. “Just let it fall, you know, Miss Prudence, in the

give-and-take of conversation.”

“If you weren’t a stranger in our neighbourhood, you wouldn’t pay any

attention to what a girl like that says.”

“Oh, but it was about you,” I protested.

Prudence looked at me as if she were thinking that I might have been

amusing when I was young.

“What was the word Clara used?” she asked.

“There were two words. ‘Calculating’ was one.”

“Oh, was it?”

“Yes. The other was ‘heartless.’”

“I like that! It’s only what mamma tells me.”

“Your mother tells you?” My tone indicated great surprise: her mother is

the vicar’s wife, and the alleged counsel seemed unpastoral.

“Yes--and it’s quite right too,” Prudence maintained. “You know how poor

we are. And there are eight of us!”

“Five and three?”

“Yes: Johnny at Oxford, Dick at school, and Clarence to go soon! And the

girls--you know what girls cost, anyhow!”

“They vary, I suppose?”

“Just you talk to mamma about that!”

That didn’t seem urgent. “Another time,” I murmured, “I shall be pleased

to exchange impressions.”

I don’t think Prudence heard. She was looking very thoughtful, a minute

wrinkle ornamenting her brow.

“The boys must have their education; the girls must have justice done to

them.”

“To be sure! And so----?”

“And why shouldn’t one fall in love with a man who--who----”

“Would be delighted to do all that?”

“Of course he’d be delighted. I mean a man who--who _could_ do it.”

“Rich?”

“Papa says differences in worldly position are rightly ordained.”

“No doubt he’s correct. Your man would have to be quite rich, wouldn’t

he? Seven besides you!”

“Oh, we aren’t accustomed to much,” said Prudence, with a smile at me

which somehow made me wish for a cheque-book and an immense amount of

tact; a balance at the bank we will presuppose.

“And may I ask,” I resumed, “why you are selected out of all the family

for this--er--sacrifice?”

She blushed, but she was wary. “I’m the eldest girl, you see,” she said.

“Just so,” I agreed. “I was very stupid not to think of that.”

“The others are so young.”

“Of course. It would be waiting till it was too late?”

“Yes, Mr Wynne.”

I interpolate here a plain statement of fact. The other girls resemble

their mother, and the vicar’s type, reproduced in Miss Prudence, is

immeasurably the more refined--not to say picturesque.

“Oh, if you won’t be serious!” sighed Prudence--though, as has been

seen, I had said nothing.

“It certainly is not a laughing matter,” I admitted.

“How difficult the world is! Was Sir John at the Jenkins’s?”

“Sir John?”

“Sir John Ffolliot--of Ascombe, you know.”

“Tall red-faced young man?”

“Yes, very--I mean, rather. Rather tall, anyhow.”

“Oh yes, he was there.”

“When Clara talked about me?”

“So far as I recollect, he was not in earshot at that moment, Miss

Prudence. But then I wasn’t in earshot while she talked to him. So

possibly----”

“Now she really is a cat, isn’t she?”

“I haven’t the smallest doubt of it. But you must make allowances.”

“I do. Still I can’t see why plain people are to say just what they

like!”

“Nobody minds them,” I observed consolingly.

The conversation flagged for a moment or two. That didn’t matter; one

can always look at the view.

“Is my hat crooked?” asked Miss Prudence with affected anxiety.

“I should say you’d get him, if you really want him,” I remarked.

My thoughts were switched off in another direction by Miss Prudence’s

next utterance. I don’t complain of that; it was probably rightly

ordained, as the vicar would have said; there’s something in a meadow

and a river that resists middle age--and I don’t know that a blue frock,

with eyes to match, and hair that----

“Do you happen to know how much a bishop gets?” asked Prudence.

“Not precisely, Miss Prudence. It varies, I believe--like what girls

cost. All I know is that it’s never enough for the needs of his

diocese.”

“Oh, isn’t it?” She looked rather troubled over this information.

“So the papers say--and the bishops too sometimes.”

“Still you wouldn’t call them exactly poor, would you?”

“_I_ call them poor! Good Lord!” was my observation.

“You know our bishop’s Palace?”

“A charming residence, Miss Prudence--even stately.”

“And Sir John says he drives awfully good horses.”

“Let us rely on Sir John where we can.”

“And Mr Davenport says he gives away a lot.”

“Mr Davenport?”

“So he can’t be poor, can he?”

“Mr Davenport?”

“Oh, I beg pardon! But you’ve met him. How forgetful you are! Papa’s

curate!”

“Dear me, dear me! Of course! You mean Frank?”

“Papa calls him Frank.”

“You all call him Frank.”

“I suppose we do--yes.”

“So I forgot his surname just for the minute. Does he call you

Prudence?”

“What has that got to do with it?”

“Roughly speaking, it ranges from three to seven thousand a year. More

for archbishops, according to scale, of course.”

“Well, that sounds plenty,” said Prudence.

(I have ascertained from _Crockford’s Directory_ that the value of the

vicar’s living is three hundred and twenty five pounds per annum.)

“Don’t be calculating, Miss Prudence!”

“And heartless?” The little wrinkle was on her brow again.

“That remark of Miss Jenkins’ seems to rankle!”

“I wasn’t thinking--altogether--of Clara.”

It seemed hard if somebody else had been calling her heartless too--or

even thinking it. And all for listening to her mother! I tried to

administer consolation.

“The thing is,” I observed, “a judicious balancing of considerations.

Here, on the one hand, is justice to be done to the girls--in the way of

accomplishments and appearance, I may presume?--and education to be

given to the boys--it would be no bad thing if someone taught Dick how

to make a fly, for example; on the other hand lie what I may broadly

term your inclinations and----”

I awoke to the fact that Miss Prudence had not been listening to the

latter portion of my remark. She was rubbing the knuckles of one hand

into the palm of the other, and frowning now quite heavily. Then she

twisted one little hand round the other; and almost inaudibly she said:

“How can one balance considerations”--(She infused a pleasant scorn into

her intonation of these respectable words)--“How can one balance

considerations when----?”

_Primâ facie_ that “when----” admitted of various interpretations. But I

chose one without hesitation.

“Then why this talk about how much a bishop gets, you calculating

heartless girl?”

She darted at me a look of fearful merriment.

“And they make them quite young sometimes in these days,” I added. And I

rounded off my period by remarking that Sir John Ffolliot seemed a

stupid sort of dog.

“Yes, isn’t he?”

“Might do for Clara Jenkins?”

“If I thought that----” Miss Prudence began hotly.

“But the idea is preposterous,” I added hastily. “One of your sisters

now?”

“That’s really not a bad idea,” she conceded graciously.

In fact, she had suddenly grown altogether very gracious--and I do not

refer merely to the marked civility of her manner towards myself. The

frown had vanished, the wrinkle was not: the hands were clasped in a

comfortable repose. She looked across to me with a ridiculously

contented smile.

“It’s such a good thing to have a talk with a really sensible man,” she

said.

I took off my hat--but I also rose to my feet. To present me as a future

bishop was asking too much of the whirligig of time. Not a kaleidoscope

could do it! Besides, I wasn’t serious about it; it was just the meadow,

the river--and the rest. In order to prove this to myself beyond

dispute, I said that I had to go to the post office and despatch an

important letter.

“To the post office?” said Prudence, displaying some confusion at the

mention of that institution. “Oh, then, would you mind--it would be so

kind--would you really mind----?”

“Calling in at the parlour window and telling Mr Davenport that you’re

going to have some tennis after tea? With pleasure, of course.”

“I didn’t know you knew he lodged there!” she cried.

“Pending promotion to the Palace, yes.”

I made that last remark after I had turned my back, and I didn’t look

round to see whether Miss Prudence had heard it; it was, in fact, in the

nature of an “aside”--a thing which may be heard or not at pleasure.

“Won’t you come too?” she called.

“Certainly not. I propose to meditate.” On these words I did turn round,

and waved her farewell. I think she was indulging in a most proper

forgetfulness of her brothers and sisters--and, incidentally, of myself.

So I proceeded to the post office, although of course I had no letter at

all to send.

I found Mr Davenport in flannels, sitting with his feet on the

mantelpiece, smoking a pipe and reading. He was an engaging six-feet of

vigour, and I delivered my message with as little rancour as could be

expected under the circumstances.

“I think I’ll go,” he said, briskly knocking out his pipe.

It was some satisfaction to me to remind him that it was only half-past

three, and that tennis didn’t begin till after tea. He put his pipe back

between his teeth with a disappointed jerk.

“What are you reading?” I inquired affably. I must be pictured as

standing outside the post office parlour window while conducting this

colloquy.

He looked a trifle ashamed. “The fact is, I sometimes try to keep up my

Latin a bit,” he explained, conscious of the eccentricity of this

proceeding. “It’s Juvenal.”

“Not so very clerical,” I ventured to observe.

“A great moralist,” he maintained--yet with an eye distantly twinkling

with the light of unregenerate days.

“I suppose so. That bit about prudence now----?”

“About who?” cried he, springing to his feet and dropping his poet on

the floor.

“Evidently you recollect! _Nullum numen abest si sit Prudentia_----”

“Curiously enough, I’ve just been having a shot at a rendering of that

couplet,” said Mr Davenport. As he spoke he approached the window: I sat

down on the sill outside and lit a cigar.

“Curiously enough indeed!” said I. “May I be privileged to hear it?”

He threw out one arm and recited--

“‘All Heaven’s with us, so we Prudence win:

If Fortune’s hailed a goddess, ours the sin!’”

“Pretty well for the spirit, but none too faithful to the letter,” I

remarked critically. “However, Dr Johnson is open to the same objection.

You remember--

“‘Celestial Wisdom calms the mind,

And makes the happiness she does not find.’”

“I call that pretty bad.”

“Not much to the present point, anyhow,” I agreed.

“I had another rhyme--and after all the rhyme’s the difficulty. How

about this?--

“‘All Heaven’s ours if Prudence we can gain,

Our silly hands build Fortune’s empty fane!’”

“Really you fire me to emulation,” I said. “I think I’ll try my own hand

at it--

“‘If Prudence loves, what other boon need I?’”

“Splendid!” he cried, puffing at his empty pipe.

“‘Unless a bishop’s palace by-and-by?’”

This audacious departure from the original affected him powerfully. He

laid a hand like a pair of tweezers on my wrist and cried excitedly--

“You’ve been talking to her!”

“So have you,” said I, “and to better purpose.”

By a subtle and rapid movement he was, in a moment, outside the door and

stood facing me in the little front garden of the post office.

“I shouldn’t wonder if they began tennis before tea,” he remarked.

“You’ll find somebody to play a single. Good-bye!” He was turning away

eagerly when something occurred to me. “Oh, by the way, Mr

Davenport----”

“Yes?”

“Do you think you’ll ever be a bishop really?”

“Only when I talk to her,” he said, with a confused yet candid modesty

which I found agreeable.

“Go and do homage for your temporalities,” I said.

“I say--her mother!” whispered Mr Davenport.

“She probably thought the same when she married the vicar.”

He smiled. “That’s rather funny!” he cried back to me, as he started off

along the road.

“So your son-in-law may think some day, my boy,” said I with a touch of

ill-humour. No matter, he was out of hearing. Besides I was not, I

repeat, really serious about it--not half so serious, I venture to

conjecture, as the vicar’s wife!

To her, perhaps, Dr Johnson’s paraphrase may be recommended.

THE OPENED DOOR

“We may float for ten minutes,” said the Second Officer.

After a pause the passenger remarked:

“I’m glad of it, upon my word I am.”

“You’re thankful for small mercies,” was the retort.

The passenger did not explain. He could not expect the Second Officer,

or the rest of them, to sympathise with his point of view, or share the

feelings which made him rejoice, not at the respite, but at the doom

itself. Those who were not busy getting the women and children into the

boats, and keeping the ship above water, were cursing the other vessel

for steaming away without offering aid, or clutching in bewildered

terror at anyone who could tell them how the collision had happened and

what hope there was of salvation. The boats were got safely off, laden

to their utmost capacity; lifebuoys were handed round, and, when they

ran short, men tossed up for them, and the losers ransacked the deck for

some makeshift substitute. The passenger took no part in the competition

or the search. He stood with his hands in his pockets and a smile on his

lips, waiting for the ten minutes to wear themselves away. His only

grudge against fate lay in those superfluous ten minutes.

Left to himself, he began to think, lighting a cigarette. He had to use

a fusee, which was a pity, especially for his last cigarette, but the

wind blew fiercely. It was strange how much harm a man could do without

being a particularly bad fellow, and what an _impasse_ he could get

himself into. He had drifted on, and things had fallen out so

maliciously that, because of him who hated hurting anybody, women were

weeping and children smirched, and an old man hiding an honoured head in

shame. He had even been required to be grateful to the man he hated most

in the world, because he had not been put in the dock. That stuck in his

throat more than all the rest. He had been ready to pay his shot and go

to gaol--he would rather have done five years than owed the thanks for

escaping them--but in very decency he couldn’t insist on going; the

trial would have killed the old man. So they had concocted a plan--a

chance of a new life, they called it--and shipped him off to the other

side of the world with fifty pounds in his pocket--the gift of that

enemy. At least he could get rid of the money now; and, still smiling,

he dropped his pocket-book over the side into the great heaving waves.

He had always meant it to go there--God forbid he should use it--but he

had hardly hoped to go with it. He would follow it soon now. The door

whose handle he had shrunk from turning had opened of its own accord in

a most marvellously convenient way. To throw oneself overboard is a

cold-blooded impossible sort of proceeding; the old man and the women

would have heard of it, and he really didn’t want to give them any more

pain. But this catastrophe was--from a selfish point of view--incredibly

opportune. Such an exit had the dignity of the inevitable, and left the

“new life” an agreeable hypothesis from which he doubted not that much

comfort would be sucked by those dear, loving, foolish folk at home.

Much “new life” he would have led! But let them think he would. And

hurrah for a collision in deep water!

Five minutes gone--and they were deep in the water. The skipper was on

the bridge; the engineers had come up and, together with the crew and

such of the passengers as had not got away in the boats, were standing

ready to jump at the word. Some were praying, some swearing, most

discussing the matter in very much the same tones as they used in

speculating about the weather on deck after dinner; but they all kept

their eyes on the skipper.

“I shall just,” said the passenger, peering over the side, “go straight

down. It oughtn’t to take long,” and he shivered a little. It had just

struck him that the process might be very unpleasant, however

satisfactory the result.

There was a sudden movement of the deck under him. The skipper seemed to

shout, and, waving his arms, began to run down from the bridge. Then

everybody jumped. The passenger dropped his finished cigarette, kicked

off his deck shoes--a purely instinctive action--and jumped too. “Here

goes!” he said.

When he came up again, he found himself swimming strongly. His arms and

legs were not asking his leave about it; they were fighting the water as

they had been taught, and they promised to make a long bout of it. He

had never felt so vigorous. It was great nonsense, prolonging the thing

like this. If he had thought of it, he wouldn’t have jumped so clear,

then he would have been sucked down. He saw heads bobbing here and there

about him; one man shrieked aloud and disappeared. It was--less the

shrieking--just what he wanted to do. But he couldn’t. It was all very

well to want to die, but this strong body of his had a word to say to

that. Its business was to live, and it meant to live if it could. Well,

it had always been a rebellious carcass--that was the cause of a great

deal of the trouble--and it evidently meant to have its own way for this

last time.

And it began to infect him. For the life of him, he couldn’t give in

now. It was a fight between him and the water. He might have been a

brute, and a rogue, and all the other pretty names that had come as

sauce to that wretched fifty pounds, but he had never been a coward or

shirked a fight. It was all right--he must be drowned in the end. But he

would keep it up as long as he could; he would see it through; and with

strong strokes he met and mastered and beat down wave after wave,

outlived head after head that sank round him, and saw the old ship

herself go under with a mighty pother.

All at once he found himself within reach of a spar. He was getting

tired, though full of fight still, and he clutched at it for all the

world as though he were in love with life. Hallo! There was a boy

clinging to it--one of the ship’s boys, whom he knew well.

“Get off!” shrieked the boy. “Get off! It’s mine.”

“All right, Johnny, we’ll share it.”

“It won’t take us. Get off. It’s not fair. Oh, it’s going under!”

It was. The passenger let go, but kept close to it. It wouldn’t bear

Johnny and him, but it would bear Johnny alone; it would also, probably,

bear him alone. And he was getting very tired. Johnny saw his face and,

clinging tight, began to cry. The passenger laid hold again. How jolly

it was to have something under one’s chest! Johnny had had it for a long

while. And what’s a ship’s boy? Besides, it’s every man for himself at

such a time.

Johnny’s end ducked and Johnny’s head dipped with it. Johnny came up

whimpering piteously, and swore in childish rage at the intruder. He was

not a pretty boy, and he looked very ugly when he swore.

“You’ll drown us both, you----!” he gasped.

“It would bear me,” replied the passenger, “and you shouldn’t swear,

Johnny.”

Johnny blubbered and swore again.

For an instant the passenger, resting as lightly as he could on the

spar, watched Johnny’s face.

“You’ve kept afloat some time,” he observed, with an approving air. He

liked pluck in boys--even ugly whimpering boys. His end went under, and

he came up gurgling and spitting. He felt now as if he had no legs at

all.

Johnny had stopped swearing, but was blubbering worse than ever.

“Damn it,” said the passenger, “haven’t I made enough people do that?”

And he added, “Ta-ta, Johnny,” and let go the spar.

His legs were there, after all, and they let him know it. For time

unmeasured he battled for the life he was weary of, and would not let

himself be pushed through the open door. But at last he crossed its

threshold.

Johnny was drowned too. But then the passenger had always protested

against his acts being judged by their consequences; and it doesn’t seem

fair to take it against him both ways.

LOVE’S LOGIC[1]

_The Scene is a hall or corridor, lying between two conservatories,

one on the right, the other on the left. Besides plants and other

ornaments, the corridor is furnished with a couch and a small round

table with an arm-chair by it. The time is between eleven and

twelve in the evening._

_Mr Marchesson’s back is visible in the doorway leading to the

conservatory on the right._

Mr M. (_Speaking to unseen person in the conservatory._) So awfully

sorry, but I absolutely promised to meet a man at the club. (_Pause._)

Beg pardon? Oh, a fellow named Smith--you don’t know him. (_Pause._)

Yes, I hope we shall meet soon, but I’m rather afraid I may have to go

out of town. (_Pause._) Good-night. (_Backs a little further into the

corridor._) Phew!

_Miss Grainger’s back appears in the doorway leading to the conservatory

on the left._

Miss G. (_Speaking to unseen person in the conservatory._) Yes, of

course we shall be friends. What? (_Pause._) Oh yes, _great_ friends,

What? (_Pause._) I don’t know--I may be going out of town. Good-night.

(_She backs into the corridor, throws her eyes upwards, and draws in her

breath with a long sigh._)

_Mr M. meanwhile has taken out a cigarette, and is just about to

light it when they turn and see one another. Both start, smile, and

then become grave and rather formal in manner._

Mr M. (_Putting his hands--with the cigarette and the match-box--behind

him._) Oh, I beg pardon! I didn’t think anybody--(_He turns as if to

retreat into the conservatory._)

Miss G. Please don’t go--and please do smoke. It’s so nice and cool

here, isn’t it? (_She sits down on the couch and fans herself gently._)

Mr M. May I really? (_He comes forward a little, holding up his

cigarette._) You’re sure you don’t mind?

(_She nods. He lights the cigarette._)

Miss G. It’s so warm in that conservatory. (_Pointing to the left._)

Mr M. (_With feeling._) So it was in that one. (_Pointing to the right.

He wipes his brow, she fans herself assiduously._) Ouf!

Miss G. You _do_ look rather--flustered.

Mr M. Well--in fact--so do you.

(_They look at one another, trying to remain grave, but presently

both give a short embarrassed laugh. Mr M. comes a step nearer,

placing his hand on the back of the chair._)

I’ve got it! I know the signs!

(_She looks at him inquiringly and with amusement. He nods towards the

conservatory on the left._) You’ve been refusing some fellow in there.

Miss G. Have I? (_Pointing to the conservatory on the right._) And what

have you been doing in there?

Mr M. (_After a careful glance over his shoulder_.) As you didn’t see

the lady, I don’t mind admitting that I’ve been doing the same thing.

Miss G. (_Raising her brows._) Refusing?

Mr M. Refusing--to ask.

Miss G. Oh!

Mr M. (_He smokes vigorously, then throws his cigarette into a

receptacle._) It’s a precious lot easier for you than for us, though. I

say, I must sound like a conceited idiot, I know, but--well, you see,

the fact is----

Miss G. That you’re Mr Marchesson----?

Mr M. (_Pleased._) You know my name?

Miss G. Oh yes. Mine’s Grainger.

Mr M. Yes. I--I know your name, Miss Grainger.

Miss G. You’re diamonds? (_She touches some that she is wearing as she

speaks. He nods gloomily._)

I’m soap. (_He glances for a brief instant at his hand._) So, of

course----! (_She shrugs her shoulders and closes her fan. A moment’s

pause._)

Mr M. Beastly, isn’t it?

Miss G. Well, it’s--monotonous.

Mr M. It’s worse than that. It’s degrading, it’s heart-breaking, it’s

ruin to the character. It saps my faith in humanity, it trammels my

actions, it confines my affections, it cuts me off from friendship, from

the pleasant and innocent companionships which my nature longs for. I

alone mayn’t look with the eye of honest admiration on a pretty girl, I

alone mayn’t----

Miss G. Sit in a conservatory?

Mr M. (_With a shudder._) Above all--not that! I tell you it’s kept me

single for years! And you for----

Miss G. Years?

Mr M. (_Smiling._) Months! All last season and most of this! Take your

case now----

Miss G. (_Eagerly leaning forward._) Oh yes, let’s!

Mr M. You’d naturally enjoy men’s society, you’d like their friendship,

their company, their admiration. You’d enjoy an innocent but piquant

flirtation.

Miss G. Should I?

Mr M. (_Looking at her._) Well, yes, I think you would. You daren’t

venture on it!

Miss G. It is generally fatal, I admit.

Mr M. The plain truth is that the thing’s intolerable. I shall stick a

placard on my waistcoat--“Not for sale.”

Miss G. And I’d better become a hospital nurse!

Mr M. That’s rather an odd remedy, Miss Grainger. But, in some form or

other, celibacy--public and avowed celibacy--is our only chance. (_He

throws himself down in the chair._)

Miss G. (_Low._) Unless there was somebody who----

Mr M. Didn’t know who you were? Not to be done in these days, with the

illustrated press! And--you’ll excuse my referring to it?--but your fond

father put _you_ on the wrappings of the soap. And owing to the large

sale of the article----

Miss G. Yes, I know. But I meant--if there was somebody who

didn’t--didn’t care about the money?

Mr M. (_Half under his breath._) _Said_ he didn’t!

Miss G. And who--who really did care just for--for oneself alone? Oh, I

must sound romantic and absurd; but you--you know what I mean, Mr

Marchesson? There _are_ such men, aren’t there?

Mr M. Well, admitting there was one--and it’s a handsome admission,

which I limit entirely to the male sex--in the first place you wouldn’t

believe in him half the time, and in the second he wouldn’t believe in

himself half the time, and in the third none of your friends would

believe in him any of the time.

Miss G. That would be horrid--especially the friends, I mean.

Mr M. Female friends!

Miss G. Of course.

Mr M. Another disgusting aspect of the business! Do you--do I--ever get

legitimate credit for our personal attractions? Never! Never!

Miss G. (_With conviction._) That’s awfully true.

Mr M. So even your paragon, if you found him, wouldn’t meet the case.

And as for _my_ paragon, nobody but Diogenes would take on the job of

finding her.

Miss G. (_Musing._) Is _nobody_ indifferent to money?

Mr M. Only if they’ve got more than they want. (_He gives a glance at

her, unperceived by her, rises, puts his hands in his pockets, and

looks at her._) Only the unhappy rich.

Miss G. (_Roused from abstraction._) I beg pardon, what?

Mr M. Imagine a man surfeited, cloyed, smothered in it; a man who has to

pay six other men to look after it; a man who can’t live because of the

income-tax, and daren’t die because of the death duties; a man

overwhelmed with houses he can’t live in, yachts he can’t sail, horses

he can’t ride; a man in whom the milk of human kindness is soured by

impostors, and for whom even “deserving cases” have lost their charm; a

man who’s been round the d----d world--I beg your pardon, really I beg

your pardon--who’s been round the wretched world twice, and shot every

beast on it at least once; who is sick of playing, and daren’t work for

fear of making a profit----

Miss G. It almost sounds as if you were describing yourself.

Mr M. Oh no, no! No! At least--er--if at all, quite accidentally. I’ll

describe _you_ now, if you like.

Miss G. I get absolutely no thrill out of a new frock!

Mr M. There it is--in a nutshell, by Jingo! Miss Grainger, we have found

the people we want, the people who are indifferent to money, and

would--that is, might--marry us for love alone.

Miss G. (_Laughing._) You mean--one another? That’s really rather an

amusing end to our philosophising, isn’t it? (_She rises, laughing

still, and holds out her hand._) Good-night.

Mr M. (_Indignantly._) Good-night be----! Why, our talk’s just got to

the most interesting point!

Miss G. Well, you ought to know--you’ve been doing most of it yourself.

Mr M. Oh, but don’t go! I--I’ll do it better--and perhaps quicker

too--if you’ll stay a bit.

Miss G. (_Sitting again, with a laugh._) I’ll give you just five minutes

to wind up the argument.

Mr M. The conclusion’s obvious in logic. I ought to offer you my hand in

marriage, and you ought to accept.

Miss G. (_Laughing._) Logic is logic, of course, Mr Marchesson--but

we’ve never even been introduced! I don’t think you need feel absolutely

compelled to go through the ceremony you suggest. We’ll be illogical,

and say good-night.

Mr M. You admit the logic? You see the force of it?

Miss G. Women don’t act by logic, though.

Mr M. It’s always at least a good excuse.

Miss G. If you want one, yes. (_She is about to rise again._)

Mr M. I do want one.

(_She shakes her head, laughing._)

I’m serious.

Miss G. You don’t really want me to think that? The very first time we

meet? The lady in there (_pointing to the conservatory on the right_)

must have frightened you terribly indeed!

Mr M. Until the logic of the thing struck me--which happened only

to-night--I thought it no good to try to know you.

Miss G. I don’t suppose you ever thought about it at all.

Mr M. I had nothing to give you--and you had nothing to give me! So it

seemed in the days of illogicality. Now it’s all different. So I insist

on--the ceremony.

Miss G. (_Laughing, but a little agitated._) Go on, then. But your logic

doesn’t bind me, you know.

(_He comes and sits on the couch by her._)

Yes, that’s quite right--but don’t put too much feeling into it.

It--it’s only logic! No, I--I don’t think I want you to go on. I--I

don’t think it’s a good joke.

Mr M. It’s not a joke. I’ve never been introduced to you, you say. I’ve

never spoken to you before to-night, I know. But you’re not a stranger

to me. There have been very few days in the last three months when I

haven’t managed to see you----

Miss G. (_Low._) Managed to see me--_managed_?

Mr M. Yes--though I must say you go to some places which but for your

presence would be very dull. I stuck at none of them, Miss Grainger. I

swallowed every one! Did you ever notice me?

Miss G. Of course not.

(_He looks at her._)

Of course I’ve _seen_ you, but I never _noticed_ you.

(_He continues to look at her._)

Not specially, at anyrate.

Mr M. I suppose I must have been there a hundred times. How often did

you notice me?

Miss G. How absurd! I’m sure I don’t remember. Very seldom.

Mr M. Don’t you remember even the first time?

Miss G. Oh yes, that was at the---- No, certainly I don’t.

Mr M. Yes, it _was_ at the Phillips’s!

(_She smiles against her will. He also smiles._)

I’m glad you remember.

Miss G. You stared so--as _you_ may perhaps remember.

Mr M. Have I stared every time?

Miss G. Very often, anyhow.

Mr M. You noticed that?

Miss G. Every time I noticed you, I noticed that.

Mr M. And you noticed that very often! Therefore you noticed me----

Miss G. Please, no more logic!

Mr M. And yet you try to treat me as a stranger!

Miss G. It is rather a matter of _trying_ with you, isn’t it? You’re not

very susceptible to the treatment.

Mr M. And pretend to be surprised at my wanting to marry you! If the

logic of it still leaves you doubtful----

Miss G. Doubtful! I never said I was doubtful!

Mr M. Look at the romantic side! How romantic it would be to throw

yourself away on riches! Did you never think about that? Not when

I--stared?

Miss G. I didn’t exactly mean that you exactly stared. You--you--you----

Oh, you really might help me out! What did you do?

Mr M. I’d so much rather hear you say it.

Miss G. Well, right from the beginning there was something in your

look--I mean the way you looked at me--I can’t describe it, but it got

more and more like that.

Mr M. Yes, I believe I meant it to.

Miss G. Never forward or--or impertinent. Just nice, Mr Marchesson.

Mr M. I say, was that a good chap you refused in there (_indicating the

conservatory to the left_) a thousand years ago?

Miss G. Very--so handsome! I liked him awfully. And the girl you

refused----

Mr M. To ask----

Miss G. In there? (_Indicating the conservatory to the right._)

Mr M. Really, you know--impartially speaking--a ripper! Why did we?

Miss G. What?

Mr M. I said, “Why did we?”

Miss G. Was it--a thousand years ago? Yes?

Mr M. Which certainly makes it absurd to call us strangers.

Miss G. I wasn’t thinking any more about that. Oh, you do----?

Mr M. I do--mean it.

Miss G. (_Rising._) I think that--after all--it wouldn’t be so bad

in--in----

Mr M. The conservatory?

(_They look at one another and laugh._)

Miss G. It’s terribly absurd even to think about it.

Mr M. It’s absolutely logical! And, by the way, it’s time I put my

question.

Miss G. Haven’t you?

Mr M. Then it’s time you gave your answer.

Miss G. (_Putting her hands in his._) Haven’t I?

Mr M. There’ll be a great deal of talk about this to-morrow! (_He offers

her his arm, and they go towards the conservatory on the left._) Oh,

your conservatory? No!

Miss G. Yours would be just as bad.

Mr M. Then stay here.

Miss G. Take me to my carriage. And--and come and see if I’m not

perfectly logical to-morrow.

(_He releases her arm and kisses her hand. She adds in a low voice:_)

And--somehow--it _is_ absurd--so wonderfully happy to-night! Will you

come with me?

Mr M. Will I live? Come! Quick--through your conservatory! (_He puts his

arm round her waist._) Come!

(_They disappear into the conservatory on the left._)

CURTAIN

LA MORT À LA MODE[2]

MONSIEUR LE DUC--MADAME LA MARQUISE

(_The tumbril is the last of a row of several, some of which have

left, some of which stand at, the gates of the Conciergerie. The

others are full, in this the_ DUC _is alone. At the beginning of

the conversation the tumbril stands still, later it is moving

slowly, escorted through a turbulent crowd by National Guards to

its destination in the Place Louis Quinze (Place de la Revolution.)

The time is noon of a fine day during the Reign of Terror._)

Duc. Alone! My luck holds to the last. They’re close as fish in a tub in

the others--and by strange chance every man next to his worst enemy--or

at least his best friend’s husband! These rascals have no consideration.

Ah, somebody coming here! I’ve to have company after all. A woman

too--deuce take it! (_A lady is assisted into the tumbril. The_ DUC

_rises, bows, and starts._) Marquise! (_The lady sinks on the bench

across the tumbril._) You here! (_He takes snuff and murmurs:_) Awkward!

(_Pauses and murmurs again:_) Even her! Curse the hounds!

Marquise. I--I heard you had escaped.

Due. Ah, madame, I can no longer expect justice from you--only mercy.

And--excuse me--M. le Marquis?

Marquise. He--he has gone--

Duc. Ah yes, yes. He went before us? I remember now. Er--my condolences,

Marquise. But on what pretext are you----?

Marquise. They say that, as his wife, I shared his designs and was in

his confidence.

Duc. How little they know of the world! (_Smiling._) As his wife--in his

confidence! How simple the blackguards are! (_Looks at her._) I protest

I feel my presence inopportune.

Marquise. No. (_She holds out a little silver box._) Will you hold this

for me? (_He takes it._) You may look. (_Opening it he finds rouge and a

powder-puff. The_ MARQUISE _smiles faintly_.)

Duc. (_Shutting box._) On my honour you’ve no need of it this morning.

Your cheeks display the most charming flush. Ah, we move. (_She

starts._) Yes, yes, it jolts horribly. But I won’t drop the rouge.

Marquise. Will it take long?

Duc. It? (_Shrugs his shoulders._) Oh, before you know--before you know!

Marquise. No, no--I mean the journey.

Duc. Ah, the journey! It will seem short now. Before you came, I feared

the tedium--though the crowd’s amusing enough. Look at that fellow! Why

in heaven’s name does he shake his fist at me? He’s not one of my

people, not even from my province. (_Smiles at the crowd and seats

himself by the_ MARQUISE.) You’re silent. Ah, I remember, now I

remember! When we parted last, you vowed you’d never speak to me again.

Marquise. I thought I never should.

Duc. The things we think we never shall do include all the most

delightful things we do.

Marquise. You seem to flatter yourself, monsieur. I meant what I said

then: but times are changed.

Duc. Faith, yes! The times more than I.

Marquise. More than you? Ah, changeful times!

Duc. And their changes bring more grief than any of mine could.

Marquise. Oh, as for grief--! It was your rudeness I deplored, more than

my loss.

Duc. I am never rude, madame. I may have been----

Marquise. (_Low._) Unfaithful?

Duc. (_Low._) Unworthy, madame. (_She looks at him for a moment and

sighs. He smiles and is about to speak when a great shout is heard from

the direction of the Place Louis Quinze. She starts, turns a little

pale, and involuntarily stretches out a hand to him._)

Marquise. What’s that? What’s happening?

Duc. Oh, they’re excited! In truth, my dear Marquise, I have long

wished----

Marquise. No, no--what was the shouting?

Duc. Well--er--in fact, I imagine that the first of our friends must

have arrived.

Marquise. (_Low._) Arrived! (_He smiles, takes her hand and kisses it,

then holds out the rouge-box with an air of mockery._) No, no--I won’t.

Duc. Why, no! We’ve no need of it. Let me bring the colour to your

cheeks. Once on a time I--well, at least I have been there when it came.

Ah, it comes now! Listen to me. I have long wished to----

Marquise. To explain?

Duc. (_Smiling._) Ah, you were always a little--a little--exacting. No,

no; nobody can explain these things. I wished only to----

Marquise. You daren’t apologise!

Duc. Ah, and you never were quite just to my good breeding. No again! I

wished to tell you frankly that I made a very great mistake. (_A voice

from the crowd shouts “To Hell with them!” The_ DUC _laughs_.) The

Church’s prerogatives follow the King’s! Ah well! A terrible mistake,

Marquise.

Marquise. (_Low, but eagerly._) You suspected me of----? Was that why

you----?

Duc. No. I suspected her.

Marquise. Her? But of what?

Duc. Of wit, madame, and of charm. I was most unjust.

Marquise. (_Smiling._) And not perhaps of one other thing--in which

respect you were unjust too?

Duc. (_Looking at her a moment and then smiling._) No, no--on my honour

I was not refused.

Marquise. Oh, not refused! (_She turns away._)

Duc. Shall I tell you the reason of that?

Marquise. Can’t I--I at least--guess the reason?

Duc. You least of all can guess it. I did not ask, Marquise.

Marquise. (_Turning quickly to him._) You didn’t----?

Duc. On my word, no. You’ll ask me why not?

Marquise. Why not, indeed? It was unlike you, monsieur.

Duc. I thought of you--and behold, it became impossible. At the moment

your image---- (_Another great shout is heard._) Hum, they never get

tired of the sight, it seems. (_He glances at the_ MARQUISE, _but she

has not noticed the shout. He takes her hand and presses it gently._)

Marquise. Is it true? You ought to tell the truth now.

Duc. Now? (_Laughs._) Ah, yes!

Marquise. Really true? (_She draws her hand away sharply._)

Duc. You don’t believe me?

Marquise. Yes, I believe you. But--but how stupid you were, monsieur!

Duc. Eh?

Marquise. How stupid you were, monsieur.

Duc. True. (_Takes snuff._) True, by heaven! I was--monstrous stupid.

Marquise. To think that you could----

Duc. Love her?

Marquise. Forget me, monsieur. Alas, I lose all my pride in----

(_Pauses._)

Duc. In----? (_Pauses. They smile and she blushes._)

Marquise. In any compliments you may have paid me.

Duc. (_Softly._) You won’t forgive me? Well, it’s the fashion now! I

must die twice to-day?

Marquise. Twice--die twice! (_Looks at him and trembles a little._) I--I

had almost forgotten what--where we were. (_A fierce shout is heard,

sounding nearer now._) Louis, they’ll--they’ll do nothing worse

than--kill me? You don’t answer, Louis!

Duc. Yes, yes. There’s no fear--no fear of that.

Marquise. But you hesitated.

Duc. (_Low._) If we must talk of death, pray let it be of mine. (_She

glances at him and lays her hand on his for a moment._) Yours seems

too--too---- (_Smiles._) I want a word. Well, too incongruous, dear

Marquise.

Marquise. I have confessed--and forgiven all my enemies.

Duc. Am I your enemy? Have you no forgiveness left for friends? (_She

looks at him gravely for a moment, then smiles reluctantly._) Why, we

were growing grave! That would be a bad ending.

Marquise. The most seemly ending!

Duc. For me? Oh, oh, Marquise! They’d think they’d got hold of the wrong

man. Your hand’s a trifle cold.

Marquise. (_Laughing nervously._) Well, if it is? We’ve stopped again!

Are we near now?

Duc. At the entrance of the _Place_, I believe. (_Looks at her and goes

on quickly._) You and I have walked here together before now. You

remember? Alone together--so often. (_Rises._) Forgive me--as you face

towards the _Place_ the sun is in your eyes. Pray sit the other way.

It’s pleasanter to look towards the river--cooler to the eye. You

remember our walks, dear Marquise?

Marquise. You still look towards the _Place_, though.

Duc. (_Laughing._) Why yes! I can’t have the dogs saying I daren’t----

Marquise. Are they to say it of me then, monsieur? (_She rises and

stands by him, looking towards the Place, where the scaffold is now

visible._)

Duc. (_Removing his hat and bowing humbly._) I beg your pardon.

Marquise. (_Very low._) Dear Louis, dear Louis!

Duc. I thought life done. I was wrong a thousand times!

Marquise. I cried when you----

Duc. Ah, if I beg them to torture me---- Would that atone?

Marquise. They found me crying. Think of the humiliation!

Duc. Oh, I must have a talk with a priest--after all I must! (_She turns

away with a sob and then a gasping laugh._) Ay, that’s life, dearest

Marquise--and perhaps it’s the other thing too.

Marquise. I care less now, Louis.

Duc. Give me your hand a minute. Yes, it’s warmer now. And the

rouge--why, madame, I swear the rouge is utterly superfluous! Shall we

throw it to the mob? It’s their favourite colour. I’ll leave it in the

cart--when they turn on one another, some hero may be glad of it.

Margot, dear Margot, are you cold? I thought you shivered as your arm

touched mine.

Marquise. (_Low._) No. I’m--I’m just a little afraid, Louis.

Duc. Oh no, no, no--Margot, no. You’re cold. Or--(_Smiling._) Come,

flatter me. Say it’s agitation--say it’s joy. Come, Margot, say that!

Marquise. (_Drawing nearer._) They didn’t know what they were doing when

they sent me with you.

Duc. The ignorance of the fellows is extraordinary.

Marquise. Because--everybody knew.

Duc. Alas, I was never too discreet! (_More shouts are heard. The Guard

in charge of the tumbril cries “Ready? We’re the last.”_) Hum! For

to-day, I suppose he means! (_He looks at her; her lips are moving. He

takes off his hat and stands bareheaded. The movement of her lips ceases

and she turns to him. He smiles._) I think you can have little need of

prayer.

Marquise. You say that? You?

Duc. Yes, I say that, Margot. (_They are at the foot of the scaffold

now._) As for me--well, I have always followed the fashion--and prayers

are not the fashion now. I was bitten by M. de Voltaire. By the way,

perhaps he’s had something to do with this--and we made him the fashion!

How whimsical! (_The National Guard turns and points his finger towards

the scaffold._) What? Oh, at your service, monsieur. (_He turns to the_

MARQUISE, _smiling_.) I must leave you--this time in love.

Marquise. (_Stretching out her hands._) Let me go first.

Duc. On my soul, I couldn’t! (_Softly._) The way is dark, let me show it

you.

Marquise. Louis, Louis!

Duc. And now--look now towards the river. Pray--towards the river! I

want you to remember me at my best. And--Margot--you mustn’t--you

mustn’t want the rouge. Your hand’s warm--still warm.

Marquise. (_Vehemently._) I will go first. I--I can’t see you--I will go

first.

Duc. Your will is my law always. (_She turns to descend._) It has been

pleasant to come with you.

Marquise. It was--easier--to come with you.

Duc. I am forgiven, Margot?

Marquise. Louis, dear Louis! (_He raises her hand to his lips. She goes.

He stands bareheaded, facing the scaffold while she suffers. Then he

puts his hat on and mounts the scaffold. They carry past him the basket

containing her head. A priest holds a crucifix before him. He starts and

bows to the priest._)

Duc. I beg your pardon, father, but--I knew the lady very well. She died

bravely, eh? _Pardon?_ Think how we have lived as well as how we die?

Yes, yes; most just and--er--apposite. Die truly penitent? Ah yes, yes.

Forgive me--I’m not master of my time. (_He bows and turns to the

executioner and his assistants._) Don’t keep me waiting. My desire is

to follow Madame la Marquise. What? “The woman died well!” God save

us--the woman! Well, as you please. Shall we say---- (_He places himself

beneath the knife._) Shall we say--Margot? Nobody was ever like Margot.

(_Smiles, then looks up._) Well? Oh, you wait for me. Good! _Messieurs,

allez!_

THE RIDDLE OF COUNTESS RUNA

I

Having reduced the rest of his kingdom to obedience in three arduous

campaigns, King Stanislas sat himself down with a great army before the

strong place of Or, which was held against him by Runa, daughter of

Count Theobald the Fierce. For Countess Runa said that since her father

had paid neither obedience nor tribute to the King’s father for fifty

years, neither would she pay obedience or tribute to the King, nor would

she open the city gates to him save at her own time and by her own will.

So the King came and enveloped the city on all sides, so that none could

pass in or out, and sent his heralds to Countess Runa demanding

surrender; in default of which he would storm the ramparts, sack the

city, and lay the citadel level with the earth, in such wise that men

should not remember the place where it had been.

Sitting on her high chair, beneath the painted window through which the

sun struck athwart her fair hair, Runa heard the message.

“Tell the King--for a king he is, though no king of mine--that we are

well armed and have knights of fame with us. Tell him that we are

provisioned for more months than he shall reign years, and that we will

tire him sooner than he can starve us.”

She ceased speaking, and the principal herald, bowing low, asked: “Is

that all the message?”

“No, there is more. Tell him that the daughter of Count Theobald the

Fierce rules in the city of Or.”

Bowing again, the principal herald asked: “Is that all the message?”

Runa sat silent for a minute. Then she said: “No, there is more. Tell

the King that he must carry the citadel before he can pass the

ramparts.”

The principal herald frowned, then smiled and said: “But with deference,

madam, how can that be? For the citadel is high on a rock, and the city

lies round it below, and again round the city lie the ramparts. How,

then, shall the King carry the citadel before----?”

Runa raised her brows in weariness.

“Your speech is as long as your siege will be,” she said. “You are a

mouthpiece, Sir Herald, not an interpreter. Begone, and say to the King

what I have given you to say.”

So the heralds returned to King Stanislas and gave him Runa’s answer;

but the King, in his wrath, listened more to the first part of it than

to the last, and assaulted the ramparts fiercely for three days. But

Runa’s men rolled his men back with loss and in confusion, for they were

in good heart because of the message Runa had sent. “For,” they said,

“our Countess has bidden the King perform what is impossible before she

will yield the city; and as we trusted Theobald the father, so we trust

the daughter Runa.”

After his three assaults had failed, King Stanislas waited in quiet for

a month, drawing his cordon yet more closely round the city. Then he

sent again to the Countess, saying that he would spend the first half of

his reign outside the walls of Or, provided he could spend the second

half of it inside the same; yet if she would yield now, she should have

his favour and all her wealth; but if she would not yield, she must

await starvation and sack and the extremity of his anger. To which

summons she answered only: “Tell the King that he must carry the citadel

before he can pass the ramparts.” And she would say no more to the

heralds.

“A plague on her!” cried Stanislas. “A plague on the woman and her

insolent riddles! Of what appearance is she? I have never seen her.”

“As the sun for beauty and the moon for dignity,” said the principal

herald, whose occupation naturally bred eloquence.

“Stuff!” said King Stanislas very crossly.

The herald bowed, but with an offended air.

“Does she seem sane?” asked Stanislas.

“Perfectly sane, sire,” answered the herald. “Although, as your Majesty

deigns to intimate, the purport of her message is certainly not such as

might reasonably be expected from a lady presumably endowed with----”

“I am ready for the next audience,” said King Stanislas to his

Chamberlain.