BOOK II

THREE POTTERS

I

LONDON once a year has a brief spell of youth, during which she is

surpassingly beautiful, gay, insolent, and very nearly as vivid and

riotous as the tropics. Her gray besooted old masses of architecture are

but the background for green parks where swans sail on slowly moving

streams; thousands of window boxes, flaunting red, white, and yellow;

miles of plate-glass windows, whose splendid display, whether torn from

the earth, or representing unthinkable toil at the loom, the rape of the

feathered tribe, or countless brains no longer laid out in cells but in

intricate patterns of lace, hot veldts where the ostrich, quite

indifferent to the depletion of his tail, walks as absurdly as the pupil

of Delsarte, slaughter-houses of hideless beasts, compensated in death

with silver and gold, the ravishing of greenhouses, and the luscious

fruits that grow only between earth and glass,—all these wonders lining

curved streets and crowded “circuses,” challenge the coldest eye above

the tightest purse. And in the fashionable streets during the morning

are women as pretty and gay of attire as the flower beds in the Park,

where they display themselves of an afternoon.

Julia, happy in her own unsullied eager youth, made the acquaintance of

London when that seasoned old dame was taking her yearly elixir of life,

and thought herself come to Paradise. She had hardly a word for her

aunt, Mrs. Winstone, who had met her at the railway station, but twisted

her neck to look at the shop windows, the hoary old palaces and

churches, the passing troops of cavalry, gorgeous as exotics, the

monuments to heroes, the bare-kneed Scot in his kilt, and the Oriental

in his turban. It was Mrs. Winstone’s hour for driving, and as her young

guest’s frock had not been made for Hyde Park, and Julia had laughed

when asked if she were tired, the constitutional was taken through the

streets and in or about the smaller parks. The coachman was far too

haughty himself to venture beyond the West End, or even to skirt those

purlieus which lie at its back doors.

Julia’s eyes, wide and star-like as they were, missed not a detail, and

she felt as happy as on the night of her first party. The journey had

been monotonous, the passengers, when not ill, rather dull. Therefore

was her plastic mind shaped to drink down in great draughts the

pleasures promised by the city of her dreams. Moreover, never in her

life had she felt so well. The eighteen days at sea, the wholesome food,

the constant exercise in which a good sailor always indulges, if only to

get away with the time, long days in cold salt air, had crimsoned her

blood, vitalized every organ. France and the reason of her translation

to London she had almost forgotten. There had been a hurried marriage at

Great House; then, almost before the wine had been tasted, the indignant

bridegroom had been summoned to his ship, which, with the rest of the

squadron, had sailed two hours later. There had been a succession of

infuriated letters, mailed at the different islands, and Julia knew that

France intended to leave the service as soon as he set foot in England;

but as that could not be for weeks to come, she had dismissed him from

her mind.

“Shall I live here?” she asked at length, as they drove down the wide

Mall, one of the finest avenues in Christendom, and half rising to look

at Buckingham Palace.

“You should know.” Mrs. Winstone had received only a cablegram from her

sister. “France has a house, a bit of a place in Hertfordshire, but only

rooms in town, so far as I know. The duke, however, may ask you to stop

with him in St. James’s Square—for a bit. He seems enchanted to get

France married, but it is rather fortunate that I have known him for

years and can vouch for you. France, returning with a bride from the

antipodes—well—”

“Of course the duke would expect some one much older, Mr. France is so

old himself. But I’m glad he doesn’t mind, for I want to live in

castles. It’s too bad Mr. France hasn’t one.”

“Is that what you married France for? I have wondered.”

Julia shrugged her restless young shoulders, and looked at the carriages

full of finery rolling between the columns of Hyde Park.

“Mother told me to marry him and I did, of course. I have known, ever

since I was about eight, that I was to marry at this time and start upon

some wonderful career, for there’s no getting the best of the planets. I

had to take the man who came along at the right moment.”

Mrs. Winstone was one of those extremely smart English women who put on

an expression of youthful vacuity with their public toilettes, but at

this point she so far forgot herself as to sit up and gasp.

“Not that old nonsense! You don’t mean to tell me that Jane still

believes—why, I had forgotten the thing. Hinson! Home!”

As the carriage turned and rolled toward Tilney Street Mrs. Winstone,

really interested for the first time, stared hard at the face beside

her. Had she a child on her hands? It had been rather a bore, the

prospect of fitting out and putting through her preliminary paces a

young West Indian bride, mooning the while for an absent groom. But she

had never seen any one look less like a bride, more heart-whole.

“Do you love France?” she asked abruptly.

“Of course not. He’s a horrid funny old thing, and his eyes look like

glass when they don’t look like Fawcett’s when he’s been drinking, poor

darling. And some of his hair is gray. But of course he’ll die soon and

then I’ll have a handsome young husband.”

Mrs. Winstone regarded the tip of her boot. She was worldly, selfish,

vain, envied this young relative who would one day be a duchess, but she

had an abundant store of that good nature which is the brass but

pleasant counterfeit of a kind heart. She would not put herself out for

any one, unless there were amusement or profit in it for her pampered

self, but she would do so much if there were, that she had the

reputation of being one of the “nicest women in London.” It was a long

time—she was a widow of thirty-four, and enjoyed a comfortable

income—since she had felt a spasm of natural sympathy, but she put this

sensation to her credit as she turned again to the child beside her.

“I wish I had gone down to Nevis last year, as I half intended,” she

remarked. “It would have been good for my nerves, too. But there is such

a vast difference between the ages of your mother and myself—we are at

the opposite ends of a good old West Indian family—and we don’t get on

very well. If I had—tell me about the wedding. I suppose it was a great

affair. Where did you go for the honeymoon?”

“No, I didn’t have a fine wedding. One day Mr. France was just calling,

when the minister of Fig Tree Church was also there, and mother told us

to stand up and be married. A few minutes after a sailor came running up

with an order from the Captain to Mr. France to go to the ship at once.

Before he had a chance to return the squadron sailed. For some reason

the Captain didn’t want us to marry, and mother was delighted at getting

the best of him. I never knew her to be in such a good humor as she was

all the rest of that day and the next. But the Captain must have been as

cross as Mr. France when he found out he was too late. Mother and the

planets are too much for anybody.”

Mrs. Winstone had learned all she wished to know. Mrs. Edis would have

been wholly—no doubt satirically—content with the resolution born

instantly in her sister’s agile mind. France would not arrive for a

month or six weeks. There was nothing for it but to make his bride so

worldly and frivolous that some of this appalling innocence would

disappear in the process. Mrs. Winstone did not take kindly to the task,

being fastidious and tolerably decent, but having read the book of life

by artificial light for many years, could arrive at no other solution of

her problem.

“France has been cabling frantically to be relieved, has even sent his

resignation, but either there is no one to take his place on such short

notice, or some one is exerting a counter-influence—possibly your good

friend, the Captain—and he must wait until the squadron returns.

Meanwhile, we shall not let you miss him. The duke has sent me a check

for your trousseau, and this is the very height of the season—here we

are. It is a box, but I hope you will not be uncomfortable.”

Among other considerations, Mrs. Winstone did not permit herself to

forget that now was her opportunity to ingratiate herself with a future

peeress of Britain. “Although anything less like a duchess,” she thought

grimly as she laid her arm lightly about Julia’s waist while ascending

the stair, “I never saw out of America or on the stage. But the duke,

good soul, will be delighted.”

The house, small, like so many in Mayfair, was all drawing-room on the

first floor, a right angle of a room, so shaped and furnished as to give

it an air of spaciousness. The front window was open to the flower

boxes; there was a narrow conservatory across the back, which added to

its depth. Above were one large bedroom and two small ones; and those of

the servants, a flight higher, were a disgrace to civilization.

But all that was intended for polite eyes presented a picture of ease,

luxury, taste, smartness; moreover, had the unattainable air of having

been occupied for several generations. Americans and other outsiders,

settling for a season or two in London, spend thousands of pounds to

look as if living in a packing-case of expensive goods, but Englishwomen

of moderate income, combined with traditions and certain inheritances,

often give the impression of aristocratic wealth and luxury.

Captain Winstone (recruited also from the generous navy) had inherited

the house in Tilney Street from his mother, an old dame of taste and

fashion, who, besides careful weeding in the possessions of her

ancestors, had travelled much and bought with a fine discrimination that

was a part of her hardy contempt for Victorian fashions. The house, with

three thousand pounds a year, was Mrs. Winstone’s for so long as she

should grace this planet, and enabled her to exist, even to pay her

dressmakers on account, when they made nuisances of themselves. But

although she would have liked a great income, she had never been tempted

to marry again, holding that a widow who sacrificed her liberties for

anything less than a peerage was a fool; and no peer had crossed her

path wealthy enough to be disinterested, or poor enough to share her

humble dowry with gratitude. She always carried on a mild flirtation

with a tame cat a few years younger than herself, who would fetch and

carry, and, if wealthy, make her nice presents. If not, she fed him and

took him to drive in her Victoria. Her heart and passions never troubled

her, but her vanity required constant sustenance. She did not in the

least mind the implication when the infant-in-waiting was invited to the

country houses she visited; not only was her vanity flattered, but the

generous tolerance of her world always amused her. She lived on the

surface of life, and altogether was an enviable woman.

Julia was delighted with her little room, done up in fresh chintz, too

absorbed and happy to notice that it overlooked a mews. A four-wheeler

had already brought her box, and a maid had unpacked her modest

wardrobe. Mrs. Winstone, glancing over it with a suppressed sigh, told

her to put on something white, as people would drop in for tea, then

retired to the large front bedroom to be arrayed in a tea-gown of pink

chiffon and much French lace.

II

MRS. WINSTONE, an excessively pretty woman, with blue eyes and fair

hair, and a fresh complexion responsive to the arts of rejuvenation,

seated herself before the tea-table and arranged her expression,

determined not to betray her feelings when Julia entered in a white

muslin frock made by the seamstress of Nevis. But as Julia, with all the

confidence of an only child (such had practically been her position),

entered smiling, her hair pinned softly about her head, Mrs. Winstone’s

own spontaneous smile, which did so much for her popularity, without

seaming the satin of her skin, responded. She saw at once what had

dawned upon even Mrs. Edis’s provincial and scientific mind, that the

girl at least knew how to put on her clothes, that she could wear white

muslin and a blue sash and neck ribbon with an air.

“We shall have jolly times with the shops and dressmakers,” she said

warmly. “We’ll begin to-morrow morning. You are to be presented at the

last drawing-room and must go into training at once. The duke wishes it.

Really, I didn’t think there’d be anything so excitin’ this season as

puttin’ the wife of Harold France through her paces. How do, Algy?”

She extended a finger to a young man who lounged in with a bored

expression, and a dragging of one foot after the other that suggested

excesses which were preparing him for an early grave; in truth, he was a

virtuous and timid younger son, who, being able to afford but one vice,

chose cigarettes, and in the privacy of his room—he lived at

home—smoked the economical American.

Mrs. Winstone, with the vagueness of her kind, murmured, “my niece,” and

poured him out a cup of tea, while embarking smartly upon a tide of

gossip anent “Sonnys” and “Berties,” “Mollys” and “Vickys,” to which

Julia had no key. But she was quite content to be ignored, being

entirely happy, and deeply interested in her aunt and her new

surroundings. With a quick and appreciative instinct she admired the

rectangular room with its soft light and French furniture, its hundred

little treasures from India and the continent. The tea-service was

fairylike, compared with the massive pieces of Great House, and

eminently in harmony with the pretty butterfly and her slender

fluttering hands. Mrs. Winstone, as has been intimated, cultivated an

expression of complete ingenuousness, even in animated conversation, and

in repose—as when driving alone, for instance—looked so drained of

vulgar sensations, of that capacity for thought so necessary to the

middle classes, poor dears, that even an Englishman was once heard to

exclaim that he would like to throw a wet sponge at her. Her figure

might have been taller, but it could hardly have been thinner, and

carried smart gowns as an angel carries her natural feathers. Women

liked her, not only for the reasons given, but because her acute

intelligence chose that they should, and men liked, sometimes loved, her

because she knew them as well as she did women, and managed them

accordingly.

Her present adorer, Lord Algernon FitzMiff, was tall, loose-jointed,

with sleek brown hair, a mathematical profile, and beautiful clothes. He

would never pay his tailor; never, unless he caught an heiress, own a

thousand pounds. But at least a Chinaman on his first visit to England

would never have taken him for a member of the middle class; and when a

man is no disgrace to “his order,” who shall maintain that his life is

wasted?

Julia, finding him even less interesting than her husband, was on the

other side of the room admiring an old bronze brought to England in the

palmy days of the East India Company, when three visitors were

announced:—

“Mrs. Macmanus, Mr. Pirie, Mr. Nigel Herbert.”

“Dear Julia!” cried Mrs. Winstone, in a tone which, although subdued,

made an effect of floating across space until the drawing-room seemed

immense, “come and meet my friends.”

Julia, born without mauvaise honte, passed the ordeal of introduction in

a fashion which delighted her aunt, and sat down under the lorgnette of

Mrs. Macmanus.

This intimate friend of Mrs. Winstone was also in her thirty-fifth year,

but enormously rich, as lazy of body as she was quick of mind, and,

inclined to gout, quite indifferent to both youth and clothes. Her black

frock would not have been worn by her maid, her stays were of the old

school, her hair was parted, and about her eyes were many amiable lines.

There were those who maintained that she was a snob of the subtlest dye,

daring to look like a frump because of her income and her ramifications

in the peerage; but they were quite wrong. Mrs. Macmanus was so little

of a snob that she rarely recognized snobbery in others, hated every

variety of discomfort, and could not have been more amiable and

kind-hearted had she been poor and a nobody.

Mr. Pirie, although only forty-five, was already an old beau. Left with

an income sufficient for a luxurious bachelor, too selfish to ask the

present Mrs. Macmanus to share it when she was a penniless girl, and

with none of the recommendations essential to the capture of predatory

heiresses, he had lived for twenty-five years in very comfortable rooms

in Jermyn Street, dining out every night during the season, taking his

yearly waters at Carlsbad, visiting at country houses. In no way

distinguished, people wondered sometimes why they continued, year after

year, to invite him; but he had been astute enough to hang on until he

had become a fixed habit, and now, should any of the ailments which come

from too much dining with owners of chefs take him off, he would have

been sincerely missed for a season; he was a good-natured gossip, who

could put vitriol on his tongue at the unique moment. Mrs. Macmanus had

been free for fifteen years, and he had proposed to her fifteen times;

but not only was that astute widow content with her present state, but

she never quite forgave him for not proposing before he was obliged to

wear a toupee. She liked him, however, and gave him a corner at her

fireside. For several years she had tried to make him work, being of

that order of woman that has no patience with the idler. In her youth,

she had been quite impassioned on the subject, but had learned that to

backbone the invertebrate was as easy as to turn marble into flesh.

When, a few years later, the Americans discovered the hookworm, she

concluded that half England had it, and became entirely charitable.

Young Herbert, who immediately carried his tea over to Julia’s side, was

but recently out of Oxford, reading law to please his father (an

eminently practical peer), but quietly preparing himself for literature.

He had a fresh frank face, which refused to look politely bored, large

blue eyes, that danced at times with youth and the zest of life, and

although dressed with the perfection of detail of a Lord Algy FitzMiff,

his movements, like his voice, were often quick and eager. He had been

cultivating Mrs. Winstone with a view to succeeding Lord Algy, since she

was so much the fashion, and rippin’ besides, but she vanished from his

calculations the moment he set eyes on her niece, and never returned.

He had heard nothing of the marriage, Mrs. Winstone with fashionable

casualness having omitted to mention it, and society being as

indifferent to the performances of a man who spent his leaves of absence

in Paris, as to the heir presumptive of an unfashionable duke.

“Miss France—surely—” he began. But Julia bridled. She was proud of

her married state. She sat up very straight and looked at him primly.

He laughed aloud. “Really?” he asked teasingly. “Well, I suppose you are

too young to like to be told you look so, but—I can’t take it in. Do I

know your husband, perhaps? France—there are several. You are a bride,

of course.”

“I have been married just twenty-four days. My husband is a lieutenant

in the navy. He won’t be here for a month or two yet—”

“In the navy—what—what—is his first name?”

“Harold. He has a lot of others, but I forget them.”

“Not the Duke of Kingsborough’s—”

“Yes, and Aunt Maria says perhaps I shall stay at some of the castles

this year.”

Herbert’s hand shook so that he was obliged to put down his cup. He was

almost a generation younger than France, and rarely entered his own

club, but there are some characters that are known to all men of their

class, however unpopular or negligible socially they may be. Herbert

felt a sensation of nausea, and for the moment loathed this wonderful

young creature that looked to be composed of light and fire. What must

she really be made of to have fallen in love with a man like France?

What sort of hideous inherited instincts had answered those of a man

that did not even possess the common gift of magnetism? What had he made

of her?

He had been bred in the severe school of his class. His composure

returned and he looked at her critically. Red hair. A sensual and

ill-tempered little devil, no doubt. Then he encountered her eyes, eyes

so unmistakably innocent, so different from the eyes of the Mrs.

Winstones, with their manufactured ingenuousness, their injected wonder

at the naughtiness of the world.

But he floundered. “Oh, of course. Castles. And of course, Mr. France is

very handsome—distinguished.”

Julia was staring at him in open astonishment. “Handsome? He looks like

a sheep, when he doesn’t look like a calf—that’s the way he looked when

he stared at me while mother was talking to him. I had never talked to a

man in my life. He must have thought me quite stupid. I am sure he was

very kind to marry me.”

“Kind?”

“Mother said he was in love, but somehow—well, I have only read a few

of Scott’s novels—he doesn’t seem much like a lover to me. But after

I’ve seen the world a bit, and read some modern novels, perhaps I shall

understand Mr. France better. I should think it would be a good thing to

understand one’s husband.”

“Rather.” He was devoured with curiosity, and changed the subject

hastily. “What is your idea of a man that could make love, fall in

love?” he asked, not yet quite sure whether he liked her well enough

even for a mild flirtation.

But Julia had liked him spontaneously. His youth, his breeding, his

frank kind eyes, the mere fact that he was the first man near her own

age with whom she had ever had a tête-à-tête, won her confidence, and

fluttered her imagination. She regarded him dispassionately.

“You, I should think. But I don’t know very much—anything about it.”

Was this accomplished coquetry? But those eyes. “Will you tell me where

you have come from?” he asked. “I—I can’t quite place you.”

“From Nevis, where Aunt Maria was born.”

“And there are no men there?”

“No young ones. I met Mr. France at my first party, anyhow. I had no

friends—not even girls. My mother is peculiar—a very wonderful woman.

Some day I’ll tell you about her. But she made up her mind I was to have

no friends until I married.”

Herbert made another heroic attempt to repress his curiosity. “And why

do you think I could fall in love—really in love?”

“Well—you see—you look elastic, springy, waxy, sappy, like the young

trees. Mr. France is all made, hard, finished. He’s like an old tree

with rough bark, and dry inside. I suppose he could love when he was

your age, but he’s years too old now. I shall always think of him as a

father—my father had a son eighteen years old when he was Mr. France’s

age—and I was eighteen my last birthday.”

Herbert drew a long breath. He put his finger inside his collar and shot

a glance at the rest of the party. They were discussing the resignation

of Gladstone and his indictment of the peers; English people, no matter

how frivolous, are never as empty-headed as Americans of the same class.

Moreover, Mrs. Winstone included several flirtations in the curriculum,

and looked upon Herbert as quite safe.

The question popped out irresistibly. “Then your mother arranged the

match?”

“Of course.”

“And—and—you aren’t in love with your husband now that you’re married

to him? Girls often are, you know.”

“What difference does that make?”

“Well—I should think France would know how to make love even if he

couldn’t love—I fancy you’ve hit him off there.”

“Well, he may, but I hope he won’t. Forty! He used to talk a good deal

about wanting to settle down. So, I suppose he’ll do that, and I am sure

I could run a house as well as mother.”

“Run a house! Is that the way he made love to you?”

“He never made love to me. Mother always entertained him, and he had to

sail as soon as the ceremony was over, instead of taking me up into the

hills, as he had planned.”

Herbert felt a wild sense of exultation and an equally wild impulse to

save her. The finest type of young Englishman inherits a deep and

passionate tide of chivalry, and his was whipped hard and high for the

first time. A crime had been committed, a worse one menaced; this he

would avert if he had to elope with the child and ruin his career. There

was no room left in him for humor; it was the best plan he could think

of, just as Mrs. Winstone’s plan to make her innocent little niece so

frivolous, worldly, and sophisticated that in a measure she would be

prepared for life with one of the most blatant roués in England, was the

best her order of brain could evolve. And Julia, plastic, unawakened,

inexperienced, gave the impression of being entirely agreeable to any

plans that might be made for her.

Herbert, young and chivalrous as he might be, and still able to fall in

love at first sight, was the product of the highest civilization on

earth, and in no danger of making a precipitate ass of himself. He also

was as subtle as a frank and honest nature can be, and he realized that

he must proceed warily. An innocent girl can be repelled even by a young

and attractive lover, and Mrs. Winstone, although she would smile at a

flirtation, would be the last to countenance a scandal in her family.

Moreover, it was possible that he might be mistaken in the sensations

inspired by this girl with the big shining happy eyes, hair that looked

as if about to crackle, and a sort of electric aura. He had been in love

before, and recovered with humiliating facility. His reason spoke, but

all the rest of him cried out that he was in love, desperately in love,

that it was the real thing, at last. And she needed him. That clinched

the matter.

He changed the subject abruptly, and, as much as possible, the current

of his thoughts. “Of course Mrs. Winstone is enchanting, ripping,” he

announced warmly. “Quite the youngest woman in London” (this, without

insulting intent). “But after all, you _are_ just grown, and must have

friends of your own age. My sister, alas! is in India, but one of her

pals married my brother—and her great friend, Lady Ishbel Jones—we are

all great pals. I’m sure you’ll like them both—”

“When shall I meet them? Are they my age?”

“Only a little older—twenty-three. Ishbel was married when she was

nineteen—her husband is rather a bounder, but unspeakably rich, and she

was one of fourteen daughters of a poor Irish peer. Bridgit, my

sister-in-law, married for love—my brother is one of the best looking

men in the army. She married at eighteen—and has a little chap, but

she’s one of the best cross-country riders in England, and a topper at

golf and tennis; fine all-round sport, and loves society as much as

Ishbel. _She’s_ sweeter, more feminine on the outside, but no more of a

brick, and all-there-all-the-time than Bridgit. I’m sure they’re just

the friends for you.”

“I’m rather afraid of them; they’re really grown women, and I know quite

well that I’m only a child. I realized it a bit the night of my first

party at Government House, when I saw the other girls flirting; and on

the steamer they teased me a good deal. But I _must_ have some friends

of my age. I am beginning to long for them. It is so odd—I was quite

happy alone—so long as I knew nothing else. And I didn’t care to marry

for years, but—” She gave a side glance at the intent face as close to

hers as the etiquette of the drawing-room permitted, hesitated an

instant, for she was growing sensitive about her ignorance. But the

friendly admiring eyes reassured her, and out came the story of the

planets. It was the last straw. Herbert left the house in Tilney Street

feeling the one romantic man in England, and almost shaking with

excitement.

III

THE duke, a dry ascetic little man, called on the following day and

approved of Julia at once. He was not only relieved that his heir had

married an innocent girl of good family, but youth was needed in the

house of France. His sisters were older and more antiquated than

himself, and now that his health was improving, he wished to give

political parties and dinners. A beautiful young woman at the head of

his staircase or table was an attraction second only to a chef. He hoped

she was not quite a fool, and invited her to lunch alone with him in the

course of the week, with intent to ascertain if her mind was of a

quality that would sprout the seeds he was willing to implant—he was by

way of being intellectual himself.

But it was some time before Julia could be drawn out. The big gloomy

dining-room, the little man with his dull cold eyes and languid manner,

the magnificent footmen, four besides the butler, to wait upon the two

seated so far apart at the table, paralyzed her spirits and courage.

Moreover, she was bewildered and somewhat fatigued by five days of

shopping, milliners, dressmakers, and meeting many more of her aunt’s

friends. She felt half disposed to cry, and nearly choked over her food.

The duke was rather pleased by her timidity than disappointed; it was

not often that he inspired awe (like all little men without personality

it had been the dream of his life to electrify a room as he entered it,

and annihilate with the eagle in his glance), and, being a gentleman of

the old school, he held that young females should be diffident to their

natural lords, and modest withal.

With dessert the small army of minions disappeared, and Julia’s face

brightened.

“I suppose I’ll get used to all this grandeur in time, but aunt has only

one footman, and at home—well, the blacks take turns waiting on the

table, whichever happens to have nothing else to do, and they are part

of the family, anyhow.”

The duke was shocked, but interested; shocked that even a new recruit to

the ranks of the British peerage should be so frank about domestic

poverty, and interested in the innocence or the courage which prompted

her to speak to the head of the house of France as if he were a parson’s

son.

“Quite so. Quite so,” he said genially. “Harold has rather a small

establishment himself, but well appointed, of course. Ah—it’s let. I

hope you will spend the greater part of your time with me. It is a new

experience to see a young face at this table, and a very delightful

one.” He had never felt more gracious, and Julia smiled upon him so

radiantly that he expanded still further. “Yes, you must certainly live

with me. And Harold must stand for Parliament. Now that he has resigned

from the navy that will be the career for him. We Frances always have

careers, we have never been idlers, and I need some one in the lower

House. He could not choose a better moment. The present ministry is in a

state of dissolution. You will like politics, of course. All intelligent

women do, and more than one woman of this family has been of—ah—quite

material assistance to her husband.”

“I don’t know anything about politics, but I can learn. Mother says I

must. When can I go to a castle?”

The duke’s mouth was close and ascetic, but it parted in a smile that

was almost spontaneous. “Of course you want to see a castle,” he said,

teasing her graciously. “All children do.”

Julia flushed and tossed her head. “Well, I’m not so sorry I’m really

young. I’ve been in London only a week, but it seems to me that I’ve met

hundreds of women who think of nothing but looking young. So, what is

there to be ashamed of?”

“Or to blush about? I perceive that we shall be famous friends. You

shall go to a castle as soon as Harold returns. I’ll lend him Bosquith

for the honeymoon. His own box would not be half romantic enough.”

Julia had been warned by her aunt not to confide her conjugal

indifference to the duke, but she remarked impulsively:—

“One couldn’t be romantic with Mr. France, anyhow. I’d rather go there

by myself, or with two or three of my new friends.”

“Great heavens!” For the first time in his life the duke (who always

conducted family prayers for the servants, even in the height of the

season) was almost profane. “Really—upon my word—you must not say such

things—nor feel them. I am aware of the circumstances of your marriage,

and that you have not had time to learn to love your husband as a wife

should, but you must take wifely love and duty for granted. You are

married and that is the end of it. As for romance, of course I was only

joking. No doubt I was somewhat clumsy, for I rarely joke; romance does

not matter in the least, and you must look forward to living with your

husband as the highest of—ahem!—earthly happiness. And I must insist

that you do not call Harold ‘Mr. France.’ It is not only unnatural, but

American. I do not know any Americans, but am told that the wives always

allude to their husbands as ‘Mr.’ In a novel I once read, ‘The Wide,

Wide, World,’ they always _called_ them ‘Mr.’ It must have been

extremely awkward! You will remember, I hope.”

“Yes, sir.”

Julia looked down, and repressed a smile. She might be ignorant and

provincial, but she was naturally shrewd and poised; the duke no longer

awed her, and, indeed, seemed rather absurd. But, then, she had met so

many absurd people in the last few days. She thought with gratitude upon

young Herbert and his two enchanting friends, Bridgit Herbert and Ishbel

Jones. In the wild rush of her new life they had passed and repassed one

another like flashes of lightning, but there had been distinct and

agreeable shocks, and she was to lunch with the two young women on the

morrow. It was a prospect that consoled her for the ennui of her ordeal

with this quite nice but very dull old gentleman.

The duke, however, convinced that he had made an impression, and

magnanimously overlooking the indiscretions of youth, kept her for an

hour longer, and gave her an outline lesson in politics. He was

extremely lucid and chose his words with the precision which

distinguished all his public utterances (he fancied his style); also

reminded himself that he was addressing an embryonic intelligence. Julia

looked at him with wide admiring eyes and thought of Herbert and Bridgit

and Ishbel.

IV

THERE were, at this period of their lives, no two more frivolous and

pleasure-loving young women in England than Bridgit Herbert and Ishbel

Jones. The one, married three months after she had left the schoolroom,

the other rescued suddenly from a ruined castle where food was often

scanty and a travelling bog the only excitement, both had thrown

themselves into the complex pleasures of society with such ardor and

industry that neither had yet found time to discover they were clever

women and their husbands two of the dullest men in England.

Mr. James William Jones (alluded to as “Jimmy” to please the enchanting

Ishbel, although men let him alone as much as they decently could,

unless greedy for tips of the stock market, or the salary of a director

on one of his boards) was as generous with money as behoved a newcomer

with a beautiful young wife, and a passion for entertaining the British

peerage. He might be a bore and a bounder, but he knew what he wanted

and he knew how to get it. At forty he was a millionnaire, and, resting

on his labors (for Britons, unlike Americans, know when they have

enough), became aware that outside of the City he was a nobody.

Simultaneously he lifted his gaze to that stellar world known as

Society. He read of it, he stared at it from afar—a park chair (for

which he paid two pence), an opera stall for which he paid a guinea—and

blinked in its radiance. He was first wistful, then angry, then

determined. He had many golden keys, but was not long in learning that

none would open the door guarding the golden stair. He was an ugly

rather flat-featured Welshman, with eyes like black beads and the

manners of his native village; he met gentlemen every day in the City,

and, being a man of facts, knew himself exactly for what he was.

Nevertheless, he would win society as he had won fortune, and (with no

keen relish) admitted that for the first time in his life he must stoop

to ask the aid of woman. In other words, he must get him a wife, and she

must be a lady of high degree. By this time his conclusions were rapid.

Being a city millionaire, without youth, looks, or manners, he would

have to buy his wife. Ergo, she must be poor.

He immediately embarked upon a study of the British peerage, and with

the thoroughness and capacity for detail which play so great a part in

the equipment of the self-made, he had within a week a list of

impoverished peers long enough to reach to France.

But how was he to meet any of them? He was a solitary man, having had no

time to make friends, and, proud in his way, risked no rebuffs from

those suave well-groomed beings who honored the City for its base

returns. He had not even a poor peer on one of his boards, having, in

the old days, regarded them as useless and dangerous.

It was at this point that luck (also an ally of the self-made) came at

his call. He was plodding through a society paper when his eye was

caught by an editorial paragraph, mysteriously worded. He read it

several times, grasped its meaning, and, the hour being propitious, went

at once to the editorial offices of _The Mart_, in Bond Street. Ushered

into the presence of the widowed and impoverished lady of some quality

who edited the sheet, he asked her bluntly, holding out the paragraph,

if “this meant that she introduced people into Society for a

consideration.” She colored a dusky crimson at this coarse adaptation of

her delicate literary style, but they were not long coming to an

understanding, nevertheless. She agreed with him that his only hope was

in a wife of the right sort, and asked him to call again a week later.

When he returned, she had his record as well as his remedy. With the

calm and brazen assurance of which only the well-born thrown on their

uppers are capable, she demanded a thousand pounds for her letter of

introduction, and another thousand if the wedding came off. He had

always despised women and now he laughed outright; nevertheless, when he

discovered that the letter was to a poor proud Irish peer, connected

with several of the most notable families in England, and the melancholy

possessor of fourteen beautiful daughters, ranging from thirty-five

years of age to sixteen, he signed the check and the agreement.

The desperate Irish landlord, duly advised from London, received him

with true Celtic hospitality, and practically bade him take his choice.

As Lady Ishbel was the family’s flower, Jones made up his mind

cautiously and promptly, asking for her hand on his third visit. His

leaking unventilated quarters in the village inn, and the harsh food of

the peer (like many self-made men he was on a diet) had somewhat to do

with his rapidity of decision.

Ishbel wept sadly when she received the paternal decree, for she was

young and romantic, and her suitor was neither. But not only had she

been taught from infancy that marriage was the one escape from bogs and

potatoes, and, like her sisters, had lived on the forlorn hope of being

invited to London by more fortunate relatives, but she had one of the

sweetest and kindest natures in the world; and when her mother wept, and

her father told her that Mr. Jones, moved to his depths at the straits

of a member of even the Irish peerage, had intimated that he would make

him a director of one of his companies, with a salary which would insure

him against hunger, and patch up his castle, and when her older sisters

urged that she might sacrifice her feelings in order to marry them off

in turn, she dried her beautiful eyes, and consented.

Mr. Jones returned at once to London to prepare for his bride, and,

again with the help of the Lady of the Bureau, bought him a furnished

house in Park Lane. This fact, his many virtues, and his approaching

marriage to the “greatest beauty in Ireland” (the Lady of the Bureau by

this time felt something like gratitude to her victim and resolved to

give him a handsome return for his checks) were duly chronicled in _The

Mart_. The marriage took place at the beginning of the season, and

Ishbel’s many relatives received her affectionately and launched her at

once, swallowing Mr. Jones without a grimace. Thanks to Nature, her

husband’s millions, and the friendly _Mart_, she became a “beauty” in

her first season, and was so intoxicated with the many and delectable

dishes offered her starved young palate, that she tolerated and almost

forgot her husband. He, in turn, took little interest in her, save as a

means to an end. He had bought her as he had bought women before, and,

being a plain matter-of-fact person, thought one sort about as good as

another. However, he gave her an immense income, and, satisfying himself

that she was honest and virtuous, in spite of her irresistible coquetry,

left her to her own devices.

She had little education, and no accomplishments, but she studied for an

hour and a half every morning with the best masters to be found, and her

natural wit and charm, added to her rich Irish beauty, and the sweetness

of her disposition, endeared her even to disappointed mothers, and won

her something more than popularity in the young married set. The woman

with whom she soon drifted into the closest intimacy was, apparently, as

unlike herself in all respects as possible.

Bridgit Marchamely, educated with her brothers, and highly accomplished,

inherited a fortune from her mother, the only child of a Liverpool

shipbuilder, who had married the younger son of a duke. With a mind both

subtle and powerful, this lady had ruled her husband during the twenty

years of their happiness, brought up her children to think for

themselves, and played with society when it suited her convenience.

Bridgit, the last of her four children, was the only girl, and with her

fine upstanding figure, her flashing black eyes and spirited nostrils,

looked as gallant a boy as any of her brothers when she rode astride to

hounds in the privacy of her grandfather’s estate in Yorkshire. In spite

of what her tutors called her masculine brain, however, she was no

traitor to her sex, and fell madly in love with a handsome guardsman in

the first week of her first season. Her father thought young Herbert

“rather an ass,” but failing to convince his daughter, gave his consent

to the match; and she had since kept the young man luxuriously in South

Audley Street. She, too, had grown up in the country, being brought to

London for a few weeks of opera and concert once a year only, and, her

youth getting the better of her fine brain for the nonce, she lived for

society in the season and for shooting and hunting and visits to the

continent the rest of the year. The fashionable life is the busiest on

earth, while its glamor lasts, and with a husband of the old familiar

Greek god type (now exclusively English) as fond of the world’s

pleasures as herself, and her baby where English babies so sensibly and

generally are,—in the country the year round,—it is no wonder that she

forgot her studies and aspirations and became a flaming comet in London

society.

She was instantly attracted to Ishbel, by the law of opposites she

thought, but, as she learned in later years, by a deep-lying similarity

of character and mind, at present unsuspected beneath the effervescence

of their youth.

Both of these young women were almost as fond of Nigel Herbert as of

each other, and although he forbore to confide to them his ultimate

purpose in regard to Julia, were properly horrified at the “box that

red-headed little Nevis girl had got herself into,” and sympathetic with

his state of mind. Men seldom confide their infatuations to other men,

but they often do to women, or, if they drop a hint, woman corkscrews

the whole story out of them; and these two astute friends of his got

Nigel’s the day he asked them to call and “be nice to Mrs. France.” They

were still too young to approve of irregular love affairs, but with the

optimism of their years were sure it could be arranged somehow, and

called at once in Tilney Street.

Mrs. Winstone, delighted to add two young women, so much the fashion, to

her set, cultivated them assiduously, confided to them the appalling

ignorance of her niece, asked their assistance, and even took them

shopping when Julia began to show signs of rebellion and fatigue.

At first they were merely amused; then they found the little West Indian

pathetic, finally, like the Captain (alas! but such is life, dropped

forever from this veracious chronicle) and young Herbert, began to

revolve schemes for “saving her.”

Meanwhile the tired but happy and still unprophetic Julia was preparing

for the ordeal of her first curtsy in Buckingham Palace.

V

MRS. WINSTONE won the admiration of her distinguished circle and the

high approval of the duke for the tact with which she managed Julia’s

destinies at this period. As the bride’s husband was away and she had

neither entered society as a maid nor in company with her legal owner,

her appearance at balls and formal dinners would have created a scandal.

Nevertheless, she must be educated, and Mrs. Winstone cut the difference

with her never failing acumen. Her own drawing-room was thronged with

“the world” nearly every afternoon; she gave many small dinners to the

smartest dissenters from middle-class morality that she knew; it was the

era of the problem play, and Julia saw them all, as well as the “halls,”

with their strange company in the lobbies; Nigel Herbert and one or two

other admirers were encouraged; and the most modern and extreme of the

psychological novels and plays littered the room above the mews.

But Julia, although some glimmerings of life’s realities were beginning

to penetrate the serene unconsciousness of childhood (enough to induce

in her a certain reserve of speech), was far too rushed and bewildered

to comprehend more than one-hundredth part of what she heard and

saw—the novels and plays she was too tired in her few solitary moments

to open. Shopping, fitting, luncheons, dinners, the afternoon

gatherings, the theatre, the constant buzz of conversation about

politics and scandal, kept the surface of her mind agitated and left the

depths untouched. Even Nigel, in spite of his ardent eyes and tender

notes, she barely separated from Bridgit and Ishbel, merely conscious

that she liked the three better than any one on earth except her mother.

If she thought of France at all, it was to experience a sensation of

momentary gratitude to the person that had given her this brilliant

experience; although, after she began to rehearse daily for the

presentation, curtsying before a row of dummies until she ached, backing

out with her train over her arm, the correct smile on her face, the

correct measure of respect and dignity in her mien, she was disposed to

wish herself back on Nevis.

Had it not been for the immense respectability of the duke, and his

personal friendship with his sovereign, the application to present the

wife of Harold France at the court of St. James might have received

scant consideration. He was even under the ban of the royal arbiter

eligantiarum. But there was no question of refusing the pointed request

of the duke, whom the queen regarded as a model of all the virtues in a

degenerate age; and Mrs. Edis was also remembered with favor. The Lady

Arabella Torrence, a sister of the duke, was selected to present the

bride, and at six o’clock on a raw May morning Julia was aroused by the

hair-dresser, and, after an hour’s torture, went to sleep again on a

chair with her feathered head swathed in tulle.

The respite was brief. At nine o’clock two women from the great

dressmaking establishment patronized by Mrs. Winstone came to array the

victim in a train that filled up the entire room.

A cup of strong coffee revived Julia’s flagging spirits and vitality,

and she fancied herself mightily when, draped, and sewn, and squeezed,

and pinched, she was free at last to admire her reflection in the long

mirror. Her gown was pure white, of course, the front of the round skirt

covered with tulle and sown with seed pearls, the train of a stiff thick

brocade, which would be sent on the morrow to be made into an evening

wrap, just as the round frock was to do duty for her first party. Such

was the private economy of the presentation costume. The duke had lent

her the family pearls, and they depended to her waist and clasped her

head. Her skin was as white as her gown and her hair and lips were vivid

touches of color. Julia smiled at her reflection, then trembled as she

gathered up the train, so much more alarming than the “property” stuff

she had used at rehearsals.

Word had come that Lady Arabella was waiting, and cheered by compliments

from her aunt and from Bridgit and Ishbel, who rushed in for a moment,

she descended to the family coach and sat herself beside her formidable

relative.

Lady Arabella was a tall bony big woman, with the large hands and feet

which are supposed to be the prerogative of the plebeian, an early

Victorian coiffure, and an imposing skeleton religiously exhibited so

far as decency permitted and fashion expected, whenever a court function

demanded this sacrifice on the part of a loyal subject who suffered from

chronic hay fever. She had a deep bass voice, a bristling beard, and

approved of nothing modern. “When the queen was young and gave the tone

to Society” was a phrase constantly on her lips. She had felt it

incumbent upon herself to give the distracted Julia a series of lectures

on deportment, particularly on her behavior during the sacred hour of

presentation, and had improved the opportunity to let fall many edifying

remarks upon the duties of a wife, the shocking manner in which the

women of the present generation neglected their husbands. Although she

disapproved of her nephew in so far as she understood him, she subtly

conveyed to his wife that to be the choice of the future head of the

house of France was an overpowering honor.

At first she had terrified Julia, then bored her, finally, as the great

day approached, loomed as a rock of strength. Nothing, at least, could

frighten _her_, and she was so big and so conspicuously hideous that it

was conceivably possible to shrink behind her.

But there was a preliminary ordeal of which she had heard nothing, a

grateful callousing of the nerves before making a bow to a mere

sovereign.

Many had waited for the last drawing-room because it would be the

smartest, others because it was a bore, to be deferred as long as

possible; many had been in Italy or on the Riviera; others had been put

on the list by a power higher than their own wills. From whatever

combination of causes the procession of slowly moving carriages was as

long as the tail of a comet, and at times, particularly while the

gorgeous coaches of the ambassadors were driving smartly down the Mall,

came to a dead halt. It was then that the sovereign people had their

innings.

They lined the streets surrounding the Palace in serried ranks. Not even

the American crowd loves a “show” as the British does, Socialists and

all. Their ancestors have gaped at gilded coaches and gorgeous robes and

sparkling jewels for centuries, and if the day ever comes when they

shall have exchanged these amiable pageants of their betters for a full

stomach, who shall dare predict that they will be entirely satisfied?

What awe they may have inherited had long since disappeared. They

crowded up against the procession of carriages, devouring with their

curious good-natured eyes the splendid gowns and jewels, the glimpses of

bare shoulders, and the beauty or bones of women apparently insensible

of their existence.

For a time Julia clutched nervously at the pearls beneath her cloak, and

shrank from that sea of eyes under hats of an indescribable commonness.

“My eye, ain’t her hair red!” exclaimed one young woman, with

unmistakable reference. “And a little paint wouldn’t ’urt her.”

“Paint? That there’s high-toned pallor—”

“Pearl powder—”

“Oh, I sy, wot for do they let bibies like that marry when they don’t

have to? I call it a shime.”

“Right you are!”

One girl, with a violent color and black frizzled hair that stood out

quite eight inches from three parts of her face, thrust her head through

the open window of the coach.

“Don’t you mind wot they sy,” she said consolingly. “They’re that

nonsensical they can’t ’elp chaffing. And you’re the prettiest and the

most haristocratic of the whole lot—I’ve been all up and down the line.

And it ain’t powder! My word, but your complexion’s _grand_!”

She withdrew without waiting for an answer. Julia turned to Lady

Arabella, who, throughout the ordeal, had sat as upright as if corseted

in iron, and with her long haughty profile turned unflinchingly to the

mob. So, it must be conceded, stupid as she was in her pride, would she

have sat if they had threatened her life. As Julia asked her timidly (in

effect) if the most aristocratic function of the year was always treated

like a travelling circus, Lady Arabella answered, without flickering an

eyelash: “Always, and fortunately for us. The lower classes love to see

us on parade, and the more we give them of this sort of thing, the

longer we shall keep their loyalty. Moreover, it serves the

purpose—this drawing-room procession, in particular—of bringing us in

close touch with the people, serves to demonstrate that we are real

mortals, not the ridiculous creatures in the sort of novels they read. I

always endeavor to look a symbol. I hope you will learn to do the same

in time, for the lower classes are secretly proud of us and like us to

play our part. You are drooping. Sit up and present your profile.”

“What’s the use of a profile without a backbone?” said Julia, wearily.

“I’m so tired.”

“You must rise above mere physical fatigue,” said the old dame,

severely. “People in our class keep our backbones for our bedrooms. When

you are inclined to complain, think of the poor royalties, who stand for

hours. And don’t finger your pearls. You are supposed to have been born

with them about your neck.”

Julia’s sense of humor was not yet fully awake, but her new relative’s

words were tonic as well as reassuring; she sat erect, but turned her

eyes round her profile to regard this strange lower class of London, of

which she had heard much but seen nothing until to-day. They were an

ugly lot; beauty would seem to be the prerogative of aristocracy in

England, possibly because it is well fed; they wore rough ready-made

frocks, or, where finery was attempted, feathers and ribbons inferior to

anything Julia had ever seen on the negroes of Nevis; and many of the

hats looked as if they might be used as nightcaps to protect the

elaborate masses of frizzled hair. Julia, brought up on the soundest

aristocratic principles, saw in this gaping good-natured crowd but a

broad and solid foundation for the historic institution above.

The coach finally rolled through the gates of Buckingham Palace. For an

hour longer she stood, her slippers pinching until her native

independence of character almost induced her to kick them off. But she

was so tired after a month of London, an almost sleepless night, and the

excitements of an already long day, that her brain worked toward no such

simple solution, and before her moment came she ached from head to foot.

The scene became a blur of vast rooms, of tall women, very thin or very

fat, with diamond tiaras above set faces, and trains of every color over

their arms, of girls that shifted from one foot to the other and

breathed audibly their wish that it were over. One by one they

disappeared. There was a sharp emphatic whisper from Lady Arabella.

Julia started and set her teeth. “Mind you don’t sit down like that

daughter of the American ambassador,” whispered the same fierce nervous

voice. “Remember all that you have rehearsed.”

Julia, terrified to her marrow, did as opera singers do in moments of

distress; she “fell back on technique.” Afterward she remembered vaguely

making a succession of curtsies to a long row of dazzling crowns, but no

effort of memory ever recalled the features beneath. She received the

train flung over her arm and backed out without disgracing herself, but

also without a thrill of that joy which a loyal subject is supposed to

feel when in the presence of his sovereign for the first time.

“Not bad,” said Lady Arabella, graciously, as after many more moments,

they entered their carriage. But Julia was yawning. When she reached the

house in Tilney Street, she went to bed and refused to get up for

twenty-four hours.

VI

ON the day following the drawing-room a prearranged conference was held

in the “palatial home” of Mr. Jones in Park Lane. It was the hideous and

abandoned house of a South African millionnaire, this home, but Lady

Ishbel had refurnished it by degrees, and her boudoir in particular,

with its pale French silks and many flowers, its Empire furniture, both

delicately wrought and solid, framed appropriately a soft aristocratic

loveliness that almost concealed strong bones and firm lines. As she is

to play so intimate a part in the development of our heroine, she may as

well be described here as later. She had quantities of curly silky

chestnut hair, long brown eyes with fine fringes and an expression both

modest and piquant, a straight little nose with arching nostril, a

gracefully cut mouth with pink lips, and a square little chin with a

dimple in it. Her figure was womanly, not too thin, and her capable

hands were seldom idle. Just now she was retrimming a hat that had

arrived the day before from the milliner of the moment in Paris. It may

be added that her smile was the sweetest in London; and her voice was

always rich and deep, with a natural vibration quite at the command of

her will. Charm radiated from her, and she was an outrageous flirt. In

fact she looked with suspicion upon women that did not flirt, estimating

them below the normal and not to be trusted in anything. Men adored her,

even when she laughed at them, which she often did in the most

distracting manner imaginable.

Mrs. Herbert was standing in her favorite attitude behind a low

fire-screen, her black eyes flashing, her nostrils dilating, while her

young brother-in-law paced excitedly up and down the room. He was

thinner than when he had fallen in love a month since, almost pallid,

and his eyes had a strained look. There was no possible doubt as to what

was the matter with him.

“Don’t be an ass,” said Mrs. Herbert. “You are acting like the hero of a

melodrama—”

“I tell you something must be done!” cried the young man. “The squadron

has been sighted off the Azores—”

“Well, what are you going to do about it? She’s not in love with

you—doesn’t care a rap—”

“What chance have I had to make her? I never see her alone, never get a

chance to talk to her for half an hour at a time. You promised to help

me—”

“Mrs. Winstone has never let the poor thing go for a minute. She’s

overdone the business. Julia’s had no time to think, goes to sleep at

problem plays, and knows no more than when she arrived—”

“If I only had the chance to teach her!” cried Herbert, with flashing

eyes.

“Look at here,” said his sister-in-law, grasping a point of the screen

with either hand; “let us have this out. If your brains are not addled,

they must have conceived some sort of a plan. What is it? A liaison? An

elopement? I approve of neither. I’d like to save the poor child from

that man, but the frying pan’s as good as the fire—”

“No liaison! I’d elope with her to-morrow if she’d go with me—”

“And disgrace a great family!” said Ishbel, softly.

“Oh, hang the family,” cried Mrs. Herbert, whose mother’s blood was

already working in her. “The duke’s an old pudding. Lady Arabella and

her sisters are cracked old sign-posts; and a scandal would serve Mrs.

Winstone right for not packing the child back on the next steamer to her

sister with the whole unvarnished truth in a letter. Not she, however;

she wants to be aunt to a duchess. What I’m thinking of is Julia. The

conceit of man! What do you suppose you could give her in exchange for

disgrace—”

“Love!” cried Nigel. “I tell you it can make up for anything when it is

strong enough.”

“Yes, when it is,” said Mrs. Herbert, who, recovering from her own

infatuation for a brainless beauty, was not in a romantic frame of mind.

“But she doesn’t love you, in the first place, and in the second, no

woman can live her life on love, any more than a man can. She wants

children, position of some sort, the society of other women—that last

is one of woman’s biggest wants, and no man ever realizes it.”

“But love must be a wonderful thing,” said Ishbel, who had never

experienced it. “It would almost be worth any sacrifice, especially if

one had had things first, only men are always so funny in one way or

another; one becomes disenchanted just in the nick of time.”

“No man lives who can make up to a woman for the loss of everything

else,” said Mrs. Herbert, decidedly. “I mean a woman with brains, and

Julia has them. She doesn’t know it because she doesn’t know anything;

but one day—”

“Oh, if I could be the one to train that mind—why not? Why not?”

“Let’s come down to business. I refuse to help you either to elope or to

make love to her. I fancy you’ll have to wait until France drinks

himself to death, or this country passes rational divorce laws. Forget

yourself and think of her.”

“Very well. Save her first. That is the main thing. I’ll never give her

up, but I’m willing to forget myself for a bit, if I can—”

“Well, make one practical suggestion.”

Ishbel put the hat aside and clasped her hands. “I have long since made

up my mind to offer her shelter when she needs it,” she announced. “Mrs.

Winstone won’t, and Julia is sure to leave him.”

“She must never go to him!” Herbert stormed up and down the room again.

“Perhaps he’s not as bad as he’s painted,” said Ishbel, who was always

charitable.

“Oh, you don’t know! You don’t know!”

“I do,” said the uncompromising Mrs. Herbert. “He’s a bad lot without

the usual redeeming weakness of that easy form of good nature known as a

kind heart; a sensualist without an atom of real warmth; a card sharp

too clever to be caught; a periodical drinker; a vile gross creature

whom only the lowest women have tolerated for years, but so blasé he is

tired of them—”

“We must tell her things!” cried Ishbel. “We must make her understand!”

“You couldn’t make that baby understand anything. Besides, when it came

to the point, you couldn’t do it. It’s all very well to talk of

enlightening girls about anything, but personally I’ve never encountered

any one that had the nerve to do it. Girls in our class absorb knowledge

as they grow up; instincts help; but who ever told us anything? Well,

here is my plan, since you two appear to have none. We shall tell her

that France is dangerous, that when he drinks he is quite mad and may

kill her. She’s game, but there are certain female fears that always can

be worked on. And repugnances. We will draw horrid pictures of what he

looks like when he’s drunk—”

“Right you are!” cried Herbert. “No decent girl will elect to live with

a common drunkard, particularly when she doesn’t love him. And if Mrs.

Winstone can’t be brought round, one of you will take her in?”

“If she’ll come. Perhaps she would wish to go back to her mother. She

hasn’t a penny of her own, and apparently has never heard of the

self-supporting woman. But it might be managed somehow.”

“It must!” cried Ishbel. “We will hide her alternately.”

“But to what end? France might be exasperated to the point of wishing to

rid himself of her, but what ground for divorce? We travel in a circle

as far as Nigel is concerned.”

“I have it!” cried Nigel, whose fine imagination was fired by the most

stimulative of all passions. “Give me the chance to make her love me,

and then take her to America and get a divorce there. Thank heaven I

have a little something of my own, and I can earn more. We’ll stay in

America until the storm blows over—”

“American divorces are not legal in England—”

“Then I’ll stay there forever. Promise. Promise.”

“Not bad,” said Mrs. Herbert. “You take her in, Ishbel, and I’ll take

her over. Mr. Jones would probably not consent to your desertion—a

divorce must take time, even in the United States, and you have another

sister to marry off next season—”

“Of course I’ll take her in, and we’ll begin to-morrow to frighten her.”

Nigel kissed them both.

But Fortune is often with the wicked. On the following morning wires

flashed the news that Harold France, first lieutenant of her Majesty’s

cruiser _Drake_, now on its way home from South America, was down with

typhoid fever. Nobody save the duke expected a man of France’s habits to

recover from any microbous assault, but that innocent and loyal relative

gave immediate orders to convert several rooms of his town house into a

hospital, engaged a staff of doctors and nurses, and peremptorily

ordered Julia to move over and be ready to take her place at her

husband’s bedside.

VII

THE four months that followed were by no means the unhappiest of Julia’s

life, much as she resented being torn from her friends and the

bewildering delights of London. The duke, a noble if inconspicuous

pillar of the good old school, stood out for wifely duty in appearance

if not in fact: the nurses barely permitted Julia to cross the threshold

of the sick-chamber. But although she was of no possible use, and time

hung heavy on her hands, none of her friends was permitted to call on

her, and the duke himself took her for a constitutional at eight in the

morning and nine in the evening. Julia’s complete indifference to her

husband had caused him grave uneasiness, even before the stricken

bridegroom’s return, and he embraced this opportunity to keep the child

under his personal surveillance and do what he could to give a serious

turn to a “female brain of eighteen.”

Julia, prompted by Ishbel, asked to have a telephone put in her room,

but the request was courteously refused, and the two loyal friends were

forced to content themselves with frequent notes. After Goodwood,

Bridgit went to Yorkshire and Ishbel to Homburg, but Nigel remained in

town, although all three were cheerfully persuaded that France would die

and life be happy ever after. Nigel regained his fresh good looks and

spirits, endured the hot deserted city without a murmur, and although he

naturally refrained from writing to the coveted wife of a dying man,

felt a certain exaltation in watching over her from afar. It was during

this period that he conceived the idea of writing a novel of the slums

(the unknown appealing to his adventurous imagination), and took long

rambles in unsavory precincts that were productive of more results than

one.

Meanwhile Julia, brought up in submission to a far stronger will than

the duke’s, had ceased to rebel, and taken to heart the parting

admonition of her aunt (that lady had gone with Mrs. Macmanus to

Marienbad to renew her complexion) to learn all the duke was willing to

teach her, and to read the novels that celebrated London society, past

and present. Mrs. Winstone, too, believed that France must die, but,

perceiving that her niece had a charm of her own in addition to the

magnetism of youth, had another match in mind for her.

So Julia drank in the long discourses upon the abominable Gladstone and

all his policies, the iniquity of the Harcourt Budget, obediently

rejoiced at the failure of the second Home Rule Bill, became intimately

acquainted with the other notable figures in British politics: Lord

Salisbury (the duke’s idol), Lord Rosebery (the present Prime Minister),

fated, in the duke’s not always erring judgment, to follow close upon

the heels of Gladstone into political seclusion, Mr. Chamberlain, Mr.

Campbell-Bannerman, Sir William Vernon Harcourt, Mr. Balfour, Sir

Michael Hicks-Beach, George Curzon, Lord Lansdowne, Mr. Goschen (the

speaker), the Duke of Devonshire (Hartington), Mr. Morley, and Mr.

Bryce. The treaty with Japan was a fruitful subject of discourse; and

when the war broke out between that new military power and China, Julia,

who was growing nervous, gratified the duke by sharing his excitement.

In her lonely hours she read promiscuously and thought a good deal.

She rarely flung a thought to poor Nigel, for when the big helpless form

of her husband had been taken from the ambulance and carried past her up

the broad stairs, the natural tenderness and pity in her nature had

stirred, and something of what she felt for little Fanny had gone out to

him. She would have nursed him, had she been permitted; she inquired for

him many times a day, and sincerely hoped that he would recover. She had

not the faintest notion of loving him, but she would be a good wife,

and, no doubt, be happy. Ishbel did not love her husband and was happy,

and so, apparently, were a good many more that flitted through her

aunt’s drawing-room with a temporary admirer in tow. Julia’s future

plans included no infants-in-waiting; she should become one of those

great political women the planets, according to her mother’s letters,

had ordered her to be; how could she doubt this destiny when every

circumstance was conspiring to fulfil it? So, between the sense of an

inexorable fate, the serious atmosphere of her new surroundings, and the

desperate struggle of her husband for his life, her mind flowered

rapidly; and the duke was delighted with her. He disliked and distrusted

women that stood alone, that won personal fame for themselves, even

“beauties” whose notoriety threw their lords into the background; but he

had a very keen appreciation of their usefulness to man, not only as

dams, but as tactful distributors of political smiles. Of course there

must be a certain amount of brain behind the smiles, that they occur at

precisely the right moment; but any man, given fair material to work on,

could do well with it and prevent mistakes. He knew that certain women

in history had been the centre of famous political salons, but took for

granted that they had been severely coached by men. As for the women

that were famous in the arts of fiction and painting, he did not know

how to account for them, therefore refused to think about them at all.

Julia he regarded as a promising specimen. She was healthy, and would no

doubt replenish the almost exhausted house of France; she was pretty and

charming, therefore would keep her husband out of mischief; and, taking

to politics as a duck takes to water, would be sure to smile, subtly,

radiantly, or meditatively, as well as to listen intelligently, when the

distinguished members of his party that he purposed to entertain once

more were obliged to talk to her.

On the twenty-first day of France’s illness his temperature went down,

he slept naturally, and upon awaking asked to see his wife. Julia was

admitted, and stood for a few moments by the bed, stammering

congratulations and staring at the shrunken face with its ragged beard;

then went to her own room and wept stormily over the wreck of what at

least had been the perfection of manly strength. France’s temperature

remained normal for a fortnight, then suddenly shot up again, and twice,

during the ensuing twenty days, he almost expired. Two doctors slept in

the house when the relapse was at its worst, and the political talks

were interrupted, although the duke never for a moment believed that the

last of his race would die.

By this time the press was interested, for at all events France was

heir-presumptive to a great estate and title, and daily bulletins were

published. Nigel began his novel in order to divert his mind from

indecent jubilation; but when France’s temperature dropped again and he

improved from day to day with uncompromising persistence, his rival took

the express to Yorkshire to confer with Bridgit. She could give him no

encouragement. Julia in her letters had betrayed something of her state

of grace, and during the relapse had written once in a strain that

manifested the deepest anxiety.

“He’ll get her through her sympathy, pity; no matter what she may be in

the future, she’s all female at present,” remarked Mrs. Herbert, after

showing these letters to Nigel. “All women have to go through the female

stage, one way or another; and now will come a long convalescence during

which she will be sorrier for him than ever—big man helpless, and all

the rest of it. What is worse, she will become accustomed to him. Better

give her up, my boy, or wait until she runs away from him. She’s sure

to, sooner or later,—unless he reforms. After all, why shouldn’t he? A

serious illness often works wonders; gives one so much time to think.

And physical weakness always induces such virtuous resolutions. France

may look back upon his past life with horror. Then, where will you be?

Julia’s a well-born well-brought-up girl of high ideals. If France

treats her decently she’ll stick to him, as many another woman is

sticking to a husband that is all that she doesn’t want him to be—”

“The more shame to them!” cried Nigel, hotly.

“Well, there are worse things than conventions and standards. Now run

off and write your novel. I am told that a harrowed mind often produces

the most moving fiction.”

“I’ll wait, but not too long,” said Nigel, doggedly. “Bosquith is being

got ready for them, and is only twelve miles from here. You must ask me

down, and I’ll manage to see her as soon as it’s decent. Of course I

can’t cut under a man while he’s being trundled round in a bath chair.”

VIII

FRANCE’S convalescence was very slow. His superb physique had fought

death victoriously, as, so far, it had saved him from the consequences

of dissipation, but only youth could have given him a swift recovery. It

was September before he was able to move to Bosquith. After the stifling

London summer, Julia needed a change as much as he did. The duke, as

soon as his heir was able to sit up, had taken a run over to Kissengen,

but Julia had spent the greater part of every day in the sick-room,

reading the sporting papers and light novels to her husband, or amusing

him as best she could. France would barely let her out of his sight. His

shrewd cunning brain recovered its strength while his body was still

helpless, and he conceived that now was his opportunity to make this

inexperienced child believe in a romantic devotion, and to win her love

in return. He permitted her to take a daily walk or drive with one of

the nurses, making much of his sacrifice, and was so touchingly happy to

see her after these brief separations that Julia almost wept, and gave

him her hand to hold, while she made the most of every trifle her

observing eyes had taken note of during her respite.

He no longer repelled her; not only did his helplessness appeal to her

deep womanly instincts, but she was become so accustomed to his touch

that she was quite indifferent to it: she bathed his head with cologne

several times a day, kissed him obediently when she came and went, and

even gave him her shoulder as a pillow when he fretfully declared that

his head could rest on nothing else. It was a young and excessively thin

shoulder, and, as a matter of fact, France would have preferred

feathers, but the profoundly calculating mind, even when the body is

weak, disdains trifles.

As soon as he was pronounced well enough to travel, the wary duke

returned and accompanied his charges to Bosquith. This great estate,

some fifteen thousand acres, which included moors and grouse, as well as

many farms with turnip fields, was the duke’s favorite property, not

only because of the shootings, but because the air of the North Sea was

the best tonic he knew. It was for this reason that he had chosen

Bosquith for the last stage of his nephew’s convalescence, rather than

one of his country houses nearer to London. But he had hesitated,

nevertheless. Bosquith adjoined the Yorkshire estate of Bridgit

Herbert’s paternal grandfather, and he knew of his new relative’s

affection for a young woman of whom he had never approved since he had

seen her riding astride over the moors with her brothers, pretending to

be an American Indian. He had seen her occasionally since her marriage,

and, no mean student of physiognomy, had labelled her dangerous, one of

those women that set their nonsensical opinions above man’s and call

themselves advanced. He had no intention that the intimacy should

continue, nor that Julia should see aught of Nigel Herbert, whose

devotion she had artlessly revealed. As for Ishbel, who visited Bridgit

every year, he would not have her in the house, as he could not admit

her and shut the door in her husband’s face. Somebody must take a stand,

and the duke, although he might not be able to impose himself on his

generation, was not only intensely loyal to his class but alive to its

dangers. No snob, Julia’s lack of title and fortune did not annoy him in

the least. “No one can be more than gentleman or lady,” he was wont to

say magnanimously, “and I have known more than one titled bounder of

historic descent. But when it comes to the James William Joneses, well,

thank heaven! at least they don’t belong to us, and we are not bound to

countenance them for the sake of their fathers; we cannot drag them up,

and they will end by pulling us down; in other words they will vulgarize

the British aristocracy until the masses lose their pride in us; and

then where will we be? Democracy, Socialism, threaten us as it is. Our

middle and lower classes at home, and our too independent colonies afar,

must be made to retain their loyalty, at all costs.”

Julia thought these sentiments sound, but made up her mind privately

that she would never drop Ishbel or Bridgit, although she had been given

to understand that the duke deeply regretted the proximity of Bosquith

to the happy hunting grounds of Mrs. Herbert, and would not permit her

to visit them. Her rapidly awakening intellect was seeking for

partnership in her still fluid character, and although books could not

develop the last, inheritances from a line of men, and at least one

woman, who had always thought and acted for themselves, however

mistakenly, were stirring. She had been too managed and surrounded to

find herself as yet, but she had begun to suspect that the ego has a

life of its own and certain inalienable rights.

The journey north sent France to bed again for three days, and for a

fortnight he was wheeled about the park; then he began to hobble feebly,

first on the arm of his nurse or wife, then with the aid of a stick.

Julia accepted him as one of the facts of existence, regarded him

proprietorally, took an immense interest in his progress toward

recovery, and forgot him when she could in the library or in long walks

over the moors. The castle was romantically situated on a cliff

overhanging the North Sea, and in appearance, as in surroundings, was

all that Julia could ask. It was very brown, two-thirds of it was in

ruins, and the other third included a feudal hall, two towers, and walls

four feet thick. The windows, however, had been enlarged, hot-water

pipes had been put in, and no modern house was more sanitary. The duke,

despite a pardonable pride in his ancestry, and an unmitigated

conservatism in politics, was strictly up to date where his health and

comfort were concerned. Born an invalid, he had lived longer than many

of his burly ancestors, owing to a thin temperament and an early and

avid interest in hygiene.

He had a second reason for bringing Harold to Bosquith. The neighboring

borough was much under his influence, and he proposed that his relative

should stand for it at the next general election. At the last it had

succumbed to the personal manipulation of Gladstone, who had taken a

lively pleasure in routing the duke; but it was conservative by habit,

and not a measure of either Gladstone’s government or that of his

successor had met with its approval. It was in just the frame of mind to

be nursed by a genial and tactful duke. France fell in with these plans,

and, when able to meet the local leaders, laid aside his almost

unbearable haughtiness of manner, and assumed a bluff sailorlike

heartiness which impressed them deeply.

Julia quickly revived in the bracing air of sea and moor, and as France

rose late and retired early, besides sleeping a good deal during the

day, and as she had acquired a certain skill in dodging the duke,—who,

moreover, took his local duties very seriously,—she felt happy and free

once more. The library was well furnished, the moors were purple, her

bedroom was in an ancient tower, and the sea boomed under her window.

She wrote long letters to her grimly triumphant mother, and, now and

again, to Bridgit and Ishbel. The former, accompanied by her husband and

Nigel, rode over to see her, but she was obliged to receive them in the

chilling presence of her husband and the duke, and when the brief visit

came to an end, was put on her honor not to leave the estate.

“As soon as Harold is quite recovered,” said the duke, “we will both

drive over with you, for I am far from counselling you to be rude to any

one. Only, while your husband is ill, it would be highly indecorous for

you to be associating with young people; and for the matter of that, the

more mature minds with which you associate during the next few years,

the better—for us all, my dear, for us all.”

But Julia, at this period, was quite independent of people. Her newly

awakened intellect was clamoring for books and more books. Politics, the

planets, the “brilliant future,” friends, were alike forgotten. Nothing

mattered but the lore that scholars and worldlings had gathered, that

ravening maw in her mind. Perhaps this early ingenuous stage of the

mind’s development is its happiest; it is uncritical, having no

standards of life and personal research for comparison, it swamps the

real ego, while mightily tickling the false, it obliterates mere life,

no matter how unsatisfactory, and above all it is saturated with the

essence of novelty, the subtlest spring of all passion. Julia, barely

educated, found in histories, biographies, memoirs, travels, even in

works of science beyond her full comprehension, a wonderland of which

she had never dreamed, much as she had longed for books on Nevis. That

had been merely a case of inherited brain cells calling for furniture;

embarked upon her adventure, these cells were crammed so rapidly that

her ancestors slept in peace, and Julia felt herself an isolated and

completely happy intellect.

Nevertheless, she was young.

One night, shortly after her husband, now able to grace the evening

board, had gone to his room, and the duke was closeted with the

conservative agent, she went to her own room, opened the window, and

hung out over the sea. The moon, whose malicious alertness Captain

Dundas had deplored, was at the full and flooded a scene as beautiful in

its way as the tropics. The great expanse of water was almost still, and

a broad path of silver seemed firm enough to walk on straight away to

the continent of Europe and its untasted delights. Just round the corner

was the rose garden, which covered the filled-in moat on the south side

of the castle and several hundred yards beyond. The roses were not very

good ones, being somewhat rusted by the salt-sea spray, but, like the

pleasaunce on another side of the castle, were a part of the more modern

traditions of Bosquith; and the duke, although entirely indifferent to

Nature when she ceased to be useful and amused herself with being merely

beautiful, was a stickler for tradition; the roses were never neglected

without, although never brought within; pollen inflamed his mucous

membranes.

The blossoms had gone with the summer, but Julia was fancying herself

inhaling their perfumes when she became aware that the figure of a man

had detached itself from the tangle. She watched him idly, supposing him

to be one of the grooms, and wondering if his sweetheart would follow.

But the man was alone, and in a moment he bent down, picked up a handful

of loose stones, and leaned back as if to fling them upward from the

narrow ledge. Simultaneously Julia and Nigel Herbert recognized each

other.

“What—what—do you want?” gasped Julia, in a loud whisper.

“You,” said Nigel, grimly. “Come down here.”

“Impossible!” thrilling wildly, however.

“If you don’t, I’ll break in. I’ve prowled round here for three nights,

and know the place by heart. The leads—”

“For heaven’s sake, go away!”

“Will you come down? I’m spraining the back of my neck, and may slip off

this narrow shelf any minute. Do you want to see my mangled remains at

the foot of the cliff?”

“No. No. But—”

“Come down. I must have a talk with you—have this thing out or go mad.

It’s little to ask!”

Julia glanced behind her at the circular room hung with arras (to keep

out draughts and conceal the hot-water pipes), and furnished with a big

Gothic bed and hard upright chairs—and thrilled again. She was not the

least in love with Nigel, but she suddenly realized that she was nearly

nineteen and romance had never entered her life. After all, was love a

necessary factor? Might not the romantic adventure be something to

remember always, particularly when assisting a most unromantic husband

achieve a political career, and entertaining some of the dullest men in

London? She hesitated but an instant, then leaned out again.

“I’ll try,” she whispered.

“If you fail, I’ll come to-morrow night.”

“Very well, go into the rose garden—under the oak.”

She put on a dark cape and opened her door cautiously. The long corridor

was lighted by a small lamp: gas and electricity, not being hygienic

essentials, were not among the Bosquith improvements. All the bedrooms

opened upon this corridor, but Julia knew that her husband slept, his

capacity for instant and prolonged slumber being one of his assets. She

crept past the duke’s door. He was an early bird, but was in the library

still, no doubt, and the library was far away. He would be sure to mount

by the small stair beside it; the grand staircase led to the unused

drawing-rooms, and into the immense hall, which, at this season with no

guests in the castle, and a library answering every requirement of the

family, was economically inexpedient. When a hereditary duke has several

entailed estates to keep up besides a town house, and a paltry income of

forty thousand pounds a year, he is put to shifts of which the envious

world knows nothing.

Down the grand staircase, therefore, stole Julia. It creaked even under

her small feet; behind the wainscot she heard gnawing sounds of hideous

import; and the darkness below was unrelieved by a single silver gleam.

But Julia possessed a valiant soul; moreover, was determined to have her

adventure. She felt her way past the massive pieces of furniture toward

a small door in the tower room beneath her own; she dared not attempt to

unchain and open the great front doors studded with nails. She had used

this humble means of exit before, and although the room was full of

rubbish, she found the big rusty key without difficulty, opened the

door, then with another fearful glance about her stole toward the middle

of the rose garden. The old bushes were very high and ragged, but had it

not been for an oak tree in their midst, concealment for a man nearly

six feet high would have been impossible. Julia made her way straight

toward the tree, and uttered a loud “Shhh—” when Nigel impetuously left

its shelter.

“And even this is not safe,” she whispered, as they met. “We are too

near the castle, and the duke always takes a little walk before he goes

to bed. Follow me and don’t speak or make any noise.”

She led the way out of the rose garden and across the park to a grove of

ancient oaks. A brook wandered among the trees. The moonlight poured in.

The dark frowning mass of the castle was plain to be seen. The sea

murmured. A nightingale sang. No spot on earth could have been more

romantic. Julia shivered with delight, and thanked the winking stars.

But Nigel was insensible to the romance of his surroundings. Unlike the

woman, he wanted the main factor; the setting could take care of itself.

And he was in a distracted and desperate frame of mind. As Julia turned

to him she experienced her first misgiving; his face was set and very

white.

“This is where I often read and dream,” she said conversationally. “It

is my favorite spot.”

“Is it? It’s awfully good of you to come out. I can’t tell you how much

I appreciate it. I might have written, I suppose; but I can only write

fiction. Couldn’t put down a word of what I wanted to say to you—of

what I felt—” He broke off and added passionately, “Julia! Don’t you

care for me—the least bit?”

“No.” Julia, not having the faintest idea how to handle such a

situation, took refuge in the bare truth, at all times more natural to

her than to most women. “I don’t love you, but I think it rather nice to

meet you like this for once.”

Nigel groaned. Like all born artists, he understood something of women

by instinct, and felt more hopeless in the face of this uncompromising

honesty and artlessness than when alone with his imagination.

“But you don’t love your husband?”

“Oh, no. Not the way you mean, at least. I’ve read a lot about love

these last months, and it must be wonderful. I’ve grown quite fond of

poor Harold, but I never could love him in that way. I wish I could,”

she added, with a sudden sense of loyalty to the absent and sleeping

husband.

“Julia, you must try to understand! You never can even tolerate that

man. You mustn’t live with him. We were plotting to save you from him

when he fell ill, and then we ho—we thought he’d die. But he’s,

he’s—Oh, please don’t look at me as if I were a cad. I know you are a

brick, and I’ve held out until he was on his legs again—and I nearly

off my head. I won’t say a word against him. Let it go at this—you

never can love him. That I can swear to and _you know it_. But you could

love some one, and it must, it must be me! It shall be! Julia, if you

could only _guess_ what love means, then you might have some idea, at

least, of how I love you. But even your instincts don’t seem to have

awakened. And I haven’t the chance to teach you! You must give it to me!

You must!”

“Do you want me to elope with you?” asked Julia, curiously. This was a

highly interesting development, and after the manner of her sex, when

indifferent, she grew cooler and more analytical as her lover’s flame

mounted.

“No—no—not yet. I only wanted a chance to-night to tell you how I love

you—to make you understand that much, if possible. Oh, God! It _must_

be communicable! When you are alone and think it over—I hope—I

hope—Meanwhile, I want you to promise to make opportunities to meet me.

I can’t go to the castle. But you can meet me. On the moor. Here at

night. I have waited long enough. France no longer needs you. He is

nearly well, and will get everything he wants—”

“He wants me more than anything else,” said Julia, shrewdly. “He’s as

much in love with me as you are—”

“He shan’t have you!” shouted Nigel, and Julia stared, fascinated, at a

face convulsed with passion. It was the first time she had seen this

tremendous force unleashed, for France had done his courting under the

eagle eye of his future mother-in-law, and Nigel, during their

acquaintance in London, had not progressed outwardly beyond sentiment.

Julia, even while deciding that sentiment became his fresh frank face

better, and shrinking distastefully from a passion so close to her, was

conscious of disappointment in her own unresponsiveness. Nineteen! What

an ideal age for love! And what lover could fill all requirements more

satisfactorily than Nigel? But she felt as cold as the moon. To her deep

mortification she was obliged to stifle a yawn; it was long past her

bedtime. She answered with such haste that her voice had an encouraging

quiver in it.

“Oh, don’t let’s talk about him. It’s so jolly to see you again. Tell me

about your book. Have you finished it?”

“I didn’t come here to talk about my book.” Nigel’s voice was rough. He

came so close to her that she shrank once more, and turned away her

eyes. “Oh, I’m not going to touch you. I couldn’t unless you wanted me

to, unless you loved me— That is what I want: the chance to make you

love me. Will you give it to me?”

“I—I don’t see how it is possible.” She longed to run, but her female

instincts were budding under this tropical storm, and one prompted that

if she ran, terrible things might happen. The most honest of women is

dishonest in moments of danger pertaining to her sex. Julia felt danger

in the air. She also rejected Nigel’s protestations. She buckled on her

feminine armor and turned to him sweetly.

“I must think it over,” she said. “I never even dreamed that you were in

love with me. I should never dare come out again at night. But perhaps

on the moor, some morning—”

“I should prefer that. One of the keepers or servants might see us in

the park, and I don’t wish our love to be vulgarized—”

“Oh! I hadn’t thought of that! How horrid! I’ll go back this minute. You

stay here until I’ve had time to get inside. I’ll write to-morrow. If

you follow me, I shall never believe that you love me—”

Even while she spoke she was flitting through the grove with every

appearance of an alarm she did not feel at all. Nigel ran after her.

“I’ll not follow if you will swear to meet me to-morrow morning—on the

cliffs three miles north from here.”

“Yes. Yes. I swear it.” And she fled into the broad moonlight beyond the

trees, while Nigel flung himself on the turf and gnashed his teeth.