“You’re not so dead gone on him,” said the boy, shrewdly.

“Not what?”

“More slang. Not—oh, hang it, it doesn’t sound so well in plain

English. That’s what slang’s for. How old is he?”

“Forty-one.”

“Great Scott!”

The boy betrayed his own youth in that exclamation, in spite of his

precocious wisdom. Forty-one suggests senile decay to arrogant fifteen.

Julia’s own youth leaped to that heartfelt outbreak, and she burst into

tears.

Young Tay forgot that he was in love with her, and patted her heartily

on the back. “Oh, say! Don’t do that!” he cried. “But what did you do it

for?”

Julia, to the first confidant she had ever had, sobbed out her story.

Daniel pranced about the roof of the tower and kicked loose stones into

space. “I—I—hate him,” concluded Julia, then stopped in terror,

realizing that she had never admitted as much to herself. But she

squarely faced the truth. “I do. And—I’m—I’m frightened.”

“See here.” Daniel sat down beside her once more. “You’re only a kid,

and this is the very worst I ever heard. Talk about cruelty to animals!

I’ve read some of those novels that are always lying round the

house—English high life, and all that rot—but I supposed they were all

made up. I never believed that mothers really made their daughters marry

against their will. Why, somehow, it sounds like ancient history.

Say—this is what you must do—come to California with us. Cherry’ll

manage it. She’s rich, all right, and manages everything and everybody.

Then just as soon as I’m old enough I’ll marry you—see?”

“How could I marry you when I’m married already?”

“Divorce. Plain as a pikestaff. And I’ll take bully good care of you,

and never look at another girl.”

Julia dried her eyes. The plan was alluring, but in a moment she shook

her head. Her keen intuitions warned her not to mention the planets to

this ultra-occidental person, but there was another argument equally

forcible.

“My husband would kill us both. He—he—I’ve never seen him in a

temper—he’s taking care of his heart—but I _feel_ he’s got a horrible

one, and he seems to enjoy saying that if ever I looked at another man

he’d strangle us both—”

“Pooh! I guess they all say that when they’re first married—”

“And he’s cruel to animals. Englishmen are seldom that. It isn’t that

I’m really afraid of him now—it’s that I have a presentiment that I

shall be some day. His eyes are sometimes so strange—not like eyes at

all—just glass—he—he—doesn’t look human then.”

“He must be a peach. Gee!—but I’d like to punch him. You’ve got to come

with us. That’s certain. I’ll talk Cherry over to-night. She’d just love

figuring in a sensation with the British aristocracy.”

“Perhaps she wouldn’t care to offend it,” said the more astute female.

“From all I hear, the rich Americans that come to London don’t do much

to—”

“Don’t mind my feelings! Queer themselves. I guess not. But I’ll bring

her round. Oh, don’t put your hair up!”

“It is time to go back.” Julia gave her hair a dexterous twist, wound

the coil about her head, and pinned it in place. “You must have your

tea.”

“Tea!” The contempt of composite American manhood exploded in his tones.

“Well, you can have whiskey and soda, although you’re rather young—”

For the first time Daniel’s magnificent aplomb deserted him. He flushed

and turned away his head. “That’s where you’ve got me. I’ve had orders

from pa not to touch alcohol or tobacco until I’m twenty-one. If I do,

I’ll lose my chance of being taken into the firm, be put to work as a

clerk somewhere, and get no more education. If I pull out all right, I’m

to have ten thousand dollars plunk on my twenty-first birthday. You see

the San Francisco boys, particularly when they’ve got money, are pretty

wild. I don’t say I wouldn’t like to be once in a while, just for the

fun of the thing, but I promised to please pa—he was so uneasy, and I’m

the only son. But when I get that ten thousand I’m going to blow it in

on a big spree—have suppers in the Palace Hotel, and throw all the

plates out of the window into the court—just to show what I can do;

then settle down. What I’ve made up my mind to do, I’ll do. I’m not a

bit afraid of liquor or anything else getting the better of me.”

Julia, who was watching him, was puzzled at the expression of his mobile

face. It was not so much that its natural strength was relaxed for a

moment by some subtle source of weakness, as that the strong passions of

the man stirred in their heavy sleep and sent a fight wave across the

clean carefully sentinelled mind above. Julia did not pretend to

understand, nor did any ghost in her own depths whisper of the future.

She put her arm about his neck and kissed him impulsively.

“That’s splendid of you. And don’t you ever drink. It killed my father,

and it’s killing my brother. And it makes people so hideous to look at.

Now come down. I don’t want Aunt Maria to scold me. They don’t mean it,

all these older people, but they humiliate me all the time. You are the

only person I’ve met in England that makes me feel it’s not silly to be

young.”

She picked her way daintily down the rough staircase, young Tay after

her, again with that sense of being willing to follow her to the end of

the earth. He even drank a cup of tea. But the ancestral hall, with its

women in gay tea-gowns, and a few men who had returned earlier than

their more ardent companions, made him feel suddenly very young and very

American. He looked at Julia, whose place at the tea-table was occupied

by Mrs. Winstone, and who was attracting as little attention as Emily,

and felt more chivalrously in love than ever.

XV

MRS. BODE had come that afternoon to Bosquith with the well-defined

intention of receiving an invitation to return and spend a week. Mrs.

Winstone, who was about to be deserted by Mrs. Macmanus, and was growing

more bored daily, now that the novelty of playing hostess for the Duke

of Kingsborough was wearing thin, and meditated a round of visits to

more amusing houses at no distant date, was delighted at the advent of

the vivacious American and needed no subtle arts of suggestion to invite

her for the following Monday. The children were included in the

invitation, but Emily begged to be permitted to visit a school friend at

present in London, and Mrs. Bode returned with the enamoured Dan.

She had been astounded, then amused at his plan to abduct young Mrs.

France, but found herself forced to appeal to his reason. He had stormed

about the hotel sitting-room, calling her names for the first time in

his life: “snob,” “coward,” “heartless woman,” “no sister.” Mrs. Bode,

whose good-nature was one of her assets, and immune to unspoken insults

long since, refused to be offended, wisely repressed her desire to

laugh, pretended sympathy, did not once allude to the fact that he was

merely fifteen, and talked to him as a wise woman ever talks to a man

whose common sense is for the moment in abeyance.

“Come back and get her when you are twenty-one,” she advised. “By that

time you will be a full partner in the business, and father can’t balk

you. You know how romantic _he_ is! And you also know his old-fashioned

prejudice against divorce, his Puritanical morals generally. A nice

figure we should both cut in his eyes if we returned with the runaway

wife of an Englishman who hadn’t given her the ghost of an excuse. I

happen to know France is mad about her. I also know she hasn’t a cent of

her own, and she looks as proud as they make ’em. Do you fancy she’d

live on our charity for six years? Not she. Even if she were mad enough

to come, she’d go to work—”

“Work? My wife work? _She_ work?”

“There you are!” And, as a matter of fact, this argument clinched the

matter. The moment he was alone with Julia after his arrival at Bosquith

he informed her that within twenty-four hours after he was made a

partner in the firm, and his own master, he should start for

England—should use the ten thousand for that purpose instead of going

on a spree. He should take her at once to the quickest place in America

for divorce, and then marry her. Julia was much too feminine to laugh,

vowed never to forget him, and during his stay at the castle devoted

herself to his entertainment. He showed no disposition to be

sentimental, and as it was a novel experience, and he was always bright

and amusing, besides telling her much of his strange continent, she

enjoyed herself thoroughly.

Young Tay, aside from his natural jealousy, took an immediate and

profound dislike to France, a sensation inspired in most moderately

decent men by that reprobate, even when he was on his good behavior. Dan

went so far as to avoid his vicinity lest he punch him. As for France,

he was little more than aware of the youth’s presence in the castle, and

thought Julia damned good-natured to talk to him. That they spent their

days riding over the moors, or along the cliffs, or sitting in the

various romantic nooks of garden and ruin, he had, of course, no

suspicion, or he might have concluded that his wife carried her notions

of hospitality a bit too far.

When young Tay left, Julia kissed him good-by, gave him a lock of her

hair, intimated that six years would seem an eternity, promised to write

once a week, then cruelly forgot him, save when his postcards arrived.

At first they came in a shower, then straggled along for a year, finally

ceased after an apologetic one from college. Julia answered a few of

them, but boys of fifteen, no matter how clever and companionable,

cannot hope to make a very deep impression on nineteen; and Julia had

much to drive him from her mind, in any case. She rarely saw Mrs. Bode

during that lady’s frequent visits to London, and, had she thought about

the matter at all, would have ticketed Tay as one of the few amusing

episodes in her life, and assumed that he had gone out of it forever. A

young wife, revolting in profound distaste from her husband, and at the

same time high-minded and fastidious, is the most unimpressionable of

human beings. All men are alike hateful to her.

XVI

IN December and January two historical events caused an excitement into

which Julia threw herself so whole-heartedly that for a time she managed

to forget her personal life; taking pains to become intimate with every

detail, she was obligingly conversed with by some of the important older

men at Bosquith, and pronounced by the younger to be “waking up.”

On December 17 the President of the United States, Mr. Cleveland, sent

his famous message to Congress concerning the long-standing dispute

between England and Venezuela as to the boundaries between that state

and British Guiana. The United States had proposed arbitration; Lord

Salisbury would have none of it, intimating that England knew what

belonged to her without being told. Whereupon Mr. Cleveland hurled his

bomb: Congress, after being reminded of the Monroe Doctrine (which

accumulates mould from long intervals of disuse), was requested to

authorize the President to appoint a boundary commission whose findings

would be “imposed upon Great Britain by all the resources of the United

States.”

There was a financial panic (in which, incidentally, Mr. Jones lost a

great deal of money), the newspapers thundered, Mr. Cleveland, at

Bosquith, as elsewhere, was called an “ignorant firebrand,” and “no

doubt a well-meaning bourgeois,” everybody tried to understand the

Monroe Doctrine that they might despise it, and for nearly a week war

between the two countries seemed imminent.

Mr. Cleveland went fishing and was unapproachable until the excitement

had subsided. Lord Salisbury consented to the Boundary Commission, with

modifications; and the whole matter was forgotten on New Year’s Day in a

far more picturesque sensation, and one productive of far graver

results: England was electrified with news of the Jameson Raid. Over

this episode feeling for and against the impulsive doctor ran so high,

before all the facts came to light, that more than one house-party was

threatened with disruption; although in the main it was the young people

with warm adventurous blood that sympathized, and alarmed older heads

that condemned. “Little Englanders,” “Imperialists,” exploded like bombs

at every table, even after a hard day with guns or hounds. But although

the excitement lasted all through the hunting season (with which it did

not interfere in the least), the chief advantage derived from it by

Julia was a romantic interest in a new and mighty personality. For long

after she kept a scrap book about Cecil Rhodes, followed his testimony

before the special committee in Westminster with breathless interest,

trying to find it as picturesque as Macaulay’s “Trial of Warren

Hastings,” which she read at the time; and, until life became too

personal, consoled herself with the belief that he was the man heaven

had made for her. This fact would not be worth mentioning save that half

the women in England were cherishing the same belief. These liaisons in

the air have cheated the divorce court and saved the hearthstone far

oftener than man has the least idea of.

The duke returned to London two days before the opening of Parliament,

and took his household with him. France, now quite restored to health,

bitterly resented leaving the country before the hunting was over, and

Julia, who felt her happiest and freest when on a horse, and had proved

herself a fine cross-country rider, had no desire to be shut up in a

gloomy London house during what for England was still midwinter. But

France dared not sulk aloud, and Julia was doing her best to be

philosophical. Besides, she was to have a purely feminine compensation.

Mrs. Winstone, accepting the invitation of Mrs. Macmanus, had gone to

the Riviera to remain until mid-April, but before she left she had given

France several hints on the subject of his wife’s wardrobe for the

coming season. In consequence, on the morning after their arrival in

London, he entered his wife’s room at seven o’clock, attired for his

morning ride, awakened her, and handed over a check for fifty pounds.

“Your aunt says that some of your fine clothes are not worn out and can

be remodelled, but that you must have others and hats and all that rot.

Women’s things cost too much, anyhow. They ought to make their own

things. I’ve seen women do it. You must manage with this now, and as

much more six months hence. It’s a bally lot, but you’ve got to have

some sort of finery for our ball on the fifteenth. Don’t pay anybody

till the last minute. They’re such silly asses it does me good to wring

’em dry. Besides, what are they made for? By and by when you know more

about money, you can send me the bills for the same amount. But afraid

to trust you now. Know women. By-by.”

He kissed her casually (not being in a mood for love-making) and Julia

sat up and blinked at the check, the first she had ever held in her

hand; Mrs. Winstone having had charge of her mother’s little wedding

present, and the larger sum placed at her disposal by the duke.

She now knew something of the value of money. She also knew that her

husband’s income, between his annuity, the rent of his place in

Hertfordshire, and the duke’s allowance, was quite two thousand pounds a

year. This would have gone a short distance if he had been obliged to

set up in London for himself, but, living with the duke, his only

expenses were his club dues, his valet, and his clothes, which he didn’t

pay for. She had expected no less than two hundred pounds, and wondered

at his meanness. There could be no other reason for the smallness of the

check: there was no question of his fidelity to her, he pretended to

despise cards (Julia already guessed that men would not play with him),

and he did not even have to pay for the keep of his horse, as the duke’s

mews were at his disposal.

Julia thought upon Mrs. Bode’s immense allowance with a frown, and

wished she were an American, sent a fleeting thought to the still

faithful Dan, and wondered if he would really come for her one of these

long days.

To be sure Ishbel had spent quantities of money, but only to gratify an

upstart millionnaire; and although Julia had now met many women with

bewildering wardrobes, she knew that they were paid for in divers ways,

when paid for at all. Still, she doubted if any of them had a husband as

mean as hers, for most men, no matter how selfish, have a certain pride

in their wives, and, in the absence of settlements, make them a decent

allowance. And she, a future duchess of England, to get along on a

hundred pounds a year!

“I should be paid high for living with him,” she thought as she rang for

her tea; and had not the least idea that she was voicing the sentiments

of thousands of wives, from the topmost branch of the peerage down to

the mates of laborers that slaved to make both ends meet and had less to

spend than a housemaid; whose rewards for work were her own.

But Julia was not troubling her young head with problems sociological

and economic at this time. She knew that she had missed happiness, but

she craved enjoyment, pleasure, excitement, and, if the truth must be

told, unlimited sweets. The duke disapproved of anything but the heavy

puddings of his race, varied only by “tarts” drenched with cream; and

Julia had discovered an American “candy store,” and her sweet tooth

ached.

As soon as she was dressed, she sought Ishbel and held a consultation

with her in the little boudoir above the shop.

Ishbel could not suppress an exclamation at the amount of the check.

“Surely the duke—” she began.

But Julia shook her head. “Aunt Maria said he could not be expected to

do more, as we live with him, and he gives Harold a thousand a year. But

I know she expected me to have far more than this. She told me she had

had a very satisfactory talk with Harold and was sure he would be

generous.”

“Perhaps you can talk him over—”

“I’ll never mention the subject of money to him if I can help it. Why

doesn’t the law compel every man to settle a part of his income on his

wife? It should be automatic.”

“We are not half civilized yet—all laws having been made by men! But

every woman of spirit gets the best of them one way or another, although

her character often suffers in the process. That was the obscure reason

of my strike for liberty. I see it now. There is nothing for you but to

practise the time-honored methods. You have been placed in a great

position and you must dress it. Get what you want. Your position assures

you credit. Dressmakers are used to waiting, poor dears, and so are

shopkeepers. Your husband will be forced to pay the bills in time. You

will have to be adamant, impervious to rowing, when the days of

reckoning come. Tell him that it is clothes or a flat in West

Kensington, where nothing will be expected of you—”

“I hate it!” cried Julia, her eyes blazing, and her hair looking redder

than flames. “I hate such a life.”

“Of course you do. So do thousands of other women; but as long as

society, with all its abominable demands, exists, and men are

unreasonable, just so long will we limp along on credit, and gain our

ends by devious methods. Now to be practical. I shall make your hats at

cost price, and France will not keep me waiting much longer than most

people do. This afternoon I’ll go and look over your wardrobe. I know a

splendid little dressmaker—Toner, her name is—who remodels last year’s

gowns and brings them up to date. She is the only person you will have

to pay at once, for she really is badly off. For your new reception

gowns, ball gowns and tailor things, you will have to go to the smartest

houses. I shall introduce you, but it is hardly necessary; they will

fall down before you—”

“I shall feel like a thief!”

“Of course. You will be one, but only temporarily, and it will be much

more disagreeable for you than for them. Your husband is not bankrupt,

and must pay your bills. I wonder where you get your squeamishness

from—at your age? You belong to our class, and from what you have told

me of your life at home—”

“I know! Mother thought I didn’t know it, but I did. Children see

everything. But it horrifies and disgusts me. I suppose I must be

innately middle class!”

“Dear me, no. You are merely ultra-modern. I wonder what has waked you

up before your time—and with no outside influences? Odd. Well, I fancy

sensitive brains get messages, are played upon by waves of the intense

thought that is in operation all the time, trying to solve the problems

of existence. Bridgit was right. I thought it would take longer.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“She’ll explain when she gets hold of you! Oh, thank heaven I am my own

mistress, and need never accept a penny from a man again,—and am done

with the crooked ways of my sex.”

She looked radiant, and Julia exclaimed:—

“Why, you are more beautiful than ever. You haven’t gone off a bit.”

“Why should I?” asked Ishbel, in amazement.

“Well—I made friends with an American last autumn, and he thought it

dreadful for women to work.”

“It is a toss-up which women suffer the greatest injustice from their

men, the English or the Americans. At least our oppressions have

developed us far ahead of them. They’ve only scratched the surface of

their minds as yet—those that are known as the ‘fortunate’ ones. Of

course there is a big middle class, scrimping hard to make ends meet,

and, no doubt, having quite as much trouble with their men as we do.

They will catch up with us far sooner than those walking advertisements

of millionnaires, who think they are independent and spoiled, and are

only slaves of a new sort. It is well, by the way, that I set up when I

did. Jimmy not only lost thousands during the panic, but has developed a

mania for speculation. I think it is because he has so much less of

society than formerly, and wants excitement.”

“Does he blame you?” asked Julia, going to the point as usual. “Of

course people don’t want him without you. I hear he wasn’t asked to a

single house party.”

“Yes, he blames me. My conscience hurt me for a time, but I talked it

out with Bridgit, and we both came to the same conclusion: during those

five years I paid him back with interest. If he can’t take care of

himself now, it is his own lookout. I am living to repay him what I

borrowed, for he has thrown it at my head more than once, his losses not

having improved his temper. That is the reason I am not going out at all

this year.”

Julia, twirling her check, stared at her. The immense amount of reading

she had done had set her mind in active motion, developing natural

powers of reason and analysis. And unconsciously, during the last six

months, at least, she had been studying and classifying the many types

she had met. She knew that Ishbel, as she uttered her apparently

heartless and unfeminine sentiments, should have looked hard, sharp, or,

at the best, superintellectualized and businesslike. But never had she

looked prettier, more piquant, more feminine. Her liquid brown eyes were

full of laughter, her pink lips were as softly curved as those of a

child that has never whined, and her rich voice had no edge on it. Charm

radiated from her. In a flash of intuition Julia understood.

“It is because you like men—that you don’t change,” she said. “You

never will. But how do you reconcile it? You despise them—”

“Oh, dear me, no. I adore them. No charming man’s magnetism is ever lost

on me, and I am in love with three at the present moment. That is all,

besides my work, that I have time for. Only—I don’t have to marry any

of them, and find out all their little absurdities. I idealize them,

sentimentalize over them, and that pleasant process would color the

grayest of lives.”

“Suppose you should really fall in love?”

“Oh, I am quite safe until thirty, then again until forty; then again I

shall have a respite until fifty. Perhaps by that time we shall carry

over till sixty. It would be rather jolly. And the certainty of falling

in love once in ten years is not only something to look forward to, but

ought to satisfy any reasonable woman.”

“I wonder if you are what my American friend called bluffing.”

Ishbel blushed, dimpled, looked the most lovable creature in the world

and the most temperamental. But she laughed outright.

“Of course I bluff, my dearest girl. I bluff every moment of my life; I

bluffed myself, poor Jimmy, and the world for five years. Now I bluff

myself into thinking I am radiantly happy because I am independent,

whereas as a matter of fact, I am often tired to death, hate the people

I have to be nice to—it is not so vastly different from matrimonial

servility and management, except that you are more easily rid of them,

and they are always changing. But I stick to this, shall stick to it

until I have made enough to invest and give me an independent income; no

matter how much I may long to be lazy or frivolous, to dance, to flirt

week in and out at house parties—partly because I now enjoy that

supreme form of egoism known as self-respect, partly because the spirit

of the times, the great world-tides urge me on, partly because, when all

is said and done, work fills up your time more satisfactorily than

anything else. I had exhausted pleasure, was on the verge of satiety.

That would have been hideous. But I purpose to bluff myself one way and

another to the end of my days. I am convinced it is the only form of

happiness.”

Julia drank all this in. She knew that although Ishbel spoke in her

lightest and sweetest tones, she uttered the precise truth, and that she

was deliberately being presented with a window out of which she should

be expected to look occasionally, instead of remaining smugly within the

conventional early Victorian walls of her present destiny. Julia was

used to these little lessons in life from her older friends and liked

them, but she sighed, nevertheless. She was proud to develop so much

more quickly than most young women of her too sheltered type, but on the

other hand she longed at times for youth and freedom and an utter

indifference to the serious side of life. For the moment she regretted

her reading, wished ardently that she could have been a girl in London

for two seasons. Being put into training for a duchess at the age of

eighteen may gratify the vanity, but, given certain circumstances, it

extracts the juices from life.

Ishbel, as if she had received a flash from that highly charged brain,

leaned over and kissed her impulsively. “Oh, you poor little duchess!”

she exclaimed.

But Julia was shy of demonstrations and asked hastily:—

“How is Bridgit? It is nearly a year since I saw her, and she only sends

me a line occasionally like a telegram.”

“Not as happy as she would be if she were earning her bread, but she is

rapidly finding her métier. All this last year, inspired in the first

place by Nigel’s book, she has been investigating the poor and the poor

laws, visiting settlements, hospitals, factories, laundries—you know

her energy and thoroughness. The result is that she is close to being a

Socialist—of an intelligent sort, of course—pays her bills as soon as

they are presented, despises charities, and is convinced that women

should become enfranchised and have full control of the poor laws.”

“She must be rather terrifying!”

“She has succeeded in terrifying Geoffrey, and I fancy with no regrets.

He is having a tremendous flirtation with Molly Cardiff and is little at

home.”

“And Nigel?”

“Still on a Swiss mountain top, writing another book. Of course he is in

love with you still, poor dear!”

Julia was not displeased, but replied philosophically: “It’s well he’s

not here, for I should want to talk to him, and I never could. Harold is

insanely jealous.”

“Oh, that will wear off. They are all like that at first. Englishmen of

our class are not provincial, whatever else they may be.”

But as Julia followed her downstairs to try on the newest models in

hats, she felt that she had got no cheer out of the last observation.

She had a foreboding that Harold would become worse instead of better.

XVII

IT was the night of the 15th of March. Invitations had been sent out

three weeks since for the great party, which on this date was to

inaugurate the reopening of Kingsborough House. The footmen had been put

into new livery, but although the reception-rooms on the first floor,

long swathed in holland and cobwebs, had been aired, cleaned, and

polished, Julia’s tentative suggestion that the heavy carpets, curtains,

and furniture of the early Victorian era be replaced with the more

enlightened art of to-day was received with a haughty and

uncomprehending stare. Julia had not returned to the subject. Banishing

her scruples, she threw all her energies and taste into the

replenishment of her wardrobe. As Harold had announced in terms as final

as the duke’s stare that he would take his wife to no dances, where

other men would have the right to embrace her, she had confined her

apocryphal expenditures to such gowns and their accessories as would be

needed at afternoon and evening receptions, luncheons, and the races.

The dinner gowns of her first trousseau, although many of them had been

worn at the house parties, were “smartened up” by the invaluable Mrs.

Toner, and looked fresh and new.

The maid had been dismissed and Julia stood before the mirror in her

large gas-lit bedroom, looking herself over carefully, without and

within. She had sent for France, and there must be no weak points in her

courage.

The vision in the mirror alone gave her courage (being as natural as a

human being can be, she was still a vain little thing), and poised her

spirit. After several consultations between herself, Ishbel, and the

greatest French dressmaker in London, it had been decided that as this

party would be her real introduction to society, and as she was little

more than a girl in years, her gown must present a certain effect of

simplicity. Therefore was Julia arrayed in white tulle and lace, over

clinging liberty satin, and embroidered with crystal as fine as diamond

dust. With her tropical white skin and flame-colored hair, this skilful

costume gave her a curiously elusive and spritelike appearance. She wore

some of the Kingsborough jewels: a diamond tiara, not ridiculously

large, and several ropes of pearls. Few eyes can compete with the

brilliancy of diamonds, but Julia’s did, assisted by the black brows and

lashes which most women preferred to believe were artificial. She was

not an imposing figure, for her height was only five feet three and a

half in her French slippers, and her figure was still thin, although the

bones of her neck and arms were covered; but as France entered the room

he thought her quite the loveliest and daintiest creature in England.

“By God!” he cried, his heavy glassy eyes flashing. “You are rippin’!

Never saw even you so well turned out.”

He had rushed forward, but Julia waved him back.

“You mustn’t touch me when I’m got up for the public,” she said

imperiously. “You always muss my hair, and they will be coming in half

an hour. I sent for you not to be admired, but because I have something

to say to you.”

“Say?” repeated France, sulkily. His wife’s virginal coldness was one of

her profoundest fascinations, but submissive she should be,

nevertheless. “What can you have to say?”

“I merely want to tell you the cost of this gown.”

“What do you mean?”

“That it cost a hundred pounds.”

“What—what—”

“Just double the amount you gave me. And the rest of my wardrobe, with

which I am to do you and the duke credit this season, has cost twice as

much more.”

“What in hell are you talking about?” France tried to thunder, but his

breath was so short that he could only splutter. “How dare you—”

“You never pay for your clothes until you have been summonsed a dozen

times, why should I?”

“But I have to pay in the end! How _dared_ you? I know how women can get

on with a little money. Do you think I don’t know anything about ’em?

Extravagant as the devil, all of you, but able to do on half what it

costs a man to turn himself out, all the same. What are maids for? Every

woman could make her own clothes if she tried. I told you—My God! My

God! If my word ain’t law—a hundred pounds!”

He was waving his arms, and Julia moved out of their reach, although she

continued to look him in the eyes. His were bloodshot. “I shall have

everything I want, or need, so long as I live with you,” said his wife,

deliberately. “If you don’t want to pay for my clothes you can put me

out. I could earn my living. Ishbel would teach me to trim hats.”

“You—you—”

France sat down, his mouth hanging open. Then with a curious instinctive

movement he covered his face with his hand. When he removed it, his

face, although still red, was closed and hard, and his eyes shone with a

new desire.

“You’ve got a will of your own, young lady.”

“I have!”

“Well, by God, I’ll break it.”

“Try it.” Julia shook out her shimmering train.

“Three hundred pounds in one go!”

“Your income is two thousand a year, and you are practically at no

expense.”

“It’s not your place to know what my income is, nor what I do with it.”

“But you see I do.”

France looked down, once more concealing his eyes. It was a part of his

plan to show himself to the world as a devoted husband, to accept every

invitation, save those for dances, to walk with his wife daily in the

park, as soon as the fine weather began; in a word, to efface his past.

He inferred that Julia had guessed something of this, and, having the

whip hand, meant to use it. To antagonize her would be fatal. He longed

to beat her: in fact, he felt a curious thrill at the prospect; but

between the duke and the world, his hands, for the present, at least,

might as well be pulp. He was amazed and bewildered to find that he had

married something more than an exquisite bit of youth—conversation

between them was almost unknown; and although it would be amusing to

break her, he knew that he must temporize until the duke died. He

believed that this happy event must occur before long, as the duke,

fancying himself, under new medical advice, stronger than he had ever

been, had overtaxed his frail constitution during the shooting season,

and complained much of fatigue since his return to town. “By God!” he

thought, “I’ll beat her the very day he dies.” And, although subtlety

galled his abnormal vanity, he brought out in a fairly amiable tone:—

“Look here, old girl, you mustn’t let me in too deep. Remember I’m not

Kingsborough yet. It’s not that I can’t pay these three hundred

pounds—although the truth is, I’m economizing to pay off old debts,

many of them debts of honor—used to gamble a bit when I was in the

navy. So, don’t let me in any deeper, and when the old boy chucks it,

you shall have all you can spend.”

“Meanwhile, I wish four hundred a year,” said Julia, inexorably.

“Oh, I say! These things should last you for two years. I know women—”

“You haven’t introduced them to me. If you don’t give me four hundred a

year I’ll run into debt for that amount, and you are liable. I was

married without being consulted. I don’t love you and never shall, but I

submit to your demands, because it is my destiny. I am to be a duchess,

and that is the end of it. Meanwhile, I shall get everything out of this

tiresome life there is in it. You and my mother forced me into it, and I

shall have compensations. I shall be as well dressed as any of the great

ladies I am to associate with, many of whom I shall one day outrank. I

shall see Ishbel and Bridgit just as often as I choose, and I shall buy

all the books I want. I am going to job a brougham—”

“No! Not much!”

“I am going to job a brougham, and if you forbid it, there will be

trouble with Kingsborough. From something he said the other day I know

he assumes that I have one already. He knows you can afford it. He uses

that ark in the mews, and I don’t want it, anyhow. For a long time I

thought I never should speak to you on the subject of money again; you

hurt me so that time I asked for a few books; but I have thought it out,

and the result is this: while I am determined to have what I need

without asking you, I think it only fair to warn you. Besides, I should

grow nervous waiting for the bills to come in, for row after row.”

“You are damned hard for a young ’un.”

“I am not hard. I have made up my mind. That is all there is to it.”

France’s face convulsed with passion, but once more he controlled

himself, although his hands worked.

“If I give you four hundred a year, will you promise to let me in for no

more, and to pay for the brougham?”

“I’ll not let you in for more, but you shall pay for the brougham.”

“By God! You look like an arum lily standing there, and you are a little

red-headed she-devil! This is the first time any woman has ever got the

best of me. I’ve always treated ’em like cats.”

He rushed out of the room, afraid to trust himself further, and Julia,

horrified at life, while experiencing a certain zest at having ground

her legal master under her heel and watched him squirm, marched out and

took her place beside the duke and Lady Arabella Torrence at the head of

the grand staircase.

XVIII

JULIA’S new French slippers pinched, and her tiara pressed on certain

nerves of her head, as the more humble hat pin has been known to do. The

procession up the staircase seemed endless. To Julia it looked like a

river of jewels; she had ceased to know or care who were the mere women

beneath it. Not all of the men were foils. Royalty, the entire cabinet,

and the diplomatic corps were present; gorgeous uniforms, sashes, and

orders saved many men from being mistaken for waiters.

As the first guests were ascending, Julia had turned to the duke and

said sweetly:—

“I have asked Ishbel and Bridgit, and they have promised to come.”

“You have what?” asked the duke, his dull eyes glowing.

“They were my first friends in England, and as I am your hostess, it

occurred to me that I had the right to issue a few invitations on my own

account. I merely mention it, that you may not be betrayed by surprise

when you see them.”

“You have taken a purely feminine advantage—waiting until this moment

to tell me—when I can do nothing!” It was long since the duke had felt

himself on fire with passion.

“Of course we all take our advantages where we can, and are as deceitful

as possible,” said Julia, smiling into his snapping eyes. “Those are

primal weapons, and you gave them to us. Here come some terribly

important people.”

The duke had been forced to swallow his wrath, and, in a few moments,

forgot it in the sudden stream of arrivals. After a time fatigue

overcame him and he slipped away, leaving Julia alone with Lady Arabella

(yellow and bony in white embossed velvet and rubies). France was making

himself agreeable to the dowagers. The interview with his wife had

inspired him with a longing to go out and entice some wretch of the

streets to a hiding-place, where he could beat her to a jelly, but the

gall in his blood did not affect his shrewd cunning brain, which

steadily pursued its object. To-night was his first opportunity to be

gallant to women, politics and sport having claimed him since his

illness; and after a few well-turned compliments, he talked of nothing

but the beauty and virtues of his wife. Perhaps the duke was the only

human being who really liked him, for, without magnetism or charm of any

sort, he left both men and women cold where he did not repel; but

to-night he acquitted himself so creditably that several mothers thought

upon their loss with regret.

Julia’s mind was beginning to play her strange tricks. Carlyle’s “French

Revolution” had been among the books at Bosquith, and its style had so

fascinated her that she had read it twice. It so happened that a number

of extremely handsome women with white hair honored the Kingsborough

ball to-night. Some were young. All were gorgeously bedecked. The

intense hard glitter of diamonds dissolved into mist, took on fantastic

shapes: graceful powdered heads, glittering with jewels, on the top of

pikes, warm pampered bodies blocking the stairs.

It was not so much that Julia’s mind was awakening to the problem of the

poor, the menace of the unemployed and the underpaid; in truth, she

generally shuddered and turned away when Bridgit and Ishbel discussed

the subject; but these spectacular women on the grand staircase of

Kingsborough House seemed so ripe! They looked so useless, so languidly

magnificent, so overbred, so close to the apotheosis of their destiny,

that—again her fancy veered—Julia half expected to see a row of

footlights behind them; then a sudden shifting of scenery, and the

tumbrel and guillotine. The time came when Julia knew many of them well

enough to deal out a greater measure of justice than the outsider that

hurls the word “parasite” at every woman fortunate enough to possess

what the poor all want—wealth. She learned that many of them worked

harder for their political husbands than an army of secretaries, that

others rose, during the season, at an hour when they fain would have

slept off the fatigue of the day before, in order to get through a mass

of correspondence relating to the particular problem, political, social,

or economic, they were striving to solve. Many of these women were

mothers to their tenantry, watching over the growth and education of

every girl and boy born on their estates. Others went daily to

settlements, some to districts so abandoned as to be practically

hopeless, and requiring a mettle far higher than the mere soldier needs

when racing his fellows to battle. Some worked with churches, others

with societies, others alone; nearly all were interested in one charity

or another, many trying to feel their way through the obvious method of

relief to some cause they could grapple with, since the power to

legislate was forbidden them. Scarcely one of those women, dressed from

Paris, weighted down with jewels old and new, but faced the serious side

of life at some hour during the twenty-four; but although Julia came to

know this, the impression of the terrible immaturity of civilization,

caused by the blind vanity and selfishness of human nature at the

outset, and persisted in through the centuries in spite of lessons

written in blood, and of the gross unfairness of life, never left her.

If she was in the toils of youth at present, and far more interested in

herself than in the world and its problems, the mere fact that these

blue marsh lights could dance across her mind occasionally, would have

satisfied her more advanced friends that when the awakening came it

would be sudden and final.

But not to-night. Her visions fled. She looked down into a pair of dark

satiric eyes, and her own flashed back a more than courteous welcome.

Ishbel had come some time since, and after piloting the delighted Mr.

Jones up and down for half an hour (wearing his diamonds and looking the

radiant wife), had deposited him between two of the haughty dowagers he

loved, and fluttered off with her court. But Bridgit was late. She had

demurred at coming at all, being “sick of the game”; but had yielded to

Julia’s importunities, partly to “please the child,” partly because her

mischievous soul suspected that the invitation did not emanate from

headquarters, and delighted in giving the duke “a turn.” She might be

well on the road to Socialism, and have come to the end of her capacity

for mere pleasure, but she had not lost her sense of humor; and inborn

arrogance of class never dies, no matter how amenable the brain to

reason, and to a sincere democracy which manifests itself so effectively

in manner. Bridgit’s paternal grandfather was a duke with three more

quarterings to his credit than Kingsborough’s, ancestral performances

known to every student of history, and two strains of royal blood with

and without the bend sinister; therefore, did Mrs. Herbert feel that she

was doing the old pudding an honor in coming to his musty barrack

whether invited or not. And, automatically no doubt, she had attired

herself in the fashion of her class, of the women in whose company she

was to spend a night once more. She wore a gown of gold colored brocade

opening over a round skirt of rose point. Rising out of the coils of her

wiry black hair was an all-round crown of diamonds, and on her neck,

falling to the soft lace of her corsage, was a chain of diamonds and

pear-shaped pearls. With her fine upstanding figure, her towering

height, and flashing black eyes, she might make the most compelling

figure imaginable at the head of a rebel army singing the Marseillaise,

but to-night there was no more stately dame in Kingsborough House.

Julia, somewhat in the fashion of royalty, passed on the people

separating them, and grasped Bridgit’s hand, revivified by the sight of

a dear and familiar face.

“Oh, I’m so glad,” she cried, indifferent to stares and the displeasure

of Lady Arabella. “And they must nearly all have come. Do wait for me—”

She stopped short. She had had eyes only for Bridgit. Mechanically they

had travelled on to Bridgit’s escort. The man standing with his hand

outstretched was Nigel Herbert.

“He got home this afternoon,” said Mrs. Herbert, casually. “I knew you

would like to see him, so I brought him on. How do, Lady Arabella?

Always loved you in rubies.”

“Huh!” said Lady Arabella. She would have cut this dangerous apostate if

she had been equal to the effort; but to freeze that bright powerful

gaze, by no means without malice, was beyond her capacity, so she merely

sniffed and advised her to seek the duke, who would be as delighted as

herself to welcome Mrs. Herbert to Kingsborough House. She was of the

many that blundered over sarcasm, and her soul shivered under the

sweetness of Bridgit’s acceptance.

Meanwhile Julia was exclaiming to Nigel:—

“Oh, but I _am_ glad to see you! And _do_ go to the blue room and wait

for me. It’s downstairs behind the library.”

Nigel’s face had flushed, then turned pale; the first moment of the

renewal of their acquaintance had been an awkward one for him. It was

with some difficulty that he had been persuaded to come at all. For many

reasons he had wished never to meet her again, and had returned to

England only because it was necessary to see his book through the press;

a melancholy experience with the last having lost him his faith in

proof-readers forever.

But when he saw the welcome in those big shining eyes, the happy smile

on those young parted lips, he forgot even the subtle changes he had

noted in her face, while still unobserved, and he flushed again, his

heart beat rapidly. “Does she care?” he thought wildly. “Not now! Not

now!—But—”

Julia was staring with almost childish delight at the frank handsome

face of her first friend in England. She forgot the romantic hour at

Bosquith, forgot that she had sat up all night to contrive an

extinguisher for the embarrassing passion of this misguided young man,

remembered only that here was a real friend; moreover, one possessing

that magnet of sex lacking in Bridgit and Ishbel (such being the cross

currents in her still imperfect soul), so congenial that she could have

flung her arms about him at the head of the grand staircase of

Kingsborough House. She had never met any one she liked half as well.

He caught his breath sharply, whether in relief or disillusion, he did

not pretend to guess at this moment.

“I’ll wait for you,” he said, and made way for the next arrivals.

Some ten minutes later Julia turned to Lady Arabella.

“They are beginning to straggle,” she said. “If you don’t mind I won’t

stay any longer.”

“I do mind,” severely. “And your place is here, child as you are.”

“I can’t see why. . . . More guests. . . . Who cares about a child? And

you are vastly more important.”

“You have acquitted yourself very creditably. . . . Besides, people are

curious to see you, and nobody cares for an old thing like me.”

“Half of them are still glowing with the honor of having shaken hands

with you—you go out so seldom. . . . Besides, my slippers pinch. I want

to put on an old pair.”

“I always wear slippers a size too large and made by a surgical

shoemaker, on occasions like this. You must do the same. I should have

told you.”

“I’ll order a pair to-morrow, but that doesn’t do me any good now.”

“Very well. Run along.”

XIX

THE blue room, furnished by the late duchess, and undisturbed by her

loyal son, was of that sickly azure hue once affected by pale blondes.

The walls were further ornamented by bits of sentimental tapestry, the

chair backs with anti-macassars, stitched and woven by her Grace’s own

white hands. There was an entire sofa,—but why harrow the soul of the

reader, even as Nigel’s soul should have been harrowed as he sat with

closed eyes awaiting Julia? As a matter of fact, he forgot the hideous

room at once, and, heroically dismissing Julia from his mind that he

might be quite composed when she entered, dwelt with satisfaction upon

his interview with his father a few hours earlier. That eminently

practical peer had cast him off when he fled from England, leaving a

curt note to announce his intention to devote himself to the art of

fiction. He might have starved after the fashion of more orthodox

bidders for immortality, had it not been for a small personal annuity

which enabled him to live comfortably in Switzerland while engrossed in

his book. It was during this period, living in a mountain inn, without

luxuries, paternal menace and thwarted passion behind him, that Nigel

learned the profoundest lesson art teaches: its power to pulverize the

common human emotions and desires. Only the true artist, of course, gets

the message, is capable of immolation conscious or otherwise, of

elevating art above life.

Nigel was a born artist and had in him the makings of a great one.

Nevertheless, the discovery that nothing really mattered but his work,

that only his characters lived, and personal memories were dim, not only

surprised, but deeply mortified him. Being a man, as ready as the next

to love, and to fight and die for his country, it alarmed him to

discover that he carried within him a possible rival to his manhood, the

highest attribute, etc. But he was not long consoling himself. He

progressed to rapture over the discovery, ended by being humbly

grateful. He was a man all right, that needn’t worry him; he was

willing, therefore, to admit that to be an artist was a greater

endowment still. And it gave him a sense of independence, of liberty, of

superiority, to which the air of the high Alps contributed little or

nothing.

Then came the intoxication of success, of that immediate recognition so

many have hungered for in vain. Lest his head be turned and his art

suffer, he went on a walking trip through Germany, Italy, and France,

sleeping in inns and receiving neither letters nor newspapers. Nor did

he meet any one he knew. He even avoided Englishmen lest he prove

himself unable to resist the temptation to lead the conversation round

to his book. Not only was he a sincere artist, but he blindly clung to

this new and friendly magician that made the world so agreeably little.

When he returned to his eyrie, full of his new book, he found a letter

from his practical papa, forgiving him, since success had attended his

dereliction, and enclosing a check. Nigel responded amiably, then flung

himself once more at his desk, anxious to learn if the embryonic book

contained the same brand of enchantment as the first: the vision of

Julia had haunted his lonely footsteps. It did. Julia fled. He forgot

his family, himself, his success. Once more he was pure artist,

therefore entirely happy.

But he was still young. The second book had now gone from him. Art

slept. As he heard the rustle of a train, the hearty welcome, the proud

words of his father, deserted his memory, his heart almost stopped.

Nevertheless, as he rose to greet Julia his face was expressionless of

all but suave languid politeness. He, too, “fell back on technique.” And

this easily adjusted armor of the aristocrat is the best of his assets.

When a man smiles in the face of death, without bravado, it merely means

that he is well bred. His heart may be water.

Nigel was intensely irritated with himself for having been betrayed into

something like emotion at the head of the stair, and he spoke with a

slight drawl as he shook Julia’s hand.

“Awfully good to see you,” he remarked. “You look rippin’, too. Will you

sit here?”

“Let me get this crown off. It weighs tons.” Julia unfastened the

Kingsborough diamonds and deposited them irreverently in a chair, then

took the one Nigel offered. “I’d have left it upstairs, but I suppose I

shall have to walk about later. I do hope I shan’t have to wear it

often. Thank heaven, I’m not a duchess yet!”

Nigel knew the pitfalls in that engaging frankness and steeled himself.

“Oh, you’ll like it when the time comes,” he said indifferently. “How’s

the duke?”

The duke had always been such a negligible quantity, both physically and

socially, that no one felt self-conscious in referring to his demise a

trifle earlier than the conventions prescribed. Julia certainly felt no

false shame as she replied:—

“Better—rather. He shot, and even rode to hounds now and again. He’s

looked a bit off his feed since our return to town, and I know Harold

believes he’s not going to live much longer; but that’s because he’s

made up his mind that he’s waited long enough. I hope Kingsborough’ll

brace up. Of course I came to England prepared to have him die at once,

but, somehow, you can’t live in the house with a man and wish him

dead—at least, I can’t. Besides, as I said, I’m in no hurry. In fact, I

prefer it this way.”

A shadow passed over her face, and Nigel asked with less languor:—

“Why?”

“Oh—I think it a good thing for a man to have a mental occupation, and

waiting for dead men’s shoes is an occupation—rather! Ra-_ther_, as the

boys say. I don’t know Harold so awfully well, but I have an idea he

would be lost—and quite impossible—if he couldn’t scheme about

something. He’s the sort of man that always has a grievance, loves to

think himself abused if only because it gives him an excuse to plot and

imagine himself getting the better of somebody. Besides—this is more

like playing with life. The real thing must be full of responsibilities

that don’t mean so much, after all. Now—sometimes—I can fancy I am a

girl, masquerading, and I can do all sorts of things I couldn’t do if I

were of any importance.”

“And just how much of a girl do you feel?” he asked with bitter

emphasis.

It was not possible for Julia to turn any whiter than she was at all

times, but her expressive eyes grew so dark that they deepened the

whiteness to pallor. For a moment she looked older, and, swiftly as it

passed, Nigel detected an expression of fear and horror in the gaze that

no longer met his, but looked beyond. He caught both arms of his chair,

and held his breath. But in an instant it was as if a hard little hand

had rammed memory down into the depths of consciousness and bolted a lid

above it. Julia’s eyes flashed back to his, full of mischievous gayety.

“Now don’t indulge in romantic fancies about me,” she said. “If I

proclaimed from the housetops that I don’t love my husband, that I was

married by my mother, no one would pay the least attention. Everybody

knows it and nobody cares. What is done is done. I have a philosophical

nature myself. Remember that my horoscope was cast three times. And I

have my compensations.”

“What are your compensations?”

“Oh, books, my best friends—you among them!—a certain freedom I find

here in London, and mean to have more of, and clothes! clothes! You have

no idea what pretty frocks I have. That isn’t all. It’s great fun to get

the best of Harold—to give him another grievance! But I do get the best

of him—and of the duke, too, occasionally. There’s a curious

satisfaction in it—”

“Be careful! You’ll be hard, first thing you know.”

“The harder women are, the happier they are, I fancy. A sort of fine

steel armor that you could hide in your hand but that covers you from

head to foot. I’ve used my eyes these last two years. That is all that

keeps most women from being ground to powder. One can try to keep soft

inside, you know.”

“There’s one thing I don’t know—what you are driving at. I can’t make

out whether you are changed altogether, or are the same delicious child,

or if you are trying to keep your old personality intact, while forced

to admit to partnership an ego you have manufactured in self-defence.

One moment you look wise, almost hard, the next—”

“I refuse to be stuck on a pin in your psychological cabinet. But I

suppose you’ve got us all there. Herbert Spencer says—”

“Oh, for God’s sake, don’t become a clever woman! Whatever—”

“Why not? Don’t you fancy that would be a compensation?”

“You clever! It would be too awful!”

“You talk like Mr. Jones.”

“Hang Mr. Jones. Ishbel was entirely right; and she is one of the few

women on this earth that can be clever, as deep as the pit, and never

let a man find it out. But you! You are too straightforward and honest.

Not that Ishbel isn’t honest; she’s a brick; but she has a special

talent—possibly it lies in her coquetry. You have little or no

coquetry. You are in a state of flux at present, and if you decide for

the second ego, if you become hard and clever, you never could disguise

it. So beware, or you’ll not be able to love and be happy when your time

comes.”

“You mean to make some man happy!”

“What is the difference?”

“Oh, lots. I try not to think. I want to remain young as long as I can.

But I can’t help observing that men like geese,—what they call feminine

women. I suppose you mean that clever women find too many other

resources, and therefore are independent of men. Ergo, they don’t make

men happy.”

Nigel colored. “Something of that sort.”

“I shouldn’t have thought it of _you_. Fancy your being just the

ordinary male, after all.”

“Let us drop generalities and my humble self. I am thinking of you. We

don’t live in a moral world or age. Like all women you will, sooner or

later, demand happiness as your right. In other words, you will wake up

some day and want love. Then you will have lost the power to charm. You

would never be content with a fool, and clever men rarely love clever

women—not with their eyes open. You are quite right as you are. Enjoy

life. Let its problems alone.”

This impassioned plea for her youth left him almost breathless. For the

moment he was not conscious of loving her himself, of pleading for his

own future before it was too late. His languid dignity had retired from

the field; he felt only that he had arrived in time to avert a tragedy,

and so impersonal that his chest lifted slightly. The next moment he was

gasping under a douche of cold water.

Julia had thrown her head back and was looking at him with softly

shining eyes, her lashes half covering, and filling them with little

black lines.

“I’ll tell you a secret,” she whispered. “I’ve never told any one.

I’m—I’m in love.”

“What!”

“You’ll never breathe it?”

“Who—who—”

“It’s a man I’ve never seen.”

“How can you love a man you’ve never seen? What a baby you are!”

“I didn’t say I loved; I said I was in love. And a man I’ve never seen

is the only sort I could go that far with. I hate every man I know,

simply because he is a man; and I never want really to meet, even to

see, this one. But it’s great fun to be in love with him, to live in an

inner world of one’s own.”

“Oh!” Once more Nigel writhed with jealousy.

“And that isn’t all.” Julia’s eyes grew even more burdened with dreams.

“When I have to be kissed— At first I just set my teeth— Now I shut my

eyes and imagine it’s the other.”

Nigel stood up. His face was white. His hands shook.

“And who, may I ask, is this fortunate person?”

“I don’t think I can tell you that.”

“You shall tell me. I have some rights. I was your first friend, and I

loved you myself.”

Julia looked at him out of the corner of her eye. He had used the past

tense, but he looked more like the present.

“I never thought I could breathe his name,” she whispered. “But I can

tell you. It’s Cecil Rhodes.”

“Rhodes? Upon my word, you have good taste!” Then he burst into

irrepressible laughter, and threw himself back in his chair.

“Oh, what a kid you are! What a baby! And I thought you were on the road

to become a clever woman.”

Julia smiled mysteriously and picked up her crown. Her voice and eyes

were more ingenuous than ever. “I told you, partly because you are my

only man friend, the only man I don’t hate, and partly because you would

have made love to me yourself in another minute. But if you tell Bridgit

or Ishbel—”

“Never!” Once more Nigel laughed until the tears blotted his vision.

“Now I must go out and walk about and try to look like a duchess in a

semitransparent shell. Will you give me your arm?”

XX

A WEEK later, Julia, who had gone to bed early, woke up suddenly at

midnight. For a moment she lay wondering what had awakened her, used as

she was to the long unbroken sleep of youth. She became conscious of a

steady rhythmical sound in the next room, quite different from the

prosaic music to which she was accustomed. When she realized that it was

her husband pacing back and forth, back and forth, like a captured beast

of the forest, she trembled for a moment, then invoked her nerve,

slipped on a dressing-gown, and opened the door.

The lights were blazing. France, his coat off, his hair on end, was

pacing up the room as she entered, and when he reached the wall, he

flung his hands against it as if to push it outward. Then he turned and

saw his wife. His eyes were bloodshot.

“Go back to bed,” he said thickly. “I don’t want you.”

“What _do_ you want?” Julia walked toward him, fear lost in her

curiosity. “What is the matter, Harold? Are you ill? If you are, I must

take care of you.”

He stared at her for a moment. There were times when he hated her,

others when he was quite mad about her; during the intervals of varying

length he did not think about her at all. To-night he suddenly

experienced a new sensation. He needed a friend badly, and it was her

business to fill any office he chose to impose upon her.

“Look here,” he said. “Would you do me a good turn?”

“Why, of course.”

“And use all the brains you’ve got and hold your tongue?”

“Try me.”

“Think you could fool Kingsborough?”

“Oh, quite easily.”

“Well, it’s this: I’ve got to get away for a time—out of this. I ain’t

a child, ain’t used to walkin’ a straight line. Never had so many rules

to live by since I was a small boy. Navy was nothin’ to it—and two

years! _Two years_—” He clutched his hair with both hands and shouted:

“I’ve got to get away for a bit! Do you hear? Got to get away! Ain’t

used—”

“Do you mean that you want to go away and drink?”

France’s jaw fell. He took a step forward.

“What d’you mean? Who’s ever said—”

“No one in particular. But one learns a good deal in two years. Didn’t

you used to drink now and again—disappear—”

“What if I did? I’ll wring your neck if you peach—”

“I haven’t the least idea of telling any one. It is the sort of family

secret one doesn’t share. Where do you intend to go?”

“I’d hardly thought—it doesn’t matter. How can I fool him? If he found

me out, he’d chuck me, cut me down to the last penny, he’s such a damned

milksop—and in my shoes, in my shoes! Think for me. My brain’s no good.

It’s on fire. Let him find out and it’s all up with you, too, my lady.

It’s your business to stand by me. Wonder I didn’t think of that

before.”

“You’ll go to Paris to-morrow to consult a heart specialist—”

“I tell you I’ve got to get out of this to-night. If I don’t, the

roof’ll be off before breakfast. Do you suppose I can wait for a lot of

palaver? I’d have been off before this, but I can’t think of a ghost of

an excuse.”

“You can’t find a better than that, and you can go to-night. He knows

your heart is weak, or was. I’ll tell him I became terrified and packed

you off without delay. Get out your portmanteau, and I’ll look up the

trains in Bradshaw.”

XXI

“HOW very odd!” said the duke, in a tone of manifest annoyance. “How

very odd!”

They were in the library and Julia had imparted her information.

“Not at all,” she replied indifferently. “He would have gone before

this, but feared to worry you—thought he would feel better. Last night

he was so bad that I put him out of the house.”

“You put Harold out?”

“Yes. That will give you an idea of how he was feeling, when he was

willing to mind me!”

“Hm! Why didn’t you go with him? A wife should never leave her husband

for a day, particularly when he is ill!”

“We neither thought of that until the last minute—he was so nervous and

there was only time to pack and catch the train—I was racking my brain

over Bradshaw. I offered to follow, of course, but he said he preferred

I should remain and keep our engagements here—he’s developed such a

love of society, poor Harold—he seems haunted by the fear that we might

drop out—you see, he was once a little wild—”

“Never really!” said the duke, emphatically. “Why shouldn’t he sow a few

oats—a fine young fellow? Not that I approve; but it is natural

enough.”

“Of course, poor dear, and he fancies that people think him far worse

than he was, and he has an idea that I am useful to him—”

“Quite so. That is what you charming young wives are for. But I cannot

think why Harold should feel obliged to go to Paris. We have heart

specialists here.”

“Oh, but no one to compare with—with—Corot. And Harold knows him, you

see, and has such confidence in him. He should have gone a week earlier,

when—the—ah—thumping began.”

“Thumping? Dear me! Is Harold as bad as that?”

“Oh, it only means that he needs the right kind of tonic—after so long

a siege of fever—and all that sport—and the political campaign—you

see, he should have had himself looked over sooner; but at Bosquith

there was only the country doctor, and then—he hated to leave us. I

don’t think he’d have gone this morning if I hadn’t insisted. And he was

dreadfully worried for fear you’d be angry.”

“Oh, well,” said the duke, mollified; “after all, he knows his own

affairs best. Ah—wait a moment.”

Julia, who was escaping, breathless with the lies she had told, and

longing for fresh air, halted, and the duke swung round in his chair and

laid the fingers of one hand over the back of the other.

“Sit down again for a moment, my dear,” he said, not unkindly, although

he had assumed what Julia called his preaching manner and his praying

voice.

She sat down on the edge of a chair. The duke resumed.

“There is a matter I have had in my mind since the night of the party. I

don’t like to scold you, for in the main you are a very good child and a

dutiful wife—really, I have little fault to find with you. But—ah—you

must have seen that I was much annoyed when I learned, that without my

consent, and in spite of my expressed distaste for those two young

women, you had asked them to my house.”

“Of course I knew you would be annoyed.”

“Indeed? I supposed you merely thoughtless!”

“Oh, no.” Julia turned her large brilliant gaze upon the small

slate-colored eyes whose dullness was lighting with indignation. “I told

you—perhaps you have forgotten—that as you have made me your hostess,

and expect me to devote a large part of my energies to acquitting myself

creditably, I feel that the position carries with it certain rights. So

I invited my best friends.”

“But you knew that I disapproved of them!”

“Without reason. They are of your own class, and their reputations are

immaculate. Why should I snub my friends? The invitations went out in

the names of all three of us.”

“That has nothing to do with it. I do not wish you to associate with

these young women. Their tendencies are dangerous. They have stepped out

of their class and must take the consequences. Old orders would not

change if men were firmer—When Harold returns I shall ask him to put

his foot down. I cannot expect you to obey me, but you are bound to obey

your husband.”

“I shall not in the matter of my friends. I have told him that if he

interferes with me in any way, I’ll leave him and go into Ishbel’s

shop.”

“WHAT?”

The duke half rose from his chair, then fell back, gasping. Where was

the responsive amenable child of two summers agone?

The child continued. “Yes, I am doing my best. I am a dutiful wife, and

I try to look and act” (she almost said “like a future duchess,” but her

nimble mind leaped aside in time) “as if I had been entertaining all my

life. I listen to Lady Arabella’s lectures, and Aunt Maria’s, to say

nothing of yours and Harold’s. Even Lady Arabella says I’ve done very

well. But I have a few rights of my own, and if I’m interfered with I’ll

do as I said. I don’t care so much for all this. I’d rather be free like

Ishbel.”

“You have no comprehension of the duties of a wife,” gasped the outraged

duke, “or of your position. That a member of my family—”

“It is not so much that I am asking. Lots of women have lovers—”

“Lovers!” The duke almost strangled. “What does a child like you know

about lovers? And in my house—you have never heard such a subject

mentioned.”

“Oh? I can tell you that a lot of the women that have visited us—”

“Hush! I shall listen to no insinuations about my guests. You wicked

little thing!”

“No. I was about to tell you that I’ve no intention of being wicked. I

should hate a lover.”

“Indeed! I am happy to be reassured.” The duke always felt at his best

when sarcastic, and he sat erect and looked severely at this naughty

child who did not in the least comprehend what she was talking about.

“You are too young to argue with,” he said. “Not that I should ever

think of arguing with a woman of any age. As regards Bridgit Herbert and

Ishbel Jones, if your husband upholds you in your friendship with them I

have nothing further to say except that I absolutely refuse to have them

in my house again. But if Harold does not—this is what you must

understand once for all: your husband’s word is law.”

Julia smiled.

“What do you mean?” The duke had a curious sinking in the pit of his

stomach, and wondered if he too should not consult a specialist.

“You men are so funny.”

“Funny! Madam!”

“Yes, that is the word. Ishbel told me they were when I first came over,

and I’ve found it out since for myself.”

“Funny!”

“Terribly funny.”

“If you don’t explain yourself—”

“I mean—for one thing—just one!—that you never find out we have our

own way in spite of you. You think you are tyrants, and there isn’t one

of you that can’t be led round by the nose—managed. Well, I don’t like

that method. I won’t bother to manage any man. You’re not worth the

trouble, and it’s a confession of inferiority on our part, anyhow. The

more I see of you, the less inferior I feel. Besides, I enjoy speaking

out, having things understood without a lot of beating round the bush.

I’ve discovered that I’ve good fighting blood, and I’ve learned that

women have plenty of resources outside of husbands; all that is

necessary is to find the courage and the energy to enjoy them. But so

many don’t. They’re all in love with one thing or another—husbands,

lovers, society, fine houses, clothes, luxury—so they ‘manage’; and it

has spoiled men, flattered them for centuries that they were the

stronger and wiser sex; and, of course, demoralized women. No one can

expand without the courage that comes of being able to speak the truth.

Men can afford to be truthful whether they are or not, so they have gone

ahead of us. I shall become demoralized all right, but not in that way.

Not in any way that I can help. I shan’t lie—for myself—and I shan’t

employ crooked methods. My mother told me to marry, and I did, because

at that time I thought it right and natural to obey. Besides, I suppose

one man’s much the same as another. I am resigned. I shan’t cry as some

women do. One woman down at Bosquith last summer used to come into my

room when I wanted to sleep, and cry out, ‘I hate life! Oh, how I hate

life!’ She was afraid her husband would find out about her lover and she

was sick of the lover besides. Now she has a new lover—”

“Hold your tongue!” The duke for once in his life thundered. “I forbid

you to say another word—”

“Oh, I’m not very much interested in those things. What I intended to

say was that I’ll do my duty, since married I am, but I’ll also do as I

choose in some things. You can’t stop me. You might have done so in the

days when Bosquith was built, but a lot of you seem to forget that times

have changed—they change every minute, if you did but know it.”

“So it seems! I should think they did! _Great_ heaven!”

The duke paused a moment as if he expected heaven to respond. Receiving

no inspiration, he concluded with dignity: “I must think this matter

over. You may go.”

Julia almost ran out of the library and up to her own room. Then could

the duke have seen her he would first have received another shock, then

misinterpreted what he saw, and plumed himself. For Julia sat down and

wept. She had lied hideously, worse still, glibly. And for the first

time she quite realized that of late she had developed a poise, a

fertility of resource in dealing with the mean tyrant that dwelt in the

men to whom she was almost subject, that for the moment horrified her.

Was it true that she was growing hard? She wished she had talked more

confidentially with Nigel instead of flippantly dancing away from the

subject. Was she no longer young? She had a real passion for truth. Were

there to be no conditions in which she could indulge it? She glanced

back over the past two years. There had been a time when she spoke the

literal truth on all occasions; now she spoke it when it was feasible,

or impressive, but rarely without forethought. It was seldom that she

let herself go. She felt a hatred of civilization stir, wondered if in

the whole planetary system there was a world where truth was the

standard, where every man was himself, where the petty lies which made

the great ones inevitable were unknown. A prophetic ray suggested that

such conditions might involve complications unless human nature itself

were of a new brand; but she was not in the mood to follow the thought

to its logical finish. She wanted freedom here, and it appeared to be

impossible of attainment. But at least she would strive for

independence. To both of the men who shadowed her life she had read what

the Americans called the riot act. That, at least, was something

accomplished. She could not be accused of deceit, despised because she

paid the tribute of her sex to their superiority.

Suddenly her spirits darted upward on wings. She was free of her husband

for a week, perhaps longer. She bathed her eyes and danced about the

room. But when she realized the source of her exultation she turned

hastily from it, dressed, and went to Ishbel’s shop.

XXII

DURING the fortnight of France’s wassail the duke and Julia avoided each

other by tacit consent. His Grace found himself uncommonly absorbed in

politics, attended no less than three important dinners; and,

ascertaining Julia’s engagements, dined at the House upon the one

occasion when she dined at home. Therefore, were there no elaborate and

recurring explanations of Harold’s prolonged absence, and singular

epistolary neglect of his cousin. Julia, as she passed the duke on the

stair, mentioned casually once or twice that her husband was detained by

his doctor’s orders, might be for six or eight days to come.

The duke had resolved that he would not be betrayed into another war of

words with this or any woman, nor would he recur to the subject of

Julia’s offences until he had fully determined what to say to her, what

course to take. And as for the life of him he could not make up his

mind, she was left to her own devices.

And these devices were many. Julia resolved to forget her husband’s

existence, and enjoy herself in new ways. She went to nine parties and

danced until dawn. She saw Bridgit, Ishbel, and Nigel every day, rode on

the tops of omnibuses, and lunched in A B C’s, Italian restaurants, and

the Cheshire Cheese; these last three dissipations in company with Mr.

Herbert. He also took her frequently to the National Gallery, and

administered her first lessons in art. They even visited the Bond Street

exhibitions and one or two private studios.

Nigel made no attempt to flirt with her; he was by no means sure that he

still cared for her, so changed was she, although her magnetic charm was

unaffected. But she would seem to have lost the ideal and unique quality

that had roused his deeper feeling, and that gone, he felt no desire for

the residuum. Certainly, it was not worth the sacrifice of his career;

although of course it was very jolly to be the chosen friend of such a

radiant creature (of whom men were beginning to take much notice), and

he made up his mind to remain in London during Julia’s period of

liberty, then return to Switzerland and his new book. He was rather glad

of this test than otherwise, the opportunity to make sure that the only

rival of his work had been routed. Sometimes, however, he wished that he

might love Julia frantically, these days, thus receiving an additional

proof of the might of art; but that hard bright surface repelled him. He

felt that he no longer knew her, should not until life had taught her a

more thorough knowledge of herself. Meanwhile, poor child, if she was

determined to enjoy herself to the limit while her beast was on the

loose, it was the least he could do to help her; so he lectured her on

art in the morning and danced with her at night, or saw to it that she

had the best partners in the room. The fortnight passed very quickly,

and Julia, exerting her strong will, felt eighteen once more and quite

happy.

France returned one morning early, looking rather the worse for wear.

After a coaching from his wife he sought the duke, and, in his bluffest

sailor manner, apologized for his abrupt departure and his failure to

write: he had been put to bed and commanded to rest, undergone a series

of examinations, been so blue and bored that he should have made his

cousin as bad as himself. The duke was quite satisfied, and when France

took the precaution to add that sooner or later he should be forced to

return for another examination, his affectionate relative sighed and

hoped Julia would awake to her duty and present another heir to the

house of France.

During the next two years France disappeared some five or six times. His

departures were preceded by excessive irritability; he returned as

complacent as a cat after canary. Intermediately he was much himself.

Julia became expert in seeing little of him. During the season she

dragged him about with an unflagging energy that caused him to welcome

the few hours he was able to snatch for sleep, and the duke unwittingly

assisted her by demanding his daily presence in the House of Commons.

During the shooting and hunting seasons his sportman’s fever took care

of itself, although she subtly persuaded him to take up the rod, and to

go to Scotland for deerstalking. She realized that if she continued to

live with him a certain amount of “management” was inevitable. To tell

the whole truth and live under the same roof with France was manifestly

impossible, and the feeling of destiny (planetary) was too strong to

permit her to leave him and achieve a complete independence. She thought

as little as possible, read and studied a great deal, and played to the

top of her capacity.

There was political excitement from time to time, and Julia learned that

one secret of content was to forget her deep and hopeless disappointment

in herself by keeping her mind animated with the greater affairs of the

nation. No doubt this is the most fruitful source of woman’s interest in

politics as they exist to-day. Unlike art, which compels true oblivion,

it is a wholly artificial interest, since mentally unproductive; and of

secondary import, since women are not permitted to employ their

abilities in the service of their country. But although, no doubt, the

women of the future will look back with much amusement upon the futile,

the pathetically egotistic activities, of their predecessors, there is

no question that an interest in public affairs, no matter how impersonal

and unremunerative, save to the spirit, has the advantage of

dissociating the mind from those mean and petty interests that send the

average woman to the scrap heap.

Julia, even without the hints of Bridgit and Ishbel (Nigel went abroad

soon after France’s return), would no doubt have discovered this

philosophy for herself, for she came of a family distinguished in

colonial politics since the islands were inhabited by the white man, and

her present atmosphere was almost wholly political. The duke fussed more

than any woman, France was forced to assume an interest he did not feel,

and the greater number of their guests believed themselves to be making

history. The duke, since his health would not permit him to be prime

minister, found his compensation in sitting at the head of a table

surrounded by those eminent Conservatives and liberal-Unionists whose

names were in every man’s mouth. Therefore was Julia not only obliged to

listen intelligently, but soon began to feel a keen pleasure in

sharpening the edge of her mind and in holding opinions and drawing

conclusions of her own. When the war between Spain and the United States

broke out she took the American side, partly out of perversity, as

everybody she met was passionately for the sister European power, even

after the Government policy declared itself and laid its heavy hand on

the press, partly because the increasingly modern tendencies of her mind

led her to sympathize with the fluid imperfections of youth as against

the atrophied faults of age. But although she found her opponents in

argument immovable in their sympathy for Spain, and (congenital)

disapproval of the United States, the experience gave her the deepest

insight she was likely to have of the fundamental good humor of the

English, as well as their sense of fair play. Unequivocally as they

resented the conduct of the United States and hoped for her humiliation,

it never occurred to them to visit their indignation on the individual,

and London was full of Americans at the moment. One afternoon Julia was

taking tea with Mrs. Winstone when Mrs. Bode came rustling in, flushed

and indignant.

“What do you think?” she demanded, before she had taken the chair Mr.

Pirie hastened to place for her. “Hannah Macmanus asked me to go with

her to the private view this afternoon, and when I arrived at her house

I found her with the Spanish colors pinned on her chest! Wouldn’t that

jar you? And I an American—her guest! When I exploded—asked her why

she didn’t send me word not to come, she seemed quite surprised, said

she never let politics interfere with private friendships. But I bolted,

couldn’t contain myself. I do think you English are too odd!”

“Oh, we’re merely a bit hoary,” said Pirie; “we’ve really lived, you

see.”

“Hope your history’s not all behind you,” retorted Mrs. Bode. “Well,

I’ll take a cup of tea. If _you_ were wearing the Spanish colors, Maria

Winstone—”

“They don’t become my own coloring,” said Mrs. Winstone. “But, mind you,

I’m all for Spain and hope you are going to be whipped. If we were quite

alone I should confide that I didn’t care a straw one way or another,

but fashion is fashion, and I’d no more dare defy it than I’d dare

indulge in an individual style of dress—must be strictly contemporary

or run the risk of looking my age.”

“I never know when you English are joking,” said Mrs. Bode,

discontentedly. “Your humor (if you really have any) isn’t the least bit

like ours.”

“Our effects are got by telling the brutal truth,” said Pirie.

But the excitement afforded by this war was brief, and soon forgotten.

Kitchener’s reconquest of the Soudan was picturesque enough in its

details to compel the attention of far happier mortals than Julia, but

was hardly of a nature to disturb the serenity to which Pirie had made

allusion. Fashoda caused but another ripple on the surface, and even

when the moving finger appeared on the South African horizon the

prevailing feeling was annoyance, and astonishment at the temerity of

the Boers. In spite of the warnings of Lord Wolsely and General Butler,

England persisted in looking at the new republic through the wrong end

of the opera glass. Early in August, Julia, at a county dinner party,

sat next to one of the most intelligent of the South African

millionnaires then living in England. He had lived his life in South

Africa, and mainly among the Boers; he had made his fortune there, and

taken a prominent part in politics. No man should have known the

characters of the Boers better than he, nor the advantages possessed by

a hard persistent race that had learned every trick of native warfare

from the negroes they had subdued. And yet he made a speech to Julia

that she never forgot.

“You know, Mrs. France,” he said pleasantly, “we don’t want to kill

anybody. We’ll just walk quietly through the Transvaal and take it.”

It was shortly after this dinner and the feeling of renewed confidence

in England’s destiny it induced, that Julia suddenly lost all interest

in politics. She had found many compensations in her life, and looked

forward to many more. The duke had shown uncommon tact in intimating

that her husband was quite equal to the task of controlling her, never

returning to it himself; Julia, on the other hand, having no desire to

live alone with her husband, took pains to fill creditably the duties of

her position, and showed her host the pretty deference due his age and

rank. So had wagged life for two more years. And then the most

unexpected, the most incredible, the most completely disorganizing,

thing happened. The duke fell in love and married.