PART II

Produced by Al Haines

HELENA BRETT'S CAREER

BY

DESMOND COKE

AUTHOR OF THE BOOKS ON THE PAGE OPPOSITE

[Transcriber's note: this list has been moved to the end of this etext]

NEW YORK

E. P. DUTTON & CO.

3, WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET

1913

TO

ARTHUR WAUGH,

CRITIC, PUBLISHER, AND FRIEND,

WHO STARTED ME AS NOVELIST

AND HAS NEVER FAILED SINCE

WITH ENCOURAGEMENT,

I DEDICATE THIS BOOK

IN GRATITUDE.

PREFATORY POSTSCRIPT

In these thin-skinned days when the words libel and traitor drift on

every breeze, it may be "wise" (I am told at the last), to make it

plain that my Author, Publisher, and Artist do not represent real

people! So be it, then: the men, as also women, in this unromantic

comedy of married life are all imagined; but in declaring them not to

be individuals, I would not be thought to admit that they are

non-existent ... or universal. Such men have been and will

be--self-centred authors, unscrupulous publishers, vulgar-minded

artists--nor does a paragon make the best food for fiction: but there

are also Others. Logic still permits one to avoid Libel without

confessing Treachery, and I am little likely to "attack" my own

profession or two others from which I draw some of my nearest friends.

We are told that there are black sheep in every fold; but it is still

possible that a few among the others may be white. It pleases some of

us to think so.

DESMOND COKE

CONTENTS

PART I

HOW IT HAPPENED

CHAPTER

I. ADVICE

II. "WHY MEN MARRY"

III. "WHY WOMEN WED"

IV. HYMEN

PART II

HUBERT BRETT'S WIFE

V. ROUTINE

VI. GROWTH

VII. THE CULT OF USELESSNESS

VIII. A SCENE IN THE HOME

IX. CINDERELLA

X. HONOUR

XI. PINK PAPERS AND ST. ANTHONY

XII. DEVILS

XIII. SECRETS

XIV. WAS IT WORTH WHILE?

XV. DISCOVERIES

XVI. A MATTER OF SALES

XVII. THE TEMPTER

PART III

HELENA BRETT'S CAREER

XVIII. ZOË

XIX. BUSINESS

XX. PLEASURE

XXI. EXPOSURE

XXII. THE IRON IN THE SOUL

XXIII. SECRET NUMBER TWO

XXIV. BATTLE ROYAL

XXV. THE BROKEN TRIANGLE

XXVI. TACT

XXVII. THE TWO WAYS

XXVIII. WOMAN PROPOSES

XXIX. HELENA BRETT'S CAREER

PART I

HOW IT HAPPENED

HELENA BRETT'S CAREER

CHAPTER I

ADVICE

"Of course," said Kenneth Boyd, with the abrupt conviction of one whose

argument is off the point at issue, "it's absolutely obvious. You

ought to marry."

The man who ought to marry was no more pleased to hear it than most of

his kind. He scowled angrily: then smiled, as though contempt were a

more fit reply. He was tall, broad, firm-looking, with smooth dark

hair still low upon his forehead, and certainly looked in no need of

drastic remedies.

He knocked his pipe out on the grate before he answered, but when the

words came, they burst forth like an explosion.

"You married men," he cried, turning the attack, "are just like

parrots. You can only say one thing. You're worse than parrots:

you're gramophones--or parrots with a gramophone inside. You're always

saying one thing, 'Marry!' and you say it jolly long. I honestly

believe you've got a Trades Union, unless it's merely nasty feeling!

That probably is it. You hate to see others as happy as you used to

be!"

Whereat, comforted, he stretched his long legs and lay back on the deep

chair in a better humour.

"No," said the other gently. "We hate to see them miserable and know

they'll never realise man's one chance of happiness till it's too late."

He spoke in very earnest tones and looked almost anxiously across at

his friend, now quite happy again with the flushed sensation of having

achieved something at any rate not too far from an epigram. A peaceful

smile played round the big mouth which alone betrayed weakness in his

pale, clear-cut face.

How young he was in some ways, Kenneth Boyd reflected--in

self-complacency, for one! And yet, in others, how much too settled

and fixed for his years. Here he was, a ten-year resident of these

rooms--comfortable enough, yes--looked after by a sister; turning out

his yearly novel, no worse but no better than the one before; an old

bachelor at thirty-five, and yet too young to speak of marriage as

anything except a rather tasteless joke!

He watched him anxiously, as he might watch his patients at the

hospital, and wondered whether he was beyond helping.

Hubert Brett said nothing. He was angry.

Why, he was wondering, had he telephoned for Boyd to come along at all?

He always _had_ asked Boyd, of course, even in the dear old Oxford

days, when he was in a difficulty. Boyd's great forehead, thick chin,

and deep voice gave him a sort of solid, comfortable air: and he was

never sympathetic.... Probably his medical work--it was not nice,

quite, to think of it like that--made him a restful person to consult?

He always smoothed you down and made you feel that what you meant to do

would be entirely for the best.

But he had been off form to-night....

Marry, indeed! Why, that had nothing to do with the case at all. It

was Ruth's maddening stupidity that had made him ask Kenneth in. These

rows with one's sister were horrible--and bad for work.... Besides,

they used to be such pals as kids: it wasn't nice, now, to be

quarrelling like any costermonger and his wife. Yet each absurd

quarrel was followed by one more absurd.

What had it been all about to-night? He had forgotten that already.

The actual row was a surprise. Ruth had started this one. He had not

seen it coming, even, till they were both on their feet.

She was so maddening, you see!

He didn't mind an egoist. He sometimes thought, in moments of

depression, he was one himself (but he did not believe in

introspection). It was an egoist who claimed to be a martyr that

aroused his anger.

Ruth was always claiming to have sacrificed herself. _She_ didn't

matter. No one must consider her. She hadn't married. She gave her

life up willingly to her dear brother. If he trod on her sometimes,

she only liked to feel that he was free to wing his way to fame. And

all that sort of stuff ... when all the while, she never did a single

thing he wanted, but in the most selfish way made everything as hard as

it could be for his work, when she herself was doing nothing! What a

fuss if he was half an hour or so late for their lonely meal! How

could it matter? He was in the middle of a paragraph, sometimes: and

what did she do after dinner, anyhow? Nothing but play Patience, while

he went back to work! How could it make any difference at what hour

she dined?...

Probably to-night had been some trifle of that sort: he had forgotten,

really; but at the end of it she had stood up and said, for the first

time: "Well, I can always be turned out. There's no real reason why we

should live together."

"The first sensible remark you've made," he had replied, made

elementary by anger, and gone out to telephone to Boyd.

Why, after all, _did_ they live together? Would he be happier without

her? Or would a cook-housekeeper be worse? How did other men get on?

Most of them, somehow, seemed to marry.... Boyd would know, though--he

went to so many homes. But Boyd might say that it was not quite fair

on Ruth.... That was nonsense, though. Brothers weren't ever meant or

bound to keep their sisters, and thirty-eight was not too old for women

to get married. It was the fashionable age. Nobody now cared for

girls. Only Ruth never wanted to go out, or, if she did, it was to

some quite silly show where he could not be seen.... Well, he would

see what Boyd said. That was the best way.

And Boyd, having listened to the passionate recital in an owlish

silence, had answered: "It's quite obvious. You ought to marry!" Just

what those idiots of doctors always said. Marriage and golf were their

only two ideas, even for any one with liver.

"_Why_ ought I to marry?" he blazed out suddenly, to the surprise of

his friend, who could not follow his thought during the long pause.

"Why, my dear fellow? Because you're stagnating--because it is life's

second stage--because you've got beyond the first--because each of your

books is exactly like the last----"

This ceased to be theory. Hubert was in arms at once.

"I don't see that," he said in a hard voice, almost sulkily. "As a

matter of fact, several of the critics went out of their way to call

_The Bread of Idleness_ new, original, etcetera."

"Yes," replied Kenneth Boyd, who secretly enjoyed wounding just deeply

enough his friend's self-esteem; "the plot was different, but its

heroine the same. You had her in _Wandering Stars_; you had her in

_Life_; you've had her in them all. There is a Hubert Brett type no

less than a Gibson Girl."

"I still don't see, even so," Hubert icily replied, "exactly why I have

to marry."

Kenneth Boyd smiled unseen. "Because to widen your art, you must widen

your idea of woman. If you really know one woman, they say, then you

can know them all."

A good deal of the author's self-esteem returned. He looked relieved.

So that was all, was it?

"If you know them all, as I do, by study," he answered, "you don't

_want_ to know one."

And now indeed Kenneth Boyd peered at him seriously, as at a patient

very critical.

"That sort of remark," he said, "just shows that you know nothing about

women and ought to marry one."

Hubert laughed. "Dear old Kenneth!" and there was pity in his voice.

"Perhaps I should, if I knew nothing of them really. But I'm afraid I

know too much."

His counsellor made no reply. He always knew when he had failed. He

also knew, from long experience, the only weapon that availed when once

the hard line came round Brett's weak lips. He waited prudently, while

they both smoked, and then he grasped it firmly.

"Well, it's a pity, Hubert," he said gaily, as though he had abandoned

his attempt and could afford by now to laugh at it, "because you'd not

only solve the sister problem but--look at the advertisement! 'Famous

Author Weds.' 'Mr. Hubert Brett, the Novelist, who is to be married

this week. Photo by Bassano.' 'Mr. Brett's beautiful young wife.'

'Mrs. Brett, wife of the celebrated author, opens a bazaar.'"

"Oh, shut up," cried Hubert quite youthfully, and made some pretence at

throwing a tobacco-pouch, but did not seem displeased.

"Then," went on the remorseless friend, "she is at parties every day,

and universally admired. Who is she? everybody naturally asks. Why,

the wife of Hubert Brett. Have you read his new novel? If not, do."

"You must think me a conceited fool," Hubert put in, "if you imagine I

swallow all that." Sometimes he suspected Boyd of sneering. Mrs.

Boyd, he knew, disliked him. She had often tried a snub. She was a

very brainless woman....

Kenneth Boyd dropped his manner of burlesque.

"All the same," he said, falling back into the old vein, "a wife _does_

a lot in one's career, you know. She has so much more time for making

friends. I always look on mine as my best canvasser! Why, man" (and

now he shamelessly threw off the mask), "you simply don't know what

you're missing. When I look back on my old single days, I hardly can

believe that it was me or how I could have been such an almighty ass as

to have wasted all those ghastly years. Perhaps, though, I shouldn't

enjoy our life now so much, if I'd not had a good mouthful of the

other. Good lord--the discomfort; the loneliness; the want of any one

who really cares; the feeling that there's nothing _permanent_; the

frantic writing round to make sure you won't have a lonely evening; the

sick despair when some one fails and you sit moping by your fire or

wander out among a crowd of laughing couples, damnably alone; the lack

of any purpose in life; the constant cadging round for somebody to save

you from a Soho restaurant. Good lord, it simply can't be true I had

five years of it, and now...! Of course, Hubert, I know what you'll

say. We're all different; you're not that sort; you never feel all

this; you wouldn't feel as I do, if you married. But you do--you

would. We're all utterly the same, deep down. You novelists forge

little differences to help out your stories, but I tell you, deep down,

men are all the same. We all get lonely, we all get sad and hopeless

as the years go on, we want just _one_ who values us more than the

rest, who cares for our success, who smoothes away our failures. We

can't, any one of us, get on alone. You're only shy, that's all. You

funk proposing--you'd feel such a fool! But what's all that? There

must be lots of jolly girls about. Just you fix on one, get married,

and then come and settle down near us, out Hampstead way. Think of it!

No climbing back into a grimy lodging--sorry, old man, but I mean the

fogs. If you could just see Hampstead in a winter sunset! Then a nice

little home, all new and clean; tea all put ready for you by your wife;

the kiddies keen to see you; that's the one way, I tell you, for _all_

men to come home. We're not different, a bit. We all want--_you_

want--love and comradeship; we want another thing beside ourselves, in

whose success we can feel proud; we want our wife, our children, and we

want our home. And that's exactly what you want, my boy!"

Carried along midway, he suddenly became self-conscious and collapsed

with the last sentence.

Hubert ironically clapped his hands. "Splendid, splendid! You ought

to write advertisements; I'm sure the Garden City would pay a big

premium. Title, 'The New Home!'"

He was much too absorbed to notice the hurt look that came over the

other's face. Kenneth Boyd had been expensively educated, as a boy, in

all English ideals. He never had dared, until just now, to show his

Self to any one except his wife. Now, when it was mocked at, he felt a

hideous shame, a terrible resentment. And he had only wished to help

his friend!

Hubert contentedly passed on to the analysis of his own state, a plea

for his own attitude. "I am different, though," he said, "all the

same. You can't understand. My job, for one thing, is so different.

I must be left alone to do it. I _don't_ 'come home,' as you so

poetically put it; I'm there all the time. So would your 'kiddies' be,

and they'd be a damned bore. Just when I was dying to get on with my

new book, they'd be what you call 'keen to see me' and squall if I

wouldn't. Oh, I can see it all. I've too much imagination, far, to

need to marry; I've been through it all a thousand times, without. I

can see my dear wife, as you call her, filthily jealous of my work and

grudging every minute that I took for it. It's all so different for

you fellows who go off to work. You've got your hours of solitude all

free for business and then you come back to tea, if you're a slacker,

as you've just described. But nobody ever believes that novelists do

any work; it's just their hobby in spare moments! Any one may

interrupt and there is no harm done. My dear wife would buzz in and

out and ask me what I liked for lunch.... Oh, yes, I can see it all."

"You've no idea of it at all," said Kenneth Boyd almost passionately in

his deep, sincere-sounding voice.

"And as to loneliness," Hubert went on, utterly ignoring him, "I see

too many people as it is. I'm always booked. I absolutely curse them

sometimes when I feel I haven't seen them for a century and they'll be

getting huffy. Constant companion and all that stuff, indeed? No,

thanks! Shall I tell you _my_ idea of bliss?"

"This, I suppose?" the other asked, waving his pipe-stem pitilessly

around the untidy room, where school football-groups mingled with

Burne-Jones survivals from the Oxford age; where books usurped chairs,

sofa, floor, piano-top; where no intrusive female hand was suffered,

clearly, with methodic duster.

"No," answered Hubert, "though I'm fond of it. It's good enough for me

as home. No, my idea of bliss is just an afternoon when I've no teas,

appointments, duties, anything; when I am really free. Then I put on

my very oldest suit and get out right along the river, Richmond

way--Kew, Putney, anywhere--and stretch my lungs and look at the old

book-shops and enjoy the river. That's when _I_'m happy, you see! I

look at the river, out by Richmond Bridge, broad and festive and the

sun upon it; everything all full of life; and I feel free, and that's

the time I take a deep breath in--or by the sea, of course--and say,

'Thank God that I'm alive!'"

"And thank God you're alone?" his friend enquired. He looked across at

him, no longer by now as at a patient, but as he might have at a

curious specimen inside a labelled bottle.

Hubert was quite pleased to have this opportunity for self-analysis

thrust on him. He liked to be thought peculiar but wished to be

sincere. He reflected a little, then slowly blew out a funnel of smoke

with energy behind it.

"Yes," he said, "and thank God I'm alone."

CHAPTER II

"WHY MEN MARRY"

Hubert shut the door after his visitor with no deep feeling of regret.

He managed to refrain from slamming it.

He was angry still.

Men are peculiar about their troubles. Woman, popularly thought to be

a sieve with secrets, will crush a worry down, grapple silently and

fight with it, nor ever let her very nearest know that it is there.

Perhaps heroic centuries of motherhood have taught her to endure her

own pain with a smile, where she can scarce bear to conceal another's

folly? The man, in any case, is different. Tell him what Mrs. Tomkins

stupidly said about the vicar: he will not breathe it to a living soul.

Quite possibly he will not even listen to the end.... But let him have

some small upset, some crisis where decision must be made, not a big

choice--nothing like those he makes off-hand each day up in his city

office--and you shall see him stripped of his pretence to all reserve

or strength. Long time, like Homeric heroes, he sits tossing thought

hither and thither. Nothing emerges from this exercise: it is a mere

convention. He must think a little: people always do; but he knows

well enough that not this way lies decision. He takes other steps. If

he is a man of few friends, he will risk everything upon a coin's fall.

"Heads I do, and tails I don't," he mutters weakly, groping in his

pocket. Up spins the penny. Heads it is! "Heads I do," he murmurs

once again; and adds, pathetically firm, "But all the same, I don't

think I will." He has been helped to his decision.

If he has friends, he will use one of them in place of the penny.

Every man, almost, has one trusted friend whose advice he does not take

in all moments of perplexity.

Kenneth Boyd stood, so to speak, as Hubert's penny. He always sat and

listened stolidly to his friend's trouble: then he answered "Heads" or

"Tails," as it seemed best to him; went back, braced by the contrast,

to his Hampstead home; and left Hubert to decide whether or no he would

take the spin as final.

In this case, as he sat down, Hubert said to himself with vehemence,

poking the fire fiercely, that he would not. He had asked Kenneth

whether it would be mean to turn Ruth out, as she herself

suggested--and he had at once embarked on a long rigmarole about dear

wives, winter sunsets, kiddies, teapots, and all sorts of things....

With a last jab at the fire he dismissed the interview just over from

his mind and settled down to think. He never ought to have asked that

monomaniac along. He might have guessed what he would say.

Ruth was a nuisance, frankly; she jarred upon him constantly: their

life was one long quarrel nowadays; but--how would solitude affect his

work?

That was the big question.

To Hubert Brett his work was life, and nothing much else counted. He

was a man who valued success less for its achievement than for its

reward. He liked to be pointed out as one who wrote (he often was, in

little country places); he enjoyed meeting men and women whose names

were famous far and wide; he loved press-cuttings, revelled in his

photograph when reproduced, and was almost physically upset when he

received a real old-fashioned, slashing review. To anything of this

sort he always replied, quoting the opinions of some other papers, and

"relying on the editor's sense of justice to give his letter

publicity." Papers, in fact, that liked neither his novels nor his

letters, had ceased to notice the first-named, hoping to avoid the

last: and he was glad of this decision. Letters from unknown readers

were shown to all his friends, who also had the privilege of reading

the longest reviews, left out upon his mantel-piece; though when they

took them up he would always protest, "Oh, that'll bore you: it's only

a few stray press-cuttings." He liked at dinner-parties to sit next

women who had read his books (the dear, kind, tactful sex!), and asked

him how he wrote. He had, in fact, published his first book under a

pseudonym (his father, as a clergyman, naturally objecting to the real

name being used), but found that no one recognised him as the author

under his own different name. He therefore, on his father's death, had

paid some pounds and taken the name Brett permanently as his own for

ordinary use. His sister, who was like most women in being petulant as

to trifles but mild about the things that matter, had submitted from

being Ruth Brettesley to become mere Ruth Brett. Now, when he dined

out, Hubert often found that women next him would ask if he was "the

author." It never had occurred to him, of course, that they were

coached by an ideal hostess.

It may be well imagined, then, that he now hesitated before taking any

step that might affect his very methodical arrangements about writing.

His sister, once thrown over (he told himself), would never return.

She would marry or something. Women were like cats: they always did.

She would not stray about uncomfortably until he wanted her again. No;

she would make a home: and he, as the years went on, would find himself

alone....

He had lit a pipe, and drew at it mechanically, but he was far too rapt

to taste it. Kenneth Boyd's words on that one point had certainly gone

home. His eyes fixed on a glowing cavern of red embers, he saw unroll

before him a grisly panorama of the days to be.

He could see himself, bereft of Ruth's care, moving to a bachelor flat

where they "did for" one; happy enough perhaps, at first, in solitude,

and working well--happy and working until illness came. Then he saw

the change. Ruth, he admitted, had been quite splendid--like her old

self--when he had been ill. That was when you wanted a woman about....

Then, as Kenneth had said, he would grow older. He could see himself

climbing, more and more shakily each year, the long flight to his flat;

too settled far by now to move even to a lower floor. He could see the

porters and people saluting--oh, so respectfully!--till he was past,

and then imitating his old, broken shuffle. He could see himself

turning on with fumbling hands the light he used to switch on so gaily

as he dashed in thirty years ago. He could see himself all alone at

night, when it was too cold for an old man to walk about and no one

wanted him; sitting there with weary eyes tight closed, thinking of the

friends that he would like to see, the friends all dead or--married....

And finally he could see himself climb those stairs, so full of

memories, for the last time, and stagger in for the last time to that

small room where he had had such jolly parties in the years gone by,

and ring and have just strength to gasp out, "I must have a doctor."

Yes, and that old wreck lying there, alone but for a nurse he hated,

longing for sympathy, love--even Ruth's!--yes, that too would be him.

And then----

For one moment the knock on his door startled him. He was like a small

child who, waked suddenly, continues a bad dream. He thought that they

had come with that cheap, humble coffin which he had just seen borne up

the long stairs.... He very nearly cried out, "Bring it in," not

realising that he was the corpse.

"Why, it's you, Ruth!" he cried in vague annoyance.

"Of course it is," she laughed. "Who else would it be, you stupid boy?

Perhaps you mean, though, you don't want me?"

"Of course I always want you, old girl." This hideous geniality, he

felt, was the worst part of their whole constant warfare, recalling by

an empty mockery that they had once been such devoted chums; still

could be, possibly, if they were only parted. "I'm not working," he

added almost grudgingly, as though he wished he had got that excuse.

But Ruth, indecision personified, still hovered restlessly in

mid-carpet. "Are you quite sure you're not, Hugh?" she said. "If you

_are_, do say so. I've been alone all the evening till now, so it

won't hurt me to go on like that till bedtime. I am used to it, you

see!" and she smiled patiently.

Hubert looked at her, wondering why she possessed this curious gift of

annoying him. Did she try, or was she really meaning to be kind? Her

face, set and hard already, gave no hint. She smiled with her lips but

her eyes did not light up. There was something tragic in her looks.

She was not ugly, yet she meant absolutely nothing. She was just a

passable statue, into which the artist had failed somehow to put any

life. She smiled doggedly with her lips, and she clearly was not

happy. She had never lived.

She went on wanly smiling reassurance at him, as one who should say, "I

am not to be considered," till he schooled his voice to answer.

Whatever happened, he would not have another scene on this night which

seemed in some way big with a decision.

"It'll be nice to have a little chat, old girl," he said genially.

"Sit down and make yourself comfy."

She moved timidly towards an armchair with the mien of a scolded,

nervous child. "If you're quite, quite sure?" she quavered. "I wish I

felt certain you hadn't been just thinking you would settle down, now

Mr. Boyd had gone. I should be absolutely happy with my Patience."

"Boyd was in great form," Hubert answered. He could not trust himself

to assure her further.

"What did he say then?" and she let herself down into the chair

staidly. She was not like a woman of thirty-eight. Women of

thirty-eight nowadays are young, almost unfashionably young, and Ruth

was pathetically old. She had given her youth to her mother: she was

prepared to lavish the rest of life upon her brother, asking in return

nothing except that he would not be what she tearfully and often called

unkind to her.

"Say?" answered Hubert, far more comfortably. "What didn't he say? My

dear Ruth, I've had a classic homily on Marriage!"

Ruth stiffened visibly. "Marriage? Then I suppose you asked him in to

give you his advice?"

"Really," said Hubert in another voice, "I imagine you can't object,

now, to what I ask my pals in for?--supposing that I did."

She smoothed all that kind of thing away with a restful gesture.

"My dear boy, you know I've no objection, as you call it, to anything

at all you do. You are a man. I'm only your guest. I've no right to

object. But I am naturally interested. Of course, though, if you'd

rather not tell me what Mr. Boyd said"--she paused, "we'll talk of

something else."

"No we won't," cried Hubert, with a sudden passion. "I'm sick to death

of all this constant friction."

"Friction!" and she raised her eyebrows ever so slightly. Otherwise

her sad face remained expressionless, but her hands clasped each other

tensely under an old-fashioned shawl.

"Yes, friction. That's the only word. You know, Ruth, I don't want to

be a brute. You know what pals we were as kids, what pals we still

are" (he forced the words out), "and that's why I intend to have it

out. It isn't good enough. You know what a row we had over dinner.

_That's_ why I asked Boyd along. How do you expect a man to write when

he's just had a row that's brought his soul red-hot into his throat?

And you weren't very cheery company! So naturally I asked Boyd in. I

often do that or go out myself or else pretend to work, because I

simply can't endure your company a moment longer."

And now his sister leapt up to her feet. When she came to life it was

always sudden.

"Hubert!" she cried in tearful reproach. She only called him Hubert at

such moments.

He signalled her down without any ceremony.

"For goodness' sake," he said, and it was nearly stronger, "don't let's

have a row." He took a moment to calm himself and then said levelly,

"Look here, old girl, I want to thrash this matter out once and for

all. It's no use killing love in this world, is it? It's rare enough,

God knows. We've been such good pals, you and I, and now we are--like

this." He pointed at her, and she fell back dully on her chair.

"We don't mean it really," she said, fumbling for her handkerchief.

Hubert spoke seriously. "We do, though. Anyhow, we should in time.

It's just like other habits. It grows. It grows quickly, too. We

never used to fight at all, you know."

"_I_ never fight now," she protested, very near to tears. "I've always

given in."

Poor, timid, self-sacrificing Ruth never could understand what her

brother's tempers were about. She tried so hard not to stand up

against him!

"Oh, damn!" cried Hubert, and strode madly up and down the room.

It was all very futile, quite familiar.

She looked as pained as usual. "What is it, Hugh?" she gently asked.

"Of course you've given in," he flung at her. "You always do. You're

always in the right: you are so keen to be! You wouldn't make me cross

for worlds! It's just your damned humility I can't endure. No man on

earth could possibly endure it."

"I can't help my nature," she sobbed into her handkerchief. "I do my

best to please you. I try to fall into your ways, I'm sure."

Hubert came up to her presently and touched her on the shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Ruth," he said. "It was my fault. I lost my temper. I

was a cad to swear but somehow--oh, I don't know," and he sank down

upon the chair again. "I suppose really it's just what Boyd has often

said, brother and sister weren't ever made to live together. He says

all relatives have a natural antipathy to one another and----"

"I'm sure _I_ haven't," interrupted Ruth.

This time he ignored her. "It's all so difficult," he said in a new

tone, as though embarking upon an analysis. "I know you're wanting

just to please me, Ruth; you are an awfully good sort; you'll make

somebody a splendid wife some day; but just because you are my sister,

I suppose, I get annoyed when you begin asking whether you can come in

and saying you don't want to if----"

"You'd be much more annoyed if I came in without," said Ruth, with an

unwonted spirit.

Hubert rose to the attack. "You mean it's just my nature, and not you?

I'd get annoyed whichever way it was? I'm just a selfish sort of

cross-grained swine?"

"I didn't say so, you _know_ I didn't; you're simply twisting my words

round."

Grown men and women, by some odd irony, are never nearer childhood than

when in a temper. Hubert realised abruptly how ridiculous it was.

Once more he dropped his voice and dragged the conversation with a

wrench back to the point at issue.

"I was only telling you," he said with dignity, "what Boyd said, as you

asked to know. He said all this"--once more he waved his hand--"was a

mistake, and that I ought to marry."

He threw it out at her like a threat at a naughty child. She would not

like it if he took her at her word and really turned her out.

But even sisters can surprise a man. "Oh Hugh," she cried, forgetting

all their differences, "do you mean you are really thinking----? Only,

do let it be some one really nice, who'll make you as happy as you

deserve to be."

He was too flustered to feel touched. "But wouldn't you mind?" he

asked; and in spite of his efforts, surprise appeared in it.

"Mind?" She came across to him, sat on his chair-arm, and took his

hand in hers. "How little you know me, old boy, really! Of course I

shouldn't mind. You must never, never consider me at all! Do you

imagine I expect you to remain a bachelor your whole life long, just to

look after me? I shall find work to do or something; and anyhow, what

is my life by the side of your career?"

Hubert at moments felt a brute, and this was one of them. He knew that

he should thank her, kiss her, yet he could do neither. He found

himself wondering in a dazed, abstract way, as often in these past

years, whether she was really genuine or whether it was just a woman's

bluff to make him feel his shaft had fallen short. If she was quite

sincere, he felt almost aggrieved. The end of their long life together

seemed to mean so little to her....

"No," he said automatically, not realising how inadequate it was; and

then, "Well, old girl, I really think perhaps _now_ I ought to work."

He patted her hand in a perfunctory way as he released his own from it.

"We've had our little chat and it's your bedtime, I am sure."

"Yes," answered Ruth, and hesitated.

"Hugh," she said presently, "aren't I to know who it is?" Her tone was

more patient than aggrieved, but he read something of the other into it.

"Who what is?" he replied, although he guessed her meaning.

"Who you think of marrying. Who's suddenly put the idea into your

head." She waited a few moments; then, as he said nothing, she added

almost slyly, "Well, I think I know! I've not forgotten Devonshire

yet, and what a lot there was in your letters about Miss--Miss--I

forget her name."

"Oh, that Miss Hallam, you mean," came the icy answer.

It chilled even her exuberance. Her rare gaiety died quickly, and she

looked the martyr once again.

"I see you don't mean to tell me," she said. "Very well. Of course I

had no right to ask. I thought you'd like to let me know." She

sighed. "I wish men weren't so terribly reserved."

"And I wish," he retorted, "that women weren't so horribly imaginative."

But she had shut the door. She always went abruptly, never said good

night. He had told her, long ago, that those words broke up his

evening and made him think of bed instead of work.

To-night indeed, after her going, although he had said he must do some

writing, he sat quietly where he had been and gazed into the fire. He

was not, however, thinking about bed. He was wondering whether all

women were so crude and vulgar with their brothers. Ruth was the last

person who would ever have said that about Miss Hallam to anybody else.

Just because he chanced to write and say that he had met a jolly sort

of girl...!

It is a stale truism about good advice, that most natures must reject

it before they see their way to its acceptance. Self-pride demands

that it shall be their own idea.

Just as Hubert had scoffed at his friend's idea of loneliness, which

now indeed seemed such a ghastly spectre, so did he next work slowly

back to the very words of his sister that had angered him the most.

For by now his mental questioning had spread across a chasm dreaded for

long years and flaunted itself gaily in a narrow field.

The first step was so clear by now.

Of course he had sworn always that he would not marry, but that was

true of the past only. One changed every now and then.... He was at

the age when one grew lonely, when one naturally married. Sisters were

a big mistake. He could not endure year after year of silly quarrels

like the one just past. With a wife he would start fresh. She

wouldn't irritate him like Ruth: he wouldn't see through all her

motives; they need not fight for years.... Besides, he must find some

one less irritating, less selfish, than Ruth.... And as to Ruth, she

said herself that she was game to go. She probably preferred it. The

whole thing was her own suggestion.... Yes, she was right; they

certainly could not go on like this. Yet if she went--that loneliness

when he got old, was ill...! Kenneth had talked a lot of drivel but he

probably was right about stagnation. He found, himself, his work was

getting stale.... And then the help that she----

But who?

Hubert flung himself across the chasm, refusing doggedly to see it, and

found himself, flushed and excited, in the little field beyond.

Who could he marry, possibly? The question lent quite a new thrill to

life. It was a big adventure, even if one never did it....

He hated clever women. He was sure of that. Hated them, at any rate,

as wives. Mrs. Kenneth Boyd was one, and when he dined with them, she

always waited till he had thrown out a theory, quite impromptu,

possibly exaggerated rather, about something, and then said, "Really,

Mr. Brett? But how unusual!" or something of the sort. No, he could

not bear that. He thought that type an insult to his sex. He liked a

woman to be rather silly--well, not that quite--no, but shallow. He

liked her to have not too many views herself: he hated suffragettes and

things, of course; but just to have the brains to understand one's own

ideas. That was where the girl Ruth had mentioned was so splendid.

She saw the fun of things; she even saw the fun of her name, Helena

Hallam; but also she could enter into the plot of a book directly you

had told it her, and be immensely interested in hearing about people

you met at the Authors' Club. She was almost too ignorant, of

course--knew nothing about life--but her naïve remarks amused him: so

what did it matter?

That really was the sort of woman he would like to marry. Some one who

would be interested in his work but know she hadn't got the brain to

interfere; some one who'd look on his work-hours as sacred, because

given to a thing she couldn't do to save her very life.

Ruth was annoying about that, and silly. If he read her out a chapter,

she would usually say, "I think it's quite good, old boy; but I never

feel you're made for fiction. I suppose essays never sell, though, and

plays are quite impossible?" It was too stupid. She had said that

even about _Wandering Stars_, which had sold close upon five thousand

copies! Not--of course--that he valued his novels according to their

sales....

The girl in Devonshire had been so different. He smiled, recalling her

simplicity. She had thought him so clever to write, even before she

had seen a word of it! And when he read her out a chapter, she wanted

to know just how long it had taken him, asked to see how much he had

corrected, and clearly looked upon the whole thing as a miracle.

Thinking of her now he had a curiously vital image of her personality.

She was so fresh, so natural, so unspoilt, so splendidly a thing of

life. She had never been to London. How she would love to see it; how

gorgeous it would be to show! How different from taking out Ruth, who

always said that the streets smelt of petrol and she had neuralgia and

wished they could live in the country, but of course _he_ must choose!

How different altogether! How different when the lights were lit and

curtains drawn! He still remembered how she sat, with one foot

underneath her body, and smiled through those curiously bright eyes, as

though always contentedly awaiting the next jolly thing that life could

not possibly fail to bestow upon her. Ruth was so hideously gloomy and

apologetic. She expected the worst but she never minded.

Yes, there was no doubt that was just the sort of sensible, unsloppy,

cheerful girl that he would like to marry. She would be nice to have

about the house. She wouldn't want the vote or anything. She thought

so much of his work that she would never grumble, like Ruth, if he had

a long bout at it. She'd take up needle-work or something. She had

such a happy nature. And then at nights they'd sit and have great,

jolly, sociable talks beside the fire, and he'd read out his books to

her. Possibly, now and then, she would see some mistake--not in the

book itself, but in a woman's dress or something: women were so good at

details--and he would learn a lot, as Kenneth said, from seeing how her

refreshingly simple mind regarded things. And then--she was a

child--they would play games and laugh and roast chestnuts and all that

sort of thing. He could imagine quite a jolly evening. The past hour

seemed like a nightmare by the side of it.

He got up and mixed a whisky and soda.

Really by now he wished he had thought of all this in Devonshire! He

had said to himself then, watching her, that somebody someday would be

a lucky man--the girl was so herself, somehow. But it had not occurred

to him that he could be the man.

Now, probably, he would never see the Hallams again. Mrs. Hallam, of

course, had said they must meet soon in London, but every one always

said that and it was five weeks now since his return. He had not,

naturally, ever written.

Of course--there was another thrill in this idea--he could go down to

Devonshire again with any false excuse trumped up; but even as this

came into his head, his fatally quick fancy, over-exercised, saw him

proposing to Miss Hallam, pouring out the sentimental stuff that a

love-scene demanded; perhaps--who knows?--even feeling bound to kneel

in the manner beloved of conventional romance!

Then, with a swift gesture, he suddenly drained his whisky and soda to

its dregs, put the glass down jauntily as men do on the stage, and

walked, feeling younger than for ten whole years, to his writing-desk.

He gave a happy laugh as he took out some paper.

For he had got a great idea. He was going to propose to Miss Hallam on

paper! He was going to write it all down and see if it looked awful

rubbish.... He was enjoying himself to-night in a quite new way.

"DEAR MISS HALLAM," he began and added "My" in front. Then as he saw

the meaning that might bear he laughed again. He knew it was not right

just now to laugh, and marked it as an interesting fact. Then, nervous

of detection, he took a new sheet and started--

"MY DEAR MISS HALLAM,

"You will be surprised to hear from me.

"The fact of the matter is--I find myself getting very bald now that I

really have to use my pen for something that matters!--I have been

thinking a lot of my jolly days in Devonshire, the tennis, the

sea-walks, the picnics, everything with all of you, and (if I'm allowed

to say it) especially with _you_ yourself."

Here he leant back and read what he had written. It was not literature

but he felt satisfied. He took up his pen again and wrote--

"I don't know that it's usual, but I am rather reserved and not too

romantic, so that I am _writing_ to ask whether you could think of

being my wife. There has never been any one in my whole life of whom I

have thought as I have thought of you these last five weeks. I could

never tell you how I feel in words, and I see now that I can't on

paper, but if you think in any way that you could grow fond of me, I am

convinced that we could be immensely happy. I don't know that I have

much to offer you; but if you talk to your mother about this, as no

doubt you will, you must assure her that I can give you a comfortable

home and that I hope, as the years go by, to make myself something of a

name.

"I will say no more now. I shouldn't have dared say so much, if I had

not thought that we got on rather well last month, and that if you did

not welcome this letter, you would at any rate be able to forgive it.

"Yours,

"HUBERT BRETT."

It was not certainly at all like any of the love-letters that he had

written in fiction or read in the police-reports; but he had not

inwardly approved of either. This seemed to him quite adequate. She

was the sort of girl who wouldn't care for sentiment. He honestly

believed she would write back sensibly and just say "Yes."

It is to be remarked that no question remained as to posting the letter

or not, so soon as it was finished. He had begun it to see how it

looked: now he felt that it was something fated. He must see what

happened. Without waiting even to put on a hat, he hurried out to an

adjacent pillar-box and dropped the letter in with hardly more emotion

than if it had been an ordinary bill.

* * * * *

Going up to bed, without repentance for the night's wild work, and in

fact oddly calm for any one in his position, he heard a curious noise

inside his sister's room.

He stopped and listened at the door.

She was obviously sobbing.

Hubert suddenly felt softened towards her. So she cared, after all!

She felt the separation after these long years!

Had he sometimes wronged her? Had he been impatient? Was she really

fond of him; trying to consult his wishes and not to irritate him? Was

he growing selfish?...

He very nearly tapped and went in to console her. Then he reflected

that she almost certainly would engineer another scene, and that always

gave him a bad night.

CHAPTER III

"WHY WOMEN WED"

Helena had never thought much about marriage. There was no reason

indeed why she should, for she was young and to her it still appeared,

like death to a small child, as something she was sure to reach some

day but need not worry with just now.

She was, in fact, nineteen, but her ideas were those of nineteen fifty

years ago or of fourteen to-day. Devonshire, for one thing, has slept

on in its soft air, not much disturbed by any modern turmoil; and for

another, Helena's mother had ideas. These, briefly put, consisted in

not letting her daughter have any.

It is, however, only human, from Eve downwards, to defy authority and

search for knowledge. Helena, knowing that it was her lot to marry,

naturally felt some interest in the habit. Whenever she came on

allusions to it, she stocked them in her brain, all in a healthy and

quite natural way, wondering in an abstract manner whether it would be

thus or thus with her. She never dared to talk about it to her mother.

She had once mentioned her own hypothetic marriage, only to be told

that girls did not speak of such things in fun, and it would be quite

time enough when the occasion rose, and had she given the canary its

clean water?

Mrs. Hallam was a loving mother with stern theories. Her own childhood

had been a season of repression, yet she was satisfied enough with her

morals as opposed to those of many round her. She intended, therefore,

to repeat the process. She had no patience--this was her favourite

expression--with the licence of young girls to-day: the manner in which

they read any novel, went to any play. She had no patience with this

rubbish about ignorance not being innocence. Of course it was; or if

it wasn't, it had very much the same result, and that was everything.

Girls read these trashy novels and got a notion that grown men and

women spent their whole lives falling in and out of love. They

naturally tried it and began flirtation as a sort of duty. If a girl

knew nothing, she did not know what to do. If she had no notion what

flirtation meant, she clearly couldn't do it--especially if she saw no

men till she was safely beyond her teens.

In any case, till she was twenty, Helena had no plays, novels, or

man-friends. Her reading was all lives, histories, and comic papers.

Her days were spent with relatives or younger friends, when she was not

alone.

She grew up an oddly fine tribute to the system, thus underlining the

depressing axiom which comes at length to all who study education: that

those who are going to be nice will turn out nice, whatever way you

train their youth, and much the same about the nasty. She was simple,

healthy, buoyant, cheerful, natural; everything that Hubert thought.

And who shall blame her if she was a little immature?

Hubert's letter was a real excitement in her cloistered life.

She had enjoyed her meeting with him. Men were a novelty, and to her

an author was still that thing of wonder which he appeared to a

suburban hostess twenty years ago. She thought him marvellously clever

at first sight, and rather alarming. Later, she thought him easy to

get on with and amusing. He played tennis well, liked finding crabs,

and Mother did not seem to mind them talking. It was quite a jolly

change. She finally thought him a dear and missed him when he left for

Town.

And now--this letter!

Nothing ever could be less expected. She read it and re-read, not

knowing really what she ought to do. She was just as excited and

laughed as gaily as he one day before--vaguely infected, no less, with

a thrill of irresponsible adventure.

Now, indeed, was the moment to collect all the vague tit-bits she had

garnered as to marriage and fit them into a connected whole. She knew

so little, really, of this thing that he suggested, and Mother, she

knew, would not help her. The comic papers were curious about it.

They looked on all men who married as fools, sure to repent; all women

who didn't as ludicrously tragic. The old maid was a figure to be as

much mocked and pitied as the old bachelor was to be envied.

Well, if this were so, it must be jolly hard for women to find a man

who would marry! (Logic teaches that absurd premises will often lead

to sensible conclusions.)

She knew vaguely that one Asked Mamma. There was a book even called

that in the old locked case in the big library. She also knew,

however, that she must battle this thing out herself. Her mother would

say no; what nonsense! Of that she felt sure. It was for her, then,

to decide.

Lock up your Danäe, stern mothers, in all the towers that man's wit may

devise; yet if she is born with a strong resolve knit on her pudgy,

slobbered, baby face, you cannot possibly prevail. You battle with the

forces of uncounted Time.

Mrs. Hallam sat happily in her white drawing-room and read the new

_Queen_, while Helena, up in her bedroom, wrestled with the letter

which her mother luckily had not seen arrive.

Of course it would be a big change, she supposed? Home was a bit dull,

but she had got quite used to it and one knew what to do. Having a

house must be an awful business, and yet--rather thrilling! Probably

Mr. Brett would make a big name; he was so immensely clever; and then

they'd have a great big house, and she'd ask Mother as a guest and give

her all the things she liked and said she never got in her own house!

She laughed at the idea. The whole thing was tremendously amusing.

As Hubert had thought, she was laudably unsloppy. Mrs. Hallam had

never let her guess that there was any sentiment in the whole world

beyond maternal love. That was the heart's whole duty for a girl who

was an only child that had not even seen her father.

Yes, summing it all up, she really felt the chief thing was about women

having to marry or else be a joke, whereas men were a huge lark if they

did. Imagine if, in all her life, she never met another man who would

be fool enough! Home was very nice, of course, but horribly

monotonous. She might read novels now, oh yes; the ones that Mother

chose; but it was just the others that she longed to read. She felt

vaguely (for self-development is among the instincts natural to Man),

that there was something being _kept_ from her. She had not been

meant, ever, to remain so ignorant. She felt that Mr. Brett would not

wish to keep her back in the way Mother had. Besides, if she remained

at home, some day her mother would die, and she be left--that dreaded

thing--an old maid, all alone, for every one to mock. Nobody would

want her then! Wouldn't it be awful to feel you had thrown away a

chance that lots of women, she had gathered, never got? Fancy being

Helena Hallam, that absurd name, all your life! H. H., one of her

uncles had called her stupidly, and she had said then that it sounded

like poor Miss Jowett in the village, whom everyone called "old J. J.,"

because her name was Jane. Oh yes, she would end at last as old H.

H.--poor old H. H.--pottering about in her prim little garden with an

antiquated, rat-like dog dragging itself crookedly along behind her.

All the village poor would be so sorry when she died.

She shuddered at the thought. She always wanted to put poor J. J.'s

old dog, the one with the pink satin bow, out of its misery. It would

be kind, she knew. She could with the air-gun, but Mother had seemed

really shocked.

She suddenly decided at this point that her thoughts had become

depressing and not really helpful towards a decision. Without giving

herself time to feel alarmed, she rose abruptly and went to the

drawing-room.

She knew instinctively she must be firm.

This was the first thing ever that had really mattered, mattered to

_her_ as a separate person with a life to live, and she believed she

knew already what she ought to do. She would listen, of course, to

Mother's views--she owed that from a real love and gratitude--but she

would not be bullied any longer.

She entered the room feeling herself in some way on a different

footing. The latent, undeveloped thing that would be Helena had surged

towards birth at a mere spark from the outer world.

"Mother," she began, quite simply, "I've had a letter from Mr. Brett.

He has asked me to marry him and I think I rather shall."

Mrs. Hallam dropped her _Queen_. She did not often find herself

surprised.

"You've what, dear?" she asked blankly. Then not waiting for any

reply, "What do you know about marriage, my dear child? What do you

know about Mr. Brett?"

"I don't want to be an old maid," answered Helena, playing her best

card at once.

Mrs. Hallam met it with a scornful laugh. "Old maid!" she cried.

"That is a preposterous idea you've got out of your comic papers."

"They're all I've ever read, histories and them," Helena said mildly;

raising who shall say how many bitter doubts in the breast of a

theorist.

"You're nothing but a child, my darling girl," the mother said more

gently; "and even if you weren't, there's no disgrace in being what you

call an old maid. Some of the world's best women have been that.

You've got to think of far more serious matters than that before you

can possibly decide on such a step as marriage;" and searching

frantically for objections which she felt sure must exist, she fell

back on her first thought. "What do you know about Mr. Brett?"

"I liked him better than any of the men I've met."

"You've not met _any_ yet," snapped Mrs. Hallam; she had no patience

with this nonsensical idea. Then, as her girl was silent, she realised

that here too she had flung out a taunt mainly against her own theories.

Mrs. Hallam loved Helena with real devotion, and it was a torture now

to feel that possibly her care had all been a mistake; had all been

shipwrecked by the unexpected action of an extraordinary man. She knew

for a fact--she had taken care--that she and he had not indulged in any

sentimental rubbish. Mr. Brett had seemed to hate all that, and she

had for this very reason asked him round so often. Helena and he had

been like boy and girl, brother and sister, playing games or finding

their dear jelly-fish and crabs together, whilst he had talked to her

in just the way to broaden her views out a bit yet not stretch them too

far. And now----!

It really was provoking. The silly girl--all girls were silly--would

of course exalt him into the fine figure of her first love, the real

man for her, the man that she was not allowed to marry....

Mrs. Hallam, always frail and white, seemed to shrink visibly beneath

this trouble. She held out a thin hand to the puzzled Helena, and drew

her down beside her on the sofa.

"Look here, dear," she said gently; "I want to talk seriously to you.

Life isn't so easy as you think. I've kept you here, safe from all

worries and responsibilities and guarded you so that everything has

seemed quite simple; but there _are_ worries and responsibilities.

You've got to live your life now, you see, Helena, and you will have to

learn the habit of making quick choices whether you go this way or

that. Life is full of cross-roads, you will find, and not all of them

lead right. You can't marry the first man you meet just because he

asks you to. Later on you might meet some one who, you would then see,

is the man you ought to have married.... I don't want to put such

terrible ideas into your head, dear child; I've never spoken to you of

them, but such things have occurred and may occur again."

Helena was really quite excited. This was the first, almost, she had

ever heard of life and it seemed utterly tremendous. She was tired of

having choices made for her. She felt a call to the cross-roads. She

waited silently for more.

"You see, dear," went on Mrs. Hallam, pressing her child to her as

though she could not at all afford to let her go and be left all alone,

"you're young, very young, and though I've never told you, very

beautiful. You need not fear about being an old maid!" whereat, half

laughing and half crying, she kissed Helena, too dazed almost to

respond. "That will be possibly life's most important choice. Don't

make it, darling child, until you're fit for it. Stay with me," and

there was a pathetic appeal in her words, "stay with me till I've

taught you how to be reliant. You are a child still; I've kept you

young; I hope I have been right; you're not fit to go out and grapple

with the world. Stay with me, Helena; tell Mr. Brett that he must

wait, and stay here, in your home, until I've made you strong enough to

take your part in life."

"Stay here?" Helena repeated automatically.

For one brief moment the barred gates had swung open and she had gained

a glimpse at life, its dangers and responsibilities perhaps, but all

its splendid thrill and glorious chance. The few cold words from her

prim mother had conjured up a rich glowing picture to this girl, who

for years had chafed at the narrow round, longing for something--she

knew not what, but something broader, something where she could be much

more herself--longing, she knew now, for freedom and for life.

Mrs. Hallam looked at her with pain in her eyes.

"Aren't you happy, haven't you been happy here?" she asked.

"Why of course I have, you dearest of dear old mums," cried Helena, and

pressed her lips against her mother's cheek; "but----," and she

hesitated.

"But----?" asked her mother, smiling sadly. How ridiculous, how almost

tragic, it all was! She threw back her mind to her own first romance

and wondered where the man was now. "But----? Tell me, dear. I shall

quite understand and I am sure you need not feel afraid of me!"

Helena thought deeply. Words were so difficult.

"But----," she said once again; and then, suddenly inspired, she

started rapidly; "Well, it is what you said just now. I--I _must_ live

my own life. I want--I want to grow. I've not grown since I was

fifteen. I felt so silly, like a child, when I was talking to--to Mr.

Brett, and I am twenty now." She said this most imposingly.

"And so," said Mrs. Hallam, trying not to smile, "you want to marry Mr.

Brett because he made you feel so silly when you talked to him?"

Helena flushed, still sensitive to ridicule. "I want to marry Mr.

Brett," she said with dignity, "because he is clever, and being a fool,

I admire cleverness more than anything in the whole world, and I

believe _he'd_ let me expand."

"Do you mean I have kept you back?" asked her mother, in low, earnest

tones. She had accused herself.

"No, you've been splendid." Helena patted her hand. "No girl ever had

such a good mother.... And now you are going to be good about this

too, and not be troublesome and try to keep me here!" She jumped up

and stood facing her, excitement and expectancy.

Mrs. Hallam was suddenly conscious of her weakness.

It had been so easy to be strong when she was dealing with a child--and

she had kept Helena a child. Now, in this moment, she realised that

she was dealing with a woman, a woman of a stronger will. Something,

Mr. Brett perhaps, had altered Helena. Even her way of talking had

changed in an instant.

"Expand" and "troublesome"----! She looked up and saw before her no

longer an obedient child, but a girl almost bursting with the desire to

live at nearly any cost.

Mrs. Hallam was naturally alarmed. She knew that any contest of the

wills was useless. She fell back upon pathos.

"Helena dear," she said weakly, "you're twenty now. I don't want to

dictate to you, to treat you as a child. You have the right, as you

say, to live your own life. But do you think it right," and now her

voice grew very feeble, very plaintive, "after I've done all I have for

you, not to think of me at all?"

"What do you mean?" asked Helena with quite an emphasis upon the second

word. She felt a dim mistrust of this new tone. She had been kindlier

to opposition, for indeed at the moment she almost longed to fight.

Mrs. Hallam, anxious to explain, to justify once and for all, began

again at the beginning.

"All these years, dear child, though you did not, could not of course

guess it, I've been moulding you according to a theory of my own; not a

new theory but what is far better, one that has stood the test of

centuries. I wanted to form your character, your will, before you were

brought face to face with life. That process is not quite complete

yet, although you seem to think it is." She spoke the last words

rather bitterly, then with a sudden change to gentleness, went on, "But

even if it had been, do you think that when I've given up the best

years of my life to you, it is fair for you to dash away, leaving me

alone, and not to give me the reward of spending a few pleasant years

with the dear child I have helped to form?"

She smiled lovingly, but Helena looked coldly back at her. It was the

other's point of view, to her, which was not fair.

"I don't see that," she answered almost fiercely, surprised at her own

words, oddly unlike herself of one hour ago and many years before.

"_That's_ not living your own life a bit. _You_ didn't give those best

years of your life to your mother. I shall often see you, and I expect

you did yours. You gave the best years of your life to your daughter,

you say, and I want to give my best years to mine."

Mrs. Hallam loathed excitement, thinking it bad form; but now she

raised her voice. "My dear!" she cried. "Where did you get these most

extraordinary notions? Was it from this Mr. Brett?"

"You said you liked all his ideas so much," laughed Helena, "and yet

you're shocked because I want to marry him!"

"There is a difference, dear," retorted Mrs. Hallam, her calmness

regained, "between liking a man's ideas and caring for him as a

son-in-law."

Helena, however, in her new mood wanted something more direct than

generalities. "What have you got against him then?" she flashed.

Mrs. Hallam spread her thin hands soothingly. "Nothing, dear,

absolutely nothing. Do not let us have a scene. I thought him a

charming man; possibly rather self-centred, but clever, cultured, and

with, I am sure, good motives. I feel certain he will do extremely

well. If you had wished to marry him in five years--but at

twenty----!" She spoke as though it were fourteen.

"Well," remarked Helena slowly, as though reviewing the whole situation

from impartial ground, "I suppose the wedding won't be to-morrow.

Don't you usually wait a bit?"

Her mother noticed that there was no hypothesis--no "wouldn't

be"--about it. She saw no good in a conflict. The girl was twenty,

the man probably twelve or more years older; there was nothing, she

almost regretfully admitted, to be said against him; they had seemed

good chums. Most mothers would have been delighted, for he was making

himself a name as a novelist. Yet she was not, for he had come with

this preposterously worded letter to wreck all her plans. She had

thought him so safe, from the mere fact that he had no romance or

sentiment about him. He was so safe, yes, for Helena; a real platonic

friendship; opening her eyes a little to the bigger world outside, but

altogether to be trusted not to put ridiculous ideas into her head. He

was the first man with whom she had ever trusted Helena at all alone,

and now----!

"Mother," laughed Helena, suddenly clasping her fondly round the neck,

"I can see from your cross face you _do_ mean to be troublesome! Now

just be good instead and say that we may be at any rate engaged? It

will be such fun, and we can see then how we feel about it."

Mrs. Hallam by now knew with all certainty that she was weak. She felt

a vague sense of relief that Helena had asked permission; at one moment

she had not expected that.... If she refused it, what would be the

end? Possibly elopement, suicide, or some other of those awful means

that modern girls employed so freely.... Whereas if she said yes, she

still retained her grip as mother and might use what authority she had

to disillusion slowly this girl, who looked on her engagement as mere

fun.

"Very well, my own dear daughter," she said and suddenly found herself

crying.

To Helena also things had turned out otherwise than she expected. She

had not ever thought that she would get her mother's leave. For one

moment it was almost a shock! She felt suddenly thrust out beyond

recall upon a journey all mysterious to her. She was not sure, now,

that she ever meant to do more than assert her right to do just as she

wanted.

Did she want to marry Hubert Brett? She was not really sure.

She wanted certainly to get away from Home....

Five more years of this--that was what her mother hinted at--five more

years of being ignorant, of seeing no one, knowing nothing about

anything that mattered, being just your mother's daughter--five more

wasted years!...

So that, after having dried her mother's tears and told her, very

truly, how much she had always and would always love her, she hurried

upstairs to her writing-desk with quite a new sensation of life being a

most vital and palpitating thing. Her days had been all terribly

alike: this was so different and thrilling!

The only thing was--how did one begin?

She wished she had asked Mother. She couldn't very well go down and

ask her now. Besides, she might just change her mind.

"Mr." looked so stiff like that; yet she did not like, quite, to call

him Hubert yet.

She gave a little laugh of excitement. What fun it all was! She

wondered if other people felt like this, when they were getting

married. They probably knew all about it?

Oh yes, of course; she'd go by his letter....

But no; because when _he_ wrote they were not engaged!

So finally she thought it best to leave a blank and start straight off--

"I really don't know at all what I ought to say. I am no good at

letters and this is very difficult, but I too enjoyed all our walks and

things, and if you really want to marry me I don't see why we shouldn't

be engaged. I liked you very much down here and hope I shall make you

happy. Mother doesn't seem very keen about it, I think she thinks I am

too young though I am twenty, but she has given her consent and will, I

am sure, come round to it, so don't worry.

"I'm afraid you'll think this letter very stupid, but you know how

ashamed I always was of my ignorance. I seem to know nothing! It is

very nice indeed of any one like you to care for me.

"Yours,

"HELENA HALLAM.

"P.S.--You won't be able to tease me any more about my name,

afterwards!"

Perhaps to any real anthologist or expert of love-letters this would

seem but little better than the attempt it answered; yet if success

must be judged by results, it cannot have been much amiss, since for

the first time in his life Hubert Brett was melted to a display of

ridiculous emotion. "Dear little girl!" he murmured aloud and kissed

the last words before her signature.

As for Helena, having run out to the village and posted the letter

unread by her mother--a cause of yet further misgiving to the

theorist--she began to wonder ever so little whether she had done quite

wisely.

From somewhere (who can say whence, since some things are inborn in

Man?) she had got the notion, possibly ridiculous, that courting and

proposals were quite different from this. Even in the Lives and comic

papers men knelt and that sort of thing. She felt she had been cheated

rather of Romance.

As things were, with her so ignorant and Mother like that, it was all a

little of a worry.

But it was also a way out....

CHAPTER IV

HYMEN

If Hubert had known how difficult a job it was to get married, he would

never have attempted it. Or so at least he told himself. All Boyd's

advice, all his own misgivings about lonely age, all Ruth's scenes,

would not have driven him to so much real hard work that had no

definite connection with his mapped and beloved life-career.

He always had imagined that the thing took half an hour, and even then

was managed by some luckless friend you roped in as best man. And here

he was, worried all day about presents, relatives, guests, leases,

settlements, and heaven itself even probably could not say what else,

till he despaired about his autumn work.

Ruth, in particular, drove him almost frantic.

He was absolutely certain she loathed his marrying, and yet to judge

from the outside, nothing in the whole world could have pleased her

more than making the arrangements. She would talk for forty minutes

about buying six new pairs of socks. Her air of Willing Service

maddened him. When she had nothing else to do, she would divide her

time between telling him that he was a cold lover and assuring him that

there was no need whatsoever to worry about her. _She_ would be all

right. He mustn't think of _her_....

"I don't," he would hurl back at length, firmly convinced of her

hypocrisy (he was a great believer in his intuitions), at which point

she usually cried. Then he would go out and shake the pictures crooked

by slamming the door. At their next meeting, all forgiveness, Ruth

would take up again the subject of those socks.

Finally he abandoned all idea of finishing his novel. This would be

the first blank autumn since he started writing. He felt cross with

Fate.

In all this, romanticists will no doubt be gratified to hear, Helena

was the sole consolation.

He was pleased with her--and he was pleased with his own cleverness in

having lit upon her. If marriage was essential to him, he felt sure

she was just the very girl to be a wife who wouldn't get upon his

nerves. The more he saw of her, the more he liked her; and that, too,

was encouraging. She had, of course, come up to London with her

mother, no less busy than himself, and her delight with the great

shapeless place--its crowds, its fogs, its lights--was beautiful to

see. She never wanted to be taken to theatres or show-places; the

spectacle of London being London was enough for her, as it should be,

indeed, for any one. She loved the ceaseless motion, the sense of

something getting done; the whole feeling of energy massed in a little

space seemed to inspire this girl used only to the sleepy, uneventful

fields.

"Well, and how do you like it? How does it strike you?" he asked, as

from an omnibus he showed her, for the first time, that thrilling crowd

which passes, ant-like, this way and that, seemingly purposeless yet

always full of purpose, past the Bank of England. He loved to hear her

quaint, unformed ideas.

Helena thought for a moment. "It makes me feel so _useless_," she

replied.

She was a delightful child, Hubert told himself--unspoilt, original,

and modest. When he forgot about his ruined novel, he certainly was

happy. His unhid admiration helped a little to melt Mrs. Hallam, who

was still looking pathetically for the absolute objection which she

felt sure she ought at last to find. And all this while the day was

coming near.

Mrs. Hallam had rather naturally planned that the wedding should take

place in Devonshire; but the bridegroom had been so hideously shocked,

and Helena thought a London wedding so much better "fun," that Mrs.

Hallam, already feeling nobody, had given in to them with a weak smile.

She did not mind where it took place, so long as they were happy and it

was really for the best. Besides, she had a brother who lived in a big

house in Langham Place. He always had been very mean, and was a

bachelor, and it was time altogether that he did something for the

family....

On the last night, however, before the wedding-day, she tuned herself

at bedtime to a final effort. She was sad and depressed: they had

talked long downstairs; her own instinct would have been to cry or go

to sleep; but she decided that, for her own later peace of mind if for

no higher motive, she must do something far less pleasant. So along

she went to the second-best spare-room in the mean brother's house.

"Helena dear," she said, to meet her daughter's startled look, "I've

come along, although we've had our talk downstairs, because I feel I

can't sleep till I have asked you a question."

Helena was not greatly reassured. She had not really understood a lot

of what her mother had sobbed out to her downstairs, and now when she

had thought it all over and had been feeling very sorry for the poor

lonely dear, there was to be another question!

"Why, what?" she asked, trying to put away unseen her going-away hat,

which she had been trying on. She was afraid her mother might think it

unfeeling.

"A very important question," answered Mrs. Hallam, dropping frailly on

the sofa. "And I'm afraid you may think it an extraordinary one. Do

you really love Hubert? Do you really want to marry him?"

Helena let go of the hat, which fell very gently on the floor beside

the dressing-table; then she went across and put her arms around her

mother.

"Why, you curious old dear," she said. "What on earth makes you ask

that? I _do_ call it extraordinary!" And she laughed.

But her mother was serious. "Don't think it would be wrong or wicked

to say no if you do not. It would be very wicked not to...." She

paused, and as Helena said nothing, she went on; "You see, darling

child, I feel responsible. You are so young, and Mr. Brett being

almost the first man you ever spoke to, except just at At Homes and so

on---- It's not too late, my dear girl, although perhaps I should have

spoken sooner if I could have brought myself to it. Girls often see

more clearly at the last. We can easily announce that the wedding is

postponed, and then you could come down home for a few months and

see--if you're not sure----"

She spoke almost keenly by now, questioning with a hope quite pathetic.

The world for her held nothing but her daughter.

In Helena, however, the words raised a depressing vision.

Home--Devonshire--the lanes and muddy fields--the vicar--the

farmyard--the illustrated papers--the picked novels--the dull

people--her dear, good mother's absurd care of her.... And then,

flashing and dazzling by its contrast, London--its crowds and

mystery--its freedom--Hubert, so brilliant and kind--those jolly times

with him beside the sea or on the 'bus-tops--the talks on Art and Life

and all the things she couldn't understand but longed to--the liberty

to cease being a fool and ignorant--the open gate to real existence....

"I _am_ sure," she answered, with a passion that surprised herself.

"Quite sure." She was not sure about love, but she wished to marry....

Hubert, in fact, wanted to escape his fond sister and a lone old age;

Helena desired to get away from a loving home and her own ignorance.

It is quite possible to fall in love with even negative abstractions.

At any rate they were very fond of one another, and practised

wedding-goers were able to make their usual remark: "How utterly

devoted they seem! It is so nice to see them look at one another!"

Everybody said too, of course, that Helena had never looked so pretty.

She had been arranging presents until one o'clock and not left time to

get her hair in order, besides having been dog-tired for a week, and

the wedding-veil is seldom becoming, but all the guests seemed pleased.

Certainly, with bright eyes sparkling ever so gaily behind the old veil

of Argentan lace, and little wisps of hair exuding everywhere, Helena,

if not at her best, looked natural and young.

Hubert, on the other hand, looked old for his age and self-conscious as

only a man can look at his own wedding, but yet unusually handsome. He

had not recovered from the dismal farce of a bachelor dinner, where

nobody had liked the champagne, the idea of speeches had fizzled out,

and every one had gone home before ten o'clock. He was pale and

nervous. Yet Helena's relatives decided quite honestly, and in fact

unexpectedly, that he was a good-looking man, and even Helena was quite

surprised. His new Sunday coat revealed a slim, tall figure generally

hidden by old, well-loved tweeds, for he was not a London-dresser. A

stiff collar made the greatest change in him, and (had he but guessed!)

so soon she decided he must always wear one. His very agony improved

his looks. Of the dark, clear-cut type, he was spoilt usually by a too

erratic mouth, which rambled on his face and lent a look of weakness to

the stern contour. To-day his lips were pressed and firm. He felt a

fool and told himself that the whole business was astounding rubbish.

If only she had liked it, he would have been married at a

registrar's--or down in Devonshire!... He went about with an air of

doom among the revellers, and all of them said once again, if with more

truth than about Helena, that they had never seen him look so well.

"Only shows," whispered Mrs. Boyd, who did not love him or any author

over-much, "that those artistic people could easily look gentlemen.

It's nothing but a pose."

None the less, it was a genuine enough relief to Hubert when the time

came at which he was able to go upstairs and shed his fair raiment.

True, they were not his old tweeds that he was allowed to don, nor was

the collar soft; but still he felt more himself as he hastily descended

one flight and then waited ten minutes, with all of a new husband's

still untamed impatience, for his wife to be ready.

At last, when he was within four minutes of being able to feel

justified in shouting out that they would miss their train, Helena

appeared: full of amused excitement, still thinking it all the greatest

of great fun and very sweet in a quite married-looking velvet gown,

with the most colossal muff that matched a very cloud of furs, and over

all of it a plume that waved above her never steady hat until it looked

like a pillar of thin smoke.

Hubert, all impatience, quite forgot to say that she looked charming.

It was really lucky she had not been taught yet to expect it.

"Come along," he said instead. "We're getting a bit late. I rather

dread this part!"

"Oh, I don't know," she laughed. She had loved all of it.

They went down to the lower flight, where all the guests were

pitilessly ranged on each side of the broad Georgian stairs.

Of course there was the funny man, who will happen even in the

best-born families. Perhaps he has some use at such a time as this.

Ruth and Mrs. Hallam, both united in feeling tearful yet mutually

hostile, found amusement in his constant parrot-cry of "Here they are!"

or when he felt specially inspired, even "Here they aren't!" It was a

relief to have any excuse at all to laugh.

And there at length they were, smiling gaily, shaking countless hands,

quailing under genial pats, avoiding silver horseshoes and gold

slippers. (Rice and confetti were vetoed by the mean brother.) And so

into the car, with Ruth and Mrs. Hallam smiling crookedly through

tears, until the funny man, dutifully fumbling with string and an old

slipper, was lost in a vast cloud of steam or something white let out

by the fresh-started engine, which sent the couple off amid a bellow of

good-omened laughter, and every one surged in with relief to say

good-bye and to agree they should have gone away much earlier. It had

been hideously long, but weddings always were.

Helena, as a corner blotted out the house, came back into the car with

a gay laugh.

"Got your camera, my dear?" asked Hubert. It is odd how soon a man

acquires the air of a proprietor.

"I _wish_ I'd thought of taking them as we went off," said Helena.

"They looked so funny."

He made no reply. He seemed to be thinking. She wondered what about.

Then, as he sat silent, she began to be afraid to interrupt his

thoughts. Besides, she did not know quite what to say. It was so

curious! She realised, with rather a shock, how little really she knew

about this man, and here she was going away alone with him for life!...

But probably brides always felt like that? It was a biggish thing to

do, anyhow, getting married. She expected it would feel a bit funny

with any one. Probably the man made very little difference....

And presently he spoke--if it is speaking to say, "Ah!"

They were at Charing Cross.

They had agreed to take old baggage and look a very long-established

couple, but somehow porters and people were nudging each other with

sympathetic joy long before they reached the first-class carriage with

its wickedly big label marked "engaged."

Helena, embarrassed if amused, sat on the far side. Hubert leaned out

of the window and bought all the evening papers. He knew that there

had been reporters.

"May as well see what they put," he said, almost as though in apology.

She could not understand his tones, but Mother had told her last night

that men were funny things with curious ideas.

He took up one after another and flipped through them all.

"Solemnised--Langham Place--écru lace," he read from the first; and

then more hurriedly, "Reception--residence--numerous and costly--happy

couple--Riviera."

Judging from his extracts, Helena thought, they were all very much

alike. She wondered if one man had written the whole lot, and if so,

what all the rest of the reporters did.

Her husband's face grew blacker as he reached the last. He threw it

down with a contemptuous laugh.

"Why, what is it?" she asked. "Don't you like them?" She still felt

oddly shy about using his name. "Are you disappointed?"

"One doesn't expect much from journalists," he said. "One's never

disappointed."

But he was.

One account said that he was "a" novelist, but that was all: no

adjective before it, not even "well-known." The others didn't mention

that he _was_ an author.

They might have been just ordinary people.

PART II

HUBERT BRETT'S WIFE