Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images available at The Internet Archive)









                             THE OSBORNES

                                  BY
                             E. F. BENSON

                       [Illustration: colophon]

                               NEW YORK
                           GROSSET & DUNLAP
                              PUBLISHERS

          ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
          INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN

          COPYRIGHT, 1909, 1910, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
                       PUBLISHED, OCTOBER, 1910

              THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.




                             THE OSBORNES




CHAPTER I


For the last five hours all the windows along the front of the newest
and whitest and most pretentious and preposterous house in Park Lane had
been blazing with lights, which were kindled while the last flames of
the long July day had scarcely died down into the ash-coloured night,
and were still shining when morning began to tinge the velvet gray of
the sky with colour and extinguish the stars. The lights, however, in
No. 92 seemed to be of more durable quality than the heavenly
constellations and long after morning had come and the early traffic
begun to boom on the roadway, they still burned with undiminished
splendour. It was literally true, also, that all the windows in the long
Gothic facade which seemed to have strayed from Nuremberg into the West
End of London, had been ablaze; not only was the ground floor lit, and
the first floor, where was the ballroom, out of which, all night, had
floated endless webs of perpetual melody, but the bedrooms above, though
sleep then would have been impossible, and, as a matter of fact, they
were yet untenanted, had been equally luminous, while from behind the
flamboyant balustrade the top of the house, smaller windows, which
might be conjectured to belong to servants’ rooms, had joined in the
general illumination. This was strictly in accordance with Mrs.
Osborne’s orders, as given to that staid and remarkable person called by
her (when she forgot) Willum and (when she remembered) Thoresby, and
(also when she remembered) alluded to as “my major domo.” “Willum” he
had been in earlier and far less happy years, first as boot boy, then
when the family blossomed into footmen, as third, second, and finally
first of his order. Afterward came things more glorious yet and Thoresby
was major domo. At the present time Mrs. Osborne had probably forgotten
that there existed such officers as boot boys, and Willum probably had
forgotten too. The rise of the family had been remarkably rapid, but he
had kept pace with it, and to-night he felt, as did Mrs. Osborne, that
the eminence attained by them all was of a very exalted order.

Mrs. Osborne had ordered that every window in the front of the house was
to be lit, and this sumptuous edict not without purpose. She said it
looked more joyful and what was a little electric light, and as the
evening had been devoted to joy, it was right that the house should
reflect this quality. For herself, she felt very joyful indeed; the last
month or two had, it is true, been arduous, and in all London it is
probable that there had been nobody, man or woman, more incessantly
occupied. But had there been an eight hours bill introduced and passed,
which should limit the hours of energy for hostesses, she would have
scorned to take advantage of so pusillanimous a measure. Besides, the
nature of her work necessitated continuous effort, for her work was to
effect the siege and secure the capitulation of London. That, with her
great natural shrewdness, she realized had to be done quickly, or it
would never be done at all. London had, not to be starved, but to be
stuffed into surrender. She had to feed it and dance it and ply it with
concerts and plays and entertainments till its power of resistance was
sapped. Long quiet sieges, conducted with regularity, however untiring,
were, she knew well, perfectly incapable of accomplishing its fall. The
enemy--at times, though she loved it so well, she almost considered
London to be her enemy--must be given no quarter and no time to consider
its plans. The assault had to be violent as well as untiring; the dear
foe must be battered into submission. To “arrive” at all, you had to
gallop. And she had galloped, with such success that on this night in
July, or rather on this cool dewy morning in July, she felt that the
capitulation was signed and handed her. But she felt no chill of
reaction, as is so often the case even in the very moment of victory,
when energies not only can be relaxed, but must be relaxed since there
is nothing for them to brace themselves over any more. Her victory was
of different sort: she knew quite well that she would have to go on
being extremely energetic, else the capitulated garrison would by
degrees rally again. But since the exercise of these energies was
delightful to her, she was merely charmed that there would be a
continual call for them.

There was no “casement jessamine” on the house, which could “stir to
the dancers dancing in tune” but on the walls of the lowest story,
growing apparently from large earthenware pots filled with mould, were
enormous plants of tin ivy which swarmed up the walls of the house. But
it was too strongly and solidly made to stir even to the vibration
produced by the earthquaking motor-buses which bounced down Park Lane,
and thus the dancers dancing in tune had no effect whatever on it. This
stalwart ivy was indeed a sort of symbol of the solidity of the fortunes
of the house, for it was made at the manufactories from which her
husband derived his really American wealth. They covered acres of ground
at Sheffield, and from their doors vomited forth all sorts of metallic
hardware of the most reliable quality. The imitation ivy, of course, was
but a froth, a chance flotsam on the stream of hardware, and was due to
the inventive genius of Mrs. Osborne’s eldest son Percy, who had a great
deal of taste. His was no abstruse taste, like an appreciation of
caviare or Strauss, that required an educated--or, as others might
say--a vitiated palate or a jaded ear, but it appealed strongly and
almost overwhelmingly, to judge by the order book of the Art Department,
to the eye of that general public which goes in for forms of decoration
which are known as both chaste and “handsome,” and are catholic enough
to include mirrors framed in plush on which are painted bunches of
flowers and bead curtains that hang over doors. With shrewd commercial
instinct Percy never attempted to educate the taste of his customers
into what they ought to want, but gave them in “handsome” catalogues
lists of the things they did want, and of a quality that they would be
sure to find satisfactory. Though this ivy, for instance, was from the
excellence of its workmanship and the elaborate nature of its colouring
rather expensive, it was practically indestructible till the melting
point of the best tin was reached, and it resembled ivy so closely that
you might perfectly well prick your fingers on it before you found out
the art that so closely imitated nature. Indeed, before now some very
pretty jesting had taken place in the windows of the house with regard
to it, when Percy, who liked his joke (amid the scarcely suppressed
merriment of the family), asked a stranger to pick a leaf of it and
examine the beauties of nature as illustrated in the manner in which the
stalk of the leaf was joined to the parent stem. Also it had no
inconvenient habits of growing over places on which you did not wish it
to trespass (if you wanted more, you ordered more), it harboured neither
slugs nor any abominable insects and afforded no resting-place for
birds, while it could be washed free from London dust by the simple
application of the hand-syringe.

The ivy has been insisted on at some little length because it was
typical of the fortunes and family of its inventor. It was solid,
indestructible and new, and in just the same way the Osbornes were very
strong and well, held large quantities of gilt-edged stock, and had no
family history whatever. In one point only were they unlike the ivy that
clung to the limestone wall of the house in Park Lane, but that was an
important one. The point of the ivy was to deceive--it was often
successful in so doing--while the Osbornes never intended to deceive
anybody. There was, with regard at any rate to Mrs. Osborne, her
husband, and Percy, no possibility of being taken in. You could see at
once what they were like; a glance would save you any subsequent
disappointment or surprises. And no one, it may be added at once, ever
pricked his fingers over them. They were as kind as they were new. But
since many strains of blood have gone to the making of each member of
the human race, one strain prospering and predominating in this specimen
while in another, though of the same blood, it scarcely shows a trace of
existence, the divergence of type even in one generation is often very
marked indeed. Thus, though Mr. Osborne felt that he both understood and
admired his eldest son, his admiration for the younger was agreeably
tempered with mystification. “Old Claude’s a rum fellow,” he often said,
and Mrs. Osborne agreed with him. But, as will be seen, there was still
much in common between Claude and them.

The house, like the ivy, was also new and solid and in point of fact
none of its inhabitants, again with the curious exception of Claude,
were quite used to it yet. This they concealed as far as they were able,
but the concealment really went little further than the fact that they
did not openly allude to it. They all agreed that the house was very
handsome, and Mr. Osborne had a secret gratification not unmingled with
occasional thrills of misgiving as to whether he had wasted his money in
the knowledge of the frightful costliness of it. Outside, as has been
said, it was of Gothic design; but if a guest thought that he was to
pass his evening or listen to music in a Gothic interior, he would have
been rudely undeceived. It had been unkindly said that you went through
a Gothic door to find Vandals within, and if Vandalism includes the
appropriation of beautiful things, the Vandalism exhibited here was very
complete. But the destructive side of Vandalism had no counterpart; Mr.
Osborne was very careful of his beautiful things and very proud of them.
He admired them in proportion to their expensiveness, and having an
excellent head for figures could remember how much all the more
important pictures, articles of furniture, and tapestries had “stood him
in.” And he ran no risk of forgetting these items, for he kept them
green in his memory by often speaking of them to his guests.

“Yes,” he would say, “there’s three thousand pounds worth of seating
accommodation in this very drawing-room, and they tell me ’twas lucky to
have got the suite at that figure. All Louis--Louis--Per, my boy, did
they tell us it was Louis XV. or XVI.? Sixteenth, yes, Louis XVI. Divide
it up and you’ll find that it averages two hundred pounds a chair. Seems
funny to sit on two hundred pounds, hey? Mrs. Osborne, she said a bright
thing about that. ‘Sit firm then,’ she said and you’ll keep it safe.’”

The furnishing and appointments of the house had in fact been entrusted
to a notable firm, which though it had certainly charged Mr. Osborne a
great deal of money for what it supplied, had given him very good for
his cheque, and both he and his wife, after they had got over the
unusual feeling of sitting on two hundred pounds, and if you chose
putting your feet up on another two hundred, were quite content that
both the furniture of this Louis XVI. room for instance and the cheque
for it, should be what they called a “little stiff.” It was the same in
the Italian room that opened out of it, and matters were no better in
the dining room, which was furnished with Chippendale. Here indeed a
very dreadful accident had happened on the first evening that they had
got into the house, now two months ago, for Mr. Osborne, alone with
Percy his wife for that night, had drawn his chair up to the fire--the
night being chilly--to drink his second and third glasses of port and
had rested his feet on the pierced steel fender that guarded the hearth.
This led to his tilting his Chippendale chair back on to its hind legs,
which, designed to bear only half the weight of its occupant, had
crashed into splinters and deposited Mr. Osborne on the floor and his
second glass of port on his shirt front. But he had taken the incident
with great good-humour.

“Live and learn,” he had said, “live and learn. Got to sit up and behave
now, Maria. Per, my boy, don’t you finish all the port while your dad
changes his shirt. Drink fair, for fair play’s a jewel, and fill your
mother’s glass.”

Mr. Osborne would never have attained to the eminence he occupied as a
manufacturer of hardware, had he not been a man of intelligence, and
instead of upbraiding the furnishing firm for charging so high a price
for a “four legs of carved dry rot” which a momentary irritation
carefully kept to himself might have led him to do, drew the lesson that
it was unwise to tilt chairs unless they were clearly tiltable. But this
accident had caused him to insist on his own room, which he called his
snuggery, being furnished as he chose and not as anybody else chose, and
here he rejoiced in chairs of the pattern known as Chesterfield, a solid
mahogany table, on which stood a telephone, and a broad firm
mantel-shelf where he could put a box of cigars without fear of its
overbalancing. On this point also, his wife had adopted a similar
attitude and her own sitting room opening out of the white-furnished
bedroom where she was afraid to touch anything for fear of “soiling” it,
was thoroughly to her taste. As in her husband’s snuggery she had
matters arranged for her own comfort and not for other people’s
admiration. Percy had “done” the room for her, and sometimes when she
came up here to look at her letters before going to bed, and drink the
glass of hot water which was so excellent a digestive after the dinner
that was still a little curious to her, she wondered whether Percy did
not understand house furnishing better than the great French firm, the
name of which she was always rather shy of pronouncing. She had asked
him to choose all the furniture himself, remarking only that she was a
little rheumatic, and found it difficult to get out of very low chairs.
And he had succeeded to admiration, not only had he consulted her
comfort, but he had divined and satisfied her taste. The paper of the
walls was a pattern of ferns with iridescent lilies of the valley neatly
disposed among them, so that it was almost a shame to hang pictures
thereon; indeed it would have been quite a shame had not those pictures
been so well selected. For Mrs. Osborne cared far more about the subject
of a picture than the manner in which it was presented, and all the
subjects were admirably chosen. There was a beautiful “view” of the
church that Edward had built at Sheffield, a print of the Duke of
Wellington in a garter and of Queen Victoria in a bonnet and a couple of
large oil-paintings, one of the Land’s End and the other of Koynance
Cove, both of which were intimately associated in her affectionate heart
with her honeymoon. Edward and she had spent a month in Cornwall,
staying at little inns and walking as much as possible to save expense,
and though all that was thirty years ago, she never entered this room
now without remembering how they had sat just on that very bluff above
the emerald sea, and read the “Idylls of the King” together, and he had
promised her, when they were rich enough, to give her an emerald
necklace to remind her of the colour of the sea. It is true that those
emeralds (which were remarkably fine) were not exactly of the tint that
either nature had given to the sea, or the very vivid artist had
reproduced in the painting that hung on the walls, but they still
reminded both her and Edward of those enchanted weeks in Cornwall, and
it was but seldom, when she wore her emeralds, that he did not say “Mrs.
O. has got the Land’s End emeralds on to-night.”

Then, more often than not would follow the explanation of this cryptic
remark, and the whispered information of how much the emeralds had
cost. Mrs. Osborne, as a matter of fact, had overheard, again and again,
what the figure was, but she was still officially ignorant of it, and
generally closed the subject by saying, “Mr. Osborne won’t never tell me
what he paid for them. I believe he got them cheap, and that’s why.”

But she secretly rejoiced to know that this was not the reason. The
reason was just the opposite; they had been so enormously expensive.
That expense would not be unreasonable now, but at the time, for she had
worn the Land’s End necklace for twenty years, it had been preposterous.
They had had no holiday one year in consequence, but had grilled in
Sheffield throughout August and September. But during those months she
had worn the emeralds every evening, and it had been a sort of renewal
of the honeymoon. Though they had not been able to go away themselves,
they had managed to send Percy and Claude to the seaside, and the two
months in Sheffield, when every night she wore the emeralds which had
been the cause of their remaining there, was still one of Mrs. Osborne’s
most delightful memories, as a sort of renewed honeymoon. Since then
times had considerably changed, and though to many the change from
simplicity of life and not uncomfortable narrowness of means to the
wider horizons which the rapid accumulation of an enormous fortune
brings within the view, implies a loss of happiness rather than an
extension of it, neither Edward nor she were of that Arcadian build.
They both immensely enjoyed the wider horizon; the humble establishment
with parlour maids had been all very well, but how much more enjoyable
was the brownstone house on the outskirts of Sheffield with footmen and
a carriage. For Mrs. Osborne did not find it in the least interfered
with her happiness to have men to manage or “richer” things to eat. As a
matter of fact she liked managing, and rejoiced in the building of a new
wing to the brown stone house, in the acquisition of motor cars and in
the drain on their time and resources by Edward being made Mayor of
Sheffield. Neither of them ever thought that they had been happier when
their means were more straitened and their establishment humbler. Both
of them, in spite of an essential and innate simplicity of nature
rejoiced in these establishments, and were always ready to enlarge and
embellish and rejoice. They had always made the most of their current
resources--though in a merely financial sense they had always saved--and
it was as great a pleasure to Mrs. Osborne to see her table plentifully
loaded with the most expensive food that money could provide, and press
second helpings on her guests, as it had been to have a solid four
courses at midday dinner on Sunday in Sheffield and tell her friends
that Mr. Osborne liked nothing better than to have a good dinner on
Sunday, and see a pleasant party to share it with him. She still
inquired if she might not “tempt” her neighbours at table to have
another quail, just as she had tried to persuade them to have a second
cut of roast lamb, when in season, while from the other end of the table
she would hear as a hospitable echo her husband’s voice recommending
Veuve Clicquot of 1884, just as in the old days he had recommended the
sound whiskey which would hurt nobody, not if you drank it all
afternoon.

The year of the mayoralty of Sheffield had been succeeded by seven years
fatter than even Joseph had dreamed of. Edward was as sound in his
business as he was in the whiskey he so hospitably pressed on his
guests, and by dint of always supplying goods of the best possible
workmanship and material at prices that gave him no more than a
respectable profit, the profits had annually increased till in the
opinion of those who did not adopt so unspeculative a quality of goods,
they had almost ceased to be respectable, and became colossal instead.
Then, at the end of seven fat years, Edward had realized that he was
sixty, though he neither looked nor felt more than an adolescent fifty,
had turned the hardware business into a company, and as vendor had
received ordinary shares to an extent that would insure him an income no
less than that of the fat years. He had already put by a capital that
produced some ten thousand pounds a year, and he was thus not
disadvantageously situated. Percy, however, still held the Art
Department in his own hands. The plant and profits of that had not been
offered to the public, but had been presented to Percy by his father on
the occasion of his marriage, an event now six years old. For the whole
idea of ornamental tin ivy and the host of collateral ideas that
emanated therefrom had been Percy’s and it was now a joke between his
father and him that Mrs. P. would soon have an emerald necklace that
would take the shine out of the Land’s End. “Land’s End will be Mrs.
P.’s beginning,” said his father. “And the Sea is Britannia’s realm,”
he added by a happy afterthought. “I’ll call her Mrs. C. instead of Mrs.
P. Hey, Per?”

Badinage had ensued. She was called Mrs. C. instantly and there were
numerous conjectures as to who C. was. Mr. Osborne said that it was
curious that C. was the first letter of Co-respondent; but that joke,
though Edward was usually very successful in such facetiæ, was not very
well received. The momentary Mrs. C. ate her grapes with a studied air,
and Mrs. Osborne from the other end of the table--this was still in
Sheffield--said, “You don’t think, Eddie; you let your tongue run away
with you.”

On reflection Eddie agreed with her, and there was no more heard about
Mrs. C. But he always thought that his badinage had been taken a little
too seriously. “A joke’s a joke,” he said to himself as he shaved his
chin next morning, leaving side-whiskers. “But if they don’t like one
joke, we’ll try another. Lots of jokes still left.”

So without sense of injury or of being misunderstood he tried plenty of
others, which were as successful as humour should have any expectation
of being. Humour comes from a well that is rarely found, but when found
proves always to be inexhaustible. The numerical value, therefore, of
Edward’s jokes had not been diminished and Percy inherited his father’s
sense of fun.

Still in Sheffield, Mr. Osborne had, after the formation of the company,
seen an extraordinary increase in business, with the result that his
income, already scarcely respectable, mounted and mounted. Years ago he
had built a chapel of corrugated iron outside and pitch-pine inside in
the middle of that district of the town which had become his and was
enstreeted with the houses of his workmen, and now he turned the
corrugated building into a reading room, as soon as ever the tall Gothic
church with which he had superseded it was ready for use. A princess had
come to the opening of it, and had declared the discarded church to be a
reading room, and there was really nothing more to do in Sheffield,
except to say that he did not wish to become a knight. Mr. Osborne had
no opinion of knights: knighthood in his mind was the bottom shelf of a
structure, where, if he took a place, it might easily become a permanent
one. But he had no idea of accepting a bottom place on the shelves. With
his natural shrewdness he said that he had done nothing to deserve it.
But he winked in a manner that anticipated familiarity toward shelves
that were higher. He had not done with the question of shelves yet,
though he had nothing to say to the lowest one.

It must not be supposed that because he had retired from active
connection with the hardware business, his mind slackened. The exact
contrary was the case. There was no longer any need for him to exercise
that shrewd member on hardware, and it only followed that the thought he
had previously given to hardware was directed into other channels. He
thought things over very carefully as was his habit, before taking any
step, summed up his work in Sheffield, settled that a knighthood was
not adequate to reward him for what he had already done, but concluded
that he had nothing more to do in Sheffield, just for the moment. And
having come to that conclusion he had a long talk with Mrs. O. in her
boudoir, where she always went after breakfast to see cook and write her
letters. But that morning cook waited downstairs in her clean apron long
after Mrs. Osborne had gone to her boudoir, expecting every moment to
hear her bell, and no bell sounded. For more weighty matters were being
debated than the question of dinner, and at first when Mr. Osborne
broached the subject his wife felt struck of a heap.

“Well, Mrs. O., it’s for you to settle,” he said, “and if you’re
satisfied to remain in Sheffield, why in Sheffield we remain, old lady,
and that’s the last word you shall hear from me on the subject. But
there’s a deal to be considered and I’ll just put the points before you
again. There’s yourself to lead off with. You like seeing your friends
at dinner and giving them of the best and so do I. Well, for all I can
learn there’s a deal more of that going on in London where you can have
your twenty people to dinner every night if you have a mind, and a
hundred to dance to your fiddles afterward. And I’m much mistaken,
should we agree to leave Sheffield and set up in town, if Mrs. O.’s
parties don’t make some handsome paragraphs in the _Morning Post_ before
long.”

“Lor’, to think of that,” said Mrs. Osborne reflectively. She did not
generally employ that interjection, which she thought rather common, and
even now, though she was so absorbed, she corrected herself and said
“There, to think of that.”

“But mind you, my dear,” continued Mr. Osborne, “if we go to town, and
have a big house in the country, as per the scheme I’ve been putting
before you, we don’t do it to take our ease, and just sit in a barouche
and drive round the Park to fill up the time to luncheon. I shall have
my work to do, and it’s you who must be helping me to get on, as you’ve
always done, God bless you Maria, and fine and busy it will make you.
There’s a county council in London as well as in Sheffield, and there’s
a House of Parliament in London which there isn’t here. No, my dear, if
we go to London it won’t be for a life of ease, for I expect work suits
us both better, and there’s plenty of work left in us both yet. Give us
ten years more work, and then if you like we’ll get into our Bath
chairs, and comb out the fleece of the poodle, and think what a busy
couple we are.”

Mr. Osborne got up and shuffled to the window in his carpet slippers.
They had been worked and presented to him by his wife on his last
birthday and this had been a great surprise, as she had told him
throughout that they were destined for Percy. At this moment they
suggested something to him.

“Look at me already, my dear!” he said. “What should I have thought ten
years ago if I had seen myself here in your boudoir at eleven of the
morning in carpet slippers instead of being at work in my shirt sleeves
this last three hours. ‘Eddie,’ I should have said to myself, ‘you’re
getting a fat, lazy old man with years of work in you yet.’ And, by
Gad, Mrs. O., I should have been right. Give me a good dinner, but let
me get an appetite for it, though, thank God, my appetite’s good enough
yet.’ But let me feel I earn it.”

Mrs. Osborne got up from her davenport and came and stood by her husband
in the window. In front of her stretched the broad immaculate gravel
walk bordered by a long riband bed of lobelias, calceolarias and
geraniums. Beyond that was the weedless tennis lawn, with its brand new
net, where one of the very numerous gardeners was even now marking out
the court with the machine that Mr. Osborne had invented and patented
the year before he retired from entire control of his business, and
which sold in ever increasing quantities. Below, the ground fell rapidly
away and not half a mile off the long straggling rows of workmen’s
houses between which ran cobbled roads and frequent electric trams,
stretched unbroken into the town. Of late years it had grown very
rapidly in the direction of this brown stone house, and with its growth
the fogs and smoky vapours had increased so that it was seldom, as on
this morning, that they could see from the windows the tall and very
solid tower of the Gothic church that had supplanted the one of
corrugated iron. He looked out over this with his wife’s hand in his for
a moment in silence.

“I don’t know how it is with you, my dear,” he said, “but every now and
then a feeling comes over me which I can’t account for or resist. And
the feeling that’s been coming over me this last month agone, is that
me and Sheffield’s done all the work we’re going to do together. But
there are plenty of days of work for us both yet, but not together. Look
at that there quarter, my dear, right from where the New Lane houses
begin to where’s the big chimney of the works behind the church. I made
that, as well you know, and it’s paid me well to do it, and it’s paid
Sheffield to have me to do it. Not an ounce of bad material, to my
knowledge, has gone into the factory gates, and not an ounce of bad
workmanship has come out of them. I’ve paid high for first-class
materials, and I seen that I got them. I’ve turned out none but honest
goods what’ll do the work I guarantee them for, and last you ten times
as long as inferior stuff, as you and cook know, since there’s not a pot
or a pan in your kitchen, my dear, but what came from the shops. And
I’ve made my fortune over it, and that’s over, so I take it, and what’s
the sense of my sitting on top of a hill, just to look at my
calceolarias and get an appetite for dinner by running about that court
there? But if you’ve got a fancy for staying in Sheffield, as I say,
this is the last word I speak on the subject.”

Mrs. Osborne nodded at him and pressed his arm, as he poured out these
gratifying recollections in his rather hoarse voice.

“There’s more on your mind yet, Eddie, my dear,” she said. “Do you think
I’ve lived with you these years and seen you off your victuals by day
and heard you tossing and turning in your bed at night without getting
to know when you’ve told me all, or when you’ve got something further
unbeknown to me yet? It’s not me only you’re thinking of.”

Mr. Osborne beamed on his wife.

“Well, if you aren’t right every time,” he said. “You’ve guessed it all
I reckon. Yes, it’s Claude. I doubt whether I didn’t make a mistake
about Claude at the beginning, and whether we shouldn’t have done better
to put him into the business like Percy, and let Alfred leave him his
money or not just as he liked. But there, if we made a mistake, it’s our
business to make the best we can of it now. But whenever I see the boy I
think we did the right thing by him, and we’ve got to go on doing the
right thing. And if a young fellow has been to Eton and Cambridge, and
is going to be as rich a man and richer nor his father was, without
having to do a stroke of work for it, I ask you, Mrs. O., what’s he to
do with himself in Sheffield? Of course, he could go to London and work
at the law or go into the Army or adopt any other of the ways of wasting
time and doing nothing, without having it cast up at you, but think of
the chance he gets, if you and I settle in London and have a country
house as well, so that he can ask his friends down for a bit of shooting
or whatever’s on, and bring them home to dine, and stop for his mother’s
dance or concert, or whatever you have named for such a day.”

He paused a moment.

“He’ll be home for good now in a month’s time, and I should like to be
able to say to him, ‘Claude, my boy, there’s no need for you to think
how you’ll occupy yourself in Sheffield for your vacation, for we’ll
soon be moving on. Mother and I’--that’s what I shall say--you
understand--‘have come to an agreement, and there’ll be a house for you
in Grosvenor Square, perhaps, or in Park Lane to bring your friends to,
and a shooting box somewhere else, so that whether it’s Lord This or the
Honourable That, you can bring them down and find a welcome, and a bird
or two to shoot at, and the pick of the London girls for you to dance
with.’”

“Eh, Edward, you talk as if the thing was done,” said his wife.

“Well, so it is, if you and I make up our minds to it. And you guessed
right; it’s a particular feeling I’ve always had about Claude. Eton and
Cambridge may have made a change in him, or it may be that he was
something different all along. But to see him come into a room, into
that smoking room for instance at the Club. Why, it’s as if the whole
place belonged to him, it is, if only he cared to claim it. And the very
waiters know the difference: and I warrant you there’s always an evening
paper ready for him, whoever has to go without. But in London he’ll find
friends, yes, and a girl to marry him, I wager you, whose folk came over
with the Conqueror. Maria, I should like to speak of my son-in-law the
Earl, or the Countess my boy’s mother-in-law. There’s a deal in a name
if you can get hold of the right one.”

Mrs. Osborne gave a great sigh, and looked at her rings, and as she
sighed the row of pearls that hung over her ample bosom rose and fell.
There was a great deal in what Edward had said, and that which concerned
Claude appealed to her most. She had felt it all again and again, and
again and again she had wished, content though she was with the very
comfortable circumstances of her life, that they had some other house in
which to welcome him home for his vacation. She felt he was her own son
at heart, but his manners were such! It was Claude all over to behave as
if the whole room belonged to him, should he choose to claim it. She was
devoted to Percy, but Percy, she well knew, felt as she did when he was
going out to dinner, and thought about what he should say, and looked to
see if his hair was tidy, and hoped he hadn’t left his handkerchief
behind. But Claude seemed to know that everything was all right, with
him, or if it wasn’t he didn’t care. Once on a solemn occasion, when a
Royal visitor was in Sheffield, the whole family had been bidden to
lunch with the mayor, and Claude had discovered in the middle of lunch
that he hadn’t got a pocket-handkerchief, and the day was enough to make
anybody persp----. And then in thought Mrs. Osborne checked again, and
said to herself “action of the skin.” But Claude, though hot, had been
as cool as a cucumber. He just stopped a waiter who was going by and
said, “Please send out to the nearest shop and get me a handkerchief.”
Mrs. Osborne would never have dared to do that, and if she had, she felt
that the handkerchief wouldn’t have come. But in five minutes Claude had
his, “and never paid for it neither,” thought Mr. Osborne to himself in
a mixed outburst of pride and misgiving. Claude wanted a handkerchief
and it came. He didn’t bother about it.

But the whole suggestion of giving up Sheffield where she was so
friendly and pleasant with so many local magnates and their wives, and
launching into the dim unplumbed sea of London was bewildering though
exciting. She had no doubts about Edward; wherever Edward was he would
do his part; she was only doubtful about her own. And these doubts were
not of durable quality, while the reflections about Claude were durable
in texture. Once a friend of Claude’s at Cambridge had come to stay at
the brown stone house, and it had all been very awkward. He was an
honourable, too, and his father was a lord, and though he was very quiet
and polite, Mrs. Osborne had seen that something was wrong from the
first. The most carefully planned dinners had been offered him, and
Edward had brought out the Chateau Yquem, which was rarely touched, and
this young man had eaten and drunk as if “it was nothing particular.”
Mrs. Osborne had tried to console herself with the thought that he
didn’t think much of his victuals, whatever they were, but it was not
that he refused dishes. He just ate them all, and said no more about it.
And he had been regaled with two dinner parties during the three days he
was with them, to which all sorts of Aldermen and their wives and
daughters had been bidden. She had not forgotten his rank either, for
though there were two knights and their wives present at one of these
dinners, and at the other two knights and a baronet, he had taken her in
on both occasions. Nor was their conversation wholly satisfactory, for
though Mrs. Osborne had the _Morning Post_ brought up to her room with
her early tea, while the young man was there, in order that she might be
up to date with the movements and doings of the nobility, she had
extraordinarily bad luck, since the bankruptcy case that was going on
was concerned with the affairs of his sister and her husband, and the
memorial service at St. James’s proved to be coincident with the
obsequies of his great-uncle. Mrs. Osborne felt that these things would
not happen when they were in the midst of everything in town.

So the momentous decision had been made and two strenuous years had
followed, during which time Mr. Osborne had settled to adopt (as became
a man of property in these Socialistic days) the Conservative cause in
politics, and after one defeat to get himself returned for one of the
divisions of Surrey. During that time, too, No. 92 Park Lane had been
pulled down and by amalgamation with No. 93, been built up again in a
style that enabled Mrs. O. to have her friends to dine, with a bit of a
dance afterward or Caruso to sing, without it being necessary for late
comers to huddle together on the stairs where they could not hear a
note, or stand in the doorway of the ballroom without being able to get
in, or to dance if they did. And though, as has been stated, the years
had been strenuous and the struggle continuous, neither Mrs. Osborne nor
her husband ever felt that it was a losing game that they were playing.
Apart from this one defeat in the Conservative interest, and one dismal
attempt at a dance in the house that they had taken before No. 92 was
ready, to which eight men came (all told and counting Percy) they had
swiftly and steadily mounted. For true to the principles on which her
husband had amassed so large a fortune, all that Mrs. Osborne offered
was of the very best, or at any rate of the sort which momentarily most
attracted. The singer who was most in vogue sang at her concerts, or the
heels that were most admired danced there, and beyond doubt the extreme
pleasure that the excellent woman took in her own hospitality
contributed largely to its success. She was no careworn anxious-eyed
hostess, but bubbled with good-humour, was genuinely glad to see the
world fill her rooms, and always welcomed the suggestion that any guest
should bring a friend, whose name was instantly entered by her admirable
secretary on her visiting list.

And thus she rose and prospered, till on the date at which this story
opens, she had crowned the work of her season by giving this immense
fancy-dress ball, which, to give it its due, had whipped up again to
full activity the rather moribund energies of the season. Somehow the
idea had taken on at once; there had been no fancy-dress function of any
importance that season, and by one of those whims that govern the flow
and ebb of the social world, London had thrown itself with avidity into
the notion. It was soon clear that everyone would be there, and everyone
was, and at last in her own house Mrs. Osborne heard the strains of the
National Anthem.

It had been of no particular period; the point was not to have a strict
and classical function but any amount of jewels and fine dresses, and
Queens of Sheba, Cleopatras and Marie Antoinettes joined hands in the
quadrille with Napoleon, Piers Gaveston and Henry VIII. She herself had
been an admirable Mistress Page, her husband a veritable merry knight.
But of all the brilliant figures in that motley crowd there was none
perhaps more admired than the slim dark Piers Gaveston. And that was
Claude.




CHAPTER II.


Dora West was trimming her hat. It was a straw hat that had cost a
shilling or two when it came into her deft hands, and the trimming would
only prove to have cost a shilling or two when it became attached to the
hat, and leaving the deft hands was put onto her extremely pretty head.
But by that time the hat would certainly have become a very pretty hat.
This she was explaining with great volubility to her friend.

“You are rich, darling May,” she said, “and in consequence your attitude
toward hats is a little opulent and vulgar. I can put the feathers and
the flags and the birds’ eggs in exactly the same place as Biondinetti,
or whoever it is who sells you hats.”

“No, not exactly,” said Mary, with the quietness that real conviction
brings. She was quite certain about that point, and so did not care to
shout over it. It is only when people are not certain about what they
say, that they drown their want of conviction in arguments. Conviction
always swims.

Dora had several pins in her mouth, and so did not reply at once. In
itself the pin-reason was excellent, and more excellent was the fact
that she did not wish to reply, knowing the quiet truth of Mary’s
conviction, especially since she could not settle the exact angle at
which a very large white feather should be put. It pierced the hat, once
inward once outward, that was Biondinetti all over, but where in
heaven’s name ought it to start from? So she only made a little
impatient noise with her lips, and even that was difficult, since there
was a danger of causing a pin to be sucked into her mouth. But she made
it successfully. She poised the feather a moment, focussing its
appearance against the hat. The effect produced by the impatient noise
was sufficient to ensure her against any immediate reply. Then suddenly
the inspiration came, and with a pair of tiny scissors she cut a strand
or two in the straw and stuck the quill feather through the holes.

“There,” she said, “and you pay Biondinetti two guineas for doing that.
I can’t, and I wouldn’t if I could. Austell wrote to me last week and
said the swans were moulting, and I telegraphed--that cost sixpence and
a little thought, instead of two guineas--to tell him to send me big
wing feathers. He’s a dreadful ass; we all know that, but he had the
sense to see I wanted feathers, and to catch a swan and pluck----”

“What a disgusting butcher,” said May. “I don’t mean butcher, I mean
vivisectionist.”

“And how do you think you get your feathers, darling?” asked Dora.

“I don’t know; I never ask. The hat comes from the shop.”

“Then don’t ask now, because I will tell you. Your horrid shop has birds
killed, and then plucks them. It does; you can’t deny it. Whereas with
me the swan was just moulting, and Austell assisted Nature, which we all
do. He caught its head in a landing-net and it tried to peck, he
says----”

Dora West stopped suddenly in the middle of these surprising remarks,
and held out the hat at arm’s length in order to observe the effect of
the feather. She had one of those enchanting faces that are
overwhelmingly pretty for no particular reason. You could, if you chose,
argue her prettiness away, by maintaining with justification that no
single feature on it had warrantable claims. They were all passable, it
is true, but it was not clear how it came about that the sum of them was
so delicious. Her eyes were gray, and had nothing striking to recommend
them, her nose turned up at the tip far too markedly to be able to claim
beauty, and the mouth was quite certainly too large. Yet even allowing
for the charm of her extreme youth and the vigour and vividness of her
vitality, there was no accounting for the supreme prettiness that was
there. So the sensible thing was to stop arguing and look at it again,
and more sensible yet, to say something that should make her laugh. For
her laugh was the most enchanting thing of all; then every feature
laughed, there was no telling where it began or where it ended. May
before now had declared that from quite a distance off, when Dora’s back
was turned, she had in a ballroom seen she was amused because the back
of her neck and her shoulders were laughing so much. “Oh, Nature wants a
lot of assistance,” she went on. “She is perfectly hopeless if you leave
her to herself. Look at the flowers even, which are quite the nicest
thing she does. Roses, for instance; all she could think of in the way
of roses was the ordinary wild dog rose. I don’t say it is bad, but how
paltry, if you have had simply millions of years to invent roses in.
Then man comes along, who is the only really unnatural being, and in
quite a few years invents all the heavenly roses which we see now. Of
course Nature did it, in a sense, but she did it with his assistance.”

“But why do you call man unnatural?” asked May.

“Why? Because he saw at once how stupid Nature was, and had to invent
all the things that make life tolerable. He lit fires, and built houses,
and made laws, and motor-cars, and shops, and--and boats and button
hooks. Motor-cars, too; all that Nature could think of in the way of
locomotion was horses.”

The feathers were inserted in absolutely the right place, and Dora
breathed a heavy sigh of satisfaction, laid the hat down on the end of
the sofa, hovered over the tea table for a moment, and selected an
enormous bun.

“And Nature gives us brains,” she continued, with her mouth full, “and
the moment we begin to use them, as I have been doing over that hat,
which _is_ Biondinetti, she decrees that we shall be so hungry that we
have to stop and eat instead. The same with talking: she gives us a
tongue to talk with and after quite a few minutes, talking makes us
hungry too, and we have to use our tongue to help us to swallow. Did you
know you swallowed with your tongue, darling? I never did till
yesterday. I thought I swallowed with my throat, but apparently the
tongue helps. That’s why we can’t talk with our mouths full as I am
doing.”

May Thurston looked at the hat on the end of the sofa for a while, and
then transferred her gaze to her friend.

“I don’t think I agree with you,” she said. “At least I allow that many
people don’t know what being natural means, but I think all the nicest
people are natural. You, for instance, and me and Mrs. Osborne last
night at her dance. Never before have I seen a hostess really enjoying
herself at her own ball. She stood at the top of the stairs and beamed,
she danced and beamed----”

“And never before have you seen a person like Mrs. Osborne dance,”
remarked Dora.

“Well, not often. Anyhow, she enjoyed herself tremendously and was
perfectly natural.”

Dora shook her head.

“It won’t do, darling,” she said. “I allow that Mrs. Osborne beamed all
the time and enjoyed herself enormously. But why? Because everybody was
there. Was she ever so much pleased at Sheffield, do you suppose, or
wherever it was they came from? I am sure she was not. But last night
she was pleased because every duchess and marchioness who counts at all
was there, as well as heaps that don’t count at all. She’s a snob:
probably the finest ever seen, and by what process of reasoning you
arrive at the fact that a snob is natural is beyond me. I agree that
heaps of nice people are snobs, but snobbishness is in itself the most
artificial quality of an artificial age. Snobs are the crowning and
passionate protest against Nature----”

“Oh well,” said May in deprecation of this rather lengthy harangue, “I
didn’t mean to rouse you, Dora.”

“I daresay not, and in that case you have done so without meaning. But
really, when you say that Mrs. Osborne is natural I am bound to protest.
You might as well say that your mother is.”

“Oh no, I mightn’t,” said May quite calmly. “It would be simply silly to
call mother natural. She only does things because they are ‘the thing.’
She spends her whole life in doing ‘the thing.’ And yet I don’t
know--oh, Dora, what very odd people women are when they grow up! Shall
you and I be as odd, do you think? I love mother, and so do you, and we
both of us love yours, don’t we? but they are very, very odd people.”

Dora gave a little shriek of laughter.

“Oh don’t,” she said. “I want to talk about snobs a little more.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ve often told me that mother was one,” remarked May.

“Yes, the darling; she is, isn’t she? She is the most delicious sort of
snob. A month ago she wouldn’t know the Osbornes, and merely said, ‘I
have no doubt they are very honest people,’ with her nose at the same
angle toward earth as is the Matterhorn; while a week ago she was
clamouring for an invitation to the dance last night. In the interval it
had become ‘the thing’ to know the Osbornes. My mother saw it was going
to be ‘the thing’ to know them long ago, and called at Park Lane almost
before they had washed the white blobs of paint off the windows, or hung
up those shields of heraldic glass on the stairs----”

“Oh, no, is there heraldic glass on the stairs?” asked May, in a
slightly awe-struck tone. “I never saw it.”

Dora, as her friend often declared, really did not always play fair.
There had quite distinctly been the satirical note in her own allusion
to the heraldic glass, but as soon as May reflected that in the
appreciative reverence of her reply, Dora was down upon her at once.

“And why shouldn’t they have heraldic glass as much as your people or
mine?” she asked smartly. “They’ve got exactly as many grandfathers and
grandmothers as we have, and there’s not the slightest reason to doubt
that Mrs. Osborne was a Miss Parkins, and Mr. Parkins’s heir, who, I
expect, was far more respectable than my mother’s father, who drank
himself to death, though mother always calls it cerebral hæmorrhage. Oh,
May, we are all snobs, and I’m not sure the worst snobbishness of all
isn’t shown by those who say they came over with William the Conqueror
or were descended from Edward the Fourth. Probably the Osbornes didn’t
come over with William the Conqueror but were here long before, only
they don’t happen to know who they were.”

“I know, that is just it,” said May, calmly. “They don’t know who they
were, and yet they put up their coats of arms.”

Dora looked at her friend in contempt.

“I suppose you think you have scored over that,” she said.

“Not in the least. I am only pointing out perfectly obvious things.”

“Then why do it?” said Dora. “What I am pointing out are not perfectly
obvious things. At least they appear not to be to you. The whole affair
is a game, stars and garters and ancestors, and coats of arms is all a
game. Oh, I don’t say that it isn’t great fun. But it is absurd to take
it seriously. What can it matter to you or me whether great-grandpapa
was a peer or a bootblack? It only amuses us to think that he was a
peer. And if it amuses Mrs. Osborne to think that Mr. Parkins had a coat
of arms at all, why shouldn’t she put it up in the hall window? And
since, as I said, she was the only child, of course she quarters with
the Osborne arms. It’s one of the rules. I believe you are jealous of
them, because they are richer than your horrid family.”

Nothing ever roused May except a practical assault upon her personal
comfort, and Dora seldom attempted to rouse her. It was invariably
hopeless and the present attempt only added another to the list of her
failures.

“I think that is partly true,” said May. “I don’t see why common people
should have the best of everything. They only have to invent a button or
a razor, and all that life offers is theirs. I think it’s deplorable,
but it doesn’t make me angry any more than a wet day makes me angry,
unless I am absolutely caught in the rain with a new hat. As to coats of
arms and things, I think it is rather pleasant to know that one’s
grandfather was a gentleman.”

Dora waved her arms wildly.

“But he probably wasn’t!” she screamed. “Mine wasn’t, he was the wicked
one, you know, and did awful things. Much worse than Mrs. Osborne’s
probably ever dreamed of. Mrs. Osborne’s great-grandfather would
certainly have cut mine, if he had had the chance----”

“He wouldn’t have had the chance,” remarked May. “And also Mrs. Osborne
herself would cut nobody, who would--would lend lustre to her house. Oh,
Dora, let’s stop. It isn’t any good. You are a democrat, and a radical
and a socialist, and really it doesn’t matter. Besides I haven’t seen
you for--oh, well, nearly twenty-four hours. What has happened?”

Dora got up.

“I don’t think I can stop,” she said. “Because I want to know what you
really think about certain things. Two heads are better than one, you
know, even when mine is one of them. Oh, by the way, Austell has let
Grote to the Osbornes. They have taken it for seven years from the end
of July. It was mother’s doing I think. I--oh, May, you may call me a
radical and a socialist and anything else you choose, but I can’t quite
see Mrs. Osborne there. She’ll fill it with plush. I know she will.
After all, I expect mother is right. I suppose it is better to pay some
of your debts, and have other people putting plush monkeys into your
house than go on as Austell has been doing. I expect I should be just
the same if he was my son instead of my brother. It doesn’t seem to
matter much what one’s brother does, as long as he doesn’t wear his hair
long, or cheat at cards. But I daresay it’s different if he’s your son.”

Dora gave a great sigh, and was silent. In spite of that series of
statements which had led May Thurston, quite reasonably, to call her a
radical and a socialist, there was some feeling within her, rather more
intimate, rather more herself, that made her dislike the idea of the
Osbornes living in Grote, which had always been her home. The Austell
finances, especially for the past two or three years, had been
precarious, and though her mother had a jointure that would enable her
and Dora to live quite comfortably in her house in Eaton Place, and at
the little bungalow at Deal, it had been necessary before now to let
the house in Eaton Place during the months of the season, and live at
Deal, and to let the bungalow at Deal (it was of the more spacious sort)
during August and September, and encamp, so to speak, in a corner of
Grote. For Jim Austell, her brother, it could not be denied, was not a
person who could possibly be described as dependable. His mother had
made the most prolonged attempt to describe him as such, but without
success, and she had at length seen the futility of clinging to Grote, a
huge Jacobean mansion with an enormous park. In the latter, being of
sandy soil, a public golf links had been started, which brought in £192
a year, while neighbouring farmers grazed their beasts on other
portions. The total receipts, however, about paid for the flower beds
and the trimming of the exquisite bank of rhododendrons that grew round
the lake, and after a year or so of trial, the scheme had been
pronounced financially unsound, and for the last six months the place
had been in search of a tenant. Austell had hoped that his well-known
skill at bridge and his knowledge of horses might save him from the
extremity of letting it. In this he had been disappointed; they had but
contributed to the speed at which it was necessary to do so.

All this, which was part of the habitual environment of Dora’s mind,
part of the data under which she lived, passed through it or was
presented to it, like a familiar picture, in the space of the sigh that
concluded her last speech. It was no longer any use thinking about these
things; Grote had been let to the Osbornes, the bungalow at Deal had
also been let for August, and till September she and her mother were
going to “live in their boxes.” After all, they had done that, as
everybody else had, often before, and for much longer periods than one
month, but it was the first time that they had been compelled to live in
their boxes with no house (except Eaton Place in August) to flee unto.
And, at this moment the change struck Dora. For week after week before
now, she had stayed with friends, knowing (though not thinking of it)
that all the time there was home behind it all. True, now that Grote had
been let, it would have been possible to live in the bungalow at Deal,
but the latter had been let while the former was still uncertain, and
Dora suddenly felt a sense of homelessness that was not quite
comfortable. In two weeks from now they went to the Thurstons, then
there were three more visits, then, no doubt, if they chose, many more
visits, but there was nothing behind; there was no home. Meantime, the
Osbornes grabbed homes wherever they chose, they built a palace in Park
Lane, they took Grote from her own impecunious family, and as Mrs.
Osborne had told her mother last night, Mr. O. had a fancy for a bit of
stalking for self and friends in the autumn, and had taken a little box
up in Sutherland. She, however, was going to settle down at Grote at the
end of the season, and did not intend to go North. There had been
badinage over this, it appeared, between her and Mr. O.; and he
threatened her with an action for divorce on the grounds of desertion.
And Dora felt much less socialistic and far more inclined to agree with
May on the iniquity of common people having all they wanted simply
because they invented a button. If only she could invent a button.

Dora, as has already been seen, was apt to be slightly discursive. She
had one of those effervescent minds to which every topic as it comes on
the board instantly suggests another, and in half a dozen sentences she
was apt to speak of half a dozen totally different things, each in turn
being swiftly abandoned for some fresh and more absorbing topic which
each opened up. She had begun a moment before with telling May that she
wanted her advice, and before that was asked or offered, before indeed,
the subject on which it was desired was so much as mentioned, she had
darted away afresh, poising, dragon-fly fashion, in the direction of
Grote, and the letting of it to the Osbornes. The Osbornes indeed had
been the connecting link, and now she went straight back _via_ the
Osbornes to the point from which she had started.

“Yes, I want your advice May,” she repeated, “or I think I do. It’s
quite serious, at least it’s beginning to be quite serious, and there
are so many dreadfully funny things connected with it. Yes, Mr. Osborne
has asked leave to call upon mother this afternoon at six, and it’s
half-past five now. Oh, dear, oh, dear! I suppose he found out in a book
that that sort of thing was done a hundred years ago, and he wishes to
be correct. The Osbornes are absolutely correct if you think of it.
Every one went in to supper in the right order last night, which never
happens at any other house I have ever been to, and where does he get
those extraordinary good looks from? Oh, I don’t mean Mr. Osborne. How
can you be so silly--but him. Yes, I’m telling it all very clearly,
aren’t I, so I hope you understand. Perhaps Mrs. Osborne was a beauty
once, you can’t tell.”

That May perfectly understood this extraordinary farrago of
observations said less for her powers of perspicacity than might have
been supposed, for Dora was not alluding to any new thing, but to a
subject that had often before been mentioned between them. And Dora went
on, still discursively but intelligibly.

“It’s coming to the crisis, you see,” she said. “Mr. Osborne’s call on
mother is of a formal nature. He is going to ask permission for Claude
to pay his addresses to me. He will use those very words, unless mother
says ‘yes’ before he gets so far. And then I shall have to make up my
mind. At least I’m not sure that I shall; I believe it’s made up
already. And yet I can’t be sure. May, I feel just like a silly
sentimental girl in an impossible _feuilleton_. He thrills me, isn’t it
awful? But he does. Thrills! I don’t believe any boy was ever so
good-looking. And then suddenly in the middle of my thrill, it all stops
with a jerk, just because he says that somebody is a very ‘handsome
lady.’ Why shouldn’t he say ‘handsome lady’? He said he thought mother
was such a handsome lady, and I nearly groaned out loud. And then I
looked at him again or something, and I didn’t care what he said. And
he’s nice too. I know he’s nice, and he’s got excellent manners, and
always gets up when a lady, handsome or not, comes into the room,
instead of lounging in his chair as Austell does and all other young men
nowadays except a few like Claude who aren’t exactly our sort. And he’s
kind and he’s good. Am I in love with him? For heaven’s sake, tell me.”

Dora paused a moment and then took a cigarette from a box that stood on
the mantelpiece, and lit it. She never smoked cigarettes; she only lit
them, and the mere fact that she lit one was indicative of extreme
absorption in something else.

“You’re engaged, May,” she said, “so you ought to know. Else what is the
use of your being engaged. What do you feel when that angel Harry comes
into the room?”

May could answer that quite easily.

“Oh, I feel as if it was me coming into the room,” she said. “I feel as
if I am not in the room, since you put it like that, unless he is.”

The conversation had been flippant enough up till this moment, though,
as a matter of fact, Dora, being inconsequential by nature, often gave
the note of flippancy, when she was in earnest. Both of the girls, in
any case, were quite serious now. And out of the depth of her twenty
years’ wisdom, May proceeded to draw a bucket full for Dora, who was
only nineteen.

“Oh, I expect you are in love,” she said. “At least I expect you are
feeling as if you were. I understand perfectly about the thrill, though
it sounds so dreadfully _Family Herald_ when it is said. But one does
thrill. I believe that thrill is a pretty good guide. I don’t usually
thrill, in fact I never had thrilled till I saw Harry. But I always
thrill at him. I suppose all girls feel the same when they fall in love.
I suppose people on bank holidays thrill when they change hats, or eat
winkles. We are all common then. At least you may call it common if you
choose. I don’t see why you should. It’s IT.”

“You haven’t told me about me,” remarked Dora.

May Thurston shifted her position slightly. It was not done with any
idea of manœuvre. She was the least dramatic of girls, and she only
shifted because she felt a little uncomfortable. It was new to her also
to take the lead. Dora usually strode ahead.

“I can’t advise you about things of that sort,” she said. “I’m
old-fashioned, you see----”

“Oh, are you, darling?” murmured Dora. “Nobody would have guessed it.”

“But I am over things like that, old-fashioned and romantic. I think
love in a cottage would be quite ideal, not because a cottage is
ideal--I would much sooner not live in one--but because love is. And,
oh, Dora, I can just advise you not to marry him unless you are in love
with him. I daresay heaps of girls make very nice sensible marriages,
where there’s lots of money, and where they each like the other, but you
do miss such a lot by not falling in love. You miss--you miss it all.”

Dora scrutinized her friend for a moment, her head a little on one side,
with something of the manner of a bright-eyed thrush listening for the
movement of the worm that it hopes to breakfast on.

“But there’s something in your mind, which you are not saying, May,” she
remarked. “I can hear it rustling.”

“Yes. There are just two little things that make me wonder whether you
are in love with him. The first is you said you were sure he was good!
That is no reason at all. You don’t fall in love with a person because
he’s good. You esteem and like him--or it’s possible to conceive doing
so--because he’s good, but you don’t love him for that reason.”

Dora gave a little purr of laughter.

“Oh, May, you are heavenly,” she said. “But surely it’s an advantage if
your _promesso_ is good.”

“Oh, certainly, but nobody in love stops to think about that.”

“I see. Well, what is the second thing that makes you wonder?”

May looked at her with her large, serious blue eyes.

“What you said about being brought up with a jerk in the middle of your
thrill, when he spoke of a handsome lady. As if it mattered! Yet somehow
it does to you, or it would not bring you up with a jerk!”

“And you think it doesn’t matter?” asked Dora.

“Of course not if you love him, and if you don’t, in the name of all
that is sensible, don’t marry him. That sort of marriage is called
sensible, I know. It is really the wildest and most awful risk.”

Dora stared.

“How do you know?” she asked.

“Of course I know, simply because I’m in love with Harry. Fancy being
tied to a man for life without that! Gracious, it’s nearly six, and he
was to call for me at home at six.”

“Oh, you can keep him waiting ten minutes,” said Dora. “We’ve only just
begun to talk about the great point.”

May shook her head.

“I could keep him waiting,” she said, “but I couldn’t keep myself. I
must go. Darling, I long to hear more, only you see I can’t stop now.
Come and see me to-morrow morning. I shall be in till lunch time.”

Dora shrugged her shoulders, not in the least naturally but of design.

“I think it’s a pity to fall in love then, if it makes one so selfish,”
she remarked.

“No doubt you are right, darling. Good-bye,” said May.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was, as May had said, close on six, and in anticipation of Mr.
Osborne’s arrival, Dora removed herself from the little fore-and-aft
drawing room which looked out in front through two windows on to Eaton
Place, and at the back through one on to the little square yard behind
the house, and went upstairs to her bedroom, taking the hat with one
swan feather fixed in it and the other still unplaced, with her. But
even the hat, though in this extraordinarily interesting condition with
regard to its trimming, failed at the moment to make good any footing in
her mind. It was not that hats were less interesting than before
(especially to the maker and wearer) but that during this last month
something else had grown infinitely more interesting than anything else
had ever been; the standard of interest possible in this world which
Dora found so full of enchanting things, had been immeasurably raised.
Life hitherto had been brilliantly full of surface brightnesses, but it
seemed to her now as if life, the sunlike spirit of life, which shone
with so continuous a lustre on her, struck the surface of herself no
longer, but penetrated down into depths that she had not yet dreamed of.
There, in those depths, so it seemed to her, she sat now, while on the
surface, so to speak, there floated all the pleasant and humorous and
friendly things of life. The hat she held in her hand floated there,
dogs swam about there and flowers sparkled, May Thurston was there and
friends innumerable. But as in the exquisite picture of the birth of Eve
by Watts, a big photograph of which hung over her bed, it was as if all
these were but a skin, a rind which even now was peeling off her,
showing beneath the form and the wonder of the woman herself.

She sat in the window seat, and the hot air of the tired afternoon
streamed slowly and gently in, just lifting and letting lie again the
bright brown of her hair. Outside the hundred noises of the busy town
mingled and melted together, and seemed to her to form, even as the
blending of all colours forms the apparently colourless white, a general
hush and absence of noise. Rousing herself for a moment, and consciously
listening, she could detect and name the ingredients of it; there was
the sharp clip of horses’ hoofs, the whirr of motors, the chiding of
swifts, the agitated chirp of sparrows over some doubtful treasure of
the roadway, the tapping of heels on the hot pavement, the cool whisper
of cleansing from a water cart, and the noise of news being cried round
the corner. But all these were blended together and formed not confused
noise but quietness, and from the quietness of her face, and the
immobility of her hands which were usually so active, you might have
guessed that she was tired or bored, and found this hour pass heavily.
But a second glance would have erased so erroneous an impression: there
was a smouldering brightness in her eye, and ever and again a little
trembling at the corners of her mouth which might develop into a smile,
or, equally easily almost, be the precursor of flooded eyes.

For the last month now she had had moods like this, when she dived down
from the froth and effervescence of her surface mind and sat below in
deep and remote waters. It was not that she had lost the power of living
on the surface, for this afternoon with her friend she had been quite
completely there, until toward the end of their talk she had felt that
she was being beckoned down again and knew that when May left her she
would sink into these depths that till lately she had not known existed.
Yet the path that had led to them had been quite natural; all her life
she had above all things loved beauty, whether of waves or birds or
sunsets, or human beings. Thus it was without any sense of a strange or
unusual thing happening to her that she had admired frankly and
naturally the dark merry face of this young man. He had taken her into
dinner once or twice; he had danced with her a half dozen times. And
then, suddenly and quite unexpectedly, he belonged to the surface of
things no longer as far as she was concerned. Something smote at her
heart, and the flowers and birds peeled away like rind as from Eve when
she was born, and the woman shone within.

And indeed, there was little in all this to wonder at, for in spite of
crabbed and cynical proverbs about beauty being only skin-deep, it
remains and will remain to those who have eyes themselves, the wand of
the enchanter. No doubt the enchantment can be made without the wand,
but when eyes are keen, and blood is young, how vastly more easily is
the enchantment effected with the aid of that weapon. And Claude to her
thinking, before ever she even wondered if she was falling in love with
him, was certainly not without the wand. He was dark, a potent colour
to her who was so fair; hair nearly black grew low and crisp on the
forehead, and eyebrows quite black met above his brown eyes. Then came
the lean, smooth oval of his face, a mouth rather full-lipped, and a
squarish chin. Often before he spoke, especially if he had, as not
infrequently happened, some rather determined remark to make, he jerked
his head a little back and put out his chin. It was a gesture of
extraordinary decision, and “oh,” said Dora to herself now, as she
thought of it, “I do like a man to know his mind.”

The same signs of knowing his mind were visible, too, in his movements.
He never strayed about a room, or leaned against anything. If he
purposed to stand up, up he stood; if he wished for support he sat down.
But as far as Dora had seen, he seldom wished for support; those rather
long slim limbs and boyish figure appeared remarkably capable of
supporting themselves. He moved quickly and with a certain neatness that
was attractive; once--these tiny details were important in making up her
impression of him--she had seen him strike a match in a windy place to
light his cigarette; one quick stroke had kindled it and his thin brown
fingers made a cavern for it, in which it burned unwaveringly as in a
room. And he could dance, really dance, not slide about in a crowded
ballroom with an avoidance of collision which was really magical, and
without--doubtless these things were all of the surface, but they caused
the whole image to sink down with her into those depths--without having
to mop his face when they stopped, which in general was not before the
music stopped.

Suddenly, from the combined quietness of the noises outside, a sound
detached itself and made itself very clear to her ear. It was a motor
just preparing to start somewhere close below her in the street, and
Dora, feeling instinctively, somehow, that this was significant to her,
got up and leaned out of the window. Her instinct was correct enough; a
big, short, broad man with an extremely shiny top-hat was just stepping
into the big Napier car that stood at her mother’s door. Even as she
looked out the chauffeur nipped into his place again, and in answer to
the footman’s inquiry she heard Mr. Osborne say “‘Ome” quite distinctly.
Then he lifted his shiny hat and carefully wiped the top of his bald
head. Upon which Dora had, no doubt in reaction from her really serious
half hour of thought, a slight fit of the giggles.

But the giggles soon stopped; they were but of the nature of coming to
the surface to breathe, and she was already beginning to sink back
toward the depths again, when there came a tap at her door, and her
mother entered.

Lady Austell was very tall, and one felt at once that there was not the
slightest doubt that she was not a countess; it seemed somehow far too
suitable a thing to have really occurred. But in the endless surprises
of this world, in which everything unconjecturable happens, and everyone
is what he should not be, the ideally fit thing had occurred, and a
countess she was in spite of the obviousness of the fact that she must
be. That she was dowager was no less easy a guess, for though eighteen
years had elapsed since her husband’s death, there was something about
her dress, a little strip of crape insertion in the violet of her gown,
it may be, or the absence of any jewels except an amethyst cross, or at
other times a cap very Dutch and becoming with a ribbon of black in it
that sat loosely on her abundant hair, that suggested, though it did not
notify, widowhood. These insignia, it must be noted, she did not wear
simultaneously, but there was never a day on which one at least of them,
or others like them, was not present. No doubt also her manner gave
confirmation to the impression conveyed by her dress, for it was one
from which all exuberance had departed, though it suggested and reminded
you (like a clear sunset) that a brilliant day had preceded it. Her
voice also was rather faint and regretful, the voice of a widow with an
unsatisfactory son and an unmarried daughter. But those who knew her
best had in their minds the very distinct knowledge that it was
difficult if not impossible to silence that faint voice, or make it say
anything different to what it had already said. Lady Austell, when her
views were in conflict with those of others, never said very much, but
she never changed her tune, nor indeed ceased faintly chanting it, until
the opposition had been borne down by her quiet persistence. As for the
regretfulness of which her gentle accents were full, it may have been
composed of grief for the fact that others, not she, would eventually be
obliged to yield.

It will be seen, therefore, that Theresa Austell was an instance the
more of the undoubted fact that people as well as things are not what
they seem. She seemed, until you knew her quite well, to live
uncomplainingly but regretfully among the memories of dead and happier
years, whereas, when your acquaintance with her ripened, you would find
that she lived with remarkable keenness in the present, and kept a wide
and unwavering eye on a live and happier future. She appeared to be
soft, gentle and helpless; in reality she was remarkably capable of
taking care of herself, and though like ivy she appeared to cling to
others for support, her nature was in truth that of the famous ivy that
grew on the new mansion in Park Lane; it could stand upright with
perfect ease, and was of metallic hardness. Adversity--for she had not
had a very happy life--instead of breaking her, had tempered her to an
exceeding toughness; what had been at the most soft iron was now
reliable steel.

She gave a faint wan smile at Dora as she entered.

“I thought you would be here, dear,” she said. “Your Aunt Adeline has
telephoned to know if we want her motor. We can have it till dinner-time
and it will then take us to her house. I knew you liked a drive, so I
thanked her and said ‘yes.’”

This was merely another way of putting the fact that Lady Austell wanted
a drive and also wanted to talk to Dora. But her method of putting it
sounded better, and was very likely quite true. Dora did like a drive
and since her mother knew it, that might possibly have been the reason
why she accepted Aunt Adeline’s offer. But Lady Austell’s next reason
(though she had already given reason sufficient) was not so probable. “A
drive will do you good, dear,” she said faintly. “You look a little
fagged out and pale.”

Dora had learned not to dispute points with her mother. Though in
general she was so full of discursive volubility, she was always rather
silent with Lady Austell, of whom, in some way that she scarcely
understood herself, she was considerably afraid. But that again was
typical of the effect her mother produced on people; those who knew her
but slightly thought she was the least formidable of women, but the
better she was known the more she was feared. Often Dora argued to
herself about the matter; she knew that she was not afraid of anything
tangible her mother could do to her; she could not beat her or starve
her, or ill-treat her, and it must have been her mother’s nature of
which she was afraid. The feeling was analogous to a child’s fear of the
dark; it fears not what it knows of, but the unknown possibilities that
may lurk therein. It cannot say what they are; if it knew it would
probably cease to fear them.

Dora got up at once.

“Yes, I should like a drive,” she said.

“Then put on your hat, dear.” And Lady Austell’s pale melancholy eyes
fell on the half-trimmed straw.

“Another hat, Dora?” she asked. “I should have thought what you had
would have lasted you till the end of the season!”

And at the words Dora’s pleasure in her new hat fell as dead as Sisera
at Jael’s feet. Nobody could kill pleasure (though quite innocently)
with so unerring an aim as Lady Austell.

“It didn’t cost twopence,” said Dora. “Jim sent me up the feathers from
Grote.”

Lady Austell looked at the straw with an experienced eye.

“It is very cheap for less than twopence,” she remarked. “The only
question is whether it was necessary. Then you will join me down below,
dear? I have a note to write, and we may as well leave it instead of
posting it.”

This was illustrative of the cause that had made Dora say that when
women grew up they were very odd people. Lady Austell would
unfalteringly drive through miles of odious roads to deliver a note
rather than post it, but would on the same day drive to Oxford Street (a
two-shilling fare in a hansom) in order to purchase what she would have
paid sixpence more for round the corner. She was the victim of the habit
of petty economy, in pursuit of which passion--one of the most
fatal--she would become a perfect spendthrift, casting florins and half
crowns right and left in order to save pennies. She took great care of
the pence and the half-crowns presumably took care of themselves, for at
any rate she took no care of them. But when other people’s expenditure
was concerned, she took care of it all.

The note that had to be left (which concerned cessation of subscription
from a library in Leicester Square) caused them to traverse the length
of Piccadilly, and to retrace it, before they could leave the jostling
traffic and turn into the Park, and it so happened that in this traverse
of the streets, the month being mid-July, and the hour the late
afternoon, Lady Austell had been almost incessantly occupied (though by
her own word, she disliked all conventionality) in smiling sadly and
regretfully as was her manner, at all the people she knew, and bowing
(without a smile) to those who appeared to know her. Somehow, her smile,
even when it was most gracious and welcoming, always suggested to the
person on whom it was bestowed that something had gone wrong with his
affairs, and Lady Austell knew and was most sympathetic, so that Mrs.
Osborne (seated in a landau that bobbed prodigiously, owing to the
extreme resilience of the springs that came from her husband’s
workshops) receiving one of these felt certain for a moment that Mr.
O.’s mission that afternoon had not prospered until she remembered that
she had seen Lady Austell smile like that before. Soon after, walking
gaily eastward, came Austell, whom she had thought to be still in the
country, and on whom she bestowed a glance of pained wonder, closely
followed by Claude, looking in spite of the heat of the day extremely
cool and comfortable in a straw-hatted suit. Dora did not see him; she
was at the moment smiling violently at some one who did not see her.
Then the motor checked for a moment at the gates of the Park, slid
forward again into the less populous ways, and Lady Austell, abandoning
the duties of recognition, did her duty by her daughter. As usual she
began a little way off the point so that she could get well into her
stride, so to speak, before you saw that she was going anywhere in
particular. This was a settled policy with her; it insured, in racing
parlance, a flying start instead of a start from rest. During the drive
down Piccadilly she had been arranging her thoughts with her usual
precision; she knew not only what she was going to say, but how she was
going to say it.

She gave a little sigh.

“What sermons there are not only in stones,” she said, “but in streets.
And, do you know, dear, when one drives down Piccadilly like that and
sees all sorts and conditions of men and women jostling each other, what
strikes me is not how different people are, but how alike they are. All
the differences (she was getting into her stride now) which we think of
as so great are really so infinitesimal. Real differences, the things
that matter, do not lie on the surface at all. I think our tendency is
to make far too much out of mere superficialities and to neglect or
discount those traits and qualities which constitute the essential
differences between one man and another. Don’t you think so, dear?”

The ingenious Latin language has certain particles used in asking
questions, one of which, the grammarian tells us, is used if a negative
reply is expected, another if the reply is expected to be affirmative.
Lady Austell, speaking in the less rich language of our day, could not
make use of these, but there was something in her intonation quite as
effective as “nonne.” Dora, without question, found herself saying
“yes.”

“I am so glad you agree with me, dear,” went on her mother, “and I am
sure you will agree with me also in the fact that, this being so, we
should try to judge people, or rather to appreciate them, by the true
and inner standard, not by the more obvious but less essential
characteristics that we see on the surface.”

Lady Austell’s voice sank a little.

“If one may say so without irreverence,” she said, “how God must laugh
at our divisions of classes. We must look like children arranging books
by the colour of their covers instead of by their contents. We class all
sorts of noble and ignoble people together and call them gentlemen,
neglecting the only true classification altogether.”

It was evident now to Dora that her mother had got an excellent start,
and she could see what she had started for. There was no need for reply,
and Lady Austell having favoured a passing friend with a smile that was
positively wintry in its sadness, proceeded.

“Such a good instance of what I am saying occurred to-day, dear,” she
said. “Mr. Osborne called on me at six, as I think I told you he was
going to do, and for the first time perhaps I fully saw what true
delicacy and feeling he has, and how immensely these outweigh any of
those things which we hastily might call faults of manner or breeding.
It is the same with her, kind excellent woman that she is. What a
priceless thing to inherit all that kindness and sweetness of nature.”

Lady Austell was flying along now; the race, so to speak, was clearly a
sprint. Dora merely waited for her to breast the tape. She proceeded to
do so.

“He came on a subject that very closely concerns you, dear,” she said,
“and like a true gentleman he asked my permission before allowing any
step to be taken. Can you guess, dear?”

Dora, as has been said, stood considerably in awe of her mother, but
occasionally a discourse of this kind, which she felt to be entirely
insincere, roused in her an impulse of the liveliest impatience, which
gave sharpness to her tongue.

“Oh, dear, yes,” she said. “The truly delicate Mr. Osborne asked if Mr.
Claude might pay his addresses to me. I expect he used just those words.
I hope you allowed him to, mother.”

Lady Austell’s manner was always admirable. She appeared not to notice
the sharpness of the speech at all. She laid her neatly gloved hand on
Dora’s.

“Ah, my dearest,” she said.

She looked at her with her sad blue eyes, eyes that always looked tender
and patient, even when she was disputing a fare with a cabman. “I am
sure you will be very happy dear,” she said after a pause. “He is the
most excellent young man, everyone speaks well of him. And, my dear, how
good-looking. A perfect--I forget the name.”

Dora had a momentary tendency to giggle at the anticlimax of this. But
she checked it, and again her impatience rose to the surface.

“Adonis?” she suggested. “But are not good looks one of those
superficial things which we rate too high?”

Lady Austell smiled.

“Ah, you mischievous child,” she said. “You make fun of all I say. I
will send a note to Mr. Osborne to-night, for I told him I should have
to speak to you first. You will make him very happy, Dora, and you will
make somebody else happier. Shall we turn?”




CHAPTER III.


The garden front of Grote faced southeast, and thus, though all day the
broad paved walk in front of it had been grilled by the burning of the
August sun, the shadow of the house itself had spread over it like an
incoming tide of dark clear water before tea time, and at this moment
three footmen were engaged in laying the table for that meal, while the
fourth, as a matter of fact, was talking to the stillroom maid under
pretence of “seeing to” the urn. They were all in the famous Osborne
livery, which was rather gorgeous and of the waspish scheme of colour.
There were, it may be remarked, only four of them, because Mr. Osborne
was still in London, roughing it, so his wife was afraid, with a
kitchen-maid for cook, and only two footmen besides his own man, for
Parliamentary business had kept him there for a few days after Mrs.
Osborne had left to get things in order at Grote. But he was expected
down this afternoon for a couple of nights before he went North, and the
six footmen would shine together like evening stars. “Company” also,
though not in large numbers, were also arriving that evening, among whom
were Lady Austell, her son, and Dora. The latter was now formally and
publicly engaged to Claude.

The house was three-storied, built in the Jacobean style of brick and
stone with small-paned windows, and the brick had mellowed to that
russet red which is as indescribable as it is inimitable. A door opened
from the long gallery inside, which was panelled and hung with
portraits--inalienable, luckily, or Austell would have got rid of them
long ago--onto this broad-paved walk that ran from end to end of the
house. On the other side of it was the famous yew hedge with square
doors cut in it, through which were seen glimpses of the flower garden
and long riband bed below, and the top of this hedge grew the grotesque
shapes of birds. A flight of stone steps led down into the formal flower
garden below, which was bordered on the far side by the long riband bed.
Below that again two big herbaceous borders stretched away toward the
lake, on the far side of which there rose from the edge of the water the
great rhododendron thickets. To right and left lay the park, full of
noble timber, which climbed up to the top of the hill opposite. Across
this ran the road from the station, which skirted the lake on its
eastern side, and passing by the flower garden came up to what Mrs.
Osborne called “the carriage sweep” on the other side of the house, from
which two wings projected, so that the carriage sweep was really the
interior of a three-sided quadrangle.

The warning hoot of an approaching motor caused one of the footmen to
disappear into the house with some alacrity, and a few minutes afterward
Mr. Osborne emerged from the door into the gallery. He still wore London
clothes, dark gray trousers and a black frock coat and waistcoat, for he
had driven straight from the House of Commons to Victoria, but he had
picked up a Panama hat in the hall, and had substituted it for his silk
hat.

“And tell your missus I’ve come,” he observed to one of the wasps.

He sat down in a creaking basket-chair for a few moments, “to rest and
cool,” as he expressed it to himself, and looked about him with extreme
satisfaction. His big high-coloured face was capable of expressing an
immense amount of contentment, and though from time to time he carried a
large coloured handkerchief to his face, and mopped his streaming
forehead with a whistled “Whew!” at the heat, so superficial a cause of
discomfort could not disturb his intense satisfaction with life. Things
had prospered amazingly with him and his: he was thoroughly contented
with the doings of destiny.

He was still “resting and cooling” when Mrs. Osborne came bustling out
of the house, also very hot, and kissed her husband loudly first on one
cheek and then on the other.

“Well, and that’s right, my dear,” she said, “and it’s good to see you.
But you are hot, Eddie, and is it wise for you to sit out o’ doors in
the shadow without a wrap? You were always prone to take a chill.”

“I should be prone to take an apoplexy if I put anything else on, Mrs.
O.,” remarked he. “But my! it’s a relief to get down into the country
again. Not but what things haven’t gone very well this last week for me
in the House. Commission on Housing of Employees! I had a good bit to
tell them about that, and I warrant you they listened. Lor’, my dear,
they like a plain man as’ll talk common sense to them, and tell ’em what
he’s seen and what he knows, instead of argufying about procedure. I
knew my figures, my dear, and my cubic feet per room, and my statistics
about the health of my workmen and their death-rate. I’ve been a common
man, myself, my dear, and I told them so, and told them what things was
when I was a lad.”

Mrs. Osborne was slightly aghast.

“Oh! Eddie, I doubt that’ll tell against you,” she said.

“Not a bit of it, old lady. Everyone knew it to begin with, else I don’t
say I should have told them. And equally they know that they come and
dance at No. 92 when Mrs. O. invites them. Glad they are to come, too,
and my dinner table is good enough for anybody to put his legs under.
But all that’s over for the present, and I didn’t come away for my
holiday, which I’ve deserved, to talk more politics; I came away to
enjoy myself, and have a breath of country air. Eh! it’s a pretty little
box this. I wish I could have bought it. I should have liked to leave a
country seat for Per and Mrs. after you and me was dead and buried.”

This turn in the conversation was not quite to Mrs. Osborne’s taste.

“Don’t talk so light about dying, Mr. Osborne,” she said, “because you
give me the creeps and the shivers for all it’s so hot. There’s a host
of things too I want to talk to you about before the company comes,
without thinking of buryings. There’s the two pictures of you and me
arrived, and it would be a good thing if you’d cast your eye over the
walls, and see where you’d like them hung, and we’d get them up at once.
They’re a fine pair, they are, and the frames too, remarkably handsome.”

“Well, you want a handsome frame for a handsome bit of painting,” said
her husband, “and finer works I’ve seldom seen. They was cheap at the
price. Give me a cup of tea, Mrs. O., and we’ll go and have a squint at
’em. What else, my dear?”

Mrs. Osborne poured him out a cup of tea as she knew he liked it,
extremely strong. She put in the cream first and stirred it up before
handing to him.

“Your brother Alfred came yesterday,” she said, “and you must be careful
how you behave to him Eddie. He’s got a touch of the lumbago, and it
makes him worried.”

“Poor old Alf--cross as two sticks, I shouldn’t wonder,” said Mr.
Osborne, sipping his tea loudly. “Never mind, there’s Claude to look
after him, and Claude manages him as never was. He’s wrapped up in that
lad, Maria, my dear, and I’m sure I don’t wonder. Where is the boy? And
my lady Dora will be here this evening. Lord, Mrs. O., my tongue can’t
say ‘Dora’ yet: it keeps saying ‘my lady.’ I seem as if I can’t get used
to it. And what other of the lords and ladies have you got coming?”

“Well, there’s Lady Austell and the Earl, and there’s Lady Thurs--Lady
May Thurston and Mr. Franklin, to whom she’s engaged----”

“Why, we’re a houseful of lovers,” said Mr. Osborne, beaming
delightedly.

“That we are. Then there’s Alderman Price and lady, just run down from
Sheffield, and Sir Thomas Ewart and lady----”

“Remind me to get out the ’40 port,” said Mr. Osborne. “Sir Thomas likes
a glass of that.”

“He likes a dozen glasses of that,” remarked Mrs. Osborne, “but
pray-a-don’t sit for ever over your wine at table, Mr. O., for there’s
the--the--I never can remember the name of that quartette, but they’re
going to give us a bit of music after----”

“Lashing out, lashing out,” said her husband, “you’ll make a pauper of
me yet, Mrs. O.”

“Never you fear, but Dora loves music, and nothing would content Claude
but that I must get the quartette down; and don’t you look at the bill,
Mr. O., because it’s a scandal to pay that for a bit of music. And then
there’s Percy and Catherine, and your brother.”

“Just a family party,” said Osborne, “that’s what I like. Family party
and an old friend or two like Sir Thomas and lady. Times change, don’t
they, Mrs. O.? There was a time when you and me felt so flustered at
being bid to dinner with Sir T. that we were all of a tremble. Not much
trembling now, eh? Ah, Maria, for what we have received the Lord make us
truly thankful!”

Mrs. Osborne did not at once follow this.

“And since when have you said your grace after your tea, Eddie?” she
asked.

“Oh, it wasn’t for my tea,” said he, “I was just thinking of everything,
teas and breakfasts and luncheons and dinners and work and play and
enjoyment alike. I’m thankful, I am thankful for it all.”

Then Mrs. Osborne understood and held out her plump hand with its large
knuckles and immense jewelled rings to her husband.

“Eddie, my love,” she said, “and Lor’, here comes Alfred. Don’t go
kissing my hand before him. He’d think it so silly.”

“Silly or not, Mrs. O., here goes,” said her husband, and imprinted a
resounding caress on it.

Round the corner of the house had come a queer wizened little figure.
Alfred, for all the heat of the day, was dressed in black broadcloth,
wore a species of buckled goloshes over his shoes and had a plaid rug
over his shoulders. From above the garish colours of this rose a very
small head, which would have been seen to be bald had not its owner worn
over it a cap of Harris tweed, the peak of which almost came over his
eye. Below that appeared a thin little aquiline nose, a mouth so tight
and thin-lipped that it looked as if it was not meant to open, and
cheeks so hollow that they looked as if they were being sucked in by
voluntary contraction. His walk was peculiar as his dress: he moved one
foot a little forward and then put the other level with it. The same
process repeated led to an extraordinarily deliberate progression.

Alfred was Mr. Osborne’s elder brother, older than him by some ten
years. He had entered a broker’s office as clerk at the age of fifteen,
and in the intervening years had, by means of careful and studied
speculation, amassed a fortune, that had made Mr. Osborne on a former
occasion remark that Claude would be a richer man than his father
without ever having done a stroke of work for it. For Alfred (unmarried
as yet) had made Claude his heir, a benefaction in return for which he
“took it out” of Claude’s father and mother. By one of those strange
fantasies of Nature which must supply her with so great a fund of
amusement, he united to an unrivalled habit of being right with regard
to the future movements of the stock market, an equally unrivalled eye
for the merits of pictures, and had for years bought very cheaply such
works as dealers and connoisseurs would run up and wrangle for at
Christie’s a few years later. Here the inimitable humour of the
construction of his nature came in, for well as he loved a picture, he
loved a financial transaction a little more dearly, and sometimes he had
collected works of an artist of no particular merit, in the
consciousness that when dealers knew that he was buying them, they would
begin to put the price up. Then he would gently unload, and leave them
with unmarketable wares on their hands. He delighted in dealers, because
they ministered to his recondite sense of fun; they did not delight in
him, because they never knew whether he was collecting because he saw
merit in an artist, or because his design was to make them think that
such merit existed. One or two had tried to make friends with him, and
asked him to dinner. He ate their dinners with a great appreciation, and
scored off them worst of all. By some further strange freak of fancy,
Nature had made it easy for him to acquire all that which his brother
and sister-in-law could not acquire at all, for brother Alfred, in spite
of his ridiculous clothes had the manner, the voice, and the ways of an
eccentric and high-lineaged duke, cynical if you will, and of amazing
ill-temper, a fancy which Mrs. Osborne delicately alluded to as being
worried. He also gave the impression of infernal wickedness, a quality
which he was quite lacking in, except as regards his ill-tempers. It was
an undoubted fact that he invariably got the better of other competitors
in speculating and picture dealing and such perfectly legitimate
pursuits, which they might be inclined to attribute to diabolical
alliances.

He crept toward the tea table, looked at his brother’s hand, which was
held out in salutation, as if it was an insect, rejected it, and sat
down pulling his shawl more closely about his shoulders.

“Fresh from your triumphs in the House, my dear Edward!” he said. “You
positively reek of prosperity. You seem to be hot.”

“Well, I’m what I seem then,” said Mr. Osborne with great good nature.
He could not possibly be other than polite to brother Alfred, who was to
make Claude his heir, even if he had been tempted to do so. As a matter
of fact, he was not so tempted. “Rum old Alf” was his only comment on
his brother, when he had been more than usually annoying.

“I gather that the aristocracy assembles before dinner,” went on Alfred.
“Maria, my dear, after giving me tea for forty years at frequent
intervals, it is strange that you do not remember that I take milk and
not cream. Another cup, please.”

“Well, and how’s the lumbago, Alf?” asked his brother. “Plumbago I call
it: weighs as heavy as lead round the loins. Not but what I’ve only once
had a touch of it myself.”

“Very humorous indeed,” said Alfred. There was certainly no doubt that
brother Alfred was a good deal worried, and Mr. Osborne made the mental
note that his lumbago must be very bad indeed to make him like this.
Acid he always was, but not always vitriolic. But luckily both Mr.
Osborne and his wife were proof against either acid or vitriol. They
only felt sorry that brother Alf was so worried.

“Well, well, take your mind off it, Alf,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of
fair dames coming down to cheer you up. Lord, Maria, what a rip brother
Alf was when he was a young one. Opera every night and bouquets to the
ladies on the stage----”

“Libel,” remarked Alfred.

Libel it was, but Mr. Osborne had intended it for a pleasant sort of
libel. As the libel and not the pleasantness struck Alfred, he abandoned
the topic.

“Bought any pictures lately, Alf?” he said.

“No, but there are two I should like to have sold. You and Maria; never
saw such daubs. What did you pay for them? Twenty-five pounds apiece?”

Mrs. Osborne laughed, quite good humouredly.

“Why, if he’s not trying to buy them cheap off us,” she said, “and sell
them expensive. Twenty-five pounds apiece! as if you didn’t know that
the frames came to more. You and your joking, Alfred! Take a cucumber
sandwich, which I know you like, though how you digest such cold
vegetables at tea passes me. Why, I am reminded of a cucumber sandwich
for hours after.”

“Where are you going to hang them?” asked brother Alfred.

“And if we weren’t just going indoors when we’ve finished our tea to
look!” said Mrs. Osborne cordially. “Do come with us, Alfred, and give
your advice.”

“I should recommend the coal cellar,” said Alfred. “They want toning.”

“Why, and he’s at his joke again!” said Mrs. Osborne, with placid
admiration.

There is probably nothing more aggravating to a man in a thoroughly bad
temper than to fail in communicating one single atom of it to others,
but to have your most galling attacks received with perfect good humour.
Such was the case with poor Alfred now; he could no more expunge the
satisfaction from Eddie’s streaming countenance, or strike the smile
from his sister-in-law’s powdered face, than he could make a wax doll
cease smiling, except by smashing its features altogether. He tried a
few further shafts slightly more poisoned.

“It’s odd to me, Maria,” he said, “that you don’t see how Sabincourt, or
whatever the dauber’s name is----”

“Yes, Mr. Sabincourt, quite correct,” said Mrs. Osborne.

“How he has simply been making caricatures of you and my poor brother,
making you sit with your rings and bracelets and necklaces and tiaras,
just to show them off. And you, too, Edward, there you sit at your table
with a ledger and a cash box and a telephone, just for all the world as
if you were saying, ‘This is what honest hardware has done for me!’”

Mrs. Osborne was slightly nettled by this attack on her husband, but
still she did not show it.

“And I’m sure Mr. Sabincourt’s done the telephone beautiful,” she said.
“Why, when I stand and look at the picture, I declare I think I hear the
bell ringing. And as for my necklace and tiaras, Alf, my dear, why it
was Eddie who bade me put them on. No, we’ve got no quarrel with Mr.
Sabincourt, I do assure you.”

Alfred gave her one glance of concentrated malevolence, and gave it up.
Whether he would have tried it again after a short period for reflection
is uncertain, but at this moment Claude came out of the house. “Hullo,
father!” he said. “I thought I heard the motors. But I was changing.”

“Glad to see you, my boy. Been having a ride?”

“Yes, on the new mare Uncle Alf gave me. She’s a ripper, Uncle Alf. I’m
ever so much obliged to you. And how’s the lumbago?”

Alfred’s face had changed altogether when Claude appeared, and for the
look of peevish malignancy in his eyes there was substituted one of
almost eager affection. And certainly, as Mr. Osborne had said, there
was little wonder, for Claude’s appearance might have sweetened the most
misanthropic heart. He was dressed quite simply and suitably in white
flannels and white lawn tennis shoes, and the contrast between him and
his father in his thick, heavy London clothes was quite amazing. His
brown clean-shaven face was still a little flushed by his ride, and his
hair was even now just drying back into its crisp curls after his bath.
He did not bother his mother to pour him out tea, and instead made a
bowl of it for himself in an unused slop-basin, moving the tea things
with his long-fingered brown hands with a quick deftness that was
delightful to watch.

“Four lumps of sugar, Claude?” asked his father. “You’ll be getting
stout, my boy, and then what’ll your young lady say to you?”

Alfred turned a glance of renewed malignancy on to his brother as Claude
laughed.

“She’ll say I’m taking after my father,” he remarked.

Alfred gave a little thin squeak of amusement. He had entirely failed to
annoy his brother, but he hoped that Claude would have better luck. But
again he was doomed to disappointment; Mr. Osborne’s watch chain only
stirred and shook, as it did when he laughed internally.

Claude looked about for a teaspoon, took his mother’s, and stirring his
slop-basin of tea, which was half milk, had a long drink at it.

“Father, I thought I’d drive the Napier over to meet Lady Austell and
Dora,” he said, “if you don’t mind.”

“Why, there’s the two landaus going, and the brougham, and the bus for
the servants,” said Mrs. Osborne. “What for do you want the car?”

Claude flushed a little.

“Oh, I only thought I should like to drive it,” he said. “It’s a smart
turnout, too, and Dora likes motors.”

Mr. Osborne’s watch chain again responded to ventral agitations.

“Blest if he doesn’t want to give his girl a drive in his dad’s best
car, to show off the car and his driving,” he said with some jocosity,
which drew on him brother Alfred’s malignancy again.

“It’s a good thing you haven’t got to do the driving, Edward,” he
observed. “Why shouldn’t the boy have the car out? I’ll pay for the
petrol.”

The suggestion conveyed here was not quite a random libel. Alfred, with
his inconvenient habit of observation, had seen that the cost of petrol
was a thing that worried his brother and promised to be a pet economy,
like the habit of untying parcels to save string, or lighting as many
cigarettes as possible at the same match, or the tendency shown by Lady
Austell to traverse miles of dusty streets in order to leave a note
instead of posting it. And Mr. Osborne got up a little more hastily
than he would otherwise have done if this remark had not been made.

“Oh, take the car, take the car, Claude,” he said. “Very glad you
should, my boy. Now, Mrs. O., you and I will go in and see where we’ll
hang our likenesses.”

Mr. Alfred waited till they had gone, and then drew his plaid a little
closer round his shoulders with another squeak of laughter.

“I thought that would get the car for you, Claude,” he said; “that vexed
your father.”

Claude finished his tea.

“I know it did, Uncle Alfred,” he said. “Why did you say it?”

“Why, to get you the car. That’s what I’m here for, to learn what you
want and see you get it. There’s some use in me yet, my lad. Usually I
can’t make your father annoyed with me, but I touched him up that time.”

Claude could not help smiling at his uncle’s intense satisfaction, as he
sat there with shoulders hunched up, like a little malevolent ape, still
grinning over the touch-up he had so dexterously delivered. He himself
had got up after finishing his slop-basin of tea and was balanced on the
arm of his chair, one slim leg crossed over the other, and his hands
clasping his knees. His smile caused those great dark eyes nearly to
close with the soft wrinkling up of the flesh at their outer corners,
but closing them it opened his lips and showed the even white teeth
between them. Then, with that gesture which was frequent with him, he
tossed back his head and broke into a laugh.

“Well, it’s too bad of you,” he said, “but thanks for getting me the
car. It’s a handsome bit of work; they told me at Napier’s there wasn’t
such another on the road anywhere. And what if I do want to run Dora up
in style? It’s natural, isn’t it?”

Somehow when Claude was with his father and mother he appeared to be a
perfectly well-bred boy. But in spite of his extraordinary good looks
and the perfect ease of his manner, the moment they had gone, and there
was no standard of that kind to judge him by, he seemed different.

“It’ll be a pleasant change for her finding the house comfortable,” he
went on, “with servants to answer the bells, and half a dozen bathrooms
where there wasn’t one before, and no holes in the carpets to trip
yourself over. The place was like an old dust heap when the lease was
signed three weeks ago. But you may bet I made the furnishers and
decorators put their best feet foremost, and I must say they’ve done it
all in the best style. It’s a nice comfortable English house, that is
what it is. Mother wanted to have no end of gilding and kickshaws. I put
my foot on that and Per backed me up.”

Alfred shuffled to the house after Claude had gone, and made his way to
the dining room, where he expected to find the portraits of his brother
and sister-in-law in process of being placed. The gallery through which
he had first to pass had been left more or less in the state the
Osbornes had found it in, though it was with difficulty that Mrs.
Osborne had been persuaded not to put down a carpet on the polished oak
boards. But she had had her way with regard to a few Persian rugs which
had been there, and which she pronounced not fit to be seen, and had got
some nice thick pieces of the best Kidderminster instead. Otherwise the
Jacobean oak of its chairs, tables and book-cases had been allowed to
abide, nor had she interfered with the portraits of Wests that hung on
its oak-panelled walls. But with the hall it was different; and she had
made several striking changes here. There had not even been a hatrack in
it, which did not matter much before, since the Wests had not
entertained there for years, and you could put your hat down on one of
the low oak chests. But Mrs. Osborne intended to entertain a great deal,
and the first thing she did was to order two large mahogany hatstands
with a sort of dock for umbrellas beneath, which she had placed one on
each side of the door. On the white plaster walls between the oak
pillars that ran up to the roof she had put up a couple of dozen stags’
heads (ordered from Roland Ward) and half a dozen foxes’ masks, which
gave the place a baronial and sporting air. The light from the two old
bronze lamps similarly was quite insufficient, and she had put up four
very solid yet elegant (such was their official description) electric
standards, one in each corner of the hall, while over the central table
she suspended another from the rafters above, slightly ecclesiastic in
design, though indeed it might suggest an earthly coronet of
overwhelming proportions as much as a heavenly crown. A few stuffed
tarpons, killed by Per in Florida, carried on the sporting note, which
was further borne out by a trophy of spears and battle axes and bead
aprons which he had brought with him from the same tour. Finally, she
had introduced an enormous early Victorian mahogany sideboard for laying
a cloak or a coat on, and on this also stood a stuffed crocodile-lizard
sitting up on its hind-legs, and carrying in its fore paws a tray for
cards. This had been a birthday present to her from Mrs. Alderman Price,
who was expected that evening, and even Percy, who had such taste, had
said it was very quaint. So there it stood in the middle of the mahogany
sideboard, carrying in its tray only the card of the clergyman of the
parish. But Mrs. Osborne had no fear about callers; she was long past
all that, and surveying the hall only this morning she had said to
herself with great satisfaction, “I declare I shouldn’t have known it,
when I think what it was when I first see it.”

Alfred stood and looked about him for a moment or two when he came into
this very suitably furnished hall, and observed with some silent
amusement that Roland Ward’s label was still attached to one of the
stag’s heads. This he did not remove; indeed, with the end of his stick
he poked it into a rather more prominent position. Then he passed on
into the dining room.

The two portraits were already hung, for Mr. Osborne had seen at once
where they should go, above the new mahogany sideboard which was like
that in the hall, and was, in fact, as Mrs. Osborne said, “its fellow.”
The windows took up the long side opposite to them, and on the other two
were some half dozen portraits, which Alfred had in vain tried to buy
before now, but had found to his chagrin that they were inalienable.
There was a Reynolds there, a Gainsborough, a couple of Romneys, and all
had about them that indefinable air of race and breeding which the old
English masters, lucky perhaps in their sitters, or at any rate in their
own quality of vision, render so superbly. Till this evening the third
wall had been empty; now Mr. and Mrs. Osborne, she in all her jewels,
he with the telephone and ledger, shone there.

Alfred glanced round the room, but his eye came back to these two
portraits. Sabincourt, that superb modern artist, had done the sitters
justice, justice so rough that it might be taken for revenge. Mrs.
Osborne sat full face, her white hair gathered beneath the all-round
tiara of diamonds that she felt to be so heavy. Close round her neck was
the Land’s End necklace, but a rope of pearls reached to her waist and
was fastened there by an immense ruby. Her large pillowy arms were bare
to the shoulder; in one hand she held the Perigaud fan, but it was so
grasped that the rings on the hand that held it as well as the bracelets
were in evidence. The other lay negligently, knuckles upwards, on the
carved arms of her chair. Her face wore an expression of fatuous
content, and it was extremely like her, cruelly like her. And Edward had
fared as well (or as badly) at the eminent hands of the artist. A vulgar
kindly face peered into his ledger, and as his wife said, you could
almost hear the telephone bell ring.

Alfred seemed fascinated by the sight of the portraits, or rather by the
sight of them in contrast with the others. He turned on the electric
light which was attached to their frames, and drawing a chair from a
table, sat down to observe them. Then he suddenly broke into a spasm of
noiseless laughter, and slapped his thin thigh with his withered little
hand.

After a while he rose.

“But I’ll get Sabincourt to paint one of Claude,” he said to himself,
“and then ask any of these dealer-fools if it’s a West or an Osborne,
bless his handsome face.”

       *       *       *       *       *

Dinner that night was an extremely lengthy affair, but “informal-like,
quite a family party,” as Mrs. Osborne explained to several of her
guests, as she informed them whom they were to take in or be taken in
by. May Thurston was furnished with the most complete explanation.

“I thought we’d all be comfortable and not stuck up, Lady Th---- Lady
May, now that we’ve left London behind us,” she said, “and though I’m
well aware, my dear, that Sir Thomas ought to take you in, by reason of
your rank, since Mr. O. takes in Lady Austell, and the Earl me, I
thought you’d not be ill-pleased if I passed you off with your young
man, same as I’ve treated Lady Dora in sending her in with Claude. And
so all you young people will be together, and a merry time you’ll have,
I’ll be bound. Ah, there is Sir Thomas; I must explain to him.”

Sir Thomas cared little for precedence, but much for his dinner and more
for his wine. He was considered quite a courtier in manner at Sheffield,
and bowed to Mrs. Osborne on the conclusion of her explanation.

“When Mr. Osborne has the ordering of the wines, and Mrs. Osborne the
commanding of the victuals,” he said handsomely, “he would be a man
what’s hard to please if he wasn’t very well content. And to take in
Mrs. Percy is an opportunity, I may say, of studying refinement and
culture that doesn’t often----” Here Mrs. Percy herself entered the
room, close to where they were standing, and he broke off, conscious of
some slight relief, for he was one of those people who can very easily
get into a long sentence, but find it hard to rescue themselves from
being strangled by it when once there. “But speak of an angel,” he
added, “and there comes a fluttering of wings.”

Thereafter the “gathering of the clans,” as Mr. Osborne usually
expressed the assembly of guests for dinner, came thick, but before they
were gathered a deafening gong announced that dinner was gathered too.
Austell, with his weak pale face, came last but one, and finally his
mother made her slow and impressive entry. She looked like an elderly
dethroned princess, come back after exile to the native country where
she no longer ruled, and stretched out both hands to Mrs. Osborne, whom
she had not seen since her arrival.

“Dear Mrs. Osborne,” she said. “How glad I am! Quite charming. A family
party!”

“Clans all gathered now, Mrs. O.,” said her husband. “Let’s have a bit
of dinner.”

The dinner was served throughout on silver; a grove of wine glasses
stood at the right hand of each guest. In deference to Alfred’s lumbago
all windows were closed, and the atmosphere soon became very warm and
comfortable indeed. An immense glass chandelier hanging above the table,
and studded with electric lights, was the chief author of illumination,
but clumps of other lights were on the walls, and each picture had its
separate lamp. Sir Thomas’s courtier-like speeches soon ceased, and he
was content to eat and listen to the cultured conversation that flowed
from Mrs. Per’s lips, while his face gradually deepened in colour to a
healthy crimson and his capacity for bowing must certainly have ceased
also. He asked the butler, whom he called “waiter,” which was the year
of each particular vintage that was so lavishly pressed upon him, and
occasionally, after sipping it, interrupted the welling of the cool
springs of culture to look codfish-like up the table toward Mr. Osborne,
and say, “Capital ninety-two, this.” And then Mrs. Per would begin
again. Her talk was like the flowing of a syphon; it stopped so long
only as you put your finger on the end of it, but the finger removed, it
continued, uninterrupted, pellucid, without haste or pause. She was the
daughter of a most respectable solicitor in Sheffield, whose father and
grandfather had been equally highly thought of, and Per openly
acknowledged that some of the most chaste designs in the famous
ornamental tinware were the fruits of her pencil. But with the modesty
of true genius she seldom spoke of drawing, though she was so much
wrapped up in art, but discussed its kindred manifestations, and in
particular the drama.

She gave a sweet little laugh.

“Oh, Sir Thomas, you flatter me,” she said in response to some gross and
preposterous compliment about her age, while he was waiting for a second
helping of broiled ham, to which Mrs. Osborne had successfully tempted
him. “Indeed, you flatter me. I am quite old enough to remember Irving’s
‘Hamlet.’ What an inspired performance! It made me quite ill, from
nervous exhaustion, for a week. I had a silly little schoolgirl ‘Hamlet’
of my own--yes, I will allow I was at school, though nearly on the
point of leaving, and I assure you Irving’s ‘Hamlet’ killed it,
annihilated it, made it--is it naughty of me?--made it stillborn. It was
as if it had never lived. How noble looking he was!”

Sir Thomas raised his eyes towards Mrs. Osborne. “Best peach-fed ham I
ever came across,” he said. “Wonderful man, wasn’t he, Mrs. Percy? Great
artist, eh?”

Dora from opposite had heard the end of this.

“Claude, dear,” she said, “who is that nice fat man? I never saw anybody
like his dinner so much. What an angel! It is funny to me, you know,
coming back here and finding you of all people in that heavenly car,
ready to drive me up from the station. We didn’t go quite the shortest
way, did we? Last time I was here there was only our old pony-trap to
take me and my luggage, so I had to walk. And do you know, Mrs. Osborne
has put me in my own room.”

Claude turned towards her. In spite of the awful heat caused by the shut
windows and the rich exhalation of roast meats, he was still perfectly
cool.

“I did that pretty well then?” he said. “Do you remember my asking you
about the house, and where your room was, and all that? So you never
guessed why I asked? It was just that you might have your old room
again. Such a business as there was with the mater. She said you ought
to be on the first landing, where those big handsome rooms are. But I
said ‘No.’ Give Dora the room on the second floor beyond the old school
room, and you won’t hear any complaints.”

“Ah, that makes it even nicer to know that you did it,” said she.

The conversation round the table for the moment had risen to a roar.
Mrs. Osborne was tempting Alderman Price to the sorbet he had refused;
Mrs. Per had got on to “The Bells,” which she allowed (incorrectly) that
she had not seen; Mr. Osborne was shouting the year of the liqueur
brandy which went with the ice to Sir Thomas; and May and Mr. Franklin
were wrangling at the tops of their voices over some question of whether
a certain dance had been on Tuesday or Wednesday. Lady Austell only
looked slightly aloof, and followed the direction of her son’s eyes
which were fixed, as by enchantment, on the picture of his hostess. And
the crowd and the noise seemed to make a silence and isolation for the
two lovers.

“But it was a business getting my way,” he said. “I never should have
but that I was always the mater’s favourite.”

Dora heard the words and something suddenly jarred. Somehow he should
not have put it like that; he thought of himself, he took credit---- And
then before this rather disconcerting little moment succeeded in
disturbing her, she looked at him again. There was the cool strong face,
the smouldering eyes, that upward tilt of the chin, each inimitable,
each Claude and no other.

“Favourite?” she said. “Do you expect me to be surprised?”

Quails, out of season, but probably delicious, had come and gone, and
with the iced fruit salad that followed port was handed round. And with
that first glass of port Mr. Osborne rose to his feet.

“Now it’s the first glass of good old port from Oporto, Sir Thomas,” he
said, “and I ask the company to drink a health, not of this happy couple
nor of that, as we well might do, God bless you my dears, but to someone
else. Toasts I know are in general given after the dinner is over, and I
hope Mrs. O. has got a savoury for you yet, and a peach or two. But it’s
been my custom to propose a health with the first glass of port, such as
I see now in my hand.”

Sir Thomas gave a choked laugh.

“Wish all toasts were drunk in such a glass of port, Osborne,” he said.

“Very kind, I’m sure, but silence for the chair, Sir Thomas. This is the
first little dinner as we’ve had here, and may there be many to follow
it, with all present as I see now. Ladies and gentlemen, who has had the
privilege of entertaining you? Why Mrs. Osborne! Maria, my dear, your
health and happiness, and no speech required. God bless you, Mrs. O.”

It was a complete surprise to Mrs. Osborne, and for one moment she felt
so shy and confused she hardly knew which way to look. Then she knew,
and with her kind blue eyes brimming she smiled at her husband. Everyone
drank something, Sir Thomas his complete glass with a hoarse murmur of
“no heel-taps”; Mrs. Per a little sip of water (being a teetotaller)
with her little finger in exclusive elevation; Lady Austell something at
random out of the seven glasses at her right hand, which had all been
filled at different periods of dinner without her observing. And Dora,
radiant, turned to Claude.

“Old darlings,” she said enthusiastically, and resumed her conversation
with Mr. Franklin on her right.

But Claude was not quite pleased with this heartfelt interjection. It
was affectionate, loving even, but something more was due to the son of
the house. The interjection ought to have been a little more formal and
appreciative. It should have saluted the importance and opulence of his
parents as well as their kindliness. After all, who had done the house
up, and made it habitable?

And then instantaneously this criticism expunged itself from his mind.
Dora always said the thing that was uppermost in her mind and “old
darlings” was a very good thing to be uppermost.

Harry Franklin and Claude found themselves side by side when, not so
very long afterward, the ladies left the room, and Mr. Osborne, glass in
hand, went round the table and sat between Austell and Sir Thomas. The
others, with the exception of Alfred, who did not stir, but continued
sitting where he was at the end of the room far away from door and
window, closed up also, and another decanter of the ’40 port was
brought.

“And when you’ve given me news of that, Lord Austell and Sir Thomas,”
said Mr. Osborne genially, “I warrant there’ll be another to come up
from my cellar without leaving it empty neither.”

The prospect seemed to invigorate Sir Thomas, and he emptied and filled
his glass. Austell meantime was taken to task by his host for not doing
the same, but was courteously firm in his refusal, in spite of Mr.
Osborne’s assurance that you could bring up a child on this port without
its knowing the meaning of a headache. Harry Franklin and Claude also
were not doing their duty, so Mr. Osborne reminded them, but the rest
were sufficiently stalwart to satisfy him.

“And the Navron quartette are playing afterward, are they not?” asked
Harry. “May told me so.”

Claude frowned slightly.

“Yes, but when they’ll be able to begin, I don’t know,” he said. “When
the pater gets somebody to appreciate his port you can’t tell when
anything else will begin except another bottle. What I want is a
cigarette, and a talk to Dora.”

“I’ve got some,” said Harry innocently, producing his case, and taking
one himself. He lit it.

“I say, you’d better wait,” Claude began, when the hoarse voice of Sir
Thomas interrupted him. “It’s dishonour to the wine,” he said. “Mr.
Osborne, sir, your wine is being dishonoured by that young gentleman
opposite.”

Harry did not catch the meaning of this at once, and was “put at his
ease again” by Mr. Osborne before he knew that he was not there already.

“You’re all right, Mr. Franklin,” said his host, “though in general we
don’t smoke till the wine has finished going round. But if my guests
mayn’t do what they like in my house, I’d sooner not have my friends
round my table at all Drink your wine, Sir Thomas, and let those smoke
who choose.”

The second bottle, which was not to leave Mr. Osborne’s cellar denuded,
had appeared before this, and the indignant drinker cooled down over it.
A faint little squeak of laughter was heard from Alfred, who had sent
for his plaid again, and till now had sat perfectly silent, emptying and
filling his glass as many times as possible. At this point he produced a
large cigar and lit it himself.

“I disagree with Sir Thomas,” he said. “Good tobacco and good wine go
very well together, very well indeed,” and he embarked on the nauseating
combination. It was now half-past ten, and a message came in from the
drawing-room as to whether the gentlemen would take their coffee in the
dining room or have it with the music. This caused a break-up, the three
young men, Austell, Claude, and Franklin going out, leaving the rest at
the table.

“Those young fellows will please the ladies more than we old fogies
would, hey, Sir Thomas?” said Mr. Osborne. “We’ll follow them by-and-by.
It’s not every day that one meets one’s old friends, and has a glass of
good wine together. Per, my boy, I hope you’re taking care of yourself.”

Per was doing this very adequately. He was a fat, white young man of
nearly thirty, with an immensely high forehead from which the tide of
hair had already receded far. He wore pince-nez and a large diamond
ring, and looked rather older than he was and considerably stouter than
he should have been. “Thank you, yes, dad,” he said. “I’m going strong.”

This furnished Sir Thomas, whose indignation over the cigarette had not
quite yet subsided, with a text.

“Yes, my boy,” he said, “and long will you, when you’re not afraid of
your dinner and your glass of wine. Half the young fellows I see now
drink barley water to their dinner, and some of them don’t eat hardly no
meat, and that’s why we’re losing the trade of the world as well as all
the boat races and what not. In my day we ate our beef and drank our
wine, and so did our fathers before us, and I never heard that we lost
many boat races then.”

Sir Thomas did not say whether he personally had ever won any, nor did
Percy give testimony to the value of generous diet by the enumeration of
any athletic feats of his own. A little shrill laugh again came from the
other end of the table, but Sir Thomas did not hear it.

“Look at those three young fellows who went out--no offence to you, Mr.
Osborne,” he continued. “Why, there wasn’t a spare ounce of flesh on any
of their bones, and that means no stamina. They’d shut up like a
pocket-knife if it came to a tussle, and I doubt if their bones are much
more than grizzle with the messes they eat, and that not enough of them.
No, give me a lad who eats his steak and drinks his bottle of wine, and
I’ll tell you whom to back in business or across country.”

“Well, there’s sense in a steak to my thinking,” said Mr. Osborne, “and
to be sure our fathers ate their beef and drank their beer or their port
more free than the young fellows do now. But I’d be sorry to put my
money against Claude if it came to a run or a cricket match. He’s a wiry
young fellow, though he’s not such a hand at his dinner as is Percy.”

The cackle from the end of the table grew louder, but no voice followed.
Alfred was one of those to whom his own sense of humour is sufficient in
itself. Without a word he got up and shuffled, still wearing his
overshoes, out of the door.

       *       *       *       *       *

The quartette played in the long gallery and Claude, knowing that music
to his family meant nothing except a tune which, as Mrs. Osborne said,
you carry away with you, had steered a very happy course, in the
selection of it, so as to satisfy the impulses of filial piety and yet
give pleasure to those who like Dora, and, it may be added, himself, did
not want so much to carry tunes away, but to listen to music. Thus a
selection from the “Mikado,” admirably boiled down for strings, put
everybody in a good humour, and Sir Thomas to sleep. Later on a similar
selection from “Patience” made Mrs. Osborne again beat time with her fan
without disturbing Sir Thomas, and for the rest the exquisite inevitable
melodies of Bach and Scarlotti filled an hour’s programme. And when it
was over Claude turned to Dora, with whom he was sitting in a window
seat, and his eyes glowed like hot coals.

“Let’s come out,” he said, “and stroll down to the lake. We can’t stop
indoors after that. Bach should always be played out of doors.”

That was finely and justly felt; the next moment came a jar.

“They charged the mater a hundred and fifty guineas for coming down,” he
said, “but it’s cheap, I shall tell her, for real good music. There’s no
price you can put upon a thing like that.”

Again with Dora the check, the jar, lasted but an infinitesimal time, as
she turned aside to pick up her fan which had dropped, and as she met
his eye again she felt that divine discontent which so vastly
transcended in her opinion all other happiness. And it appeared that he,
too, was in tune with that.

“Come out, my darling,” he said. “Let’s get away from these people just
for a bit, a five minutes. I don’t want any more music, even though it
was more Bach. And I don’t want any supper, do you? They’re going to
have supper now.”

Up went his head, with that little unconscious toss of the chin, and
Dora half laughed to hear how at this moment he seemed to put Bach and
supper on quite the same level, when there was the prospect of strolling
with her outside. There was intense sweetness to her in that, and there
was mastery also, which she loved. She felt that even if she had not
cared for him, and even if she was particularly hungry, she would have
to go with him. But as she rose she could not help commenting on this,
wanting, woman-like, to hear the reply that her heart had already
shouted to her.

“You speak as if Bach and supper were equally unimportant,” she said.

“Of course. There’s not a pin to choose between them, if you’ll just
come out with me.”

“And if I won’t?”

“But you will,” he said.

“Not even, ‘please’?”

He shook his head.

“Anything sooner than ‘please,’” he said. “Come or not just as you
like.”

To Dora this was tremendously attractive: the absolute refusal to ask
anything of her as a favour, even when he so intensely wanted it, was a
revelation of the eternal masculine not opposed to but in accord with
the eternal feminine. Nothing seemed to her more fantastic and sickly
than the sort of devotion that begged for a flower, and sighed and pined
under a woman’s unkindness or caprice. “Here is my heart,” he had in
effect said to her, “take it or leave it, but if you take it give me
yours.” Man gave, and was not woman to give too, in her own kind? She,
too, longed to come out into the warm half-darkness of the stars with
him, and why, in common fairness, should he be supposed to sue for a
favour that which she longed to grant?

So out they went on to the dim-paved terrace walk. Above the sky was
clear and the star-dust strewn thick over the floor of the heaven, and
the fantastic shape of the birds on the yew hedge stood clear out
against the luminous and velvet blue. A little draught of flower-scented
air stole up through the square doorways in the hedge from the drowsy
beds, that but dreamed of their daylight fragrance, and somewhere not
far away in the park a night jar throbbed its bourdon note, making
vibration rather than sound. Dora put her hand through his arm and
laughed.

“I laugh for pure happiness,” she said, “and--and oh, Claude, it’s the
real me who is with you now. Do you understand? I expect not, so I will
explain. There are several me’s; you rather liked No. 1, which was the
chattering and extremely amusing me; that was the one you saw first, and
you did like her. Then--oh, well, the other me’s are all varieties of
that, and right below them all is the real me. It doesn’t know sometimes
whether it wants to laugh or cry or to talk or be silent; it only
wants---- Oh, it’s like you with Bach and supper about equal. Laughing
and crying don’t particularly matter if there is you, just as to you
Bach and supper didn’t matter if there was me. And there is. It’s me,
as the children say. And you and I make us. It comes in the grammars. I
only wanted to tell you that. And now we’ll instantly talk about
something else.”

Claude stopped, and against the faint luminance of the sky she saw his
chin protrude itself.

“I don’t see any reason for doing that,” he said. “It’s much the most
interesting thing----”

“I know.”

He drew her toward him.

“Well, you might give a fellow a kiss,” he said.




CHAPTER IV.


The morning delicacy to which Lady Austell was so subject was due to the
fact that when staying in other people’s houses she found she saw enough
of her hosts and fellow-guests if she denied herself the pleasure of
their company at breakfast. In all other respects, she was stronger than
most horses, and could go through programmes which would have prostrated
all but the most robust without any feeling of unpleasant fatigue,
provided only that the programmes interested or amused her or in any way
furthered her plans. But she really became tired the moment she was
bored, and since sitting at breakfast with ten or twelve cheerful
people, with the crude morning sunlight perhaps pouring in at a window
directly opposite her, bored her very much, she chose the wiser plan of
not joining in those public festivities. But with her excellent tact she
knew that at a house like Mrs. Osborne’s everybody was expected to come
down, to be in admirable spirits and to eat a great deal of solid food,
and so she explained to Mrs. Osborne that she never ate any breakfast.
Hence it was that about half-past nine next morning her maid carried
upstairs a tray groaning with coffee, hot milk, toast, just one poached
egg, and a delicious plate of fruit. Mrs. Osborne had given her a very
pleasant sitting room next her bedroom, furnished with Messrs.
Linkwater’s No. 1 white boudoir suite, for, like half the house, it had
been practically unfurnished; and Austell who had ascertained those
comfortable facts when he bade his mother good-night the evening before,
caused this particular groaning tray to be brought here also and paddled
in to join her in carpet slippers and a dressing gown.

“I call this a devilish comfortable house nowadays,” he observed, “which
is far more than could be said for it in our time. What a pity the
Osbornes and we can’t run it together. They would pay the bills, and we
could give tone. I wish it was possible to be comfortable, though poor.
But it isn’t. Everything comfortable costs so much. Now, darling mother,
let loose, and tell me what you think of it all. Really your--your
absence of breakfast looks quite delicious. They have given me chops and
beef and things. May I have a piece of your melon?”

Jim and his mother were rather fond of each other, but they seldom met
without having a quarrel, for while both were agreed in the general plan
of grabbing at whatever of this world’s goods could be appropriated,
each despised and, in private, exposed the methods of the other. He, so
his mother was afraid, was one of the very few people who was not afraid
of her, and she often wished he was. He had lit a cigarette after the
bath, and was standing in front of the fireplace, on the thick, white
sheepskin rug, smoking the end of it.

“Dear Jim,” she said, “do you think you had better smoke in here? Mrs.
Osborne may not like it.”

“Oh, she will think it is you,” said Jim calmly, “and so won’t dare to
say anything. She fears you: I can’t think why. Now do tell me how it
all strikes you. Can you bear it for three days? I can easily; I could
bear it for months and years. It is so comfortable. Now what did you and
Mrs. Osborne talk about at dinner? Mr. O. and I talked about the Royal
Family. Sir Thomas seems a nice man, doesn’t he?”

Lady Austell gave him a very generous share of her half melon; it looked
rather like a bribe. She was going to indulge in what Jim called humbug,
and hoped he would let it pass.

“I think, dear, as I said to Dora the other day,” she remarked, “that we
are far too apt to judge by the surface. We do not take enough account
of the real and sterling virtues--honesty, kindness, hospitality--”

Austell cracked his egg.

“I did not take enough account of the effect of hospitality last night,”
he remarked, “because I ate too much supper, and felt uncommonly queer
when I awoke this morning----”

“You always were rather greedy, my darling,” said Lady Austell softly,
scoring one.

“I know. I suppose I inherited it from my deli--I mean
cerebral-hæmorrhage grandfather. But I don’t drink.”

This brought them about level. Jim proceeded with a smart and telling
stroke.

“I refer my--my failures to my grandfather,” he said, “so whatever you
say about our hosts, dear mother, I shall consider that you are only
speaking of their previous generations. Their hospitality is unbounded,
their kindness prodigious, but I asked you how long you could stand it?
Or perhaps the--the polish, the culture, the breeding of our hosts
really does seem to you beyond question. Did you see the stuffed
crocodile-lizard in the hall? I will give you one for your birthday.”

“I think you are odiously ungrateful, Jim,” she said. “I have got them
to take Grote for seven years at a really unheard-of price, and all I
get in return is this.”

Jim opened his pale weak eyes very wide.

“What have I done?” he said. “I have only agreed with you about their
kindness, and asked your opinion about their breeding.”

“You are sarcastic and backbiting,” said his mother.

“Only as long as you talk such dreadful nonsense, darling mother,” he
said. “You don’t indulge in rhapsodies about the honesty of your
housemaid. Honesty in a housemaid is a far finer quality than in a
millionaire, because millionaires are not tempted to be dishonest,
whereas poor people like housemaids or you and me are. Really, I only
wanted to have a pleasant little chat about the Osbornes, only you will
make it serious, serious and insincere. Let’s be natural. I’ll begin.”

He took one of his mother’s crisp hot rolls, and buttered it heavily.

“I find Mr. and Mrs. O. quite delightful,” he said, “and should have
told you so long ago if you had only been frank. I do really. There
isn’t one particle of humbug about them, and they have the perfect ease
and naturalness of good breeding.”

Lady Austell tossed her head.

“That word again,” she said. “You seem to judge everybody by the
standard of a certain superficial veneer, which you call breeding.”

“I know. One can’t help it. I grant you that lots of well-bred people
are rude and greedy, but there is a certain way of being rude and greedy
which is all right. I’m greedy, so was the cerebral grandpapa, only he
was a gentleman and so am I. I’m rude: I don’t get up when you come into
the room and open the door for you, and shut the window. Claude--brother
Claude--does all these things, and yet he’s a cad.”

“I consider Claude a perfect gentleman,” said Lady Austell with
finality.

“I know: that ‘perfect’ spoils it all,” said Jim meditatively. “Now Mr.
Osborne is a frank cad--that’s how I put it--and Claude a subtle one.
That’s why I can’t stand him.”

“I daresay you’ll do your best to live on him,” said Lady Austell.

“Certainly; though I shall probably succeed without doing my best. It
will be quite easy I expect.”

“And do you think that is a gentlemanly thing to do?” asked his mother,
“when behind his back you call him a subtle cad?”

“Oh, yes, quite; though no perfect gentleman would dream of doing it. I
think Claude has masses of good points: he simply bristles with them,
but he gives one such shocks. He goes on swimmingly for a time, and then
suddenly says that somebody is ‘noble looking,’ or that the carpet is
‘tasteful’ or ‘superior.’ Now Mr. Osborne doesn’t give one shocks; you
know what to expect, and you get it all the time.”

Lady Austell thought this over for a moment; though Austell was quite
unsatisfactory in almost all ways of life, it was impossible to regard
him as a fool, and he had the most amazing way of being right. Certainly
this view of the frank cad and the subtle cad had an air of intense
probability about it, but it was one of those things which his mother
habitually chose to ignore and if necessary deny the existence of.

“I hope you will not say any of those ridiculous things to Dora,” she
remarked.

“Ah; then it is just because they are not ridiculous that you wish me to
leave them unsaid. If they were ridiculous you would not mind----”

Jim waited a second to give his mother time to contradict this if she
felt disposed. Apparently she did not, and he interrupted her consenting
silence.

“I shall not say them to Dora, I promise you,” he said, “because, in
case they had not occurred to her, she might see the truth of them, and
it might put her off. That would damage my chances of living on him. It
would be very foolish of me. Besides, I have no quarrel with Dora--I
like Dora. But my saying these things to her is superfluous, I am
afraid. She sees them all perfectly, though to you they apparently seem
ridiculous. Or am I wrong, mother, and do you only pretend to think them
ridiculous?”

Lady Austell felt she could fight a little on this ground.

“They seem to me quite ridiculous in so far as they apply to Dora,” she
said. “She is deeply in love with him, dear child, and do you suppose
that she stops to consider whether he says ‘tasteful’ or not?”

Jim smiled with faint malice.

“No, she does not stop to consider whether he says it or not,” he
replied, “because it is perfectly clear that he does. But when he does,
she pauses. Not for long, but just for a second. She doesn’t exactly
wince, not a whole wince, at least, but just a little bit of one. You
can’t help it if you are not accustomed to it. If I was going to marry
Mrs. Osborne, I should wince a little now and then. I don’t in the least
wonder that she’s in love with him. I wish you would find me a girl, who
would marry me, as handsome and rich as Claude. The only thing is----”

Jim finished breakfast, and was going slowly round the room looking at
the furniture. He paused in front of a saddlebagged divan with his head
on one side.

“The only thing is that though she may get accustomed to ‘tasteful,’ she
may also get accustomed to his extraordinary good looks. Of course, then
there’s the money to fall back upon. I don’t think I should ever get
accustomed to so much. What is--is Uncle Alfred going to allow him on
his marriage?”

“Fifteen thousand a year, I believe,” said Lady Austell gently, as if
mentioning some departed friend.

Jim gave a little sigh in the same style. He had a dreadfully
inconvenient memory, and remembered that the original sum suggested was
twelve thousand, which his mother had thought decent but not creditable.
There was no doubt, so he framed the transaction to himself, that she
had “screwed this up” to fifteen. So he sighed appreciatively, and his
comment that followed was of the nature of a testimonial.

“When I marry I shall leave the question of settlements completely in
your hands, if you will allow me,” he said. “I think you are too clever
for anybody.”

It was not once or twice, but many times, that Lady Austell had told her
son the complete truth in answer to some question of his, and when she
had said “fifteen thousand, I believe,” it was only reasonable to expect
that the answer would be satisfactory. But Jim always remembered
something else, and his memory was terribly good. It was not that he
considered twelve thousand a poor sum: he only recalled to his mother’s
mind the fact that she had successfully suggested fifteen. And he had
not openly stated the fact: he had merely requested her kindly aid with
regard to his own marriage settlements, if there were ever to be any.
That should have been to her a completely gratifying request; as it was,
it left her with the sense of having been found out. The complete
correctness of this impression was shown by Austell’s next words.

“I think you have been fearfully brilliant about it,” he said, “and I am
sure you have made them all think that you considered fifteen thousand
far too much. Do tell me: didn’t you say that you thought it was a great
responsibility for so young a couple to be--to be stewards of so much
wealth? Lord, how I wish somebody would make me a steward. Come in.”

Somebody had tapped at the door, and to tell the truth Lady Austell was
not very sorry to have an interruption, for she had actually used the
words that Jim had conjectured in a little talk with Mr. Osborne and his
brother in which settlements were very genteelly and distantly alluded
to. But there had been a distinct twinkle in Alfred’s eye at this point,
and she did not want more cross-examinations. The interruption,
therefore, was welcome.

Mrs. Osborne entered, looking hot and pleased. Jim at this moment was
looking at a large engraving of Landseer’s “Monarch of the Glen” (part
of the No. 1 white boudoir set) in an angle of the room parallel to the
door, and she did not at once see him.

“Good morning, Lady Austell,” she said. “I thought I would just step up
and see what you would fancy doing this beautiful day. There’s some of
the party going to motor over to Pevensey----”

Mrs. Osborne caught sight of Jim, and gave a faint scream.

“And I’m sure if I don’t beg your pardon, Lord Austell,” she said with
averted head, “for I never guessed you were here paying a morning visit
to your mamma in your bath wrapper. But I thought somebody said ‘Come
in,’ for I always tap at every door now, or clear my throat to give
warning, with so many lovers about, bless them.”

“Yes, I said ‘Come in,’” said Austell. “Mayn’t I come and talk to you
and my mother? I thought my dressing--bath wrapper was rather smart.”

It was rather, being of blue silk, new and unpaid for, and with Mrs.
Osborne’s permission he joined them. It had given her quite a turn for a
moment to find that she had intruded on an earl in his dressing gown,
but she rapidly recovered.

“Why, it’s beautiful,” she said, “and such a figure as Mr. O. is in his
old green padded wrapper as hardly comes to his knees! It was the
thought of that that gave me such a turn at finding a gentleman in his
dressing gown. But I’m sure I needn’t have minded. And what will you be
thinking of doing, Lord Austell? It’s Liberty Hall, as Mr. O. and I
always tell our guests, and the more they say what they like to do, the
better we’re pleased.”

Lady Austell had lit a cigarette just before Mrs. Osborne’s entrance,
and, still looking at her, with her usual bereaved, regretful smile, was
making efforts to pass it to Jim behind the shelter of the table. He
observed this, and with a stealthy movement took it from her, for though
they exposed each other in private, they were firm allies in the
presence of others.

“I’ve been having such a scolding from my mother,” he said, “for smoking
in here, but I told her you were far too good-natured to mind. Have I
done very wrong?”

Mrs. Osborne beamed.

“And me just saying that the more our guests pleased themselves the
better we were pleased!” she exclaimed. “Well, what is it to be, Lady
Austell? A drive to Pevensey, with Sir Thomas and Mrs. Percy, and I’m
sure there’ll be no difficulty about getting another gentleman when it’s
known as you are going, or a stroll or what-not, and a bit of lunch
quietly at home, and maybe a drive afterward. Give it a name, Lady
Austell, and it’s settled.”

Lady Austell turned one glance of gratitude at her son, and continued to
smile at her hostess.

“You are too kind,” she said, “but as I’ve just been telling Austell,
what I should really like to do best would be to spend the morning
quietly by myself, going over the dear old place again. And then may we
see how the afternoon turns out?”

This pathetic mention of the “dear old place,” though “dilapidated old
barrack” would have been a far more accurate description of Grote as it
was, made Mrs. Osborne feel quite apologetic. She spoke to her husband
about it afterwards. “I assure you, my dear,” she said, “to see her
sitting there with that sad smile it was quite touching, as if it ought
to have been she who asked me what I would fancy doing. Well, it’s one
up and another down in this world, and after all we’ve done something in
taking the place off their hands, and putting a stick or two of
furniture in it, and keeping the rain out. And the white boudoir suite,
it looks beautiful; I hadn’t seen it since they put it in.”

“Well, I’m sure the oftener Lady A. favours us with her visits, the more
we shall be pleased,” said Mr. Osborne. “And we give them a rattling
good rent for it, my dear, when all’s said and done. Why, there’s the
motor coming round now, and the clock striking twelve already. Sir
Thomas would like a glass of sherry, I’ll be bound, before his long
drive.”

“And I must see cook,” said Mrs. Osborne, “and half the morning gone
already. Have you any fancy for dinner, to-night, my dear?”

Mr. Osborne thought for a moment.

“No, peace and plenty, my dear,” he said, “such as we’ve always had,
Maria. I shall be in for lunch, too. Thank God, old Claude doesn’t want
any music to-night. We was hurried away from table last night, and I
think Sir Thomas felt he hadn’t done justice to my port: ’40, Maria, and
needs a lot of justice. But to-night he shall have his skin full.”

“Well, but Claude has said as how pleased Dora was with the music,” said
Mrs. Osborne, “and we’re going to have a second go this evening. You
can’t deny them their music, Mr. O.”

Mr. Osborne paused on his way to the door.

“Nor I don’t want to,” he said, “though myself, I hate that scratching
sound. But last night, Mrs. O., I don’t mind telling you, what with
young--young Franklin lighting up before we’d got into the wine at all,
and Claude and he leaving the room to join the ladies, and I’m sure I
don’t wonder, the dining room was a sort of Clapham Junction. And you
telling me not to stop too long there and all. To-night give us time to
sit and think, and if Claude wants his concert, God bless the boy, let
him have it. But let it be made clear that those who want their wine and
a talk, sit and have it, and don’t feel they’re expected. It’s little I
drink myself, as well you know, but there’s Sir Thomas, who’s a fish for
his liquor, and little harm it seems to do him. I like my guests to have
what they want, Maria, and there’s no reason why some of us shouldn’t
stay quiet and pass the bottle, while others listen to them fiddles.
That’s the way we’ve got on, old lady, by giving everybody what they
want, and of the best quality. Well, let’s do so still. Those that care
to leave the table this evening, let them leave, but don’t let there be
any pressure on such as like to remain. Lord, if there’s Mrs. Per not
coming out already with all her fallals on! I must go and get Sir Thomas
his glass of sherry.”

Mr. Osborne was in every way the most hospitable of men, and he would
have felt it as a personal disgrace if (as never happened) any guest of
his had not all the wine he wanted, even as he would have felt it a
personal disgrace if any guest was not met at the station, or did not
have sufficient breakfast. But wine to his mind was something of quite a
different class to all other hospitalities, and was under his personal
control, so that if Sir Thomas liked his drop of sherry in the middle of
the morning, Mr. Osborne, if the sherry decanter, as proved to be the
case this morning, was empty, had personally to go down to the cellar,
followed by Thoresby with a taper, and fish out from the bin the bottle
he wanted. Moreover, as the motoring party had finished breakfast nearly
two hours ago, and would not get their lunch for nearly two hours after,
Mrs. Osborne had ordered a tray of the more sustaining sorts of
sandwiches, a cold ham, and a dish or two of fruit to be put ready in
the dining-room to fortify them for their drive; for when they did have
lunch it would only be a cold picnic kind of lunch which they carried
with them in a huge wicker basket like a coffin, which two of the
resplendent footmen were even now staggering under, and bearing out to
the motor. For the sake of good fellowship several of the party who were
not going on this prodigious expedition joined the travellers in this
collation, for, as Mr. Osborne said, with a large plate of ham in front
of him, “It made a bit of a break in the morning to have a mouthful of
sherry and a dry biscuit. Help yourself, Per, my boy, for you’re the
guard of this personally conducted tour, and you’ll need a bite of
something before you get your lunch.”

Jim Austell meantime had gone back to his room, from which he ejected
two flurried housemaids who were emptying things into each other, and
dressed in a leisurely manner. He found a letter or two on his dressing
table, and among them a note from Mr. Osborne’s secretary containing an
extremely satisfactory cheque for the first quarter’s rent of Grote, and
with great promptitude he despatched it to his bank. Then, coming
downstairs and out on to the terrace, he found Claude rather impatiently
waiting for the return of Dora, who had strayed off after breakfast with
May Thurston, and challenged him to a game of croquet, in which the two
were still engaged when the girls came back from their walk. They
refused to join, and May went into the house while Dora drew a chair to
the edge of the ground and watched. Jim, wallowing in the remembrance of
his cheque, had proposed a sovereign on the game and Claude had
accepted. The game, therefore, since money was concerned, was serious,
but Dora, not knowing this, was not. She had a great deal to say.

“I think Englishmen are perfect butchers,” she said. “The whole of the
long glade is simply one mass of the most heavenly young pheasants, who
ran to us in flocks to be fed. Then comes October, and when they run to
be fed you shoot them in the eye.”

“There you’re wrong, Dora,” said Jim, calmly taking aim, “you shoot at
running rabbits, but not----”

“Oh well, you know what I mean, and you call it sport. There, that
serves you right, Jim, now it’s Claude’s turn and he’s got you. Oh,
Claude, what a beautiful shot! Wasn’t it lucky it hit the wire first? If
it hadn’t it would have missed blue altogether.”

Claude did not reply: even though it was Dora who was talking, the fact
that at the present moment he was playing a game overrode all other
considerations. He would have much preferred to stop playing the game,
and talk to her instead, but since that was impossible he continued to
be entirely absorbed in what he was doing. The balls (after the
beautiful shot) were well placed for a break, but a little consideration
was necessary. Then a somewhat lengthy and faultless exhibition
followed. At the end he came and sat down on the grass by Dora.

“Not a bad break,” he said, “I shall have a cigarette.”

“What are we going to do after lunch?” asked she gently, as Jim walked
off to the far end of the ground.

“Just exactly whatever you like so long as we do it by ourselves. I
haven’t seen you all morning.”

“I know; it’s been beastly,” said she, “but May’s a dear, you know, and
she wanted to talk about Harry, and I rather wanted to talk about you,
so we both talked together, and I can’t remember a word she said.”

Claude was lying face downward on the grass, nursing his match, and Dora
was looking at the short hair on the back of his neck. Then quickly and
suddenly she looked up.

“Oh, Jim, you cheated,” she cried. “I saw you move that ball with your
foot. What a brute he is! He always cheats at croquet, and is always
found out. I don’t cheat: I only lose my temper. Claude, dear, keep an
eye on him. Or perhaps you cheat too, do you? Oh, what a heavenly day.
Do let’s go on the lake after you’ve finished your game. You shall row
and steer, and I shall encourage you.”

Dora passed over the fact of Jim’s cheating as she passed over the other
numerous topics of her conversation, things to be alluded to and left
behind, and Claude, sitting up again when he had got a light, made no
comment whatever to it. Jim continued to play calmly and correctly, and
at the end of his break came toward them, leaving an unpromising
position.

“You talk more rot in a short space of time than anyone I ever saw,” he
remarked. “What with shooting at running pheasants and saying I cheat,
you make my head whirl.”

“Oh, but you did, I saw you,” said Dora calmly. “Why not grant it?”

She paused a moment as Claude aimed, and then continued:

“Oh, Claude, what bad luck! Or did it hit it? I almost thought I saw it
tremble, and in a minute I shall be sure of it.”

“I thought it hit,” said Jim.

“No, I’m sure it didn’t,” said Claude. “Full inch between them.”

The game was over in a couple of turns after this, but Dora, finding it
hot on her grassy bank, had gone down to sit in the boat and wait for
Claude. At the conclusion of the game he produced a sovereign and handed
it to Jim.

“You gave me a good thrashing,” he said, “couldn’t get in but that
once.”

“Thanks. Yes, you had bad luck all through. I say.... You’re satisfied
that Dora was talking nonsense?”

“About what?”

“When she said I cheated. Of course I did nothing of the kind.”

“Why, of course I’m satisfied if you tell me so,” said Claude. “Are you
coming down to the lake?”

“Not I. Dora would hurl me overboard.”

Claude strolled away and Jim walked aimlessly about, taking shots across
the lawn with various balls. He knew perfectly well that he had cheated,
but it was the worst luck in the world that Dora had looked up that
moment. There had been a ball quite close to his, but as far off as if
it had been in a better world by reason of the fact that it was lying
neatly and inaccessibly behind the stump. He had just moved it with his
foot as he went by, without, so he told himself, more than half meaning
to. That was quite characteristic of him; he but rarely fully meant that
sort of thing; something external to himself seemed to suggest a paltry
little manœuvre of this kind, and he yielded to it in an absent-minded
sort of way, without any particular intention. Had the game, in fact,
gone on without attention being called to it, he would probably have
nearly forgotten about it by now.

But Claude’s remark, though innocent and even cordial (considering what
he himself privately knew), irritated him a good deal. He had said that
of course he was satisfied since Jim had told him so. That looked as if
he would not have been satisfied if he had not been told, an utterly
unjustifiable attitude, since he had never given Claude, so far as he
knew, the very smallest grounds for supposing that he himself was
capable of cheating at croquet or anything else. Perhaps in Sheffield it
was the right thing to cheat, and at the end of the game everyone who
had not cheated told his opponent so, who then kindly accepted his word.
Claude would find, however, that among the sort of people he now moved,
it wasn’t correct to cheat; in fact, it was distinctly advisable not to.
Indeed, in a very few minutes, Jim felt rather as if Claude had cheated,
and he was himself kind but a little troubled about it.

Then--he felt almost ashamed of himself for dwelling so long on so small
an incident--he looked at the matter afresh. He had cheated, and
pocketed a sovereign probably in consequence. That was a very small sum
of money to cheat for, but he distinctly wished that it had not
occurred. And then he threw down again the mallet he had taken up.

“Fact is, I’m a rotten chap,” he said to himself, and there was no
dissentient voice in his brain.

       *       *       *       *       *

Claude meantime had gone down to the lake after Dora. If he had been
obliged to give his thoughts the definiteness of words, he would
certainly have said that he thought the whole thing rather odd, but
then, being of an extremely loyal, unsuspicious nature, he would have
endorsed his remark to Jim, that his word was quite sufficient, and have
turned his thoughts resolutely elsewhere. He did not want to think about
such very nasty little things as cheating at croquet, whether there was
a penny or a sovereign or nothing at all on the game, and he did not
wish to examine a certain doubt that lurked in the bottom of his mind as
to whether Dora had seen correctly or not. It was in the shade anyhow,
and he let it lie there. But if anyone had told him (or Jim either) that
the incident was a trifling and microscopic one, both would have been
quite right to deny that. It was true that a game only and a sovereign
were concerned, but the “directing” power no less important a personage
than Honour. It really makes a great difference in the daily journey
through life if that charioteer is at his post or not.

“Sorry for keeping you, darling,” he said to Dora, “but we had to finish
the game. It didn’t take long, did it? I got my head knocked off.”

Dora had already established herself, and he pushed out through the
shallow water, where the weeds trailed whispering fingers against the
bottom of the boat, to deeper water.

“How clever of you to screw it on again so quick,” said she. “Yes, it’s
quite straight. Oh, Claude, I’ve been thinking such a lot since I left
you. How funny it is how little tiny things, like Jim’s cheating just
now, suggest such a lot of other ones not at all tiny.”

Claude gave a little short uncomfortable laugh.

“I say, darling, do you know,” he said, “if I were you I shouldn’t say
that sort of thing even to me. He didn’t cheat: he told me so. So you
must have been mistaken, and it’s an awful pity to let things like that
ever be talked about. But let’s go on to the big things which it (though
it didn’t happen) suggested.”

Dora paid no attention whatever to these excellent moral reflections,
but merely waited with her mouth open till he had finished in order to
speak again.

“Oh, but he did, he did,” she cried. “I saw him with both eyes. We never
could play together because he always cheated and I always lost my
temper. How funny of him not to confess.”

Claude did not reply for the moment: it was all rather uncomfortable.

“Well, now for the big things,” he said.

“Oh, bother the big things,” said Dora. “I know you think I am wrong,
and I’m not. I’m never wrong. I’m perfectly certain.”

She stopped suddenly and leaned over the side of the boat, dabbling her
hand in the water. She saw some unuttered trouble in Claude’s face, and
a rather dreadful conjecture occurred to her.

“Claude, you weren’t playing for money, were you?” she asked in a low
voice.

He made up his mind in a moment and acted with promptitude.

“Good gracious, no,” he said. “What will you be suggesting next?”

But Dora was still grave.

“Oh, I am glad,” she said, with relief. “And do let’s talk about
something else. I daresay I was quite wrong about Jim moving that ball.
Oh, I know I wasn’t,” she cried. “It was only a game, you see, and there
was nothing on it, and oh, poor Jim, you see he always used to cheat. It
was just the same at billiards; if the balls were touching he used to go
on before he really looked to see if they were. And that leads on to the
big things.”

He had stopped rowing, and with the impetus which the boat had acquired
in those vigorous strokes he made to get clear of the weeds, they were
drifting toward the little island in the centre of the lake, where the
swans made their nests. It was rimmed about with soft-branched willows
that trailed yielding boughs toward the water, and the boat glided in
under their drooping fingers, and ran on to a soft sandy promontory,
where it beached its bows, while the enfolding willow gave shade.

“Yes, the big things,” said Dora. “It’s just this, darling. You’ve got
heaps of attractions, but I’m not sure that one of your nicest things
isn’t that you are so safe. It is such fun being able to trust a person
quite completely and entirely and know one was right in doing so. I
don’t believe you ever scheme or make plans. Mother does, and Jim does,
and people get so keen on their plan that other things get rather out of
focus. They go--oh, it’s like hounds when they are really running well:
they don’t look at the scenery, you know. They put their dear noses down
and follow, follow. And it’s all because of money--no, not the hounds,
don’t be so foolish--but it is an advantage not to want to bother about
money. I _do_ like to know that I needn’t bother any more at all, and
that if I want to take a cab I can. Somebody--Pierre Loti, I think--said
it must be exquisite to be poor. Well, it isn’t. It’s far more exquisite
to be rich. Of course I had great fun about trimming a hat for twopence,
and making it look as if it came from May’s shop--Biondonetti, isn’t it,
but really I should much prefer to order hats direct. Wouldn’t you?”

Claude happened to be hatless, but he passed his hand over his head
instead, as if to recapture the sensation of ordering hats. “I suppose I
order mine,” he said. “I’m sure I never made one. I shouldn’t know how
to set about it.”

“No, darling, you don’t wear two feathers--and--nothing else. A hat of
two feathers is fearfully smart.”

“Are these the big things you proposed to talk about?” asked Claude.

“No, as if hats mattered. Oh, Claude, you’re moulting. A short black
hair! And there’s another sticking out. May I pull?”

He bent his head a little down: she pulled, and he screamed. The hair
remained where it was.

“And is that a big thing?” asked he again.

“No, donkey; darling donkey. You will interrupt so about hats. As if
anybody cared where you got your hats, and you haven’t got one. How did
you lead the conversation round to hats? Let’s see, it was Austell
first, and then ... then, oh, yes, I said you were safe. And now I think
I’ll go on. You may sit down here, if you like. There’s room for us
both. Let’s be common, as May said about--about people like us, the
other day. I would change hats with you, if you had one. As it is----”

Dora pulled the thick black curls.

“Oh, I wish you had a wig,” she said, “and nobody knew but me. I
shouldn’t mind, and everybody would say what beautiful hair you had, and
I should know it wasn’t real, and shouldn’t tell. It would be such fun.
Then some day you would annoy me, and I should tell everybody it was
only a wig. Claude, when I am old and wrinkly and quite, quite ugly, do
you suppose you will care the least little bit any more for me? Oh,
dear, I felt so extraordinarily gay all the morning, and now I’ve gone
sad all in a minute! Oh, do comfort me! There is such a lot of
gray-business in life, unless one dies quite young, which it would
immensely annoy me to do. I wonder how we shall stand the gray-business,
you and I, when we see each other getting older and more wrinkled and
stiffer, stiffer not only in limb, and that is bad enough, but stiffer
in mind, which is infinitely worse. No, don’t look at me like that, but
sit up and be sensible. It has got to be faced.”

Unconsciously, or at the most half consciously, she was sounding him;
she knew quite well that there were beautiful things to be said and said
truly about what she had called the gray-business of life, and she
wondered, longing that it might be so, whether there was within him that
divine alchemy which could see how the gray could be changed into gold.
Never had she felt his physical charm so potent as now, when he sat up
obedient to her orders and leaned forward toward her, with a look, a
little puzzled, a little baffled in his eyes. Almost she was tempted to
say to him, “Oh, it doesn’t matter, nothing matters beside this
exquisite day and you, you, as I know you already,” but some very
deep-lying vein of curiosity wholly feminine, and very largely loving,
made her not interrupt her own question, but wait, with just a touch of
anxiety, for his reply. She and Claude, she felt, would have some day to
be far more intimately known by each other than they were now. Of him
she knew little but his personal beauty, though she felt sure that, as
she had said to May, he was good, and as she had said to him, that he
was safe. And of her she guessed that he knew no more; that he loved her
she had no doubt, but she felt that she had shown him as yet but little
beyond that which all the world saw, her quick and eager attitude toward
life, the iridescent moods of her effervescent nature. There was
something that sat below these, her real self. She wanted Claude to know
that, even as she wanted to know his real self.

This was all vague to her though real, instinctive rather than
describable, and flashed but momentarily through her mind as she waited
for his reply. But that reply came at once: Claude seemed to find no
difficulty about the facing of the gray-business.

“There’s no cause to worry,” he said. “Just look at Dad and the mater!
Isn’t he in love with her still? And I expect what you call the
gray-business for a woman cannot begin while her husband loves her. I
don’t suppose either of them ever gave a look, so to say, at anybody
else. Think of the way he proposed her health last night! Not much
gray-business about that! Why it was as if she was his best girl still,
and that he’d just come a-courting her, instead of their having been
married over thirty years. And she is his best girl still, just as you
will ever be mine. And as for her, why he’s her man still. How’s that
for the gray-business?”

Dora felt one dreadful moment’s inclination to laugh. She had asked for
a sign that he could turn the gray into gold, and for reply she got the
assurance that she might put her mind at rest with the thought of what
Mr. and Mrs. Osborne were to each other! She knew that for that moment
she only saw the ludicrous side of it, and that a very real and solid
truth was firm below it, but somehow it was not what she wanted. She
wanted ... she hardly knew what, but something of the spirit of romance
that triumphantly refuses to acquiesce in the literal facts of life, and
see all things through the many-coloured blaze of its own light. She
wanted the gray-business laughed at, she wanted the assurance that she
could never grow old, given with a lover’s superb conviction, to be
received with the unquestioning credulity of a child. No doubt it ought
to have been very comforting to think that the years would leave with
them the very warm and comfortable affection which the father and mother
had for each other, and she ought to be glad that Claude felt so sure of
that. But, to her mind, there was about as much romance in it as in a
suet pudding.

He saw the eagerness die from her face, and the shadow of her
disappointment cross it.

“And what is it now, dear?” he asked.

Dora tossed her head back, a trick she had caught from him.

“It isn’t anything now,” she said, “it all concerns years that are
centuries away. I think it was foolish of me to ask at all.”

“I don’t think it was in the least,” said he. “You said it had to be
faced, and I think I’ve given it a facer, at least the example of the
governor and the mater has. Besides, there are other things that will
colour up the gray-matter, children, we hope, sons going to school and
daughters growing up.”

Again Dora knew that he spoke with excellent sense, but again she felt
that it was not sense she wanted, so much as lovers’ nonsense, which is
more essentially real than any sense. She wanted something airy,
romantic, golden.... And then she looked at him again, and her wants
faded from her. He brought her himself. She gave a little sigh and
raised herself till her face was on a level with his.

“O Claude, I should be a donkey, if I was not content,” she said.

“Lord, there’d be a pair of us then, if I wasn’t,” said he.

       *       *       *       *       *

Sunday succeeded and breakfast in consequence was put an hour earlier so
that any servant in the house could go to church. Mr. Osborne himself,
though the day was already of scorching heat, came down in a black
frock-coat suit of broadcloth, and his wife rustled in black satin. It
was clearly expected that all their guests would go also, for at
half-past ten a stream of vehicles drove to the door past the window of
the smoking-room.

“Got to start early,” said he, “so that the men may put up the cattle
and come too, but there’s no call for you gentlemen to put out your
cigars. The ladies won’t mind a whiff of tobacco in the open air, Sir
Thomas, and the church is but a step outside the Park gates, so that you
can sit and finish there. There are the ladies assembling. Time to go:
never keep the fair sex waiting, hey? or else the most indulgent of them
will turn a cold shoulder.”

The church, as Mr. Osborne had said, was but a stone’s throw beyond the
Park gates, and as they all arrived at twenty minutes to eleven there
was time, before the groaning of the organ summoned them in, to have a
turn under the trees and finish the cigars that had barely been begun.

It had been so taken for granted that everybody was coming to church
that out of all the party there was only one absentee, namely, Austell,
to whose room Mr. Osborne had sent with inquiries if he was ready, and
the suggestion to send back the motor for him if he was not. But he
certainly was not ready and the motor had not gone back for him, since
he had said that he was not very well. Otherwise the whole of the party
were there, and by degrees strayed into church. Mrs. Osborne had gone
there at once from the carriage with Lady Austell, in order to escape
from the heat, and they were already seated in the big square family
pew which belonged to the house, when the others began to come in. Sir
Thomas and Mr. Osborne were the last, because they had been discussing
the recent rise in the price of tin up till the last moment. They
entered, indeed, so shortly before the procession of four choir boys,
two men and the vicar, that Mr. Osborne had barely time to sit down by
his wife in the place she always kept for him next her in church, after
standing up and putting his face in his hat, before he had to stand up
again. Sir Thomas sat next Lady Austell. The two looked rather like a
codfish in conjunction with a withered lily.

The pew was four-sided, the fourth side opening into the body of the
church through the easternmost of the arches of the south aisle. In the
centre of it was a very beautiful alabaster monument to the first earl
and his wife, while the window was of exquisite early German glass to
the memory of the second. Elsewhere in numbers round the walls were
other smaller tablets, some bearing medallions, others merely catalogues
of the cardinal virtues with which the deceased were blessed, but the
whole place was historical, established. And here this morning sat Mr.
Osborne and his family and friends, among whom were Lady Austell and her
daughter, who was going to join together the two families. She sat just
opposite Claude, and of them all, he alone to the most observant eye was
ambiguous. He might as well, so far as appearance went, have been of the
Austells as of the Osbornes.

Dora, it was to be feared, was not very attentive, and her face wore
that peculiarly rapt look, which, as May Thurston had once told her, was
a certain indication that she was not thinking about what was going on.
As far as the service of the church went that was true; she was
completely occupied with the occupants of the pew. The sermon was in
progress and her mother sat with eyes mournfully fixed on the
Elizabethan monument in the centre, just as if the first earl had been
her husband, while next her Sir Thomas had his eyes fixed on nothing at
all, for they were tightly closed. His wife, next to him, and round the
corner, made futile little attempts to rouse him to consciousness again,
by pretending to put her parasol in a more convenient place, so that it
should incidentally hit his foot. This, eventually, she succeeded in
doing, and he opened one eye and rolled it drowsily and reproachfully at
Lady Austell, as if she had interrupted some celestial reverie. Then he
closed it again.

Claude, as Dora felt, had observed this, and was looking at her, so she
passed over him, for fear of catching his eye, and went on to Uncle
Alfred, who sat next him. He was closely wrapped up in a shawl that went
over his shoulders, and a certain stealthy movement of his lower jaw
caused her to suspect that he was eating some sort of lozenge. Then came
Mrs. Osborne: Dora could hear her rather tight satin bodice creak to her
breathing. She had the Bible in which she had verified the text open in
her lap, and she was listening intently to the sermon, which was clearly
to her mind, for her plump, pleasant face was smiling, and her eyes
fixed on the preacher were a little dim: her smile was clearly one of
those smiles of very simple happiness which are allied to tenderness and
tears. And then Dora focussed her ear and heard what was being said:

“So this earthly love of ours,” said the preacher, “is of the same
immortal quality. Years do not dim it; it seems but to grow stronger and
brighter as the mere purely physical part of it----”

And then Dora’s eye was focussed again by a movement on the part of Mrs.
Osborne, and her ear lost the rest of the sentence. Mrs. Osborne gave a
great sigh and her dress a great creak, and simultaneously she took away
the hand that was supporting the Bible in which she had verified the
text, so that it slid off the short and steeply inclined plane between
her body and her knee, and fell face downward on the floor. She did not
heed this: she laid her hand, making kaleidoscopic colours in her rings
as she moved it, on the hand of her husband, who sat next her.

He, too, had been following the sermon with evident pleasure, and it was
hard to say to which of them the movement came first. For within the
same fraction of a second his hand also let fall the silk hat which he
had already gathered up in anticipation of the conclusion, and in the
same instant of time it was seeking hers. His head turned also to her,
as hers to him, and a whispered word passed between them. Then they
smiled, each to the other, and the second whisper was audible right
across the monument of Francis, first earl, to Dora, where she sat
opposite to them.

“Maria, my dear,” whispered Mr. Osborne, “if that isn’t nice!”

Then Mrs. Osborne’s belated consciousness awoke; she withdrew her hand
and picked up her Bible.

Mr. Osborne’s instinct in taking up his hat had been quite correct; the
doxology followed, and a hymn was given out. He and his wife, so it was
clear to Dora, had no consciousness except for each other and the hymn.
She was the first to find it in her hymn-book, while he still fumbled
with his glasses, and when they all stood up he shared the book with her
and put down his own.

Then the organ indicated the first lines of the tune, and again the two
smiled at each other, for it was a favourite, as it had been sung at the
service for the dedication of the church in Sheffield. They both
remembered that, but that did not wholly account for their pleasure: it
had been a favourite long before.

Mrs. Osborne sang what is commonly called “second.” That is to say, she
made sounds about a third below the air. Mr. Osborne sang bass: that is
to say, he sang the air an octave or thereabouts below the treble. They
both sang very loudly; so also did Percy, so also did Mrs. Per, who sang
a real alto.

And then without reason Dora’s eyes grew suddenly dim. In the last verse
Mrs. Osborne closed the large gilt-edged hymn-book with tunes, and
looked at her husband. He moistened his lips as the last verse began,
and coughed once. Then Mrs. Osborne’s rings again caught the light as
she sought her husband’s hand. And she started _fortissimo_, a shade
before anybody else:

    “And so through all the length of days--”

Mr. Osborne did not sing: his fat fingers closed on his wife’s rings,
and he listened to her. He would not have listened then to Melba. He
would not have been so completely absorbed if the seraphim had sung to
him.

And then finally Dora looked at Claude. She thought she understood a
little more. But she only saw a little more.




CHAPTER V.


It was about two of the afternoon in the last week of May, and this
sudden heat wave which had spread southward over Europe had reached
Venice, making it more than ever a place to dream and be still in and
less than ever a place to see sights in. So at any rate thought its
foreign visitors, for the Grand Canal even and the more populous of the
waterways were empty of pleasure-seeking and church-inspecting traffic,
and but little even of the mercantile or more necessary sort was on the
move. Here and there a barge laden with coke and wood fuel was being
punted heavily upstream, clinging as far as might be to the side of the
canal, where it would feel less of the tide that was strongly setting
seaward, or here another carrying the stacked-up furniture of some
migratory household passed down midstream so as to get the full aid and
current of the tide avoided by the other. But apart from such traffic
and the passage of the gray half-empty steamers that churned and
troubled the water at regular intervals, sending the wash of their
slanting waves against the walls of the white palaces, and making the
moored and untenanted gondolas slap the water with sudden hollow
complaints, and grind their sides uneasily against the restraining
_pali_, there was but little stir of movement or passage. No lounger
hung about on the steps of the iron bridge, and the sellers of fruit,
picture postcards, and tobacco had taken their wares into the narrow
strip of shade to the north of the Accademia, and waited, unexpectant of
business, till the cool of the later hours should bring the _forestieri_
into the street again.

Even the native population shunned the glare of the sun, and preferred,
if it was necessary to go from one place to another, to seek the deep
shadows of the narrow footways rather than face the heat and glare of
the canals, and the boatmen in charge of the public ferries had moored
their craft in the shade if possible, or, with heads sheltered beneath
their discarded coats, passed the long siesta-hour with but little fear
of interruption or call on their services. The domes and towers of the
town glittered jewel-like against the deep blue of the sky, and their
outlines trembled in the quiver of the reverberating air. On the north
side of the Grand Canal the southward-facing houses dozed behind
lattices closed to keep out the glare and the heat, and the air was
still and noiseless but for the staccato chiding of the swallows which
pursued their swift and curving ways with nothing of their speed abated.
Over the horizon hung a purplish haze of heat, so that the edge of the
sea melted indistinguishably into the sky, and Alps and Euganean hills
alike were invisible.

Dora had lunched alone to-day, for Claude had gone to Milan to meet his
father and mother, who were coming out for a fortnight and would arrive
this evening; and at the present moment she was looking out from the
window of her _sala_ on to the lower stretch of the Grand Canal, which,
as her intimacy with it deepened, seemed ever to grow more inexplicably
beautiful. The flat which they occupied was on the south side of the
canal, and though no doubt it would have left the room cooler to have
closed all inlet of the baked air, she preferred to have the windows
open, and lean out to command a larger view of the beloved waterway.
Deep into her heart had the magic of the city of waters entered, a thing
incomparable and incommunicable. She only knew that when she was away
from Venice the thought of it caused her to draw long breaths, which
hung fluttering in her throat; that when she was in it her eyes were
never satisfied with gazing or herself with being soaked in it. She
loved what was splendid in it, and what was sordid, what was small and
what was great, its sunshine, its shadows, its moonlight, the pleasant
Italian folk, and whether she sat in the jewelled gloom of St. Mark’s or
shot out with the call of her gondolier from some dark waterway into the
blaze of ivory moonlight on the Grand Canal below the Rialto, or whether
the odour of roasting coffee or the frying of fish came to her as she
passed some little _caffe ristorante_ in the maze of mean streets that
lie off the Merceria, or whether she lay floating at ease in the warm
sustaining water of the Lido, or watched in the church of St. Georgio
the mystic wreaths of spirits and archangels assembled round the table
of the Last Supper, peopling the beamed ceiling of the Upper Chamber and
mingling mistlike in the smoke of the lamp with which it was lit--she
knew that it was Venice, the fact of Venice, that lay like a gold thread
through these magical hours, binding them together, a circle of perfect
pearls.

Two threads indeed ran through them all: they were doubly strong, for
it was in Venice last autumn that she and Claude had passed three weeks
of honeymoon and with the glory of the place was mingled the glory of
her lover. It was that perhaps that gave to details and such sights and
sounds as were not remarkable in themselves their ineffaceable
character. It was because she and Claude had wandered, pleased to find
themselves momentarily lost, in the high-eaved labyrinths of narrow
streets, that the dingy little interiors, the _trattorias_ with their
smell of spilt wine, and their vine-leaf-stoppered bottles, their sharp
savour of cooking and sawdust-sprinkled floors were things apart from
anything that could be seen or perceived in any other town in the world.
A spire of valerian sprouted from mouldering brickwork, the reflection
of a marble lion’s head on snow-white cornice quivered in the gray-green
water below, little sideway-scuttling crabs bustled over the gray mud of
the lagoons, bent on private and oblique errands of their own, seagulls
hovered at the edge of the retiring water; gray-stemmed _pali_ with
black heads leaned together, marking the devious course of deep-dug
channels; there came a cry of “_Stali_” and a gondola with high-arching
neck (some beautiful black swan) shot out of a canal by the bridge where
they lingered, and these sights and sounds, trivial in themselves, were
stamped in her mind with the royal mint-mark that belonged to those
weeks when she and Claude were in Venice after their marriage. Her
emotion had streamed from her, soaking them with it: they were part of
Venice, part of herself, and so wholly hers.

Some seal had been set on those things then that could never be melted
out. It was Claude who had set it there, and he had so imprinted that
seal upon Venice that to her now all that was Venice had the memory of
her honeymoon upon it like a hallmark on silver. That time had been a
score of divine days, luminous with the southern sun, warm with
stillness or clement wind, and yet made vigorous with the youth and
freshness of the immortal sea. And here, six months afterward, she had
returned with Claude to spend a month of late May and early June before
the weeks of London. In the autumn she had come home under the
enchantment and by way of a neat Christmas present Mr. Osborne had
prospectively given her the rent, the journey, the expenses of food and
wine, the servants and their journeys and their wages of a month, “or
call it five weeks, my dear, and you won’t find me pulling you up
short,” he had said, “of that house on the Grand Canal that took your
fancy, Palazzo ---- but there, I’ve no head for foreign names. You leave
London, you do, with your maid and your cook, and your housemaid and
what not, and don’t forget Claude, hey? or he’ll be quarrelling with
you, and me taking his side too, though its only my fun. And you take a
few English servants with you, as you can fall back upon, and you send
me in a bill for all the tickets and the wages, and your living bills,
and your gondolas, and that’s my Christmas present to you. Don’t you
bother, but make yourself comfortable. You go as you please, as we used
to say, for a month, or call it five weeks, and enjoy yourself, and let
me know how much it’s all stood you in. I shouldn’t wonder if Mrs. O.
and I didn’t come and join you, oh, not to make you uncomfortable, no
fear, but to take another piazza, ah, palazzo you call it, and have a
look at the Italians, and see what’s to be seen.”

Dora had an excellent aural memory, and as she sat at her window to-day,
watching the flickering reflection in the water of the sunstruck houses
opposite, she could almost hear Mr. Osborne’s voice saying these
hospitable and free-handed things. But they did not get between her and
her memory of the weeks in October. She was aware that during the last
six months she had seen things differently to the way in which they were
presented to her during those weeks, but it was not Venice that had
altered. It was still Venice “as per last October,” as her father-in-law
might have said.

They had rowed out to Malamocco one day, and another they had gone to
Torcello, the ancient mother of Venice, and she had found there a sort
of tenderness for the earlier and now ruined and fevered town, just
as--just as she found a tenderness for her husband’s mother. Torcello
was the beginning of the magic, from Torcello the creation of what she
so loved had come. On another day they had taken dinner out on to the
great lagoon, had tied up to a clump of hoary gray-headed _pali_,
notching the _ferro_ of their gondola into the disc of the setting sun.
Then some tide had slowly swung them a little sideways, so that they
still faced toward the brightness of the West, long after the sun had
gone, and the glory of its departing had been infused into and flooded
the heavens. A great cumulus cloud reared itself out of the western
horizon, in tower and pinnacle of ineffable rose, with transparent
aqueous blue dwelling in the folds of it and at the base of it lay the
campaniles and roofs of Venice. And Claude had been beside her, he whose
beauty intoxicated her, so that she interpreted all he said or did
through the medium of that. He had often yawned at things that engrossed
her, he had often felt that long lingering before certain pictures was
tedious, but his reason for it had ever been the same, and the reason
was an intoxicating one. Then pictures and campaniles absorbed her, and
in consequence he, so he complained, got the less of her. “Put me down
in Clapham Junction,” he had said once, “and if I find you there I
shan’t ask for Venice. Tintoret. Yes, No. 20 is by Tintoret. How did you
guess? I see no label on the frame: they should have them all labelled.
What a handsome frame!”

On another day, the only one on which the halcyon weather had played
them a trick, they had gone out in the morning to Burano, rowing at full
tide over the shadows and water of oily calm, with above them a sky that
was turquoise, but for a few pale combed wisps of cloud. Northward it
had been very clear, and the white range of snow mountains so sharp cut
that it seemed that even on an autumn day they could row across and
ascend those cliffs of white. Then--Claude had noticed it first--a great
tattered edge of gray vapour streamed southward off the Alps, and spread
with the swiftness of spilt water along the floor, in pool and
promontory of vapour over the northern heavens. He and she had been
talking Italian in ridiculous fashion to their head gondolier, and now
Claude pointed dramatically northward and said, “Curioso cloudo.” On
which all the gaiety and laziness of that child of the south vanished,
and he and his _poppe_ put the boat about and rowed top speed for
Venice. They had come in expectation of fine weather, with no _felse_,
but before they were halfway home a squall of prodigious wind and
blinding rain struck them, and for an hour she and Claude nestled close
beneath one mackintosh, hearing the squeal of the wind, the buffet of
the rain, and by degrees the gradual rising of waves. They made a bolt
for it across the last open water between San Michele and Venice,
narrowly escaping being swamped.

Somehow to Dora now, that seemed the best of all the days. The gondola
was three inches deep in savage spray-blown water. She knew there was
danger of some sort abroad, when they had already started, and had gone
too far in the maniac wind that descended on them to get back, but
crouching beneath the one mackintosh with Claude, with the rain
streaming in from a hundred points, and with the danger of capsize
imminent, she found a glory and triumph in the moment, which, indeed,
was independent, or almost so, of Venice, and was pure Claude. He had
lit a cigarette, after succeeding in striking a match with infinite
trouble, saying, “Now for the last smoke this side the grave,” and Dora
found a sublimity of sangfroid in this remark. But at that time all he
said or did was golden: he gilded all things for her.

In those days she was incapable of criticism with regard to anything
that concerned him, for to her, lover of beauty as she was, his beauty,
which now was a possession of hers, was a thing of dazzling and blinding
quality. It blinded her still, but it must be supposed that the
enthrallment of it was quite absolute no longer, since now, at any rate,
she knew it was that which had taken the very command and control of
herself out of her hands. She was in love with him, that was perfectly
true, but it was with his beauty (an inextricable part of him) that she
was in love. And now, to-day, as she leaned out of her window over the
summer stillness, she found that she was beginning to be able to look
undazzled at him, to see the qualities and nature of her husband as they
were themselves, not as they had appeared to her in the early months of
her marriage, when she could not see him at all except through the
enchanted haze which surrounded him. Before she married him she had been
able to do as she did to-day, to know that at times something (trivial
it always was, as when he spoke of some woman as a “handsome lady”) made
her check suddenly. But when they were married, when he and his
wonderful beauty were hers, and she was his, that power of criticism had
altogether left her, and it was only with a sort of incredulous wonder
that she could remember that she had ever been capable of it. To-day,
now that he was absent, for she had not seen him for over twenty-four
hours, she for the first time consciously registered the fact that the
power of judgment and criticism as regards him had come back to her.

Dora drew herself in from her leaning out of the window, and settled
herself in a chair. This discovery rather startled her. Insignificant as
it might sound, if she had described it to May Franklin or some other
friend, it seemed to herself to be indicative of some essential and
radical change in her relation to her husband. And it concerned itself
not with the present only and with the future, but reached back into the
past, so that a hundred little scenes and memories bore a different
aspect to her now from that which they had hitherto borne. It had been
enchanting to her, for instance, that he had said he would as soon be at
Clapham Junction as at Venice, provided she was with him. At the time
she had only thrilled with ecstatic wonder that she could be so much to
him: now she made the comment that he did not really care for Venice.
That was a pity; it was a defect in him, that he was indifferent to the
exquisite beauties with which he was surrounded. She had not seen that
before. It made him, so to speak, have no part in her Venice, which,
strangely enough, he had created for her. It was as if a father
disowned, did not recognize his own child.

Dora had no desire to pursue this train of thought, for there was
something vaguely uncomfortable at the back of it at which she did not
wish to look closer. So she mentally brushed it aside, and, a thing that
was a daily if not an hourly habit of hers, took her mind back to the
first days in which they had been together, and let it float her slowly
down the enchanted weeks that had followed till it landed her at the
present day again. Such retrospect had, indeed, passed out of the range
of voluntary thought: it was like the pillow on which her mind, when at
rest, instinctively reposed itself. After Venice they had wandered a
week or two longer in North Italy, until toward the end of October a
foretaste of winter caught them on the Italian lakes, and they had
started for home, arriving there at the beginning of November. They had
but passed through London, spending a couple of days at Claude’s little
flat in Mount Street, and had then gone down to Grote for the first big
pheasant shoot of the year. She found both her mother and Austell there.

Dora was essentially appreciative of all the delightful things in life
which can only be obtained by abundant money, and hitherto very few of
these had been within her reach. True, she was sensible enough to enjoy
pictures that were not hers, to look at beautiful things exposed for the
public in museums and art collections; but she did not belong to that
slightly unreal class of enthusiasts who say that as long as they are
able to see fine pictures and fine statues they get from them all the
pleasure which such things are capable of giving. Nor again was she
deficient in her appreciation of comfort, and she knew that it was
infinitely nicer to telephone from the flat at Mount Street, as they had
done on the two evenings they were there, and get a box at the theatre,
than getting seats at the back of the dress circle, or, if times were
exceptionally bad, having an egg with her tea and taking her humble
place in the _queue_ for the pit. She was humorist enough and of a
sufficiently observant type to find entertainment of a kind while
waiting in the _queue_, but it seemed to her insincere to say that you
preferred going to a theatre in such mode. Similarly, though you had
such a beautiful view and got so much air on the top of a motor bus that
such a mode of progression along the London streets was quite enjoyable,
it was really far more enjoyable to have your own motor, though your
outlook was not from so elevated a perch and there was probably not
quite so much air. And she was perfectly aware that she took the keenest
pleasure in all the ease and comfort with which she had been surrounded
since her engagement. Pierre Loti, as she had once quoted to May
Franklin, had said that it was exquisite to be poor, but for herself she
found it (having had long experience of poverty) much more exquisite to
be rich. But there were things about that shooting week, in spite of her
newly awakened love and her newly found opulence, which was in such
resounding evidence there, which gave her bad moments: moments when she
was between bitterness and laughter, nearer perhaps to laughter than the
other, but to laughter in which bitterness would have found the
reflection, at any rate, of itself.

A rather ponderous plan, evolved by the geniality and kindness of her
father-in-law, underlay that week. He had been in London for the inside
of one of the days that she and Claude had stopped in town after their
return from Venice, _en route_ for Grote, and had lunched with her.
Claude had been out: Uncle Alf had sent for him--rather peremptorily, so
it seemed to Dora--to come down to Richmond, and since Uncle Alf was
purseholder for them both, and had intimated that he wished to see him
on matters connected with the purse, the invitation had the authority of
a command. Consequently she and Mr. Osborne lunched alone.

“And you look rarely, my dear,” her father-in-law had said, giving her a
loud smacking kiss. “Claude seems to agree with you, bless his heart and
yours, for there is nothing like being married, is there, when all’s
said and done, provided you find him as your heart points out to you?
And you’ll give old Dad a bit of lunch, and leave to smoke his cigar
with you afterward, and tell him about Venice. My dear, I’ve looked
forward to your return with that boy of mine, so as never was, and I’m
blessed if I don’t believe Mrs. O. wouldn’t be jealous of you if it
wasn’t that you were his wife. But she thinks nought’s too good for
Claude, even if it’s you. She says I run on about you like a clock that
won’t stop striking! and I dare say she’s in the right of it.”

It was not very easy to “tell” Mr. Osborne about Venice, because it was
hard to think of any common ground on which he and Venice might
conceivably meet and appreciate each other, but the description seemed
to satisfy him, for it was largely “Claude and I.” And what satisfied
him even more was the evident happiness of the girl: she was in love
with life, with love and with Claude and with beautiful things. Claude
he had given her, beautiful things he could give her, and he asked if it
was possible to pick up a Tintoret or two. Then came the plan, unfolded
to her with almost boisterous enjoyment.

“Mrs. O. and I have put our heads together,” he said, “and I’m her
ambassador, accredited, don’t they say? by her, and with authority to
put propositions before you. Well, it’s just this: when that dear boy
and you come down to Grote to-morrow, we want you to be master and
mistress of the house, and Mrs. O. and me and Per and all the rest of
them to be your guests. It’ll be for you to say what time we breakfast,
and to see cook, and Claude will arrange the shoots, and give us a glass
of wine after dinner if he thinks it won’t hurt us, and it’ll be found
it won’t, if he sticks to the cellar as I’ve laid down for myself and of
which I’ll give him the key. It’ll give you a sort of lesson, like, my
dear, as to how to make your guests comfortable, as I’ll be bound you
will.”

It required no gifts of perception whatever to be able to appreciate the
kindness and affection of that speech, and Dora did them full justice.
At the same time she could not help being conscious of many little
jerks. She remembered also the party there had been at Grote shortly
after her engagement, wondered if the same sort of gathering would be
assembling again, and tried to think of herself as hostess to Mrs.
Price, Lady Ewart, and Mrs. Per. They were really very terrible people,
and on this occasion of her home-coming with Claude it was beyond all
question that the badinage would be of the most superlative order. She
remembered with fatal distinctness how her mother-in-law had alluded to
Mrs. Per, before Dora met her, as very superior, and it seemed to her
that no long and conscientious analysis of character could have arrived
at a report so definitely and completely true as was the verdict
conveyed by those two words. Yet she had married Claude, she loved
Claude: to accept the burden of this honour was clearly one of the
obligations entailed upon her, for it was Mr. Osborne’s wish, his very
kindly wish, backed and originated by his wife, and there was no shadow
of excuse to shelter under for declining it. So her pause before
replying was not greater than could be well filled by the smile with
which she greeted the proposal.

“Ah, but how dear of you,” she said cordially, “but we shall make all
kinds of mistakes. Are you sure you and Mrs. Osborne are willing to
risk our making a hash of your party? I shall probably forget most
things, and Claude will complete it by forgetting the remainder.”

Mr. Osborne laughed.

“My dear, you fill my plate with that hash, and I’ll ask for more,” he
said. “I’ll send up my plate twice for that hash, hey? That’s capital,
and it will give Mrs. O. a bit of a rest, for she’s a little overdone.
Indeed, I was thinking of putting off the party, but she wouldn’t hear
of it. And there’s another thing, my dear. Couldn’t you manage to call
me ‘Dad,’ as the boys do? It isn’t in nature that you should call
Claude’s father Mr. Osborne. I know it’s a favour to ask, like, but you
and me hit it off from the first, didn’t we? You was the right wife for
Claude, and no mistake.”

That met with a far more spontaneous response from Dora. There was
affection, kindness, as always, in what he said, but there was more than
that now--namely, a pathos of a very touching kind, in his making a
favour of so simple a request. Dora was ashamed of not having complied
with it before it was asked.

“Why, of course,” she said. “Dad, Dad, doesn’t it come naturally? And if
you talk such nonsense, Dad, about its being a favour, I shall--I shall
call Claude Mr. Osborne Junior.”

He patted her hand gently.

“Thank you, my dear, thank you,” he said. “Mrs. Per calls me Mr.
Osborne, as you’ve often heard, and I don’t know that with her somehow
that I want her to call me different. But I know with people like you,
born in another rank of life, that’s not the custom. You make pet names
and what not, not that I ask that. But I should feel it as a favour, my
dear, I should indeed, if you felt you could manage to say ‘Dad’ like
the boys do.”

Dora held up a reproachful forefinger.

“Now, I warn you, Dad,” she said. “In one moment Claude shall be called
what I said he should be.”

“Then not a word more about it. Well, give my love to that rascal who’s
got so much more than he deserves, bless him, and we expect you both
to-morrow. Gone to see Uncle Alf, has he? Poor old Alf: a mass of
lumbago he was when I saw him two days ago. And acid? I should scarce
have thought that anyone could have felt so unkind. And a beautiful day
it was, too, with the sun shining, and all nature, as you may say,
rejoicing--all but poor old Alf, God bless him. But Claude always does
him more good than a quart of liniment, or embrocation either, though
what he spends on doctors’ stuff is beyond all telling.”

Such was Mr. Osborne’s plan, and, as has been said, the accomplishment
of it gave Dora some rather bad moments. The party was terrifically
ill-assorted: Lady Ewart, Mrs. Price, and one or two more like them and
their husbands, being balanced against her mother and Austell, the
Hungarian ambassador and his wife, and several others of that particular
world in which both Mr. and Mrs. Osborne so much wished to be at home.
Dora, in consequence, was positively tossed and gored by unremitting
dilemma. She was obliged to make herself what she would have called both
cheap and vulgar in order to convey at all to the Prices and Ewarts that
particular pitch of cordiality to which they were accustomed. Alderman
Price, for instance, habitually declined a second helping, not because
he did not want (and intend) to have it, but because good manners made
him say “No” the first time and “Yes” the second. As for asking for
more, as Austell did, he would not have considered that any kind of
behaviour. He was used to be pressed or “tempted,” and Dora had to press
and tempt him--a thing which, though she would have been delighted if he
had eaten a whole haunch of venison, she found difficult to do
naturally. You had to call the footman back (Mrs. Osborne did it quite
easily), and get him to put Mr. Price’s plate aside, and wait till he
had given the affair a second thought. Then he said, “Well, I don’t know
as if----” and the matter was brought to a triumphant conclusion. Yet it
was not easy to manage if the procedure was new to you. Or, again, his
wife particularly liked a glass of port after dinner, which after all
was a completely innocent desire, but her gentility was such that she
would never have thought of accepting it when it was casually offered
her, but every night it had to be accepted in order to oblige Dora. Mrs.
Osborne, before giving up the reins of government to her
daughter-in-law, had imparted this diplomatic instruction, and Dora had
been subsequently assured that her pressing and tempting was held to be
the perfection of hospitality.

The flow of badinage, too, that went on incessantly from morning till
night, and was almost exclusively matrimonial in character, was
difficult to live up to, for whatever she or Claude did was construed by
Mr. Osborne or Sir Thomas (with whom Dora, so she was assured by Lady
Ewart, had become a favourite) into having some connubial bearing. If,
as happened one day, Claude drove Mrs. Price home from the shooting,
Lady Ewart, with an inflamed and delighted countenance, told Dora that
she wouldn’t wonder if they lost their way, and said the motor had
broken down, to explain their coming in late. Or again Dora was
pompously asked by Sir Thomas, on a morning of streaming wet, when no
shooting was possible, to have a game of billiards, and accepting this
proposal was expected to be immensely amused by the suggestion that
Claude would be found hiding in the window seat, to hear what went on.
The joke was all-embracing; if she spoke to Claude somebody wondered
(audibly) what she was saying; if she spoke to anyone else, it was,
again audibly, imagined that Claude was looking jealous. And if, for the
moment, she did not speak to anybody, wonder was expressed as to what
was on her mind.

All this was trivial enough in itself, and, as she well knew, oceans and
continents of kindliness lay behind it. Her guests--this section of them
at any rate--were pleased and well entertained as far as her part was
concerned, and were charmed with her. But during all those seven
stricken days--for the party was of the most hospitable order, and
embraced a complete week--she had to nail a brave face, so to speak,
over her own, and set her teeth inside the smiling mouth. The Prices and
the Ewarts had come here to enjoy themselves, and clearly they did. But
there was a certain thick-skinned robustness which was necessary to
anyone who had to enter into the spirit of their enjoyment. Had the
party consisted entirely of Ewarts and Prices and “Pers,” Dora would
have found her own conduct an affair of infinitely less difficulty. As
it was, her mother and Austell were there, and some six or seven more of
her own world who looked on with faint smiles at such times as humour
was particularly abundant, and, to do the barest justice to it, it must
be said that it seemed unfailingly ubiquitous. One night Sir Thomas had
taken Madame Kodjek, the wife of the Hungarian ambassador, into dinner,
and in an unusual pause in the conversation Dora had heard her say in
her faint silvery voice: “How very amusing, Sir Thomas. What fun you
must have in Sheffield.” Then she turned her back on him, put a barrier
of a white elbow on the table between him and her, and talked to Dora
herself, three places off, for the rest of dinner--a thing which, as Sir
Thomas’s indignant face silently testified, was conduct to which he was
unaccustomed. Clearly such breach of ordinary manners was a thing
unheard of in Sheffield. Dora, halfway between giggles and despair at
the incident, had not, though longing to know, the heart to ask Mimi
afterward what was the particular incident that made her conclude that
life in Sheffield was so humorous an affair; but Sir Thomas had confided
in his favourite that he thought the Baroness a very haughty lady and
without any sense of what was due “to the gentleman who took you in to
dinner.”

It had been difficult, therefore, to steer a course, and, as in the case
of those wandering channels in the lagoons, there were here no friendly
groups of _pali_ to guide her. She had to guess her way, turn her helm
swiftly this way and that, to avoid running aground. Had she not been
Dora Osborne she would, if she had found herself in a house party of
this description, have had entrancing bedroom talks to Mimi and others
about Sir Thomas and the Ewarts, and--the Osbornes. Such talks would not
have been unkindly; she would have seen, even as she saw now, that all
manner of excellent qualities underlay the irredeemable vulgarity, and,
a thing more difficult in her present position, she would have seen the
humorous side of affairs. But, as it was, she could not have any bedroom
talks at all of this description. Indeed, Mimi and others pointedly
avoided, as they were bound to do, any mention of these other guests
from the amiable desire not to say things that would embarrass her. Dora
had married an Osborne, and by that act had joined another circle. True,
she had not in the least left her own, but she had taken on, by
necessity, the relations and friends of her husband. Indeed, looking at
the transaction as a whole, there was not one of her friends who did not
think she had done right, and few who did not a little envy her. There
were some slight inconveniences in marrying into such a family, but they
weighed very light indeed if balanced against the consequent advantages,
and it was the business of her friends to minimize these disadvantages
for her, pretend that Sir Thomas made no particular impression on them,
and be deaf to Dora’s insidiousness in getting Mrs. Price to have her
glass of port. And the advantages were so great: she had gained
superabundant wealth in exchange for crippling poverty, the Osbornes’
house was now one to which everybody of any sense, and many of no
sense, went, if they were so fortunate as to be asked, and, above all,
she had married that charming and quiet Adonis of a husband, who looked
anyhow leagues away from and above his effusive parents.

And Claude? During all this week Dora had been filled with an almost
ecstatic admiration of him. He took the place corresponding to that
which she herself so difficultly occupied, with perfect ease and
success, and without apparent effort. To Mrs. Price’s most outrageous
sallies he found a reply that convulsed her with laughter, or made her,
as the case might be, call him a “naughty man,” and the thing seemed to
be no trouble to him. And for the time, anyhow, such replies gave her no
jerks, or, if they did, they were jerks of relief. “I shall warn Sir
Thomas, Lady Ewart,” he would say, “and you will find yourself watched,”
and without pause or hint of discomfiture continue a Bach conversation
with Madame Kodjek.

Dora had set herself with a heartfelt enthusiasm to study and find out
the secret of this wonderful performance, and she came to the conclusion
that it was consummate tact grafted on to a nature as kindly as his
father’s or mother’s that produced this perfect flower of behaviour. And
the tact--a rare phenomenon rather, for tact implies the tactician, the
pleasant schemer--was apparently unconscious. At least if it was
conscious, it was Claude’s delightful modesty that disclaimed the
knowledge of it. One evening she had a word with him about it.

“Darling, I don’t know how you manage,” she said, “and oh, Claude, I
wish you would teach me. Everyone’s delighted with you, and you do it
all so easily. How can you flirt--yes, darling, flirt--with Mrs. Price
one moment and without transition talk to Mimi on the other side?”

“Oh, the Price woman isn’t so bad,” said he. “She’s a kind old soul
really, and if you chaff her a bit she asks no more.”

He had come in to see her before going down to the smoking room again,
where the best cigars in England were, so to speak, on tap, and where
Per and Sir Thomas, between the cigars, a little brandy and soda, and
the recollections of their prowess among the pheasants during the day,
always sat up late. In Mr. Osborne’s house it was one of the rules of
honour that the host should express a wish to sit up later than any of
his guests, or wait at any rate till they all had yawned before
proposing retirement, and Claude, after this cheerful remark about Mrs.
Price, turned to leave the room again. Dora knew what was expected of
him and suddenly rebelled.

“Surely you can leave them to drink and smoke and turn out the lights,”
she said. “Do stop and talk to me. I have sent Hendon away, and who is
to brush my hair? Besides, I want to talk. I’ve got better right to talk
to you than Sir Thomas has. Oh, Claude, teach me: you are yourself all
the time, and yet you can say things to Mrs. Price, which, if it wasn’t
you----”

Dora broke off. He had unpinned the tiara, which was one of his father’s
many wedding gifts to her, and which she wore, knowing it was a
ludicrous thing to do in the country, because it pleased him, and next
moment her hair, unpinned also by a movement or two of his deft fingers,
fell in cataracts round her face.

“I don’t see the trouble,” he said. “Lady Ewart isn’t your sort,
darling, but it’s you who are so clever. It’s you who manage so well,
not me. Why, she said only to-day that she was quite jealous of you, for
Sir Thomas thought such a lot of you, though of course that was only her
chaff. And they say he’ll be in the running for a peerage at the next
birthday honours.”

For the moment Dora was silent; simply she could not speak. She saw in
the looking glass in front of her, looking over his shoulder, that face
which to her was the most beautiful thing in the world, and
simultaneously she heard what that beautiful mouth said. For that
instant her mind was divided: it could not choose between beauty and the
hopelessness of what was said. As if anybody cared who was made a peer,
or as if a peerage conferred not only nobility but a single ounce of
breeding! As if a problematic Lord Ewart could be for that reason even a
shade more tolerable than a Sir Thomas of the same name! What could it
matter, except to guards and railway porters who might count on a rather
larger tip? And then the greater potency of her lover’s face absorbed
her, and she lifted up her hands and drew it down to her. “Ah, well,
what does it all matter?” she said, “so long as there’s you and me? But
go down, dear, if you think you had better, and be sure to yawn a great
deal, so that they won’t sit up very late.”

But after he had gone she wondered whether she guessed the reason why
Claude made himself appropriate so easily to Lady Ewart and Mrs. Price.
Was it simply because he found no difficulty in doing so? Was not his
cleverness, his tact, shown rather in the fact that he could talk to
Mimi appropriately? And it was at that moment, as she remembered now,
that a certain trouble, vague and distant as yet, and couched in the
innermost recesses and darkness of her mind, began to stir. She scarcely
then knew what it was: she knew only that there was veiled trouble
somewhere.

After this week of the shooting party, she and Claude had returned to
town, still occupying the flat in Mount Street, where they remained till
Christmas, with week-ends in the country. Most of these had been passed
at the houses of Dora’s friends, and it could not but please and gratify
her to find how Claude was welcomed and liked, so that, if at Grote
there had been trouble astir, it was still again. He did all the usual
things better than the average: he shot well, he played golf
excellently, he was a quiet and reliable partner at bridge, he talked
pleasantly, always got up when a woman entered the room, and always
opened the door for her to leave it. Such accomplishments did not, it is
true, reach down very far below the surface, but a young man, if he
happens to be quite exceptionally good-looking and has such things at
his fingers’ ends, will generally be a welcome guest. Dora had never
actually wanted comforting with regard to him, but it pleased her to see
that he took his place easily and naturally. For the rest, he was busy
enough, for in view of the next general election he was nursing a
suburban constituency, which promised well. He spoke with fluency and
good sense, he was making an excellent impression in public, and he
earned a considerable personal popularity in the domestic circles of
his voters. And in this connection Dora had another uncomfortable
moment.

As was frankly admitted between them, she could help him a good deal
here, and she often went down with him and made innumerable calls at
West Brentworth on miles of detached and semi-detached villas. It was an
advantage beyond doubt, in this sort of place, that Claude had married a
girl of “title,” and Lady Dora Osborne, or, as she was more generally
addressed, Lady Osborne, charmed a large section of constituents not
only because she was delightful, but because her brother was the Earl
and her mother the Countess. There was no use in denying or failing to
make the most of this adventitious advantage, and Dora made the most of
it by being completely natural, and entering with zest into the
questions of board-wages and the iniquities of tweenies. She could do
that with knowledge and experience to back her, since such minutiæ had
formed a very real part of her life up to the time of her marriage, and
her mother was an adept in getting the most out of those who were so
fortunate as to be the recipients of the somewhat exiguous wages. She
could speak about beer money and the use of coals when the household was
on board-wages with point and accuracy, and it charmed West Brentworth
to find that Lady Osborne was not “too high” to take interest in such
matters. At other houses, however, there reigned a more aristocratic
tone: there would be a peerage and a copy of the _World_ on the table,
and a marked unconsciousness of the existence of anybody who was not a
baronet. There the parties for Newmarket were discussed, and Mrs.
Sandford, pouring out tea, and “tempting” Lady Osborne to a second cup,
would say that the whole world seemed to have been in town lately, and
was Lady Osborne dining at the Carlton two nights ago when so many
distinguished people were there?

Upon which would ensue a very enlightened conversation. Mrs. Sandford
knew quite well that the Earl of Wendover was Dora’s first cousin, and
the Viscount Bramley her second cousin (for that came out of the
peerage) and what a beautiful terrace there was at Bramley (for that
came out of _Country Life_).

Then--and this was the uncomfortable moment--she and Claude got into
their motor, having made the last call, and started for town. Claude
said, “What a superior woman Mrs. Sandford seems to be.”

All these things, and others of which these were typical, Dora thought
over as she sat in the window of her _sala_ looking over the Grand Canal
on that baking afternoon in June when Claude had gone to Milan to meet
his father and mother. They were all trivial enough, each at any rate
was trivial; but to-day she wondered whether there was an addition sum
to be done with regard to them. Each, if she took them singly, might be
disregarded, just as half-pennies have no official status on cheques and
are not treated seriously. But did they add up to something, to
something that could not be disregarded?

She did not know, and, very wisely, forebore to conjecture. Besides, the
gross heat of the day was subsiding, and a little breeze had begun to
stir; below the window Giovanni had already finished the toilet of the
gondola, and was putting in the tea basket, since she had said she would
have tea out on the lagoon. Venice called to her, beckoned her away from
thoughts where something sombre or agitating might lie concealed, into
the sunlight and splendour of the day.




CHAPTER VI.


Mr. and Mrs. Osborne, as has been mentioned, had no idea of planting
themselves on Dora and her husband in their visit to Venice, and since
the visit was to be thoroughly Bohemian in character, and they hoped and
expected to rough it, it had seemed to them equally unsuitable to go to
an hotel, where no doubt mediævalism would have been supplanted by
modern conveniences. They both wanted, with that inexpressible
elasticity and love of experience which was characteristic of them, to
“behave native fashion and do like the Venetians,” as Mrs. Osborne put
it, and indeed the phrase pleased her husband no less than herself. So
they had taken the Palazzo Dandoli for a fortnight, at a prodigious
weekly rent, which included, however, the wages of the servants and the
use of the gondolas. With a view to roughing it thoroughly, Mrs. Osborne
had only brought her maid with her, and her husband was completely
unattended. It was to be a jaunt, a wedding trip, a renewal of old
times. Probably there would be little to eat and drink, and heaven only
knew what kind of a bed to sleep in, while an Italian manservant would
probably not know how to fold trousers. But all these possible
inconveniences were part of behaving “native-fashion,” and were not only
to be expected but welcomed as being part of the genuine article.

The house stood on the eastern outskirts of Venice, with a garden
facing San Michele and the lagoon, and here Dora strolled with her
father-in-law on the morning after their arrival, waiting for the
appearance of Mrs. Osborne, who, since they had arrived late the night
before, was taking it easy, and was not expected down till lunch time at
half-past twelve. Dora knew the owner of the place and had been there
before, but never in these early days of summer, while yet the gardens
were unscorched and the magic of spring had woven its ultimate spell.
All the past was redolent in the walls of mellowed brick, the niches
empty for the most part, save where a bust or two of stained Carrara
marble still lingered, in the gray of the ivy-hung fountain, in the
grilles of curving ironwork that gave view across the lagoon to the
cypresses of San Michele, and, farther away, the dim tower of Torcello.
Long alleys of cut and squared hornbeam, with hop-like flowers, led like
green church aisles down the garden, and spaces of grass between them
were hedged in by more compact walls of yew and privet, with its pale
spires of blossom faintly sweet. Round the fountain stood three
serge-coated sentinels of cypress, encrusted over with their nut-like
fruits, and, flame-like against their sombre foliage, were azaleas in
bright green tubs, and the swooning whiteness of orange blossom.
Elsewhere, the formality of the cut hornbeam alleys and clipped hedges
gave place to a gayer and more sunny quarter, though even there Italy
lingered in the pavement of red and white stone that led between the
more English-looking flower beds. Peach trees, in foam of pink flower,
and white waterfalls of spiræa were background here; in front of them
stood rows of stiff fox-gloves and in front again a riot of phlox and
columbine and snapdragon covered the beds to the edge of the path. To
the left lay the rose garden, approached by a walk of tall Madonna
lilies, already growing fat-budded, and prepared to receive the torch of
flower-life from the roses, when their part in the race should be done,
and homely pansies, with quaint, trustful faces, made a velvet-like
diaper of deeper colour. Here, too, stood another fountain that from
leaden pipe shed freshness on the basin below, where clumps of Japanese
iris were already beginning to unfold their great butterfly flowers,
imperial in purple or virginal in white, and over the green marble edge
of it quick lizards flicked and vanished.

Dora had arrived at the palazzo while yet the morning was young and
dewy, and, leaving word that she had come, passed through the white
shady courtyard of the house and down the long alleys of the garden to
look out on the lagoon from the far end of it. The tide was high and the
cool water shimmered over the flats that an hour or two ago were still
exposed and lay in expanse of glistening ooze, or green with fields of
brilliant seaweeds. But the red-sailed fishing boats had to pass between
the rows of _pali_ that marked the channels, and a little company of
them were even now going seaward. The wind blew gently from the north,
tempering the heat, and to the north were visible the remote summits of
snow-clad Alps. Just opposite were the orange walls and black cypresses
of San Michele, but in the gaiety of the gay day even those associations
were gladdened. It was good to be anything in Venice, even to be dead,
and resting there in sound of the whispering lagoon.

Then came the interruption she had waited for: her name was jovially
called, and down the pergola of vines which led to the grille, between
the clumps of syringa and riot of rambler, came Mr. Osborne.

He had left England with the intention of roughing it and enjoying the
experience, and was clad in the way that had seemed to him appropriate.
He wore a Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers, below which his short fat
calves looked like turned oak posts clad in thick worsted and set in
strong brown boots. On his head he wore a felt hat with a puggaree
attached to it, and round his shoulders was a strap that carried a large
binocular glass. In a word, he appeared like a man deerstalking in the
tropics. Like this he was equal to any foreigneering vicissitudes and
provided against all accidents that might happen in a town where,
instead of walking from one place to another, you went in a black sort
of punt with a strange battleaxe at the prow.

“Well, dearie, and here we are,” he said, “and pleased we are to be
here, I do assure you. Passed a comfortable night, too, and so I warrant
you has Mrs. O., for she was asleep still when I came downstairs. But,
my dear, they’ve got but a paltry notion of furnishing these rooms. We
had supper last night when we got in, in a great room as big as the hall
at Grote, and nothing there but a table and a few chairs and some
painted canvas on the walls, and on the floor a rug or two as you could
scarcely get both feet upon. However, we were hungry, and the food was
good enough. Macaroni they gave us, and a bit of veal and some cheese
and strawberries. And this seems a pretty bit of garden, where Mrs. O.
can sit and be cool if she finds the heat oppressive. And it’s good to
see you, my dear, and blooming you look.”

He gave her a loud, kind kiss, and continued to pour forth his first
impressions of Venice.

“Claude met us at Milan, as he’ll have told you,” he said, “and saw us
safe here last night. It’s strange, though, going to your house in a
boat, and such a smell as there was at the last corner but one before we
got here I never encountered. I should have had it looked into in no
time if such a thing had occurred in the works at Sheffield. But it
seems fine and open here, and I’ve no doubt we shall be well enough off.
But to think of those old Doges with never a bathroom in their houses,
nor hot water laid on nor nothing. But I enjoy that, my dear; I want to
see the old life as they had it, and look at their palaces, ah! and live
in one, and see their pictures, and think what manner of folk they was,
being born and getting married and dying and all, in the very rooms we
now occupy.”

Dora suddenly laughed.

“Oh, Dad,” she said, “you are too heavenly. But why have you put on
those thick clothes? It’s going to be a roasting day. I am glad to see
you. I’m sure you will find the house comfortable, and, oh! did you ever
see such a morning? Look out there across the lagoon. It’s Venice, you
know, Venice!”

Mr. Osborne looked out through the iron grille.

“Well, I’m sure it’s pretty enough,” he said, “and talk of sea air, why
the sea’s all round you. We must have come a matter of a mile over the
viaduct last night after we left the mainland. And sea air is what I
want for mother; she wants a bit of setting up, and if she feels
inclined to keep quiet and not look at the galleries and churches and
sights every day, my dear, you’ll know it’s because she isn’t quite up
to the mark. Well, well; no, I’m not anxious about her, for she takes
her food, and was as pleased to come out here, such as never was, but
she’s been a bit tired, and must take a rest.”

“She’s not ill?” asked Dora. “There’s nothing wrong?”

“Not a bit of it. ’Tis true, I wanted her to see the doctor before she
left home, but she wouldn’t hear a word of it. Just to go to Venice, so
she said, and see Claude and Dora, and not do much, that’s the
prescription for me, she said. And so here we are, my dear. Lunch at
half-past twelve, too; how strange it seems! But after the breakfast
they gave me, just a bit of toast and an egg, I don’t doubt I shall be
ready for it. But the coffee was prime, though it came up in an
earthenware pot. I suppose it was that way the Doges took it. Lor’, to
think of it all! Wedding the sea, too, every year. I read it in the
guidebook on the journey. A curious custom that was, heathenish, you may
say. It takes one back, doesn’t it?”

It was still an hour before lunch time, and at Dora’s suggestion they
went out for a turn in her gondola which was waiting, since Mrs. Osborne
was not to be expected down till lunch time. Mr. Osborne, still feeling
the insecurity of a foreign land, refused to change into more suitable
clothes, and, already perspiring profusely, embarked with a sense of
being prepared for anything. As they got in Dora gave some short
direction to her gondolier in Italian, and this roused his admiring
curiosity.

“It’s a strange thing too,” he said, “that you say something of which I
can’t understand a syllable, and round the boat goes, as if you’d said,
‘Right about turn.’ Such a bother as we had with luggage and what not,
before Claude met us. But Mrs. O. saw the hang of it, and kept saying,
‘Venice, Palazzo Dandoli,’ whenever one of them brigands looked in on
us, and it seemed they wanted no more than that. Brigands they looked,
my dear, though I dare say they were honest men in the employment of
their company. And what’s that now, that big telegraph-looking thing?”

He pointed at the huge disfiguring posts that brought the electric power
into Venice.

“Oh, electric light, I think,” said Dora. “Or perhaps it’s telephone.”

“My word, and I never expected to find either here,” said Mr. Osborne.
“Do you mean they have got the light and the ’phone? And why, if that’s
so, aren’t they installed in the Dandoli?”

“Oh, Dad,” she said, “where do you want to telephone to?”

“No, dearie, I don’t want to telephone, but you’d have thought that in a
place like that I’ve taken they’d surely have had the modern
conveniences, if such were to be had. And where are we coming to now?”

Dora did not answer at once; this was one of the best places of all in
that city of best places. There was a sharp turn from a narrow canal,
overhung by tall red-stained walls, and they shot out into the Grand
Canal just above the Rialto.

“Oh,” she said, “look, look!”

The bow-shaped bridge lay to their left, as from the huddled houses they
swept into the great waterway; a troubled reflection of palaces gleamed
in the tide, the curve of the Grand Canal was flung outward and onward,
reeling in the heat.

Just opposite was the fish market, newly rebuilt, with columns of
ornamented iron work. Mr. Osborne pointed an admiring forefinger at it.

“Well I never,” he said, “to think to see the fellow of one of Per’s
designs in Venice. I shall have the laugh of Per over that, and tell him
he copied them from some old courtyard of the Doges, or what not.
Beautiful I call them. After all, they were wonderful old folk, weren’t
they, when we think that they put up there a design that might have been
made in Sheffield to-day! I assure you, dearie, they are just like Per’s
drawings for No. 2 light arcade same as is in the showroom at the
works.”

Dora had not been attending very closely: those who love Venice are apt
to be inattentive when some new magic comes into view, and to Dora the
bow-arch of the bridge with the bow-arch of the canal below grew in
wonder the oftener that she saw it.

“Arches?” she asked. “Arches like one of Per’s designs? Oh, do show me.”

“Why, that open place there,” said Mr. Osborne, still immensely
interested. “That arcade just opposite, with the ornamental arches in
open work.”

Dora could not help laughing.

“Oh, dear Dad,” she said, “very likely they are Per’s designs. That’s
the new fish market, just being rebuilt.”

And then it struck her that her laugh might sound unkindly.

“It is quite possible they are Per’s designs,” she said. “Would it not
be thrilling if they were? Giovanni”--again she spoke in Italian--“just
land at the market and ask some of the workmen where the iron arches
came from. I see one not yet put up, wrapped in straw. There is some
label on it. See if it is from Osborne, Sheffield.”

Giovanni floated the gondola to the side of the landing place with the
flick of a quick-turned oar, and got out. In a moment he came back,
having read the stamped label on the packing, and reported the
gratifying news.

“Oh, it’s too thrilling,” cried Dora, “to think that they came from your
works. Dad, you’re a perfect wizard to see that, and guess it was Per’s.
You must write to him and tell him that his ironwork is going up in
Venice, and that you recognized it the first moment you--you saw the
Grand Canal.”

Mr. Osborne gave a little inward tremolo of laughter.

“Oh, I’m not so blind yet,” he said, “and it’s seldom you see work like
Per’s. There’s something, as you may say, so individual about it. God
bless the boy, how he’ll like to hear that I spotted his design right
across the Grand Canal. Eh, he might have been here, my dear, and
studied the style of the architecture, when one sees how it fits in with
the other monuments. I’ll write to tell him that.”

Mr. Osborne remembered that Dora had told him that Venice was the most
beautiful place in the world, and the Grand Canal the most beautiful
thing in Venice. And he made a concession that he did not really feel.

“Not but what he hadn’t got a lot to compete against,” he said. “That
bridge now? That’s a fine thing. And the curve of it looks built for
strength. I warrant there’s no iron girder made that would cause it to
be safer. And the houses, beautiful, I’m sure! But I don’t see any that
I’d sooner take than the Palazzo Dandoli.”

Suddenly Dora felt something dry up inside her. That, at any rate, was
how she mentally phrased the sensation to herself. Her father-in-law was
kind and wise and good; he was anxious to please, he was anxious to be
pleased. But at the concession--for so she felt it to be--that Per had
had a lot to compete with, when the excruciating iron arcade of the fish
market was erected within stone-throw of the Rialto and within
pea-shooting distance of the wondrous canal, she felt for the moment the
impossibility of herself and Mr. Osborne being together at Venice. The
situation was one that she had not faced without a tremor; now, for the
moment, when it was actual and accomplished, it was inconceivable.

But this mercantile discovery had delighted Mr. Osborne; it had clearly
raised his previous estimate of Venice. A town that could so aptly
enshrine this design of Per’s was a town that must receive the best
attention. There was probably more in it than he had been at first
disposed to imagine. He gave it his best attention.

A gray fussing steamboat going seaward on the tide and raising a huge
wash of churned water, next engaged his admiration.

“Well, and if I didn’t think when we took so long to get to the Palazzo
last night that the Italians would be wiser to build a big sea wall
somewhere, and raise the level of the canal so as you could drive a
horse and carriage down them!” he said. “But if you’ve got a ferry
steamer that goes the pace of that--Lor’, my dear, how it makes us
rock--I don’t see what there’s to complain of. And calling first on this
side and then on that, same as they used to do on the Thames, what could
you ask for more convenient?”

Again Dora had to enlist her sympathy on a foreign side.

“I know,” she said, “and they go right out to the Lido, where we’ll go
and bathe this very afternoon, Dad. It will be awfully hot after lunch,
so we’ll join the steamer at San Marco, and send the gondola out to meet
us on the Lido, and take us back when it gets cooler. One gets roasted
in a gondola on the lagoon when it’s as hot as this.”

Mr. Osborne was clearly a little troubled at this suggestion.

“Ah, no doubt there are sets of bathing machines,” he said at length. “A
dip in the briny: very pleasant.”

Dora did not at once grasp the cause of his embarrassment.

“We’ll swim right out together,” she said. “You can swim for ever in
this sea; it’s so buoyant. And then we sit on the sand and eat
strawberries, while the sun dries us again.”

Then she saw that some portentous doubt on the question of propriety was
in Mr. Osborne’s mind, guessed it, and hastened to remove the cause of
it. “Or perhaps, coming straight out from England, you don’t want to
bathe,” she said. “Besides, there’s the mater”--she had adopted this
from Claude. “So we won’t bathe; we’ll take her out for a _giro_--a
row--in the gondola and have tea out on the lagoon. Dad, you’ll love the
lagoon, all gray and green. And the electric light poles cross it to the
Lido.”

“Eh, that will be nice,” said Mr. Osborne quickly and appreciatively.
“And here’s another bridge: why, beautiful, isn’t it? I think I like it
better than that curved one. There seems more sense in it. You don’t
have to mount so high.”

They had passed round the last corner of the canal, and in front of them
lay the straight lower reach of it that passes into the great basin
opposite St. Mark’s and the Doge’s palace. To right and left the stately
houses stood up from the water side, in glimmer of rose and blue and
orange beneath the smiting glory of the noonday. Since yesterday the
north wind, blowing lightly from the Alps, had banished the oppression
of yesterday’s heat and the glitter of the city had awoke again, pearly
in the shadow and jewelled in the sun. And in the immediate foreground
the only blot of disfigurement was the object of Mr. Osborne’s
admiration, the flat, execrable iron bridge opposite the Accademia.
There it lay, convenient and hideous and impossible. And he liked it
better than the curved one! It had more sense in it!

But there was no need for Dora to rack her brains to find some response
which should steer a middle way between lack of cordiality to her
father-in-law on the one hand and artistic perjury on the other. Between
the fish market, the iron bridge, and the vile convenient speed of the
steamboats Venice was going up in his estimation by leaps and bounds,
and he was delighted to find he was almost able to endorse Dora’s
opinion on the town.

“Well, I call it all beautiful, my dear,” he said, “and it’s as I said
to mother. ‘Mother,’ I said, ‘if Dora says Venice is a nice place, you
may be sure there is something in it, and we were right to come out and
have a look at it ourselves.’ But who’d have thought there was so much
of modern convenience and comfort? And these gondolas too. I’m sure I’m
as comfortable sitting here as in my own brougham and, except when the
steamers go by, they glide as smooth as on an asphalt road. Pretty the
water is too, though not clear. I should have thought that here in the
south there’d have been more of blue in it. But I’m a bit surprised, my
dear, that you with your eye for colour shouldn’t have done up the
gondola more brightly, had some blue curtains, maybe, or picked out that
handsome carved work on the prow with a touch of red. There’s a thought
too much black about it for my taste. Seems to tell of a funeral,
almost.”

Dora could not argue about this: she could not give Mr. Osborne eyes
which should see the value of the black blots of boats against the
brightness of the sky mirrored in the canal. But it was easy to find
praise in his speech to which she could respond, though the praise was
expressed in a way that somehow set her teeth on edge.

“Oh, they are the most comfortable things in the world,” she said, “and
I even like the indignant slap they give when the wash of the steamer
crosses them. Beautiful thing, with its arching neck like some great
black swan! Ah, there’s twelve striking. We shall just have time to look
into our house and fetch Claude and then get back to the Dandoli for
lunch. I hope they’ll have put it in the garden. Oh, Dad, how this place
has got into my heart! You never did such a nice thing as when you gave
Claude and me a month here.”

Mr. Osborne did not think much of Dora’s water-entrance to the great
gray palace of which she had the first floor, but the size of the huge
_sala_ (which she remembered to tell him was a hundred and ten feet
long) was most satisfactory to him. But with its polished stone-plaster
floor, and the Venetian emptiness of it, it seemed to him rather bare
and comfortless.

“Well, I’m sure it’s a handsome room enough in point of size,” he said,
“and in this hot weather it looks cool and restful. But it seems strange
to have never a strip of carpet on the floor, and scarce a picture on
the walls. Lord, my dear, don’t it make your teeth chatter to think of
coming down to this of a winter’s morning, when even now it strikes so
cool? But isn’t there some Tintoret now, my dear, that you could fancy,
or if not that, half a dozen big photographs of the canal and the bridge
you liked so much to hang on the walls? And as for the floor, to be
sure, it’s a big job to cover it, but a proper carpet for that end of it
where you’ve got your chairs and table, looking out over the canal, you
shall have, if I have to telegraph to town for one, instead of those few
rugs, or mats I should call them. Fancy advertising this as a house to
be let furnished! I call it misrepresentation.”

Dora took his arm.

“Oh, Dad, you are the kindest man that ever was,” she said. “But indeed
I want neither pictures nor a carpet, though it is darling of you to
offer me them. I like it empty: it’s the--the right style with these
rooms. You found your dining room rather emptier than you liked, you
know, but in a day or two you will get more than used to it, you will
see how suitable it is. And I love this great empty room. Now we’ll just
go into the other rooms, and then we must get back for lunch. Claude
seems to be out: I expect we shall find him at the Dandoli.”

Lunch, as they found when they got back, had been laid, as Dora hoped,
in the garden, in the centre of a gravelled space sheltered from the sun
by the mellow brick wall and a clump of overarching delicate-fingered
acacia trees, and made cool to the ear by the plash of the fountain into
its marble basin. Down the sides and at the corners of this space were
tubs of orange trees, and the heaviness of their drowsy fragrance
mingling with the large dilution of this tide of warm sea-scented air
was translated into something exquisitely light and vigorous. Claude had
already arrived and was waiting with his mother for them, who was in
excellent spirits.

“Why, dearest Dora,” she said, “here we are, and ready I’m sure for
lunch, to speak for myself, though it’s not gone half-past twelve yet,
and in England we shouldn’t be sitting down for another hour. And
Claude’s been telling me that in England now it’s not gone half-past
eleven, and here we are wanting our lunch at such an hour as that. Eh,
what’s that? What did he say to me? ‘Pronto,’ it sounded like.”

Guiseppe, the smiling Italian butler, had approached Mr. Osborne, and
said exactly that.

“Yes, _pronto_,” said Dora, “it means ‘ready.’”

Mrs. Osborne beamed back at Guiseppe.

“And I’m _pronto_, too,” she said. “Let’s sit down.”

“Mrs. O. will be having the whole Italian language by heart before the
week’s out,” said her husband. “And such a morning as I’ve had with
Dora, mother. Bridges and canals and steamers and churches. Ah, and
you’d never guess, so I’ll tell you without teasing you! They are
rebuilding the fish market with arcades of iron pillars, very handsome,
and who do you think supplies them? Osborne, Sheffield, and no other, my
dear, and it’s Per’s No. 2, light arcade, same as is in the showroom, or
I’m the more mistaken.”

Mrs. Osborne was as delighted as her husband.

“I’ll get a photograph of that this very afternoon,” she said, “if
there’s such a thing as a photograph shop in Venice. Dora, my dear, have
they a photograph shop in Venice, or hasn’t that got here yet?”

Dora threw back her head, laughing.

“Oh, mother, how divine of you!” she said. “Considering I sent you
literally hundreds of picture post cards when Claude and I were here in
the autumn!”

“To be sure you did, my dear,” said Mrs. Osborne cordially. “And it had
gone clean out of my poor head. So a photograph of the fish market I’ll
send to Per this very afternoon, if I have to turn over all their
scrapbooks for it. Mr. O., you’ll never manage macaroni that way. Wrap
it round your fork, my dear, as you see Claude doing, and in it goes
without any bother.”

“Well, mother, you’re not so much of a hand at it yourself,” observed
Mr. Osborne in self-defence. “If I’m to take pattern by Claude, you take
pattern by Dora. Now, I call that an excellent dish. You couldn’t have
it better done, not in your own house. What does he say to me, Dora, my
dear? _Banke_, is it?”

“_Bianco_,” said Dora, “white. Will you have white wine or red?”

“That’s another word for Mrs. O.,” said her husband. “I told you she’d
get it all off by heart in no time. Yes, I’ll have a go at the bianco.
One wants something light and cool on a morning like this, especially if
the true time is only half-past eleven.”

“I declare it makes me feel quite greedy,” said Mrs. Osborne, “but such
an appetite as I have to-day I haven’t had since the middle of April.
And what else have you seen this morning, Mr. Osborne? Give an account
of the sights, my dear, or I shall think you’ve had no eye except for
Dora.”

They waited in the cool greenness of the garden till the heat of the day
began to abate, and then went all together in one gondola, at Mrs.
Osborne’s particular wish, to begin the sights of Venice. It was in vain
that Dora suggested that everybody would be much more comfortable if
they took two gondolas, and arranged their rendezvous, for Mrs.
Osborne’s heart was set on a family party and she wasn’t sure that she
would trust Mr. O. with Dora alone any more that day. So, as badinage
loomed on the horizon, Dora hastily and completely withdrew her
opposition, and they all four squeezed into one gondola.

The plan was to row out over the lagoon, and have tea at Santa Rosa. Tea
made the centre of the afternoon, round which the rest appeared to be
grouped in the minds of the Osbornes. Then they were to return to Venice
in time to look in at St. Mark’s, and loiter in the piazza, where Mrs.
Osborne, it was hoped, would find at one of the photograph shops the
representation of the fish market on which she had set her heart.
Accordingly the labouring gondoliers propelled the laden craft across to
the little island, tied up to the bank, and procured strawberries from
the fruit farm to add to their tea. Mrs. Osborne at first had a sort of
vague prejudice against them, for abroad it was impossible to tell “who
hadn’t been touching them,” and, it is to be feared, it was only because
the rest of the party found them remarkably good that she joined them.
But she was charmed with their picnic, and saw a great similarity
between the little waterway of the island and the Regent’s Park Canal.

They dined that evening at Dora’s house--meals somehow had leaped into
sudden importance and preponderance since the arrival of her
father-in-law in Venice, though they had no more meals than usual--and
Mrs. Osborne as well as her husband was voluble over all they had seen.

“Just to think that all the floor of St. Mark’s is in marble!” said she.
“Why, it seems almost a shame, doesn’t it? I’m sure there’s not a
cathedral in England that’s got such a grand floor, and St. Mark’s, so
you said--didn’t you, Dora?--was only Roman Catholic?”

“Well, well, mother,” said Mr. Osborne, “it’s the Church of the country,
you see, just as the English Church is ours. You’d think more of the
Roman, if you’d been brought up to it. But I’m surprised at their
letting the floor get into that state: it was all ups and downs, and I’m
sure I scarcely knew where I should be setting my foot next. So dark it
was, too, that one couldn’t see as much as one would like. If I were
them, I should send for some good English architect as knows when a
building’s safe, and when it isn’t, and make him cut half a dozen
sensible windows somewhere, or perhaps take down one of them domes, and
put in a glass roof to it instead. Five domes there are, for I counted
them, and that’s beyond all reason.”

Dora felt that this was too much for her: simply she could not think of
any reply whatever. If somebody proposed putting a glass dome in St.
Mark’s, what answer was possible? But there was no need for one. Mrs.
Osborne instantly joined in again.

“And never did I think to see such shops in Venice,” she said. “Why,
there was electric fittings at one I passed, beautiful they were, with
nymphs and such-like holding up the globes, the same as you might get in
the most superior shops in town. And I need never have brought out
stationery with me, for there was a stationer’s there as I could have
bought the best cream-laid at. And not expensive either, if you
recollect that a _lira_ is but tenpence, though its strange to have your
silver coins worth tenpence instead of a shilling. It wants a deal of
thinking back into pounds and shillings.”

“They seem to have a notion of building, too,” said Mr. Osborne. “I’m
sure that great square tower they were building was as solid a piece of
work as you could find anywhere. And to think that the original had
stood there five hundred years. How it takes you back!”

Claude nodded at Dora.

“What did I tell you?” he said. “Didn’t I say the mater and pater would
like Venice near as much as you do?”

“Yes, dear, you were quite right,” said Dora, with a sort of despairing
acquiescence in even this. “And what should you like to do to-morrow,
Dad?” she asked.

“Eh, there’s more yet to see, is there?” he said. “And to think that
I’ve been sight-seeing all day, and not finished even now! Who would
have thought there was so much in such a small town? Well, my dear, I’m
in your hands, and whatever you show me I’ll be bound I shall like it,
if it comes up to the sample of Venice we’ve had to-day. And what says
Mrs. O.?”

“Well, there’s all the pictures we haven’t seen yet,” said she. “Perhaps
Dora would take us to see the pictures in the morning, but as for the
afternoon I want nothing better than to have another look at St. Mark’s
and do a bit more shopping, and perhaps have a bit of a row afterward,
for I declare it’s a pity not to be out up till it’s time to dress.”

The next three or four days were, it must be confessed, a sort of
nightmare to Dora, for she took Venice too seriously to see anything
humorous in what she had to go through. She took them to the Accademia,
and the Paul Veronese of the “Marriage of Cana” had an instant and
amazing success owing to its size. Mr. Osborne doubted if it would have
got into the picture gallery at Grote at all, and Mrs. Osborne had no
doubt whatever about it; she saw at a glance that it would not,
“without you took its frame off.” Other pictures pleased for other
reasons: the “Procession of the Cross,” because St. Mark’s and the
Campanile came into it; the Tintoret of the “Adoration of the Doges,”
because St. George was sitting by the Virgin, and he was an English
saint. But before Titian’s “Assumption of the Virgin” (a picture which,
unfortunately, Dora detested) criticism with regard to its dimensions
and even appreciation was mute, and its size and frame passed without
remark. Mrs. Osborne’s eyes filled with dear, heart-felt tears, and Mr.
Osborne said, “Lor’, Maria, it was worth coming to Venice for to see
this alone, my dear. Well, now, they could paint in those days!” And
immediately thereon, he bought an enormous copy of it, vilely executed,
which an elderly English lady was just finishing with an uncertain
strippling touch. She explained in quavering tones that she was obliged
to charge very high for her copies because she spent weeks in study
before she began to paint, in getting at the spirit of the original. And
Mr. Osborne’s alacrity in securing her work no doubt made her wish that
she had charged higher yet for the spiritual tension required for its
production.

On another day they went to San Rocco, for Mr. Osborne found to his
amazement that it was impossible to see all the pictures in Venice in
one “go,” even if you spent the whole morning at it. This seemed
strange, since you could see the whole of the Royal Academy in a less
time. But the remedy was simple. Why not build a new picture gallery,
hang all the pictures in Venice there, charge two _lire_, and have them
all catalogued in one book? That was the kind of suggestion that
cornered Dora: it seemed scarcely worth while to say that many were in
the churches, and that it would be a pity to move them since they were
painted for the places which they occupied. But, trying to be patient
and kind, she did say so, and Mr. Osborne was fired with the brilliant
thought of having copies made for the churches. Claude thought this an
excellent idea. “The Gov.’s hit the nail on the head this time,” he
said, and was surprised when Dora, turning aside, said, “Oh, Claude!” to
him. But apart from the pictures at San Rocco, which did not have a
great success, the visit was memorable because Mrs. Osborne said “Bon
giorno” to the custodian, just as if she did it every day of her life.
He understood perfectly, and made a suitable reply about the loveliness
of the day. That was a little beyond Mrs. Osborne, so she said “Grazie,”
and her husband admiringly commented, “Lor’, you speak it like a native!
I told you the mother would have it by heart in no time,” he said.

On this morning they had still an hour to spare before lunch, since the
Tintorets were not interesting or beautiful, and they rowed across to
the Giudecca to see a garden. The garden was fairly appreciated, though
to Mrs. Osborne’s mind the borders, where the southern June was rioting,
were not quite so trim as she would have had them; but the great sugar
factory was found to be most attractive, and Mr. Osborne was much
surprised to find that Dora did not know whether it was possible to see
over it or not. However, Claude made inquiries, and found it could be
shown. He took his father there next day, and they were late for lunch.
But Mrs. Osborne and Dora were late too: they had been ordering a very
handsome gilt frame for the copy of “The Assumption,” and the “pattern”
on it wanted a lot of choosing.

Dora and Claude dined that night at the Dandoli, and Mr. Osborne
announced that he and the mother had settled to stay on another week,
for they were both thoroughly delighted with Venice.

“And its grateful to you, my dear, that we both are,” said Mr. Osborne,
“for telling us about it, and making us feel as how we should like to
see it. There’s fifty different things in Venice I should like to see a
score of times, and if we’re spared, my dear, we’ll spend another month
next year as per this sample.”

Now Dora did her best when this little speech was made, but Sirocco had
been blowing all day, and, as usual, it had made her feel rather jerky
and irritable. Also, it must be remembered, Mr. Osborne, with the best
and most appreciative intention in the world, had, as may be conjectured
from the foregoing details of their days, succeeded in spoiling
everything for her. Who could look at and enjoy a picture while he was
wondering why Tintoret hadn’t given St. John something more on, or feel
the magic of the approach across the lagoon when Mrs. Osborne said that
the gray shining mud-flats called to mind the Fal below Truro at low
tide, and Mr. Osborne confirmed the accuracy of this impression? But
Maria had such an eye for likenesses.

In consequence, Dora had a little failed in cordiality of tone on the
receipt of the news, for by this plan they would leave Venice all
together, and every day till their departure would be taken up with
these nightmare excursions, for it was part of the plan that they
should do everything together. Her words, whatever they were, had been
expressive of delight at their remaining, but Claude, at any rate, had
noticed the failure in tone, and on their way back after dinner he spoke
about it in kindly fashion, but so, it seemed to Dora, with a matchless
awkwardness.

“Sorry you’re a bit off colour, dear,” he said. “I know Sirocco always
makes you feel like that.”

Dora saw the obviously tactful intention; her conscience also a little
accused her, and she knew quite well what he had in his mind and was
probably going to say.

“Feel like what?” she said, though she knew this to be useless fencing.

“Oh, feel like what you felt when you said you were so glad the pater
and mater were going to stop here. I don’t say that they noticed, but I
did. I expect I’m quicker than them at feeling what you feel. What you
said was right enough; it was just the way you said it.”

He leaned forward in his seat a little, looking her full in the face.
And somehow the sight of him and the proximity failed for once to make
themselves felt. His presence did not mitigate what he said, or stamp it
with the old magic.

“I wish you would explain,” she said.

“As if there was any need, darling,” he said. “As if you don’t
understand as well as I do. You said you were delighted they were
stopping, but only your voice said it. What’s wrong? There’s something
up. And I thought we were having such jolly days together. Father and
mother are enjoying it ever so much, and if they pretend they find it
just a shade more delightful than they really do, why, it’s just to
please you, and make you feel it’s a success that they do it. They
settled to stop on, I believe, just for that.”

This made matters no better. Dora felt she ought to be delighted they
were doing so, and ought to be touched and pleased with the reason
Claude had conjectured. But she was not: Venice, as a matter of fact, or
rather these days of Venice, were being spoiled for her. She would as
soon, as Claude had once said to her, though with inverted meaning, have
spent them at Clapham Junction if the Osbornes were to be with her. It
was a great pity that they should stop on, if their motive in doing so
was to gratify her. She hoped it was not that.

“Oh, I don’t think that is it, Claude,” she said. “Dad likes--likes the
sun and the--oh, lots of things, Stucki’s sugar factory for instance,
and your mother likes the pigeons and the shops. But it isn’t Venice
they like.”

“That’s just what I say,” said he, “they stop to make you think they do.
They think the world of you, you know.”

“Yes, the darlings,” said Dora quickly. “That--that makes it so
pathetic.”

“Pathetic? You mean that you don’t think so highly of them?”

Dora’s heart suddenly sank. She had not meant that: she had meant only
that it was a pity they stayed in Venice to please her, when in reality
she was not enjoying their stay. She knew well that they were out of
place in Venice ... it was hopeless to try to explain. But even if she
had meant the other, it would have been a fatal error on Claude’s part
to put it into words. He called this kind of frankness “getting at the
bottom of the thing.” She felt he was certain to use that phrase now. He
did so.

“Let’s get at the bottom of it, dear,” he said, “and as we always do, I
shall speak my mind, just like you. Perhaps it will sound harsh to you:
I’m sorry if it does.”

He leaned back again, but without looking at him she could see that he
tilted his head back, and put his chin a little out, the identical
gesture which before she had found so attractive, so fascinating, even.
She had told him so, too, a hundred times: had said she loved a man to
know his mind, to be firm and decided, especially with those he loved
best. No doubt he remembered that at this moment: perhaps even he was
doing it consciously or at least half-consciously, so as to present what
he had to say in the most attractive guise. But, suddenly and
disconcertingly, she found the gesture scarcely less than odious.

“I think the pater’s been awfully good to you, dear,” he said. “He’s
done a lot for you, given you all sorts of things you had no reason to
expect. There’s this month in Venice, to go no further than that. Well,
it will stand him in a pot of money, and it’s just because he doesn’t
grudge you one penny of it that I think you ought to feel rather more
cordial to him about their stopping. I don’t say that you behaved not
cordially, because I think what you said was all right, and neither of
them noticed that anything was awry, but you hadn’t got the right
feelings to back up your tongue. Wait a moment. I’ve not finished;
there’s something more yet, but I want to find words that won’t hurt
you, and yet will express what I mean.”

There was something in this that roused a certain sense in Dora that she
knew had been often present in her mind, but which she hoped would
always remain dormant. But now it began to awake; his words, kind as
they were, implied an impossible attitude. He was judging, so it seemed
to her, making himself jury and judge all rolled into one, and it was
understood that she, put in the dock before him, would make no defence.
He knew that he was right--that was what it came to--and was going to
tell her, as kindly as possible, what was right. And on the instant she
found herself refusing to be judged and condemned by his standards. He
did not know what Venice meant to her, or how essentially his father’s
attitude toward the things and the place that she loved jarred on her.
And unfortunately the affair was typical of hundreds of other affairs.
That Mr. Osborne had no artistic sense of any sort or kind did not
matter, but what was beginning to matter was that Claude, who apparently
could not see that the entire absence of it in a person with whom she
was brought into day-long contact made something rather hard to bear,
had put on his wig and was going to sum up on a matter about which he
knew nothing. Her behaviour had never broken down; he had said that
himself, and she believed it to be true; the matter was that he could
not understand that she had to struggle against the disappointment of
spoiled days, and was yet serenely confident that he had the complete
data.

“Don’t mind about hurting me,” she said quickly. “I want you to say
exactly what you feel.”

They had arrived at the water-gate of their home, without her noticing
it, and Giovanni was already standing, hat in hand, to give her the
support of his arm on to the steps, which were slippery with the
receding tide. Claude was conscious of this first: he was quite
conscious, also, of Dora’s tone.

“Not before the servants,” he said. “Get out, dear, and take Giovanni’s
arm. The steps are like ice!”

Again Dora was in revolt: it seemed to her that he was advising her
against a thing he might have done himself, but which she could not have
dreamed of. She had been absorbed in this--this dispute was it?--had not
noticed. He had noticed, and warned her against an impossible thing.

Giovanni unlocked the door for them, received orders for the next day,
and they went up the stairs together in silence. And as they went up all
the womanhood in Dora--and there was much of it, and it was all sweet
and good--rose, flooding for the time the bitter gray mud flats that had
appeared. And at the top of the stairs she turned to him.

“Oh, Claude,” she said, “we’re not quarrelling, are we?”

“Takes two to make a quarrel,” he said, “and I’m not one. But I want to
say something yet, and I think you’d better hear it. I ask you to, in
fact.”

She unpinned her hat, and led the way to the end of the big _sala_ that
overlooked the canal. She sat down in her accustomed chair, flinging
the window open, for the night was very hot.

“Say it then,” she said.

Again Claude’s head went back: he felt perfectly certain he was right.

“Well, it’s just this. You’ve told me not to choose my words, so I won’t
bother to do so. You haven’t felt right toward the pater and mater all
this time here. When he wanted to go and see a factory, you wondered at
him--and, yes, you despised him a bit for it. When he admired some
picture you didn’t think much of, you wondered again. Now, he never
wondered at you. If you wanted to sit half an hour before some adoring
Doge, he never wondered, any more than I wonder, for there are lots of
people in the world, and they’ve got their different tastes and every
right to them. But he only said to himself: ‘Gosh, there’s something
there, and she’s right, only I don’t know what it is she’s looking at.’
He never thought you wanting in perception because you didn’t admire the
iron in the fish market. He only thought to himself, ‘Let’s go and see
something this afternoon that Dora does like.’ How often has he gone to
the National Gallery in London? Never, you bet: he doesn’t know a
picture from a statue. And how often has he gone to look at some mouldy
old Titian here, because you thought it worth a look? Well, isn’t that
anything? It’s no use you and me not saying things straight out, and so
I say it straight out. He’s been boring himself fit to burst over your
Botticellis, and been trying to admire them, saying this was the biggest
picture he’d ever seen, and this was the smallest. And yet dear old Dad
wasn’t boring himself, because he was with you, and trying to take an
interest in what you showed him. Well then, I ask you!”

There, close in front of her, was the beautiful face, the beautiful
mouth which she loved, saying things which, as far as they went, her
essential nature entirely approved. But at the moment his beauty did not
move her. And the account he had given was correct: she had been having
on her nerves the fact that Mr. Osborne took more pleasure in the
steamboats than in San Rocco, in the fish market than in the Frati. He
might be right: she might be right, but in any case the attitudes were
incompatible. And Claude at the moment clearly took up the attitude that
was incompatible with hers. There was much more, too, he did not see: he
did not see that indifference on Dora’s part did not destroy his
father’s pleasure in the speed of the steamboats, whereas his artistic
criticisms blackened her pictures for her.

And then, womanlike again, she knew only that Claude was her man, that
he was beautiful, that he loved her....

“I dare say I am quite wrong,” she said. “I dare say you are quite
right. Shall we leave it, then, darling? I will try--I will try to do
better. I am sorry.”

“And there speaks my darling girl,” said Claude.




CHAPTER VII.


The stay in Venice had naturally curtailed for Mrs. Osborne the weeks of
her London season, but she had never intended to begin entertaining on
the scale required by the prodigious success of the fancy-dress ball
last year till after Whitsuntide. Before leaving town in May she had
sent out all invitations for the larger functions (except those which
her invited guests subsequently asked for on behalf of their friends,
and which she always granted), and it was clear that the world in
general was going to pass a good deal of its time at No. 92. Indeed,
when she went through her engagement book on her return from Venice to
Grote, hospitable though she was, and greatly enjoying the exercise of
that admirable virtue, she was rather appalled at the magnitude of what
she had undertaken. She was going to give three balls (real balls),
three concerts, two big dinner parties every week, and a series of
week-ends down at Grote, while on such other nights as she was not
dining out herself there were a series of little parties. In addition
Sheffield friends coming to stay with them for the insides of weeks to
finish up with one of the Grote week-ends. These visits she looked
forward to with peculiarly pleasant anticipations, for the dear soul
could not but feel an intense and secret gratification at the thought of
such local celebrities as Sir Thomas and the Prices seeing her and Mr.
O. absolutely at the top of the tree, and entertaining princes and
duchesses and what not just as they had entertained aldermen and
manufacturers at Sheffield. Also there was a secret that Mr. Osborne had
told her, which filled her with feelings that were almost too solemn to
be glee. The secret was not to be talked about yet, but in private he no
longer called her Mrs. O., but “my lady.” She hoped Sir Thomas would be
with them when the honours were published, for secretly she still took
her bearings, so to speak, by the stars as they appeared in Sheffield.
There Sir Thomas Ewart, Bart., and Lady had been the very Pole-star to
which quite important constellations reverently pointed. But now, as by
some new and wonderful telescope, she saw herself and Mr. O. high above
Sir Thomas. Why, even Per would be the Honourable Per, and Sir Thomas
would have to say, “After you, Per, my boy.” She and Mr. O. had already
had more than one broken night in thinking of a title which he could
submit for approval. Mrs. Osborne was all for something old and
territorial.

“There’s Hurstmonceaux, my dear,” she said, “that ruined old castle
which we drove over to see when you was down at Hastings with your
attack of gout. I don’t doubt you could buy it for a song, and there
you’ll be.”

“And then next you’d be wanting me to do up the Castle and live in it,”
said he. “Besides, it’s a regular stumper to say, and French at that.
No, my dear, we must think of something more British than that; there’s
plenty of good names without crossing the Channel, so to speak, for
something to call yourself by. But it’s puzzling work, and new to me, to
have to think of christening yourself afresh.”

“Lor’, Mr. Osborne, you don’t mean to say that you’ve got to change your
Christian name, too?”

“No, no, my dear. There’s no Christian name to bother about; I don’t
deal any more in Christian names--not officially, anyhow.”

He blew out the light.

“Good night, my dear,” he said. “And God bless you.”

It was all very well to say “Good night,” but Mrs. Osborne could no more
sleep than she could think of a name. After an interval she heard Mr.
Osborne turn himself ponderously round in his bed, and knew that he was
awake too.

“There’s some things called ‘Hundreds,’” she said. “I seem to remember
that all England is cut up into Hundreds, which is a queer thing to
think upon. It’ll be worth while seeing in what Hundred the East End of
Sheffield lies.”

“There’s something in that,” said Mr. Osborne, “and it would bring the
business into it. Lor’, Mrs. Osborne, my lady, I’m glad I had nothing to
say to a knighthood five years ago. I’d have been put on the shelf for
good if I’d jumped at it. But not I! It’s this parliamentary business
coming on top of all I did at Sheffield that has given the extra turn.
And I’ve been liberal, I’m sure, to the party. What was the name of the
street now where I built the church in Sheffield? I declare it’s gone
out of my head. Thinking of new names drives the old ones out.”

“Commercial Road, my dear,” said Mrs. Osborne, “for I thought of the
name myself when you was building the street.”

“Then we ain’t no further on yet. Grote, too; that’s not to be thought
of, as it’s Lord Austell’s second title.”

“After all, we only take the place on hire,” said Mrs. Osborne, “and it
doesn’t bring the business in.”

“That’s what beats me,” said Mr. Osborne. “How to bring the business in!
Lord Hardware, Tinware; that would be a thing to laugh at.”

       *       *       *       *       *

The matter was still in debate on that morning when Mrs. Osborne went
through her engagement book down at Grote and found so heavy a programme
in front of her. And somehow to-day she did not feel markedly
exhilarated by it. The journey back from Venice had tired her very much,
and though she had felt sure that a good night’s rest coupled with a day
or two of solid English food would set her up again, she still felt
overdone and devitalized. She was disposed to attribute this in the main
to the unnutritious character of Venetian diet, where, if you got a bit
of veal for your dinner, that was as much butcher’s meat as you were
likely to see; while, to make up, there would be nothing more than a
slice of some unknown fish and the half of a chicken that was no bigger
than a blackbird. As for a nice filet of beef or a choice leg of lamb,
it was a thing unheard of. Yet she had not felt much inclined for the
filet of beef when it was accessible again; it seemed to suit her as
little as the rice and maccaroni had done. For the last week, too, she
had had from time to time little attacks of internal pain. No doubt it
was of no consequence, but it was a pain that she did not know and could
not quite localize.

Once or twice she had thought of consulting a doctor, a thing that Mr.
Osborne had urged on her before the Venetian visit, but some vague and
curious fear prevented her--the fear of being told that something was
seriously wrong, and that she would have to give up their London
programme which she had planned so delightedly. That was a thing not to
be contemplated; the London plans were, to her mind, part of the
immutable order of things, and it was therefore essentially important
that Mr. Osborne should not guess that she was out of sorts, for she
well knew, if he had so much as a guess of that, he would have carried
her off, by force if necessary, and not let go of her till he had
deposited her in some eminent consulting room, with specialists dangling
at the end of the telephone. But she had never been lacking in spirit,
and it would be a singular thing if she could not be genial and hearty
to all the world for a few weeks more.

But what she doubted was her power of getting through the physical
strain of it. She knew how tiring the standing about and the receiving
was, and every day now she felt tired even before the fatigues of it had
begun. If only she had a daughter, who could quite naturally take some
of this off her hands, and let her sit down while the “company” were
arriving. And then an idea struck her.

Dora and Claude were intending to occupy the flat in Mount Street till
the end of the summer. After that they would come down to Grote, and
soon, please God! the flat in Mount Street would be too small for them
“and what would be theirs”--this elegant circumlocution was exactly the
phrase that passed through Mrs. Osborne’s mind--and when they returned
to London again in the autumn, it would be to a house of their own in
Green Street with place for a nursery. This, however, they were only
going to take at Michaelmas; but Dora had written to her mother-in-law
this very morning (and her innocent letter suggested possibilities to
Mrs. Osborne), saying that Mount Street really seemed to be hotter than
Venice, and dreadfully stuffy, which Venice was not. What if Dora and
Claude would come and live with them in Park Lane till the end of July?
She remembered how Dora had acted hostess down at Grote in the winter,
and they might play the game again. But this time there would be a real
object to be served by it; Dora would help her in the entertaining,
which prospectively, as she planned it, had seemed so delightful, but
now appeared so difficult. It was an excellent idea, if only she could
compass it.

The large Indian gong had already boomed through the house, announcing
that lunch was ready, and next moment Mr. Osborne came into her
“boudoir,” announcing that he was ready too. Venetian habit still
lingered with him.

“Well, lunch is _pronto_, my lady,” he said, “but you’re busy yet, and
still at the plan of campaign for the summer. But in your plan of
campaign don’t forget the commissariat; and here’s your lieutenant Marie
come to tell you that my lady is served. Balls, concerts, dinners;
dinners, balls, concerts; my lady is a regular Whiteley to the _élite_:
she gives them all there’s to be had. You’ll be pauperizing the dukes
and duchesses, my dear; they’ll be thinking of nothing but the
amusements you provide for them.”

Mrs. Osborne was not without the rudiments of diplomacy, though, it may
be remarked, nothing in the least advanced in that line was necessary
with her husband. Still it was better that, if possible, he should
suggest Dora and Claude coming to them than that she should. She laughed
dutifully at Mr. O.’s joke about the dukes and duchesses, and proceeded.

“I had a note from Dora this morning,” she said, as they sat down.

“Bless her heart,” said Mr. Osborne parenthetically. “For what we are
going to receive, my lady.”

“Amen, my dear. There’s some of that rice with bits of chicken in it as
I got the recipe of from Pietro, and I could fancy a bit myself. Well,
she wrote and said she was very well, and she’d seen--she’d been to call
in Harley Street.”

Mr. Osborne again interrupted.

“And was anything said about September?” he asked.

“There was some mention of September. And there was something else, too.
Oh yes, she finds that pokey little flat in Mount Street hotter than
Venice, she says.”

“Well, then, why don’t she and Claude take a cab round to No. 92, and
let the luggage follow?” said Mr. Osborne rather hotly. “Claude’s not
got a grain of sense: he should have thought of it long ago, if Dora
feels it stuffy and hot there, and suggested their installing themselves
there, cool and comfortable. Bless the boy, all the same. But after I’ve
had my lunch I’ll get one end of the telephone and him the other, and
see if you don’t hear the front door slam and them drive away to Park
Lane before I’ve lit my cigar. That’ll suit you, my lady, will it?
You’ll like to have them dear children in the house, I know.”

“Bless them, let them come,” said Mrs. Osborne, “and the longer they
stop the better I shall be pleased. Dora will be a help too: she will
help me with the dinners and what not.”

The two were alone on this their last day at Grote, but all six
wasp-coloured footmen marshalled by Thoresby formed a sort of frieze
round the table, occasionally changing a plate or handling a dish.
Generous though he was with money, Mr. Osborne had very distinct notions
about getting his money’s worth when he had paid it, and since the house
required six footmen he saw no reason why they should not all wait at
table, even when only he and Mrs. O. were having their lunch. Nor was
the number of dishes curtailed because they were alone; Mr. Osborne
always ate of them all, and because there was “no company” that was no
reason why he should go starved. It was not, therefore, for nearly an
hour after the time they sat down that he went to the telephone--so
accurately depicted by Sabincourt--and rang up Claude.

He joined Mrs. Osborne on the terrace a minute or two afterwards.

“Claude’s willing enough, and thank you,” he said, “but he says he must
speak to Dora first. So you’d better telephone to 92, my lady, and tell
them to make ready whatever rooms you think right. Give them a nice
sitting-room, my dear, so that they can feel independent.”

“Better hear from Dora first,” said Mrs. Osborne.

“Just as you please; but when the girl says as the flat in Mount Street
is hot and stuffy, and there’s the coolest house in London waiting for
her just round the corner, I don’t see there’s much call to wait. Well,
my lady, I must be off. There’s a committee been sitting in the Lords on
the Bill about the Employers’ Liability Act, and I must get all they’ve
talked about at my fingers’ ends. Who knows, but Mrs. O., but that I’ll
be able to tell them a thing or two in that chamber before the summer’s
out? It’s a strange thing to me how clever men, such as have taken
degrees and fellowships at Oxford, should have so little common sense on
other matters. As if there wasn’t a difference between one sort of risk
and another, and they want to lump them all on to the employer. I doubt
most of them Liberals are either Socialists or afraid of the Socialists.
But there! the noble lords have had a committee and I must see what’s
been said and done.”

“Just to think of it! And have you got any idea about your new name
yet?”

“No, I daresay something will suggest itself. After all, I shall smell
as sweet by any other name, hey?”

“Lor’, my dear,” said Mrs. Osborne with a slight accent of reproof; for
Thoresby had come to see if there were any orders, and must have heard.

       *       *       *       *       *

The question, however, about this move of Dora and Claude to Park Lane
was not so foregone a conclusion as Mr. Osborne had anticipated. Claude
had gone to the telephone when he was rung up, and came back beaming to
tell Dora of this delightful offer.

“Dad and the mater invite us to go to Park Lane till the end of July,”
he said. “I’m blowed if there are many fathers who would want a son and
daughter-in-law in the house all the time. Of course I said that I must
consult you first; that was only proper.”

“Oh, Claude,” said she, “of course it’s awfully kind. But, but do you
think so?”

“But why not? It’s just like the governor to have guessed that we should
feel stuffy and cramped in the flat during this hot weather.”

Dora remembered her letter.

“I’m afraid I may be responsible for that,” she said. “At least I wrote
to your mother yesterday saying it was very hot and airless here. Oh
dear, I hope she won’t think I hinted at this.”

“Not she. You don’t catch her imputing motives, specially when there
weren’t any. She’s got more to think about than that. I say, Dora, are
you sure you didn’t have that in your mind? Awfully sharp of you if you
did.”

Dora resented this; indignant that he could have supposed her capable of
it, and a little of this indignation coloured her words.

“I’m afraid that I can’t lay claim to sharpness,” she said, “because the
fact is that if I had thought such an offer was possible, I should have
said it was cool and airy here.”

Claude’s profile was outlined against the hot, hard blue of the sky
outside, and Dora noticed how perfect it was. But she noticed it in some
detached sort of way; it did not seem to concern her. At this he turned
round, and came across the room to her.

“What’s the matter, dear?” he said. “Why is it you don’t want to go?”

“Oh, Claude, if you don’t see, you wouldn’t understand if I explained,”
she said. “And I can’t quite explain, either.”

“Try,” he said.

“Well, I married you, do you see, and you are master of the house, and
I’m mistress, and it isn’t quite the same thing if we go and live with
other people. They are angelic, of course, to suggest it. But oh, I wish
people wouldn’t be quite so kind--or, rather, that they would mix a
little tact with their kindness. They’ve made it hard to refuse,
telephoning like that. It’s--it’s like a word-of-mouth invitation for a
month ahead. You’ve got to say ‘Yes.’”

Claude took up a rather listless hand of hers that lay on the arm of her
chair.

“Ah, then I do understand,” he said, “and I love your reasons. I guessed
it before you said it; you want to be alone with me. Well, it’s the same
here. But I’ve no doubt they’ll give us a sitting room and all that.”

Though Dora had meant something very like that, it sounded rather
dreadful to hear Claude say it, and say also that he had guessed. He
oughtn’t to have guessed, although he assured her it was “the same
here.” There was an unconscious complacency about his guessing that she
did not like. But he went on without pause.

“As for its being tactless,” he said, “I think you’re rather hard on the
governor. When a man’s as kind as he can be, and as devoted as he is to
you, I don’t think you should say that.”

Claude stuck out his chin a little over this, and Dora, though she knew
he was right from his point of view, knew that she had been right too.
Kindness, even the most sincere, can easily be embarrassing: it needs
refining, like sugar. But that was the sort of thing that Claude could
not understand: the tact of good nature had been left out of him just as
it had been left out of his father. So her reply was sincere.

“Yes, dear; it was a pity I said that,” she said.

But somehow the admission was bitter; the truth was that it was a pity
to say it, because she ought to have been more careful in what she said
to him, not because the impulse that prompted her speech was a mistaken
one. But all that was unconjectured by him.

“My darling,” he said, “you are so sweet with me. If I have to criticise
anything you do, you never take it amiss. And now I’ll tell you another
reason why I think we had better go, apart from the comfort and
convenience of it. It is that I don’t think the mater is very strong,
for all that she eats so heartily. She gets very easily tired, and she’s
laid down a programme for the next six weeks which might well knock
anybody out. Now it would be awfully good of you if you would help her
with it.”

That appealed to Dora much more.

“Oh, then, let’s go, let’s go,” she said. “Telephone at once. No, I
think I will. I think Dad would like me to.”

“You think of everything,” he said. “I hoped you would think of that.
He’ll be so pleased at your telephoning. ‘8003 Lewes,’ you know.”

Claude had a meeting at Brentwood that afternoon and had to leave
immediately, taking a cab to the station and the train from there, so
that Dora might use the motor if she wished. He felt that this was a
perfectly natural and ordinary thing to do, but at the same time he had
to tell her he had done it.

“It takes but a very little longer,” he said in answer to her urging him
to take the motor himself, “and a walk from the station at the other end
will do me good. I wish I was going to prowl about with you all
afternoon. But men must work, you know. Though when I come back I hope I
shan’t find that you’ve been weeping. But you wouldn’t like your
‘Claudius Imperator’ to be a drone. Good-bye, my darling; I shall be
back in time to dine and take you to the play.”

He lingered a moment still.

“If you haven’t got anything special to do, you might go down to
Richmond and have tea with Uncle Alf,” he said. “He’d like it, and you
haven’t seen him for some time.”

“Yes, I’ll go by all means,” she said.

“Thanks, dear. You see, after all, he gives us fifteen thou. a year.”

       *       *       *       *       *

Dora ordered the motor, and set off on her drive to Richmond at once.
The day was exceedingly hot, and the reverberation of the sun from the
grilling pavements struck like a blow when she went out. A languid,
airless wind raised stinging grit from the wood pavements, and the reek
of the streets hung heavy in the air. She longed with an aching sense of
physical want for the soft, dustless atmosphere of Venice, the cluck and
ripple of its green waterways, and with no less an ache and thirst of
the spirit for all that those things had once symbolized to her. Yet
this last visit had not been the rapturous success of the one before.
Venice was there unchanged, with the gold mist of romance that Claude
had woven for her about it, but he, the magical weaver, or she, the
woman for whom it had been woven, had altered somehow, and perhaps even
in the enchanted city a certain vague but growing trouble that was in
her mind would not be completely dissipated. In general outline she knew
what it was, but hitherto she had not focussed her vision on it. But now
she felt that it had better be examined, for it cried out to her from
the darkness of her mind where she had been at pains to hide it. Perhaps
on examination it might prove to be imagination only, to have no real
existence except in her own mind. And the trouble was Claude.

It seemed to her ages ago, though in point of fact it was still scarcely
twelve months, that she had told May Franklin that sometimes he said
things that gave her a check. But it seemed almost longer ago, though it
was only a few weeks, that she had sat alone one afternoon, when Claude
was at Milan meeting his father and mother, and registered the fact that
he again gave her checks. Between those two occasions lay romance, a
golden dream, an experience which, common though it may be in this world
of men and women, was none the less marvellous, miraculous. He, his
love for her, and her love for him, had lifted life out of the levels on
which it had hitherto moved, had made of it a winged and iridescent
thing, which had soared many-coloured into sunlight and moonlight. And
that marvel, the enchantment of it, had seemed to her then to be a thing
indestructible and eternal. While she was she, and while Claude was
Claude, it could never change, nor shed one feather from its rainbow
wings. Often had she whispered to him, or he to her: “It will be like
this for ever”; more often had the tense silence testified with greater
authority than any voice, even his. In those months whatever her senses
perceived was glorified: she looked at the world through the radiance of
love.

That conviction that their romance would last for ever was part of the
divine madness of love: she saw that now clearly enough. She who had
believed that they, and they alone, were different from all others, had
not been truly sane when she believed it: she had been living in a
world, real no doubt while it existed, yet not only capable of being
extinguished but doomed to extinction. Once, before their marriage, she
had talked to Claude about what she called “the gray-business” of life,
and he, she remembered, had given the gray-business a “facer,” to use
his words, by pointing to the example of his father and mother. That had
seemed to Dora, already ripening for romance, to fall very short of the
reply she wanted. She had wanted lover’s nonsense which would assure her
that for them romance could never fade. But it had faded: it always
faded. The question now was concerned with what was left. Did even the
consolation of Claude’s “facer” remain to her? Had she, to put her part
of it baldly and brutally, got as great an admiration, respect, and
affection for her husband as Mrs. Osborne had for hers? She knew she had
not.

To-day she could look undazzled at the materials out of which her
romance had been constructed and analyse them. It was made of her
passion for beauty. She had fallen in love with his good looks. And she
was getting used to them: she had got used to them. What else was there?
What was left to learn, now she had that by heart?

There was a great deal left. So she told herself, but without emotion.
There was his character left, which was sterling; his qualities, which
were excellent; his kindness, his safeness, his--to go to purely
material things--his wealth. And his vulgarity.

The word was coined: her thought for the first time definitely allowed
it to pass into currency, and she had to reckon with it.

What a topsy-turvy affair it had been! How strikingly different a
disposition from that which she had contemplated had come about! She had
told herself that she must for ever be in love with that beautiful face,
that slim, active body, those deft, decided movements; and she had told
herself that his vulgarities were things of no moment, things to which
she would swiftly get used. But events had been evolved otherwise. She
was used to his beauty; his vulgarities were cumulative in their effect
on her; instead of getting used to them she was daily more irritated by
them and--more ashamed of them. She had imagined even that it would be
easy to cure them, to eradicate them. But it proved to be a task like
that of emptying a spring with a teacup. She had thought that they lay,
so to speak, like casual water on the surface of the ground, a mere
puddle that the sun would swiftly drink up. It was not so; they sprang
from his nature, and came welling up bubbling and plenteous and
inexhaustible.

And there was something about them, so it seemed to her now, that tinged
and made unpalatable all the good qualities in which he was so rich. You
could draw a gallon of pure fresh kindness from that well-spring which
was inexhaustible, but even before you had time to put your lips to it,
and drink of it, some drop--quite a little drop--would trickle in from
the source of his vulgarity and taint it all. It was even worse than
that; there was a permanent leak from the one into the other, the
kindness was tainted at the source.

Dora did not indulge in these reflections from any spirit of idle
criticism or morbid dissection. She wanted to see how they stood, how
bad things were, and what chance there was of their righting themselves.
They were no longer mere surface vulgarities in him (or so she believed)
that got on her nerves: she no longer particularly minded whether he
said “handsome lady” or not; what she did mind was the impulse that
prompted him, for instance, to suggest that she might go down and see
Uncle Alf _because_ he gave them “fifteen thou.” a year. She minded his
saying he had guessed the reason why she did not want to establish
herself in Park Lane; namely, because she wanted to be alone with him.
She minded the suggestion that she had written to say the flat was
stuffy, in order to be asked there. It was all common, common; he judged
her by impossible standards, standards that were inconceivable. And yet
all the time he was good, he was kind, he had all the qualities that
should make her love him, make her devotion an imperishable thing. As it
was, they had been married scarcely six months, and already she knew
that at times he so got on to her nerves that she could have screamed.
Already, as she began to look closely at these things, she felt she was
glad they were going to Park Lane; she was glad that limitations were
placed on her being alone with him.

It was a little cooler out of town, and Richmond Park was in the full
luxuriance of its summer beauty. They had entered by the Roehampton
Gate; she had still half an hour to spare before the time she had said
she would be at Uncle Alfred’s, and she directed her driver to turn up
to the left, past the White Lodge, and go round by Robin Hood Gate and
Kingston Gate. A delicious smell of greenness and coolness came from the
noble groves of trees, beneath the clear shade of which, knee-deep in
the varnished green of the young bracken, stood herds of fallow deer
with twitching ears and switching tails, warding off the persistence of
the flies. All the sweet forest sights and sounds were there: the air
was full of the buzz of insects, and hidden birds called to each other
from among the branches. Distantly on the right she could see gleams of
water, where the Pen Ponds lay basking in the sunlight, and the flush of
mauve and red from the great rhododendron thickets above them. All the
triumph of summer time was there; all the joy of the ripeness and
maturity of the year, of the kindled and immortal vitality of the world.
But for herself, though every day brought nearer to her the miracle of
motherhood, it seemed as if summer had stopped.

Once more she faced the situation as she conceived it to be. The time of
romance, those months in the autumn were over: the red and gold of the
autumn were withered from the trees. Brief had been their glory, which
should have shed its light over many years yet; but, as far as she was
concerned, what had made their flame was just the personal beauty of her
husband. And out of them should already have sprung a deep and tender
affection, the friendship which is not only the true and noble sequel of
love, but is an integral part of love itself, perhaps even love’s heart.
But was it there? It seemed to her rather that something bitter had come
out of it, something in which regret for the past was mingled with the
gall of disillusionment. And even regret had but small part in it; those
months of gold seemed already unreal to her: she felt that she was
regretting a dream. It was the same in little things too, for the little
things all took their colour from what had been to her then the one
great reality. He had referred to himself, for instance, that very
afternoon as “Claudius Imperator,” and it was with a sense of unreality
that she remembered the genesis of that very microscopic joke. She had
bought a Roman coin in Venice with that inscription on it, and had given
it to him, saying it was his label in case he was lost. To-day she could
not conceive doing such a thing: she could not recapture the state of
mind in which she did it, the impulse even that made such a trifle
conceivable. In any case, the thing was one that might be said once and
then be forgotten. But Claude had the retentive Osborne sense of humour.
With him it was “Once a joke, always a joke,” and from time to time, as
to-day, he brought out the “Claudius Imperator” again. The Osborne
humour had a heavy tread--a slow, heavy, slouching rustic tread--and a
guffaw of a laugh.

       *       *       *       *       *

There is a Spectator within each of us who for ever watches our thoughts
and words, and criticises them. It may be called conscience, or
guidance, or the devil, as the case may be; for some folk are gifted
with a Spectator that is their best self, others with a Spectator which
is but a parody of themselves. Dora’s Spectator was above the average;
he was optimistic anyhow, and kindly, and at this point he came to her
aid with, so to speak, several smart raps over her knuckles. Whatever
was the truth of the whole matter--if, indeed, there is any absolute
truth to be arrived at in the fluid and ever-varying adjustments of our
relationships with others--only one attitude is compatible with
self-respect; namely, to find out and hoard like grains of gold all that
is fine and generous and lovable in others, and do our best to find
something in ourselves worthy of being matched with it. Instead of this,
so said Dora’s Spectator to her now, she had, with acute and avid eye,
been picking out all that in Claude seemed to her to be trivial or
ludicrous or tiresome, and been finding in herself, to match it,
intolerance and want of charity. There had been no difficulty, so said
her Spectator, in laying hands on plenty of those.

She had but one word to say in self-defence, and the moment it was said
she perceived that it amounted to self-accusation. She had fallen in
love with his beauty: how could she not despond when she found that she
was in love with it--like that--no longer? It had blinded her to all
else: she had seen his vulgarities but dimly, if at all, even as she had
seen his panoply of excellent qualities but dimly. Now she saw only the
vulgarities, or at any rate she saw them right in the foreground, big
and blinding; while behind, in the distance, so to speak, sat the rest
of him. Was it not reasonable that her outlook, which must take its
colour from the past, should be pessimistic? And then even that piece of
self-defence was turned into self-accusation. If that was the case, the
fault had been hers from the beginning. But that was what she had done;
she had separated him, the man, into packets: she had fallen in love
with one packet, and now she was spreading in front of her another that
only irritated and almost disgusted her. She had yet to learn the true
and the wider outlook, to feel that fire of love that fuses all things
together, and loves though it can tenderly laugh, and is gentle always,
and rejoices in the weaknesses and imperfections and faults of the
beloved, simply because they are his. For though there are many ways of
love, the spirit that animates them all is just that; they are all
swayed by one magical tune. But that Dora did not yet know, she had not
heard a note of it, she did not even know the region of the soul where
it made melody all day long. All that she had learned in the last few
minutes was that she had with considerable acuteness been spying out
causes for complaint, excuses for dissatisfaction. She could do a
little better than that.

       *       *       *       *       *

By this time she had arrived at Uncle Alf’s and though the severe
remarks of the Spectator had partially braced her again, after the
rather sloppy abandonment of self-pity and dejection into which her
introspection had brought her, it must be confessed that there was
something about Uncle Alf, caustic and malicious though he was, that
restored her more efficaciously. For out of all the weapons with which
it is fair to fight the disappointments and despondencies that are
incidental to human life, there is none sharper or more rapier-like in
attack or defence than the sense of humour. And Uncle Alf was well
equipped there: not even the picture dealer whom he habitually worsted
would have denied that he had that. It was lambent and ill-natured; it
twinkled and stung; but it had the enviable trick of perceiving what was
ludicrous.

“And I hear poor old Eddie has been out with you and Claude in Venice,
my dear,” he said; “and I can’t say which I’m the most sorry for--you,
or him, or Claude, or Venice.”

“Oh, why Claude?” asked she, for she had not thought of being sorry for
Claude.

“Because you had taught him probably to admire Tintoret--or say he
did--and Eddie would want him to admire the railway station. He would
have to trim. A very funny party you must have been, my dear.”

Dora laughed; till this moment she had thought of them all as a rather
tragic party, and the other aspect had not occurred to her.

“Do you know, I expect we were,” she said; “and all the time I took it
seriously. I wonder if that was a mistake, Uncle Alf.”

“To be sure it was. There’s many things in this world that will depress
you, and make you good for nothing, if you take them seriously, and that
cheer you up if you don’t.”

That was not exactly wisdom out of the mouths of babes and sucklings,
since Uncle Alf was a very old man, but it was a sort of elementary
wisdom which a child might have hit on. And she felt that below the
surface of this wizened, crabbed little old man there was something that
was human. She had never suspected it before: in her shallowness she had
been content to look upon him as a mask with a money-bag. To be sure, he
was devoted to Claude: she had not even reckoned with what that implied,
not given him credit for the power of feeling affection.

“I believe you are right,” she said.

“And when you’re as old as me, my dear, you will know it,” said he.
“Lord, I’ve had a lot of amusement out of life--digging for it, you
understand, not picking it up. Poor old Eddie amuses me more than I can
say. Why, his hair is turning gray with success and pleasure.”

“Ah, not a word against him,” said Dora; “he’s the kindest Dad that ever
lived.”

“I daresay; but there are things to laugh at in poor old Eddie, thank
God. He and his Grote, and his Park Lane, and all! Did you ever see such
a set-out, my dear? But Eddie in Venice must have been a shade finer
yet. Tell me about it. He and Maria on the Grand Canal, and you and
Claude; all in the same gondola, I’ll be bound, so as to make a family
party. ‘This is the way we English go,’ good Lord. I wouldn’t have been
your gondoliers on a hot day, not even for the entertainment of seeing
you all like Noah’s Ark. Your gondoliers were thin men that evening, my
dear, poor devils!”

Alfred had guessed the situation with the unerring eye of cynical
malice, and his words brought the scene back to Dora with amazing
accuracy. That day had depressed her at the time; she had never guessed
how funny it was; and here she was laughing at it now, when it was a
month old!

Alfred continued:

“Eddie among the pictures, too,” he said. “A bull in a china shop would
have been more suitably housed! Why, I nearly came out myself in order
to see the fun. ‘What a holy look there’s about that, Maria,’ he’d say;
or, ‘My, I don’t believe it would go into the gallery at Grote unless
you took the roof off.’ And he wrote to me yesterday that he had bought
a copy of that housemaid among the clouds by Titian--what a daub, my
dear!--with a frame to match!”

It was too much for Uncle Alfred, and he gave a series of little squeaks
on a very high note, shaking his head.

“Eddie’s a silly man,” he said; “a very silly man is poor old Eddie, and
he gets sillier as he gets older. What does he want with his Assumption
of the Virgin and his six powdered footmen? What good do they do him? As
little as my liniment does me. Lord, my dear, he says something too in
his letter that makes me think they’re going to make a peer of him. He
hints it: ah, I wish I’d kept the letter; but it made me feel sick, and
I threw it away. But Eddie a peer, my dear. And I saw in a leader in the
_Times_ the other day that the Prime Minister hadn’t got a sense of
humour! I reckon they’ll sack that leader writer if it’s true that
Eddie’s going to have a peerage! Lord deliver us: Lord Saucepan: let’s
think of half a dozen names and send some picture post cards of Venice
to Lord Saucepan, care of Mr. Osborne, Park Lane; Lord Lavatory, Lord
Kitchen-sink. Fancy Per too, an honourable, and Mrs. Per. My dear, I
hate that woman worse than poison. I should like to smack her face. She
thinks she’s a lady, and Maria thinks she’s a lady. Why, Maria’s more of
a lady herself--and that’s not saying much. To see Mrs. Per and you
talking together about art or acting would make a cat laugh. I wonder at
your marrying Claude when you thought of his relations.”

Dora smiled at him.

“But that’s just what I didn’t do,” she said. “I only thought of
Claude.”

“And well you might. My dear, I love that boy. He’s got into proper
hands too: you can make a lot of him. Lord Toasting-fork, Lord
Egg-whisk, Lord Frying-pan.”

Uncle Alfred could not get away from inventing titles for “poor old
Eddie,” and he did it with a malicious relish that was rather
instructive to Dora. It could not be called kind, but it hurt nobody;
and his frank amusement at the idea of the peerage was certainly better
than the heart-sinkings with which the prospect of the event had
inspired Dora when she thought of the genial pomposity with which it
would be received. Throughout she had been too heavy, too ponderous:
she had pulled long faces instead of laughing, had seen the depressing
side of expeditions like the family party in the gondola instead of its
humorous aspect. That was a hint worth attending to. She had got a sense
of humour, so she believed, yet somehow it had never occurred to her to
look at those spoiled days of Venice in a humorous light.

Soon she rose to go.

“Uncle Alfred,” she said, “you’ve done me good, do you know? It is
better to be amused than depressed, isn’t it?”

“Yes, my dear, and I hope you’ll laugh at me all the way back to town,
me and my great-coat on a day like this, and my goloshes to keep the
damp out, and a strip of flannel, I assure you, round the small of my
back. Eh, I had the lumbago bad when first I saw you down at Grote, but
the sight of those pictures of Sabincourt’s of Eddie and Maria did me
more good than a pint of liniment. What a pair of guys! Lord and Lady
Biscuit-tin.”

Dora laughed again.

“How horrid of you!” she said. “Well, I must go. Claude and I are going
to the theatre to-night. And we are leaving the flat in Mount Street,
Uncle Alf, and are to live in the house in Park Lane till the end of the
season. Wasn’t it kind of Dad to suggest it?”

“Not a bit of it. You’ll help entertain Maria’s fine friends, half of
whom she don’t know by sight. Not but what I envy you: Maria’s as good
as a play down at Grote, and Maria in London must be enough to empty the
music-halls. She does too, so they tell me. She asks everybody in the
‘London Directory,’ and they all come. Good-bye, my dear; come down
again some time and tell me all they do and say. Write it down every
evening, else one’s liable to forget the plums.”

Dora had given orders that their personal luggage should be transferred
from the flat to No. 92 during the afternoon, and on her return she
drove straight to that house. Claude had already arrived, and was
sitting in the big Italian drawing room. He had had a most successful
meeting, and was in excellent spirits.

“This is a bit better than the flat,” he said. “I went in there just
now, and it was like a furnace. But here you wouldn’t know it was a hot
day. It’s a handsome apartment: the governor bought nothing but the best
when he had it done. And how’s Uncle Alf?”

“Very well, I thought, and very amusing,” said she. “Oh, Claude, he had
a great-coat on, and goloshes. He is too funny!”

Claude did not reply for a moment.

“Darling, I hate criticising you,” he said at length, “but I don’t think
you ought to laugh at Uncle Alf, considering all he does for us.”

“But he recommended me to,” said she. “He said he hoped I should laugh
at him all the way back to town. In fact we talked about laughing at
people, and he said what a good plan it was.”

Claude paused again. He felt strongly about this subject.

“Did he laugh at the governor?” he asked.

“Well, yes, a little,” said Dora.

“I hope you stuck up for him. I’m sure you did.”

Dora gave a hopeless little sigh: she wondered if Uncle Alfred could
have seen the humorous aspect of this; personally she could not.

“It was no question of sticking up for him,” she said. “It was all
chaff, fun.”

Claude got up, with his chin a good deal protruded.

“Ah, fun is all very well in its right place,” he said, “and I’m sure no
one likes a joke more than me. But there are certain things one should
hold exempt from one’s fun----”

Dora tried the humorous plan recommended by Uncle Alfred.

“Darling, I hope you don’t consider yourself exempt,” she said. “I am
laughing at you now. You are ridiculous, dear. You take things heavily,
and I do too. We must try not to. So I hereby give you leave to laugh at
mother and Austell as much as you like--and me.”

“Dora, I am serious,” he said.

“I know; that is just the trouble,” she said, still lightly.

Claude’s face darkened.

“Well, it’s a trouble you must learn to put up with,” he said rather
sharply. “I daresay I’m old-fashioned: you may call me what you like.
But I ask you to respect my father. I daresay he and the mater seem to
you ridiculous at times. If they do, I ask you to keep your humorous
observations to yourself. I hate speaking like this, but I am obliged
to.”

Dora felt her hands grow suddenly cold and damp. She was not afraid of
him exactly, but there was some physical shrinking from him that was
rather like fear.

“I don’t see the obligation,” she said.

“Perhaps not. It is sufficient that I do. Now let’s have done. We spoke
on the same subject, your attitude to my father, in Venice. Don’t let us
speak of it again!”

“You say your say, and I am to make no reply. Is that it?” she asked.

“Yes; that is it. I know I am right. Come, Dora.” But the appeal had no
effect, and for the moment she did not know how to apply Uncle Alf’s
wise counsels.

“And if I know you are wrong?” she asked. “If I tell you that you don’t
understand?”

“It will make no difference. Look here: the governor has done lots for
you. You’ve never expressed a wish but what he hasn’t gratified.”

“Then ask him if he is satisfied with my attitude toward him,” said
Dora. “See what he says. Tell him that Uncle Alfred has laughed at him,
and I laughed too. Tell him all.”

“I wouldn’t hurt him like that,” said Claude.

Dora walked to the window and back again. She felt helpless in a
situation she believed to be trivial. But she could not laugh it off:
she could think of no light reply that would act as a dissolvent to it.
And if she could find no light reply, only a serious answer or silence
was possible. She chose the latter. If more words were to be said, she
wished that Claude should have the responsibility of them. Eventually he
took it.

“And I’m sure we’ve all been good enough to your people,” he said; “made
them welcome at Grote for as long as they chose, and behaved friendly.
And it was only ten minutes before you came in that I wrote to Jim,
telling him he could live in the flat and welcome till the end of July.
I don’t see what I could do more.”

The logical reply was on the tip of Dora’s tongue--the reply “That did
not cost you anything”--but she let it get no further. Only she rebelled
against the thought that it was a kindness to do something that did not
cost anything. He thought it was kind--and so in a way it was--to give
Jim the flat rent free. He might perhaps have let it for fifty pounds.
But he did not want fifty pounds. Yet he thought that it was kind: it
seemed to him kind. It must be taken at that: it was no use arguing,
going into the reasons for which it was no real kindness at all. And he
had told her that now, she felt sure, to contrast his friendliness to
her relations with her ridicule--so he would put it--of his. But he had
done his best: she was bound to take it like that, not point out the
cheapness of it.

“Claude, dear, that was nice of you,” she said, searching for anything
that should magnify his kindness. “And Jim will be an awful tenant. He
will leave your books about and smoke your cigars. I hope you’ve locked
them up.”

“Not a thing,” said he. “He just steps in. He’ll find a sovereign on my
dressing table, I believe, if he looks, and a box of cigars in a drawer
of my writing table which he’s welcome to. One doesn’t bother about
things like that.”

That was the worst: the parade of generosity could not go further than
saying that there was no parade at all. Dora could not reply any more to
that: she could only repeat.

“It’s awfully kind of you,” she said again. “We must go and dress if we
are to be in time for the first act.”




CHAPTER VIII.


Though it was true that Claude’s kindness in lending Austell his flat
did not cost him anything, it conferred a great convenience on his
beneficiary, and Jim, who had been living at the Bath Club, had his
luggage packed without pause, and wrote the letter of acceptance and
thanks to Claude from the flat itself on Claude’s writing paper. The
letter was quite genuine and heart-felt, or at the least pocket-felt,
for Jim had had some slight difference of opinion with his mother on the
subject of being seen in a hansom with a young lady who in turn was
sometimes seen on the stage, and Eaton Place, where he had meant to
spend those weeks, was closed to him. But Claude’s flat filled the bill
exactly; it was far more comfortable than his mother’s house, and there
was nothing to pay for lodging, so that it was better than the club. His
satisfaction was complete when he found that Claude had left his cook
there, with no instructions whatever except to go on cooking, nor any
orders to have catering bills sent to the tenant. So Jim made himself
charming to the cook, gave her the sovereign which he had at once found
on Claude’s dressing table when he explored his bedroom, and said he
would be at home for lunch. Plovers’ eggs? Yes, by all means, and a
quail, and a little _macédoine_ of fruit. And by way of burying the
hatchet with his mother, and incidentally making her green with envy
(for it would have suited her very well if Claude had offered her the
flat, since somebody wanted to take her house), he instantly telephoned
asking her to lunch, and mentioned that he was in Mount Street till the
end of July. The lunch she declined, and made no comment on the other,
but Jim heard her sigh into the telephone. She could not hear him grin.

As had been mentioned before, Jim had no liking for Claude, and up till
the present he had done little living upon him. But this loan of the
flat--especially since there was free food going--was extremely
opportune, for at the present moment Jim was particularly hard up,
having been through a Derby week of the most catastrophic nature. He had
done nothing rash, too, which made his misfortunes harder to bear; he
had acted on no secret and mysterious tips from the stables, but had
with the most plebeian respectability backed favourites only. But the
favourites had behaved in the most unaccountable manner, and their
blighted careers had very nearly succeeded in completely blighting his.
But he had raised money on the rent of Grote which would be paid him at
the end of the month, and had paid up all his debts. That process,
however, had made fearful inroads on his receipts for the next quarter,
and strict economy being necessary, Claude’s kindness had been most
welcome. And as he ate his quail, Jim planned two or three pleasant
little dinner parties. He would certainly ask Claude and Dora to one of
them, or was that a rather ironical thing to do, since Claude would be
paying for the food that they all ate? He would pay for the wine as
well, it seemed, for a bottle of excellent Moselle had appeared, since
he had expressed a preference that way, coming, he supposed, from
Claude’s cellar.

Jim looked round the room as he ate and drank, pleased to find himself
in this unexpected little haven of rest, but feeling at the same time
envious of and rather resentful towards its possessor. He quite
sympathised with the doctrine of Socialism, and asked himself why it
should be given to Claude to live perpetually in that diviner air where
financial anxieties are unknown, where no bills need ever remain unpaid
except because it was a nuisance to have to dip a pen in the ink and
draw a cheque, whereas he himself was as perpetually in want of money.
The particular reason why he was in this moment in want of it, namely
because he had had a very bad week at Epsom, did not present itself to
his mind, or, if it did, was dismissed as being an ephemeral detail.
Perhaps in this one instance that was the reason why just now he was so
absurdly hard up, but the general question was what occupied him. Claude
was rich, he was poor; where was the justice of it? He liked prints,
too, and why should Claude be able to cover his dining room walls with
these delightful first impressions, while he could not? Indeed, he had
no dining room at all in which he could hang prints even if he possessed
them. His dining room was let to Mr. Osborne, who, it was said, was
going to be made a peer, and on their walls hung the stupendous
presentments of him and his wife. And Claude had married his sister:
everything came to those who had cheque-books. Well, perhaps the Ascot
week would make things pleasanter again; he had a book there which could
hardly prove a disappointment. If it did--but so untoward a possibility
presented no features that were at all attractive to contemplate.

He finished his lunch and then made a more detailed tour of the flat. It
was delightfully furnished (probably Uncle Alf was responsible for all
this, since it was clearly out of the ken of any other Osborne), and
everything breathed of that luxurious sort of simplicity which is so far
beyond the reach of those who have to make sovereigns exercise their
utmost power of purchase. By the way, he had taken a sovereign which was
lying about on Claude’s dressing-table and given it to the cook; he must
remember to tell Claude that (for Claude might remember, if he did not),
and pay him. Next that room was the bathroom, white-walled and
white-tiled, with all manner of squirts and douches to refresh and cool.
Then came a second bedroom, then the dining room in which he had just
now so delicately fed, then the drawing room, out of which opened a
smaller sitting room, clearly Claude’s. There was a big writing table in
it, with drawers on each side, and Jim amused himself by opening these,
for they were all unlocked, and looking at their contents. Certainly
Claude did things handsomely when he lent his flat, for in the first
drawer that Jim opened was a box of cigarettes, and one of cigars. These
latter smelt quite excellent, and Jim put back the cigarette he had
taken from the other box and took a cigar instead. In another drawer
were paper and envelopes stamped with a crest (no doubt the outcome of
the ingenuity of the Herald’s College), in another a pile of letters,
some of which Jim recognized to be Dora’s handwriting. This drawer he
closed again at once: it was scarcely a temptation not to do so since
he only cared quite vaguely to know what Dora found to say to her
_promesso_. In another drawer were a few photographs, a few invitation
cards, an engagement book, and a cheque-book. This latter was apparently
an old one, for it was stiff and full toward the back with counterfoils,
while the covers drooped together halfway down it.

Jim could not resist opening this, nor did he try to: he wanted to know
(and there was no harm done if he did) what sort of sums Claude spent.
But on opening it he saw that it was not quite empty of its cheques yet,
the last but one in the book had not been torn out, but was blank, as
was also the counterfoil. Then came the last counterfoil, on which was
written the date, which was yesterday, and a scrawled “Books, Dora,” and
an item of some £150. Then he turned over the earlier counterfoils:
there was a big cheque to Daimler, no doubt for his car, another
(scandalously large it seemed to Jim) to his tailor, more “Books,”
several entered simply as “Venice,” and several on which there was
nothing written at all. Apparently, in such instances, Claude had just
drawn a cheque and not worried to fill in the counterfoil. That again
was the sort of _insouciance_ that Jim envied: it was only possible to
very rich people or remarkably careless ones, whereas he was poor, but
remarkably careful as to the payment of money. The blank cheque,
forgotten apparently, for the cheque-book, tossed away with a heap of
old invitation cards, looked as if it was thought to be finished with,
was an instance the more of this enviable security about money matters.
And Jim felt more Socialistic than ever.

He shut the drawer up, and examined the rest of the room, having lit the
cigar which he had taken from the box and which he found to be as
excellent to the palate as it was to the nostril. The room reeked of
quiet opulence: there was a bookcase full of well-bound volumes, a
pianola of the latest type, two or three more prints, the overflow from
the dining room, and a couple of Empire arm-chairs, in which comfort and
beauty were mated, and on the floor was an Aubusson carpet. And though
feeling envious and Socialistic, Jim felt that it would be quite
possible to be very comfortable here for the next six or seven weeks.

Like most people who have suffered all their lives from want of money,
and have yet managed to live in a thoroughly extravagant manner, Jim had
been so often under obligations to others that Heaven, suiting, we must
suppose, the back to the burden, had made him by this time unconscious
of such. He accepted such offers as this of the flat with a gay
light-heartedness that was not without its charm, and made also the
undoubted difficulty of conferring, no less than accepting, a favour
gracefully, easy to the giver. But he did not like Claude, and had a
sufficiently firm conviction that Claude did not like him, to take the
edge off his enjoyment. Why Claude should not like him, he could not
tell: he had always been more than pleasant to his brother-in-law, and
when they met, they always, owing to a natural and easy knack of
volubility which Jim possessed, got on quite nicely together.

This minute inspection of the flat had taken Jim some time, and when it
was completed he strolled out to pay a call or two, see if there was any
racing news of interest, and go round to the Osbornes to have a talk to
Dora, whom he had not seen since she had returned from Venice, and in
person express his gratitude for the timely gift of the flat. He found
her in, but alone: Mr. and Mrs. Osborne were expected that afternoon.

“It was really extremely kind of Claude to think of it,” he said, “and
most opportune. I had the rottenest Epsom, and really was at my wits’
end. You are probably beginning to forget what that means. Oh, by the
way, I found a sovereign of Claude’s on his dressing table and gave it
to the cook in order to promote good feeling--or was it ten shillings?”

Dora laughed. This was characteristic of Jim, but she was used to it,
and did not make sermon to him.

“I feel quite certain it was a sovereign, Jim,” she said. “I will bet,
if you like. We will ask the cook what you gave her.”

“I daresay you are right. Ah, you expect Claude, though. I will give it
him when he comes in. Have you seen mother? She and I are not on terms
just now. But it does not matter, as I have Claude’s flat.”

“What have you been doing?”

“Nothing; she did it all. I hadn’t the least wish to cut her. In fact, I
wanted to stay in Eaton Place, until the flat came along, and when it
did, I wished to give her a slice of my luck, and I asked her to lunch.
She said ‘No,’ but sighed. The sigh was not about lunch but about the
flat. She would have liked it. By Jove, Dora, you’re nicely housed here.
It’s a neat little box, as Mr. O. would say.”

Dora gave a short laugh, not very merry in tone.

“Ah, that’s one of the things we mustn’t say,” she observed. “I’ve been
catching it from Claude. He says he’s respectful to my family, but I’m
not respectful to his.”

Jim paused with his cup in his hand.

“Been having a row?” he asked. “Make it up at once. Say you were wrong.”

“But I wasn’t,” said she.

“That doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you should let the
purseholders have everything all their own way. Then everything slips
along easily and comfortably.”

“Oh, money!” she said. “Who cares about the money?”

Jim opened his eyes very wide.

“I do very much,” he said, “and so did you up till a year ago. It is
silly to say that money doesn’t matter just because you have a lot. It’s
only the presence of a lot that enables you to say so.”

“Yes, that’s true,” she said, “and it adds to one’s pleasure. But it
doesn’t add to one’s happiness, not one jot. I’m just as capable of
being unhappy now as ever I was. Not that I am unhappy in the least.”

Jim nodded sympathetically.

“You look rather worried,” he said. “So you’ve been having a bit of a
turn-up with Claude. That’s the worst of being married; if I have a
shindy with anyone I walk away, and unless the other fellow follows, the
shindy stops. But you can’t walk away from your husband.”

Dora was silent a moment, considering whether she should talk to her
brother about these things which troubled her or not. She had tried to
find a solution for them by herself, but had been unable, and she had a
great opinion of his practical shrewdness. It was not likely that he
would suggest anything fine or altruistic because he was not of that
particular build, but he might be able to suggest something.

“Yes, we’ve been having a bit of a turn-up, as you call it,” she said.
“That doesn’t matter so much; but what bothers me rather is our totally
different way of looking at things. I’m awfully fond of Dad, I am
really, but it would be childish if I pretended that I don’t
see--well--humorous things about him. You see, one has either to be
amused by such things--I only learned that yesterday from Uncle Alf--or
else take them tragically. At Venice I took them tragically. I thought
it dreadful that he liked to see the sugar factory better than anything
else. And if it isn’t dreadful, it’s got to be funny: it’s either funny
or vulgar. There’s nothing else for it to be. And then Claude--oh, dear!
I told him he was at liberty to laugh at you and mother as much as he
chose, but he didn’t appear to want to. I don’t think he’s got any sense
of humour: there are heaps and heaps of ridiculous things about you
both.”

“Good gracious! You never thought he had any sense of humour, did you?”
asked Jim earnestly.

“I don’t know. I don’t think I thought about it at all. And that’s not
the worst.”

Jim put his head on one side, and Dora’s estimate of his shrewdness was
justified.

“Do you mean that you are beginning to mind about his being--er--not
quite----?” he asked delicately.

Dora nodded.

“Yes, that’s it,” she said.

“What a pity! I hoped you wouldn’t mind. You appeared not to at first.
One hoped you would get used to it before it got on your nerves. Can’t
you put it away, wrap it up and put it away?”

“Do you suppose I keep it in front of me for fun?” she asked. “Oh, Jim,
is it beastly of me to tell you? There’s really no one else to tell. I
couldn’t tell mother because she’s--well, she’s not very helpful about
that sort of thing, and talks about true nobility being the really
important thing, that and truth and honour and kindness. That is such
parrot-talk, you know; it is just repeating what we have all heard a
million of times. No doubt it is true, but what if one can’t realize it?
I used always to suppose Shakespeare was a great author, till I saw
‘Hamlet,’ which bored me. And I had to tell somebody. What am I to do?”

“Why, apply to Claude what you’ve been saying about Mr. Osborne,” said
he. “There are things about him which are dreadful unless you tell
yourself they are funny. Well, tell yourself they are funny. I hope they
are. Won’t that help?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps it might. But there are things that are funny at
a little distance which cease to amuse when they come quite close. Uncle
Alf made me think that the humorous solution would solve everything. But
it doesn’t really; it only solves the things that don’t really matter.”

       *       *       *       *       *

Dora dined quietly at home that night with Mr. and Mrs. Osborne and
Claude, and after dinner had a talk to her mother-in-law while the other
two lingered in the dining room.

“Why, it was like seeing a fire through the window to welcome you when
you got home of a cold evening,” said Mrs. Osborne cordially, “to see
your face at the head of the stairs, my dear. Mr. Osborne’s been
wondering all the way up whether you and Claude would be dining at home
to-night. Bless you, if he’s said it once he’s said it fifty times.”

“I love being wanted,” said Dora quickly.

“Well, it’s wanted that you are, by him and me and everyone else. And,
my dear, I’m glad to think you’ll be by my elbow at all my parties, to
help me, and say who’s who. And we lead off to-morrow with a big dinner.
There’s thirty to table and a reception after, just to let it be known
as how the house is open again, and all and sundry will be welcome. Of
course, you’ll have your own engagements as well, my dear, and many of
them, I’m sure, and no wonder, and there’s nothing I wish less than to
stand in the way of them, but whenever you’ve an evening to spare, you
give a thought to me, and say to yourself, ‘Well, if I’m wanted nowhere
else, there’s mother’ll be looking out for me at the head of the
stairs.’”

Dora laughed.

“I accept your invitations to all your balls, and all your concerts, and
as many as possible of your dinners,” she said. “You’ll get sick of the
sight of my face before the season is over.”

“That I never shall, my dear,” said Mrs. Osborne, “nor afterward,
neither. And you’ll come down to Grote, won’t you, after July, and stay
quiet there till the little blessed one comes, if you don’t mind my
alluding to it, my dear, as I’m going to be its grandmother, though
it’s a thing I never should do if there was anybody else but you and me
present. Lord, and it seems only yesterday that I was expecting my own
first-born, and Mr. O. in such a taking as you never see, and me so calm
and all, just longing for my time to come, and thinking nothing at all
of the pain, for such as there is don’t count against seeing your baby.
But you leave Claude to me, and I’ll pull him through. Bless him, I
warrant he’ll need more cheering and comforting than you. And are you
sure your rooms are comfortable here, dearie? I thought the suite at the
back of the house would be more to your liking than the front, being
quieter, for, to be sure, if you are so good as to come and keep us old
folks company, the least we can do is to see that you have things to
your taste and don’t get woke by those roaring motor-buses or the stream
of vegetables for the market.”

“But they are delightful,” said Dora. “They’ve given me the dearest
little sitting room with bedroom and bathroom all together.”

Mrs. Osborne beamed contentedly. She had had a couple of days without
any return of pain, and as she said, she had had a better relish for her
dinner to-night than for many days.

“Well, then, let’s hope we shall all be comfortable and happy,” she
said. “And I don’t mind telling you now, my dear, that I’ve been out of
sorts and not up to my victuals for a fortnight past, but to-day I feel
hearty again, though I get tired easily still. But don’t you breathe a
word of that, promise me, to Mr. Osborne or Claude, for what with the
honour as is going to be done to Mr. O. and the thought of his
grandchild getting closer, and him back to work again, which, after all,
suits him best, I wouldn’t take the edge off his enjoyment if you were
to ask me on your bended knees, which I should do, if he thought I was
out of sorts. Lord, there he comes now, arm-in-arm with Claude. I
declare he’s like a boy again, with the thought of all as is coming.”

The evening of the next day, accordingly, saw, with flare of light and
blare of band, the beginning of the hospitalities of No. 92 Park Lane,
the doors of which, so it appeared to Dora, were never afterward shut
day or night, except during the week-ends when the doors of Grote flew
open and the scene of hospitality changed to that of the country. Yet
cordial though it all was, it was insensate hospitality--hospitality
gone mad. Had some hotel announced that anyone of any consequence could
dine there without charge, and ask friends to dine on the same easy
terms, such an offer would have diverted the crowds of carriages from
Park Lane, and sent them to the hotel instead. Full as her programme
originally was, Mrs. Osborne could not resist the pleasure of added
hospitalities, and little dances, got up in impromptu fashion with much
telephoning and leaving of cards, were wedged in between the big ones,
and became big themselves before the night arrived. Scores of guests,
utterly unknown to their hosts, crowded the rooms, and for them all,
known and unknown alike, Mrs. Osborne had the same genial and genuine
cordiality of welcome. It was sufficient for her that they had crossed
her threshold and would drink Mr. O.’s champagne and eat her capons;
she was glad to see them all. She had a shocking memory for faces, but
that made no difference, since nothing could exceed the geniality of her
greeting to those whom she had never set eyes on before. It was a good
moment, too, when, not so long after the beginning of her hospitalities,
her secretary, whose duty it was to enter the names of all callers in
the immense volume dedicated to that purpose, reported that a second
calling book was necessary, since the space allotted to the letters with
which the majority of names began was full. She could not have imagined
a year ago that this would ever happen, yet here at the beginning of her
second season only, more space had to be found. And Dora’s name for the
second volume, “Supplement to the Court Guide,” was most gratifying.
Alf’s allusion to the “London Directory,” though equally true, would not
have been so satisfactory.

But her brave and cheerful soul needed all its gallantry, for it was an
incessant struggle with her to conceal the weariness and discomfort
which were always with her, and which she was so afraid she would, in
spite of herself, betray to others. There were days of pain, too, not as
yet very severe, but of a sort that frightened her, and her appetite
failed her. This she could conceal, without difficulty for the most
part, since the times were few on which her husband was not sitting at
some distance from her, with many guests intervening; but once or twice
when they were alone she was afraid he would notice her abstention, and
question her. Her high colour also began to fade from her cheeks and
lips, and she made one daring but tremulous experiment with rouge and
lip-salve to hide this. She sent her maid out of the room before the
attempt, and then applied the pigments, but with disastrous results.
“Lor, Mr. O. will think it’s some woman of the music halls instead of
his wife,” she said to herself, and wiped off again the unusual
brilliance.

But though sometimes her courage faltered, it never gave way. She had
determined not to spoil these weeks for her husband. It was to be a
blaze of triumph. Afterward she would go to the doctor and learn that
she had been frightening herself to no purpose, or that there was
something wrong.

And those endless hospitalities, this stream of people who passed in and
out of the house, though they tired her they also served to divert her
and take her mind off her discomforts and alarms. She had to be in her
place, though Dora took much of the burden of it off her shoulders, to
shake hands with streams of people and say--which was perfectly
true--how pleased she was to see them. Friends from Sheffield, for she
never in her life dropped an old acquaintance, came to stay, and the
pleasurable anticipation she had had of letting them see “a bit of real
London life” fell short of the reality. Best of all, Sir Thomas and Lady
Ewart were in the house when the list of honours appeared in the paper.

It happened dramatically, and the drama of it was planned and contrived
by Claude. He came down rather late to breakfast, having given orders
that this morning no papers were to be put in their usual place in the
dining room, and went straight up to his father.

“Good morning, my lord,” he said.

“Hey, what?” said Mr. Osborne. “Poking your fun at me, are you?”

“There’s something about you in the papers, my lord.”

“Well, I never! Let’s see,” said Mr. Osborne.

He unfolded the paper Claude had brought him.

“My lady,” he said across the table to his wife, “this’ll interest you.
List of honours. Peerages, Edward Osborne, Esquire, M. P.”

It was a triumphant success. Sir Thomas actually thought that it was
news to them both, and went so far as to lay down his knife and fork.

“Bless my soul!” he said. “Well, I’m sure there never was an honour more
deservedly won, nor what will be more dignifiedly worn.”

Mr. Osborne could not keep it up.

“Well, well,” he said, “of course we’ve known all along; but Claude
would have his joke and pretend it was news to us. Thank ye, Sir Thomas,
I’m sure. Maria, my dear, I’m told your new coronet’s come home. Pass it
to my lady, Claude.”

As if by a conjuring trick, he produced from under the table cloth an
all-round tiara of immense diamonds, which had been previously balanced
on his knees.

Mrs. Osborne had had no idea of this; that part of the ceremony had been
kept from her.

“Put it on, Maria, my dear,” he said, “and if there’s a peeress in the
land as better deserves her coronet than you, I should be proud to meet
her. Let the Honourable Claude settle it comfortable for you, my dear.
Claude, my boy, I’m jealous of you because you’re an honourable, which
is more than your poor old dad ever was.”

The deft hands of the Honourable adjusted the tiara for her and she got
up to salute the donor.

“If it isn’t the measure of my head exactly!” she said. “Well, I never,
and me not knowing a word about it!”

Meantime, as June drew to its close, in this whirl of engagements and
socialities, the estrangement between Dora and Claude grew (though not
more acute in itself) more of a habit, and the very passage of time,
instead of softening it, rendered it harder to soften. Had they been
alone in their flat, it is probable that some intolerable moment would
have come, breaking down that which stood between them, or in any case
compelling them to talk it out; or, a thing which would have been better
than nothing, bringing this cold alienation up to the hot level of a
quarrel, which could have been made up, and which when made up might
have carried away with it much of the cause of this growing constraint.
As it was, there was no quarrel, and thus there was nothing to make up.
Claude, on his side, believed that his wife still rather resented
certain remarks he had made to her at Venice and here on the subject of
her attitude toward his father, contrasting it unfavourably with the
appreciation and kindness which his family had shewn hers. In his rather
hard, thoroughly well-meaning and perfectly just manner he examined and
re-examined any cause of complaint which she could conceive herself to
have on the subject, and entirely acquitted himself of blame. He did not
see that he could have done differently: he had not been unkind, only
firm, and his firmness was based upon his sense of right.

But in this examination he, of course, utterly failed to recognize the
real ground of the estrangement, which was, as Dora knew, not any one
particular speech or action of his, but rather the spirit and the nature
which lay behind every speech, every action. This she was incapable of
telling him, and even if she had been able to do so, no good end would
have been served by it. She had married him, not knowing him, or at the
least blinded by superficialities, and now, getting below those, or
getting used to them, she found that there were things to which she
could not get used, but which, on the contrary, seemed to her to be
getting every day more glaringly disagreeable to her. He, not knowing
this, did his best to remove what he believed had been the cause of
their estrangement by praise and commendation of what he called to
himself her altered behaviour. For there was no doubt whatever that now,
at any rate, Dora was behaving delightfully to his parents. She took
much of the work of entertaining off Mrs. Osborne’s hands; made but few
engagements of her own, in order to be more actively useful in the
house; and was in every sense the most loyal and dutiful of
daughters-in-law. She also very gently and tactfully got leave to revise
Mrs. Osborne’s visiting list, and drew a somewhat ruthless lead pencil
through a considerable number of the names. For in the early days to
leave a card meant, as a matter of course, to be asked to the house.
This luxuriant and exotic garden wanted a little weeding.

All this seemed to Claude to be the happy fruits of his criticism, and
the consciousness of it in his mind did not improve the flavour of his
speeches to Dora. They were but little alone, owing to the high
pressure of their days; but one evening, about a fortnight after they
had moved into Park Lane, he found her resting in her sitting room
before dressing.

“There you are, dear,” he said. “How right of you to rest a little. What
have you been doing?”

“There were people to lunch,” said she; “and then I drove down with Dad
to the House. He was not there long, so I waited for him, and we had a
turn in the Park. Then a whole host of people came to tea, and I--I
multiplied myself.”

“They are ever so pleased with you,” said Claude, “and I’m sure I don’t
wonder. Ever since they came up you have simply devoted yourself to
them.”

In his mind was the thought, “Ever since I spoke to you about it.” It
was not verbally expressed, but the whole speech rang with it. Dora
tried for a moment, following Uncle Alf’s plan, to find something
humorous about it, failed dismally, and tried instead to disregard it.

“I’m glad,” she said, “that one is of use.”

Then she made a further effort.

“I think it was an excellent plan that we should come here,” she added.
“It suits us, doesn’t it? and it suits them.”

Claude smiled at her, leaning over the head of the sofa where she lay.

“I knew you would find it a success,” he said. “I felt quite certain it
would be.”

Again Dora tried to shut her ears to the personal note--this ring of
“How right I was!”

“It suits Jim, too,” she said. “It really was kind of you to let him
have the flat. May tells me she went to dine there last night. He had a
bridge party.”

Claude laughed.

“He’s certainly making the most of it,” he said; “just as I meant him to
do. I think I’m like Dad in that. Do you remember how he treated us over
the Venice house this year? Not a penny for us to pay. Jim’s giving lots
of little parties, I’m told, and Parker came round to me yesterday to
ask if he should order some more wine, as Jim’s nearly finished it. Also
cigars and cigarettes. Of course I told him to order whatever was
wanted. I hate doing things by halves. The household books will be
something to smile at. But he’s having a rare good time. It’s not much
entertaining he has been able to do all his life up till now.”

Dora sat up.

“But Claude, do you mean he’s drinking your wine and letting you pay for
all the food?” she asked.

“Yes. It’s my own fault. I ought to have locked up the cellar, and made
it clear that he would pay for his own chickens. As a matter of fact, it
never struck me that he wouldn’t. But as that hasn’t occurred to him, I
can’t remind him of it.”

“But you must tell him he’s got to pay for things,” said Dora. “Why, he
might as well order clothes and, just because he was in your flat,
expect you to pay for them!”

“Oh, I can’t tell him,” said Claude. “It would look as if I grudged him
things. I don’t a bit: I like people to have a good time at my expense.
Poor devil! he had a rotten Derby week; no wonder he likes living on
the cheap. And it must be beastly uncomfortable living on the cheap, if
it’s your own cheap, so to speak. I expect you and I would be just the
same if we were poor.”

But the idea was insupportable to Dora, and the more so because of the
way in which Claude took it. Generous he was, no one could be more
generous, but there was behind it all a sort of patronizing attitude. He
gave cordially indeed, but with the cordiality was a selfconscious
pleasure in his own open-handedness and a contempt scarcely veiled of
what he gave. And the worst of all was that Jim should have taken
advantage of this _insouciance_ about money affairs that sprang from the
fact that he had no need to worry about money. Claude did not like Jim,
Dora felt certain of that, and this made it impossible that Jim should
take advantage of his bounty. It was an indebtedness she could not
tolerate in her brother.

“What’s there to fuss about?” Claude went on. “If the whole thing runs
into a hundred and fifty pounds, it won’t hurt. And, after all, he’s
your brother, dear. I like being good to your kin.”

Dora was not doing Claude an injustice when she told herself that his
irreproachable conduct to her family was in his mind. It was there; he
did not mean it to be in evidence, but insensibly and unintentionally it
tinged his words. The whole thing was kind, kind, kind, but it was
consciously kind. That made the whole difference.

“But it can’t be,” she said. “If you won’t speak to Jim about it, I
will. It is impossible that he should drink your wine and smoke your
cigars and have dinner parties at your expense. I can’t let him do that
sort of thing, if I can possibly help it. I would much sooner pay
myself than that you should pay for him.”

“My dear, what a fuss about nothing!” said Claude. “It isn’t as if it
mattered to me whether I pay for his soup and cutlet----”

“No, that’s just it,” said Dora quickly. “That’s why you mustn’t. If it
cost you something---- Oh, Claude, I don’t think I can make you
understand,” she said. “Anyhow, I shall tell Jim what I think; and if
the poor wretch hasn’t got any money, then I must pay.”

“Oh, I don’t suppose he’s got any money,” said Claude; “and as for your
paying, my dear, what difference does that make? I give you your
allowance--and I wish you’d say you wanted more, for Uncle Alf’s always
wondering whether you’ve got enough--and you want to pay me out of that.
Well, it’s only out of one pocket and into another. Don’t fuss about it,
dear. I wish I hadn’t told you.”

“But it isn’t quite like that,” said Dora. “I could deny myself
something in order to pay, if Jim can’t. I can tell them not to send me
the dress----”

And then the hopelessness of it all struck her. She was in the same boat
as her husband; she could not deny herself anything she wanted, because
there was no need for self-denial. And without that she could not make
atonement for Jim’s behaviour. Nor could she say to herself that he had
done it without thinking; Jim always thought when there was a question
of money, for that he took seriously. It was only his own conduct, his
own character, and other little trifles of that sort for which he had so
light a touch, so easy a rein. He had been giving little dinners at his
flat, instead of dining out, as he usually did. He would never have done
that if he thought he was going to pay for the quails and the peaches.
That he should do it was the thing that was irremediable--that, and the
contemptuous kindness of Claude.

Claude saw there was some feeling in her mind of which he did not grasp
the force. She wanted to pay herself, or to think she paid, for Jim’s
hospitalities. It did not make a pennyworth of difference. He would pay
a cheque into her account, which would make her square again, and she
would never notice it.

“Just as you like, dear,” he said; “but you mustn’t tell Jim you are
doing it. He would think that I was reluctant to pay for his food and
drinks; and I’m not. I can’t stand being thought mean. There’s no excuse
for a fellow with plenty of shekels being mean.”

“Oh, you are not that,” said Dora quickly, her voice without volition
following the train of thought in her mind.

“No, dear, I hope not,” said he. “And, believe me, I haven’t got two ill
feelings to rub against each other with regard to Jim. It’s only by
chance I knew. If there’d been another box of cigars in the flat, and a
few more dozen champagne, Parker would never have come to me. As for the
household books----why, dear, they’d have been sent up to you, and I
bet you’d never have seen. No, it’s just a chance as has put us in the
knowledge of it all, and I for one should hate to take advantage of it.
So cheer up, dear! Pay me, if it makes you feel easier; but don’t say a
word to Jim. I like doing a thing thoroughly, as I’m doing this.”

He lingered a moment by the door.

“Perhaps that clears things up a bit, Dora,” he said, with a touch of
wistfulness in his voice.

And Dora tried, tried to think it did. She tried also to put all
possible simplicity into her voice as she answered:

“But what is there to clear up, dear?” she asked.

“That’s all right, then,” said he, and left her. But once outside the
door, he shook his head. Bottled simplicity, so to speak, is not the
same as simplicity from the spring. He was quite shrewd enough to know
the difference.

He was shrewd enough also to know that he did not quite understand what
had gone wrong. Something certainly had, and after his compliments to
her on the subject of the admirable way in which she was behaving to his
parents he knew that it was no longer his strictures on that subject
that made this barrier. True it was that during these past weeks neither
of them had had much leisure or opportunity for intimate conversation;
but there were glances, single words, silences even that had passed
between them when they were in Venice first that had taken no time if
measured by the scale of minutes or seconds, yet which had been enough
to fill the whole day with inward sunshine. And he had not changed to
her: that he knew quite well; it was not that he was less sensitive now,
less receptive of signals of that kind. For his part, he gave them in
plenty. Just now he had leaned over her, smiling, when she lay on her
sofa, a thing that in early days would have been sufficient to make her
glance at him, with perhaps a raised hand that just touched his face,
with perhaps an “Oh, Claude!” below her breath. Honestly, as far as any
man can be honest with himself, he was as hungry for that as ever; he
made his private code just as before, and no answer came. Something was
out of tune: the vibrations, wireless, psychical, did not pass from her
to him as they had done; and his own messages, so it seemed, throbbed
themselves out, and found none to pick them up, but were lost in the
unanswering air.

Claude was of a very simple and straightforward nature, but he felt none
the less keenly because he was not capable of feeling in any subtle or
complicated manner. Love had come into his life, and his part in that
burned within him still, in no way less ardently. He believed that Dora
had loved him also: believed it, that is to say, in a sacred sense: it
had been a creed to him, just as his own love for her was a creed. With
body and soul he loved her, not fantastically, but deeply, and as he
left her this afternoon it seemed to him that his love was being poured
into a vessel in which was bitterness. They had talked only about what
to him was a trivial thing--namely, the completeness with which Jim had
made himself at home in the flat; but in the earlier days it made no
difference what they talked about: tenderness, love came through it all,
like water through a quicksand, engulfing them. Their days had been
passed in such a quicksand; they were always joyfully foundering in it.
But now it was not so. Some bitter encrustation had come on it which
bore their weight quite easily, and there was no risk of going through,
nor any chance of it. Honestly, he did not believe that he was
responsible for the formation of that crust. He had not changed; was
not other than he had always been. Once for a moment his mind poised and
hovered above the truth, and he half said to himself, “I wonder if she
finds me common?” But he rejected that: it was the wildest freak of
imagination. Besides, she had not found him common at first, and he had
not grown commoner. On the contrary, she had taught him much--little
things, no doubt, but many of them. He had noticed she was always polite
to servants and shop people, and though a year ago his tendency had been
to be rather short with them, as inferiors, he had instinctively
followed her example. That was only one instance out of many. But, so
the poor fellow told himself, they were all little things like that,
which could make no real difference to anybody.

Yet he thought over this a little longer. He himself, for instance, had
always known that his father and mother and Per were, so to speak,
“common” beside him. That seemed perfectly natural, for he had been sent
to Eton and Oxford, and had picked up all sorts of things as to the way
“gentlemen behaved,” which they did not know. He would not press his
guests to have more wine, as his father did, when they had refused, nor
tempt them to a second helping, as his mother did. There were little
tricks of language, too, infinitesimal affairs, but he, so he thought,
had got into the way of it, whereas they had not. He, for instance,
never said “Lor’,” as his father constantly did, and his mother, if she
“was not on the watch.” But he said, “Good Lord,” because fellows said
that, and not the other. But what did that really matter? There was a
certain boisterousness of manner also that characterized them, which he
and Mrs. Per, for instance, who was certainly a perfect lady, did not
practise. Often, half in jest, his father had said, “Old Claude’s
getting too much of a swell for me”; and though he deprecated such a
conclusion, he understood what was meant, and knew that if half was
jest, half was serious. But all this made it the more impossible that
Dora should find him common. Eton and Oxford, he felt quite sure, had
taken all the commonness out of him.

And how little it mattered! He saw a hundred things, day by day, in
which, if he had been disposed to peer and dissect and magnify, he would
have felt that there was a difference between his father and himself.
But how measure so small a thing? But what did that matter? He saw the
kindness, the honour, the truth of his parents, and he was as likely to
cease respecting and caring for them because of that difference as he
was likely to cease to love Dora because once he had found a gray hair
in her golden head. Besides--and his mind came back to that--if she
found him common now, she must always have found him common. But nothing
was short of perfection in their early weeks in Venice.

Once, on his way downstairs to be ready to greet Per and his wife, who
were expected that evening, he half turned on his foot, intending to go
back to Dora and try to get to the bottom of it all. But he knew that he
would find nothing to say, for there was nothing he could suggest in
which he had fallen short. And even as he paused, wondering if it would
be enough that he should go back and say, “Dora, what is it?” he heard
the sound of the hall door opening. That was Per, no doubt; he must go
down and welcome him.




CHAPTER IX.


The question of the title had at length been settled: the simplest
solution was felt to be the best; and Mrs. Osborne need not have felt so
strange at the thought of changing her name, for she only changed the
“Mrs.” into “Lady.” The eminently respectable name of Osborne, after
all, was associated, as seen on the labels in the fish market at Venice,
with the idea of hardware all the world over, a thing which Mr. Osborne
had been anxious to “bring in,” and, at the same time, it had a faintly
territorial sound. Lady Osborne, however, was a little disappointed; she
would so much have enjoyed the necessity of getting quantities of table
linen with the new initial worked on it. As it was, it was only
necessary to have a coronet placed above it. Indeed, within a week
coronets blossomed everywhere, with the suddenness of the coming of
spring in the South--on the silver, on the hot-water cans, on writing
paper and envelopes, on the panels of carriages and cars, and an
enormous one, cut solid in limestone (the delivery of which seriously
impeded for a while the traffic in Park Lane), was hoisted into its
appropriate niche above the front door of No. 92 by the aid of a gang of
perspiring workmen and a small steam crane. It had been a smart
morning’s work, so said Lord Osborne, who looked out from the Gothic
windows of his snuggery every now and then to see how it was getting on;
and it became even smarter in the afternoon when gold-leaf had been
thickly laid on it.

It was on the evening of that day that Lady Osborne had only a family
party. She had planned that from the very beginning of the settlement of
the summer campaign, had declined a very grand invitation indeed in
order not to sacrifice it, and was going to send it to the _Morning
Post_ and other papers, just as if it had been a great party. Lady
Austell was there and Jim, Dora and Claude, Uncle Alf, Per and Mrs. Per,
and her husband and herself. That was absolutely all, and there was
nobody of any description coming in afterward; nor was any form of
entertainment, except such as they would indulge in among themselves, to
be provided. The idea was simply to have a family gathering, and not
heed anybody else, for just this one evening; to be homely and cosy and
comfortable.

So there they all were, as Lady Osborne thought delightedly to herself,
as she sat down with Jim on her right and Alfred on her left, just a
family party, and yet they were all folk of title now except Alfred. It
showed that money was not everything, for Alfred was the richest of them
all, while the Austells, who were the “highest,” were also the poorest.
She had looked forward immensely to this evening, but not without
trepidation, for if Alfred was “worried” he could spoil any party.
Alfred, however, seemed to be in the most excellent humour, and when, as
they sat down, she said to him, “Well, Alfred, it’s your turn next to be
made something,” he had replied that he had just received a most
pressing offer of a dukedom. And the witticism was much appreciated.

There was no keeping relations apart, of course, since they were all
relations, and Claude was sitting next his father, with Mrs. Per between
him and Jim, and it was his voice that his mother most listened for with
the unconscious ear that hearkens for sounds that are most beloved. He
was apologizing to his father for the mislaying of some key.

“I’m really awfully sorry,” he said, “but I’m such a bad hand at keys. I
never lock anything up myself. Everything’s always open in the flat,
isn’t it, Dora? But I’m very sorry, Dad. It was careless.”

“Ah, well, never mind,” said his father. “And I’m not one as locks up
overmuch either. Give me the key of my wine cellar and my cash box, and
the drawer of your mother’s letters to me when I was a-courting her, and
the Tantalus, and the drawer where I keep my cheque-book and cash box,
and I don’t ask for more. I’m no jailer, thank Heaven! But don’t you
even have a key to your cellar, my boy?”

“Oh, I suppose there is one, and I suppose Parker has it,” he said.

Jim, too, had caught some of this and turned to Lady Osborne.

“By Jove! that’s so like Claude,” he said.

Lady Osborne beamed delightedly upon him.

“Well, and it is,” she said. “There never was a boy so free with his
things. Lor’! he used to get into such hot water with his father when
first he went to Oxford. There was no question, as you may guess, of his
being kept short of money, but naturally his father wanted to hear where
it went, and there’s no denying he was a bit extravagant when he first
went up, as they say. But when Claude got his cheque-book, to look where
and how it had all gone, why, there wasn’t as much as a date or anything
on one of the bits you leave in. I never can remember the name.”

“Counterfoils?” suggested Jim.

“Yes, to be sure. And I’ll be bound he doesn’t enter half of them now.
And his uncle here played him a trick the other day--didn’t pay in his
quarter’s allowance, did you, Alf? And Claude never knew till he was
told; just said he was hard up and didn’t know why, bless him. Well, he
being his father’s son, it would be queer if he was tight-handed.”

Jim laughed.

“I shall be down on Mr.--Lord Osborne like a knife,” he said, “if he
doesn’t pay me his rent.”

“I’ll be bound you will, and quite right too, for money is money when
all’s said and done,” said Lady Osborne cordially. “Well, I’m sure that
sea trout is very good. I feel as I can take a mouthful more, Thoresby;
and give Lord Austell some more. I’m sure I can tempt you, Lord
Austell.”

“Nothing easier,” said Jim.

Uncle Alf came and sat next Dora in the drawing room when, after a
rather prolonged discussion of the ’40 port, the gentlemen joined the
rest of the circle again.

“I came up here from Richmond, making no end of smart speeches in the
carriage, my dear,” he said, “in order to make Maria and Eddie jump, but
I’ve not said one. She’s a good old sort, is Maria, and she was
enjoying herself so. My dear, what’s that great big gold thing they’ve
put up above the front door?”

“Oh! a coronet, I think,” said Dora.

“I thought it was, but I couldn’t be sure. Lord, what a set out! But
those two are having such a good time. I hadn’t the heart to make them
sit up. And I daresay they’ve got a lot of men in the House of Lords not
half so honest as Eddie.”

“I should never have forgiven you, Uncle Alf,” said she, “if you’d vexed
them.”

“Well, it’s a good thing I didn’t, then,” said he. “And what’s going to
happen now? You don’t mean to say Mrs. Per’s going to sing?”

It appeared that this was the case. Naturally she required a certain
amount of pressing, not because she had any intention of not singing but
because a little diffidence, a little fear that she had been naughty,
and hadn’t sung for weeks, was the correct thing.

Uncle Alfred heard this latter remark.

“She’s been practising every day. Per told us in the dining room,” he
said. “Lord, if Sabincourt would paint her as she looks when she sings
I’d give him his price for it. That woman will give me the indigestion
if I let my mind dwell on her.”

Mrs. Per sang with a great deal of expression such simple songs as did
not want much else. Indeed, her rendering of “Be good, sweet maid, and
let who will be cle-he-ver,” was chiefly expression. There was a great
deal of expression, too, in the concluding line, which she sang with her
eyes on the ceiling and a rapt smile playing about her tight little
mouth. “One lorng sweet sorng,” she sang on a quavering and throaty F:
“One lorng sweet sorng.” And she touched the last chord with the soft
pedal down and continued smiling for several seconds, with that “lost
look,” as Per described it, “that Lizzie gets when she is singing.”

Her mother-in-law broke the silence.

“If that isn’t nice!” she said. “And I declare if I know whether I like
the words or the music best. One seems to fit the other so. Lizzie, my
dear, you’re going to give us another, won’t you now?”

Lizzie had every intention of doing so, but again a little pressing was
necessary, and she finally promised to sing once more, just once, if
Claude would “do” something afterward. So she ran her hands over the
keys, and became light and frolicsome, and sang something about a shower
and a maid and a little kissing, which was very pretty and winsome.
After that she sang again and again.

Jim had seated himself opposite Dora, and in the middle of this their
eyes met for a moment. A faint smile quivered on the corner of Jim’s
mouth, but the moment after Mrs. Per came to the end of a song and he
warmly complimented her. Eventually she left the piano and called upon
Claude for the fulfilment of his promise.

Claude on occasion recited; he did so now. The piece he chose was a
favourite of his father’s, a little hackneyed, perhaps, for it was “The
Sands of Dee,” and Lord Osborne blew his nose when it was finished.

“Thank ye, my boy,” he said. “You said that beautiful. Just to think of
it, poor thing, her caught by the tide like that, and her hair getting
into the salmon nets. I’m glad we didn’t have that before dinner. I
couldn’t have eaten a morsel of that salmon.”

“My dear, you’re so fanciful,” said his wife, “and it was sea trout. But
Claude said it beautiful. I’m sure I’ve heard them at the music halls,
often and often, not half so good as that, for all that they are
professionals.”

“So that if your uncle cuts you off with a shilling, Claude,” said his
father, “you can still make a home for Dora; hey, Dora?”

And then Per did several very remarkable conjuring tricks, which nobody
could guess. You put a watch into a handkerchief and held it quite
tight, and then there wasn’t any, or else it was a rabbit, or something
quite different. Again, whatever card you chose, and wherever you put it
back into the pack, Per was on it in no time. Or you thought of
something, and Per blindfold, with the help of Mrs. Per, told you what
you had thought of. And the Zanzics were held not to be in it.

After the strain and bewilderment of these accomplishments it was almost
a relief to sit down to a good round game, the basis of which was a pack
of cards, some counters, a system of forfeits, and plenty of chaff.

And about twelve, after a little light supper, the party broke up, Alf
driving down to Richmond, and Lady Austell, who had made up her little
disagreement with Jim, dropping him at his rooms. It was but a step from
Park Lane there, but they held a short and pointed conversation on their
way.

“A delightful, charming evening,” she said; “all so genuine and honest,
with no forced gaiety or insincere welcome. How happy and content Dora
ought to be.”

“The question being whether she is,” remarked Jim.

“My dear, have you noticed anything?” asked his mother rather quickly.
“Certainly during that recitation she looked a little--a little
inscrutable. What a deplorable performance, was it not? And if that
odious woman had sung any more I think I should have screamed. But Dora
and Claude? Do you think the dear fellow is a little on her nerves?”

“Yes, I think the dear fellow is a little on her nerves,” said Jim, with
marked evenness of tone. “Can you not imagine the possibility of that?
Consider.”

It was very likely that Lady Austell considered. She did not, however,
think good to inform Jim of the result of this consideration.

“And he?” she asked.

“I am not in his confidence,” said Jim. “I am only in his flat. And here
it is. Thanks so much, dear mother, for the lift. Won’t you come in?
No?”

“I must speak to Dora,” said she, as the brougham stopped.

“I think that would be very unwise of you. She knows all you would say,
about his honour, his kindness, and so on. But at the present moment I
think she feels that all the cardinal virtues do not make up for--well,
for things like that recitation.”

Lady Austell thought over this for a moment as Jim got out.

“You are friends with Claude?” she asked. “Real friends, I mean?”

“No, I can’t stand him, and I think he can’t stand me.”

Lady Austell could not resist giving her son a little dab.

“And yet you use his flat?” she said.

“Oh, yes, and drink his wine and smoke his cigars. You would rather have
liked the flat, wouldn’t you? Perhaps he’ll lend it you another time. He
likes doing kind things that don’t incommode him. I think he likes
feeling it doesn’t matter to him, and I feel that the fact that we
dislike each other gives a certain piquancy to them. Good night; I’m so
glad you liked your party. It is refreshing after the glitter and
hollowness of the world to get close to family affection again.”

It seemed to her that a little flame of true bitterness, quite unlike
his usually genial cynicism and _insouciance_, shone in these words.

“Good night, dear,” she said very softly; “I hope nothing has disagreed
with you.”

       *       *       *       *       *

Jim laughed a little to himself as he ascended the thickly carpeted
stairs to the flat on the first floor, but the laugh was not of long
duration or of very genuine quality. He felt at enmity with all the
world in spite of the excellent dinner he had eaten. He felt that Dora
was a fool to let little things like--well, like that recitation--come
between her and the immense enjoyment that could be got out of life if
only you had, as was the case with her, a limitless power of commanding
its pleasures. And yet, if those pleasures were to be indissolubly
wrapped up with an Osborne environment he felt he almost understood her
absence of content. To put a case--if he was given the choice of going
to Newmarket to-morrow with Lady Osborne in her two-thousand-pound
seventy-horse-power Napier, or of travelling there third class at his
own expense, what would he do? Certainly, if the choice was for one day
only, he would go in the car, but if the choice concerned going there
every day for the rest of his life, or hers, the question hardly needed
an answer. The thing would become unbearable. And Dora had to go, not to
Newmarket only, but everywhere, everywhere with Claude. And for himself,
he would sooner have gone anywhere with Mrs. Osborne than with him.

It is more blessed to give than to receive; in many cases it is
certainly easier to give with a good grace than to receive in the same
spirit. And if the gift is made without sacrifice it is, unless the
recipient is genuinely attached to the giver, most difficult to receive
it charitably. It may be received with gratitude if it is much wanted,
but the gratitude here is felt not toward the giver, but toward the
gift. Toward the giver there is liable to spring up, especially if he is
not liked before, a feeling compared with which mere dislike is mild. It
was so with Jim now.

He squirted some whisky into a glass, put a lump of clinking ice into
it, and added some Perrier water. All these things were Claude’s, so was
the chair in which he sat, so was the cigar, the end of which he had
just bitten off. This latter operation he had not performed with his
usual neatness; there was a piece of loose leaf detached, which might
spoil the even smoking of it, and he threw it away and took another.
They were all Claude’s, and if his drinks and his cigars had been made
of molten gold, Jim felt he would sit up till morning, even at the cost
of personal inconvenience, in order to consume as much as possible of
them. The evening too, “the charming, pleasant party,” of which his
mother had spoken so foolishly, had enraged him. There had been all
there that money, the one thing in the world he desired so much, could
possibly buy, and they had found nothing better to do than listen to
ridiculous songs, hear an unspeakable recitation, and play an absurd
round game. He hated them all, not only because they were rich, but
because they were ill-bred and contented. Jovial happiness (the more to
be resented because of its joviality), a happiness, he knew well, that
was really independent of money, trickled and oozed from them like resin
from a healthy fir tree; happiness was their sap, their life; they were
sticky with it. And he was afraid he knew where that came from; it came
not only from their good digestion, but from their kindness, their
simplicity, their nice natures. But if he at this moment had the
opportunity of changing his own nature with that of any of these
Osbornes, to take their kindness, their joviality, their simple
contentment with and pleasure in life, with all their wealth thrown in,
he would have preferred himself with all his disabilities and poverty.
There was something about them all, some inherent commonness, that he
would not have made part of himself at any price. Only a day or two ago
he had been telling Dora to put the purseholders in a good temper at
whatever cost, not to mind about their being not quite--and now he saw
her difficulty. It was not possible even to think of them in a humorous
light; they were awful grotesques, nightmares, for all their happiness
and wealth, if you were obliged to have much to do with them.

Jim finished his whisky and took more. Of all those tragic and
irritating figures, the one who appeared to him most deplorable and
exasperating was Claude, on whom he was living at this moment, and on
whom he proposed to live till the end of the month. After that he would
no doubt search out some means of living on him further. Rich people
were the cows provided for the poorer. It was quite unnecessary, because
you fattened on their milk, to like them. You liked their milk, not
them. And it was this very thing, this fact of his own indebtedness to
his brother-in-law, that made Claude the more insupportable. That Claude
was kind and generous, that Dora had married him, aggravated his
offence, and the unspeakable meanness of his own relationship to him, in
being thus dependent on him, aggravated it further. Yet his own meanness
was part of Claude’s offence; he would not have felt like this toward a
gentleman. But Claude, as he had said long ago to his mother, was a
subtle cad, the worst variety of that distressing species. So he lit
another of his cigars.

The butt of the one he had just thrown away had fallen inside the brass
fender, and the Persian rug in front of the fender had been pulled a
little too far inward, so that its fringe projected inside. The
smouldering end fell on to this fringe, and Jim watched it singe the
edge of the rug without getting up to take it off, justifying himself
the while. The interior of a fender was a proper receptacle for cigar
ends, and if the edge of a rug happened to be there too it was not his
fault. And the fact that he sat and watched it being singed was wholly
and completely symptomatic of his state of mind. He liked seeing even an
infinitesimal deterioration of Claude’s property. What business had
Claude with prints and Persian rugs and half-filled-in cheque-books? He
was generous because the generosity cost him absolutely nothing.

Had Jim been able to hear the conversation that took place in the
drawing-room of No. 92 after he and his mother had gone his evil humour
would probably have been further accentuated. Lord Osborne started it.

“Well, give me a family party every night,” he said, “and I ask for
nothing more, my lady, though, to be sure, I like your grand parties
second to none. Dora, my dear, that brother of yours is a sharp fellow.
He beat us all at our round game. I hope he’s comfortable in your flat,
eh, Claude? You’ve left some cigars and such-like, I hope, so that he
won’t wish to turn out, saying there’s more of comfort to be had at his
club.”

Claude reassured his father on this point, and Mrs. Per glided up to
Dora. She usually glided.

“What a dear Lord Austell is, Dora,” she said. “And so aristocratic
looking. I wish I had a brother like that. Do you think that he liked my
little songs? Per and I wondered if he would come down to Sheffield in
the autumn. Per has some good shooting, I believe, though I can’t bear
the thought of it. Poor little birds! to be shot like that when they’re
so happy. I always stop my ears if they are shooting near the house.”

“Lizzie, my dear, you’re too kind-hearted,” said Lady Osborne. “What
would our dinners be like if it wasn’t for the shooting? Perpetual beef
and mutton, nothing tasty.”

Mrs. Per wheeled around with a twist of her serpentine neck.

“Ah, but you can never have read that dear little story by Gautier--or
is it Daudet?--about the quails,” she said. “I have never touched a
quail since I read it. But Lord Austell, dear Dora. We were going to
have a little party, very select, about the middle of September, and Per
and I wondered if Lord Austell would come. There are the races, you
know, for two days, and with two days’ shooting, and perhaps an
expedition to Fountains, I think he might like it. He told me he was so
interested in antiquities. And if you and Claude would come too----”

Mrs. Per broke off in some confusion. She had forgotten for the moment.
And she drew Dora a little aside.

“Dear Dora,” she said, “I quite forgot. Quite, quite, quite! So stupid!
But Claude, perhaps, if all is well? They are great friends, are they
not? Claude told me that Lord Austell was keeping his flat warm for him.
So kind and so nice of Claude to lend it, too, of course.”

Then Lord Osborne’s voice broke in again.

“Yes, the family party is the party to my mind,” he said. “No pomp; just
a plain dinner, and a song, and a conjuring trick, and no fatigue for my
lady, with standing up and saying ‘Glad to see you’ a thousand
times--not but what she isn’t glad, as we all are to see our friends;
but Lord, Mrs. O.--I beg your pardon, my lady--how nice to have a quiet
evening such as to-night, with my Lady Austell and her son just dropping
in neighbour-like, and no bother to anybody. Per, my boy, you’ve made a
conquest of Lord Austell; he was wrapped up in your tricks, and each
puzzled him more than the last. As he said to me, ‘You don’t know what
to expect: it may be an egg, or a watch, or the ten of spades.’”

“Well, I expect it would take a professional to see through my tricks,”
said Per; “and even then I’d warrant I’d puzzle him as often as not.
There’s a lot of practice goes to each, and there’s many evenings, when
Lizzie and I have been alone, when we’ve gone through them, and she
pulled me up short if ever she saw, so I might say, the wink of a shirt
cuff. But they went off pretty well to-night, though I say that who
shouldn’t.”

“And I’m sure I don’t know what pleased me best to-night,” said Lady
Osborne, “whether it was the conjuring tricks, or Lizzie’s singing, or
the ‘Sands of Dee,’ or the round game. Bless me! and it’s nearly one
o’clock. It’s time we were all in bed, for there’s no rest for anybody
to-morrow, I’m sure, not after the clock’s gone ten in the morning till
two the next morning and later.”

Lord Osborne gave a gigantic yawn.

“I’m sure I apologize to the company for gaping,” he said, “but it comes
upon one sometimes without knowing. And what has my lady planned for
to-morrow?”

“As if it was me as had planned it,” said his wife, “when you would have
half the Cabinet take their lunch with you, and a Mercy League of some
kind in the ballroom in the afternoon! Three hundred teas ordered, and
by your orders, Mr. O., which will but give you time to dress, if you’re
thinking to make a speech to them. But do be up to the time for dinner,
for we sit down thirty at table at a quarter past eight, and out of the
ballroom you must go, for if the servants clear it and air it for my
dance by eleven o’clock, it’s as much as you can expect of flesh and
blood!”

“And she carries it all in her head,” said her husband, “as if it was
twice five’s ten! Maria, my dear, you’re right, and it’s time to go to
the land of Nod. Not that there’ll be much nodding for me; I shall sleep
without them sort of preliminaries.”

“Well, and I’m sure you ought to after all the snoring exercise you went
through last night,” said Lady Osborne genially. “I couldn’t have
believed it if I hadn’t heard it. There, there, my dear, it’s only my
joke. And they tell me it shows a healthy pair of lungs to make all that
night music, as I may say. And, Dora, be sure as your brother knows he’s
welcome to dinner as well as the dance afterward, in case I didn’t say
it to him. I can always find an extra place at my table for them as are
always welcome.”

Lord Osborne got up.

“Not but what you didn’t fair stick him over your conjuring tricks,
Per,” he said. “And did you cast your eye over the coronet I’ve had put
up above the front door? It’s a fine bit of carving. Well, good night to
all and sundry. Claude, my boy, you take good care of Per, and mind to
put out the lights when you come to bed. One o’clock! I should never
have guessed it was past twelve.”

The Newmarket meeting began next day, and Jim was not put to the odious
degradation of paying for his own ticket, as he motored down with a
friend. No more delightful way of spending the morning could be desired
than this swift progress through the summer air over these smooth roads;
and that, with a confident belief in the soundness of his betting book
and the anticipation of a pleasant and lucrative afternoon, entirely
dissipated the evil humour of the evening before. After all, in this
imperfect world, it was wiser to take the bad with the good, and if the
manners and customs of the Osborne family got on his nerves, it must be
put down to their credit, not to the aggravation of their offences, as
he had been disposed to think last night, that they treated him in so
open-handed a way. Certainly they would appear in a far more
disagreeable light if they were close-handed with their money. It was,
of course, a sin and an iniquity that other people should have money and
not he; but since Providence (and that deplorable Derby week) had chosen
to make this disposition of affairs, it was as well that certain mines
of bullion should be accessible to him. And here already was the Heath,
and the crowds, and the roar of the ring.

Like most gamblers, Jim, though practical enough in the ordinary affairs
of life, had a vein of fantastic superstition about him, and it occurred
to him after the first race, in which he had the good fortune to back
the winner, that his luck had turned, and he cast about to think of the
cause that had turned it. At once he hit on it: he had paid Claude back
the sovereign which he had found on his dressing table and had given to
the cook. That had been a happy inspiration of his: the action itself
had been of the nature of casting bread on the waters, for Claude
probably was unconscious of having left a sovereign there, and in any
case would not ask for it; and here, not after many days, but the very
next day, he had picked up fifty of them before lunch. Apparently some
sort of broad-minded guardian angel looked after his bets and his
morals, and, if he was good, turned the luck for him (for this
broad-minded angel clearly did not object to a little horse racing) and
enabled him to back winners. And after this initial success Jim went
back to his friend’s motor and ate an extremely good lunch.

Whether the broad-minded angel looked back over Jim’s past record and
found something that he could not quite stand, Jim never reasoned out
with any certainty; all that was certain was that after that first race
the carefully made up, almost gilt-edged book went to pieces. Once in a
sudden access of caution he hedged over a horse he had backed; that was
the only winner he was concerned with for the rest of the day.

Jim returned to town that evening in a frame of mind that was not yet
desperate, but sufficiently serious to make him uncomfortable.
Outwardly, he took his losses admirably, was cheerfully cynical about
them, and behaved in nowise other than he would have behaved if he had
been winning all afternoon. He had promised to dine at the Savoy, but on
arrival at the flat he found a telephone message written out which had
come from Dora after his departure that morning, asking him to dine at
No. 92. At that his mood of last evening flashed up again.

“I’ll be damned if I ever set foot in that house again!” he said to
himself. And regretted into the telephone.

There was a telegram for him as well. It was from a very well-informed
quarter, giving him the tip to back Callisto, an outsider, for the big
race to-morrow.

He crumpled it up impatiently; how many well-informed tips, he wondered,
had he acted on, and what percentage of them had come off? Scarcely one
in a hundred. No; backing outsiders was a good enough game if you were
on your luck, and also happened to be solvent.

He did not go to Newmarket next day, but sat all afternoon in his club,
making frequent journeys to the tape, that ticked out inexorably and
without emotion things so momentous to him. It was a little out of
order, and now and then, after the announcement “Newmarket,” it would
reel off a rapid gabble of meaningless letters like a voluble drunkard,
or give some extraneous information about what was happening at Lord’s.
Then it pulled itself together again, and he saw that Callisto had won.
Harry Franklin was looking over his shoulder as this information came
out, and gave a cackle of laughter.

“Hurrah! fur coat for May and new gun for me,” he said.

“Lucky dog!” said Jim. “I thought you never betted.”

“Oh, once in a blue moon! Moon was blue yesterday. Somebody gave me this
tip last night, and I had a shy.”

“I didn’t shy,” said Jim. “Rather a pity. Twenty-five to one, wasn’t
it?”

“Yes; that fiver of mine will go a long way,” said Harry. “Come and dine
to-night. Dora and Claude Osborne are coming.”

“Thanks awfully, but I’m engaged,” said Jim.

He went back to his flat when the last race was recorded to see just
where he stood. He had nothing more on for the last day of the meeting,
and thus his accounts were ready to be made up. A rather lengthy
addition, with a very short subtraction of winnings, showed him just
what he had lost. And he owed nearly five hundred pounds more than he
could possibly pay. The exact sum was £476. It would have to be paid by
Monday next.

It was true in a sense, that, as he told Harry Franklin, he was engaged
that night, though the engagement was to himself only. It was necessary
to sit and think. The money was necessary to him, and necessity is a
lawless force. The money had to be obtained; so much might be taken for
granted. It was no use considering what would happen if it was not
obtained; therefore, all that might be dismissed, for it had to be
obtained. That was the terminus from which he started.

He had telephoned from the club that he would be in for dinner, and
would dine alone, and Claude’s admirable cook, it appeared, understood
the science of providing single dinners as well as she understood more
festive provisions. Dinner was light and short, and Parker, without
prompting, gave him a half-bottle of Veuve Clicquot, iced to the right
point and no further, and a glass of port that seemed to restore him to
his normal level. What he had to face was no longer unfaceable; he felt
he could go out and meet necessity.

Other possibilities detained him but little; it was no use applying to
his mother for money, for he might as well apply to the workhouse; and
he could not apply to the Osbornes. He tried to think of himself asking
Claude to lend him this sum; he tried to picture himself going to Lord
Osborne with his story. But the picture was unpaintable: it had no
possible existence.

And the other way--the way which already had taken form and feature in
his mind--was not so difficult, far less impossible of contemplation,
simply because his nature was not straight, and the moral difficulty of
stealing appeared to him to be within his power to deal with. He had
never been straight; but even now he made excuses for himself, said that
it was a necessity that forced him into a path that was abhorrent to
him. Perhaps he did dislike it a little; certainly he did not take it
for amusement. Simply there was no other way open to him. There remained
only to consider the chances of detection. They did not seem to him
great. The cheque-book with which he would shortly be concerned had
clearly been left in its drawer as finished with, for the last cheque
was used, though not the one immediately preceding it. Claude, too, had
almost bragged about his carelessness with regard to money, and the
truth of his boast had been endorsed by his mother only two nights ago,
when she told him how he had never noticed that his quarter’s allowance
had not been paid in. That was a matter of nearly four thousand pounds;
this of hardly more than the same number of hundreds.

Besides, it if were detected, what would Claude do? Proceed against his
wife’s brother? He believed he need not waste time in considering such a
possibility, for, to begin with, the possibility itself was so remote.

Then for a moment some little voice of honour made itself heard, and he
had to argue it down. Not to pay such debts--debts of honour, as they
were called--was among those very few things that a man must not do, and
for which, if he does them, he gets no quarter from society in general.
No doubt he could get his debts paid if he went to the Osbornes; but
that he could not do. It was much harder for him than that which he
proposed to do. So the little voice was silenced again, almost before it
began to speak. But it was used to being taken lightly, to be not
listened to.

He was not often at home in the evening, but when he was he usually sat
in Claude’s room, which, though small, was cooler than the
southward-facing drawing room, and he took his cigar there now. A tray
of whisky and Perrier had already been placed there, but since he did
not wish to be disturbed he rang the bell to tell Parker he wished to be
called at eight next morning, and wanted nothing more that night. And
then he took some writing paper from a drawer in the knee-hole table,
and drew up his chair to it. He had found there also a carefully written
out speech by Claude, designed for his constituents. He read a page or
two, and found it dealt with local taxation. Large sums like “five
million” were written in figures. Smaller sums, as in phrases
“fivepence in the pound,” were written out in full. This was convenient.
There was also a frequent occurrence of “myself” in the speech. Part of
that word concerned Jim. And Claude wrote with a stylograph: there were
several of them in the pen tray. Jim had used them regularly since he
came into the flat.

       *       *       *       *       *

Dora was to call for him next morning at twelve, with the design of
spending the afternoon at Lord’s to see the cricket, and, arriving there
a little before her appointed time, was told that he was out, but had
left word that he would be back by twelve. Accordingly, since the heat
was great in the street, she came up to the flat and waited for him
there.

She felt rather fagged this morning, for the last week had been
strenuous, while privately her emotional calendar had made many entries
against the days. That estrangement from Claude, that alienation without
a quarrel, and therefore the more difficult to terminate, had in some
secret way got very much worse; his presence even had begun to irritate
her; and he certainly saw that irritation (it did not require much
perspicacity), and spared her as much as he could, never, if possible,
being alone with her. Instead he threw himself into the hospitalities of
the house; looked after Mrs. Per, taking her to picture-galleries and
concerts, until Per had declared that he was getting to feel quite an
Othello, and performed with zeal all the duties of a resident son of the
house. And bitterly Dora saw how easy it was to him, how without any
effort he caught the _rôle_. Like some mysterious stain, appearing again
after years, the resemblance between him and his family daily
manifested itself more clearly.

The sight of the flat caused these thoughts to inflict themselves very
vividly on her mind, and, sitting here alone, waiting, it was almost
with shuddering that she expected Claude to enter. How often in these
familiar surroundings she had sat just here, expecting and longing for
him to come, to know that he and she would be alone together in their
nest. And now the walls seemed to observe her with alien eyes, even as
with alien eyes she looked at them. It was a blessing, anyhow, that they
had gone to Park Lane: the dual solitude here would have been
intolerable.

She had not got to wait long, for Jim’s step soon sounded in the
passage. She heard him whistling to himself as he went into his bedroom,
and next moment he came in.

“I’m not late,” he said, “so don’t scold me. It’s you who are early,
which is the most outrageous form of unpunctuality. Well, Dora, how goes
it?”

She got up and came across the room to him.

“It doesn’t go very nicely,” she said; “but you seem cheerful, which is
to the good. Jim, it is so nice to see somebody cheerful without being
jocose. We are all very jocose at Park Lane, and Claude flirts with Mrs.
Per.”

Dora gave a little laugh.

“I didn’t mean to speak of it,” she said, “and I won’t again. Let’s have
a day off, and not regret or wonder or wish. What lots of times you and
I have gone up to Lord’s together, though we usually went by
Underground. Now we go in a great, noble motor. Let’s have fun for one
day; I haven’t had fun for ages.”

Jim nodded at her.

“That just suits me,” he said. “I want a day off, and we’ll have it.
Pretend you’re about eighteen again and me twenty-one. After all, it’s
only putting the clock back a couple of years.”

“And I feel a hundred,” said Dora pathetically.

“Well, don’t. I felt a hundred yesterday, and it was a mistake.”

“Jim, I was so sorry about your bad luck at Newmarket. Somebody told me
you had done nothing but lose. What an ass you are, dear! Why do you go
on?”

Jim’s face darkened but for a moment.

“It’s nothing the least serious,” he said. “I did have rather a bad
time, but I’ve pulled through and have paid every penny. In fact, that
is what kept me this morning. I hate to give away all those great,
crisp, crackling notes! I hate it! And then on my way home I determined
not to think about it any more, nor about anything unpleasant that had
ever happened, and I get here to find you had come to the same excellent
determination. Let’s have a truce for one day.”

“Amen!” said Dora.

It is astonishing what can be done by acting in pairs. Dora would have
been perfectly incapable alone of watching cricket with attention, far
less, as proved to be possible, with rapture; and it might also be open
to reasonable doubt as to whether alone Jim could have found any
occupation that would have deeply interested him. But together they gave
the slip to their anxieties and preoccupations, and Jim did not even
want to bet on the result of the match. All afternoon they sat there,
and waited till at half-past six the stumps were drawn. Then Dora gave a
great sigh.

“Oh dear! it’s over,” she said, “and I suppose we’ve got to begin again.
What a nice day we’ve had. I--I quite forgot everything.”

       *       *       *       *       *

Jim came home rather late that night, and found letters waiting for him
in the little room where he had sat the night before. There was nothing
of importance, and nothing that needed an answer, and in a few minutes
he moved toward the door in order to go to bed. And then quite suddenly,
with the pent-up rush of thought which all day he had dammed up in a
corner of his brain, he realized what he had done, and his face went
suddenly white, and strange noises buzzed in his ears, and his very soul
was drowned in terror. But it was too late: his terror should have been
imagined by him twenty-four hours ago. Now it was authentic; there was
no imagination required, and he was alone with it.




CHAPTER X.


Claude, as became the future candidate for the constituency of West
Brentwood, was sedulous and regular in reading the House of Common
debates, and two mornings later was sitting after breakfast with his
_Times_ in front of him, to which he devoted an attention less direct
than was usual with him, for he expected every moment to be told that
the visitor whom he was waiting for would be announced, and he could
form no idea of what the visitor’s business might be. Half an hour ago
he had been summoned to the telephone and found that he was speaking to
one of the partners in Grayson’s bank, who asked if he could see him at
once. No clue as to what so pressing a business might be was given him,
and Mr. Humby, the partner who spoke to him, only said that he would
start immediately. He had first telephoned, it appeared, to Claude’s
flat, and his servant had given him the address.

In itself there was little here that was tangibly disquieting, for
Claude stood outside the region of money troubles, but other things
combined to make him, usually so serene, rather nervous and
apprehensive. For the last day or two he had been vaguely anxious about
his mother, who appeared to him not to be well, though in answer to his
question she confessed to nothing more than July fatigue, while his
relations with Dora, or rather his want of them, continued to perplex
or distress him. She was evenly polite to him, she went out with him
when occasion demanded, but that some barrier had been built between
them he could no longer doubt. He had not only his own feeling to go
upon, for his mother had remarked it, and asked if there was any
trouble. Lady Osborne was the least imaginative of women, he was afraid,
and her question had so emphasized it to his mind that he had
determined, should no amelioration take place, to put a direct question
to Dora about it. He would gladly have avoided that, for his instinct
told him that the trouble was of a sort that could scarcely be healed by
mere investigation, but the present position was rapidly growing
intolerable. All these things made it difficult for him to concentrate
his attention on the fiscal question, and it was almost with a sense of
relief to him that the interruption he had been waiting for came.

He shook hands with Mr. Humby, who at once stated his business.

“I may be troubling you on a false alarm, Mr. Osborne,” he said, “but
both my partners and I thought that one of us had better see you at once
in order to set our minds at rest.”

“You have only just caught me,” said Claude. “I am going into the
country before lunch.”

“Then I have saved myself a journey,” said Mr. Humby gravely.

He produced an envelope and took a cheque out of it.

“The cheque came through to-day,” he said; “it was cashed two days ago
at Shepherd’s Bank, quite regularly. But it is drawn by you to ‘self’
over a week ago. That was a little curious, since cheques drawn to self
are usually cashed at once. Also, though that is no business of ours, it
is a rather large sum, five hundred pounds, to take in cash. You have
banked with us for some years, Mr. Osborne, and we find you have never
drawn a large sum to yourself before. But the combination of these
things seemed to warrant us in making sure the cheque was--ah, genuine.
The handwriting appears to be yours.”

Claude looked at the date.

“June 24,” he said. “I did draw a large cheque about that time for a
motor-car.”

“That has been presented; it was drawn to Daimler’s,” said Mr. Humby.

Claude turned the cheque over: it was endorsed with his name, but search
how he might he could not recollect anything about it. And slowly his
inability to remember deepened into the belief that he had drawn no such
cheque.

“If you would refer to your cheque-book,” said Mr. Humby, “we could
clear the matter up. I am sorry for giving you so much trouble.”

“The question is, Where is my cheque-book?” said Claude. “I came over
here a week ago, but before that I was at my flat. But I will look.”

He went upstairs, into the sitting room, which was his and Dora’s. She
was sitting there now, writing notes, and looked up as he came in.

“Claude, can I speak to you for a minute?” she said.

“Yes, dear, but not this moment. I have to find my cheque-book. Where
do you suppose it is? One must attend to business, you know.”

“Oh, quite so,” said she, and resumed her letter again.

Claude’s heart sank. Perhaps she wanted to speak to him about things
that were of infinitely greater moment, and he had made a mess of it,
repulsed her, by his foolish speech.

“Dora, what is it?” he asked. “Is it----”

She must have known what was in his mind, for she made an impatient
gesture of dissent.

“No, if you can give me a minute later on, it will be all right,” she
said.

His search was soon rewarded, but proved to be fruitless, for the
cheque-book was a new one, and he had only used it for the first time
three days ago. But perhaps she would remember something.

“Dora, did I give you a rather big cheque for household bills or
anything, while we were in the flat?” he asked.

“Yes, I remember that you did,” she said. “And I remember endorsing it
as you drew it to me. Why?”

“Only that there is a cheque that I appear to have drawn for five
hundred pounds, just before I left the flat, and for some reason my
bankers want to be sure that I did draw it.”

“You mean they think that it may be forged?”

“Yes.”

“But who can have got hold of your cheque-book?” asked Dora. “You have
found it, haven’t you?”

“Yes, but this is no use. The cheque in question was drawn before I
began this book. I suppose I left it at the flat.”

Dora had continued writing her note as she talked, for it was only a
matter of a few formal phrases of regret, but at this moment, her hand
suddenly played her false, and her pen sputtered on the paper. And
though she did not know at that second why this happened, a moment
afterward she knew.

Below his cheque-book in the drawer lay Claude’s passbook. It had been
very recently made up, for his allowance from Uncle Alfred, paid on June
28, appeared to his credit, and on the debit side a cheque to Dora of
£150, cashed on the previous date. That, no doubt, was the cheque for
“books” of which she had spoken.

She had gone on writing again, and Claude apparently had noticed nothing
of that pen-splutter.

“Yes, here are cheques I have drawn up till the 29th,” he said, “and
none of £500. It looks rather queer. I’ll be back again in five minutes.
I must just see Mr. Humby, and tell him I can’t trace it.”

Claude went rather slowly downstairs again. The matter was verging on
certainty. He had drawn a cheque for five hundred pounds, on June 24,
and it had not been presented till two days ago. The cheque for the car
was entered, and the cheque for books to Dora. He hated to think that
Parker had forged his name, but if he had, good servant though he was,
there was no clemency possible.

“May I look at the cheque again?” he asked.

He examined it more closely.

“I can find no trace of drawing any such cheque,” he said, “and I
believe it is a forgery. It is very like my handwriting, but I don’t
believe I wrote it.”

“That is what we thought,” said Mr. Humby.

“Then what are you going to do?” asked he.

“Find out who presented the cheque, and prosecute. I am very sorry: it
is an unpleasant business, but the bank can take no other course.”

He folded up the cheque again, put it in his pocket and left the room.
But Claude did not at once go back to Dora. There had started unbidden
into his mind the memory of a morning at Grote before they were married,
of a game of croquet, of a sovereign. Next minute he too had left the
room, and the minute after he was in the road, walking quickly to Mount
Street. His old cheque-book no doubt was there, and he would be able to
find it. And all the way there, he tried desperately to keep at bay a
suspicion that threatened to grip him by the throat. And upstairs Dora
waited for him: the same doubt threatened to strangle her.

Jim was out, but was expected back every moment, and Claude went into
his small room, and began searching the drawers of his writing table.
There was a sheaf of letters from Dora in one, a copy of his speech on
municipal taxation in another, and in the third a heap of old cards of
invitation and the butt end of his cheque-book.

Sun blinds were down outside the windows, the room was nearly dark, and
he carried this out into the large sitting room and sat down to examine
it. There was a whole batch of cheques, most of which he could remember
about, drawn on June 22. Then came a blank counterfoil and then the last
counterfoil of the book, bearing a docket of identification as cheque to
Dora for £150. That was drawn on the 27th.

He heard a step outside; the door opened and Jim entered. He was
whistling as he came round the corner of the screen by the door. Then he
saw Claude, his whistling ceased, and his face grew white. Once he tried
to speak, but could not.

Claude saw that, the blank face, the whitened lips; it was as if Jim had
been brought face to face with some deadly spectre, instead of the
commonplace vision of his brother-in-law sitting in his own room,
looking through the useless but surely innocuous trunk of an old
cheque-book. And instantaneously, automatically, Claude’s mind leaped to
the conclusion which he had tried to keep away from it. But it could be
kept away no longer: the inference closed upon him like the snap of a
steel spring.

In the same instant there came upon him his own personal dislike of Jim,
and his distrust of him. How deep that was he never knew till this
moment. Then came the reflection that he was doing Jim a monstrous
injustice in harbouring so horrible a suspicion, and that the best way
of clearing his mind of it was to let the bank trace the cheque and
prosecute. But he knew that it was his dislike of his brother-in-law
that gave birth to this, not a sense of fairness. And on top of it all
came the thought of Dora and his love for her, and mingled with that a
certain pity that was its legitimate kinsman.

The pause, psychically so momentous, was but short in duration, and
Claude jumped up. His mind was already quite decided: it seemed to have
decided itself without conscious interference on his part.

“Good morning, Jim,” he said. “I must apologize for making an invasion
in your absence, but I had to refer back to an old cheque-book.”

Jim commanded his voice.

“Nothing wrong, I hope,” he said.

Again Claude had to make a swift decision. He could tell Jim that a
cheque of his had been forged, and that the matter was already in the
hands of the bank: that probably would force a confession, if there was
cause for one. But it would still be his dislike (though he might easily
call it justice) that was the mover here. There was a wiser way than
that, a way that, for all the surface falsehood of it, held a nobler
truth within.

“No, nothing whatever is wrong,” he said. “Excuse me: I must telephone
to the bank, to say the cheque is all right. Ah, I’ll telephone from
here if you will allow me.”

The telephone was just outside and Jim heard plainly all that passed.
The number was rung up, and then Claude spoke.

“Yes, I’m Mr. Claude Osborne. I am speaking to Mr. Grayson, am I? It is
the matter that Mr. Humby came to speak to me about this morning. Yes,
yes: the cheque for £500. I find I have made a complete error. The
cheque was drawn by me and is perfectly correct. Yes. It was very stupid
of me. Please let Mr. Humby know as soon as he gets back. Yes. Thank
you. Good morning.”

Claude paused a moment with the receiver in his hand. Then he called to
Jim.

“Can’t stop a moment,” he said. “I’ve the devil of a lot to do.
Good-bye.”

He walked back again at once to Park Lane, still thinking intently,
still wondering if he could have done better in any way. Honest all
through, he hated with a physical repulsion the thought of what he felt
sure Jim had done, but oddly enough, instead of feeling a crescendo of
dislike to Jim himself, he was conscious only of a puzzled sort of pity.
By instinct he separated the deed from the doer, instead of bracketting
them both in one clause of disgusted condemnation. And then he ceased to
wonder at that: it seemed natural, after all.

He went straight up to Dora’s room, and found her still at her table
with letters round her. But when he entered she was not writing: she was
staring out of the window with a sort of terror on her face. Claude
guessed what it was that perhaps had put it there, and what lurked
behind that look of agonized appeal that she turned on him.

“I’m sorry for being so long, dear,” he said, “but I’ve been making a
fool of myself. That cheque I spoke to you about is quite all right. I
found the counterfoil in my old book at the flat. I drew it right
enough. Mr. Humby expects a fellow to carry in his head the memory of
every half-crown he spends.”

Dora gave one great sobbing sigh of relief, which she could not check.

“I’m glad,” she said. “I hated to think that Parker perhaps had gone
wrong. One--one hates suspicion, and its atmosphere.”

Claude heard, could not help hearing the relief in the voice, could not
help seeing that the smile she gave him struggled like mist-ridden
sunlight to shine through his dispelled clouds of nameless apprehension.
Nor could his secret mind avoid guessing what that apprehension was, for
it was no stranger to him; he had been sharer in it till he had seen
Jim, when it deepened into a certainty which was the opposite to that
which at this moment brought such relief to his wife. The other
certainty, his own, must of course be kept sealed and locked from her,
and Claude hastened to convey it away from her presence, so to speak, by
talking of something else, for fear that it might, in despite of him,
betray some hint of its existence.

“But there was something you wanted to speak to me about,” he said.

“Yes. It is about your mother. Do you think she is well?”

“No, I haven’t thought so for the last three or four days,” said he.
“What have you noticed?”

“I went into her room just now,” said Dora, “and she was sitting and
doing nothing. And she was crying.”

Claude paused in astonishment.

“Crying,” he said. “The mater crying?”

“Yes. She clearly did not wish me to see it, and so I pretended not to.
I had thought she wasn’t well before now. We must do something, Claude;
make her see a doctor.”

“But why hasn’t she been to see a doctor all these days?” he asked.
“The governor goes to a doctor if his nails want cutting.”

“I don’t know why she hasn’t been. There might be several reasons. But I
thought I would speak to you first and then if you approved I would go
to her and try to find out what is the matter.”

“I wish you would,” he said.

Dora got up, but her mind went back to that which she had been brooding
over in his absence, that which frightened her.

“Did you see Jim?” she asked.

“Yes: he came in when I was there.”

“How was he?” she asked negligently.

“Oh, much as usual. I couldn’t stop because I wanted to get back to you.
Will you come and tell me about the mater, after you have seen her?”

       *       *       *       *       *

Dora went back to Lady Osborne’s room, and knocked before she entered.
The apparition of her sitting and crying all alone had frightened her
more than she had let Claude see, for as a rule her mother-in-law’s
cheerfulness was of a quality that seemed to be proof against all the
minor accidents of life, and Dora remembered how, one day in Italy, when
they had missed a train at Padua, and had to wait three hours, Lady
Osborne’s only comment had been, “Well, now, that will give us time to
look about us.” She was afraid therefore that the cause of her tears was
not trivial.

And now, when she went in again, receiving a rather indistinct answer to
her knock, she found Lady Osborne hastily snatching up the day’s paper,
so as to pretend to be occupied. But her face wore an expression
extraordinarily contorted, as if her habitual geniality found it a hard
task to struggle to the surface.

“And I’m sure the paper gets more and more interesting every day,” said
she, “though it’s seldom I find time to have a glance at all the curious
things that are going on in the world. What a dreadful place Morocco
must be; I couldn’t sleep quiet in my bed if I was there! What is it, my
dear?”

On her face and in her voice the trace of tears bravely suppressed still
lingered, and a great wave of pity suddenly swept over Dora. Something
was wrong, something which at present Lady Osborne was bearing in
secret, for it was quite clear that her husband, whose cheerfulness at
breakfast had bordered on the boisterous, knew nothing, nor did Claude
know. Her mother-in-law, as Dora was well aware, was not a woman of
complicated or subtle emotion, who could grieve over an imagined sorrow,
or could admit to a personal relation with herself the woe of the world,
for with more practical wisdom she gave subscriptions to those whose
task it was to alleviate any particular branch of it. Her family, her
hospitalities, her comfortable though busy life had been sufficient up
till now to minister to her happiness, and if something disturbed that,
Dora rightly thought that it must be something tangible and personal. So
she went to the sofa, and sat down by her, and did not seek to be
subtle.

“What is it?” she said. “Is there anything the matter?”

The simplicity was not calculated; it was perfectly natural, and had its
effect. Lady Osborne held the paper in front of her a moment longer,
but it was shaken with the trembling of her hands. Then she dropped it.

“My dear, I am a selfish old woman,” she said, “but I can’t bear it any
longer. I’ve not been well this long time, but I’ve tried to tell myself
it was my imagination, and not bother anybody. And I could have held on,
my dear, a little longer, if you hadn’t come to me like this. I warrant
you, there would have been plenty of laughing and chaff at Grote this
week-end, as always. But the pain this morning was so bad that I just
thought I would have a bit of a cry all to myself.”

“But why have you told nobody?” said Dora. “Not Claude, nor Dad nor me?”

Lady Osborne mopped her eyes.

“Bless your heart, haven’t we all got things to bear, and best not to
trouble others?” she said. “I know well enough how you’d all spend your
time in looking after me, and having the doctor and what not, and I
thought I could get through to the end of the season and then go and
rest, and see what was the matter. And, my dearie, I’m a dreadful coward
you know, and I couldn’t abear the thought of being pulled about by the
doctor, and maybe worse than that. Anyhow, I’ve not given in at once.
Some days my colour has been awful and no appetite, but I’ve kept my
spirits up before you all. And I can’t bear to think now that I must
give in, and have to take doctor’s stuff, and lie up, spoiling all your
pleasure. But I don’t think as I can go on much longer like this.
Perhaps it’s best that you know. Poor Eddie! Him and his jokes this
morning at breakfast, chaffing me about Sir Thomas! Lor’, my dear, what
spirits he has! I declare he quite took my thoughts off. And about
Claude and Lizzie too, as if Claude ever gave a thought to anyone but
yourself.”

Lady Osborne patted Dora’s hand a moment in silence. She was not sure
that Dora had “relished” her husband’s fun at breakfast; now was the
time to set it right.

“But then, Eddie knew that, else he’d never have made a joke of it,” she
said. “And you, my dearie, have been so sweet to me these weeks, not
that you haven’t been that always, as if you was my own daughter.
Indeed, not that I complain of Lizzie, for I don’t, often and often
she’s behaved high to Mr. O. and me, when you, who have excuse enough,
have never done such a thing. Often I’ve said to him, ‘It’s as if Dora
was an Osborne herself.’ Thank you, my dearie, for that, and for all
you’ve done and been. I daresay it’s been difficult for you at times,
but there! I daresay you think I’ve not noticed, but I have, my dear,
and you’ve behaved beautiful always. I wanted just to say that, and
you’re behaving sweet and kind to me still.”

Somehow, deep down, this cut Dora like a knife. There was a wounding
pathos about it, that made those efforts she had put forth to behave
decently, appear infinitely trivial, humiliatingly cheap. And the gentle
patting on her hand continued.

“And now, dearie, I’m going to ask you to do another thing yet,” said
Lady Osborne, “and that is to take my place down at Grote this Sunday,
and let me stay up here and see my doctor this afternoon. If you hadn’t
such quick and loving eyes, I should have gone through with it and held
on, my dear, even if there was more mornings like this in store. But
with you knowing, my dear, I’ll not wait longer, and maybe make matters
worse, though perhaps it’s me as has been making a fuss about nothing,
and a bottle of medicine will make me as fit as a flea again, as Mr. O.
used to say. Now we must put our heads together and contrive, so that he
may think it’s just a touch of the liver and nothing to be alarmed for,
else he’ll never go and leave me. He’s gone off already to some
committee, and the car is to call for him at twelve and drive him
straight down, so that he’ll find himself at Grote before he knows
anything is wrong. And then, my dear, you must do your best to make him
think it’s nothing, as, please God, it isn’t. What a trouble our insides
are, though, to be sure, mine’s given me little enough to complain of
all these years. I’ve always eaten my dinner and got a good night’s rest
until this began.”

       *       *       *       *       *

They talked long, “contriving,” as Lady Osborne had said, the sole point
of the contrivance being that her husband should enjoy his day or two at
Grote, and have everything to his liking, and not fret about her. Once
and again and again once, Dora tried to lead the conversation back to
Lady Osborne herself, to get from her some inkling of what her
indisposition might be, what its symptoms were, with a view of
encouraging her to face the doctor with equanimity, for this was clearly
an ordeal she dreaded. And on Dora’s third attempt she put an end to
further questions.

“I think, dearie, we’ll not talk about that,” she said, “because, as I
told you, I’m such a coward as never was, and the more I think about it,
the more coward I shall be when I get to the doctor’s door. It was just
the same with me about my teeth before I lost them all: if one had to
come out, I had such a shrinking from a bit of pain, that if I thought
about it, I knew I shouldn’t go to the dentist at all. So I used to busy
myself with other things, and plan a treat, maybe, for the working folk,
or an extra good dinner for Mr. O., or a surprise for Per or Claude; and
it’s a similar to that what I’ll do now, if you don’t mind. And I assure
you I’m so bothered over the thought of you and Dad being at Grote
without me that I’ve little desire to think about anything else.
Thirty-five years it is last May, my dear, since we took each other for
better or worse, and it’s always been better, and not a night since
then, I assure you, have we not slept under the same roof, and in the
same room save when I had a cold and feared to give it him. And he’s got
to depend on me, Gold bless him, and knows that I shall see he has a
biscuit or two on a plate by his bedside and a glass of milk, against he
wakes the night. Servants are never to be trusted, my dear, though I’m
sure it’s a shame to say it, when ours are so attentive. But he’s got a
new valet just of late, and if you could peep in at my lord’s bedroom
door when you went up to bed, and see as all was prepared, and that his
slippers was put where he can see them in his dressing room, else he’ll
walk to bed in his bare feet and step on a pin or a tack someday, which
I always dread for him. And if he comes in hot, as he’s taken to do in
this weather from his walk, just you behave as if you was me, and say
to him, ‘Mr. O., you go and change your vest and your socks, else I
don’t pour out your cup of tea,’ and knowing as you’ll do that will take
a load off my mind, and I shall go to the doctor this afternoon, knowing
as you are looking after him as if I was there, as comfortable as if I
was going to have a cheque cashed for me. And, my dear, if you’d sit
next him in church, and just nudge him if he attempts to follow the
lesson without putting his glasses on. It’s small print in his Bible,
and never another one will he let me give him, just because it was that
one he used to read out of to me when we were in Cornwall on our wedding
trip, and sometimes no church within distance. But be sure he changes
his underwear, my dear, when he comes in, for he catches cold easy, and
his skin acts so well that it’s as if he’d had a bath. And give him
plenty of milk in his coffee at breakfast, not that he likes it, but he
will have the coffee made so strong that it’s enough to rasp the coats
of the stomach, as they say, unless you drown it in milk. And you’ll
cheer him up, I know, my dear, if he gets anxious, and just say to him
‘Stuff and nonsense, Dad, Mrs. O.’s had a bit of an upset, same as you
have times without number, and she’s always nervous about herself, and
has gone to see the doctor, and as like as not will come down to-morrow
afternoon with a couple of pills in her pocket, and ready to be laughed
at to your heart’s content.’ That’s what I want you to say, my dear,
though you’ll put it in your own words, and much better I’m sure. But
to-day it’s as if I feel I couldn’t go and look after my friends, now
that I know you’ll take my place, for when there’s a multitude in the
house, sometimes the mistress can’t get to bed till it maybe is one
o’clock or worse, and I want a good long night. I shall try to see Sir
Henry as soon as may be, and after that I don’t doubt I shall just get
to bed and sleep the clock round. I’m so tired, my dear, and there’s
something---- Well, I make no doubt that before many hours are out, we
shall all be laughing together over my silliness, and Mr. O. will be
asking if I have taken enough phosphorus jelly, or what not. Lor’, he’ll
never let me hear the last of it!”

       *       *       *       *       *

That was a triumphant conclusion. The whole speech punctuated by
silences, punctuated by a little dropping of tears and by a little
laughter, was hardly less triumphant. Once, ages ago, so it seemed to
Dora, Claude had held up his father and mother as examples of the ideal
antidote against the gray-business of middle age, and it had failed to
satisfy her then. She would have thought it comical, had not there been
some very keen sense of disappointment about it, that a lover should
speak to his beloved in such language. But now, with rekindled meaning,
she remembered the incident and its setting. She had asked him for
consolation with regard to the gray-business that awaited everybody,
hoping to hear words of glowing romance, and had found it half comical,
half tragic, that he refuted her doubts by the visible example of his
father and mother. He had said that she “was his best girl still.” But
now Dora did not feel either the comedy or the tragedy of his reply; she
felt only the truth of it. And she did not wonder that her
mother-in-law was Dad’s best girl still.

But for herself, though there was heartache in much that had been said,
there was the beginning of understanding also, or, at any rate, the
awakening of the sense that there was something to understand. Lady
Osborne had called herself a coward, and reiterated that charge, with
regard to seeing a doctor only. But love--a golden barrier of solid
defence, no filagree work--had come between her and her fear; yet it was
scarcely true to say that it had come there: it was always there. Once
Dora had thought that, compared to romance, any relation that could
exist between Claude’s parents, must necessarily be of an ash-cold
quality. But was it? She herself had known the romantic, but in
comparison with all that she had been conscious of with regard to Claude
for the last few weeks she could not call Lady Osborne ash-cold. In her
there was some glow, some authentic fire that had never known quenching.
It might have altered in superficials, for flames there might have been
substituted the glowing heart of the fire. But it was the same fire.
There had not been ashes at any time: the fire always burned,
unconsumed, with no waste of cinder; it was immortal, radium-like.

Then for the first time the beauty of it struck her. Before this moment
she had seen something that appeared comical; then, with better vision,
she had seen something that struck her as pathetic. Now with true vision
she saw all she had missed before--Beauty. It was that she had
worshipped all her life, thinking that she would always recognize and
adore. But she had missed it altogether in that which was so constantly
under her eyes. She had been too quick in seeing all that was obvious:
wealth, indiscriminate hospitality, vulgarity (since she had chosen to
call it so); but the big thing, that which was the essential, she had
missed altogether. Once before, when Mr. and Mrs. Osborne shared a
hymn-book in church, she had seen, and thought she understood. Now she
was beginning to understand. She began to want to take other hearts into
her own. The desire was there. The beauty she had at last seen attracted
her, drew her to it. Strangely had it been unveiled, by tale of slippers
and biscuits and underwear. She never had expected to find it in such
garb. But Claude had known it was there; he had not been diverted by
superficial things, but had seen always that “the mater was the
governor’s best girl still.”

       *       *       *       *       *

Dora left her mother-in-law that morning with a sense of humility, a
sense also of disgust at herself for her own stupidity. All these months
a thing as beautiful as this great love and tenderness had been in front
of her eyes, and she had not troubled to look at it with enough
attention to recognize that there was beauty there. But now the tears
that dimmed her own eyes quickened her vision. At last she saw the
picture in its true value, and it made her ashamed. Was she equally
blind, too, with regard to Claude? Was there something in him, some
great thing which mattered so much that all which for months had got on
her nerves more and more every day was, if seen truly, as trivial as
she now saw were those things that had blinded her in the case of Lady
Osborne? It might be so; all she knew was that if it was there, she had
not troubled to look for it. At first she had so loved his beauty that
nothing else mattered; nor did it seem to her possible that love could
ever be diminished or suffer eclipse. But that had happened, even before
she had borne a child to him; and to take its place (and more than take
its place) there had sprung up no herbs of more fragrant beauty than the
scarlet of that first flower. She had nothing in her garden for him but
herbs of bitterness and resentment. That, at least, was all she knew of
till now.

She paused a moment outside the door of the sitting room where she had
left him, before entering, for she knew his devotion to his mother, and
was sorry for him. And somehow she felt herself unable to believe that
Lady Osborne’s optimistic forecast would be justified; she did not think
that in a few hours they would be all laughing over her imaginary
ailment. And Claude must see that she was anxious; it would be better to
confess to that, and prepare him for the possibility of there being
something serious in store.

He looked up quickly as she came in, throwing away the cigarette he had
only just begun.

“Well?” he said.

Dora heard the tremble and trouble in that one word, and she was sorry
for him. That particular emotion she had never felt for him before; she
had never seen him except compassed about with serene prosperity.

“Claude, I’m afraid she is ill,” she said. “She feels it herself too.
She has been in great pain.”

“But how long has it been going on?” he asked. “Why hasn’t she seen a
doctor?”

“Because she didn’t want to spoil things for us. She thought she could
hold on. But she is going now, to-day.”

“What does she think it is?” asked he.

“She wouldn’t talk of it at all,” said Dora. “I think she could hardly
think of it, because she was thinking of Dad so much. She won’t come
down to Grote, you see, but stop up here, unless she is told it is
nothing. And so we must do our best that he shan’t be anxious or unhappy
until we know whether there is real cause or not. She wants me
particularly to go down there, or of course I would stop with her.”

“The mater must feel pretty bad if she’s not coming to Grote,” said he.

“Yes, I am afraid she does. Oh, Claude, I am so sorry for her, and you
all. Her bravery has made us all blind. I ought to have seen long ago. I
reproach myself bitterly.”

“No, no, there’s no cause for that,” said he gently. “She’s taken us all
in, and it’s just like her. Besides, who knows? it may be nothing in the
least serious.”

“I know that,” said she, “and we won’t be anxious before we have cause.
Go and see her, dear, before we start, and make very light of it; just
say you are glad she is being sensible at last, in going to be put
right. There is no cause for anxiety yet. I shall go round to Sir
Henry’s and arrange an appointment for her this afternoon, if possible,
and get him to write to us very fully this evening, so that we shall
know to-morrow. And then, if we are to get down by lunch, it will be
time for us to start. I ordered the motor for twelve.”

       *       *       *       *       *

Lord Osborne was a good deal perturbed at the ne with which Dora met him
at Grote, and it was an affair that demanded careful handling to induce
him not to go back at once to town and see her.

“Bless me! Maria not well enough to come down, and you expect me to take
my Sunday off, and eat my dinner as if my old lady was a-seated opposite
me?” he asked. “Not I, my dear; Maria’s and my place is together,
wherever that place may be.”

“But you can’t go against her wish, Dad,” said Dora. “And what’s to
become of me if you do? I’ve been sent down on purpose to play at being
her. You’ve got to have a glass of milk by your bed, and a couple of
biscuits. Oh, I know all about it!”

“To think of your knowing that!” he said, rather struck by this detail.

“Yes, but only this morning did I know it,” said Dora. “I sat with her a
long time, and all she could think about was that you should be
comfortable down here.”

“Well, it goes against the grain not to be with her,” said he. “But, as
you say, there’s no cause to be alarmed yet. And Sir Henry’s going to
see her this afternoon?”

“Yes, and telegraph to me afterward. Dad, if you upset all our beautiful
arrangements, neither she nor I will ever speak to you again. Oh! do be
good.”

“But it won’t be like home not to have Lady O. here,” said he.

“She knows that; but Claude and I have to make as good an imitation as
we can. And you’ll put me in a dreadful hole if you go back to town. She
will say I have made no hand of looking after you at all. I shall be in
disgrace, as well as you.”

“Well, God bless you, my dear!” said he, “and thank you for being so
good to us. Here I’ll stop, if it’s the missus’s wish. No, I don’t fancy
any pudding to-day, thank you.”

Dora laid down her spoon and fork.

“Dad, not one morsel do I eat unless you have some!” she said. “And I’m
dreadfully hungry.”

Lord Osborne laughed within himself.

“Eh! you’ve got a managing wife, Claude,” he said. “She twists us all
round her little finger.”

       *       *       *       *       *

The expected telegram arrived in the course of the evening, and though
it contained nothing definite, Lord Osborne was able to interpret it in
the most optimistic manner.

“Well, Sir Henry tells you that Mrs. O.’s in no pain, and that he’s
going to see her again to-morrow,” he said. “Why, I call that good news,
and it relieves my mind, my dear. Bless her! she’ll get a good night’s
rest, I hope now, and feel a different creature in the morning. There’s
nothing else occurs to you, my dear? Surely he would have said if he had
found anything really wrong?”

Dora read the telegram again.

“No; I think you are quite right to put that interpretation on it,” she
said truthfully enough. “We’ll hope to get good news again to-morrow. I
am glad she is out of pain.”

But secretly she feared something she did not say--namely, that there
was something wrong, but that Sir Henry had not been able without
further examination to say what it was. Yet, after all, that
interpretation might be only imagination on her part. But there was
nothing in the telegram which appeared to her to be meant to allay the
anxiety which he must know existed.

Dora went to bed that evening with a great many things to think about,
which had to be faced, not shirked or put aside. The day, which by the
measure of events had been almost without incident, seemed terribly full
of meaning to her. Lady Osborne had seen a doctor; she had talked over
domestic affairs with Dora ... that was not quite all: Claude had
thought that a cheque had been forged, but found on examination that he
had made a mistake. Set out like that, there seemed little here that
could occupy her thoughts at all, still less that could keep away from
her the sleep that in general was so punctual a visitor to her. But
to-night it did not come near her, and she did not even try to woo its
approach. She had no thought of sleep, though she was glad to have the
darkness and the silence round her so that she might think without
distraction. All these things, trivial as events, seemed to her to be
significant, to hold possibilities, potentialities, altogether
disproportionate to their face value. It might prove not to be so when
she examined them; it might be that for some reason a kind of nightmare
inflation was going on in her mind, so that, as in physical nightmare
things swell to gigantic shape, in her imagination these simple little
things were puffed to grotesque and terrifying magnitude. She had to
think them over calmly and carefully; it might easily be that they would
sink to normal size again.

She took first that affair of the cheque, which had turned out,
apparently, to be no affair at all. Claude had made a mistake, so he had
himself said, and the cheque which he and the bank had suspected was
perfectly genuine. But Dora, between the time of his thinking there was
something wrong and of his ascertaining that there was not, had passed a
very terrible quarter of an hour--one that it made her feel sick to
think of even now. There was no use in blinking it; she had feared that
Jim had forged her husband’s cheque. She had hardly given a thought to
what the consequences might be; what turned her white and cold was the
thought that he had done it. Her pen had spluttered when the thought
first occurred to her, but she believed Claude had not noticed that. But
had he noticed the sob of relief in her voice when he told her that the
cheque was all right? He was not slow to observe, his perceptions,
especially where she was concerned, were remarkably vivid, and it seemed
to her that he must have noticed it. Yet he had said nothing.

Anyhow the cheque was correct, and she was left with the fact that it
had seemed to her possible that Jim had been guilty of this gross
meanness. And, just as if the thing had been true, she found herself
trying to excuse him, saw herself pleading with Claude for him. Poor
Jim was not ... was not quite like other people: he did not seem to know
right from wrong. He had always cheated at games; she remembered telling
Claude so one day down here at Grote, when he and Jim had been playing
croquet and Jim had cheated. But they had not been playing for money. So
Claude had told her. And he had told her the cheque was all right. That
was all: there was nothing more to be thought of with regard to this.

Yet she still lingered on the threshold of the thought of it. Jim had
got “cleaned out” (his own phrase) in the Derby week, had pledged the
quarter’s rent of Grote in advance to pay his Derby debts. And somebody
had told her that Jim had lost heavily at Newmarket afterward, and he
had told her that he had paid and was upright before the world in the
matter of debts of honour.

She had passed the threshold of that thought and was inside again. Where
had he got the money from? Well, anyhow, not by forgery. Claude had said
that the mistake was his. But how odd that he should not have been able
to recollect about a cheque for five hundred pounds, drawn only ten days
before!

       *       *       *       *       *

Dora still lingered in the precincts of that thought, though she
beckoned, so to speak, another thought to distract her. What a wonderful
thing, how triumphant and beautiful was the love of which she had seen a
glimpse to-day! It was all the more wonderful because it seemed to be
common, to be concerned with biscuits and coffee. A hundred times she
had seen Lady Osborne wrapped up in such infinitesimal cares as these,
and had thought only that her mind and her soul were altogether
concerned with serving, that the provision for the comfortable house and
the good dinner was aspiration sufficient for her spiritual capacity.
Yet there had always been a little more than that: there had been the
moment in church when the sermon was to her taste, and the hymn a
favourite, and she and her husband had tunelessly sung out of one book.
That had touched Dora a little, but she had then dismissed it as a banal
affair of goody-goody combined with a melodious tune, when she saw the
great lunch that they both ate immediately afterward.

But now these details, these Martha-cares had taken a different value.
This morning Lady Osborne had been in great pain, had broken down in her
endeavour to carry on somehow, and was face to face with a medical
interview which she dreaded. But still she could think with meticulous
care of her husband’s milk, of his slippers, of his tendency toward
strong coffee. What if below the Martha was Mary, if it was Mary’s love
that made Martha so sedulous in serving?

All that she had overlooked, not caring to see below a surface which she
said was commonplace and prosperous. The surface was transparent enough,
too: it was not opaque. She could have seen down into the depths at any
time if she had taken the trouble to look.

Before her marriage and for a few months after it, she had thought she
knew what “depths” meant. She thought she knew what it was to be
absorbed in another. Then had come her disillusionment. She had
worshipped surface only: she knew no more of Claude than that. She had
loved his beauty, she had got accustomed to it. She had at first
disregarded what she had grown to call his vulgarity, and had not got
accustomed to it. She had known he was honest and true and safe, but she
had grown to take all that for granted. She had never studied him,
looked for what was himself, she had had few glimpses of him, no more
than she had had of his mother. But to-day she felt that with regard to
her these glimpses were fused together: they made a view, a prospect of
a very beautiful country. But as yet there had no fusing like that come
with regard to her husband. Now that she “saw,” even the country, the
country of the gray-business was beautiful. And at present in her own
warm country, her young country, beauty was lacking.

Perhaps--here the third subject came in--perhaps even in the trouble
that she felt threatened them, there were elements that might be
alchemized. She was willing, at least, to attempt to find gold, to
transform what she had thought was common into the fine metal. Some
alchemy of the sort had already taken place before her eyes; she no
longer thought common those little pathetic anxieties which she had
heard this morning. For days and months the same anxieties, the same
care had been manifest. There was no day, no hour in which Lady Osborne
had not been concerned with the material comfort of those whom she
loved. She was always wondering if her husband had got his lunch at the
House, and what they gave him; whether the motor had got there in time,
and if he remembered to put his coat on. Nor had her care embraced him
alone. One day she had come up to Dora’s sitting room and found that
there was a draught round the door, and so had changed her seat. But
next day there was a screen placed correctly. Or Claude had sneezed at
dinner, and a mysterious phial had appeared on his dressing table with
the legend that directed its administration. He had come in to Dora to
ask if she had any explanation of the bottle. But she had none and they
concluded Mrs. Osborne had put it there, fussily no doubt, for a sneeze
was only a sneeze, but with what loving intent. She remembered
everything of that sort. Per liked kidneys: his wife liked cocoa. It was
all attended to. Martha was in evidence. But Mary was there.

Dora’s thoughts had strayed again. She had meant to think about the
trouble that she felt was threatening, and to see if by some alchemy it
might be transformed into a healing of hurt. She did not believe that
she was fanciful in expecting bad news: she wished to contemplate the
effect of it, if it came. Supposing Lady Osborne was found to be
suffering from something serious, how was she herself to behave? She had
to make things easier for her father-in-law: she had to be of some use.
That was not so difficult: a little affection meant so much to him. He
glowed with pleasure when she was kind. But for Claude? That was more
difficult. She had to be all to him. It was much harder there to meet
the needs she ought to meet, and should instinctively meet without
thought. Once, if she had said, “Oh, Claude,” all would have been said
because the simple words were a symbol. But now she could not say, “Oh,
Claude” like that. She could be Martha, that was easy. But it was not
Martha who was wanted.

The door from his dressing room opened, and he came in, shielding with
his hand the light of his candle, so that it should not fall on her
face. The outline of his fingers even to her half-shut eyes was drawn in
luminous red, where the light shone through the flesh. He had often come
in like that, fearing to awaken her. Often she had been awake, as she
was now.

To-night she feigned sleep. And she heard the soft breath that quenched
the candle; she heard a whisper of voice close to her, words of one who
thought that none heard.

“Good night, my darling,” he said.




CHAPTER XI.


Jim had been engaged to spend this week-end with a party, of which it is
sufficient to say that though it would probably be amusing, it would not
appear in the columns of the _Morning Post_. But on the Saturday
afternoon he sent an excuse and remained in town instead. Much as he
hated solitude, he had got something to do which made solitude a
necessary evil. He had got to sit down and think, and continue thinking
till he had made up his mind. He had to adopt a certain course of
action, or by not acting at all commit himself to another course.

Claude had not come back into the room after sending that message by the
telephone, and calling to him the farewell he had been unable to answer.
A few seconds before only, when he himself had come into the room and
found Claude examining the counterfoils of his cheque-book, he had
thought that all was over, and had Claude said nothing to him, just
looked at him, and pointed with a finger to the blank counterfoil close
to the end of the book, Jim would have confessed. But Claude had spoken
at once those incredible words, and the moment after had confirmed the
reality of them by the message to his bank. The immensity of that relief
had taken away Jim’s power of speech; had he tried to use his voice he
must have screamed. Then he heard the door of the flat shut, and the
next moment he was rolling on the sofa, his face buried in its
cushions, to stifle his hysterical laughter.

The incredible had happened; the impossible was now part of the sober
history of the month. The bank had called in question the cheque;
evidently Claude had come down here to see whether he had drawn a cheque
of corresponding date, had found a blank counterfoil (not the first in
the book), and had accepted that as evidence that the cheque was of his
own drawing. The possibility of a forgery never apparently occurred to
him. His vaunted carelessness about money matters was strikingly
exemplified; he had not exaggerated it in the least. What a blessed
decree of Providence that one’s brother-in-law shall be so rich and such
an idiot! Jim felt almost satisfied with the world.

But next moment with the same suddenness as this spasm of relief had
come, it ceased. Swift and huge as the genie of some Arabian tale, a
doubt arose. And before it fully developed itself, it was a doubt no
longer, but a certainty. For one moment his relief had tricked him into
believing that Claude thought the cheque to be of his own drawing; the
next, Jim could no more delude himself with that. Rich as Claude was,
fool as he was, it was not possible that he should believe himself to
have drawn five hundred pounds in cash but a week ago, and to-day find
no trace of it, nor any possible memory of how he had spent it. No, the
cheque had been called in question; Claude therefore must know that
forgery had been committed. That was certain.

But he had told his bankers that the cheque was genuine.

Jim got up from the sofa, put the cushion in its place, and smoothed it
with mechanical precision. What did this mean? Did he guess by whom the
forgery was committed? In a moment Jim felt injured and indignant at the
idea of such a possibility crossing Claude’s mind. He had never given
him the shadow of ground for thinking that such a thing as forgery was
possible to him. It was an insult of the grossest kind, if such a notion
had ever presented itself to him. But Claude was of a suspicious nature;
once before, Jim remembered, Dora had talked some nonsense about Jim’s
having cheated at croquet, and Claude had said that he was satisfied
that this was not the case, when Jim told him it was not. He won a
sovereign over that silly game of croquet.

But it was monstrous--if true--that Claude should suspect him of this.
It was impossible for any self-respecting person, however unworthy of
self-respect, to stop in his rooms, accept his hospitality, until he had
made sure that such an idea had never crossed Claude’s mind. His sense
of injury bordered upon the virtuous. And then, with disconcerting
rapidity, sense of injury and virtue all vanished. He could not keep it
up. He saw through himself.

Once more his mind went back to the rapturous possibility that had
caused him to bury his face in the sofacushion. Was there any chance of
Claude’s believing that the cheque was genuine? But already the question
did not need an answer. That possibility was out of sight, below the
horizon, and he was here alone, swimming, drowning.

That Claude knew forgery had been committed was certain then, and for
some reason he shielded the forger. Either he suspected Jim (the sense
of injury and virtue did not make themselves felt now), or he did not.
If he did not, good. If he did, well, good also, since he shielded him.

Quick-witted and mentally nimble as he was, Jim took a little while to
realize that situation. In the normal course of life he would
necessarily meet Claude often, and he could not see himself doing so. He
could not see how social intercourse was any more possible. Or would
Claude avoid such intercourse, manage somehow that they should not meet?
That might be managed for a time, but not permanently. Dora would ask
him to dine, or Lady Osborne would ask him to stay, and either he or
Claude would always have to frame excuses. Yet Claude’s words of
farewell to him had been quite normal and cordial. There was nothing
there that anticipated unpleasantness or estrangement in the future.
Perhaps Claude harboured no suspicion against him. Then whom did he
shield? There was only one person, himself, who could have done this,
whom there could be sufficient motive for shielding.

And then suddenly his own dislike of his brother-in-law flared up into
hatred, the hatred of the injurer for the injured, which is one of the
few things in this world that are pure black, and have no ray of
reflection of anything good, however inverted and distorted, in them.
And he was living in the rooms, eating the food, drinking the wine of
the man whom he hated. That Claude had loaded him with benefits made, as
once before, his offence the greater. And he was in Claude’s power; at
any moment, even if he did not suspect Jim now of having done this, he
had but to send a further message to the bank, saying that their
suspicion was correct, and he had not drawn the cheque, and he would
suspect no further, for he would know.

The hot hours of the sunny afternoon went by, not slowly at all, but
with unusual speed, though he passed them doing nothing, but
occasionally walking up and down the room. He had told Parker when he
sent his telegram of excuse about the river party that he would dine at
home and alone, and it was a matter for surprise when he was told that
dinner was ready. And after dinner he sat again in the room where this
morning he had found Claude with his cheque-book, as far from his
decision as ever. But about one thing he had made up his mind; he
believed Claude knew, or at any rate, suspected who had done this. There
was no other explanation that could account at all reasonably for his
shielding the culprit. It was no time to invent Utopian explanations
(and even they would be elusive to the seeker); Jim wanted to see the
things that were actually the case on this evening.

What was to be done? What was to be done? He could not tell Claude that
his suspicions were grossly and gratuitously insulting, for Claude had
expressed none; he had said there was nothing to suspect, no ground for
suspicion. Nor did Jim see that it was possible to continue seeing
Claude, feeling that he was in his hands, that at any moment he might
disown the cheque, and let the bank pursue the usual course. Claude had
been generous, quixotically generous that morning; but who knew whether
that might not only be a momentary impulse, or even a move merely to
gain time, to consider? It was a serious step to let one’s wife’s
brother be prosecuted. But very likely he had only done it to stay
immediate proceedings: very likely he wanted to talk it over with Dora
first.... And at that thought the breaking point came. Through these
solitary hours Jim had faced a good deal, and the fibres of endurance
were weakened. And he could not face that. Anything was more tolerable
than the picture of Dora being told.

Generous! That word had occurred in his thoughts, and it had been
applied by him to Claude. It was no less than his due; he had always
been generous. His generosity had not cost him much, had not entailed
self-denial, but it had been there, it had been given. First in very
little ways, as when he gave Jim free living at the flat; then in larger
ways, when for the sake of Dora he imputed mere carelessness to himself
instead of letting crime be brought home to another. The price of his
generosity concerned nobody. And Jim was beaten. The worst of him
surrendered to something a little better than the worst. The surrender
was not nobly made; it was made from necessity, because every other
course was a little more impossible than that. Claude had to be told. He
knew that he was in Claude’s hands already; the most he could do and the
least was to seem to put himself there. And then suddenly he felt so
tired that thought was no longer possible, and he fell asleep where he
sat.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was deep in the night when he woke, for the noise of traffic had
almost sunk to silence, but from the dreamlessness of exhausted sleep
he passed straight into full consciousness again, and took up the tragic
train of thought where he had left it. He did not reconsider his
decision--it was cut in steel--nor did he desire to, for to wish for the
impossible requires the strong spring of hope, and of hope he had none.
He was beaten; he resigned. And then on the outer darkness there shone a
little ray. Claude, whom a few hours ago he had hated with the rancour
of the injurer, had been generous, appallingly generous. Was there
nothing he could do for Claude?

Yes; one thing, the hardest of all, the utmost. For weeks he knew things
had not gone well with him and Dora. He got on her nerves, his
vulgarities (as was most natural) irritated her, and she could no longer
see in him anything but them. But there was more in Claude than that.
She did not know it, but he might tell her. Perhaps if she knew, she
would see, would understand.... Or had Claude already told her? That had
seemed possible before, a thing easily pictured. But he did not think it
likely now. It was not consistent with what Claude had already done. For
it must have been for his wife’s sake that he had acted thus.

A little while before it had seemed to Jim the worst possible thing, the
one unbearable thing, that Dora should know. But looked at from this new
standpoint it was different. If Claude told her, it was one thing; it
was another if he did. If he did, if he could, it might help Dora to see
that there was something in Claude beyond his commonness. And--Jim was a
long time coming to it--it might in some degree atone, not in Claude’s
eyes, for he would not tell Claude what he meant to do, but in--in those
eyes which look on all evil things and all good things, and see the
difference between them.

There were a few arrangements to be made on Sunday, but he made them
without flinching. Claude and Dora were at Grote, and a line to Claude
there, asking to see him as soon as possible on Monday, and a line to
Dora at Park Lane, saying that he wanted to see her alone in the
afternoon, was all that was necessary. It was better to take those
interviews in that order--he could not help being clever over it--for it
was easier to face Dora, when able to tell her that he had already
confessed to Claude. What he had to say would come with more force thus.
She would see that for the sake of helping Claude and her, he had done
something that could not have been easy.

       *       *       *       *       *

All that day down at Grote they waited for news from Sir Henry, but none
came. Lord Osborne, always optimistic, saw the most hopeful significance
in his silence.

“Depend upon it, my dear,” he said to Dora as she went to bed that
night, “depend upon it Sir Henry has seen my lady again, and has quite
forgotten that we might be in some anxiety, because, as he knows now,
forgetting he ain’t told us, there’s nought to be anxious about. That’s
like those busy men--Lord, my dear! fancy passing your life in other
people’s insides, so to speak--why it would make you forget your own
name. But if there had been any cause for us to worry, depend upon it
he’d have let us know. I bet I shall be making a joke of my lady’s
ailments before I’m twenty-four hours older. I’ll be getting a few ready
for her as I do my undressing to-night. And it’s me as is cheering you
up, my dear, this moment. You go to sleep quiet, or else I’ll tell Mrs.
O. that you’ve given me such an uncomfortable Sunday as I’ve not had
since first we was married.”

       *       *       *       *       *

Then came Monday morning. Dora had her early post brought up to her
bedroom, but since she had received Saturday posts forwarded from town
yesterday, there was nothing sent on. In fact, there was only one letter
for her directed to her here. And she opened it and read it.

Claude had already left by an early train when she got down. She did not
expect this, since, as far as she knew, he had no engagements that
morning and had intended not to leave till a later train, but he had
gone. Lord Osborne and she were going to lunch in the country and drive
back afterward, but after breakfast, when the last guests had gone, she
went to him. He was in the room he called the “lib’ry” and was reading
the _Morning Post_.

“See here, my dear,” he said, “and think how we’re all at the mercy of
the press. There’s my lady giving a little party this evening, and I’m
blest if they don’t know all about it already. Listen here: ‘Lady
Osborne has a small party to-night to meet----’”

“Ah, don’t,” said Dora, not meaning to speak, but knowing she had to.

Instantly the paper fell to the ground.

“What is it, my dear?” he said.

“I have heard from Sir Henry,” she said.

She gave him a moment for that; then she went on----

“Dad, dear,” she said, “there is trouble. He saw her again yesterday,
and has written to me about it. There is something wrong. He does not
know for certain what it is, but they will have to find out. Oh, it is
no use my hinting at it. You’ve got to know.”

“Yes, my dear, yes,” said he.

“They have got to operate. It may be very bad indeed. They can’t tell
yet. They don’t know till they see.”

Dora drew a long breath.

“It may be cancer,” she said, and by instinct she put her hand over her
eyes, so that she should not see him.

“Mrs. O.?” he said very quietly.

Dora heard the buzzing of honey-questing bees in the flower-border
outside the window, the clicking of a mowing machine on the lawn, and
from close beside her the slow breathing of Lord Osborne. Without
looking at him, she knew that he had pursed up his lips, almost as if
whistling, a habit of his in perplexed moments. He had been smoking a
cigar when she came in, and she heard him lay this down on a tray by his
elbow. And then he spoke.

“Well, my dear,” he said, “we’ve all got to help her bear it, whatever
it is.”

Dora found it impossible to speak for a moment. She could have given him
sympathy had there been anything in his words that suggested it was
wanted. She could have told him that they must hope for the best, that
the worst was by no means certain yet; there were a hundred quite
suitable things to say, if only he had appeared to need them in the
least. But quite clearly, he did not; he did not happen to be thinking
about himself at all or to want any consolation. And in face of this
simplicity, she was dumb. It was perfect: there was nothing to be said
except give the sign of assent.

“And, my dear, if you’ll order the motor round at once, I’ll put a few
papers together, as I must take up with me, and then I think I’ll be
off. And what’ll you do, my dear? Hadn’t you better stop as planned and
have your morning in the country? Not but what I should dearly like to
have you by my side.”

“Ah, Dad!” said she, and kissed him.

He smiled at her, holding her hand tight a moment.

“We’ve got to keep our pecker up, my dear,” he said, “so as to help her
keep hers. She’ll be brave enough when she sees we’re brave, God bless
her! And brave we are and will be, my dearie. We’d scorn to be cowards.
And I’m glad we didn’t know this till this morning, for she’ll be
pleased to hear as we had such a pleasant Sunday.”

“Yes, she could think of nothing else when she talked to me on
Saturday,” said Dora.

What little more there was to be told she told him on their way up, but
otherwise their drive was rather silent. Once or twice he leaned out of
the window and spoke to the chauffeur.

“You can get along a bit quicker here,” he said. “There’s an empty
road.”

Then he turned to Dora.

“If you don’t mind going a bit above the average, my dear?” he asked.
“’Twould be a good thing, too, if we got home before Claude, and it’s
but a slow train he’ll have caught.”

And once again as they crossed the great heathery upland of Ashdown
Forest, redolent with gorse and basking in the sun: “Seems strange on a
beautiful day like this!” he said. “But there! who knows but that we
shan’t have some pleasant weather yet?”

       *       *       *       *       *

Claude, meantime, getting Jim’s letter by the same post that had brought
his news to Dora, had left by an earlier train, in order to see Jim as
soon as possible. He had gone before Dora came down, and thus heard
nothing of Sir Henry’s letter, and though he was anxious to know, as
soon as he got to town, how his mother was, he determined to go to the
flat on his way to Park Lane. That would not take long, whatever it
might be that Jim wished to tell him; a few minutes, he imagined, would
suffice.

All the way up he pondered over it, but think as he might, he could find
only one explanation of Jim’s request, and that was that he was going to
confess. That was the best thing that could happen, and as far as he
could see it was the only thing. But the thought of his own part
embarrassed him horribly: he had no liking for his brother-in-law, and
guessed that on Jim’s side there was a similar barrenness of affection.
All this would make the interview difficult and painful: he could
forgive him easily and willingly, but instinctively he felt how chilly a
thing forgiveness is, if there is no warmth of feeling behind to
vitalize it. But when first he suspected that Jim had done this, he felt
sorry for him; if it turned out that he was going to confess, his pity
was certainly not diminished.

       *       *       *       *       *

On the threshold he paused: his repugnance for what lay before him was
almost invincible, and all his pondering had led to nothing practical:
he was still absolutely without idea as to what he should say himself.
But the thing had to be done; waiting made it no easier, and he went in.
He would have to trust to the promptings of the moment: all he was sure
of was that he did not feel unkind, but only sorry. So--had he known
it--he need not have been so very uncomfortable.

Jim was standing in the window, looking out on to the street. He turned
as Claude came in, but said nothing. Something had to be done, and
Claude spoke.

“You asked me to come and see you,” he said. “So I came up as early as I
could. Oh, good morning, Jim!”

He looked up, and saw that Jim did not speak because he could not. His
face was horribly white, and his lips were twitching. And at the sight
of him, helpless, and, whatever he had done, suffering horribly, a far
greater warmth of pity came over Claude than he had felt hitherto. All
his kindness was challenged. And the prompting of the moment was not a
mistaken one.

“Oh, I say, old chap,” he said, and stopped short.

For Jim broke. During all those two hideous days he had nerved himself
up to encounter abuse, disgust, any form of righteous wrath and
contempt. He knew well that Claude had spared him not for his own sake,
but for Dora’s, and in this confession he was going to make, he was
prepared to be treated as he deserved, though Claude had spared him
public disgrace. But what he had not nerved himself up to encounter was
kindness, such as that which rang in those few words. And once more, but
now not with hysterical laughter, but with the weeping of exhaustion and
shame and misery, he buried his head in that same sofa cushion.

Claude felt helpless, awkward, brutal. But it was no use doing anything
yet: there was no reaching Jim till that violence had abated, and he sat
there waiting, just crossing over once to the door, and bolting it for
fear Parker should come in. And at length he laid his hand on Jim’s
shoulder.

“It’s knocked you about awfully,” he said. “I can see that, I’m awfully
sorry. You must have had a hellish two days. You needn’t tell me, you
know.”

Jim pulled himself together, and raised his head.

“That’s just what I must do,” he said. “I forged your cheque.”

“Well, well,” said Claude.

But Jim had got the thing said, and now he went on with suppressed and
bitter vehemence.

“I’ve always been a swindler, I think,” he said. “I’m rotten: that’s
what the matter with me. I’ve cheated all my life. I can’t even play
games without cheating. I cheated you at croquet once, and won a
sovereign. Dora saw.”

Again Claude’s instinct, not his reason, prompted him and not amiss. It
only told him he was sorry for Jim, and could a little reassure him over
this.

“But she didn’t know we were playing for money,” said he quickly. “In
fact, I told her we were not.”

“So it’s twice that you have spared me. Her, rather,” said Jim.

Claude accepted the correction. It was an obvious one to him no less
than to Jim.

“Yes: she’d have been awfully cut up if she had known,” he said simply.

Jim got up.

“I wonder if you can believe I am sorry?” he said. “I am. My God, I’ve
touched bottom now.”

“Why, yes, of course I believe it,” said Claude. “It’s broken you up, I
can see that. Fellows don’t break unless they are sorry. But as for the
thing itself, if you don’t mind my saying it, I think all cheating is
touching bottom. It’s a rotten game. You know that now, though. And if
you can believe me, I’m awfully sorry too. It’s a wretched thing to
happen. But I’m so glad you told me: it makes an awful difference,
that.”

Jim was silent a moment.

“I want to ask you something,” he said at length. “When did you first
suspect me? Was it when I came in and found you here on Saturday?”

Claude bit his lip: he did not at all like answering this.

“No, before that,” he said. “At least I was afraid it was you as
soon--as soon as I found I had left a cheque-book here. I’m sorry, but
as you ask me, there it is.”

“From your previous knowledge of me?” asked Jim quietly.

“Well, yes, I suppose so, though you make me feel a brute. I say, I
don’t think it’s any good going back on that, either for your sake or
mine.”

“Yes it is: it hurts, that’s why it’s good.”

Claude shifted his place on the sofa a shade nearer Jim, and again laid
his hand on his shoulder.

“Well, I think you’ve been hurt enough for the present,” he said. “I
don’t like seeing it. You’ve had as much as you can stand just now.”

Jim shook his head.

“There’s another thing, too,” he said. “I’m absolutely cleaned out, and
I can’t repay you till next quarter.”

Claude considered this. It was perfectly cheap and easy to say that he
need not think of paying at all, but his judgment gave him something
better to say than that.

“Well, we’ll wait till then,” he said. “I don’t want to be
unreasonable.”

Again Jim’s lip quivered, and Claude seeing that rose to go.

“Well, I must get back,” he said. “I want to hear how the mater is. She
hasn’t been well, and Sir Henry Franks saw her on Saturday, and again
yesterday. Look round after lunch, will you? I don’t think Dora and the
governor get back till then. And you’ll come on to the musical show this
evening? There’ll be some good singing. Right, oh!”

But still Jim could not speak, and there was silence again. Then Claude
spoke quickly, finally.

“Buck up, old chap,” he said, and went straight to the door without
looking back.

He let himself out, and went for a turn up and down the street before
going to Park Lane. He had been a good deal moved, for, kind-hearted to
the core, it was dreadful to him to see, as he expressed it, “a fellow
so awfully down in his luck.” And he was conscious of another thing that
struck him as curious. He had liked Jim during those few minutes he had
seen him to-day, a thing he had never done before, and he wished he
could have made things easier for him, which again was a new sensation,
for all that he had ever done for his brother-in-law he had done,
frankly, for Dora’s sake. But he could not see how to make this easier:
it was no use telling him that cheating was a thing of no importance; it
was no use telling him he need not pay back what he owed. That was not
the way to make the best of this very bad job. Of course, Jim must feel
miserable; it would be a thing to sicken at if he did not. Luckily,
however, there was no doubting the sincerity of his wretchedness. And
yet the boyish sort of advice implied by the “buck up” was in place,
too. But he felt vaguely that he could have done much better than he had
done: in that, had he known it, he would have found that Jim disagreed
with him.

       *       *       *       *       *

He was told to his surprise, by the servant who let him in, that Dora
and his father had arrived a few minutes ago, and that Dora wished to
see him as soon as he came in. Accordingly he went straight to her room.

“Oh, Claude!” she said, “you have come. We didn’t know where you were. I
had no idea you had left Grote till I came down to breakfast.”

There was trouble in her voice, and he noticed it, wondering if by any
chance it had something to do with the trouble he had seen already that
day. But clearly it could not.

“What is it?” he said quickly.

“Your mother,” she said, for it was no use attempting to break things.
“Sir Henry saw her again yesterday. There has to be an operation. There
is some growth. They can’t tell what it is for certain until they
operate. Dad is going to see her now. They have settled it is best for
him to tell her. Of course he won’t tell her what the fear is. Oh
Claude! I am so sorry; it is so dreadful.”

“How does the governor take it?” asked Claude.

“Exactly as you would expect.”

“But it will be awful for him telling her,” said he. “I had much better.
Per or I, anyhow. It’ll tear his heart out.”

“He won’t let you. When Sir Henry spoke of telling her, he said at once.
‘That’s for me to do.’ And then he went away to have a few minutes alone
before going to her.”

A tap came at the door: Lord Osborne always tapped before he entered
Dora’s room. It was her bit of a flat, he called it, and his tap was
ringing the bell, and asking if she was in.

“Well, Claude, my lad,” he said, “Dora will have told you. We’ve all got
to keep up a brave heart, for your mother’s sake.”

Claude kissed his father, and somehow that went to Dora’s heart. He had
once said to her that kissing seemed “pretty meaningless” when she was
not concerned.

“Yes, Dad,” said he. “That we will.”

“That’s right, my boy. And that blessed girl of yours has been so good
to me, such as never was, and if she’ll give her Dad a kiss, too, why
there we are, and thank you, my dear. Now I’m going to see mother and
tell her, and I daresay she’ll like to see you both some time to-day,
though if she doesn’t, why you’ll both understand, won’t you? They’ve
fixed it for to-morrow, if she’s agreeable.”

“Dad, do let me do that for you?” said Claude. “It’s better for me to
tell her.”

“No, my lad, that’s for your father and no other,” said he, “though it’s
like you to suggest it, and thank you, my boy. I’ll come straight back
to you, my dears, and tell you how all goes, and how she takes it, and
pray try to quiet Mrs. Per. She’s carrying on so silly, wringing her
hands and asking, ‘Is she better? Is she better?’ And telling me to bear
up and all, as if I didn’t know that, small thanks to her! Per takes her
back to Sheffield this afternoon, thank the Lord, and may I be pardoned
for that speech, but it’s how I feel with her ridiculous ways.”

He went straight to his wife’s room, and was admitted by the nurse. Lady
Osborne was in bed, of course, but smiled to him with neither more nor
less than her usual cheerfulness.

“Well, and there’s my Eddie,” she said. “And I hope you’ve had a
pleasant Sunday, my dear, as I’m sure you must have, with such pleasant
company as came down to see you. I tell you I’m feeling a regular fraud
this morning, for what with lying in bed and the medicine Sir Henry gave
me, which took the pain away beautiful, I feel ever so much better. Now
sit you down, Mr. O., and have a chat. Are you comfortable in that
chair, my dear?”

“That I am, specially since I know you’re feeling easier and more like
yourself, mother,” he said. “And before long, please God, we’ll have you
looking after us all again.”

His wife was silent a moment. Then she spoke.

“Eddie, my dear,” she said, “Sir Henry said as how you would come and
have a talk with me, for he’s told me nought himself, but just said,
‘You lie still and don’t worry, Mrs. Osborne,’ for he forgets as how
you’ve been honoured. And I’ve guessed, my dear, that he means you’ve to
tell me what’s the matter with me, and what they’re going to do to me.
My dear, I’ll lie here a year, and take all the medicine they choose, if
only----”

He moved his chair a little nearer the bed: the tears stood in his eyes,
but his mouth was firm.

“I’ve come to tell you, my dear,” he said, “and we can’t always be
choosers to have things the way we wish. We’ve got to submit to the will
of God, and when them as are wise doctors, like Sir Henry, tells us it’s
got to be this, or it’s got to be that, it’s His will, my dear, no less
than the doctor’s word. He’s sent us a sight of joy and happiness and
to-day, Maria, he’s sending us a bit of trouble, for a change, I may
say. But we’ll take it thankful, old lady, same as we’ve taken all them
beautiful years that we’ve had together. My dear, if I could get into
bed there instead of you, and go through it for you! But that’s not to
be. I’ll tell you as quick as I can, my dear, for there’s no use in
being silly and delaying, but----”

He blew his nose violently, then left his chair, and knelt down by the
bed, taking her hand in his. And he kissed it.

“They don’t quite know what’s wrong with you, dearie,” he said, “and
they’ve got to see. You won’t feel nothing; they’ll give you a whiff of
chloroform, and you’ll go off as easy as getting to sleep of a night.
And when you wake, they hope that there’ll be good news for you, my
dear, and that, as I say, you’ll soon be about again, scolding and
vexing us and making our lives a burden, as you’ve always done, God
bless you. There, Maria, I can manage my joke still, and I’m mistaken if
I don’t see you smiling at me, same as ever.”

She had smiled, but she grew grave again.

“I want to know it all, Eddie, my dear,” she said. “There’s nothing you
can tell me as I shall fear more than what I guess. Do they think it’s
the cancer?”

“No, they don’t say that,” he said. “But they’ve got to see what it is.
They’re not going to think anything yet, until they see.”

“Thank you, dearie, for telling me so gentle,” she said. “I declare it’s
a relief to me to have it spoken. And when is it to be?”

“They said something about to-morrow. But that’s as you please, Maria.
But, my dear, there’s no use in putting it off; better have done with
it.”

“No; I wish as it could have been to-day. But what a lot of trouble the
inside is, as I said to Dora on Saturday. Eddie, my dear, I’m such a
coward. You’ve all got to be brave for me; it’s a lot of worry I’m
giving. But it’s not my fault as far as I know; I’ve lived clean and
wholesome. It’s a thing as is sent to one. Lor’, my dear, you’re
crying. Now let’s have no sadness in this house; it would be shame on us
if we couldn’t take our bit of trouble like men and women, instead of
like a pig as squeals before you touch it. But what an upset! There’s
you, my dear, wishing it was you, and there’s me, being so glad it’s not
you. We shan’t agree about that, Mr. O. And now, my dear, if you’ll say
a bit of a prayer, same as we’ve always said together every morning, you
and I, before going down to our breakfast, and then let’s have Dora and
Claude in, and have a bit of a chat. ‘Our Father,’ my dear. We don’t
want more than that; it’s what we’ve always said together of a morning,
and it hasn’t taken us far wrong yet.”

There was silence a little after that was said, and then Lord Osborne
got up.

“And if I haven’t forgot to kiss you ‘Good morning,’ my dear,” he said.
“Well, that’s that. And shall I fetch Dora and Claude? And what about
Mrs. Per? Per’s out, I know. He left early this morning from Grote and
had business in the City, which he said would keep him to lunch. Maria,
my dear, my vote’s against Mrs. Per.”

“Wouldn’t she feel left out?” asked his wife.

“Well, she’d feel no more than is the case,” said he. “Give me Mrs. Per,
my dear, when there’s Shakespeare or Chopin ahead, but not now. Such
grimaces as she’s been making in the Italian room! You’d have thought
her face was a bit of string, and she trying to tie knots in it! No,
Mrs. O.; I’ll fetch Dora and Claude, and that’s all you get me to do.
You may ring the bell for Mrs. Per, but not me.”

“Well, perhaps it would be more comfortable,” said she, “without Lizzie,
if you’re sure as she won’t feel she should have been sent for. I don’t
feel to want any antics to-day.”

He stood by the bed a moment before going.

“I’ve never loved you like to-day,” he said.

“Well, that’s good hearing,” she said; “but you repeat yourself, Eddie.
I’ve heard you say that before, my dear.”

“And it was always true,” said he.

       *       *       *       *       *

The moment he had left the room she called to the nurse.

“Now make me tidy, nurse,” she said, “and if you’d smooth the
bedclothes, and a pillow more, my dear, would make me look a little more
brisk-like and fit for company. There’s Lady Dora coming, so pretty and
so sweet to me, and my son Claude, her husband. My hair’s all anyhow, so
if you’d just put a brush to it, and there’s a couple of rings on the
dressing table, which I’ll put on; handsome, aren’t they, diamonds and
rubies. Thank you, nurse, and we’re only just in time. Come in, my
dears; come in and welcome.

“Such a way to receive you,” she said. “But there, why apologize, for if
I didn’t always say my bedroom was the pleasantest room in the house.
Dora, my dearie, you’ve taken good care of Mr. O., and thank you, and
he’s so pleased with you that I’m on the way to be jealous. You wait
till I’m about again, and see if I don’t cut you out. Mr. O., do you
hear that? Dora’s got no chance against me, when I’m not a guy like
this, lying in my bed. And you sit there, Dora, and Claude by you, as
should be, and Mr. O. on the other side. There’s a nice comfortable
party, what I like.”

“What’s this talk of a guy?” said Claude. “You look famous, mother.”

“Well, then, my looks don’t belie me. Who shouldn’t look famous with her
friends and family coming to see her like this? Dora, my dear, you’ve
got to take my place to-day, if you’d be so kind, for there’s the
concert this evening, and I won’t have it put off. Lor’, I shall be
here, as comfortable as ever I was, with my door open, and listening,
and feel that I was with you all, wearing my new tiara and shaking
hands. No, my dear, there’s no sense in putting it off. Such nonsense!
I’ve asked our friends to come and see us this evening, and them as feel
inclined shall come, if my word is anything. But we’ll be a woman short
at dinner, thanks to my silliness. I wonder if Lady Austell would be
able to come, for there’s the savoury of prawns as she took twice of
last time she dined with us. I bid her to the party, I know, but not to
dinner, I think. Claude, do you go and telephone to her now for me, and
you, Mr. O., go down and help him; and I’ll chat to Dora the while.”

There was no mistaking the intention of this diplomacy, and the two men
left the room. Then Lady Osborne turned to Dora.

“My dear,” she said, “you’ll have heard all there is to know. And I just
want to tell you that I’m facing it O. K., as Claude says. There’ll be
nothing on my part to make anybody else shake and tremble. But you’ll
have an eye to your dad, dear. He feels it more than me, though God
knows, I’m coward enough really. It’s got to be, and though I hate the
thought of the knife--well, my dear, those as are born into the world
and have the pleasure of it have to take the troubles as well as the
joys. And if they find the worst, I’m prepared for that, as long as I
know you’ll stick to Mr. O., and help him. And there’s Claude, too.
Sometimes I’ve thought you’ve not been so happy together as I could have
wished. I don’t know what is wrong, but I’ve thought sometimes as all
isn’t quite right. I wanted to say just that to you; that was why I sent
them down together, so crafty. But he loves you, my dear, and you can’t
do more than love. And you’re going to bear him a child, please God. My
dear, that’s the best thing God ever thought of, if I may say so, for us
women. I’ve had two, bless them, and I should have liked to have had a
hundred. I’d have borne each one with thanksgiving.”

She was silent a moment.

“Claude’s a kind lad,” she said. “He takes after father. And he loves
you, too. I’m not presuming, I hope, my dear. That’s all that’s been on
my mind, and I wanted to get it said. You’ll forgive an old woman as is
your boy’s mother. Thank you, my dear, for giving me that kiss. I’ll
treasure that. I’ll think of that when they send me off to sleep
to-morrow.”

The others came back at this moment with the news that Lady Austell
would come to dinner.

“Now that’s nice for your brother,” said Lady Osborne. “He’ll like to
find his mamma here.”

       *       *       *       *       *

Dora had telephoned to Jim to say she would come and see him after
lunch. Since receiving his note that morning, she had given but little
thought to what he might have to say to her, for these other events
banished all else from her mind. In spite of that which lay before them
all, she could hardly feel sad, she could hardly feel anxious, for the
noble simplicity and serenity of the other three infected her, to the
exclusion of all else, with its own peace. She had not got to comfort
anybody, to make any effort herself; she was lifted off her feet and
borne along in these beautiful shining waters of courage and quietness.
Indeed, it seemed to her that no one was making any effort at all; she
did not find her father-in-law sitting with his head in his hands, and
rousing himself, when she came in, to a semblance of cheerfulness; she
did not see Claude trying to suppress signs of emotion. They all behaved
quite naturally. At first it amazed her, for she knew, at any rate, that
there was no lack of love and tenderness in either of them; it seemed
that they must be exerting some stupendous control over themselves. Then
she saw, slowly but surely, how wide of the mark such an explanation
was. They were exerting no control at all, they behaved like that
because they felt like that, because their attitude toward life and
death and love was serene and large and quiet. All these months it had
been there for her to see, but, inexplicably blind as she now felt she
had been, she had needed this demonstration of it before she began, even
faintly, to understand.

It was no wonder, then, that Jim’s affairs had been obliterated from her
mind, but now as she entered that flat, she wondered what he wanted that
should make him wish to see her in this appointed way. For a moment,
with a sickening qualm, she went back to that quarter of an hour’s
suspense on Saturday morning, when she had allowed herself to fear that
he was connected in some hideous fashion with the cheque Claude could
not recollect about. That had haunted her afterward, too, when she lay
long awake at Grote on Saturday night; but Claude had said so
emphatically that the cheque was all right, that she felt her fear to be
fanciful. Meantime Jim did not yet know about Lady Osborne, and as soon
as she entered she told him.

“Oh, Jim!” she said, “we are in trouble. Lady Osborne has got to have an
operation. There is something wrong, and they want to see what it is.
There is a growth of some sort. And, oh, I have been so blind, so blind!
They are all behaving so splendidly, and yet behaviour is the wrong
word; they behave splendidly just because they are splendid. I never
guessed they were like that. I’ll tell you all about it. But first, what
did you want to see me about? You don’t look well, dear. What is it?”

“I’m all right,” said he.

“But what is it?” asked Dora again, vaguely frightened.

Jim leaned forward, with his elbows on his knees, propping his head on
his hands. This was worse than the telling of Claude had been, but it
had to be done. He had promised some humble, sorry little denizen within
him that he would do it.

“Did Claude speak to you about a cheque,” he asked, “which he could not
remember drawing?”

“Yes, and then afterward he said it was all right,” said she.

“Then I’ve got to tell you,” he said.

Then her fear seized her again in full force.

“Don’t, Jim,” she cried, “don’t tell me there’s anything wrong.”

“It’s no use beating about,” he said. “I forged that cheque and cashed
it. Claude knows; I told him.”

Dora sat still a moment. Then she put her hands up to her head.

“Open the window,” she said, “I am stifling.”

He got up and threw open the window away from the street. Then he walked
over to the chimney piece and leaned his elbows on it, with his back to
her.

At first Dora felt nothing but hard anger and indignation, and she knew
that if she spoke at all it would be to say something which could do no
good, and perhaps only make a breach between them that could never be
healed.

And it was long that she waited, it was long before any spark of pity
for him was lit. Then she spoke.

“Oh, Jim, what a miserable business!” she said. “But why did you tell
me? Couldn’t you have spared me knowing? Or perhaps you were afraid
Claude would tell me.”

“No; I don’t tell you for that reason,” he said. “After I saw Claude
this morning, I knew he would never tell you.”

“Why, then?”

“Because I want to tell you about Claude. It may do some good. Well,
Claude’s treated me in a way that’s beyond my understanding. He is
beyond your understanding, too, at present, and that’s why I am telling
you. I wish you could have been here when I told him. He was only sorry
for me. If he was God, he couldn’t have been more merciful. And it
wasn’t put on. He felt it; and I wanted, for once, to see if I couldn’t
be of some use.”

He turned round and faced her.

“I want you to know what sort of a fellow Claude really is,” he said. “I
know you don’t get on well, and that’s because you don’t know him. You
judged him first by his face--that, and perhaps a little bit by his
wealth. And then you judged him by what you and I call vulgarity and
want of breeding. That’s not Claude either. Claude’s the fellow who
treated a swindler and a forger in the way I’ve told you. He’s got a
soul that’s more beautiful than his face, you know, and he’s the
handsomest fellow I ever saw. I wanted you to get a glimpse of it. It
might help things. That’s all I’ve got to say. I’m sorry for giving you
the pain of knowing what I’ve done, but I thought it might do good. He’s
just broken me up with his goodness. That’s Claude.”

The anger was quite gone now, and it was a tremulous hand that Dora laid
on his shoulder.

“Oh, Jim,” she said, “thank you! I am so sorry for you, you know, and
I’m grateful. I shall go back and tell Claude I know, and--and thank
him, and be sorry.”

“Yes, that is the best thing you can do,” said Jim.

       *       *       *       *       *

Claude was alone in their sitting room when she got back, and, as he
always did, he rose from his chair as she entered. For a moment she
stood looking at him, mute, beseeching. Then she came to him.

“Thank you about Jim, dear,” she said. “He has just told me about it, to
make me--make me see what you were. Oh, Claude, I didn’t know.”

And then the tears came. But his arm was around her, and her head lay on
his shoulder.




CHAPTER XII.


Uncle Alf was seated with Dora on the terrace at Grote one afternoon
late in August. Dora herself was hatless and cloakless, for it was a day
of windless and summer heat, but Uncle Alf had an overcoat on, and a
very shabby old gray shawl in addition cast about his shoulders. His
face wore an expression of ludicrous malevolence.

“And I had to come out here, my dear, and take refuge with you,” he
said, “for Maria will drive me off my head with talk of that tumour of
hers. Why, she speaks as if nobody had ever had a tumour before. I said
to her, ‘Maria, if it had been cancer now, and you’d got over as you
have, it might have been something to make a tale of.’ But tumour, God
bless me! and benignant, so Sir Henry said, at that.”

Dora gave a little shriek of laughter.

“Uncle Alf, sometimes I think you’re the unkindest man in the whole
world,” she said, “and even when you’re most unkind I can’t help
laughing. I wonder if you are unkind really. I don’t expect so.”

Uncle Alf took no notice of this, and went on with his grievances.

“As for Eddie, I’m sure I don’t know what to make of him,” he said. “I
shouldn’t wonder if he’s going soft-headed, for he was always threatened
that way, to my thinking. He can talk of nothing but the brave and
beautiful Maria. Lord! my dear, it’s a wonder to me that you can stand
it. Doesn’t it get on your nerves? Doesn’t it make you feel sick and ill
to hear how they go on?”

Dora laughed again.

“No, Uncle Alf, it doesn’t, do you know? You see I was with them through
all those dreadful days in the summer after the operation, when they
still didn’t know what it was for certain, and had to make an
examination, and it made a tremendous impression on me. I always used to
think that they all, including Claude, were very ordinary people. Well,
they’re not. They were very wonderful. They were cheerful, even when
they were waiting for a verdict that might have been so terrible.”

“Bah!” said Uncle Alf.

“Yes, if you wish. They used to get on my nerves, that is quite true,
and you gave me a hint about it once which was very useful. You told me
to see the humorous side of Dad and Mother.”

“Lord, it’s Dad and Mother, is it?” said Alf, in a tone of acid disgust.

“Yes, Dad and Mother. Just as you are Uncle Alf, but I’ll call you Mr.
Osborne if you prefer. Very well, then, I took that hint, and sometimes
now I laugh at them, which I never did before. I often laugh at them
now, and let them see me laughing, and Dad says to Mother, ‘There’s Dora
at her jokes again. What have you said?’ They know how I love them.
Dear, don’t make such awful faces. They were so splendid, you know.”

“And Claude?” asked his uncle, after a pause.

“I didn’t do justice, or anything like it, to Claude till then,” she
said. “He used to get on my nerves, too, very badly indeed. I don’t mind
telling you, since I’ve told him, and we’ve laughed over that. But all
that time in July, combined with something very fine that I found out he
had done, made me see that what got on my nerves did not matter in the
least. What mattered was Claude himself, whom I didn’t know before.”

“I love that boy,” said Uncle Alf, with unusual tenderness, “and I’m
glad you do, my dear, because he deserves all the love you can give him.
But I am glad you laugh at him, too. There’s no sense in not seeing the
ridiculous side of people.”

“Oh yes, I laugh at him often,” said Dora. “I think he likes it. You
see, he’s so dreadfully fond of me that he likes all I do.”

Uncle Alf gave a contemptuous sniff.

“Yes, he’s off his head about you,” he said. “I thought he had more
sense. But there’s very little sense in anybody when you come to know
them.”

“I know: it’s foolish of him,” said Dora. “I tell him so. But then I’m
foolish about him. I expect if two people are foolish about each other,
they can stand a lot of the other’s folly, though I expect it isn’t
grammar. It is rather nice to be foolish about a man, if he happens to
be your husband.”

“It seems to me you married him first, and fell in love with him
afterward,” said Uncle Alf.

“That’s exactly what I did do,” said Dora softly.

“And what’s this fine thing Claude did?” asked the other. “Gave a cabman
a sovereign, I suppose, and told him to keep the change. Much he’d miss
it. And you thought that was devilish noble. Eh?”

“I can’t tell you what it was,” said she. “Nobody must know that.”

Uncle Alf was silent a minute: he wanted to say something ill-tempered
but could not think of anything.

“Well, I’m glad the boy’s done something to deserve you, my dear,” he
said, “though that sounds as if I was getting soft-headed, too, and
perhaps I am, joining like this in this chorus of praise, this--this
domestic symphony. But I can stand you and Claude: what I can’t stand is
Eddie and Maria. Lord! if they aren’t coming out here, when I thought I
had escaped. She in her bath chair, and he pushing it. A man of his age,
and as stout as that. He’ll be bursting himself one of these days, and
then we shall have Maria making us all sick with telling us how
beautifully he bore it, and nobody behaved so bravely over a burst as
her Eddie.”

Dora giggled hopelessly.

“Oh! you are such a darling,” she said. “I don’t mind what you say.”

The bath chair had approached, and Lady Osborne put down her sunshade as
they came into the strip of shadow where Dora and Uncle Alf sat. He
edged away from her as far as the angle of the house and the flower beds
would permit.

“Well, and if this isn’t pleasant,” she said. “Eddie, my dear, we’ll
stop here a bit and have a rest, if we’re not interrupting, and indeed
it’s near teatime, and I want my tea badly to-day, I do. But my
appetite’s been so good since my operation----”

Alf broke in.

“Maria, if I hear any more about you and your operation, I leave the
house,” he said.

“Well, and I’m sure that’s the last thing I want you to do,” said Lady
Osborne genially, “for I’m enjoying this little family party such as
never was. Why, all the time I was getting better in London I was
looking forward to it, and dreamed about it too. There now, Alf, don’t
be so tetchy, stopping your ears in that manner, as if you had the
neuralgia and was sitting in a draught. I was only going to say I’d been
looking forward to a week or two of quiet down here with you all, and
pleased I was to know that you would join us, instead of setting on
Richmond Hill with the motors and all buzzing round you and raising
clouds of dust with germs uncountable. Mr. O., my dear, you’re all of a
perspiration with pushing me, and thank you. Won’t you be wise to put a
wrap on, same as your brother does, when he sits out of doors,
especially with you in that heat?”

“No, my dear, I’m comfortable enough. I was only wondering whether Dora
was wise to sit here in that thin dress. It’ll strike chill before
sunset.”

Dora again burst out laughing.

“Dad, we shall drive Uncle Alf off his head if we all think so much
about each other,” she said. “He’s been making a formal complaint to me
about it. He finds us all very trying!”

“And where’s Claude and Jim?” asked Alf. “I hope they’re taking great
care of each other. Claude cut his finger this morning, and he bore it
wonderfully. Never a cry nor a sob. But I wonder at you, Maria, letting
them ride horses all about the country, without a doctor or a pair of
surgeons to follow them in case of accidents. They might fall off and be
hurt. A savage and dangerous beast is a horse, and more especially a
mare, such as Claude was riding.”

Lady Osborne entirely refused to notice the sarcastic intent of this.

“Well, to be sure, we’ve all got to take our risks,” she said. “There’d
be no sense in passing your life wrapped up in cotton-wool, and waiting
for the doctor!”

“Why, and you used to ride too, when you was a lad, Alf,” said her
husband. “You’re making Dora laugh at you. And I don’t wonder: I could
laugh myself!”

Alf got up from his chair.

“I think you’d both be the better for an operation, you and Maria,” he
said. “I should have a bit of humour put in, instead of a bit of tumour
taken out. Not but what it’s a far more serious affair. I doubt if
either of you would get over it.”

“Well, and it’s you who talked about my tumour this time,” said Lady
Osborne triumphantly.

This was too much for Alf: he walked shufflingly back to the house,
leaving his sister-in-law in possession of the field. But she used her
victory nobly, with pity for the conquered.

Lady Osborne looked round in a discreet and penetrating manner after he
had gone and was out of hearing.

“Dora, my dear, you mustn’t mind what Alf says,” she remarked with much
acuteness. “He gets a bit sour now and then, and I’m sure I don’t
wonder, with his lumbago, and no one to look after him. If only he had
found a nice girl to look after him when he was young! Poor old Alf! But
you can take it from me as knows him, he doesn’t really mean all he
says. It’s his joke, and I’m not one to quarrel with a joke, and bless
him, why shouldn’t he joke in his own way just as the rest of us do? And
if sometimes he seems a bit ill-humoured over his joke--well, you let
him get his bit of ill-humour off his mind, and he’ll be all the better
for it. I never take no notice and it don’t hurt me. ‘Alf and his joke,’
I say over to myself, and no harm done.”

“Rum old cove is Alf,” said her husband; “he seems sometimes to want to
quarrel with us all. But it takes two to make a quarrel, and he’ll have
hard work to find the second in this house, if I know who lives in it.
And he was just as anxious as he could be, Maria, when you was at your
worst in the summer, telephoning five and six times in the day, till I
said down the tube, ‘Maria’s love, and she’s asleep till morning.’ And
what it’ll be when Dora here----”

“Mr. O., you go too far,” said his wife in a shrill aside. “But as you
were saying about Alf, if there’s crust outside there’s crumb within.
It’s a soft heart like your own, Mr. O., though he don’t know it.”

“Dad, when last were you angry with anybody?” asked Dora. “Can you
remember?”

Lord Osborne considered this: it was a question that required research.

“Well, my dear, if you leave out things like my being angry with the
Mother for giving us all such a fright last July--there’s one for you,
Maria--I couldn’t rightly say. I had a dishonest foreman I remember at
the works whom I had to dismiss, summary, too, one Monday morning, but
I think I was more sorry for his wife and children than I was angry with
him. Nine children there was, and another expected, poor lamb! and
stillborn when it came, for I inquired.”

Dora saw Lady Osborne shoot out a furtive finger at him, and he
understood.

“Then I was angry with Claude one day,” he continued, “when he was a
little lad. I think the devil must have been in the boy, for what must
he do but rake out the fire from his mother’s drawing room grate, and
dump it all on the hearthrug. And yet I could scarce help laughing even
when I gave him his spanking. What was in the boy’s head that he should
think of a trick like that? Perhaps it was his joke, too, something that
looks mischievous at first, like old Alf’s jokes. I’ll take another cup
of tea, Mother, for here’s Claude coming with Jim, and such a tea-pot
drainer as Claude I never saw.”

“Yes, I doubt he’ll injure his stomach,” said Lady Osborne, “for I’m
told that tea tans the coats of it like so much leather. Sir Henry told
me so when we were having a chat one morning, after he’d dressed the
place for me.”

“Well, the less we know about our insides the better, to my way of
thinking,” said her husband, “until there’s some call to see what’s
going on. Eat your dinner and drink your wine and get your sleep of
nights, and you’ve done what you can to keep it contented.”

“And I’m sure none’s got a better right to tell us how to keep well than
you, my dear,” said Lady Osborne appreciatively, “for bar a bit of gout
now and then, as it isn’t reasonable you should be spared, there’s not
an hour’s anxiety your health’s given me since first we met, Mr. O., and
here’s the boys ready for their tea, I’ll be bound. Old Alf, and his
saying that he wondered at me allowing them to go horseback!”

       *       *       *       *       *

All this, these quiet ordinary domestic conversations, as well as things
of far greater import, had entirely changed in character for Dora. But
it was for her only that they had changed; in themselves they were
exactly as they had been before there came those days which, so she put
it to herself, had opened her eyes and given sight to them. For she had
labelled them trivial or tiresome, according as her own mood had varied,
and though discussion on subjects of high artistic or spiritual import
was not rare but unknown among the Osbornes, she had now the sense to
see that the kindly utterances of simple people possibly illustrated
though they did not allude to qualities that were not at all trivial.
For she saw now the personalities that lay behind these details of their
life, the hearts out of which the mouths spoke. It was that which gave
its tone to what had become music: and if Lord Osborne lingered in his
cellar to find a bottle of wine that Sir Thomas appreciated, it was no
longer Sir Thomas’s undoubted greediness that concerned her, but his
host’s desire that his guest should enjoy himself. And she knew now that
the spirit which did not think it trivial to see that the dinner was
good, or that the wine was plentiful, was perfectly capable of rising to
higher levels than these. When there was a call for courage, courage of
a very wonderful sort had answered; when endurance was needed,
endurance was there; when charity, as in the case of Jim, the charity
that met the difficult and disgraceful situation was complete, and had
all the fineness and delicacy which only perfect simplicity can give.
How Claude had done it she did not know; there seemed no question of
finesse or of diplomatic behaviour. He had merely behaved without
difficulty, like Claude, and but a few weeks afterward there was Jim,
sensitive and highly strung as he always was, staying with them all, not
like a guest, but as one of the family, as Lady Osborne loved to think.
And it was not that he was lacking in the sense of shame that made his
friendship with Claude possible: it was that he, like Dora, had had his
eyes opened. A heart as kind as Claude’s counted for something after
all: they both, it must be supposed, had taken it for granted until it
was shown them. But the sight of it, the practical knowledge of it,
worked the miracle, worked it easily, as if there was no miracle about
it.

Dora had gone to her room shortly after tea to rest, on the diplomatic
prompting of her mother-in-law. With so many gentlemen present, Lady
Osborne would never have said, “Dora, the doctor told you to rest for a
couple of hours before dinner,” but she had reminded her that she had
several letters to write for the post. And Dora, secretly and kindly
smiling, had remembered at once, though (like the almug trees) there
were no such letters. And with her to her room she took up the parcel of
thought that has been indicated, for she wanted to examine its contents
a little more closely before Claude came up, as he always did, to read
to her for a while before she dressed. Right at the bottom of the
packet, she knew, there lay something very precious. She would look at
that by and by, with him perhaps.

But in spite of the preponderance that qualities of the heart had now
gained in her mind compared to what must be called qualities of the
surface, to which belonged such things as beauty and breeding, she found
that the latter had not at all lost their value. But she saw such things
differently. They had assumed, so it seemed to her, not a truer value,
but the true value. She loved Claude’s beauty more than even in those
enchanted days of honeymoon in Venice, not only now because it was
beauty, but because it was Claude’s, while such superficial failings as
were undoubtedly his she laughed at still, but now without bitterness or
irritation. They were funny: to say a “handsome lady” was still
ludicrous, but now, since it was Claude who said it, it could not help
being lovable. Indeed she and Jim had invented what they called “The
Claude Catechism,” which began, “Are you a handsome lady? No, but I am a
perfect gentleman.” And then Claude would throw whatever was handiest at
Jim’s head.

And how, like Pharaoh, had she at one time hardened her heart, refusing
to give admittance, so it seemed to her now, to that sunshine of
beautiful qualities that was always ready to stream in upon her. He had
never failed her, he had always been patient, waiting for the door to
open, for the closed windows to be unbarred. True, in the early days he
thought they had been unbarred, that he had full admittance, but in the
weeks that followed, when it was clear to him that ingress was given
him no longer, he had waited, waited without bitter thought of her. She
had made him, after their reconciliation, try to explain what he had
felt to her, and he had done it, unwillingly, but not failing to answer
her questions.

“You see it was like this, darling,” he had said. “I saw something was
wrong, and I tried to find out if I had done anything, or how I could
set things right. But it didn’t seem to me that I had altered at all--at
least I knew I hadn’t--toward you, from the time that you said you loved
me, and so the best thing I could do was just to keep on at that. I
thought of all sorts of things, tried to wonder at your reasons for not
being pleased with me. But that was no use: I’d always been myself to
you, and--and I thought you might care for me again later on. Of
course--I suppose it was in a selfish way--I was glad when poor old Jim
made such a mistake, because that gave me an opportunity, you see,
to--well, treat him decently. Not that I ever thought it would get to
your ears. However, it did: Jim was a trump over that, going and telling
you. I didn’t mean him to, but when it happened like that, I couldn’t
help being pleased. You had been a bit hard on me, you know: thank God
you were, for it makes it better now that you are not. Lord, what a
jaw!”

This was the outcome of her talk with him, but the “jaw” was punctuated
by questions of hers. It was another Claude catechism. But this one was
not funny, nor had Jim any part in it.

Yes: she had separated this man who loved her into packets: there was
her mistake. First she had loved his beauty, and then had taken that
for granted. Next she had felt growingly irritated with all in him that
did not correspond to the particular little tricks of conversation and
life in which she had been brought up. Then she had got accustomed to
those sterling qualities which she had taken for granted from the first.
And then had come “the little more,” and how much it was. He had but
shown, in practical demonstration, that he was kind and brave and
reliable, all that she had thought she had given him credit for at
first. But the effect was immense: she fell in love, at first real
sight, with his qualities.

That fused the whole: at last she was in love with the man, not with his
face, not with his character taken by itself, but with him as a whole.
That splendid body was his, his too were the greater splendours of
character, and if his also were the things dealt with in the public
Claude catechism, they were no longer rejected, they were no longer even
accepted, they were welcomed and hugged. The reason for this was plain:
it was Claude who said and did all that which was symbolized under the
title of “handsome lady,” and since it was Claude, it was a thing to be
kissed, though laughter came too. He was no longer packets: they were
fused into one dear whole, the thought of which and the presence of
which made her heart ache with tenderness.

And now, thinking of these things, she had a thirsty eye for the opening
of the door, a thirsty ear for the sound of his foot in the passage
outside. But she knew he would not come quite yet, for at tea some silly
discussion had arisen between him and Jim as to whether it was possible
to get (with a run) from the bottom of the terrace to the lake in
twelve strides. Jim had been vehement on the impossibility of it, and
though Claude cordially agreed that it was a feat of which Jim was
pathetically incapable, he backed himself to do it for the sum of one
shilling. Even now she could hear him running along the terrace below
the window, and Jim’s voice counting the strides.

Dora got up and strolled on to her balcony. The last attempt had
apparently been unsuccessful, for Claude was starting again, and next
moment with great strides his long legs were taking him across the grass
that sloped down to the lake. This time it looked as if he would easily
succeed, for the sixth leap had taken him well beyond the half-distance.
The eleventh took him within a couple of yards of the edge, and next
moment Dora joined in the shout of laughter that came from Jim. For it
had not apparently occurred to Claude what happened next, if you leap at
top speed to the margin of a lake. But he knew now, as he vanished in a
fountain of spray. It was the deep end of the lake too.

Jim had collapsed altogether on the ground by the time Claude swam to
shore, and Dora was equally helpless on the balcony, but by the time the
involuntary bather had wrung his clothes out, Jim had recovered
sufficiently to find the shilling he had lost to him.

“Oh! it was cheap at the price,” he said. “I wish it had been a florin.”

Claude walked up the terrace to the house, leaving a trail of water on
the paving stones, and in a moment his dressing room door opened with a
crack, and a head and naked shoulder came round the corner.

“Darling! I’ve been making a fool of myself,” he said “I must change
first, and then shall I come in to read to you?”

“Yes, do,” she said, still laughing. “I saw it. I thought I should have
a fit. Can’t you do it again before you change? It was too heavenly.”

“Yes, if you wish,” said he. “But I shall have to put on my wet clothes
again.”

She laughed again.

“No, there would be no ‘first fine careless rapture’ the second time,”
she said.

“What’s that?” asked Claude.

“Nothing. Browning. Change, and then come and read to me.”

It was not long before he joined her, and seated himself on the floor by
the side of the sofa where she lay, with his back against it. The book
he was reading was “Esmond,” and that evening they came to the chapter
in which Harry comes home, on December 29th, and goes to the service in
Winchester Cathedral. And Claude read:

“‘She gave him her hand, her little fair hand: there was only her
marriage ring on it. The quarrel was all over. The year of grief and
estrangement had passed. They had never been separated.’”

Dora’s hand lay on her husband’s arm, and he felt a soft pressure of her
fingers.

“Oh, Claude,” she said, “how nice! He was so faithful and patient, and
it all came right.”

He let the book fall to the ground. As soon as she spoke he ceased to
think of Esmond, and though Dora’s words referred to him, she was not
thinking of him either.

“‘They had never been separated,’” she went on, still quoting, but still
not thinking of the book. “They hadn’t really been separated, because
their love was present all the time, but she had let it get covered up
with irritation and impatience. Was it like that it happened?”

“I can’t remember,” he said, “indeed I cannot. Everything seems unreal
that isn’t perfect.”

“And there is something more coming,” she said, “coming soon, perhaps in
a few days now. So to-night, dear, let us talk a little instead of
reading even that beautiful chapter. I am glad we got to it to-day. I
like stopping just at those very words, and I want you to tell me just
once, what really I know so well, that you feel as if we had never been
separated, that you forgive all my stupidity and shallowness. I want to
let it all pass from my mind for ever: to know that I needn’t ever
reproach myself any more. I think I have learned my lesson: I do indeed.
Just tell me, if you can, that you think I have!”

He had turned himself about as she spoke, and now instead of sitting he
knelt by her side, she leaning on her elbow toward him. In the humility
of the simple words, there was something exquisite to him, they flooded
his heart with a tender protectiveness.

“Oh, my darling, you say that to me! Indeed, indeed, I never reproached
you.”

Dora was still grave.

“I know that,” she said, “but I reproached myself. How could I help it?
But, Claude, the sting has gone out of my self-reproach. I can’t help
it: it has. You have to tell me, if you truly can, that I needn’t barb
it again.”

He saw she wanted the direct answer.

“You need not,” he said. “And I think you cannot. You can’t make an old
bruise ache again when it is well.”

“Then it has gone,” she said. “Pull me up, dear, with those strong
hands.”

He raised her to her feet, and she clung to him a moment.

“Oh, Claude! it is getting near the best time of all,” she said. “Your
mother once told me that to bear a child was the best thing God ever
thought of for women. Oh dear! and she was so funny at tea. Dad said
something about a foreman he had discharged with nine children and
another coming, and she pulled him up. How beautifully laughter and the
biggest things in the world go together. They don’t interfere with one
another in the least.”

“Lord! and to think that once I used to believe you weren’t respectful
enough to Dad and her,” said he.

“And you were quite right. I can laugh at them now I love them. It’s
that which makes the difference.”

She strolled to the window.

“Let’s come out on the balcony for a little,” she said. “What an
evening!”

The sun had set, but not long, and in the west a flash of molten red lay
along the horizon. That melted into orange, which again faded into pale
green. Higher up the sky was of velvet blue, and little wisps of
feathery cloud flushed with rose colour were flecked over it. The stars
were already lit, and some noble planet near to its setting flamed
jewel-like in that green strip of sky. Already the colours were half
withdrawn from the garden beds, but a hint of the flower presences came
to them in the little fragrant breeze that fluttered moth-like in the
stillness. Beyond lay the lake, screened from the glory of sunset by the
tall clumps of rhododendrons on its far side, and in the shadow the
water was dark and steel-like in tone. Birds still chuckled in the
bushes, and from far away came the pulse of some hurrying train. And in
the hush and quiet of the hour they spoke together of the dear event
that was coming and would not be long delayed.

“So I wanted,” she said at last, “to clear everything off my mind which
could make me look backward. I want nothing to exist for me except you
and our love for each other. Even Dad and Mother must get a little dim.
I can’t explain.”

“I think I understand very well,” said he.

“And you won’t be frightened for me, Claude?” she asked. “Yet I needn’t
ask you. I saw what you were when mother was ill.”

He did not answer.

“What then, dear?” asked Dora.

“Well, it’s you, you see, now,” he said. “I can’t help it. But I’ll do
my best.”

       *       *       *       *       *

A week more passed quietly enough. Lady Austell arrived, and that
somehow was the last straw for Uncle Alf, for she was so extraordinarily
appropriate, and he persuaded Jim to come back to Richmond with him.
Lady Austell had very thoughtfully let the house at Deal most
advantageously for the whole month of September, and intended to have a
nice long stay at Grote. Really it was quite too wonderful that Dora’s
baby should be born at Grote. It was a clear case of special Providence.

       *       *       *       *       *

Then came a day when the house was very still, and the hot hours passed
with leaden foot. To Claude it seemed that the morning would never pass
to noon, and when noon was over each hour the more seemed an eternity
twice told. But just before sunset there was heard the cry of a child.

       *       *       *       *       *

Later, he was allowed to see Dora for a moment, and in a cot by her bed,
tiny and red and crumpled, lay that which had come into the world.

“Oh Claude!” she said softly, as he came up to her bed, “all three of
us--you and your son and I.”


THE END

       *       *       *       *       *

GROSSET & DUNLAP’S

DRAMATIZED NOVELS

Original, sincere and courageous--often amusing--the kind that are
making theatrical history.


     MADAME X. By Alexandre Bisson and J. W. McConaughy. Illustrated
     with scenes from the play.

A beautiful Parisienne became an outcast because her husband would not
forgive an error of her youth. Her love for her son is the great final
influence in her career. A tremendous dramatic success.


     THE GARDEN OF ALLAH. By Robert Hichens.

An unconventional English woman and an inscrutable stranger meet and
love in an oasis of the Sahara. Staged this season with magnificent cast
and gorgeous properties.


     THE PRINCE OF INDIA. By Lew. Wallace.

A glowing romance of the Byzantine Empire, presenting with extraordinary
power the siege of Constantinople, and lighting its tragedy with the
warm underflow of an Oriental romance. As a play it is a great dramatic
spectacle.


     TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY. By Grace Miller White. Illust. by Howard
     Chandler Christy.

A girl from the dregs of society, loves a young Cornell University
student, and it works startling changes in her life and the lives of
those about her. The dramatic version is one of the sensations of the
season.


     YOUNG WALLINGFORD. By George Randolph Chester. Illust. by F. R.
     Gruger and Henry Raleigh.

A series of clever swindles conducted by a cheerful young man, each of
which is just on the safe side of a State’s prison offence. As
“Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford,” it is probably the most amusing expose of
money manipulation ever seen on the stage.


     THE INTRUSION OF JIMMY. By P. G. Wodehouse. Illustrations by Will
     Grefe.

Social and club life in London and New York, an amateur burglary
adventure and a love story. Dramatized under the title of “A Gentleman
of Leisure,” it furnishes hours of laughter to the play-goers.

GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK

       *       *       *       *       *

TITLES SELECTED FROM

GROSSET & DUNLAP’S LIST

REALISTIC, ENGAGING PICTURES OF LIFE


     THE GARDEN OF FATE. By Roy Norton. Illustrated by Joseph Clement
     Coll.

The colorful romance of an American girl in Morocco, and of a beautiful
garden, whose beauty and traditions of strange subtle happenings were
closed to the world by a Sultan’s seal.


     THE MAN HIGHER UP. By Henry Russell Miller. Full page vignette
     illustrations by M. Leone Bracker.

The story of a tenement waif who rose by his own ingenuity to the office
of mayor of his native city. His experiences while “climbing,” make a
most interesting example of the possibilities of human nature to rise
above circumstances.


     THE KEY TO YESTERDAY. By Charles Neville Buck. Illustrated by R.
     Schabelitz.

Robert Saxon, a prominent artist, has an accident, while in Paris, which
obliterates his memory, and the only clue he has to his former life is a
rusty key. What door in Paris will it unlock? He must know that before
he woos the girl he loves.


     THE DANGER TRAIL. By James Oliver Curwood. Illustrated by Charles
     Livingston Bull.

The danger trail is over the snow-smothered North. A young Chicago
engineer, who is building a road through the Hudson Bay region, is
involved in mystery, and is led into ambush by a young woman.


     THE GAY LORD WARING. By Houghton Townley. Illustrated by Will
     Grefe.

A story of the smart hunting set in England. A gay young lord wins in
love against his selfish and cowardly brother and apparently against
fate itself.


     BY INHERITANCE. By Octave Thanet. Illustrated by Thomas Fogarty.
     Elaborate wrapper in colors.

A wealthy New England spinster with the most elaborate plans for the
education of the negro goes to visit her nephew in Arkansas, where she
learns the needs of the colored race first hand and begins to lose her
theories.

GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK

       *       *       *       *       *

A FEW OF

GROSSET & DUNLAP’S

Great Books at Little Prices


     CY WHITTAKER’S PLACE. By Joseph C. Lincoln. Illustrated by Wallace
     Morgan.

A Cape Cod story describing the amusing efforts of an elderly bachelor
and his two cronies to rear and educate a little girl. Full of honest
fun--a rural drama.


     THE FORGE IN THE FOREST. By Charles G. D. Roberts. Illustrated by
     H. Sandham.

A story of the conflict in Acadia after its conquest by the British. A
dramatic picture that lives and shines with the indefinable charm of
poetic romance.


     A SISTER TO EVANGELINE. By Charles G. D. Roberts. Illustrated by E.
     McConnell.

Being the story of Yvonne de Lamourie, and how she went into exile with
the villagers of Grand Prè. Swift action, fresh atmosphere, wholesome
purity, deep passion and searching analysis characterize this strong
novel.


     THE OPENED SHUTTERS. By Clara Louise Burnham. Frontispiece by
     Harrison Fisher.

A summer haunt on an island in Casco Bay is the background for this
romance. A beautiful woman, at discord with life, is brought to realize,
by her new friends, that she may open the shutters of her soul to the
blessed sunlight of joy by casting aside vanity and self love. A
delicately humorous work with a lofty motive underlying it all.


     THE RIGHT PRINCESS. By Clara Louise Burnham.

An amusing story, opening at a fashionable Long Island resort, where a
stately Englishwoman employs a forcible New England housekeeper to serve
in her interesting home. How types so widely apart react on each others’
lives, all to ultimate good, makes a story both humorous and rich in
sentiment.


     THE LEAVEN OF LOVE. By Clara Louise Burnham. Frontispiece by
     Harrison Fisher.

At a Southern California resort a world-weary woman, young and beautiful
but disillusioned, meets a girl who has learned the art of living--of
tasting life in all its richness, opulence and joy. The story hinges
upon the change wrought in the soul of the blasè woman by this glimpse
into a cheery life.


GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK

       *       *       *       *       *

LOUIS TRACY’S

CAPTIVATING AND EXHILARATING ROMANCES


     _THE STOWAWAY GIRL._ Illustrated by Nesbitt Benson.

The story of a shipwreck, a lovely girl who shipped stowaway fashion, a
rascally captain, a fascinating young officer and thrilling adventure
enroute to South America.


     _THE CAPTAIN OF THE KANSAS._

A story of love and the salt sea--of a helpless ship whirled into the
hands of cannibal Fuegians--of desperate fighting and a tender romance.
A story of extraordinary freshness.


     _THE MESSAGE._ Illustrated by Joseph Cummings Chase.

A bit of parchment many, many years old, telling of a priceless ruby
secreted in ruins far in the interior of Africa is the “message” found
in the figurehead of an old vessel. A mystery develops which the reader
will follow with breathless interest.


     _THE PILLAR OF LIGHT._

The pillar thus designated was a lighthouse, and the author tells with
exciting detail the terrible dilemma of its cut-off inhabitants and
introduces the charming comedy of a man eloping with his own wife.


     _THE RED YEAR_: A Story of the Indian Mutiny.

The never-to-be-forgotten events of 1857 form the background of this
story. The hero who begins as lieutenant and ends as Major Malcolm, has
as stirring a military career as the most jaded novel reader could wish.
A powerful book.


     _THE WHEEL O’FORTUNE._ With illustrations by James Montgomery
     Flagg.

The story deals with the finding of a papyrus containing the particulars
of the hiding of some of the treasures of the Queen of Sheba. The
glamour of mystery added to the romance of the lovers, gives the novel
an interest that makes it impossible to leave until the end is reached.


     _THE WINGS OF THE MORNING._

A sort of Robinson Crusoe _redivivus_, with modern settings and a very
pretty love story added. The hero and heroine are the only survivors of
a wreck, and have adventures on their desert island such as never could
have happened except in a story.


GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK

       *       *       *       *       *

FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS

Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked
beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume,
postpaid.


     LAVENDER AND OLD LACE. By Myrtle Reed.

A charming story of a quaint corner of New England where bygone romance
finds a modern parallel. One of the prettiest, sweetest, and quaintest
of old-fashioned love stories * * * A rare book, exquisite in spirit and
conception, full of delicate fancy, of tenderness, of delightful humor
and spontaneity. A dainty volume, especially suitable for a gift.


     DOCTOR LUKE OF THE LABRADOR. By Norman Duncan. With a frontispiece
     and inlay cover.

How the doctor came to the bleak Labrador coast and there in saving life
made expiation. In dignity, simplicity, humor, in sympathetic etching of
a sturdy fisher people, and above all in the echoes of the sea, _Doctor
Luke_ is worthy of great praise. Character, humor, poignant pathos, and
the sad grotesque conjunctions of old and new civilizations are
expressed through the medium of a style that has distinction and strikes
a note of rare personality.


     THE DAY’S WORK. By Rudyard Kipling. Illustrated.

The _London Morning Post_ says: “It would be hard to find better reading
* * * the book is so varied, so full of color and life from end to end,
that few who read the first two or three stories will lay it down till
they have read the last--and the last is a veritable gem * * * contains
some of the best of his highly vivid work * * * Kipling is a born
story-teller and a man of humor into the bargain.


     ELEANOR LEE. By Margaret E. Sangster. With a frontispiece.

A story of married life, and attractive picture of wedded bliss * * an
entertaining story of a man’s redemption through a woman’s love * * * no
one who knows anything of marriage or parenthood can read this story
with eyes that are always dry * * * goes straight to the heart of every
one who knows the meaning of “love” and “home.”


     THE COLONEL OF THE RED HUZZARS. By John Reed Scott. Illustrated by
     Clarence F. Underwood.

“Full of absorbing charm, sustained interest, and a wealth of thrilling
and romantic situations.” “So naively fresh in its handling, so
plausible through its naturalness, that it comes like a mountain breeze
across the far-spreading desert of similar romances.”--_Gazette-Times,
Pittsburg._ “A slap-dashing day romance.”--_New York Sun._

GROSSET & DUNLAP,-NEW YORK

       *       *       *       *       *

FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS

Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked
beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume,
postpaid.


     THE SPIRIT OF THE SERVICE. By Edith Elmer Wood. With illustrations
     by Rufus Zogbaum.

The standards and life of “the new navy” are breezily set forth with a
genuine ring impossible from the most gifted “outsider.” “The story of
the destruction of the ‘Maine,’ and of the Battle of Manila, are very
dramatic. The author is the daughter of one naval officer and the wife
of another. Naval folks will find much to interest them in ‘The Spirit
of the Service.’”--_The Book Buyer._


     A SPECTRE OF POWER. By Charles Egbert Craddock.

Miss Murfree has pictured Tennessee mountains and the mountain people in
striking colors and with dramatic vividness, but goes back to the time
of the struggles of the French and English in the early eighteenth
century for possession of the Cherokee territory. The story abounds in
adventure, mystery, peril and suspense.


     THE STORM CENTRE. By Charles Egbert Craddock.

A war story; but more of flirtation, love and courtship than of fighting
or history. The tale is thoroughly readable and takes its readers again
into golden Tennessee, into the atmosphere which has distinguished all
of Miss Murfree’s novels.


     THE ADVENTURESS. By Coralie Stanton. With color frontispiece by
     Harrison Fisher, and attractive inlay cover in colors.

As a penalty for her crimes, her evil nature, her flint-like
callousness, her more than inhuman cruelty, her contempt for the laws of
God and man, she was condemned to bury her magnificent personality, her
transcendent beauty, her superhuman charms, in gilded obscurity at a
King’s left hand. A powerful story powerfully told.


     THE GOLDEN GREYHOUND. A Novel by Dwight Tilton. With illustrations
     by E. Pollak.

A thoroughly good story that keeps you guessing to the very end, and
never attempts to instruct or reform you. It is a strictly up-to-date
story of love and mystery with wireless telegraphy and all the modern
improvements. The events nearly all take place on a big Atlantic liner
and the romance of the deep is skilfully made to serve as a setting for
the romance, old as mankind, yet always new, involving our hero.

GROSSET & DUNLAP,-NEW YORK


       *       *       *       *       *

A FEW OF

GROSSET & DUNLAP’S

Great Books at Little Prices


     THE MUSIC MASTER. By Charles Klein. Illustrated by John Rae.

This marvelously vivid narrative turns upon the search of a German
musician in New York for his little daughter. Mr. Klein has well
portrayed his pathetic struggle with poverty, his varied experiences in
endeavoring to meet the demands of a public not trained to an
appreciation of the classic, and his final great hour when, in the
rapidly shifting events of a big city, his little daughter, now a
beautiful young woman, is brought to his very door. A superb bit of
fiction, palpitating with the life of the great metropolis. The play in
which David Warfield scored his highest success.


     DR. LAVENDAR’S PEOPLE. By Margaret Deland. Illustrated by Lucius
     Hitchcock.

Mrs. Deland won so many friends through Old Chester Tales that this
volume needs no introduction beyond its title. The lovable doctor is
more ripened in this later book, and the simple comedies and tragedies
of the old village are told with dramatic charm.


     OLD CHESTER TALES. By Margaret Deland. Illustrated by Howard Pyle.

Stories portraying with delightful humor and pathos a quaint people in a
sleepy old town. Dr. Lavendar, a very human and lovable “preacher,” is
the connecting link between these dramatic stories from life.


     HE FELL IN LOVE WITH HIS WIFE. By E. P. Roe. With frontispiece.

The hero is a farmer--a man with honest, sincere views of life. Bereft
of his wife, his home is cared for by a succession of domestics of
varying degrees of inefficiency until, from a most unpromising source,
comes a young woman who not only becomes his wife but commands his
respect and eventually wins his love. A bright and delicate romance,
revealing on both sides a love that surmounts all difficulties and
survives the censure of friends as well as the bitterness of enemies.


     THE YOKE. By Elizabeth Miller.

Against the historical background of the days when the children of
Israel were delivered from the bondage of Egypt, the author has sketched
a romance of compelling charm. A biblical novel as great as any since
“Ben Hur.”


     SAUL OF TARSUS. By Elizabeth Miller. Illustrated by André
     Castaigne.

The scenes of this story are laid in Jerusalem, Alexandria, Rome and
Damascus. The Apostle Paul, the Martyr Stephen, Herod Agrippa and the
Emperors Tiberius and Caligula are among the mighty figures that move
through the pages. Wonderful descriptions, and a love story of the
purest and noblest type mark this most remarkable religious romance.


GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK

       *       *       *       *       *

THE MASTERLY AND REALISTIC NOVELS OF

FRANK NORRIS

Handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents per volume, postpaid.


THE OCTOPUS. A Story of California.

Mr. Norris conceived the ambitious idea of writing a trilogy of novels
which, taken together, shall symbolize American life as a whole, with
all its hopes and aspirations and its tendencies, throughout the length
and breadth of the continent. And for the central symbol he has taken
wheat, as being quite literally the ultimate source of American power
and prosperity. _The Octopus_ is a story of wheat raising and railroad
greed in California. It immediately made a place for itself.

It is full of enthusiasm and poetry and conscious strength. One cannot
read it without a responsive thrill of sympathy for the earnestness, the
breadth of purpose, the verbal power of the man.


THE PIT. A Story of Chicago.

This powerful novel is the fictitious narrative of a deal in the Chicago
wheat pit and holds the reader from the beginning. In a masterly way the
author has grasped the essential spirit of the great city by the lakes.
The social existence, the gambling in stocks and produce, the
characteristic life in Chicago, form a background for an exceedingly
vigorous and human tale of modern life and love.


A MAN’S WOMAN.

A story which has for a heroine a girl decidedly out of the ordinary run
of fiction. It is most dramatic, containing some tremendous pictures of
the daring of the men who are trying to reach the Pole * * * but it is
at the same time essentially a _woman’s_ book, and the story works
itself out in the solution of a difficulty that is continually presented
in real life--the wife’s attitude in relation to her husband when both
have well-defined careers.


McTEAGUE. A Story of San Francisco.

“Since Bret Harte and the Forty-niner no one has written of California
life with the vigor and accuracy of Mr. Norris. His ‘McTeague’ settled
his right to a place in American literature; and he has now presented a
third novel, ‘Blix,’ which is in some respects the finest and likely to
be the most popular of the three.”--_Washington Times._


BLIX.

“Frank Norris has written in ‘Blix’ just what such a woman’s name would
imply--a story of a frank, fearless girl comrade to all men who are true
and honest because she is true and honest. How she saved the man she
fishes and picnics with in a spirit of outdoor platonic friendship,
makes a pleasant story, and a perfect contrast to the author’s
‘McTeague.’ A splendid and successful story.”--_Washington Times._


GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, -- New York