AN UNSOCIAL SOCIALIST

by George Bernard Shaw

CHAPTER I

In the dusk of an October evening, a sensible looking woman of fortycame out through an oaken door to a broad landing on the first floor ofan old English country-house. A braid of her hair had fallen forward asif she had been stooping over book or pen; and she stood for a momentto smooth it, and to gaze contemplatively--not in the leastsentimentally--through the tall, narrow window. The sun was setting, butits glories were at the other side of the house; for this windowlooked eastward, where the landscape of sheepwalks and pasture land wassobering at the approach of darkness. 

The lady, like one to whom silence and quiet were luxuries, lingeredon the landing for some time. Then she turned towards another door, onwhich was inscribed, in white letters, Class Room No. 6. Arrested by awhispering above, she paused in the doorway, and looked up the stairsalong a broad smooth handrail that swept round in an unbroken curve ateach landing, forming an inclined plane from the top to the bottom ofthe house. 

A young voice, apparently mimicking someone, now came from above, saying, "We will take the Etudes de la Velocite next, if you please, ladies. "

Immediately a girl in a holland dress shot down through space; whirledround the curve with a fearless centrifugal toss of her ankle; andvanished into the darkness beneath. She was followed by a stately girlin green, intently holding her breath as she flew; and also by a largeyoung woman in black, with her lower lip grasped between her teeth, andher fine brown eyes protruding with excitement. Her passage created aminiature tempest which disarranged anew the hair of the lady on thelanding, who waited in breathless alarm until two light shocks and athump announced that the aerial voyagers had landed safely in the hall. 

"Oh law!" exclaimed the voice that had spoken before. "Here's Susan. "

"It's a mercy your neck ain't broken, " replied some palpitating female. "I'll tell of you this time, Miss Wylie; indeed I will. And you, too, Miss Carpenter: I wonder at you not to have more sense at your age andwith your size! Miss Wilson can't help hearing when you come down with athump like that. You shake the whole house. "

"Oh bother!" said Miss Wylie. "The Lady Abbess takes good care to shutout all the noise we make. Let us--"

"Girls, " said the lady above, calling down quietly, but with ominousdistinctness. 

Silence and utter confusion ensued. Then came a reply, in a tone ofhoneyed sweetness, from Miss Wylie:

"Did you call us, DEAR Miss Wilson?"

"Yes. Come up here, if you please, all three. "

There was some hesitation among them, each offering the otherprecedence. At last they went up slowly, in the order, though not at allin the manner, of their flying descent; followed Miss Wilson into theclass-room; and stood in a row before her, illumined through threewestern windows with a glow of ruddy orange light. Miss Carpenter, thelargest of the three, was red and confused. Her arms hung by her sides, her fingers twisting the folds of her dress. Miss Gertrude Lindsay, inpale sea-green, had a small head, delicate complexion, and pearly teeth. She stood erect, with an expression of cold distaste for reproof of anysort. The holland dress of the third offender had changed from yellow towhite as she passed from the gray eastern twilight on the staircase intothe warm western glow in the room. Her face had a bright olive tone, andseemed to have a golden mica in its composition. Her eyes and hair werehazel-nut color; and her teeth, the upper row of which she displayedfreely, were like fine Portland stone, and sloped outward enough to havespoilt her mouth, had they not been supported by a rich under lip, anda finely curved, impudent chin. Her half cajoling, half mocking air, and her ready smile, were difficult to confront with severity; and MissWilson knew it; for she would not look at her even when attracted bya convulsive start and an angry side glance from Miss Lindsay, who hadjust been indented between the ribs by a finger tip. 

"You are aware that you have broken the rules, " said Miss Wilsonquietly. 

"We didn't intend to. We really did not, " said the girl in holland, coaxingly. 

"Pray what was your intention then, Miss Wylie?"

Miss Wylie unexpectedly treated this as a smart repartee instead of arebuke. She sent up a strange little scream, which exploded in a cascadeof laughter. 

"Pray be silent, Agatha, " said Miss Wilson severely. Agatha lookedcontrite. Miss Wilson turned hastily to the eldest of the three, andcontinued:

"I am especially surprised at you, Miss Carpenter. Since you have nodesire to keep faith with me by upholding the rules, of which you arequite old enough to understand the necessity, I shall not trouble youwith reproaches, or appeals to which I am now convinced that you wouldnot respond, " (here Miss Carpenter, with an inarticulate protest, burstinto tears); "but you should at least think of the danger into whichyour juniors are led by your childishness. How should you feel if Agathahad broken her neck?"

"Oh!" exclaimed Agatha, putting her hand quickly to her neck. 

"I didn't think there was any danger, " said Miss Carpenter, strugglingwith her tears. "Agatha has done it so oft--oh dear! you have torn me. "Miss Wylie had pulled at her schoolfellow's skirt, and pulled too hard. 

"Miss Wylie, " said Miss Wilson, flushing slightly, "I must ask you toleave the room. "

"Oh, no, " exclaimed Agatha, clasping her hands in distress. "Pleasedon't, dear Miss Wilson. I am so sorry. I beg your pardon. "

"Since you will not do what I ask, I must go myself, " said Miss Wilsonsternly. "Come with me to my study, " she added to the two othergirls. "If you attempt to follow, Miss Wylie, I shall regard it as anintrusion. "

"But I will go away if you wish it. I didn't mean to diso--"

"I shall not trouble you now. Come, girls. "

The three went out; and Miss Wylie, left behind in disgrace, made asurpassing grimace at Miss Lindsay, who glanced back at her. When shewas alone, her vivacity subsided. She went slowly to the window, andgazed disparagingly at the landscape. Once, when a sound of voices abovereached her, her eyes brightened, and her ready lip moved; but thenext silent moment she relapsed into moody indifference, which was notrelieved until her two companions, looking very serious, re-entered. 

"Well, " she said gaily, "has moral force been applied? Are you going tothe Recording Angel?"

"Hush, Agatha, " said Miss Carpenter. "You ought to be ashamed ofyourself. "

"No, but you ought, you goose. A nice row you have got me into!"

"It was your own fault. You tore my dress. "

"Yes, when you were blurting out that I sometimes slide down thebanisters. "

"Oh!" said Miss Carpenter slowly, as if this reason had not occurred toher before. "Was that why you pulled me?"

"Dear me! It has actually dawned upon you. You are a most awfully sillygirl, Jane. What did the Lady Abbess say?"

Miss Carpenter again gave her tears way, and could not reply. 

"She is disgusted with us, and no wonder, " said Miss Lindsay. 

"She said it was all your fault, " sobbed Miss Carpenter. 

"Well, never mind, dear, " said Agatha soothingly. "Put it in theRecording Angel. "

"I won't write a word in the Recording Angel unless you do so first, "said Miss Lindsay angrily. "You are more in fault than we are. "

"Certainly, my dear, " replied Agatha. "A whole page, if you wish. "

"I b-believe you LIKE writing in the Recording Angel, " said MissCarpenter spitefully. 

"Yes, Jane. It is the best fun the place affords. "

"It may be fun to you, " said Miss Lindsay sharply; "but it is not verycreditable to me, as Miss Wilson said just now, to take a prize in moralscience and then have to write down that I don't know how to behavemyself. Besides, I do not like to be told that I am ill-bred!"

Agatha laughed. "What a deep old thing she is! She knows all ourweaknesses, and stabs at us through them. Catch her telling me, or Janethere, that we are ill-bred!"

"I don't understand you, " said Miss Lindsay, haughtily. 

"Of course not. That's because you don't know as much moral science asI, though I never took a prize in it. "

"You never took a prize in anything, " said Miss Carpenter. 

"And I hope I never shall, " said Agatha. "I would as soon scramble forhot pennies in the snow, like the street boys, as scramble to see whocan answer most questions. Dr. Watts is enough moral science for me. Nowfor the Recording Angel. "

She went to a shelf and took down a heavy quarto, bound in blackleather, and inscribed, in red letters, MY FAULTS. This she threwirreverently on a desk, and tossed its pages over until she came to oneonly partly covered with manuscript confessions. 

"For a wonder, " she said, "here are two entries that are not mine. SarahGerram! What has she been confessing?"

"Don't read it, " said Miss Lindsay quickly. "You know that it is themost dishonorable thing any of us can do. "

"Poch! Our little sins are not worth making such a fuss about. I alwayslike to have my entries read: it makes me feel like an author; and so inChristian duty I always read other people's. Listen to poor Sarah's taleof guilt. '1st October. I am very sorry that I slapped Miss Chambers inthe lavatory this morning, and knocked out one of her teeth. This wasvery wicked; but it was coming out by itself; and she has forgiven mebecause a new one will come in its place; and she was only pretendingwhen she said she swallowed it. Sarah Gerram. "'

"Little fool!" said Miss Lindsay. "The idea of our having to record inthe same book with brats like that!"

"Here is a touching revelation. '4th October. Helen Plantagenet isdeeply grieved to have to confess that I took the first place in algebrayesterday unfairly. Miss Lindsay prompted me;' and--"

"Oh!" exclaimed Miss Lindsay, reddening. "That is how she thanks me forprompting her, is it? How dare she confess my faults in the RecordingAngel?"

"Serves you right for prompting her, " said Miss Carpenter. "She wasalways a double-faced cat; and you ought to have known better. "

"Oh, I assure you it was not for her sake that I did it, " replied MissLindsay. "It was to prevent that Jackson girl from getting first place. I don't like Helen Plantagenet; but at least she is a lady. '

"Stuff, Gertrude, " said Agatha, with a touch of earnestness. "One wouldthink, to hear you talk, that your grandmother was a cook. Don't be sucha snob. "

"Miss Wylie, " said Gertrude, becoming scarlet: "you are very--oh! oh!Stop Ag--oh! I will tell Miss--oh!" Agatha had inserted a steely fingerbetween her ribs, and was tickling her unendurably. 

"Sh-sh-sh, " whispered Miss Carpenter anxiously. "The door is open. "

"Am I Miss Wylie?" demanded Agatha, relentlessly continuing the torture. "Am I very--whatever you were going to say? Am I? am I? am I?"

"No, no, " gasped Gertrude, shrinking into a chair, almost in hysterics. "You are very unkind, Agatha. You have hurt me. "

"You deserve it. If you ever get sulky with me again, or call me MissWylie, I will kill you. I will tickle the soles of your feet with afeather, " (Miss Lindsay shuddered, and hid her feet beneath the chair)"until your hair turns white. And now, if you are truly repentant, comeand record. "

"You must record first. It was all your fault. "

"But I am the youngest, " said Agatha. 

"Well, then, " said Gertrude, afraid to press the point, but determinednot to record first, "let Jane Carpenter begin. She is the eldest. "

"Oh, of course, " said Jane, with whimpering irony. "Let Jane do all thenasty things first. I think it's very hard. You fancy that Jane is afool; but she isn't. "

"You are certainly not such a fool as you look, Jane, " said Agathagravely. "But I will record first, if you like. "

"No, you shan't, " cried Jane, snatching the pen from her. "I arm theeldest; and I won't be put out of my place. "

She dipped the pen in the ink resolutely, and prepared to write. Then she paused; considered; looked bewildered; and at last appealedpiteously to Agatha. 

"What shall I write?" she said. "You know how to write things down; andI don't. "

"First put the date, " said Agatha. 

"To be sure, " said Jane, writing it quickly. "I forgot that. Well?"

"Now write, 'I am very sorry that Miss Wilson saw me when I slid downthe banisters this evening. Jane Carpenter. '"

"Is that all?"

"That's all: unless you wish to add something of your own composition. "

"I hope it's all right, " said Jane, looking suspiciously at Agatha. "However, there can't be any harm in it; for it's the simple truth. Anyhow, if you are playing one of your jokes on me, you are a nasty meanthing, and I don't care. Now, Gertrude, it's your turn. Please look atmine, and see whether the spelling is right. "

"It is not my business to teach you to spell, " said Gertrude, taking thepen. And, while Jane was murmuring at her churlishness, she wrote in abold hand:

"I have broken the rules by sliding down the banisters to-day with MissCarpenter and Miss Wylie. Miss Wylie went first. "

"You wretch!" exclaimed Agatha, reading over her shoulder. "And yourfather is an admiral!"

"I think it is only fair, " said Miss Lindsay, quailing, but assuming thetone of a moralist. "It is perfectly true. "

"All my money was made in trade, " said Agatha; "but I should be ashamedto save myself by shifting blame to your aristocratic shoulders. Youpitiful thing! Here: give me the pen. "

"I will strike it out if you wish; but I think--"

"No: it shall stay there to witness against you. How see how I confessmy faults. " And she wrote, in a fine, rapid hand:

"This evening Gertrude Lindsay and Jane Carpenter met me at the top ofthe stairs, and said they wanted to slide down the banisters and woulddo it if I went first. I told them that it was against the rules, but they said that did not matter; and as they are older than I am, Iallowed myself to be persuaded, and did. "

"What do you think of that?" said Agatha, displaying the page. 

They read it, and protested clamorously. 

"It is perfectly true, " said Agatha, solemnly. 

"It's beastly mean, " said Jane energetically. "The idea of your findingfault with Gertrude, and then going and being twice as bad yourself! Inever heard of such a thing in my life. "

"'Thus bad begins; but worse remains behind, ' as the StandardElocutionist says, " said Agatha, adding another sentence to herconfession. 

"But it was all my fault. Also I was rude to Miss Wilson, and refusedto leave the room when she bade me. I was not wilfully wrong except insliding down the banisters. I am so fond of a slide that I could notresist the temptation. "

"Be warned by me, Agatha, " said Jane impressively. "If you write cheekythings in that book, you will be expelled. "

"Indeed!" replied Agatha significantly. "Wait until Miss Wilson seeswhat you have written. "

"Gertrude, " cried Jane, with sudden misgiving, "has she made me writeanything improper? Agatha, do tell me if--"

Here a gong sounded; and the three girls simultaneously exclaimed"Grub!" and rushed from the room. 

CHAPTER II

One sunny afternoon, a hansom drove at great speed along Belsize Avenue, St. John's Wood, and stopped before a large mansion. A young lady sprangout; ran up the steps, and rang the bell impatiently. She was of theolive complexion, with a sharp profile: dark eyes with long lashes;narrow mouth with delicately sensuous lips; small head, feet, and hands, with long taper fingers; lithe and very slender figure moving withserpent-like grace. Oriental taste was displayed in the colors of hercostume, which consisted of a white dress, close-fitting, and printedwith an elaborate china blue pattern; a yellow straw hat covered withartificial hawthorn and scarlet berries; and tan-colored gloves reachingbeyond the elbow, and decorated with a profusion of gold bangles. 

The door not being opened immediately, she rang again, violently, andw as presently admitted by a maid, who seemed surprised to see her. Without making any inquiry, she darted upstairs into a drawing-room, where a matron of good presence, with features of the finest Jewishtype, sat reading. With her was a handsome boy in black velvet, whosaid:

"Mamma, here's Henrietta!"

"Arthur, " said the young lady excitedly, "leave the room this instant;and don't dare to come back until you get leave. "

The boy's countenance fell, and he sulkily went out without a word. 

"Is anything wrong?" said the matron, putting away her book with theunconcerned resignation of an experienced person who foresees a storm ina teacup. "Where is Sidney?"

"Gone! Gone! Deserted me! I--" The young lady's utterance failed, andshe threw herself upon an ottoman, sobbing with passionate spite. 

"Nonsense! I thought Sidney had more sense. There, Henrietta, don't besilly. I suppose you have quarrelled. "

"No! No!! No!!!" cried Henrietta, stamping on the carpet. "We had not aword. I have not lost my temper since we were married, mamma; I solemnlyswear I have not. I will kill myself; there is no other way. There's acurse on me. I am marked out to be miserable. He--"

"Tut, tut! What has happened, Henrietta? As you have been married nownearly six weeks, you can hardly be surprised at a little tiff arising. You are so excitable! You cannot expect the sky to be always cloudless. Most likely you are to blame; for Sidney is far more reasonable thanyou. Stop crying, and behave like a woman of sense, and I will go toSidney and make everything right. "

"But he's gone, and I can't find out where. Oh, what shall I do?"

"What has happened?"

Henrietta writhed with impatience. Then, forcing herself to tell herstory, she answered:

"We arranged on Monday that I should spend two days with Aunt Judithinstead of going with him to Birmingham to that horrid Trade Congress. We parted on the best of terms. He couldn't have been more affectionate. I will kill myself; I don't care about anything or anybody. And whenI came back on Wednesday he was gone, and there was this letter. " Sheproduced a letter, and wept more bitterly than before. 

"Let me see it. "

Henrietta hesitated, but her mother took the letter from her, sat downnear the window, and composed herself to read without the least regardto her daughter's vehement distress. The letter ran thus:

"Monday night. 

"My Dearest: I am off--surfeited with endearment--to live my own lifeand do my own work. I could only have prepared you for this by coldnessor neglect, which are wholly impossible to me when the spell of yourpresence is upon me. I find that I must fly if I am to save myself. 

"I am afraid that I cannot give you satisfactory and intelligiblereasons for this step. You are a beautiful and luxurious creature: lifeis to you full and complete only when it is a carnival of love. My caseis just the reverse. Before three soft speeches have escaped me I rebukemyself for folly and insincerity. Before a caress has had time to cool, a strenuous revulsion seizes me: I long to return to my old lonelyascetic hermit life; to my dry books; my Socialist propagandism; myvoyage of discovery through the wilderness of thought. I married in aninsane fit of belief that I had a share of the natural affectionwhich carries other men through lifetimes of matrimony. Already I amundeceived. You are to me the loveliest woman in the world. Well, forfive weeks I have walked and tallied and dallied with the loveliestwoman in the world, and the upshot is that I am flying from her, and amfor a hermit's cave until I die. Love cannot keep possession of me: allmy strongest powers rise up against it and will not endure it. Forgiveme for writing nonsense that you won't understand, and do not think toohardly of me. I have been as good to you as my selfish nature allowed. Do not seek to disturb me in the obscurity which I desire and deserve. My solicitor will call on your father to arrange business matters, andyou shall be as happy as wealth and liberty can make you. We shall meetagain--some day. 

"Adieu, my last love, "Sidney Trefusis. "

"Well?" cried Mrs. Trefusis, observing through her tears that her motherhad read the letter and was contemplating it in a daze. 

"Well, certainly!" said Mrs. Jansenius, with emphasis. "Do you thinkhe is quite sane, Henrietta? Or have you been plaguing him for too muchattention? Men are not willing to give up their whole existence to theirwives, even during the honeymoon. "

"He pretended that he was never happy out of my presence, " sobbedHenrietta. "There never was anything so cruel. I often wanted to be bymyself for a change, but I was afraid to hurt his feelings by sayingso. And now he has no feelings. But he must come back to me. Mustn't he, mamma?"

"He ought to. I suppose he has not gone away with anyone?"

Henrietta sprang up, her cheeks vivid scarlet. "If I thought that Iwould pursue him to the end of the earth, and murder her. But no; he isnot like anybody else. He hates me! Everybody hates me! You don't carewhether I am deserted or not, nor papa, nor anyone in this house. "

Mrs. Jansenius, still indifferent to her daughter's agitation, considered a moment, and then said placidly:

"You can do nothing until we hear from the solicitor. In the meantimeyou may stay with us, if you wish. I did not expect a visit from you sosoon; but your room has not been used since you went away. "

Mrs. Trefusis ceased crying, chilled by this first intimation that herfather's house was no longer her home. A more real sense of desolationcame upon her. Under its cold influence she began to collect herself, and to feel her pride rising like a barrier between her and her mother. 

"I won't stay long, " she said. "If his solicitor will not tell me wherehe is, I will hunt through England for him. I am sorry to trouble you. "

"Oh, you will be no greater trouble than you have always been, " saidMrs. Jansenius calmly, not displeased to see that her daughter had takenthe hint. "You had better go and wash your face. People may call, andI presume you don't wish to receive them in that plight. If you meetArthur on the stairs, please tell him he may come in. "

Henrietta screwed her lips into a curious pout and withdrew. Arthur thencame in and stood at the window in sullen silence, brooding over hisrecent expulsion. Suddenly he exclaimed: "Here's papa, and it's not fiveo'clock yet!" whereupon his mother sent him away again. 

Mr. Jansenius was a man of imposing presence, not yet in his fiftiethyear, but not far from it. He moved with dignity, bearing himself as ifthe contents of his massive brow were precious. His handsome aquilinenose and keen dark eyes proclaimed his Jewish origin, of which he wasashamed. Those who did not know this naturally believed that he wasproud of it, and were at a loss to account for his permitting hischildren to be educated as Christians. Well instructed in business, and subject to no emotion outside the love of family, respectability, comfort, and money, he had maintained the capital inherited from hisfather, and made it breed new capital in the usual way. He was a banker, and his object as such was to intercept and appropriate the immensesaving which the banking system effects, and so, as far as possible, toleave the rest of the world working just as hard as before banking wasintroduced. But as the world would not on these terms have banked atall, he had to give them some of the saving as an inducement. So theyprofited by the saving as well as he, and he had the satisfactionof being at once a wealthy citizen and a public benefactor, rich incomforts and easy in conscience. 

He entered the room quickly, and his wife saw that something had vexedhim. 

"Do you know what has happened, Ruth?" he said. 

"Yes. She is upstairs. "

Mr. Jansenius stared. "Do you mean to say that she has left already?" hesaid. "What business has she to come here?"

"It is natural enough. Where else should she have gone?"

Mr. Jansenius, who mistrusted his own judgment when it differed fromthat of his wife, replied slowly, "Why did she not go to her mother?"

Mrs. Jansenius, puzzled in her turn, looked at him with cool wonder, andremarked, "I am her mother, am I not?"

"I was not aware of it. I am surprised to hear it, Ruth. Have you had aletter too. I have seen the letter. But what do you mean by tellingme that you do not know I am Henrietta's mother? Are you trying to befunny?"

"Henrietta! Is she here? Is this some fresh trouble?"

"I don't know. What are you talking about?"

"I am talking about Agatha Wylie. "

"Oh! I was talking about Henrietta. "

"Well, what about Henrietta?"

"What about Agatha Wylie?"

At this Mr. Jansenius became exasperated, and he deemed it best torelate what Henrietta had told her. When she gave him Trefusis's letter, he said, more calmly: "Misfortunes never come singly. Read that, " andhanded her another letter, so that they both began reading at the sametime. 

Mrs. Jansenius read as follows:

"Alton College, Lyvern. 

"To Mrs. Wylie, Acacia Lodge, Chiswick. 

"Dear Madam: I write with great regret to request that you will at oncewithdraw Miss Wylie from Alton College. In an establishment likethis, where restraint upon the liberty of the students is reduced to aminimum, it is necessary that the small degree of subordination whichis absolutely indispensable be acquiesced in by all without complaintor delay. Miss Wylie has failed to comply with this condition. She hasdeclared her wish to leave, and has assumed an attitude towards myselfand my colleagues which we cannot, consistently with our duty toourselves and her fellow students, pass over. If Miss Wylie has anycause to complain of her treatment here, or of the step which she hascompelled us to take, she will doubtless make it known to you. 

"Perhaps you will be so good as to communicate with Miss Wylie'sguardian, Mr. Jansenius, with whom I shall be happy to make an equitablearrangement respecting the fees which have been paid in advance for thecurrent term. 

"I am, dear madam, "Yours faithfully, "Maria Wilson. "

"A nice young lady, that!" said Mrs. Jansenius. 

"I do not understand this, " said Mr. Jansenius, reddening as he took inthe purport of his son-in-law's letter. "I will not submit to it. Whatdoes it mean, Ruth?"

"I don't know. Sidney is mad, I think; and his honeymoon has broughthis madness out. But you must not let him throw Henrietta on my handsagain. "

"Mad! Does he think he can shirk his responsibility to his wife becauseshe is my daughter? Does he think, because his mother's father was abaronet, that he can put Henrietta aside the moment her society palls onhim?"

"Oh, it's nothing of that sort. He never thought of us. But I willmake him think of us, " said Mr. Jansenius, raising his voice in greatagitation. "He shall answer for it. "

Just then Henrietta returned, and saw her father moving excitedly toand fro, repeating, "He shall answer to me for this. He shall answer forit. "

Mrs. Jansenius frowned at her daughter to remain silent, and saidsoothingly, "Don't lose your temper, John. "

"But I will lose my temper. Insolent hound! Damned scoundrel!"

"He is not, " whimpered Henrietta, sitting down and taking out herhandkerchief. 

"Oh, come, come!" said Mrs. Jansenius peremptorily, "we have had enoughcrying. Let us have no more of it. "

Henrietta sprang up in a passion. "I will say and do as I please, " sheexclaimed. "I am a married woman, and I will receive no orders. And Iwill have my husband back again, no matter what he does to hide himself. Papa, won't you make him come back to me? I am dying. Promise that youwill make him come back. "

And, throwing herself upon her father's bosom, she postponed furtherdiscussion by going into hysterics, and startling the household by herscreams. 

CHAPTER III

One of the professors at Alton College was a Mrs. Miller, anold-fashioned schoolmistress who did not believe in Miss Wilson's systemof government by moral force, and carried it out under protest. Thoughnot ill-natured, she was narrow-minded enough to be in some degreecontemptible, and was consequently prone to suspect others of despisingher. She suspected Agatha in particular, and treated her with disdainfulcurtness in such intercourse as they had--it was fortunately little. Agatha was not hurt by this, for Mrs. Miller was an unsympathetic woman, who made no friends among the girls, and satisfied her affectionateimpulses by petting a large cat named Gracchus, but generally calledBacchus by an endearing modification of the harsh initial consonant. 

One evening Mrs. Miller, seated with Miss Wilson in the study, correcting examination papers, heard in the distance a cry like thatof a cat in distress. She ran to the door and listened. Presently therearose a prolonged wail, slurring up through two octaves, and subsidingagain. It was a true feline screech, impossible to localize; but itwas interrupted by a sob, a snarl, a fierce spitting, and a scuffling, coming unmistakably from a room on the floor beneath, in which, at thathour, the older girls assembled for study. 

"My poor Gracchy!" exclaimed Mrs. Miller, running downstairs as fast asshe could. She found the room unusually quiet. Every girl was deep instudy except Miss Carpenter, who, pretending to pick up a fallenbook, was purple with suppressed laughter and the congestion caused bystooping. 

"Where is Miss Ward?" demanded Mrs. Miller. 

"Miss Ward has gone for some astronomical diagrams in which we areinterested, " said Agatha, looking up gravely. Just then Miss Ward, diagrams in hand, entered. 

"Has that cat been in here?" she said, not seeing Mrs. Miller, andspeaking in a tone expressive of antipathy to Gracchus. 

Agatha started and drew up her ankles, as if fearful of having thembitten. Then, looking apprehensively under the desk, she replied, "Thereis no cat here, Miss Ward. "

"There is one somewhere; I heard it, " said Miss Ward carelessly, unrolling her diagrams, which she began to explain without furtherparley. Mrs. Miller, anxious for her pet, hastened to seek it elsewhere. In the hall she met one of the housemaids. 

"Susan, " she said, "have you seen Gracchus?"

"He's asleep on the hearthrug in your room, ma'am. But I heard himcrying down here a moment ago. I feel sure that another cat has got in, and that they are fighting. "

Susan smiled compassionately. "Lor' bless you, ma'am, " she said, "thatwas Miss Wylie. It's a sort of play-acting that she goes through. Thereis the bee on the window-pane, and the soldier up the chimley, and thecat under the dresser. She does them all like life. "

"The soldier in the chimney!" repeated Mrs. Miller, shocked. 

"Yes, ma'am. Like as it were a follower that had hid there when he heardthe mistress coming. "

Mrs. Miller's face set determinedly. She returned to the study andrelated what had just occurred, adding some sarcastic comments on theefficacy of moral force in maintaining collegiate discipline. MissWilson looked grave; considered for some time; and at last said: "I mustthink over this. Would you mind leaving it in my hands for the present?"

Mrs. Miller said that she did not care in whose hands it remainedprovided her own were washed of it, and resumed her work at the papers. Miss Wilson then, wishing to be alone, went into the empty classroom atthe other side of the landing. She took the Fault Book from its shelfand sat down before it. Its record closed with the announcement, inAgatha's handwriting:

"Miss Wilson has called me impertinent, and has written to my uncle thatI have refused to obey the rules. I was not impertinent; and I neverrefused to obey the rules. So much for Moral Force!"

Miss Wilson rose vigorously, exclaiming: "I will soon let herknow whether--" She checked herself, and looked round hastily, superstitiously fancying that Agatha might have stolen into the roomunobserved. Reassured that she was alone, she examined her conscience asto whether she had done wrong in calling Agatha impertinent, justifyingherself by the reflection that Agatha had, in fact, been impertinent. Yet she recollected that she had refused to admit this plea on a recentoccasion when Jane Carpenter had advanced it in extenuation of havingcalled a fellow-student a liar. Had she then been unjust to Jane, orinconsiderate to Agatha?

Her casuistry was interrupted by some one softly whistling a theme fromthe overture to Masaniello, popular at the college in the form of anarrangement for six pianofortes and twelve hands. There was only onestudent unladylike and musical enough to whistle; and Miss Wilson wasashamed to find herself growing nervous at the prospect of an encounterwith Agatha, who entered whistling sweetly, but with a lugubriouscountenance. When she saw in whose presence she stood, she begged pardonpolitely, and was about to withdraw, when Miss Wilson, summoning all herJudgment and tact, and hoping that they would--contrary to their customin emergencies--respond to the summons, said:

"Agatha, come here. I want to speak to you. "

Agatha closed her lips, drew in a long breath through her nostrils, andmarched to within a few feet of Miss Wilson, where she halted with herhands clasped before her. 

"Sit down. "

Agatha sat down with a single movement, like a doll. 

"I don't understand that, Agatha, " said Miss Wilson, pointing to theentry in the Recording Angel. "What does it mean?"

"I am unfairly treated, " said Agatha, with signs of agitation. 

"In what way?"

"In every way. I am expected to be something more than mortal. Everyoneelse is encouraged to complain, and to be weak and silly. But I musthave no feeling. I must be always in the right. Everyone else may behome-sick, or huffed, or in low spirits. I must have no nerves, and mustkeep others laughing all day long. Everyone else may sulk when a wordof reproach is addressed to them, and may make the professors afraid tofind fault with them. I have to bear with the insults of teachers whohave less self-control than I, a girl of seventeen! and must coaxthem out of the difficulties they make for themselves by their own illtemper. "

"But, Agatha--"

"Oh, I know I am talking nonsense, Miss Wilson; but can you expect me tobe always sensible--to be infallible?"

"Yes, Agatha; I do not think it is too much to expect you to be alwayssensible; and--"

"Then you have neither sense nor sympathy yourself, " said Agatha. 

There was an awful pause. Neither could have told how long it lasted. Then Agatha, feeling that she must do or say something desperate, orelse fly, made a distracted gesture and ran out of the room. 

She rejoined her companions in the great hall of the mansion, wherethey were assembled after study for "recreation, " a noisy process whichalways set in spontaneously when the professors withdrew. She usuallysat with her two favorite associates on a high window seat near thehearth. That place was now occupied by a little girl with flaxen hair, whom Agatha, regardless of moral force, lifted by the shoulders anddeposited on the floor. Then she sat down and said:

"Oh, such a piece of news!"

Miss Carpenter opened her eyes eagerly. Gertrude Lindsay affectedindifference. 

"Someone is going to be expelled, " said Agatha. 

"Expelled! Who?"

"You will know soon enough, Jane, " replied Agatha, suddenly grave. "Itis someone who made an impudent entry in the Recording Angel. "

Fear stole upon Jane, and she became very red. "Agatha, " she said, "itwas you who told me what to write. You know you did, and you can't denyit. "

"I can't deny it, can't I? I am ready to swear that I never dictated aword to you in my life. "

"Gertrude knows you did, " exclaimed Jane, appalled, and almost in tears. 

"There, " said Agatha, petting her as if she were a vast baby. "It shallnot be expelled, so it shan't. Have you seen the Recording Angel lately, either of you?"

"Not since our last entry, " said Gertrude. 

"Chips, " said Agatha, calling to the flaxen-haired child, "go upstairsto No. 6, and, if Miss Wilson isn't there, fetch me the RecordingAngel. "

The little girl grumbled inarticulately and did not stir. 

"Chips, " resumed Agatha, "did you ever wish that you had never beenborn?"

"Why don't you go yourself?" said the child pettishly, but evidentlyalarmed. 

"Because, " continued Agatha, ignoring the question, "you shall wishyourself dead and buried under the blackest flag in the coal cellar ifyou don't bring me the book before I count sixteen. One--two--"

"Go at once and do as you are told, you disagreeable little thing, " saidGertrude sharply. "How dare you be so disobliging?"

"--nine--ten--eleven--" pursued Agatha. 

The child quailed, went out, and presently returned, hugging theRecording Angel in her arms. 

"You are a good little darling--when your better qualities arebrought out by a judicious application of moral force, " said Agatha, good-humoredly. "Remind me to save the raisins out of my pudding for youto-morrow. Now, Jane, you shall see the entry for which the best-heartedgirl in the college is to be expelled. Voila!"

The two girls read and were awestruck; Jane opening her mouth andgasping, Gertrude closing hers and looking very serious. 

"Do you mean to say that you had the dreadful cheek to let the LadyAbbess see that?" said Jane. 

"Pooh! she would have forgiven that. You should have heard what I saidto her! She fainted three times. "

"That's a story, " said Gertrude gravely. 

"I beg your pardon, " said Agatha, swiftly grasping Gertrude's knee. 

"Nothing, " cried Gertrude, flinching hysterically. "Don't, Agatha. "

"How many times did Miss Wilson faint?"

"Three times. I will scream, Agatha; I will indeed. "

"Three times, as you say. And I wonder that a girl brought up asyou have been, by moral force, should be capable of repeating sucha falsehood. But we had an awful row, really and truly. She lost hertemper. Fortunately, I never lose mine. "

"Well, I'm browed!" exclaimed Jane incredulously. "I like that. "

"For a girl of county family, you are inexcusably vulgar, Jane. I don'tknow what I said; but she will never forgive me for profaning her petbook. I shall be expelled as certainly as I am sitting here. "

"And do you mean to say that you are going away?" said Jane, falteringas she began to realize the consequences. 

"I do. And what is to become of you when I am not here to get you outof your scrapes, or of Gertrude without me to check her inveteratesnobbishness, is more than I can foresee. "

"I am not snobbish, " said Gertrude, "although I do not choose to makefriends with everyone. But I never objected to you, Agatha. "

"No; I should like to catch you at it. Hallo, Jane!" (who had suddenlyburst into tears): "what's the matter? I trust you are not permittingyourself to take the liberty of crying for me. "

"Indeed, " sobbed Jane indignantly, "I know that I am a f--fool for mypains. You have no heart. "

"You certainly are a f--fool, as you aptly express it, " said Agatha, passing her arm round Jane, and disregarding an angry attempt to shakeit off; "but if I had any heart it would be touched by this proof ofyour attachment. "

"I never said you had no heart, " protested Jane; "but I hate when youspeak like a book. "

"You hate when I speak like a book, do you? My dear, silly old Jane! Ishall miss you greatly. "

"Yes, I dare say, " said Jane, with tearful sarcasm. "At least my snoringwill never keep you awake again. "

"You don't snore, Jane. We have been in a conspiracy to make you believethat you do, that's all. Isn't it good of me to tell you?"

Jane was overcome by this revelation. After a long pause, she said withdeep conviction, "I always knew that I didn't. Oh, the way you kept itup! I solemnly declare that from this time forth I will believe nobody. "

"Well, and what do you think of it all?" said Agatha, transferring herattention to Gertrude, who was very grave. 

"I think--I am now speaking seriously, Agatha--I think you are in thewrong. "

"Why do you think that, pray?" demanded Agatha, a little roused. 

"You must be, or Miss Wilson would not be angry with you. Of course, according to your own account, you are always in the right, and everyoneelse is always wrong; but you shouldn't have written that in the book. You know I speak as your friend. "

"And pray what does your wretched little soul know of my motives andfeelings?"

"It is easy enough to understand you, " retorted Gertrude, nettled. "Self-conceit is not so uncommon that one need be at a loss to recognizeit. And mind, Agatha Wylie, " she continued, as if goaded by someunbearable reminiscence, "if you are really going, I don't care whetherwe part friends or not. I have not forgotten the day when you called mea spiteful cat. "

"I have repented, " said Agatha, unmoved. "One day I sat down and watchedBacchus seated on the hearthrug, with his moony eyes looking into spaceso thoughtfully and patiently that I apologized for comparing you tohim. If I were to call him a spiteful cat he would only not believe me. "

"Because he is a cat, " said Jane, with the giggle which was seldom farbehind her tears. 

"No; but because he is not spiteful. Gertrude keeps a recording angelinside her little head, and it is so full of other people's faults, written in large hand and read through a magnifying glass, that there isno room to enter her own. "

"You are very poetic, " said Gertrude; "but I understand what you mean, and shall not forget it. "

"You ungrateful wretch, " exclaimed Agatha, turning upon her so suddenlyand imperiously that she involuntarily shrank aside: "how often, whenyou have tried to be insolent and false with me, have I not driven awayyour bad angel--by tickling you? Had you a friend in the college, excepthalf-a-dozen toadies, until I came? And now, because I have sometimes, for your own good, shown you your faults, you bear malice against me, and say that you don't care whether we part friends or not!"

"I didn't say so. "

"Oh, Gertrude, you know you did, " said Jane. 

"You seem to think that I have no conscience, " said Gertrudequerulously. 

"I wish you hadn't, " said Agatha. "Look at me! I have no conscience, andsee how much pleasanter I am!"

"You care for no one but yourself, " said Gertrude. "You never think thatother people have feelings too. No one ever considers me. "

"Oh, I like to hear you talk, " cried Jane ironically. "You areconsidered a great deal more than is good for you; and the more you areconsidered the more you want to be considered. "

"As if, " declaimed Agatha theatrically, "increase of appetite did growby what it fed on. Shakespeare!"

"Bother Shakespeare, " said Jane, impetuously, "--old fool that expectscredit for saying things that everybody knows! But if you complainof not being considered, Gertrude, how would you like to be me, whomeverybody sets down as a fool? But I am not such a fool as--"

"As you look, " interposed Agatha. "I have told you so scores of times, Jane; and I am glad that you have adopted my opinion at last. Whichwould you rather be, a greater fool than y--"

"Oh, shut up, " said Jane, impatiently; "you have asked me that twicethis week already. "

The three were silent for some seconds after this: Agatha meditating, Gertrude moody, Jane vacant and restless. At last Agatha said:

"And are you two also smarting under a sense of the inconsideratenessand selfishness of the rest of the world--both misunderstood--everythingexpected from you, and no allowances made for you?"

"I don't know what you mean by both of us, " said Gertrude coldly. 

"Neither do I, " said Jane angrily. "That is just the way people treatme. You may laugh, Agatha; and she may turn up her nose as much as shelikes; you know it's true. But the idea of Gertrude wanting to make outthat she isn't considered is nothing but sentimentality, and vanity, andnonsense. "

"You are exceedingly rude, Miss Carpenter, " said Gertrude. 

"My manners are as good as yours, and perhaps better, " retorted Jane. "My family is as good, anyhow. "

"Children, children, " said Agatha, admonitorily, "do not forget that youare sworn friends. "

"We didn't swear, " said Jane. "We were to have been three sworn friends, and Gertrude and I were willing, but you wouldn't swear, and so thebargain was cried off. "

"Just so, " said Agatha; "and the result is that I spend all my time inkeeping peace between you. And now, to go back to our subject, may I askwhether it has ever occurred to you that no one ever considers me?"

"I suppose you think that very funny. You take good care to makeyourself considered, " sneered Jane. 

"You cannot say that I do not consider you, " said Gertrudereproachfully. 

"Not when I tickle you, dear. "

"I consider you, and I am not ticklesome, " said Jane tenderly. 

"Indeed! Let me try, " said Agatha, slipping her arm about Jane's amplewaist, and eliciting a piercing combination of laugh and scream fromher. 

"Sh--sh, " whispered Gertrude quickly. "Don't you see the Lady Abbess?"

Miss Wilson had just entered the room. Agatha, without appearing to beaware of her presence, stealthily withdrew her arm, and said aloud:

"How can you make such a noise, Jane? You will disturb the whole house. "

Jane reddened with indignation, but had to remain silent, for the eyesof the principal were upon her. Miss Wilson had her bonnet on. Sheannounced that she was going to walk to Lyvern, the nearest village. Didany of the sixth form young ladies wish to accompany her?

Agatha jumped from her seat at once, and Jane smothered a laugh. 

"Miss Wilson said the sixth form, Miss Wylie, " said Miss Ward, who hadentered also. "You are not in the sixth form. "

"No, " said Agatha sweetly, "but I want to go, if I may. "

Miss Wilson looked round. The sixth form consisted of four studiousyoung ladies, whose goal in life for the present was an examination byone of the Universities, or, as the college phrase was, "the CambridgeLocal. " None of them responded. 

"Fifth form, then, " said Miss Wilson. 

Jane, Gertrude, and four others rose and stood with Agatha. 

"Very well, " said Miss Wilson. "Do not be long dressing. "

They left the room quietly, and dashed at the staircase the moment theywere out of sight. Agatha, though void of emulation for the CambridgeLocal, always competed with ardor for the honor of being first up ordown stairs. 

They soon returned, clad for walking, and left the college inprocession, two by two, Jane and Agatha leading, Gertrude and MissWilson coming last. The road to Lyvern lay through acres of pastureland, formerly arable, now abandoned to cattle, which made more moneyfor the landlord than the men whom they had displaced. Miss Wilson'syoung ladies, being instructed in economics, knew that this proved thatthe land was being used to produce what was most wanted from it; and ifall the advantage went to the landlord, that was but natural, as he wasthe chief gentleman in the neighborhood. Still the arrangement had itsdisagreeable side; for it involved a great many cows, which made themafraid to cross the fields; a great many tramps, who made them afraid towalk the roads; and a scarcity of gentlemen subjects for the maiden artof fascination. 

The sky was cloudy. Agatha, reckless of dusty stockings, waded throughthe heaps of fallen leaves with the delight of a child paddling in thesea; Gertrude picked her steps carefully, and the rest tramped along, chatting subduedly, occasionally making some scientific or philosophicalremark in a louder tone, in order that Miss Wilson might overhearand give them due credit. Save a herdsman, who seemed to have caughtsomething of the nature and expression of the beasts he tended, theymet no one until they approached the village, where, on the brow of anacclivity, masculine humanity appeared in the shape of two curates: onetall, thin, close-shaven, with a book under his arm, and his neck cranedforward; the other middle-sized, robust, upright, and aggressive, withshort black whiskers, and an air of protest against such notions as thata clergyman may not marry, hunt, play cricket, or share the sportsof honest laymen. The shaven one was Mr. Josephs, his companion Mr. Fairholme. Obvious scriptural perversions of this brace of names hadbeen introduced by Agatha. 

"Here come Pharaoh and Joseph, " she said to Jane. "Joseph will blushwhen you look at him. Pharaoh won't blush until he passes Gertrude, sowe shall lose that. "

"Josephs, indeed!" said Jane scornfully. 

"He loves you, Jane. Thin persons like a fine armful of a woman. Pharaoh, who is a cad, likes blue blood on the same principle of theattraction of opposites. That is why he is captivated by Gertrude'saristocratic air. "

"If he only knew how she despises him!"

"He is too vain to suspect it. Besides, Gertrude despises everyone, even us. Or, rather, she doesn't despise anyone in particular, but iscontemptuous by nature, just as you are stout. "

"Me! I had rather be stout than stuck-up. Ought we to bow?"

"I will, certainly. I want to make Pharoah blush, if I can. "

The two parsons had been simulating an interest in the cloudy firmamentas an excuse for not looking at the girls until close at hand. Jane sentan eyeflash at Josephs with a skill which proved her favorite assertionthat she was not so stupid as people thought. He blushed and took offhis soft, low-crowned felt hat. Fairholme saluted very solemnly, forAgatha bowed to him with marked seriousness. But when his gravity andhis stiff silk hat were at their highest point she darted a mockingsmile at him, and he too blushed, all the deeper because he was enragedwith himself for doing so. 

"Did you ever see such a pair of fools?" whispered Jane, giggling. 

"They cannot help their sex. They say women are fools, and so they are;but thank Heaven they are not quite so bad as men! I should like to lookback and see Pharaoh passing Gertrude; but if he saw me he would think Iwas admiring him; and he is conceited enough already without that. "

The two curates became redder and redder as they passed the column ofyoung ladies. Miss Lindsay would not look to their side of the road, andMiss Wilson's nod and smile were not quite sincere. She never spoke tocurates, and kept up no more intercourse with the vicar than she couldnot avoid. He suspected her of being an infidel, though neither he norany other mortal in Lyvern had ever heard a word from her on the subjectof her religious opinions. But he knew that "moral science" was taughtsecularly at the college; and he felt that where morals were madea department of science the demand for religion must fall offproportionately. 

"What a life to lead and what a place to live in!" exclaimed Agatha. "Wemeet two creatures, more like suits of black than men; and that is anincident--a startling incident--in our existence!"

"I think they're awful fun, " said Jane, "except that Josephs has suchlarge ears. "

The girls now came to a place where the road dipped through a plantationof sombre sycamore and horsechestnut trees. As they passed down intoit, a little wind sprang up, the fallen leaves stirred, and the branchesheaved a long, rustling sigh. 

"I hate this bit of road, " said Jane, hurrying on. "It's just the sortof place that people get robbed and murdered in. "

"It is not such a bad place to shelter in if we get caught in the rain, as I expect we shall before we get back, " said Agatha, feeling thefitful breeze strike ominously on her cheek. "A nice pickle I shall bein with these light shoes on! I wish I had put on my strong boots. If itrains much I will go into the old chalet. "

"Miss Wilson won't let you. It's trespassing. "

"What matter! Nobody lives in it, and the gate is off its hinges. I onlywant to stand under the veranda--not to break into the wretched place. Besides, the landlord knows Miss Wilson; he won't mind. There's a drop. "

Miss Carpenter looked up, and immediately received a heavy raindrop inher eye. 

"Oh!" she cried. "It's pouring. We shall be drenched. "

Agatha stopped, and the column broke into a group about her. 

"Miss Wilson, " she said, "it is going to rain in torrents, and Jane andI have only our shoes on. "

Miss Wilson paused to consider the situation. Someone suggested that ifthey hurried on they might reach Lyvern before the rain came down. 

"More than a mile, " said Agatha scornfully, "and the rain coming downalready!"

Someone else suggested returning to the college. 

"More than two miles, " said Agatha. "We should be drowned. "

"There is nothing for it but to wait here under the trees, " said MissWilson. 

"The branches are very bare, " said Gertrude anxiously. "If it shouldcome down heavily they will drip worse than the rain itself. "

"Much worse, " said Agatha. "I think we had better get under the verandaof the old chalet. It is not half a minute's walk from here. "

"But we have no right--" Here the sky darkened threateningly. MissWilson checked herself and said, "I suppose it is still empty. "

"Of course, " replied Agatha, impatient to be moving. "It is almost aruin. "

"Then let us go there, by all means, " said Miss Wilson, not disposed tostand on trifles at the risk of a bad cold. 

They hurried on, and came presently to a green hill by the wayside. Onthe slope was a dilapidated Swiss cottage, surrounded by a veranda onslender wooden pillars, about which clung a few tendrils of witheredcreeper, their stray ends still swinging from the recent wind, nowmomentarily hushed as if listening for the coming of the rain. Accessfrom the roadway was by a rough wooden gate in the hedge. To thesurprise of Agatha, who had last seen this gate off its hinges and onlyattached to the post by a rusty chain and padlock, it was now rehung andfastened by a new hasp. The weather admitting of no delay to considerthese repairs, she opened the gate and hastened up the slope, followedby the troop of girls. Their ascent ended with a rush, for the rainsuddenly came down in torrents. 

When they were safe under the veranda, panting, laughing, grumbling, orcongratulating themselves on having been so close to a place of shelter, Miss Wilson observed, with some uneasiness, a spade--new, like the haspof the gate--sticking upright in a patch of ground that someone hadevidently been digging lately. She was about to comment on this signof habitation, when the door of the chalet was flung open, and Janescreamed as a man darted out to the spade, which he was about to carryin out of the wet, when he perceived the company under the veranda, andstood still in amazement. He was a young laborer with a reddish-brownbeard of a week's growth. He wore corduroy trousers and a linen-sleevedcorduroy vest; both, like the hasp and spade, new. A coarse blue shirt, with a vulgar red-and-orange neckerchief, also new, completed his dress;and, to shield himself from the rain, he held up a silk umbrella witha silver-mounted ebony handle, which he seemed unlikely to have come byhonestly. Miss Wilson felt like a boy caught robbing an orchard, but sheput a bold face on the matter and said:

"Will you allow us to take shelter here until the rain is over?"

"For certain, your ladyship, " he replied, respectfully applying thespade handle to his hair, which was combed down to his eyebrows. "Your ladyship does me proud to take refuge from the onclemency of theyallovrments beneath my 'umble rooftree. " His accent was barbarous; andhe, like a low comedian, seemed to relish its vulgarity. As he spoke hecame in among them for shelter, and propped his spade against the wallof the chalet, kicking the soil from his hobnailed blucher boots, whichwere new. 

"I came out, honored lady, " he resumed, much at his ease, "to house myspade, whereby I earn my living. What the pen is to the poet, such isthe spade to the working man. " He took the kerchief from his neck, wipedhis temples as if the sweat of honest toil were there, and calmly tiedit on again. 

"If you'll 'scuse a remark from a common man, " he observed, "yourladyship has a fine family of daughters. "

"They are not my daughters, " said Miss Wilson, rather shortly. 

"Sisters, mebbe?"

"No. "

"I thought they mout be, acause I have a sister myself. Not that I wouldmake bold for to dror comparisons, even in my own mind, for she's only acommon woman--as common a one as ever you see. But few women rise abovethe common. Last Sunday, in yon village church, I heard the ministerread out that one man in a thousand had he found, 'but one woman in allthese, ' he says, 'have I not found, ' and I thinks to myself, 'Right youare!' But I warrant he never met your ladyship. "

A laugh, thinly disguised as a cough, escaped from Miss Carpenter. 

"Young lady a-ketchin' cold, I'm afeerd, " he said, with respectfulsolicitude. 

"Do you think the rain will last long?" said Agatha politely. 

The man examined the sky with a weather-wise air for some moments. Thenhe turned to Agatha, and replied humbly: "The Lord only knows, Miss. Itis not for a common man like me to say. "

Silence ensued, during which Agatha, furtively scrutinizing the tenantof the chalet, noticed that his face and neck were cleaner and lesssunburnt than those of the ordinary toilers of Lyvern. His handswere hidden by large gardening gloves stained with coal dust. Lyvernlaborers, as a rule, had little objection to soil their hands; theynever wore gloves. Still, she thought, there was no reason why aneccentric workman, insufferably talkative, and capable of an allusion tothe pen of the poet, should not indulge himself with cheap gloves. Butthen the silk, silvermounted umbrella--

"The young lady's hi, " he said suddenly, holding out the umbrella, "isfixed on this here. I am well aware that it is not for the lowest of thelow to carry a gentleman's brolly, and I ask your ladyship's pardonfor the liberty. I come by it accidental-like, and should be glad of areasonable offer from any gentleman in want of a honest article. "

As he spoke two gentlemen, much in want of the article, as theirclinging wet coats showed, ran through the gateway and made for thechalet. Fairholme arrived first, exclaiming: "Fearful shower!" andbriskly turned his back to the ladies in order to stand at the edgeof the veranda and shake the water out of his hat. Josephs came next, shrinking from the damp contact of his own garments. He cringed to MissWilson, and hoped that she had escaped a wetting. 

"So far I have, " she replied. "The question is, how are we to get home?"

"Oh, it's only a shower, " said Josephs, looking up cheerfully at theunbroken curtain of cloud. "It will clear up presently. "

"It ain't for a common man to set up his opinion again' a gentleman wothave profesh'nal knowledge of the heavens, as one may say, " said theman, "but I would 'umbly offer to bet my umbrellar to his wideawake thatit don't cease raining this side of seven o'clock. "

"That man lives here, " whispered Miss Wilson, "and I suppose he wants toget rid of us. "

"H'm!" said Fairholme. Then, turning to the strange laborer with the airof a person not to be trifled with, he raised his voice, and said: "Youlive here, do you, my man?"

"I do, sir, by your good leave, if I may make so bold. "

"What's your name?"

"Jeff Smilash, sir, at your service. "

"Where do you come from?"

"Brixtonbury, sir. "

"Brixtonbury! Where's that?"

"Well, sir, I don't rightly know. If a gentleman like you, knowingjography and such, can't tell, how can I?"

"You ought to know where you were born, man. Haven't you got commonsense?"

"Where could such a one as me get common sense, sir? Besides, I was onlya foundling. Mebbe I warn's born at all. "

"Did I see you at church last Sunday?"

"No, sir. I only come o' Wensday. "

"Well, let me see you there next Sunday, " said Fairholme shortly, turning away from him. 

Miss Wilson looked at the weather, at Josephs, who was conversing withJane, and finally at Smilash, who knuckled his forehead without waitingto be addressed. 

"Have you a boy whom you can send to Lyvern to get us a conveyance--acarriage? I will give him a shilling for his trouble. "

"A shilling!" said Smilash joyfully. "Your ladyship is a noble lady. Twofour-wheeled cabs. There's eight on you. "

"There is only one cab in Lyvern, " said Miss Wilson. "Take this cardto Mr. Marsh, the jotmaster, and tell him the predicament we are in. Hewill send vehicles. "

Smilash took the card and read it at a glance. He then went into thechalet. Reappearing presently in a sou'wester and oilskins, he ran offthrough the rain and vaulted over the gate with ridiculous elegance. No sooner had he vanished than, as often happens to remarkable men, hebecame the subject of conversation. 

"A decent workman, " said Josephs. "A well-mannered man, considering hisclass. "

"A born fool, though, " said Fairholme. 

"Or a rogue, " said Agatha, emphasizing the suggestion by a glitter ofher eyes and teeth, whilst her schoolfellows, rather disapproving of herfreedom, stood stiffly dumb. "He told Miss Wilson that he had a sister, and that he had been to church last Sunday, and he has just told youthat he is a foundling, and that he only came last Wednesday. His accentis put on, and he can read, and I don't believe he is a workman at all. Perhaps he is a burglar, come down to steal the college plate. "

"Agatha, " said Miss Wilson gravely, "you must be very careful how yousay things of that kind. "

"But it is so obvious. His explanation about the umbrella was made upto disarm suspicion. He handled it and leaned on it in a way that showedhow much more familiar it was to him than that new spade he was soanxious about. And all his clothes are new. "

"True, " said Fairholme, "but there is not much in all that. Workmennowadays ape gentlemen in everything. However, I will keep an eye onhim. "

"Oh, thank you so much, " said Agatha. Fairholme, suspecting mockery, frowned, and Miss Wilson looked severely at the mocker. Little more wassaid, except as to the chances--manifestly small--of the rain ceasing, until the tops of a cab, a decayed mourning coach, and three drippinghats were seen over the hedge. Smilash sat on the box of the coach, beside the driver. When it stopped, he alighted, re-entered the chaletwithout speaking, came out with the umbrella, spread it above MissWilson's head, and said:

"Now, if your ladyship will come with me, I will see you dry into thestray, and then I'll bring your honored nieces one by one. "

"I shall come last, " said Miss Wilson, irritated by his assumption thatthe party was a family one. "Gertrude, you had better go first. "

"Allow me, " said Fairholme, stepping forward, and attempting to take theumbrella. 

"Thank you, I shall not trouble you, " she said frostily, and trippedaway over the oozing field with Smilash, who held the umbrella over herwith ostentatious solicitude. In the same manner he led the rest to thevehicles, in which they packed themselves with some difficulty. Agatha, who came last but one, gave him threepence. 

"You have a noble 'art and an expressive hi, Miss, " he said, apparentlymuch moved. "Blessings on both! Blessings on both!"

He went back for Jane, who slipped on the wet grass and fell. He had toput forth his strength as he helped her to rise. "Hope you ain't soppedup much of the rainfall, Miss, " he said. "You are a fine young lady foryour age. Nigh on twelve stone, I should think. "

She reddened and hurried to the cab, where Agatha was. But it was full;and Jane, much against her will, had to get into the coach, considerablydiminishing the space left for Miss Wilson, to whom Smilash hadreturned. 

"Now, dear lady, " he said, "take care you don't slip. Come along. "

Miss Wilson, ignoring the invitation, took a shilling from her purse. 

"No, lady, " said Smilash with a virtuous air. "I am an honest man andhave never seen the inside of a jail except four times, and only twicefor stealing. Your youngest daughter--her with the expressive hi--havepaid me far beyond what is proper. "

"I have told you that these young ladies are not my daughters, " saidMiss Wilson sharply. "Why do you not listen to what is said to you?"

"Don't be too hard on a common man, lady, " said Smilash submissively. "The young lady have just given me three 'arf-crowns. "

"Three half-crowns!" exclaimed Miss Wilson, angered at suchextravagance. 

"Bless her innocence, she don't know what is proper to give to a lowsort like me! But I will not rob the young lady. 'Arf-a-crown is no morenor is fair for the job, and arf-a-crown will I keep, if agreeable toyour noble ladyship. But I give you back the five bob in trust for her. Have you ever noticed her expressive hi?"

"Nonsense, sir. You had better keep the money now that you have got it. "

"Wot! Sell for five bob the high opinion your ladyship has of me! No, dear lady; not likely. My father's very last words to me was--"

"You said just now that you were a foundling, " said Fairholme. "What arewe to believe? Eh?"

"So I were, sir; but by mother's side alone. Her ladyship will please totake back the money, for keep it I will not. I am of the lower orders, and therefore not a man of my word; but when I do stick to it, I sticklike wax. "

"Take it, " said Fairholme to Miss Wilson. "Take it, of course. Seven andsixpence is a ridiculous sum to give him for what he has done. It wouldonly set him drinking. "

"His reverence says true, lady. The one 'arfcrown will keep mecomfortably tight until Sunday morning; and more I do not desire. "

"Just a little less of your tongue, my man, " said Fairholme, takingthe two coins from him and handing them to Miss Wilson, who bade theclergymen good afternoon, and went to the coach under the umbrella. 

"If your ladyship should want a handy man to do an odd job up at thecollege I hope you will remember me, " Smilash said as they went down theslope. 

"Oh, you know who I am, do you?" said Miss Wilson drily. 

"All the country knows you, Miss, and worships you. I have few equals asa coiner, and if you should require a medal struck to give away for goodbehavior or the like, I think I could strike one to your satisfaction. And if your ladyship should want a trifle of smuggled lace--"

"You had better be careful or you will get into trouble, I think, " saidMiss Wilson sternly. "Tell him to drive on. "

The vehicles started, and Smilash took the liberty of waving his hatafter them. Then he returned to the chalet, left the umbrella within, came out again, locked the door, put the key in his pocket, and walkedoff through the rain across the hill without taking the least notice ofthe astonished parsons. 

In the meantime Miss Wilson, unable to contain her annoyance at Agatha'sextravagance, spoke of it to the girls who shared the coach with her. But Jane declared that Agatha only possessed threepence in the world, and therefore could not possibly have given the man thirty times thatsum. When they reached the college, Agatha, confronted with Miss Wilson, opened her eyes in wonder, and exclaimed, laughing: "I only gave himthreepence. He has sent me a present of four and ninepence!"

CHAPTER IV

Saturday at Alton College, nominally a half holiday, was really a wholeone. Classes in gymnastics, dancing, elocution, and drawing were heldin the morning. The afternoon was spent at lawn tennis, to whichlady guests resident in the neighborhood were allowed to bring theirhusbands, brothers, and fathers--Miss Wilson being anxious to sendher pupils forth into the world free from the uncouth stiffness ofschoolgirls unaccustomed to society. 

Late in October came a Saturday which proved anything but a holidayfor Miss Wilson. At half-past one, luncheon being over, she went out ofdoors to a lawn that lay between the southern side of the college and ashrubbery. Here she found a group of girls watching Agatha and Jane, whowere dragging a roller over the grass. One of them, tossing a ball aboutwith her racket, happened to drive it into the shrubbery, whence, to thesurprise of the company, Smilash presently emerged, carrying the ball, blinking, and proclaiming that, though a common man, he had his feelingslike another, and that his eye was neither a stick nor a stone. Hewas dressed as before, but his garments, soiled with clay and lime, nolonger looked new. 

"What brings you here, pray?" demanded Miss Wilson. 

"I was led into the belief that you sent for me, lady, " he replied. "The baker's lad told me so as he passed my 'umble cot this morning. Ithought he were incapable of deceit. "

"That is quite right; I did send for you. But why did you not go roundto the servants' hall?"

"I am at present in search of it, lady. I were looking for it whenthis ball cotch me here" (touching his eye). "A cruel blow on the hi'nat'rally spires its vision and expression and makes a honest man looklike a thief. "

"Agatha, " said Miss Wilson, "come here. "

"My dooty to you, Miss, " said Smilash, pulling his forelock. 

"This is the man from whom I had the five shillings, which he said youhad just given him. Did you do so?"

"Certainly not. I only gave him threepence. "

"But I showed the money to your ladyship, " said Smilash, twisting hishat agitatedly. "I gev it you. Where would the like of me get fiveshillings except by the bounty of the rich and noble? If the younglady thinks I hadn't ort to have kep' the tother 'arfcrown, I would notobject to its bein' stopped from my wages if I were given a job of workhere. But--"

"But it's nonsense, " said Agatha. "I never gave you three half-crowns. "

"Perhaps you mout 'a' made a mistake. Pence is summat similar to'arf-crowns, and the day were very dark. "

"I couldn't have, " said Agatha. "Jane had my purse all the earlierpart of the week, Miss Wilson, and she can tell you that there was onlythreepence in it. You know that I get my money on the first of everymonth. It never lasts longer than a week. The idea of my having sevenand sixpence on the sixteenth is ridiculous. "

"But I put it to you, Miss, ain't it twice as ridiculous for me, a poorlaborer, to give up money wot I never got?"

Vague alarm crept upon Agatha as the testimony of her senses wascontradicted. "All I know is, " she protested, "that I did not give it toyou; so my pennies must have turned into half-crowns in your pocket. "

"Mebbe so, " said Smilash gravely. "I've heard, and I know it for a fact, that money grows in the pockets of the rich. Why not in the pockets ofthe poor as well? Why should you be su'prised at wot 'appens every day?"

"Had you any money of your own about you at the time?"

"Where could the like of me get money?--asking pardon for making so boldas to catechise your ladyship. "

"I don't know where you could get it, " said Miss Wilson testily; "I askyou, had you any?"

"Well, lady, I disremember. I will not impose upon you. I disremember. "

"Then you've made a mistake, " said Miss Wilson, handing him back hismoney. "Here. If it is not yours, it is not ours; so you had better keepit. "

"Keep it! Oh, lady, but this is the heighth of nobility! And what shallI do to earn your bounty, lady?"

"It is not my bounty: I give it to you because it does not belong to me, and, I suppose, must belong to you. You seem to be a very simple man. "

"I thank your ladyship; I hope I am. Respecting the day's work, now, lady; was you thinking of employing a poor man at all?"

"No, thank you; I have no occasion for your services. I have also togive you the shilling I promised you for getting the cabs. Here it is. "

"Another shillin'!" cried Smilash, stupefied. 

"Yes, " said Miss Wilson, beginning to feel very angry. "Let me hear nomore about it, please. Don't you understand that you have earned it?"

"I am a common man, and understand next to nothing, " he repliedreverently. "But if your ladyship would give me a day's work to keep megoin', I could put up all this money in a little wooden savings bank Ihave at home, and keep it to spend when sickness or odd age shall, in amanner of speaking, lay their 'ends upon me. I could smooth that grassbeautiful; them young ladies 'll strain themselves with that heavyroller. If tennis is the word, I can put up nets fit to catch birds ofparadise in. If the courts is to be chalked out in white, I can draw aline so straight that you could hardly keep yourself from erecting anequilateral triangle on it. I am honest when well watched, and I canwait at table equal to the Lord Mayor o' London's butler. "

"I cannot employ you without a character, " said Miss Wilson, amused byhis scrap of Euclid, and wondering where he had picked it up. 

"I bear the best of characters, lady. The reverend rector has known mefrom a boy. "

"I was speaking to him about you yesterday, " said Miss Wilson, lookinghard at him, "and he says you are a perfect stranger to him. "

"Gentlemen is so forgetful, " said Smilash sadly. "But I alluded to mynative rector--meaning the rector of my native village, Auburn. 'SweetAuburn, loveliest village of the plain, ' as the gentleman called it. "

"That was not the name you mentioned to Mr. Fairholme. I do notrecollect what name you gave, but it was not Auburn, nor have I everheard of any such place. "

"Never read of sweet Auburn!"

"Not in any geography or gazetteer. Do you recollect telling me that youhave been in prison?"

"Only six times, " pleaded Smilash, his features working convulsively. "Don't bear too hard on a common man. Only six times, and all throughdrink. But I have took the pledge, and kep' it faithful for eighteenmonths past. "

Miss Wilson now set down the man as one of those keen, half-wittedcountry fellows, contemptuously styled originals, who unintentionallymake themselves popular by flattering the sense of sanity in those whosefaculties are better adapted to circumstances. 

"You have a bad memory, Mr. Smilash, " she said good-humoredly. "Younever give the same account of yourself twice. "

"I am well aware that I do not express myself with exactability. Ladiesand gentlemen have that power over words that they can always say whatthey mean, but a common man like me can't. Words don't come natural tohim. He has more thoughts than words, and what words he has don't fithis thoughts. Might I take a turn with the roller, and make myselfuseful about the place until nightfall, for ninepence?"

Miss Wilson, who was expecting more than her usual Saturday visitors, considered the proposition and assented. "And remember, " she said, "thatas you are a stranger here, your character in Lyvern depends upon theuse you make of this opportunity. "

"I am grateful to your noble ladyship. May your ladyship's goodness sewup the hole which is in the pocket where I carry my character, and whichhas caused me to lose it so frequent. It's a bad place for men to keeptheir characters in; but such is the fashion. And so hurray for theglorious nineteenth century!"

He took off his coat, seized the roller, and began to pull it withan energy foreign to the measured millhorse manner of the accustomedlaborer. Miss Wilson looked doubtfully at him, but, being in haste, wentindoors without further comment. The girls mistrusting his eccentricity, kept aloof. Agatha determined to have another and better look at him. Racket in hand, she walked slowly across the grass and came close to himjust as he, unaware of her approach, uttered a groan of exhaustion andsat down to rest. 

"Tired already, Mr. Smilash?" she said mockingly. 

He looked up deliberately, took off one of his washleather gloves, fanned himself with it, displaying a white and fine hand, and at lastreplied, in the tone and with the accent of a gentleman:

"Very. "

Agatha recoiled. He fanned himself without the least concern. 

"You--you are not a laborer, " she said at last. 

"Obviously not. "

"I thought not. "

He nodded. 

"Suppose I tell on you, " she said, growing bolder as she recollectedthat she was not alone with him. 

"If you do I shall get out of it just as I got out of the half-crowns, and Miss Wilson will begin to think that you are mad. "

"Then I really did not give you the seven and sixpence, " she said, relieved. 

"What is your own opinion?" he answered, taking three pennies from hispocket, jingling them in his palm. "What is your name?"

"I shall not tell you, " said Agatha with dignity. 

He shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps you are right, " he said. "I wouldnot tell you mine if you asked me. "

"I have not the slightest intention of asking you. "

"No? Then Smilash shall do for you, and Agatha will do for me. "

"You had better take care. "

"Of what?"

"Of what you say, and--are you not afraid of being found out?"

"I am found out already--by you, and I am none the worse. "

"Suppose the police find you out!"

"Not they. Besides, I am not hiding from the police. I have a right towear corduroy if I prefer it to broadcloth. Consider the advantages ofit! It has procured me admission to Alton College, and the pleasure ofyour acquaintance. Will you excuse me if I go on with my rolling, justto keep up appearances? I can talk as I roll. "

"You may, if you are fond of soliloquizing, " she said, turning away ashe rose. 

"Seriously, Agatha, you must not tell the others about me. "

"Do not call me Agatha, " she said impetuously. "What shall I call you, then?"

"You need not address me at all. "

"I need, and will. Don't be ill-natured. "

"But I don't know you. I wonder at your--" she hesitated at the wordwhich occurred to her, but, being unable to think of a better one, usedit--"at your cheek. "

He laughed, and she watched him take a couple of turns with the roller. Presently, refreshing himself by a look at her, he caught her lookingat him, and smiled. His smile was commonplace in comparison with theone she gave him in return, in which her eyes, her teeth, and the goldengrain in her complexion seemed to flash simultaneously. He stoppedrolling immediately, and rested his chin on the handle of the roller. 

"If you neglect your work, " said she maliciously, "you won't have thegrass ready when the people come. "

"What people?" he said, taken aback. 

"Oh, lots of people. Most likely some who know you. There are visitorscoming from London: my guardian, my guardianess, their daughter, mymother, and about a hundred more. "

"Four in all. What are they coming for? To see you?"

"To take me away, " she replied, watching for signs of disappointment onhis part. 

They were at once forthcoming. "What the deuce are they going to takeyou away for?" he said. "Is your education finished?"

"No. I have behaved badly, and I am going to be expelled. "

He laughed again. "Come!" he said, "you are beginning to invent in theSmilash manner. What have you done?"

"I don't see why I should tell you. What have you done?"

"I! Oh, I have done nothing. I am only an unromantic gentleman, hidingfrom a romantic lady who is in love with me. "

"Poor thing, " said Agatha sarcastically. "Of course, she has proposed toyou, and you have refused. "

"On the contrary, I proposed, and she accepted. That is why I have tohide. "

"You tell stories charmingly, " said Agatha. "Good-bye. Here is MissCarpenter coming to hear what we are taking about. "

"Good-bye. That story of your being expelled beats--Might a common manmake so bold as to inquire where the whitening machine is, Miss?"

This was addressed to Jane, who had come up with some of the others. Agatha expected to see Smilash presently discovered, for his disguisenow seemed transparent; she wondered how the rest could be imposed onby it. Two o'clock, striking just then, reminded her of the impendinginterview with her guardian. A tremor shook her, and she felt a cravingfor some solitary hiding-place in which to await the summons. But itwas a point of honor with her to appear perfectly indifferent to hertrouble, so she stayed with the girls, laughing and chatting as theywatched Smilash intently marking out the courts and setting up the nets. She made the others laugh too, for her hidden excitement, sharpened byirrepressible shootings of dread, stimulated her, and the romance ofSmilash's disguise gave her a sensation of dreaming. Her imagination wasalready busy upon a drama, of which she was the heroine and Smilashthe hero, though, with the real man before her, she could not indulgeherself by attributing to him quite as much gloomy grandeur of characteras to a wholly ideal personage. The plot was simple, and an old favoritewith her. One of them was to love the other and to die broken-heartedbecause the loved one would not requite the passion. For Agatha, prompt to ridicule sentimentality in her companions, and gifted with aninfectious spirit of farce, secretly turned for imaginative luxury tovisions of despair and death; and often endured the mortification of thesuccessful clown who believes, whilst the public roar with laughter athim, that he was born a tragedian. There was much in her nature, shefelt, that did not find expression in her popular representation of thesoldier in the chimney. 

By three o'clock the local visitors had arrived, and tennis wasproceeding in four courts, rolled and prepared by Smilash. The twocurates were there, with a few lay gentlemen. Mrs. Miller, the vicar, and some mothers and other chaperons looked on and consumed lightrefreshments, which were brought out upon trays by Smilash, whohad borrowed and put on a large white apron, and was making himselfofficiously busy. 

At a quarter past the hour a message came from Miss Wilson, requestingMiss Wylie's attendance. The visitors were at a loss to account for thesudden distraction of the young ladies' attention which ensued. Janealmost burst into tears, and answered Josephs rudely when he innocentlyasked what the matter was. Agatha went away apparently unconcerned, though her hand shook as she put aside her racket. 

In a spacious drawing-room at the north side of the college she foundher mother, a slight woman in widow's weeds, with faded brown hair, andtearful eyes. With her were Mrs. Jansenius and her daughter. The twoelder ladies kept severely silent whilst Agatha kissed them, and Mrs. Wylie sniffed. Henrietta embraced Agatha effusively. 

"Where's Uncle John?" said Agatha. "Hasn't he come?"

"He is in the next room with Miss Wilson, " said Mrs. Jansenius coldly. "They want you in there. "

"I thought somebody was dead, " said Agatha, "you all look so funereal. Now, mamma, put your handkerchief back again. If you cry I will giveMiss Wilson a piece of my mind for worrying you. "

"No, no, " said Mrs. Wylie, alarmed. "She has been so nice!"

"So good!" said Henrietta. 

"She has been perfectly reasonable and kind, " said Mrs. Jansenius. 

"She always is, " said Agatha complacently. "You didn't expect to findher in hysterics, did you?"

"Agatha, " pleaded Mrs. Wylie, "don't be headstrong and foolish. "

"Oh, she won't; I know she won't, " said Henrietta coaxingly. "Will you, dear Agatha?"

"You may do as you like, as far as I am concerned, " said Mrs. Jansenius. "But I hope you have more sense than to throw away your education fornothing. "

"Your aunt is quite right, " said Mrs. Wylie. "And your Uncle John isvery angry with you. He will never speak to you again if you quarrelwith Miss Wilson. "

"He is not angry, " said Henrietta, "but he is so anxious that you shouldget on well. "

"He will naturally be disappointed if you persist in making a fool ofyourself, " said Mrs. Jansenius. 

"All Miss Wilson wants is an apology for the dreadful things you wrotein her book, " said Mrs. Wylie. "You'll apologize, dear, won't you?"

"Of course she will, " said Henrietta. 

"I think you had better, " said Mrs. Jansenius. 

"Perhaps I will, " said Agatha. 

"That's my own darling, " said Mrs. Wylie, catching her hand. 

"And perhaps, again, I won't. "

"You will, dear, " urged Mrs. Wylie, trying to draw Agatha, who passivelyresisted, closer to her. "For my sake. To oblige your mother, Agatha. You won't refuse me, dearest?"

Agatha laughed indulgently at her parent, who had long ago worn out thisform of appeal. Then she turned to Henrietta, and said, "How is yourcaro sposo? I think it was hard that I was not a bridesmaid. "

The red in Henrietta's cheeks brightened. Mrs. Jansenius hastened tointerpose a dry reminder that Miss Wilson was waiting. 

"Oh, she does not mind waiting, " said Agatha, "because she thinks youare all at work getting me into a proper frame of mind. That was thearrangement she made with you before she left the room. Mamma knows thatI have a little bird that tells me these things. I must say that youhave not made me feel any goody-goodier so far. However, as poor UncleJohn must be dreadfully frightened and uncomfortable, it is only kind toput an end to his suspense. Good-bye!" And she went out leisurely. But she looked in again to say in a low voice: "Prepare for somethingthrilling. I feel just in the humor to say the most awful things. " Shevanished, and immediately they heard her tapping at the door of the nextroom. 

Mr. Jansenius was indeed awaiting her with misgiving. Having discoveredearly in his career that his dignified person and fine voice causedpeople to stand in some awe of him, and to move him into the chairat public meetings, he had grown so accustomed to deference that anyapproach to familiarity or irreverence disconcerted him exceedingly. Agatha, on the other hand, having from her childhood heard Uncle Johnquoted as wisdom and authority incarnate, had begun in her tender yearsto scoff at him as a pompous and purseproud city merchant, whosesordid mind was unable to cope with her transcendental affairs. Shehad habitually terrified her mother by ridiculing him with an absolutecontempt of which only childhood and extreme ignorance are capable. Shehad felt humiliated by his kindness to her (he was a generous giverof presents), and, with the instinct of an anarchist, had takendisparagement of his advice and defiance of his authority as the signswherefrom she might infer surely that her face was turned to the light. The result was that he was a little tired of her without being quiteconscious of it; and she not at all afraid of him, and a little tooconscious of it. 

When she entered with her brightest smile in full play, Miss Wilson andMr. Jansenius, seated at the table, looked somewhat like two culpritsabout to be indicted. Miss Wilson waited for him to speak, deferring tohis imposing presence. But he was not ready, so she invited Agatha tosit down. 

"Thank you, " said Agatha sweetly. "Well, Uncle John, don't you know me?"

"I have heard with regret from Miss Wilson that you have been verytroublesome here, " he said, ignoring her remark, though secretly put outby it. 

"Yes, " said Agatha contritely. "I am so very sorry. "

Mr. Jansenius, who had been led by Miss Wilson to expect the utmostcontumacy, looked to her in surprise. 

"You seem to think, " said Miss Wilson, conscious of Mr. Jansenius'smovement, and annoyed by it, "that you may transgress over and overagain, and then set yourself right with us, " (Miss Wilson never spoke ofoffences as against her individual authority, but as against the schoolcommunity) "by saying that you are sorry. You spoke in a very differenttone at our last meeting. "

"I was angry then, Miss Wilson. And I thought I had agrievance--everybody thinks they have the same one. Besides, we werequarrelling--at least I was; and I always behave badly when I quarrel. Iam so very sorry. "

"The book was a serious matter, " said Miss Wilson gravely. "You do notseem to think so. "

"I understand Agatha to say that she is now sensible of the folly of herconduct with regard to the book, and that she is sorry for it, " said Mr. Jansenius, instinctively inclining to Agatha's party as the stronger oneand the least dependent on him in a pecuniary sense. 

"Have you seen the book?" said Agatha eagerly. 

"No. Miss Wilson has described what has occurred. "

"Oh, do let me get it, " she cried, rising. "It will make Uncle Johnscream with laughing. May I, Miss Wilson?"

"There!" said Miss Wilson, indignantly. "It is this incorrigibleflippancy of which I have to complain. Miss Wylie only varies it bydownright insubordination. "

Mr. Jansenius too was scandalized. His fine color mounted at the ideaof his screaming. "Tut, tut!" he said, "you must be serious, and morerespectful to Miss Wilson. You are old enough to know better now, Agatha--quite old enough. "

Agatha's mirth vanished. "What have I said What have I done?" she asked, a faint purple spot appearing in her cheeks. 

"You have spoken triflingly of--of the volume by which Miss Wilson setsgreat store, and properly so. "

"If properly so, then why do you find fault with me?"

"Come, come, " roared Mr. Jansenius, deliberately losing his temper as alast expedient to subdue her, "don't be impertinent, Miss. "

Agatha's eyes dilated; evanescent flushes played upon her cheeks andneck; she stamped with her heel. "Uncle John, " she cried, "if you dareto address me like that, I will never look at you, never speak to you, nor ever enter your house again. What do you know about good manners, that you should call me impertinent? I will not submit to intentionalrudeness; that was the beginning of my quarrel with Miss Wilson. Shetold me I was impertinent, and I went away and told her that she waswrong by writing it in the fault book. She has been wrong all through, and I would have said so before but that I wanted to be reconciled toher and to let bygones be bygones. But if she insists on quarrelling, Icannot help it. "

"I have already explained to you, Mr. Jansenius, " said Miss Wilson, concentrating her resentment by an effort to suppress it, "that MissWylie has ignored all the opportunities that have been made for her toreinstate herself here. Mrs. Miller and I have waived merely personalconsiderations, and I have only required a simple acknowledgment of thisoffence against the college and its rules. "

"I do not care that for Mrs. Miller, " said Agatha, snapping her fingers. "And you are not half so good as I thought. "

"Agatha, " said Mr. Jansenius, "I desire you to hold your tongue. "

Agatha drew a deep breath, sat down resignedly, and said: "There! I havedone. I have lost my temper; so now we have all lost our tempers. "

"You have no right to lose your temper, Miss, " said Mr. Jansenius, following up a fancied advantage. 

"I am the youngest, and the least to blame, " she replied. "Thereis nothing further to be said, Mr. Jansenius, " said Miss Wilson, determinedly. "I am sorry that Miss Wylie has chosen to break with us. "

"But I have not chosen to break with you, and I think it very hard thatI am to be sent away. Nobody here has the least quarrel with me exceptyou and Mrs. Miller. Mrs. Miller is annoyed because she mistook me forher cat, as if that was my fault! And really, Miss Wilson, I don't knowwhy you are so angry. All the girls will think I have done somethinginfamous if I am expelled. I ought to be let stay until the end of theterm; and as to the Rec--the fault book, you told me most particularlywhen I first came that I might write in it or not just as I pleased, andthat you never dictated or interfered with what was written. And yet thevery first time I write a word you disapprove of, you expel me. Nobodywill ever believe now that the entries are voluntary. "

Miss Wilson's conscience, already smitten by the coarseness and absenceof moral force in the echo of her own "You are impertinent, " from themouth of Mr. Jansenius, took fresh alarm. "The fault book, " she said, "is for the purpose of recording self-reproach alone, and is not avehicle for accusations against others. "

"I am quite sure that neither Jane nor Gertrude nor I reproachedourselves in the least for going downstairs as we did, and yet you didnot blame us for entering that. Besides, the book represented moralforce--at least you always said so, and when you gave up moral force, I thought an entry should be made of that. Of course I was in a rage atthe time, but when I came to myself I thought I had done right, and Ithink so still, though it would perhaps have been better to have passedit over. "

"Why do you say that I gave up moral force?"

"Telling people to leave the room is not moral force. Calling themimpertinent is not moral force. "

"You think then that I am bound to listen patiently to whatever youchoose to say to me, however unbecoming it may be from one in yourposition to one in mine?"

"But I said nothing unbecoming, " said Agatha. Then, breaking offrestlessly, and smiling again, she said: "Oh, don't let us argue. Iam very sorry, and very troublesome, and very fond of you and of thecollege; and I won't come back next term unless you like. "

"Agatha, " said Miss Wilson, shaken, "these expressions of regard costyou so little, and when they have effected their purpose, are sosoon forgotten by you, that they have ceased to satisfy me. I am veryreluctant to insist on your leaving us at once. But as your uncle hastold you, you are old and sensible enough to know the difference betweenorder and disorder. Hitherto you have been on the side of disorder, anelement which was hardly known here until you came, as Mrs. Trefusiscan tell you. Nevertheless, if you will promise to be more careful infuture, I will waive all past cause of complaint, and at the end of theterm I shall be able to judge as to your continuing among us. "

Agatha rose, beaming. "Dear Miss Wilson, " she said, "you are so good! Ipromise, of course. I will go and tell mamma. "

Before they could add a word she had turned with a pirouette to thedoor, and fled, presenting herself a moment later in the drawing-room tothe three ladies, whom she surveyed with a whimsical smile in silence. 

"Well?" said Mrs. Jansenius peremptorily. 

"Well, dear?" said Mrs. Trefusis, caressingly. 

Mrs. Wylie stifled a sob and looked imploringly at her daughter. 

"I had no end of trouble in bringing them to reason, " said Agatha, aftera provoking pause. "They behaved like children, and I was like an angel. I am to stay, of course. "

"Blessings on you, my darling, " faltered Mrs. Wylie, attempting a kiss, which Agatha dexterously evaded. 

"I have promised to be very good, and studious, and quiet, and decorousin future. Do you remember my castanet song, Hetty?

"'Tra! lalala, la! la! la! Tra! lalala, la! la! la! Tra!lalalalalalalalalalala!'"

And she danced about the room, snapping her fingers instead ofcastanets. 

"Don't be so reckless and wicked, my love, " said Mrs. Wylie. "You willbreak your poor mother's heart. "

Miss Wilson and Mr. Jansenius entered just then, and Agatha becamemotionless and gazed abstractedly at a vase of flowers. Miss Wilsoninvited her visitors to join the tennis players. Mr. Jansenius lookedsternly and disappointedly at Agatha, who elevated her left eyebrow anddepressed her right simultaneously; but he, shaking his head to signifythat he was not to be conciliated by facial feats, however difficultor contrary to nature, went out with Miss Wilson, followed by Mrs. Jansenius and Mrs. Wylie. 

"How is your Hubby?" said Agatha then, brusquely, to Henrietta. 

Mrs. Trefusis's eyes filled with tears so quickly that, as she bent herhead to hide them, they fell, sprinkling Agatha's hand. 

"This is such a dear old place, " she began. "The associations of mygirlhood--"

"What is the matter between you and Hubby?" demanded Agatha, interrupting her. "You had better tell me, or I will ask him when I meethim. "

"I was about to tell you, only you did not give me time. "

"That is a most awful cram, " said Agatha. "But no matter. Go on. "

Henrietta hesitated. Her dignity as a married woman, and the reality ofher grief, revolted against the shallow acuteness of the schoolgirl. Butshe found herself no better able to resist Agatha's domineering thanshe had been in her childhood, and much more desirous of obtaining hersympathy. Besides, she had already learnt to tell the story herselfrather than leave its narration to others, whose accounts did not, she felt, put her case in the proper light. So she told Agatha of hermarriage, her wild love for her husband, his wild love for her, and hismysterious disappearance without leaving word or sign behind him. Shedid not mention the letter. 

"Have you had him searched for?" said Agatha, repressing an inclinationto laugh. 

"But where? Had I the remotest clue, I would follow him barefoot to theend of the world. "

"I think you ought to search all the rivers--you would have to do thatbarefoot. He must have fallen in somewhere, or fallen down some place. "

"No, no. Do you think I should be here if I thought his life in danger?I have reasons--I know that he is only gone away. "

"Oh, indeed! He took his portmanteau with him, did he? Perhaps hehas gone to Paris to buy you something nice and give you a pleasantsurprise. "

"No, " said Henrietta dejectedly. "He knew that I wanted nothing. "

"Then I suppose he got tired of you and ran away. "

Henrietta's peculiar scarlet blush flowed rapidly over her cheeks as sheflung Agatha's arm away, exclaiming, "How dare you say so! You have noheart. He adored me. "

"Bosh!" said Agatha. "People always grow tired of one another. I growtired of myself whenever I am left alone for ten minutes, and I amcertain that I am fonder of myself than anyone can be of anotherperson. "

"I know you are, " said Henrietta, pained and spiteful. "You have alwaysbeen particularly fond of yourself. "

"Very likely he resembles me in that respect. In that case he will growtired of himself and come back, and you will both coo like turtle dovesuntil he runs away again. Ugh! Serve you right for getting married. Iwonder how people can be so mad as to do it, with the example of theirmarried acquaintances all warning them against it. "

"You don't know what it is to love, " said Henrietta, plaintively, andyet patronizingly. "Besides, we were not like other couples. "

"So it seems. But never mind, take my word for it, he will return to youas soon as he has had enough of his own company. Don't worry thinkingabout him, but come and have a game at lawn tennis. "

During this conversation they had left the drawing-room and made adetour through the grounds. They were now approaching the tennis courtsby a path which wound between two laurel hedges through the shrubbery. Meanwhile, Smilash, waiting on the guests in his white apron and gloves(which he had positively refused to take off, alleging that he was acommon man, with common hands such as born ladies and gentlemen couldnot be expected to take meat and drink from), had behaved himselfirreproachably until the arrival of Miss Wilson and her visitors, whichoccurred as he was returning to the table with an empty tray, moving soswiftly that he nearly came into collision with Mrs. Jansenius. Insteadof apologizing, he changed countenance, hastily held up the tray like ashield before his face, and began to walk backward from her, stumblingpresently against Miss Lindsay, who was running to return a ball. Without heeding her angry look and curt rebuke, he half turned, andsidled away into the shrubbery, whence the tray presently rose into theair, flew across the laurel hedge, and descended with a peal of stagethunder on the stooped shoulders of Josephs. Miss Wilson, after askingthe housekeeper with some asperity why she had allowed that man tointerfere in the attendance, explained to the guests that he was theidiot of the countryside. Mr. Jansenius laughed, and said that he hadnot seen the man's face, but that his figure reminded him forcibly ofsome one; he could not just then recollect exactly whom. 

Smilash, making off through the shrubbery, found the end of his pathblocked by Agatha and a young lady whose appearance alarmed him morethan had that of Mrs. Jansenius. He attempted to force his tray throughthe hedge, but in vain; the laurel was impenetrable, and the noisehe made attracted the attention of the approaching couple. He made nofurther effort to escape, but threw his borrowed apron over his head andstood bolt upright with his back against the bushes. 

"What is that man doing there?" said Henrietta, stopping mistrustfully. 

Agatha laughed, and said loudly, so that he might hear: "It is onlya harmless madman that Miss Wilson employs. He is fond of disguisinghimself in some silly way and trying to frighten us. Don't be afraid. Come on. "

Henrietta hung back, but her arm was linked in Agatha's, and she wasdrawn along in spite of herself. Smilash did not move. Agatha strolledon coolly, and as she passed him, adroitly caught the apron betweenher finger and thumb and twitched it from his face. Instantly Henriettauttered a piercing scream, and Smilash caught her in his arms. 

"Quick, " he said to Agatha, "she is fainting. Run for some water. Run!" And he bent over Henrietta, who clung to him frantically. Agatha, bewildered by the effect of her practical joke, hesitated a moment, andthen ran to the lawn. 

"What is the matter?" said Fairholme. 

"Nothing. I want some water--quick, please. Henrietta has fainted in theshrubbery, that is all. "

"Please do not stir, " said Miss Wilson authoritatively, "you will crowdthe path and delay useful assistance. Miss Ward, kindly get some waterand bring it to us. Agatha, come with me and point out where Mrs. Trefusis is. You may come too, Miss Carpenter; you are so strong. Therest will please remain where they are. "

Followed by the two girls, she hurried into the shrubbery, where Mr. Jansenius was already looking anxiously for his daughter. He was theonly person they found there. Smilash and Henrietta were gone. 

At first the seekers, merely puzzled, did nothing but question Agathaincredulously as to the exact spot on which Henrietta had fallen. ButMr. Jansenius soon made them understand that the position of a ladyin the hands of a half-witted laborer was one of danger. His agitationinfected them, and when Agatha endeavored to reassure him by declaringthat Smilash was a disguised gentleman, Miss Wilson, supposing this tobe a mere repetition of her former idle conjecture, told her sharply tohold her tongue, as the time was not one for talking nonsense. The newsnow spread through the whole company, and the excitement became intense. Fairholme shouted for volunteers to make up a searching party. All themen present responded, and they were about to rush to the college gatesin a body when it Occurred to the cooler among them that they had betterdivide into several parties, in order that search might be made at oncein different quarters. Ten minutes of confusion followed. Mr. Janseniusstarted several times in quest of Henrietta, and, when he had gone a fewsteps, returned and begged that no more time should be wasted. Josephs, whose faith was simple, retired to pray, and did good, as far as itwent, by withdrawing one voice from the din of plans, objections, andsuggestions which the rest were making; each person trying to be heardabove the others. 

At last Miss Wilson quelled the prevailing anarchy. Servants were sentto alarm the neighbors and call in the village police. Detachments weresent in various directions under the command of Fairholme and otherenergetic spirits. The girls formed parties among themselves, which werereinforced by male deserters from the previous levies. Miss Wilson thenwent indoors and conducted a search through the interior of the college. Only two persons were left on the tennis ground--Agatha and Mrs. Jansenius, who had been surprisingly calm throughout. 

"You need not be anxious, " said Agatha, who had been standing aloofsince her rebuff by Miss Wilson. "I am sure there is no danger. It ismost extraordinary that they have gone away; but the man is no more madthan I am, and I know he is a gentleman He told me so. "

"Let us hope for the best, " said Mrs. Jansenius, smoothly. "I thinkI will sit down--I feel so tired. Thanks. " (Agatha had handed her achair. ) "What did you say he told you--this man?"

Agatha related the circumstances of her acquaintance with Smilash, adding, at Mrs. Jansenius's request, a minute description of hispersonal appearance. Mrs. Jansenius remarked that it was very singular, and that she was sure Henrietta was quite safe. She then partook ofclaret-cup and sandwiches. Agatha, though glad to find someone disposedto listen to her, was puzzled by her aunt's coolness, and was evengoaded into pointing out that though Smilash was not a laborer, it didnot follow that he was an honest man. But Mrs. Jansenius only said: "Oh, she is safe--quite safe! At least, of course, I can only hope so. Weshall have news presently, " and took another sandwich. 

The searchers soon began to return, baffled. A few shepherds, the onlypersons in the vicinity, had been asked whether they had seen a younglady and a laborer. Some of them had seen a young woman with a basket ofclothes, if that mout be her. Some thought that Phil Martin thecarrier would see her if anybody would. None of them had any positiveinformation to give. 

As the afternoon wore on, and party after party returned tired andunsuccessful, depression replaced excitement; conversation, no longertumultuous, was carried on in whispers, and some of the local visitorsslipped away to their homes with a growing conviction that somethingunpleasant had happened, and that it would be as well not to be mixed upin it. Mr. Jansenius, though a few words from his wife had surprised andsomewhat calmed him, was still pitiably restless and uneasy. 

At last the police arrived. At sight of their uniforms excitementrevived; there was a general conviction that something effectual wouldbe done now. But the constables were only mortal, and in a few moments awhisper spread that they were fooled. They doubted everything told them, and expressed their contempt for amateur searching by entering ona fresh investigation, prying with the greatest care into the leastprobable places. Two of them went off to the chalet to look for Smilash. Then Fairholme, sunburnt, perspiring, and dusty, but still energetic, brought back the exhausted remnant of his party, with a sullen boy, whoscowled defiantly at the police, evidently believing that he was aboutto be delivered into their custody. 

Fairholme had been everywhere, and, having seen nothing of the missingpair, had come to the conclusion that they were nowhere. He had askedeverybody for information, and had let them know that he meant to haveit too, if it was to be had. But it was not to be had. The sole resortof his labor was the evidence of the boy whom he didn't believe. 

"'Im!" said the inspector, not quite pleased by Fairholme's zeal, andyet overborne by it. "You're Wickens's boy, ain't you?"

"Yes, I am Wickens's boy, " said the witness, partly fierce, partlylachrymose, "and I say I seen him, and if anyone sez I didn't see him, he's a lie. "

"Come, " said the inspector sharply, "give us none of your cheek, buttell us what you saw, or you'll have to deal with me afterwards. "

"I don't care who I deal with, " said the boy, at bay. "I can't be tookfor seein' him, because there's no lor agin it. I was in the gravel pitin the canal meadow--"

"What business had you there?" said the inspector, interrupting. 

"I got leave to be there, " said the boy insolently, but reddening. 

"Who gave you leave?" said the inspector, collaring him. "Ah, " he added, as the captive burst into tears, "I told you you'd have to deal with me. Now hold your noise, and remember where you are and who you're speakin'to; and perhaps I mayn't lock you up this time. Tell me what you sawwhen you were trespassin' in the meadow. "

"I sor a young 'omen and a man. And I see her kissin' him; and thegentleman won't believe me. "

"You mean you saw him kissing her, more likely. "

"No, I don't. I know wot it is to have a girl kiss you when you don'twant. And I gev a screech to friken 'em. And he called me and gev metuppence, and sez, 'You go to the devil, ' he sez, 'and don't tell no oneyou seen me here, or else, ' he sez, 'I might be tempted to drownd you, 'he sez, 'and wot a shock that would be to your parents!' 'Oh, yes, verylikely, ' I sez, jes' like that. Then I went away, because he knows Mr. Wickens, and I was afeerd of his telling on me. "

The boy being now subdued, questions were put to him from all sides. But his powers of observation and description went no further. As he wasanxious to propitiate his captors, he answered as often as possible inthe affirmative. Mr. Jansenius asked him whether the young woman he hadseen was a lady, and he said yes. Was the man a laborer? Yes--after amoment's hesitation. How was she dressed? He hadn't taken notice. Hadshe red flowers in her hat? Yes. Had she a green dress? Yes. Were theflowers in her hat yellow? (Agatha's question. ) Yes. Was her dress pink?Yes. Sure it wasn't black? No answer. 

"I told you he was a liar, " said Fairholme contemptuously. 

"Well, I expect he's seen something, " said the inspector, "but what itwas, or who it was, is more than I can get out of him. "

There was a pause, and they looked askance upon Wickens's boy. Hisaccount of the kissing made it almost an insult to the Janseniuses toidentify with Henrietta the person he had seen. Jane suggested draggingthe canal, but was silenced by an indignant "sh-sh-sh, " accompanied byapprehensive and sympathetic glances at the bereaved parents. She wasdisplaced from the focus of attention by the appearance of the twopolicemen who had been sent to the chalet. Smilash was between them, apparently a prisoner. At a distance, he seemed to have suffered somefrightful injury to his head, but when he was brought into the midst ofthe company it appeared that he had twisted a red handkerchief abouthis face as if to soothe a toothache. He had a particularly hangdogexpression as he stood before the inspector with his head bowed and hiscountenance averted from Mr. Jansenius, who, attempting to scrutinizehis features, could see nothing but a patch of red handkerchief. 

One of the policemen described how they had found Smilash in the act ofentering his dwelling; how he had refused to give any information orto go to the college, and had defied them to take him there against hiswill; and how, on their at last proposing to send for the inspectorand Mr. Jansenius, he had called them asses, and consented to accompanythem. The policeman concluded by declaring that the man was either drunkor designing, as he could not or would not speak sensibly. 

"Look here, governor, " began Smilash to the inspector, "I am a commonman--no commoner goin', as you may see for--"

"That's 'im, " cried Wickens's boy, suddenly struck with a sense of hisown importance as a witness. "That's 'im that the lady kissed, and thatgev me tuppence and threatened to drownd me. "

"And with a 'umble and contrite 'art do I regret that I did not drowndyou, you young rascal, " said Smilash. "It ain't manners to interrupt aman who, though common, might be your father for years and wisdom. "

"Hold your tongue, " said the inspector to the boy. "Now, Smilash, do youwish to make any statement? Be careful, for whatever you say may be usedagainst you hereafter. "

"If you was to lead me straight away to the scaffold, colonel, I couldtell you no more than the truth. If any man can say that he has heardJeff Smilash tell a lie, let him stand forth. "

"We don't want to hear about that, " said the inspector. "As you are astranger in these parts, nobody here knows any bad of you. No more dothey know any good of you neither. "

"Colonel, " said Smilash, deeply impressed, "you have a penetrating mind, and you know a bad character at sight. Not to deceive you, I am thatgiven to lying, and laziness, and self-indulgence of all sorts, that theonly excuse I can find for myself is that it is the nature of the raceso to be; for most men is just as bad as me, and some of 'em worsen I donot speak pers'nal to you, governor, nor to the honorable gentlemen hereassembled. But then you, colonel, are a hinspector of police, whichI take to be more than merely human; and as to the gentlemen here, agentleman ain't a man--leastways not a common man--the common man bein'but the slave wot feeds and clothes the gentleman beyond the common. "

"Come, " said the inspector, unable to follow these observations, "youare a clever dodger, but you can't dodge me. Have you any statement tomake with reference to the lady that was last seen in your company?"

"Take a statement about a lady!" said Smilash indignantly. "Far be thethought from my mind!"

"What have you done with her?" said Agatha, impetuously. "Don't besilly. "

"You're not bound to answer that, you know, " said the inspector, a little put out by Agatha's taking advantage of her irresponsibleunofficial position to come so directly to the point. "You may if youlike, though. If you've done any harm, you'd better hold your tongue. Ifnot, you'd better say so. "

"I will set the young lady's mind at rest respecting her honorablesister, " said Smilash. "When the young lady caught sight of me shefainted. Bein' but a young man, and not used to ladies, I will not denybut that I were a bit scared, and that my mind were not open to thesensiblest considerations. When she unveils her orbs, so to speak, sheketches me round the neck, not knowin' me from Adam the father of usall, and sez, 'Bring me some water, and don't let the girls see me. 'Through not 'avin' the intelligence to think for myself, I done justwhat she told me. I ups with her in my arms--she bein' a light weightand a slender figure--and makes for the canal as fast as I could. When Igot there, I lays her on the bank and goes for the water. But whatwith factories, and pollutions, and high civilizations of one sort andanother, English canal water ain't fit to sprinkle on a lady, much lessfor her to drink. Just then, as luck would have it, a barge came alongand took her aboard, and--"

"To such a thing, " said Wickens's boy stubbornly, emboldened bywitnessing the effrontery of one apparently of his own class. "I sor youtwo standin' together, and her a kissin' of you. There worn's no barge. "

"Is the maiden modesty of a born lady to be disbelieved on the word of acommon boy that only walks the earth by the sufferance of the landlordsand moneylords he helps to feed?" cried Smilash indignantly. "Why, youyoung infidel, a lady ain't made of common brick like you. She don'tknow what a kiss means, and if she did, is it likely that she'd kissme when a fine man like the inspector here would be only too happy tooblige her. Fie, for shame! The barge were red and yellow, with a greendragon for a figurehead, and a white horse towin' of it. Perhaps you'recolor-blind, and can't distinguish red and yellow. The bargee was movedto compassion by the sight of the poor faintin' lady, and the offer of'arf-a-crown, and he had a mother that acted as a mother should. Therewas a cabin in that barge about as big as the locker where your ladyshipkeeps your jam and pickles, and in that locker the bargee lives, quitedomestic, with his wife and mother and five children. Them canal boatsis what you may call the wooden walls of England. "

"Come, get on with your story, " said the inspector. "We know what bargesis as well as you. "

"I wish more knew of 'em, " retorted Smilash; "perhaps it 'ud lightenyour work a bit. However, as I was sayin', we went right down the canalto Lyvern, where we got off, and the lady she took the railway omnibusand went away in it. With the noble openhandedness of her class, shegave me sixpence; here it is, in proof that my words is true. And I wishher safe home, and if I was on the rack I could tell no more, exceptthat when I got back I were laid hands on by these here bobbies, contrary to the British constitooshun, and if your ladyship will kindlygo to where that constitooshun is wrote down, and find out wot it sezabout my rights and liberties--for I have been told that the working-manhas his liberties, and have myself seen plenty took with him--youwill oblige a common chap more than his education will enable him toexpress. "

"Sir, " cried Mr. Jansenius suddenly, "will you hold up your head andlook me in the face?"

Smilash did so, and immediately started theatrically, exclaiming, "Whomdo I see?"

"You would hardly believe it, " he continued, addressing the company atlarge, "but I am well beknown to this honorable gentleman. I see it uponyour lips, governor, to ask after my missus, and I thank you for yourcondescending interest. She is well, sir, and my residence here isfully agreed upon between us. What little cloud may have rose upon ourdomestic horizon has past away; and, governor, "---here Smilash's voicefell with graver emphasis--"them as interferes betwixt man and wife nowwill incur a heavy responsibility. Here I am, such as you see me, andhere I mean to stay, likewise such as you see me. That is, if what youmay call destiny permits. For destiny is a rum thing, governor. I camehere thinking it was the last place in the world I should ever set eyeson you in, and blow me if you ain't a'most the first person I pops on. "

"I do not choose to be a party to this mummery of--"

"Asking your leave to take the word out of your mouth, governor, I makeyou a party to nothink. Respecting my past conduct, you may out with itor you may keep it to yourself. All I say is that if you out with someof it I will out with the rest. All or none. You are free to tell theinspector here that I am a bad 'un. His penetrating mind have discoveredthat already. But if you go into names and particulars, you will notonly be acting against the wishes of my missus, but you will lead to mytellin' the whole story right out afore everyone here, and then goin'away where no one won't never find me. "

"I think the less said the better, " said Mrs. Jansenius, uneasilyobservant of the curiosity and surprise this dialogue was causing. "Butunderstand this, Mr. --"

"Smilash, dear lady; Jeff Smilash. "

"Mr. Smilash, whatever arrangement you may have made with your wife, ithas nothing to do with me. You have behaved infamously, and I desireto have as little as possible to say to you in future! I desire to havenothing to say to you--nothing, " said Mr. Jansenius. "I look on yourconduct as an insult to me, personally. You may live in any fashionyou please, and where you please. All England is open to you except oneplace--my house. Come, Ruth. " He offered his arm to his wife; she tookit, and they turned away, looking about for Agatha, who, disgusted atthe gaping curiosity of the rest, had pointedly withdrawn beyond earshotof the conversation. 

Miss Wilson looked from Smilash--who had watched Mr. Jansenius'sexplosion of wrath with friendly interest, as if it concerned him as acurious spectator only--to her two visitors as they retreated. "Pray, doyou consider this man's statement satisfactory?" she said to them. "I donot. "

"I am far too common a man to be able to make any statement that couldsatisfy a mind cultivated as yours has been, " said Smilash, "but I would'umbly pint out to you that there is a boy yonder with a telegram tryingto shove hisself through the 'iborn throng. "

"Miss Wilson!" cried the boy shrilly. 

She took the telegram; read it; and frowned. "We have had all ourtrouble for nothing, ladies and gentlemen, " she said, with suppressedvexation. "Mrs. Trefusis says here that she has gone back to London. Shehas not considered it necessary to add any explanation. "

There was a general murmur of disappointment. 

"Don't lose heart, ladies, " said Smilash. "She may be drowned ormurdered for all we know. Anyone may send a telegram in a false name. Perhaps it's a plant. Let's hope for your sakes that some littleaccident--on the railway, for instance--may happen yet. "

Miss Wilson turned upon him, glad to find someone with whom she mightjustly be angry. "You had better go about your business, " she said. "Anddon't let me see you here again. "

"This is 'ard, " said Smilash plaintively. "My intentions was nothing butgood. But I know wot it is. It's that young varmint a-saying that theyoung lady kissed me. "

"Inspector, " said Miss Wilson, "will you oblige me by seeing that heleaves the college as soon as possible?"

"Where's my wages?" he retorted reproachfully. "Where's my lawful wages?I am su'prised at a lady like you, chock full o' moral science andpolitical economy, wanting to put a poor man off. Where's your wagesfund? Where's your remuneratory capital?"

"Don't you give him anything, ma'am, " said the inspector. "The moneyhe's had from the lady will pay him very well. Move on here, or we'llprecious soon hurry you. "

"Very well, " grumbled Smilash. "I bargained for ninepence, and what withthe roller, and opening the soda water, and shoving them heavy tablesabout, there was a decomposition of tissue in me to the tune of twoshillings. But all I ask is the ninepence, and let the lady keep the oneand threppence as the reward of abstinence. Exploitation of labor atthe rate of a hundred and twenty-five per cent. , that is. Come, give usninepence, and I'll go straight off. "

"Here is a shilling, " said Miss Wilson. "Now go. "

"Threppence change!" cried Smilash. "Honesty has ever been--"

"You may keep the change. "

"You have a noble 'art, lady; but you're flying in the face of the lawof supply and demand. If you keep payin' at this rate, there'll be arush of laborers to the college, and competition'll soon bring you downfrom a shilling to sixpence, let alone ninepence. That's the way wagesgo down and death rates goes up, worse luck for the likes of hus, as hasto sell ourselves like pigs in the market. "

He was about to continue when the policeman took him by the arm, turnedhim towards the gate, and pointed expressively in that direction. Smilash looked vacantly at him for a moment. Then, with a wink atFairholme, he walked gravely away, amid general staring and silence. 

CHAPTER V

What had passed between Smilash and Henrietta remained unknown except tothemselves. Agatha had seen Henrietta clasping his neck in her arms, but had not waited to hear the exclamation of "Sidney, Sidney, " whichfollowed, nor to see him press her face to his breast in his anxiety tostifle her voice as he said, "My darling love, don't screech I imploreyou. Confound it, we shall have the whole pack here in a moment. Hush!"

"Don't leave me again, Sidney, " she entreated, clinging faster to himas his perplexed gaze, wandering towards the entrance to the shrubbery, seemed to forsake her. A din of voices in that direction precipitatedhis irresolution. 

"We must run away, Hetty, " he said "Hold fast about my neck, and don'tstrangle me. Now then. " He lifted her upon his shoulder and ran swiftlythrough the grounds. When they were stopped by the wall, he placed heratop of it, scrabbled over, and made her jump into his arms. Then hestaggered away with her across the fields, gasping out in reply tothe inarticulate remonstrances which burst from her as he stumbled andreeled at every hillock, "Your weight is increasing at the rate of astone a second, my love. If you stoop you will break my back. Oh, Lord, here's a ditch!"

"Let me down, " screamed Henrietta in an ecstasy of delight andapprehension. "You will hurt yourself, and--Oh, DO take--"

He struggled through a dry ditch as she spoke, and came out upon agrassy place that bordered the towpath of the canal. Here, on thebank of a hollow where the moss was dry and soft, he seated her, threwhimself prone on his elbows before her, and said, panting:

"Nessus carrying off Dejanira was nothing to this! Whew! Well, mydarling, are you glad to see me?"

"But--"

"But me no buts, unless you wish me to vanish again and for ever. Wretchthat I am, I have longed for you unspeakably more than once since I ranaway from you. You didn't care, of course?"

"I did. I did, indeed. Why did you leave me, Sidney?"

"Lest a worse thing might befall. Come, don't let us waste inexplanations the few minutes we have left. Give me a kiss. "

"Then you are going to leave me again. Oh, Sidney--"

"Never mind to-morrow, Hetty. Be like the sun and the meadow, which arenot in the least concerned about the coming winter. Why do you stareat that cursed canal, blindly dragging its load of filth from place toplace until it pitches it into the sea--just as a crowded street pitchesits load into the cemetery? Stare at ME, and give me a kiss. "

She gave him several, and said coaxingly, with her arm still upon hisshoulder: "You only talk that way to frighten me, Sidney; I know youdo. "

"You are the bright sun of my senses, " he said, embracing her. "I feelmy heart and brain wither in your smile, and I fling them to you foryour prey with exultation. How happy I am to have a wife who does notdespise me for doing so--who rather loves me the more!"

"Don't be silly, " said Henrietta, smiling vacantly. Then, stung by ahalf intuition of his meaning, she repulsed him and said angrily, "YOUdespise ME. "

"Not more than I despise myself. Indeed, not so much; for many emotionsthat seem base from within seem lovable from without. "

"You intend to leave me again. I feel it. I know it. "

"You think you know it because you feel it. Not a bad reason, either. "

"Then you ARE going to leave me?"

"Do you not feel it and know it? Yes, my cherished Hetty, I assuredlyam. "

She broke into wild exclamations of grief, and he drew her head down andkissed her with a tender action which she could not resist, and a wryface which she did not see. 

"My poor Hetty, you don't understand me. "

"I only understand that you hate me, and want to go away from me. "

"That would be easy to understand. But the strangeness is that I LOVEyou and want to go away from you. Not for ever. Only for a time. "

"But I don't want you to go away. I won't let you go away, " she said, a trace of fierceness mingling with her entreaty. "Why do you want toleave me if you love me?"

"How do I know? I can no more tell you the whys and wherefores of myselfthan I can lift myself up by the waistband and carry myself into thenext county, as some one challenged a speculator in perpetual motion todo. I am too much a pessimist to respect my own affections. Do you knowwhat a pessimist is?"

"A man who thinks everybody as nasty as himself, and hates them for it. "

"So, or thereabout. Modern English polite society, my native sphere, seems to me as corrupt as consciousness of culture and absence ofhonesty can make it. A canting, lie-loving, fact-hating, scribbling, chattering, wealth-hunting, pleasure-hunting, celebrity-hunting mob, that, having lost the fear of hell, and not replaced it by the love ofjustice, cares for nothing but the lion's share of the wealth wrung bythreat of starvation from the hands of the classes that create it. Ifyou interrupt me with a silly speech, Hetty, I will pitch you into thecanal, and die of sorrow for my lost love afterwards. You know what Iam, according to the conventional description: a gentleman with lots ofmoney. Do you know the wicked origin of that money and gentility?"

"Oh, Sidney; have you been doing anything?"

"No, my best beloved; I am a gentleman, and have been doing nothing. That a man can do so and not starve is nowadays not even a paradox. Every halfpenny I possess is stolen money; but it has been stolenlegally, and, what is of some practical importance to you, I have nomeans of restoring it to the rightful owners even if I felt inclined to. Do you know what my father was?"

"What difference can that make now? Don't be disagreeable and full ofridiculous fads, Sidney dear. I didn't marry your father. "

"No; but you married--only incidentally, of course--my father's fortune. That necklace of yours was purchased with his money; and I can almostfancy stains of blood. "

"Stop, Sidney. I don't like this sort of romancing. It's all nonsense. DO be nice to me. "

"There are stains of sweat on it, I know. "

"You nasty wretch!"

"I am thinking, not of you, my dainty one, but of the unfortunate peoplewho slave that we may live idly. Let me explain to you why we are sorich. My father was a shrewd, energetic, and ambitious Manchester man, who understood an exchange of any sort as a transaction by which one manshould lose and the other gain. He made it his object to make as manyexchanges as possible, and to be always the gaining party in them. I donot know exactly what he was, for he was ashamed both of his antecedentsand of his relatives, from which I can only infer that they were honest, and, therefore, unsuccessful people. However, he acquired some knowledgeof the cotton trade, saved some money, borrowed some more on thesecurity of his reputation for getting the better of other people inbusiness, and, as he accurately told me afterwards, started FOR HIMSELF. He bought a factory and some raw cotton. Now you must know that a man, by laboring some time on a piece of raw cotton, can turn it into a pieceof manufactured cotton fit for making into sheets and shifts and thelike. The manufactured cotton is more valuable than the raw cotton, because the manufacture costs wear and tear of machinery, wear and tearof the factory, rent of the ground upon which the factory is built, andhuman labor, or wear and tear of live men, which has to be made good byfood, shelter, and rest. Do you understand that?"

"We used to learn all about it at college. I don't see what it has to dowith us, since you are not in the cotton trade. "

"You learned as much as it was thought safe to teach you, no doubt; butnot quite all, I should think. When my father started for himself, therewere many men in Manchester who were willing to labor in this way, butthey had no factory to work in, no machinery to work with, and no rawcotton to work on, simply because all this indispensable plant, and thematerials for producing a fresh supply of it, had been appropriated byearlier comers. So they found themselves with gaping stomachs, shiveringlimbs, and hungry wives and children, in a place called their owncountry, in which, nevertheless, every scrap of ground and possiblesource of subsistence was tightly locked up in the hands of others andguarded by armed soldiers and policemen. In this helpless condition, thepoor devils were ready to beg for access to a factory and to raw cottonon any conditions compatible with life. My father offered them theuse of his factory, his machines, and his raw cotton on the followingconditions: They were to work long and hard, early and late, to addfresh value to his raw cotton by manufacturing it. Out of the value thuscreated by them, they were to recoup him for what he supplied them with:rent, shelter, gas, water, machinery, raw cotton--everything, and to payhim for his own services as superintendent, manager, and salesman. Sofar he asked nothing but just remuneration. But after this had beenpaid, a balance due solely to their own labor remained. 'Out of this, 'said my father, 'you shall keep just enough to save you from starving, and of the rest you shall make me a present to reward me for my virtuein saving money. Such is the bargain I propose. It is, in my opinion, fair and calculated to encourage thrifty habits. If it does not strikeyou in that light, you can get a factory and raw cotton for yourselves;you shall not use mine. ' In other words, they might go to the devil andstarve--Hobson's choice!--for all the other factories were owned by menwho offered no better terms. The Manchesterians could not bear to starveor to see their children starve, and so they accepted his terms and wentinto the factory. The terms, you see, did not admit of their beginningto save for themselves as he had done. Well, they created great wealthby their labor, and lived on very little, so that the balance they gavefor nothing to my father was large. He bought more cotton, and moremachinery, and more factories with it; employed more men to make wealthfor him, and saw his fortune increase like a rolling snowball. Heprospered enormously, but the work men were no better off than at first, and they dared not rebel and demand more of the money they had made, forthere were always plenty of starving wretches outside willing to taketheir places on the old terms. Sometimes he met with a check, as, forinstance, when, in his eagerness to increase his store, he made the menmanufacture more cotton than the public needed; or when he could not getenough of raw cotton, as happened during the Civil War in America. Thenhe adapted himself to circumstances by turning away as many workmen ashe could not find customers or cotton for; and they, of course, starvedor subsisted on charity. During the war-time a big subscription was gotup for these poor wretches, and my father subscribed one hundred pounds, in spite, he said, of his own great losses. Then he bought new machines;and, as women and children could work these as well as men, and werecheaper and more docile, he turned away about seventy out of everyhundred of his HANDS (so he called the men), and replaced them by theirwives and children, who made money for him faster than ever. By thistime he had long ago given up managing the factories, and paid cleverfellows who had no money of their own a few hundreds a year to do it forhim. He also purchased shares in other concerns conducted on the sameprinciple; pocketed dividends made in countries which he had nevervisited by men whom he had never seen; bought a seat in Parliament froma poor and corrupt constituency, and helped to preserve the laws bywhich he had thriven. Afterwards, when his wealth grew famous, he hadless need to bribe; for modern men worship the rich as gods, and willelect a man as one of their rulers for no other reason than that he isa millionaire. He aped gentility, lived in a palace at Kensington, andbought a part of Scotland to make a deer forest of. It is easy enough tomake a deer forest, as trees are not necessary there. You simply driveoff the peasants, destroy their houses, and make a desert of the land. However, my father did not shoot much himself; he generally let theforest out by the season to those who did. He purchased a wife of gentleblood too, with the unsatisfactory result now before you. That ishow Jesse Trefusis, a poor Manchester bagman, contrived to be come aplutocrat and gentleman of landed estate. And also how I, who never dida stroke of work in my life, am overburdened with wealth; whilst thechildren of the men who made that wealth are slaving as their fathersslaved, or starving, or in the workhouse, or on the streets, or thedeuce knows where. What do you think of that, my love?"

"What is the use of worrying about it, Sidney? It cannot be helped now. Besides, if your father saved money, and the others were improvident, hedeserved to make a fortune. "

"Granted; but he didn't make a fortune. He took a fortune that othersmade. At Cambridge they taught me that his profits were the reward ofabstinence--the abstinence which enabled him to save. That quieted myconscience until I began to wonder why one man should make another payhim for exercising one of the virtues. Then came the question: what didmy father abstain from? The workmen abstained from meat, drink, freshair, good clothes, decent lodging, holidays, money, the society of theirfamilies, and pretty nearly everything that makes life worth living, which was perhaps the reason why they usually died twenty years or sosooner than people in our circumstances. Yet no one rewarded them fortheir abstinence. The reward came to my father, who abstained fromnone of these things, but indulged in them all to his heart's content. Besides, if the money was the reward of abstinence, it seemed logical toinfer that he must abstain ten times as much when he had fifty thousanda year as when he had only five thousand. Here was a problem for myyoung mind. Required, something from which my father abstained and inwhich his workmen exceeded, and which he abstained from more and more ashe grew richer and richer. The only thing that answered this descriptionwas hard work, and as I never met a sane man willing to pay another foridling, I began to see that these prodigious payments to my father wereextorted by force. To do him justice, he never boasted of abstinence. He considered himself a hard-worked man, and claimed his fortune as thereward of his risks, his calculations, his anxieties, and the journeyshe had to make at all seasons and at all hours. This comforted mesomewhat until it occurred to me that if he had lived a century earlier, invested his money in a horse and a pair of pistols, and taken to theroad, his object--that of wresting from others the fruits of their laborwithout rendering them an equivalent--would have been exactly thesame, and his risk far greater, for it would have included risk ofthe gallows. Constant travelling with the constable at his heels, andcalculations of the chances of robbing the Dover mail, would have givenhim his fill of activity and anxiety. On the whole, if Jesse Trefusis, M. P. , who died a millionaire in his palace at Kensington, had been ahighwayman, I could not more heartily loathe the social arrangementsthat rendered such a career as his not only possible, but eminentlycreditable to himself in the eyes of his fellows. Most men make it theirbusiness to imitate him, hoping to become rich and idle on the sameterms. Therefore I turn my back on them. I cannot sit at their feastsknowing how much they cost in human misery, and seeing how little theyproduce of human happiness. What is your opinion, my treasure?"

Henrietta seemed a little troubled. She smiled faintly, and saidcaressingly, "It was not your fault, Sidney. _I_ don't blame you. "

"Immortal powers!" he exclaimed, sitting bolt upright and appealing tothe skies, "here is a woman who believes that the only concern allthis causes me is whether she thinks any the worse of me personally onaccount of it!"

"No, no, Sidney. It is not I alone. Nobody thinks the worse of you forit. "

"Quite so, " he returned, in a polite frenzy. "Nobody sees any harm init. That is precisely the mischief of it. "

"Besides, " she urged, "your mother belonged to one of the oldestfamilies in England. "

"And what more can man desire than wealth with descent from a countyfamily! Could a man be happier than I ought to be, sprung as I am frommonopolists of all the sources and instruments of production--of land onthe one side, and of machinery on the other? This very ground on whichwe are resting was the property of my mother's father. At least the lawallowed him to use it as such. When he was a boy, there was a fairlyprosperous race of peasants settled here, tilling the soil, paying himrent for permission to do so, and making enough out of it to satisfyhis large wants and their own narrow needs without working themselves todeath. But my grandfather was a shrewd man. He perceived that cows andsheep produced more money by their meat and wool than peasants by theirhusbandry. So he cleared the estate. That is, he drove the peasants fromtheir homes, as my father did afterwards in his Scotch deer forest. Or, as his tombstone has it, he developed the resources of his country. Idon't know what became of the peasants; HE didn't know, and, I presume, didn't care. I suppose the old ones went into the workhouse, and theyoung ones crowded the towns, and worked for men like my father infactories. Their places were taken by cattle, which paid for their foodso well that my grandfather, getting my father to take shares in theenterprise, hired laborers on the Manchester terms to cut that canal forhim. When it was made, he took toll upon it; and his heirs still taketoll, and the sons of the navvies who dug it and of the engineer whodesigned it pay the toll when they have occasion to travel by it, orto purchase goods which have been conveyed along it. I remember mygrandfather well. He was a well-bred man, and a perfect gentleman in hismanners; but, on the whole, I think he was wickeder than my father, who, after all, was caught in the wheels of a vicious system, and had eitherto spoil others or be spoiled by them. But my grandfather--the oldrascal!--was in no such dilemma. Master as he was of his bit of merryEngland, no man could have enslaved him, and he might at least havelived and let live. My father followed his example in the matter of thedeer forest, but that was the climax of his wickedness, whereas it wasonly the beginning of my grandfather's. Howbeit, whichever bears thepalm, there they were, the types after which we all strive. "

"Not all, Sidney. Not we two. I hate tradespeople and country squires. We belong to the artistic and cultured classes, and we can keep alooffrom shopkeepers. "

"Living, meanwhile, at the rate of several thousand a year on rent andinterest. No, my dear, this is the way of those people who insist thatwhen they are in heaven they shall be spared the recollection of such aplace as hell, but are quite content that it shall exist outside theirconsciousness. I respect my father more--I mean I despise him less--fordoing his own sweating and filching than I do the sensitive sluggardsand cowards who lent him their money to sweat and filch with, and askedno questions provided the interest was paid punctually. And as to yourfriends the artists, they are the worst of all. "

"Oh, Sidney, you are determined not to be pleased. Artists don't keepfactories. "

"No; but the factory is only a part of the machinery of the system. Its basis is the tyranny of brain force, which, among civilized men, isallowed to do what muscular force does among schoolboys and savages. Theschoolboy proposition is: 'I am stronger than you, therefore you shallfag for me. ' Its grown up form is: 'I am cleverer than you, thereforeyou shall fag for me. ' The state of things we produce by submitting tothis, bad enough even at first, becomes intolerable when the mediocre orfoolish descendants of the clever fellows claim to have inherited theirprivileges. Now, no men are greater sticklers for the arbitrary dominionof genius and talent than your artists. The great painter is notsatisfied with being sought after and admired because his hands can domore than ordinary hands, which they truly can, but he wants to be fedas if his stomach needed more food than ordinary stomachs, which it doesnot. A day's work is a day's work, neither more nor less, and the manwho does it needs a day's sustenance, a night's repose, and due leisure, whether he be painter or ploughman. But the rascal of a painter, poet, novelist, or other voluptuary in labor, is not content withhis advantage in popular esteem over the ploughman; he also wants anadvantage in money, as if there were more hours in a day spent in thestudio or library than in the field; or as if he needed more food toenable him to do his work than the ploughman to enable him to do his. Hetalks of the higher quality of his work, as if the higher quality of itwere of his own making--as if it gave him a right to work less for hisneighbor than his neighbor works for him--as if the ploughman could notdo better without him than he without the ploughman--as if the value ofthe most celebrated pictures has not been questioned more than thatof any straight furrow in the arable world--as if it did not take anapprenticeship of as many years to train the hand and eye of a mason orblacksmith as of an artist--as if, in short, the fellow were a god, ascanting brain worshippers have for years past been assuring him he is. Artists are the high priests of the modern Moloch. Nine out of ten ofthem are diseased creatures, just sane enough to trade on their ownneuroses. The only quality of theirs which extorts my respect is acertain sublime selfishness which makes them willing to starve and tolet their families starve sooner than do any work they don't like. "

"INDEED you are quite wrong, Sidney. There was a girl at the Sladeschool who supported her mother and two sisters by her drawing. Besides, what can you do? People were made so. "

"Yes; I was made a landlord and capitalist by the folly of the people;but they can unmake me if they will. Meanwhile I have absolutely nomeans of escape from my position except by giving away my slaves tofellows who will use them no better than I, and becoming a slave myself;which, if you please, you shall not catch me doing in a hurry. No, mybeloved, I must keep my foot on their necks for your sake as well as formy own. But you do not care about all this prosy stuff. I am consumedwith remorse for having bored my darling. You want to know why I amliving here like a hermit in a vulgar two-roomed hovel instead oftasting the delights of London society with my beautiful and devotedyoung wife. "

"But you don't intend to stay here, Sidney?"

"Yes, I do; and I will tell you why. I am helping to liberate thoseManchester laborers who were my father's slaves. To bring thatabout, their fellow slaves all over the world must unite in a vastinternational association of men pledged to share the world's workjustly; to share the produce of the work justly; to yield not afarthing--charity apart--to any full-grown and able-bodied idleror malingerer, and to treat as vermin in the commonwealth personsattempting to get more than their share of wealth or give less thantheir share of work. This is a very difficult thing to accomplish, because working-men, like the people called their betters, do not alwaysunderstand their own interests, and will often actually help theiroppressors to exterminate their saviours to the tune of 'RuleBritannia, ' or some such lying doggerel. We must educate them out ofthat, and, meanwhile, push forward the international associationof laborers diligently. I am at present occupied in propagating itsprinciples. Capitalism, organized for repressive purposes under pretextof governing the nation, would very soon stop the association if itunderstood our aim, but it thinks that we are engaged in gunpowder plotsand conspiracies to assassinate crowned heads; and so, whilst the policeare blundering in search of evidence of these, our real work goes onunmolested. Whether I am really advancing the cause is more than I cansay. I use heaps of postage stamps, pay the expenses of many indifferentlecturers, defray the cost of printing reams of pamphlets and hand-billswhich hail the laborer flatteringly as the salt of the earth, write andedit a little socialist journal, and do what lies in my power generally. I had rather spend my ill-gotten wealth in this way than upon anexpensive house and a retinue of servants. And I prefer my corduroys andmy two-roomed chalet here to our pretty little house, and your prettylittle ways, and my pretty little neglect of the work that my heart isset upon. Some day, perhaps, I will take a holiday; and then we shallhave a new honeymoon. "

For a moment Henrietta seemed about to cry. Suddenly she exclaimedwith enthusiasm: "I will stay with you, Sidney. I will share your work, whatever it may be. I will dress as a dairymaid, and have a little pailto carry milk in. The world is nothing to me except when you are withme; and I should love to live here and sketch from nature. "

He blenched, and partially rose, unable to conceal his dismay. She, resolved not to be cast off, seized him and clung to him. This was themovement that excited the derision of Wickens's boy in the adjacentgravel pit. Trefusis was glad of the interruption; and, when he gavethe boy twopence and bade him begone, half hoped that he would insiston remaining. But though an obdurate boy on most occasions, he provedcomplaisant on this, and withdrew to the high road, where he made overone of his pennies to a phantom gambler, and tossed with him untilrecalled from his dual state by the appearance of Fairholme's party. 

In the meantime, Henrietta urgently returned to her proposition. 

"We should be so happy, " she said. "I would housekeep for you, and youcould work as much as you pleased. Our life would be a long idyll. "

"My love, " he said, shaking his head as she looked beseechingly at him, "I have too much Manchester cotton in my constitution for long idylls. And the truth is, that the first condition of work with me is yourabsence. When you are with me, I can do nothing but make love to you. You bewitch me. When I escape from you for a moment, it is only to groanremorsefully over the hours you have tempted me to waste and the energyyou have futilized. "

"If you won't live with me you had no right to marry me. "

"True. But that is neither your fault nor mine. We have found thatwe love each other too much--that our intercourse hinders ourusefulness--and so we must part. Not for ever, my dear; only until youhave cares and business of your own to fill up your life and prevent youfrom wasting mine. "

"I believe you are mad, " she said petulantly. "The world is madnowadays, and is galloping to the deuce as fast as greed can goad it. Imerely stand out of the rush, not liking its destination. Here comes abarge, the commander of which is devoted to me because he believes thatI am organizing a revolution for the abolition of lock dues and tolls. We will go aboard and float down to Lyvern, whence you can return toLondon. You had better telegraph from the junction to the college;there must be a hue and cry out after us by this time. You shall have myaddress, and we can write to one another or see one another whenever weplease. Or you can divorce me for deserting you. "

"You would like me to, I know, " said Henrietta, sobbing. 

"I should die of despair, my darling, " he said complacently. "Shipaho-o-o-y! Stop crying, Hetty, for God's sake. You lacerate my verysoul. "

"Ah-o-o-o-o-o-o-oy, master!" roared the bargee. 

"Good arternoon, sir, " said a man who, with a short whip in his hand, trudged beside the white horse that towed the barge. "Come up!" he addedmalevolently to the horse. 

"I want to get on board, and go up to Lyvern with you, " said Trefusis. "He seems a well fed brute, that. "

"Better fed nor me, " said the man. "You can't get the work out of ahunderfed 'orse that you can out of a hunderfed man or woman. I've binin parts of England where women pulled the barges. They come cheaper nor'orses, because it didn't cost nothing to get new ones when the old oneswe wore out. "

"Then why not employ them?" said Trefusis, with ironical gravity. "Theprinciple of buying laborforce in the cheapest market and selling itsproduct in the dearest has done much to make Englishmen--what they are. "

"The railway comp'nies keeps 'orspittles for the like of 'IM, " said theman, with a cunning laugh, indicating the horse by smacking him on thebelly with the butt of the whip. "If ever you try bein' a laborer inearnest, governor, try it on four legs. You'll find it far preferable totrying on two. "

"This man is one of my converts, " said Trefusis apart to Henrietta. "He told me the other day that since I set him thinking he never sees agentleman without feeling inclined to heave a brick at him. I find thatsocialism is often misunderstood by its least intelligent supportersand opponents to mean simply unrestrained indulgence of our naturalpropensity to heave bricks at respectable persons. Now I am going tocarry you along this plank. If you keep quiet, we may reach the barge. If not, we shall reach the bottom of the canal. "

He carried her safely over, and exchanged some friendly words with thebargee. Then he took Henrietta forward, and stood watching the wateras they were borne along noiselessly between the hilly pastures of thecountry. 

"This would be a fairy journey, " he said, "if one could forget the womandown below, cooking her husband's dinner in a stifling hole about as bigas your wardrobe, and--"

"Oh, don't talk any more of these things, " she said crossly; "I cannothelp them. I have my own troubles to think of. HER husband lives withher. "

"She will change places with you, my dear, if you make her the offer. "

She had no answer ready. After a pause he began to speak poetically ofthe scenery and to offer her loverlike speeches and compliments. But shefelt that he intended to get rid of her, and he knew that it was uselessto try to hide that design from her. She turned away and sat down on apile of bricks, only writhing angrily when he pressed her for a word. As they neared the end of her voyage, and her intense protest againstdesertion remained, as she thought, only half expressed, her sense ofinjury grew almost unbearable. 

They landed on a wharf, and went through an unswept, deeply-rutted laneup to the main street of Lyvern. Here he became Smilash again, walkingdeferentially a little before her, as if she had hired him to point outthe way. She then saw that her last opportunity of appealing to him hadgone by, and she nearly burst into tears at the thought. It occurred toher that she might prevail upon him by making a scene in public. Butthe street was a busy one, and she was a little afraid of him. Neitherconsideration would have checked her in one of her ungovernable moods, but now she was in an abject one. Her moods seemed to come only whenthey were harmful to her. She suffered herself to be put into therailway omnibus, which was on the point of starting from the innyardwhen they arrived there, and though he touched his hat, asked whethershe had any message to give him, and in a tender whisper wished her asafe journey, she would not look at or speak to him. So they parted, and he returned alone to the chalet, where he was received by the twopolicemen who subsequently brought him to the college. 

CHAPTER VI

The year wore on, and the long winter evenings set in. The studiousyoung ladies at Alton College, elbows on desk and hands over ears, shuddered chillily in fur tippets whilst they loaded their memories withthe statements of writers on moral science, or, like men who swim uponcorks, reasoned out mathematical problems upon postulates. Whenceit sometimes happened that the more reasonable a student was inmathematics, the more unreasonable she was in the affairs of real life, concerning which few trustworthy postulates have yet been ascertained. 

Agatha, not studious, and apt to shiver in winter, began to break RuleNo. 17 with increasing frequency. Rule No. 17 forbade the studentsto enter the kitchen, or in any way to disturb the servants in thedischarge of their duties. Agatha broke it because she was fond ofmaking toffee, of eating it, of a good fire, of doing any forbiddenthing, and of the admiration with which the servants listened to herventriloquial and musical feats. Gertrude accompanied her because shetoo liked toffee, and because she plumed herself on her condescension toher inferiors. Jane went because her two friends went, and the spiritof adventure, the force of example, and the love of toffee often broughtmore volunteers to these expeditions than Agatha thought it safe toenlist. One evening Miss Wilson, going downstairs alone to her privatewine cellar, was arrested near the kitchen by sounds of revelry, and, stopping to listen, overheard the castanet dance (which reminded her ofthe emphasis with which Agatha had snapped her fingers at Mrs. Miller), the bee on the window pane, "Robin Adair" (encored by the servants), and an imitation of herself in the act of appealing to Jane Carpenter'sbetter nature to induce her to study for the Cambridge Local. She waiteduntil the cold and her fear of being discovered spying forced her tocreep upstairs, ashamed of having enjoyed a silly entertainment, and ofconniving at a breach of the rules rather than face a fresh quarrel withAgatha. 

There was one particular in which matters between Agatha and the collegediscipline did not go on exactly as before. Although she had formerlysupplied a disproportionately large number of the confessions in thefault book, the entry which had nearly led to her expulsion was the lastshe ever made in it. Not that her conduct was better--it was rather thereverse. Miss Wilson never mentioned the matter, the fault book beingsacred from all allusion on her part. But she saw that though Agathawould not confess her own sins, she still assisted others to unburdentheir consciences. The witticisms with which Jane unsuspectinglyenlivened the pages of the Recording Angel were conclusive on thispoint. 

Smilash had now adopted a profession. In the last days of autumn hehad whitewashed the chalet, painted the doors, windows, and veranda, repaired the roof and interior, and improved the place so much that thelandlord had warned him that the rent would be raised at the expirationof his twelvemonth's tenancy, remarking that a tenant could notreasonably expect to have a pretty, rain-tight dwelling-house for thesame money as a hardly habitable ruin. Smilash had immediately promisedto dilapidate it to its former state at the end of the year. He hadput up a board at the gate with an inscription copied from some printedcards which he presented to persons who happened to converse with him. 

 *****

JEFFERSON SMILASH

PAINTER, DECORATOR, GLAZIER, PLUMBER & GARDENER. Pianofortes tuned. Domestic engineering in all its Branches. Families waited upon at tableor otherwise. 

CHAMOUNIX VILLA, LYVERN. (N. B. Advice Gratis. No Reasonable offerrefused. )

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The business thus announced, comprehensive as it was, did notflourish. When asked by the curious for testimony to his competence andrespectability, he recklessly referred them to Fairholme, to Josephs, and in particular to Miss Wilson, who, he said, had known him from hisearliest childhood. Fairholme, glad of an opportunity to show that hewas no mealy mouthed parson, declared, when applied to, that Smilash wasthe greatest rogue in the country. Josephs, partly from benevolence, andpartly from a vague fear that Smilash might at any moment take an actionagainst him for defamation of character, said he had no doubt that hewas a very cheap workman, and that it would be a charity to give himsome little job to encourage him. Miss Wilson confirmed Fairholme'saccount; and the church organist, who had tuned all the pianofortesin the neighborhood once a year for nearly a quarter of a century, denounced the newcomer as Jack of all trades and master of none. Hereupon the radicals of Lyvern, a small and disreputable party, beganto assert that there was no harm in the man, and that the parsons andMiss Wilson, who lived in a fine house and did nothing but take in thedaughters of rich swells as boarders, might employ their leisure betterthan in taking the bread out of a poor work man's mouth. But as none ofthis faction needed the services of a domestic engineer, he was nonethe richer for their support, and the only patron he obtained wasa housemaid who was leaving her situation at a country house in thevicinity, and wanted her box repaired, the lid having fallen off. Smilash demanded half-a-crown for the job, but on her demurring, immediately apologized and came down to a shilling. For this sum herepainted the box, traced her initials on it, and affixed new hinges, a Bramah lock, and brass handles, at a cost to himself of ten shillingsand several hours' labor. The housemaid found fault with the color ofthe paint, made him take off the handles, which, she said, reminded herof a coffin, complained that a lock with such a small key couldn't bestrong enough for a large box, but admitted that it was all her ownfault for not employing a proper man. It got about that he had madea poor job of the box; and as he, when taxed with this, emphaticallyconfirmed it, he got no other commission; and his signboard servedthenceforth only for the amusement of pedestrian tourists and ofshepherd boys with a taste for stone throwing. 

One night a great storm blew over Lyvern, and those young ladies atAlton College who were afraid of lightning, said their prayers with someearnestness. At half-past twelve the rain, wind, and thunder made sucha din that Agatha and Gertrude wrapped themselves in shawls, stoledownstairs to the window on the landing outside Miss Wilson's study, and stood watching the flashes give vivid glimpses of the landscape, anddiscussing in whispers whether it was dangerous to stand near a window, and whether brass stair-rods could attract lightning. Agatha, asserious and friendly with a single companion as she was mischievousand satirical before a larger audience, enjoyed the scene quietly. Thelightning did not terrify her, for she knew little of the value of life, and fancied much concerning the heroism of being indifferent to it. Thetremors which the more startling flashes caused her, only made her moreconscious of her own courage and its contrast with the uneasiness ofGertrude, who at last, shrinking from a forked zigzag of blue flame, said:

"Let us go back to bed, Agatha. I feel sure that we are not safe here. "

"Quite as safe as in bed, where we cannot see anything. How the houseshakes! I believe the rain will batter in the windows before--"

"Hush, " whispered Gertrude, catching her arm in terror. "What was that?"

"What?"

"I am sure I heard the bell--the gate bell. Oh, do let us go back tobed. "

"Nonsense! Who would be out on such a night as this? Perhaps the windrang it. "

They waited for a few moments; Gertrude trembling, and Agatha feeling, as she listened in the darkness, a sensation familiar to persons who areafraid of ghosts. Presently a veiled clangor mingled with the wind. Afew sharp and urgent snatches of it came unmistakably from the bell atthe gate of the college grounds. It was a loud bell, used to summona servant from the college to open the gates; for though there was aporter's lodge, it was uninhabited. 

"Who on earth can it be?" said Agatha. "Can't they find the wicket, theidiots?"

"Oh, I hope not! Do come upstairs, Agatha. "

"No, I won't. Go you, if you like. " But Gertrude was afraid to goalone. "I think I had better waken Miss Wilson, and tell her, " continuedAgatha. "It seems awful to shut anybody out on such a night as this. "

"But we don't know who it is. "

"Well, I suppose you are not afraid of them, in any case, " said Agatha, knowing the contrary, but recognizing the convenience of shamingGertrude into silence. 

They listened again. The storm was now very boisterous, and they couldnot hear the bell. Suddenly there was a loud knocking at the house door. Gertrude screamed, and her cry was echoed from the rooms above, whereseveral girls had heard the knocking also, and had been driven by itinto the state of mind which accompanies the climax of a nightmare. Thena candle flickered on the stairs, and Miss Wilson's voice, reassuringlyfirm, was heard. 

"Who is that?"

"It is I, Miss Wilson, and Gertrude. We have been watching the storm, and there is some one knocking at the--" A tremendous battery withthe knocker, followed by a sound, confused by the gale, as of a manshouting, interrupted her. 

"They had better not open the door, " said Miss Wilson, in some alarm. "You are very imprudent, Agatha, to stand here. You will catch yourdeath of--Dear me! What can be the matter? She hurried down, followedby Agatha, Gertrude, and some of the braver students, to the hall, wherethey found a few shivering servants watching the housekeeper, who was atthe keyhole of the house door, querulously asking who was there. Shewas evidently not heard by those without, for the knocking recommencedwhilst she was speaking, and she recoiled as if she had received a blowon the mouth. Miss Wilson then rattled the chain to attract attention, and demanded again who was there. 

"Let us in, " was returned in a hollow shout through the keyhole. "Thereis a dying woman and three children here. Open the door. "

Miss Wilson lost her presence of mind. To gain time, she replied, "I--Ican't hear you. What do you say?"

"Damnation!" said the voice, speaking this time to some one outside. "They can't hear. " And the knocking recommenced with increased urgency. Agatha, excited, caught Miss Wilson's dressing gown, and repeated to herwhat the voice had said. Miss Wilson had heard distinctly enough, andshe felt, without knowing clearly why, that the door must be opened, butshe was almost over-mastered by a vague dread of what was to follow. Shebegan to undo the chain, and Agatha helped with the bolts. Two of theservants exclaimed that they were all about to be murdered in theirbeds, and ran away. A few of the students seemed inclined to followtheir example. At last the door, loosed, was blown wide open, flingingMiss Wilson and Agatha back, and admitting a whirlwind that tore roundthe hall, snatched at the women's draperies, and blew out the lights. Agatha, by a hash of lightning, saw for an instant two men straining atthe door like sailors at a capstan. Then she knew by the cessation ofthe whirlwind that they had shut it. Matches were struck, the candlesrelighted, and the newcomers clearly perceived. 

Smilash, bareheaded, without a coat, his corduroy vest and trousersheavy with rain; a rough-looking, middle-aged man, poorly dressed likea shepherd, wet as Smilash, with the expression, piteous, patient, anddesperate, of one hard driven by ill-fortune, and at the end of hisresources; two little children, a boy and a girl, almost naked, coweringunder an old sack that had served them as an umbrella; and, lying onthe settee where the two men had laid it, a heap of wretched wearingapparel, sacking, and rotten matting, with Smilash's coat andsou'wester, the whole covering a bundle which presently proved to be anexhausted woman with a tiny infant at her breast. Smilash's expression, as he looked at her, was ferocious. 

"Sorry fur to trouble you, lady, " said the man, after glancing anxiouslyat Smilash, as if he had expected him to act as spokesman; "but my roofand the side of my house has gone in the storm, and my missus has beenhaving another little one, and I am sorry to ill-convenience you, Miss;but--but--"

"Inconvenience!" exclaimed Smilash. "It is the lady's privilege torelieve you--her highest privilege!"

The little boy here began to cry from mere misery, and the woman rousedherself to say, "For shame, Tom! before the lady, " and then collapsed, too weak to care for what might happen next in the world. Smilash lookedimpatiently at Miss Wilson, who hesitated, and said to him:

"What do you expect me to do?"

"To help us, " he replied. Then, with an explosion of nervous energy, he added: "Do what your heart tells you to do. Give your bed and yourclothes to the woman, and let your girls pitch their books to the devilfor a few days and make something for these poor little creatures towear. The poor have worked hard enough to clothe THEM. Let them taketheir turn now and clothe the poor. "

"No, no. Steady, master, " said the man, stepping forward to propitiateMiss Wilson, and evidently much oppressed by a sense of unwelcomeness. "It ain't any fault of the lady's. Might I make so bold as to ask youto put this woman of mine anywhere that may be convenient until morning. Any sort of a place will do; she's accustomed to rough it. Just to havea roof over her until I find a room in the village where we can shakedown. " Here, led by his own words to contemplate the future, he lookeddesolately round the cornice of the hall, as if it were a shelf on whichsomebody might have left a suitable lodging for him. 

Miss Wilson turned her back decisively and contemptuously on Smilash. She had recovered herself. "I will keep your wife here, " she said to theman. "Every care shall be taken of her. The children can stay too. "

"Three cheers for moral science!" cried Smilash, ecstatically breakinginto the outrageous dialect he had forgotten in his wrath. "Wot was mywords to you, neighbor, when I said we should bring your missus to thecollege, and you said, ironical-like, 'Aye, and bloomin' glad they'll beto see us there. ' Did I not say to you that the lady had a noble 'art, and would show it when put to the test by sech a calamity as this?"

"Why should you bring my hasty words up again' me now, master, when thelady has been so kind?" said the man with emotion. "I am humbly gratefulto you, Miss; and so is Bess. We are sensible of the ill-conveniencewe--"

Miss Wilson, who had been conferring with the housekeeper, cut hisspeech short by ordering him to carry his wife to bed, which he did withthe assistance of Smilash, now jubilant. Whilst they were away, oneof the servants, bidden to bring some blankets to the woman's room, refused, saying that she was not going to wait on that sort of people. Miss Wilson gave her warning almost fiercely to quit the college nextday. This excepted, no ill-will was shown to the refugees. The youngladies were then requested to return to bed. 

Meanwhile the man, having laid his wife in a chamber palatial incomparison with that which the storm had blown about her ears, wascongratulating her on her luck, and threatening the children with themost violent chastisement if they failed to behave themselves withstrict propriety whilst they remained in that house. Before leaving themhe kissed his wife; and she, reviving, asked him to look at the baby. He did so, and pensively apostrophized it with a shocking epithet inanticipation of the time when its appetite must be satisfied from theprovision shop instead of from its mother's breast. She laughed andcried shame on him; and so they parted cheerfully. When he returned tothe hall with Smilash they found two mugs of beer waiting for them. Thegirls had retired, and only Miss Wilson and the housekeeper remained. 

"Here's your health, mum, " said the man, before drinking; "and may youfind such another as yourself to help you when you're in trouble, whichLord send may never come!"

"Is your house quite destroyed?" said Miss Wilson. "Where will you spendthe night?"

"Don't you think of me, mum. Master Smilash here will kindly put me up'til morning. "

"His health!" said Smilash, touching the mug with his lips. 

"The roof and south wall is browed right away, " continued the man, after pausing for a moment to puzzle over Smilash's meaning. "I doubt ifthere's a stone of it standing by this. "

"But Sir John will build it for you again. You are one of his herds, areyou not?"

"I am, Miss. But not he; he'll be glad it's down. He don't like peoplelivin' on the land. I have told him time and again that the place wasready to fall; but he said I couldn't expect him to lay out money on ahouse that he got no rent for. You see, Miss, I didn't pay any rent. Itook low wages; and the bit of a hut was a sort of set-off again' what Iwas paid short of the other men. I couldn't afford to have it repaired, though I did what I could to patch and prop it. And now most like Ishall be blamed for letting it be blew down, and shall have to live inhalf a room in the town and pay two or three shillin's a week, besideswalkin' three miles to and from my work every day. A gentleman like SirJohn don't hardly know what the value of a penny is to us laborin' folk, nor how cruel hard his estate rules and the like comes on us. "

"Sir John's health!" said Smilash, touching the mug as before. The mandrank a mouthful humbly, and Smilash continued, "Here's to the gloriouslanded gentry of old England: bless 'em!"

"Master Smilash is only jokin', " said the man apologetically. "It's hisway. "

"You should not bring a family into the world if you are so poor, " saidMiss Wilson severely. "Can you not see that you impoverish yourself bydoing so--to put the matter on no higher grounds. "

"Reverend Mr. Malthus's health!" remarked Smilash, repeating hispantomime. 

"Some say it's the children, and some say it's the drink, Miss, " saidthe man submissively. "But from what I see, family or no family, drunkor sober, the poor gets poorer and the rich richer every day. "

"Ain't it disgustin' to hear a man so ignorant of the improvement in thecondition of his class?" said Smilash, appealing to Miss Wilson. 

"If you intend to take this man home with you, " she said, turningsharply on him, "you had better do it at once. "

"I take it kind on your part that you ask me to do anythink, after yourup and telling Mr. Wickens that I am the last person in Lyvern you wouldtrust with a job. "

"So you are--the very last. Why don't you drink your beer?"

"Not in scorn of your brewing, lady; but because, bein' a common man, water is good enough for me. "

"I wish you good-night, Miss, " said the man; "and thank you kindly forBess and the children. "

"Good-night, " she replied, stepping aside to avoid any salutation fromSmilash. But he went up to her and said in a low voice, and with theTrefusis manner and accent:

"Good-night, Miss Wilson. If you should ever be in want of the servicesof a dog, a man, or a domestic engineer, remind Smilash of Bess and thechildren, and he will act for you in any of those capacities. "

They opened the door cautiously, and found that the wind, conquered bythe rain, had abated. Miss Wilson's candle, though it flickered in thedraught, was not extinguished this time; and she was presently left withthe housekeeper, bolting and chaining the door, and listening to thecrunching of feet on the gravel outside dying away through the steadypattering of the rain. 

CHAPTER VII

Agatha was at this time in her seventeenth year. She had a livelyperception of the foibles of others, and no reverence for herseniors, whom she thought dull, cautious, and ridiculously amenable bycommonplaces. But she was subject to the illusion which disables youthin spite of its superiority to age. She thought herself an exception. Crediting Mr. Jansenius and the general mob of mankind with nothingbut a grovelling consciousness of some few material facts, she feltin herself an exquisite sense and all-embracing conception of nature, shared only by her favorite poets and heroes of romance and history. Hence she was in the common youthful case of being a much better judgeof other people's affairs than of her own. At the fellow-student whoadored some Henry or Augustus, not from the drivelling sentimentalitywhich the world calls love, but because this particular Henry orAugustus was a phoenix to whom the laws that govern the relations ofordinary lads and lasses did not apply, Agatha laughed in her sleeve. The more she saw of this weakness in her fellows, the more satisfied shewas that, being forewarned, she was also forearmed against an attack ofit on herself, much as if a doctor were to conclude that he could notcatch smallpox because he had seen many cases of it; or as if a mastermariner, knowing that many ships are wrecked in the British channel, should venture there without a pilot, thinking that he knew its perilstoo well to run any risk of them. Yet, as the doctor might hold suchan opinion if he believed himself to be constituted differently fromordinary men; or the shipmaster adopt such a course under the impressionthat his vessel was a star, Agatha found false security in thesubjective difference between her fellows seen from without and herselfknown from within. When, for instance, she fell in love with Mr. Jefferson Smilash (a step upon which she resolved the day after thestorm), her imagination invested the pleasing emotion with a sacrednesswhich, to her, set it far apart and distinct from the frivolous fanciesof which Henry and Augustus had been the subject, and she the confidant. 

"I can look at him quite coolly and dispassionately, " she said toherself. "Though his face has a strange influence that must, I know, correspond to some unexplained power within me, yet it is not a perfectface. I have seen many men who are, strictly speaking, far handsomer. Ifthe light that never was on sea or land is in his eyes, yet they arenot pretty eyes--not half so clear as mine. Though he wears his commonclothes with a nameless grace that betrays his true breeding at everystep, yet he is not tall, dark, and melancholy, as my ideal hero wouldbe if I were as great a fool as girls of my age usually are. If I am inlove, I have sense enough not to let my love blind my judgment. "

She did not tell anyone of her new interest in life. Strongest in thatstudent community, she had used her power with good-nature enough towin the popularity of a school leader, and occasionally withunscrupulousness enough to secure the privileges of a school bully. Popularity and privilege, however, only satisfied her when she was inthe mood for them. Girls, like men, want to be petted, pitied, and mademuch of, when they are diffident, in low spirits, or in unrequited love. These are services which the weak cannot render to the strong and whichthe strong will not render to the weak, except when there is also adifference of sex. Agatha knew by experience that though a weak womancannot understand why her stronger sister should wish to lean upon her, she may triumph in the fact without understanding it, and give chaffinstead of consolation. Agatha wanted to be understood and not to bechaffed. Finding herself unable to satisfy both these conditions, sheresolved to do without sympathy and to hold her tongue. She had oftenhad to do so before, and she was helped on this occasion by a sense ofthe ridiculous appearance her passion might wear in the vulgar eye. Hersecret kept itself, as she was supposed in the college to be insensibleto the softer emotions. Love wrought no external change upon her. Itmade her believe that she had left her girlhood behind her and was nowa woman with a newly-developed heart capacity at which she wouldchildishly have scoffed a little while before. She felt ashamed of thebee on the window pane, although it somehow buzzed as frequently asbefore in spite of her. Her calendar, formerly a monotonous cycle ofclass times, meal times, play times, and bed time, was now irregularlydivided by walks past the chalet and accidental glimpses of its tenant. 

Early in December came a black frost, and navigation on the canalwas suspended. Wickens's boy was sent to the college with news thatWickens's pond would bear, and that the young ladies should be welcomeat any time. The pond was only four feet deep, and as Miss Wilson setmuch store by the physical education of her pupils, leave was given forskating. Agatha, who was expert on the ice, immediately proposed that aselect party should go out before breakfast next morning. Actions not inthemselves virtuous often appear so when performed at hours that compelearly rising, and some of the candidates for the Cambridge Local, whowould not have sacrificed the afternoon to amusement, at once fell inwith her suggestion. But for them it might never have been carried out;for when they summoned Agatha, at half-past six next morning, to leaveher warm bed and brave the biting air, she would have refused withouthesitation had she not been shamed into compliance by these laboriousones who stood by her bedside, blue-nosed and hungry, but ready for theice. When she had dressed herself with much shuddering and chattering, they allayed their internal discomfort by a slender meal of biscuits, got their skates, and went out across the rimy meadows, past patientcows breathing clouds of steam, to Wickens's pond. Here, to theirsurprise, was Smilash, on electro-plated acme skates, practicingcomplicated figures with intense diligence. It soon appeared that hisskill came short of his ambition; for, after several narrow escapes andsome frantic staggering, his calves, elbows, and occiput smote the icealmost simultaneously. On rising ruefully to a sitting posture hebecame aware that eight young ladies were watching his proceedings withinterest. 

"This comes of a common man putting himself above his station by gettinginto gentlemen's skates, " he said. "Had I been content with a humbleslide, as my fathers was, I should ha' been a happier man at the presentmoment. " He sighed, rose, touched his hat to Miss Ward, and took off hisskates, adding: "Good-morning, Miss. Miss Wilson sent me word to be heresharp at six to put on the young ladies' skates, and I took the libertyof trying a figure or two to keep out the cold. "

"Miss Wilson did not tell me that she ordered you to come, " said MissWard. 

"Just like her to be thoughtful and yet not let on to be! She is akind lady, and a learned--like yourself, Miss. Sit yourself down on thecamp-stool and give me your heel, if I may be so bold as to stick agimlet into it. "

His assistance was welcome, and Miss Ward allowed him to put on herskates. She was a Canadian, and could skate well. Jane, the firstto follow her, was anxious as to the strength of the ice; but whenreassured, she acquitted herself admirably, for she was proficient inoutdoor exercises, and had the satisfaction of laughing in the field atthose who laughed at her in the study. Agatha, contrary to her custom, gave way to her companions, and her boots were the last upon whichSmilash operated. 

"How d'you do, Miss Wylie?" he said, dropping the Smilash manner nowthat the rest were out of earshot. 

"I am very well, thank you, " said Agatha, shy and constrained. Thisphase of her being new to him, he paused with her heel in his hand andlooked up at her curiously. She collected herself, returned his gazesteadily, and said: "How did Miss Wilson send you word to come? She onlyknew of our party at half-past nine last night. "

"Miss Wilson did not send for me. "

"But you have just told Miss Ward that she did. "

"Yes. I find it necessary to tell almost as many lies now that I am asimple laborer as I did when I was a gentleman. More, in fact. "

"I shall know how much to believe of what you say in the future. "

"The truth is this. I am perhaps the worst skater in the world, andtherefore, according to a natural law, I covet the faintest distinctionon the ice more than immortal fame for the things in which nature hasgiven me aptitude to excel. I envy that large friend of yours--Janeis her name, I think--more than I envy Plato. I came down here thismorning, thinking that the skating world was all a-bed, to practice insecret. "

"I am glad we caught you at it, " said Agatha maliciously, for he wasdisappointing her. She wanted him to be heroic in his conversation; andhe would not. 

"I suppose so, " he replied. "I have observed that Woman's dearestdelight is to wound Man's self-conceit, though Man's dearest delight isto gratify hers. There is at least one creature lower than Man. Now, offwith you. Shall I hold you until your ankles get firm?"

"Thank you, " she said, disgusted: "_I_ can skate pretty well, and Idon't think you could give me any useful assistance. " And she went offcautiously, feeling that a mishap would be very disgraceful after such aspeech. 

He stood on the shore, listening to the grinding, swaying sound of theskates, and watching the growing complexity of the curves they wereengraving on the ice. As the girls grew warm and accustomed to theexercise they laughed, jested, screamed recklessly when they came intocollision, and sailed before the wind down the whole length of the pondat perilous speed. The more animated they became, the gloomier lookedSmilash. "Not two-penn'orth of choice between them and a parcel ofpuppies, " he said; "except that some of them are conscious that thereis a man looking at them, although he is only a blackguard laborer. Theyremind me of Henrietta in a hundred ways. Would I laugh, now, if thewhole sheet of ice were to burst into little bits under them?"

Just then the ice cracked with a startling report, and the skaters, except Jane, skimmed away in all directions. 

"You are breaking the ice to pieces, Jane, " said Agatha, calling from asafe distance. "How can you expect it to bear your weight?"

"Pack of fools!" retorted Jane indignantly. "The noise only shows howstrong it is. "

The shock which the report had given Smilash answered him his question. "Make a note that wishes for the destruction of the human race, howeverrational and sincere, are contrary to nature, " he said, recovering hisspirits. "Besides, what a precious fool I should be if I were working atan international association of creatures only fit for destruction! Hi, lady! One word, Miss!" This was to Miss Ward, who had skated into hisneighborhood. "It bein' a cold morning, and me havin' a poor and commoncirculation, would it be looked on as a liberty if I was to cut a slidehere or take a turn in the corner all to myself?"

"You may skate over there if you wish, " she said, after a pause forconsideration, pointing to a deserted spot at the leeward end of thepond, where the ice was too rough for comfortable skating. 

"Nobly spoke!" he cried, with a grin, hurrying to the place indicated, where, skating being out of the question, he made a pair of slides, and gravely exercised himself upon them until his face glowed and hisfingers tingled in the frosty air. The time passed quickly; when MissWard sent for him to take off her skates there was a general groan anddeclaration that it could not possibly be half-past eight o'clock yet. Smilash knelt before the camp-stool, and was presently busy unbucklingand unscrewing. When Jane's turn came, the camp-stool creaked beneathher weight. Agatha again remonstrated with her, but immediatelyreproached herself with flippancy before Smilash, to whom she wished toconvey an impression of deep seriousness of character. 

"Smallest foot of the lot, " he said critically, holding Jane's footbetween his finger and thumb as if it were an art treasure which he hadbeen invited to examine. "And belonging to the finest built lady. "

Jane snatched away her foot, blushed, and said:

"Indeed! What next, I wonder?"

"T'other 'un next, " he said, setting to work on the remaining skate. When it was off, he looked up at her, and she darted a glance at him asshe rose which showed that his compliment (her feet were, in fact, smalland pretty) was appreciated. 

"Allow me, Miss, " he said to Gertrude, who was standing on one leg, leaning on Agatha, and taking off her own skates. 

"No, thank you, " she said coldly. "I don't need your assistance. "

"I am well aware that the offer was overbold, " he replied, with aself-complacency that made his profession of humility exasperating. "Ifall the skates is off, I will, by Miss Wilson's order, carry them andthe camp-stool back to the college. "

Miss Ward handed him her skates and turned away. Gertrude placed herson the stool and went with Miss Ward. The rest followed, leaving him tostare at the heap of skates and consider how he should carry them. Hecould think of no better plan than to interlace the straps and hang themin a chain over his shoulder. By the time he had done this the youngladies were out of sight, and his intention of enjoying their societyduring the return to the college was defeated. They had entered thebuilding long before he came in sight of it. 

Somewhat out of conceit with his folly, he went to the servants'entrance and rang the bell there. When the door was opened, he saw MissWard standing behind the maid who admitted him. 

"Oh, " she said, looking at the string of skates as if she had hardlyexpected to see them again, "so you have brought our things back?"

"Such were my instructions, " he said, taken aback by her manner. "Youhad no instructions. What do you mean by getting our skates into yourcharge under false pretences? I was about to send the police to takethem from you. How dare you tell me that you were sent to wait on me, when you know very well that you were nothing of the sort?"

"I couldn't help it, Miss, " he replied submissively. "I am a naturalborn liar--always was. I know that it must appear dreadful to you thatnever told a lie, and don't hardly know what a lie is, belonging as youdo to a class where none is ever told. But common people like me tellslies just as a duck swims. I ask your pardon, Miss, most humble, and Ihope the young ladies'll be able to tell one set of skates from t'other;for I'm blest if I can. "

"Put them down. Miss Wilson wishes to speak to you before you go. Susan, show him the way. "

"Hope you ain't been and got a poor cove into trouble, Miss?"

"Miss Wilson knows how you have behaved. "

He smiled at her benevolently and followed Susan upstairs. On their waythey met Jane, who stole a glance at him, and was about to pass by, whenhe said:

"Won't you say a word to Miss Wilson for a poor common fellow, honoredyoung lady? I have got into dreadful trouble for having made bold toassist you this morning. "

"You needn't give yourself the pains to talk like that, " replied Jane inan impetuous whisper. "We all know that you're only pretending. "

"Well, you can guess my motive, " he whispered, looking tenderly at her. 

"Such stuff and nonsense! I never heard of such a thing in my life, "said Jane, and ran away, plainly understanding that he had disguisedhimself in order to obtain admission to the college and enjoy thehappiness of looking at her. 

"Cursed fool that I am!" he said to himself; "I cannot act like arational creature for five consecutive minutes. "

The servant led him to the study and announced, "The man, if you please, ma'am. "

"Jeff Smilash, " he added in explanation. 

"Come in, " said Miss Wilson sternly. 

He went in, and met the determined frown which she cast on him from herseat behind the writing table, by saying courteously:

"Good-morning, Miss Wilson. "

She bent forward involuntarily, as if to receive a gentleman. Then shechecked herself and looked implacable. 

"I have to apologize, " he said, "for making use of your nameunwarrantably this morning--telling a lie, in fact. I happened tobe skating when the young ladies came down, and as they neededsome assistance which they would hardly have accepted from a commonman--excuse my borrowing that tiresome expression from our acquaintanceSmilash--I set their minds at ease by saying that you had sent for me. Otherwise, as you have given me a bad character--though not worse thanI deserve--they would probably have refused to employ me, or at least Ishould have been compelled to accept payment, which I, of course, do notneed. "

Miss Wilson affected surprise. "I do not understand you, " she said. 

"Not altogether, " he said smiling. "But you understand that I am what iscalled a gentleman. "

"No. The gentlemen with whom I am conversant do not dress as you dress, nor speak as you speak, nor act as you act. "

He looked at her, and her countenance confirmed the hostility of hertone. He instantly relapsed into an aggravated phase of Smilash. 

"I will no longer attempt to set myself up as a gentleman, " he said. "Iam a common man, and your ladyship's hi recognizes me as such and is notto be deceived. But don't go for to say that I am not candid when I amas candid as ever you will let me be. What fault, if any, do youfind with my putting the skates on the young ladies, and carryin' thecampstool for them?"

"If you are a gentleman, " said Miss Wilson, reddening, "your conduct inpersisting in these antics in my presence is insulting to me. Extremelyso. "

"Miss Wilson, " he replied, unruffled, "if you insist on Smilash, youshall have Smilash; I take an insane pleasure in personating him. If youwant Sidney--my real Christian name--you can command him. But allow meto say that you must have either one or the other. If you become frankwith me, I will understand that you are addressing Sidney. If distantand severe, Smilash. "

"No matter what your name may be, " said Miss Wilson, much annoyed, "Iforbid you to come here or to hold any communication whatever with theyoung ladies in my charge. "

"Why?"

"Because I choose. "

"There is much force in that reason, Miss Wilson; but it is not moralforce in the sense conveyed by your college prospectus, which I haveread with great interest. "

Miss Wilson, since her quarrel with Agatha, had been sore on thesubject of moral force. "No one is admitted here, " she said, "withouta trustworthy introduction or recommendation. A disguise is not asatisfactory substitute for either. "

"Disguises are generally assumed for the purpose of concealing crime, "he remarked sententiously. 

"Precisely so, " she said emphatically. 

"Therefore, I bear, to say the least, a doubtful character. Nevertheless, I have formed with some of the students here a slightacquaintance, of which, it seems, you disapprove. You have given me nogood reason why I should discontinue that acquaintance, and youcannot control me except by your wish--a sort of influence not usuallyeffective with doubtful characters. Suppose I disregard your wish, andthat one or two of your pupils come to you and say: 'Miss Wilson, in ouropinion Smilash is an excellent fellow; we find his conversation mostimproving. As it is your principle to allow us to exercise our ownjudgment, we intend to cultivate the acquaintance of Smilash. ' How willyou act in that case?"

"Send them home to their parents at once. "

"I see that your principles are those of the Church of England. Youallow the students the right of private judgment on condition thatthey arrive at the same conclusions as you. Excuse my saying that theprinciples of the Church of England, however excellent, are not thoseyour prospectus led me to hope for. Your plan is coercion, stark andsimple. "

"I do not admit it, " said Miss Wilson, ready to argue, even withSmilash, in defence of her system. "The girls are quite at liberty toact as they please, but I reserve my equal liberty to exclude them frommy college if I do not approve of their behavior. "

"Just so. In most schools children are perfectly at liberty to learntheir lessons or not, just as they please; but the principal reserves anequal liberty to whip them if they cannot repeat their tasks. "

"I do not whip my pupils, " said Miss Wilson indignantly. "The comparisonis an outrage. "

"But you expel them; and, as they are devoted to you and to the place, expulsion is a dreaded punishment. Yours is the old system of makinglaws and enforcing them by penalties, and the superiority of AltonCollege to other colleges is due, not to any difference of system, but to the comparative reasonableness of its laws and the mildness andjudgment with which they are enforced. "

"My system is radically different from the old one. However, I will notdiscuss the matter with you. A mind occupied with the prejudices of theold coercive despotism can naturally only see in the new a modificationof the old, instead of, as my system is, an entire reversal orabandonment of it. "

He shook his head sadly and said: "You seek to impose your ideas onothers, ostracizing those who reject them. Believe me, mankind has beendoing nothing else ever since it began to pay some attention to ideas. It has been said that a benevolent despotism is the best possible formof government. I do not believe that saying, because I believe anotherone to the effect that hell is paved with benevolence, which mostpeople, the proverb being too deep for them, misinterpret as unfulfilledintentions. As if a benevolent despot might not by any error of judgmentdestroy his kingdom, and then say, like Romeo when he got his friendkilled, 'I thought all for the best!' Excuse my rambling. I meant tosay, in short, that though you are benevolent and judicious you are nonethe less a despot. "

Miss Wilson, at a loss for a reply, regretted that she had not, beforeletting him gain so far on her, dismissed him summarily instead oftolerating a discussion which she did not know how to end with dignity. He relieved her by adding unexpectedly:

"Your system was the cause of my absurd marriage. My wife acquired adegree of culture and reasonableness from her training here which madeher seem a superior being among the chatterers who form the femaleseasoning in ordinary society. I admired her dark eyes, and was only tooglad to seize the excuse her education offered me for believing her amatch for me in mind as well as in body. "

Miss Wilson, astonished, determined to tell him coldly that her time wasvaluable. But curiosity took possession of her in the act of utterance, and the words that came were, "Who was she?"

"Henrietta Jansenius. She is Henrietta Trefusis, and I am SidneyTrefusis, at your mercy. I see I have aroused your compassion at last. "

"Nonsense!" said Miss Wilson hastily; for her surprise was indeed tingedby a feeling that he was thrown away on Henrietta. 

"I ran away from her and adopted this retreat and this disguise in orderto avoid her. The usual rebuke to human forethought followed. I ranstraight into her arms--or rather she ran into mine. You remember thescene, and were probably puzzled by it. "

"You seem to think your marriage contract a very light matter, Mr. Trefusis. May I ask whose fault was the separation? Hers, of course. "

"I have nothing to reproach her with. I expected to find her temperhasty, but it was not so--her behavior was unexceptionable. So was mine. Our bliss was perfect, but unfortunately, I was not made for domesticbliss--at all events I could not endure it--so I fled, and when shecaught me again I could give no excuse for my flight, though I made itclear to her that I would not resume our connubial relations just yet. We parted on bad terms. I fully intended to write her a sweet letterto make her forgive me in spite of herself, but somehow the weeks haveslipped away and I am still fully intending. She has never written, andI have never written. This is a pretty state of things, isn't it, MissWilson, after all her advantages under the influence of moral force andthe movement for the higher education of women?"

"By your own admission, the fault seems to lie upon your moral trainingand not upon hers. "

"The fault was in the conditions of our association. Why they shouldhave attracted me so strongly at first, and repelled me so horriblyafterwards, is one of those devil's riddles which will not be answereduntil we shall have traced all the yet unsuspected reactions of ourinveterate dishonesty. But I am wasting your time, I fear. You sentfor Smilash, and I have responded by practically annihilating him. Inpublic, however, you must still bear with his antics. One moment more. I had forgotten to ask you whether you are interested in the shepherdwhose wife you sheltered on the night of the storm?"

"He assured me, before he took his wife away, that he was comfortablysettled in a lodging in Lyvern. "

"Yes. Very comfortably settled indeed. For half-a-crown a week heobtained permission to share a spacious drawing-room with two otherfamilies in a ten-roomed house in not much better repair than hisblown-down hovel. This house yields to its landlord over two hundreda year, or rather more than the rent of a commodious mansion in SouthKensington. It is a troublesome rent to collect, but on the otherhand there is no expenditure for repairs or sanitation, which are notconsidered necessary in tenement houses. Our friend has to walk threemiles to his work and three miles back. Exercise is a capital thing fora student or a city clerk, but to a shepherd who has been in the fieldsall day, a long walk at the end of his work is somewhat too much of agood thing. He begged for an increase of wages to compensate him forthe loss of the hut, but Sir John pointed out to him that if he was notsatisfied his place could be easily filled by less exorbitant shepherds. Sir John even condescended to explain that the laws of political economybind employers to buy labor in the cheapest market, and our poor friend, just as ignorant of economics as Sir John, of course did not know thatthis was untrue. However, as labor is actually so purchased everywhereexcept in Downing Street and a few other privileged spots, I suggestedthat our friend should go to some place where his market price would behigher than in merry England. He was willing enough to do so, but unablefrom want of means. So I lent him a trifle, and now he is on his way toAustralia. Workmen are the geese that lay the golden eggs, but they flyaway sometimes. I hear a gong sounding, to remind me of the fight oftime and the value of your share of it. Good-morning!"

Miss Wilson was suddenly moved not to let him go without an appeal tohis better nature. "Mr. Trefusis, " she said, "excuse me, but are younot, in your generosity to others a little forgetful of your duty toyourself; and--"

"The first and hardest of all duties!" he exclaimed. "I beg your pardonfor interrupting you. It was only to plead guilty. "

"I cannot admit that it is the first of all duties, but it is sometimesperhaps the hardest, as you say. Still, you could surely do yourselfmore justice without any great effort. If you wish to live humbly, youcan do so without pretending to be an uneducated man and withouttaking an irritating and absurd name. Why on earth do you call yourselfSmilash?"

"I confess that the name has been a failure. I took great pains, inconstructing it, to secure a pleasant impression. It is not a mereinvention, but a compound of the words smile and eyelash. A smilesuggests good humor; eyelashes soften the expression and are the onlyfeatures that never blemish a face. Hence Smilash is a sound that shouldcheer and propitiate. Yet it exasperates. It is really very odd that itshould have that effect, unless it is that it raises expectations whichI am unable to satisfy. "

Miss Wilson looked at him doubtfully. He remained perfectly grave. Therewas a pause. Then, as if she had made up her mind to be offended, shesaid, "Good-morning, " shortly. 

"Good-morning, Miss Wilson. The son of a millionaire, like the son of aking, is seldom free from mental disease. I am just mad enough to be amountebank. If I were a little madder, I should perhaps really believemyself Smilash instead of merely acting him. Whether you ask me toforget myself for a moment, or to remember myself for a moment, Ireply that I am the son of my father, and cannot. With my egotism, mycharlatanry, my tongue, and my habit of having my own way, I am fit forno calling but that of saviour of mankind--just of the sort they like. "After an impressive pause he turned slowly and left the room. 

"I wonder, " he said, as he crossed the landing, "whether, by judiciouslylosing my way, I can catch a glimpse of that girl who is like a goldenidol?"

Downstairs, on his way to the door, he saw Agatha coming towardshim, occupied with a book which she was tossing up to the ceiling andcatching. Her melancholy expression, habitual in her lonely moments, showed that she was not amusing herself, but giving vent to herrestlessness. As her gaze travelled upward, following the flight ofthe volume, it was arrested by Smilash. The book fell to the floor. Hepicked it up and handed it to her, saying:

"And, in good time, here is the golden idol!"

"What?" said Agatha, confused. 

"I call you the golden idol, " he said. "When we are apart I alwaysimagine your face as a face of gold, with eyes and teeth of bdellium, or chalcedony, or agate, or any wonderful unknown stones of appropriatecolors. "

Agatha, witless and dumb, could only look down deprecatingly. 

"You think you ought to be angry with me, and you do not know exactlyhow to make me feel that you are so. Is that it?"

"No. Quite the contrary. At least--I mean that you are wrong. I am themost commonplace person you can imagine--if you only knew. No matterwhat I may look, I mean. "

"How do you know that you are commonplace?"

"Of course I know, " said Agatha, her eyes wandering uneasily. 

"Of course you do not know; you cannot see yourself as others see you. For instance, you have never thought of yourself as a golden idol. "

"But that is absurd. You are quite mistaken about me. "

"Perhaps so. I know, however, that your face is not really made of goldand that it has not the same charm for you that it has for others--forme. "

"I must go, " said Agatha, suddenly in haste. 

"When shall we meet again?"

"I don't know, " she said, with a growing sense of alarm. "I really mustgo. "

"Believe me, your hurry is only imaginary. Do you fancy that you arebehaving in a manner of quite ubdued ardor that affected Agathastrangely. 

"But first tell me whether it is new to you or not. "

"It is not an emotion at all. I did not say that it was. "

"Do not be afraid of it. It is only being alone with a man whom you havebewitched. You would be mistress of the situation if you only knew howto manage a lover. It is far easier than managing a horse, or skating, or playing the piano, or half a dozen other feats of which you thinknothing. "

Agatha colored and raised her head. 

"Forgive me, " he said, interrupting the action. "I am trying to offendyou in order to save myself from falling in love with you, and I havenot the heart to let myself succeed. On your life, do not listen to meor believe me. I have no right to say these things to you. Some fiendenters into me when I am at your side. You should wear a veil, Agatha. "

She blushed, and stood burning and tingling, her presence of mind gone, and her chief sensation one of relief to hear--for she did not dareto see--that he was departing. Her consciousness was in a deliciousconfusion, with the one definite thought in it that she had won herlover at last. The tone of Trefusis's voice, rich with truth andearnestness, his quick insight, and his passionate warning to her not toheed him, convinced her that she had entered into a relation destined toinfluence her whole life. 

"And yet, " she said remorsefully, "I cannot love him as he loves me. I am selfish, cold, calculating, worldly, and have doubted until nowwhether such a thing as love really existed. If I could only love himrecklessly and wholly, as he loves me!"

Smilash was also soliloquizing as he went on his way. 

"Now I have made the poor child--who was so anxious that I should notmistake her for a supernaturally gifted and lovely woman as happy as anangel; and so is that fine girl whom they call Jane Carpenter. I hopethey won't exchange confidences on the subject. "

CHAPTER VIII

Mrs. Trefusis found her parents so unsympathetic on the subject of hermarriage that she left their house shortly after her visit to Lyvern, and went to reside with a hospitable friend. Unable to remain silentupon the matter constantly in her thoughts, she discussed her husband'sflight with this friend, and elicited an opinion that the behavior ofTrefusis was scandalous and wicked. Henrietta could not bear this, and sought shelter with a relative. The same discussion arising, therelative said:

"Well, Hetty, if I am to speak candidly, I must say that I have knownSidney Trefusis for a long time, and he is the easiest person to geton with I ever met. And you know, dear, that you are very tryingsometimes. "

"And so, " cried Henrietta, bursting into tears, "after the infamous wayhe has treated me I am to be told that it is all my own fault. "

She left the house next day, having obtained another invitation froma discreet lady who would not discuss the subject at all. This provedquite intolerable, and Henrietta went to stay with her uncle DanielJansenius, a jolly and indulgent man. He opined that things would comeright as soon as both parties grew more sensible; and, as to which ofthem was, in fault, his verdict was, six of one and half a dozen of theother. Whenever he saw his niece pensive or tearful he laughed at herand called her a grass widow. Henrietta found that she could endureanything rather than this. Declaring that the world was hateful to her, she hired a furnished villa in St. John's Wood, whither she moved inDecember. But, suffering much there from loneliness, she soon wrotea pathetic letter to Agatha, entreating her to spend the approachingChristmas vacation with her, and promising her every luxury andamusement that boundless affection could suggest and boundless meansprocure. Agatha's reply contained some unlooked-for information. 

"Alton College, Lyvern, "14th December. 

"Dearest Hetty: I don't think I can do exactly what you want, as I mustspend Xmas with Mamma at Chiswick; but I need not get there until XmasEve, and we break up here on yesterday week, the 20th. So I will gostraight to you and bring you with me to Mamma's, where you will spendXmas much better than moping in a strange house. It is not quite settledyet about my leaving the college after this term. You must promise notto tell anyone; but I have a new friend here--a lover. Not that I am inlove with him, though I think very highly of him--you know I am not aromantic fool; but he is very much in love with me; and I wish I couldreturn it as he deserves. The French say that one person turns the cheekand the other kisses it. It has not got quite so far as that with us;indeed, since he declared what he felt he has only been able to snatcha few words with me when I have been skating or walking. But there hasalways been at least one word or look that meant a great deal. 

"And now, who do you think he is? He says he knows you. Can you guess?He says you know all his secrets. He says he knows your husband well;that he treated you very badly, and that you are greatly to be pitied. Can you guess now? He says he has kissed you--for shame, Hetty! Haveyou guessed yet? He was going to tell me something more when we wereinterrupted, and I have not seen him since except at a distance. Heis the man with whom you eloped that day when you gave us all such afright--Mr. Sidney. I was the first to penetrate his disguise; and thatvery morning I had taxed him with it, and he had confessed it. He saidthen that he was hiding from a woman who was in love with him; andI should not be surprised if it turned out to be true; for he iswonderfully original--in fact what makes me like him is that he is byfar the cleverest man I have ever met; and yet he thinks nothing ofhimself. I cannot imagine what he sees in me to care for, though he isevidently ensnared by my charms. I hope he won't find out how silly Iam. He called me his golden idol--"

Henrietta, with a scream of rage, tore the letter across, and stampedupon it. When the paroxysm subsided she picked up the pieces, held themtogether as accurately as her trembling hands could, and read on. 

"--but he is not all honey, and will say the most severe thingssometimes if he thinks he ought to. He has made me so ashamed of myignorance that I am resolved to stay here for another term at least, andstudy as hard as I can. I have not begun yet, as it is not worth whileat the eleventh hour of this term; but when I return in January I willset to work in earnest. So you may see that his influence over me isan entirely good one. I will tell you all about him when we meet; forI have no time to say anything now, as the girls are bothering me to goskating with them. He pretends to be a workman, and puts on our skatesfor us; and Jane Carpenter believes that he is in love with her. Janeis exceedingly kindhearted; but she has a talent for making herselfridiculous that nothing can suppress. The ice is lovely, and the weatherjolly; we do not mind the cold in the least. They are threatening to gowithout me--good-bye!

"Ever your affectionate

"Agatha. "

Henrietta looked round for something sharp. She grasped a pair ofscissors greedily and stabbed the air with them. Then she becameconscious of her murderous impulse, and she shuddered at it; but ina moment more her jealousy swept back upon her. She cried, as ifsuffocating, "I don't care; I should like to kill her!" But she did nottake up the scissors again. 

At last she rang the bell violently and asked for a railway guide. Onbeing told that there was not one in the house, she scolded her maid sounreasonably that the girl said pertly that if she were to be spokento like that she should wish to leave when her month was up. This checkbrought Henrietta to her senses. She went upstairs and put on the firstcloak at hand, which was fortunately a heavy fur one. Then she took herbonnet and purse, left the house, hailed a passing hansom, and bade thecabman drive her to St. Pancras. 

When the night came the air at Lyvern was like iron in the intense cold. The trees and the wind seemed ice-bound, as the water was, and silence, stillness, and starlight, frozen hard, brooded over the country. At thechalet, Smilash, indifferent to the price of coals, kept up a roaringfire that glowed through the uncurtained windows, and tantalized thechilled wayfarer who did not happen to know, as the herdsmen of theneighborhood did, that he was welcome to enter and warm himself withoutrisk of rebuff from the tenant. Smilash was in high spirits. He hadbecome a proficient skater, and frosty weather was now a luxury to him. It braced him, and drove away his gloomy fits, whilst his sympathieswere kept awake and his indignation maintained at an exhilarating pitchby the sufferings of the poor, who, unable to afford fires or skating, warmed themselves in such sweltering heat as overcrowding produces inall seasons. 

It was Smilash's custom to make a hot drink of oatmeal and water forhimself at half-past nine o'clock each evening, and to go to bed at ten. He opened the door to throw out some water that remained in the saucepanfrom its last cleansing. It froze as it fell upon the soil. He lookedat the night, and shook himself to throw off an oppressive sensation ofbeing clasped in the icy ribs of the air, for the mercury had descendedbelow the familiar region of crisp and crackly cold and marked atemperature at which the numb atmosphere seemed on the point ofcongealing into black solidity. Nothing was stirring. 

"By George!" he said, "this is one of those nights on which a rich mandaren't think!"

He shut the door, hastened back to his fire, and set to work at hiscaudle, which he watched and stirred with a solicitude that would haveamused a professed cook. When it was done he poured it into a large mug, where it steamed invitingly. He took up some in a spoon and blew upon itto cool it. Tap, tap, tap, tap! hurriedly at the door. 

"Nice night for a walk, " he said, putting down the spoon; then shouting, "Come in. "

The latch rose unsteadily, and Henrietta, with frozen tears on hercheeks, and an unintelligible expression of wretchedness and rage, appeared. After an instant of amazement, he sprang to her and claspedher in his arms, and she, against her will, and protesting voicelessly, stumbled into his embrace. 

"You are frozen to death, " he exclaimed, carrying her to the fire. "Thisseal jacket is like a sheet of ice. So is your face" (kissing it). "Whatis the matter? Why do you struggle so?"

"Let me go, " she gasped, in a vehement whisper. "I h--hate you. "

"My poor love, you are too cold to hate anyone--even your husband. Youmust let me take off these atrocious French boots. Your feet must beperfectly dead. "

By this time her voice and tears were thawing in the warmth of thechalet and of his caresses. "You shall not take them off, " she said, crying with cold and sorrow. "Let me alone. Don't touch me. I am goingaway--straight back. I will not speak to you, nor take off my thingshere, nor touch anything in the house. "

"No, my darling, " he said, putting her into a capacious wooden armchairand busily unbuttoning her boots, "you shall do nothing that you don'twish to do. Your feet are like stones. Yes, yes, my dear, I am a wretchunworthy to live. I know it. "

"Let me alone, " she said piteously. "I don't want your attentions. Ihave done with you for ever. "

"Come, you must drink some of this nasty stuff. You will need strengthto tell your husband all the unpleasant things your soul is chargedwith. Take just a little. "

She turned her face away and would not answer. He brought another chairand sat down beside her. "My lost, forlorn, betrayed one--"

"I am, " she sobbed. "You don't mean it, but I am. "

"You are also my dearest and best of wives. If you ever loved me, Hetty, do, for my once dear sake, drink this before it gets cold. "

She pouted, sobbed, and yielded to some gentle force which he used, asa child allows herself to be half persuaded, half compelled, to takephysic. 

"Do you feel better and more comfortable now?" he said. 

"No, " she replied, angry with herself for feeling both. 

"Then, " he said cheerfully, as if she had uttered a hearty affirmative, "I will put some more coals on the fire, and we shall be as snug aspossible. It makes me wildly happy to see you at my fireside, and toknow that you are my own wife. "

"I wonder how you can look me in the face and say so, " she cried. 

"I should wonder at myself if I could look at your face and say anythingelse. Oatmeal is a capital restorative; all your energy is coming back. There, that will make a magnificent blaze presently. "

"I never thought you deceitful, Sidney, whatever other faults you mighthave had. "

"Precisely, my love. I understand your feelings. Murder, burglary, intemperance, or the minor vices you could have borne; but deceit youcannot abide. "

"I will go away, " she said despairingly, with a fresh burst of tears. "Iwill not be laughed at and betrayed. I will go barefooted. " She rose andattempted to reach the door; but he intercepted her and said:

"My love, there is something serious the matter. What is it? Don't beangry with me. "

He brought her back to the chair. She took Agatha's letter from thepocket of her fur cloak, and handed it to him with a faint attempt to betragic. 

"Read that, " she said. "And never speak to me again. All is over betweenus. "

He took it curiously, and turned it to look at the signature. "Aha!" hesaid, "my golden idol has been making mischief, has she?"

"There!" exclaimed Henrietta. "You have said it to my face! You haveconvicted yourself out of your own mouth!"

"Wait a moment, my dear. I have not read the letter yet. "

He rose and walked to and fro through the room, reading. She watchedhim, angrily confident that she should presently see him changecountenance. Suddenly he drooped as if his spine had partly given way;and in this ungraceful attitude he read the remainder of the letter. When he had finished he threw it on the table, thrust his hands deepinto his pockets, and roared with laughter, huddling himself together asif he could concentrate the joke by collecting himself into the smallestpossible compass. Henrietta, speechless with indignation, could onlylook her feelings. At last he came and sat down beside her. 

"And so, " he said, "on receiving this you rushed out in the cold andcame all the way to Lyvern. Now, it seems to me that you must eitherlove me very much--"

"I don't. I hate you. "

"Or else love yourself very much. "

"Oh!" And she wept afresh. "You are a selfish brute, and you do just asyou like without considering anyone else. No one ever thinks of me. Andnow you won't even take the trouble to deny that shameful letter. "

"Why should I deny it? It is true. Do you not see the irony of all this?I amuse myself by paying a few compliments to a schoolgirl for whom Ido not care two straws more than for any agreeable and passably cleverwoman I meet. Nevertheless, I occasionally feel a pang of remorsebecause I think that she may love me seriously, although I am onlyplaying with her. I pity the poor heart I have wantonly ensnared. And, all the time, she is pitying me for exactly the same reason! She isconscience-stricken because she is only indulging in the luxury ofbeing adored 'by far the cleverest man she has ever met, ' and is asheart-whole as I am! Ha, ha! That is the basis of the religion of loveof which poets are the high-priests. Each worshipper knows that his ownlove is either a transient passion or a sham copied from his favoritepoem; but he believes honestly in the love of others for him. Ho, ho! Isit not a silly world, my dear?"

"You had no right to make love to Agatha. You have no right to make loveto anyone but me; and I won't bear it. "

"You are angry because Agatha has infringed your monopoly. Alwaysmonopoly! Why, you silly girl, do you suppose that I belong to you, bodyand soul?--that I may not be moved except by your affection, or thinkexcept of your beauty?"

"You may call me as many names as you please, but you have no right tomake love to Agatha. "

"My dearest, I do not recollect calling you any names. I think you saidsomething about a selfish brute. "

"I did not. You called me a silly girl. "

"But, my love, you are. "

"And so YOU are. You are thoroughly selfish. "

"I don't deny it. But let us return to our subject. What did we begin toquarrel about?"

"I am not quarrelling, Sidney. It is you. "

"Well, what did I begin to quarrel about?"

"About Agatha Wylie. "

"Oh, pardon me, Hetty; I certainly did not begin to quarrel about her. Iam very fond of her--more so, it appears, than she is of me. One moment, Hetty, before you recommence your reproaches. Why do you dislike mysaying pretty things to Agatha?"

Henrietta hesitated, and said: "Because you have no right to. It showshow little you care for me. "

"It has nothing to do with you. It only shows how much I care for her. "

"I will not stay here to be insulted, " said Hetty, her distressreturning. "I will go home. "

"Not to-night; there is no train. "

"I will walk. "

"It is too far. "

"I don't care. I will not stay here, though I die of cold by theroadside. "

"My cherished one, I have been annoying you purposely because you showby your anger that you have not ceased to care for me. I am in thewrong, as I usually am, and it is all my fault. Agatha knows nothingabout our marriage. "

"I do not blame you so much, " said Henrietta, suffering him to place herhead on his shoulder; "but I will never speak to Agatha again. She hasbehaved shamefully to me, and I will tell her so. "

"No doubt she will opine that it is all your fault, dearest, and that Ihave behaved admirably. Between you I shall stand exonerated. And now, since it is too cold for walking, since it is late, since it is far toLyvern and farther to London, I must improvise some accommodation foryou here. "

"But--"

"But there is no help for it. You must stay. "

CHAPTER IX

Next day Smilash obtained from his wife a promise that she would behavetowards Agatha as if the letter had given no offence. Henrietta pleadedas movingly as she could for an immediate return to their domesticstate, but he put her off with endearing speeches, promised nothing buteternal affection, and sent her back to London by the twelve o'clockexpress. Then his countenance changed; he walked back to Lyvern, andthence to the chalet, like a man pursued by disgust and remorse. Laterin the afternoon, to raise his spirits, he took his skates and went toWickens's pond, where, it being Saturday, he found the ice crowdedwith the Alton students and their half-holiday visitors. Fairholme, describing circles with his habitual air of compressed hardihood, stopped and stared with indignant surprise as Smilash lurched past him. 

"Is that man here by your permission?" he said to Farmer Wickens, whowas walking about as if superintending a harvest. 

"He is here because he likes, I take it, " said Wickens stubbornly. "Heis a neighbor of mine and a friend of mine. Is there any objections tomy having a friend on my own pond, seein' that there is nigh on twoor three ton of other people's friends on it 108 without as much as awith-your-leave or a by-your-leave. "

"Oh, no, " said Fairholme, somewhat dashed. "If you are satisfied therecan be no objection. "

"I'm glad on it. I thought there mout be. "

"Let me tell you, " said Fairholme, nettled, "that your landlord wouldnot be pleased to see him here. He sent one of Sir John's best shepherdsout of the country, after filling his head with ideas above his station. I heard Sir John speak very warmly about it last Sunday. "

"Mayhap you did, Muster Fairholme. I have a lease of this land--andgravelly, poor stuff it is--and I am no ways beholden to Sir John'slikings and dislikings. A very good thing too for Sir John that I havea lease, for there ain't a man in the country 'ud tak' a present o' thefarm if it was free to-morrow. And what's a' more, though that young mando talk foolish things about the rights of farm laborers and such-likenonsense, if Sir John was to hear him layin' it down concernin' rentand improvements, and the way we tenant farmers is put upon, p'raps he'dspeak warmer than ever next Sunday. "

And Wickens, with a smile expressive of his sense of having retortedeffectively upon the parson, nodded and walked away. 

Just then Agatha, skating hand in hand with Jane Carpenter, heard thesewords in her ear: "I have something very funny to tell you. Don't lookround. "

She recognized the voice of Smilash and obeyed. 

"I am not quite sure that you will enjoy it as it deserves, " headded, and darted off again, after casting an eloquent glance at MissCarpenter. 

Agatha disengaged herself from her companion, made a circuit, and passednear Smilash, saying: "What is it?"

Smilash flitted away like a swallow, traced several circles aroundFairholme, and then returned to Agatha and proceeded side by side withher. 

"I have read the letter you wrote to Hetty, " he said. 

Agatha's face began to glow. She forgot to maintain her balance, andalmost fell. 

"Take care. And so you are not fond of me--in the romantic sense?"

No answer. Agatha dumb and afraid to lift her eyelids. 

"That is fortunate, " he continued, "because--good evening, Miss Ward; Ihave done nothing but admire your skating for the last hour--becausemen were deceivers ever; and I am no exception, as you will presentlyadmit. "

Agatha murmured something, but it was unintelligible amid the din ofskating. 

"You think not? Well, perhaps you are right; I have said nothing to youthat is not in a measure true. You have always had a peculiar charm forme. But I did not mean you to tell Hetty. Can you guess why?"

Agatha shook her head. 

"Because she is my wife. "

Agatha's ankles became limp. With an effort she kept upright until shereached Jane, to whom she clung for support. 

"Don't, " screamed Jane. "You'll upset me. "

"I must sit down, " said Agatha. "I am tired. Let me lean on you until weget to the chairs. "

"Bosh! I can skate for an hour without sitting down, " said Jane. However, she helped Agatha to a chair and left her. Then Smilash, as ifdesiring a rest also, sat down close by on the margin of the pond. 

"Well, " he said, without troubling himself as to whether theirconversation attracted attention or not, "what do you think of me now?"

"Why did you not tell me before, Mr. Trefusis?"

"That is the cream of the joke, " he replied, poising his heels on theice so that his skates stood vertically at legs' length from him, andlooking at them with a cynical air. "I thought you were in love with me, and that the truth would be too severe a blow to you. Ha! ha! And, forthe same reason, you generously forbore to tell me that you were no morein love with me than with the man in the moon. Each played a farce, andpalmed it off on the other as a tragedy. "

"There are some things so unmanly, so unkind, and so cruel, " saidAgatha, "that I cannot understand any gentleman saying them to a girl. Please do not speak to me again. Miss Ward! Come to me for a moment. I--I am not well. "

Ward hurried to her side. Smilash, after staring at her for a moment inastonishment, and in some concern, skimmed away into the crowd. Whenhe reached the opposite bank he took off his skates and asked Jane, whostrayed intentionally in his direction, to tell Miss Wylie that hewas gone, and would skate no more there. Without adding a word ofexplanation he left her and made for his dwelling. As he went down intothe hollow where the road passed through the plantation on the collegeside of the chalet he descried a boy, in the uniform of the post office, sliding along the frozen ditch. A presentiment of evil tidings came uponhim like a darkening of the sky. He quickened his pace. 

"Anything for me?" he said. 

The boy, who knew him, fumbled in a letter case and produced a buffenvelope. It contained a telegram. 

From Jansenius, London. 

TO J. Smilash, Chamoounix Villa, Lyvern. 

Henrietta dangerously ill after journey wants to see you doctors saymust come at once. 

There was a pause. Then he folded the paper methodically and put it inhis pocket, as if quite done with it. 

"And so, " he said, "perhaps the tragedy is to follow the farce afterall. "

He looked at the boy, who retreated, not liking his expression. 

"Did you slide all the way from Lyvern?"

"Only to come quicker, " said the messenger, faltering. "I came as quickas I could. "

"You carried news heavy enough to break the thickest ice ever frozen. Ihave a mind to throw you over the top of that tree instead of giving youthis half-crown. "

"You let me alone, " whimpered the boy, retreating another pace. 

"Get back to Lyvern as fast as you can run or slide, and tell Mr. Marshto send me the fastest trap he has, to drive me to the railway station. Here is your half-crown. Off with you; and if I do not find the trapready when I want it, woe betide you. "

The boy came for the money mistrustfully, and ran off with it as fastas he could. Smilash went into the chalet and never reappeared. Instead, Trefusis, a gentleman in an ulster, carrying a rug, came out, locked thedoor, and hurried along the road to Lyvern, where he was picked up bythe trap, and carried swiftly to the railway station, just in time tocatch the London train. 

"Evening paper, sir?" said a voice at the window, as he settled himselfin the corner of a first-class carriage. 

"No, thank you. "

"Footwarmer, sir?" said a porter, appearing in the news-vender's place. 

"Ah, that's a good idea. Yes, let me have a footwarmer. "

The footwarmer was brought, and Trefusis composed himself comfortablyfor his journey. It seemed very short to him; he could hardly believe, when the train arrived in London, that he had been nearly three hours onthe way. 

There was a sense of Christmas about the travellers and the people whowere at the terminus to meet them. The porter who came to the carriagedoor reminded Trefusis by his manner and voice that the season was oneat which it becomes a gentleman to be festive and liberal. 

"Wot luggage, sir? Hansom or fourweoll, sir?"

For a moment Trefusis felt a vagabond impulse to resume the language ofSmilash and fable to the man of hampers of turkey and plum-pudding inthe van. But he repressed it, got into a hansom, and was driven to hisfather-in-law's house in Belsize Avenue, studying in a gloomily criticalmood the anxiety that surged upon him and made his heart beat like aboy's as he drew near his destination. There were two carriages at thedoor when he alighted. The reticent expression of the coachmen sent atremor through him. 

The door opened before he rang. "If you please, sir, " said the maid in alow voice, "will you step into the library; and the doctor will see youimmediately. "

On the first landing of the staircase two gentlemen were speaking to Mr. Jansenius, who hastily moved out of sight, not before a glimpse of hisair of grief 174 and discomfiture had given Trefusis a strange twinge, succeeded by a sensation of having been twenty years a widower. Hesmiled unconcernedly as he followed the girl into the library, and askedher how she did. She murmured some reply and hurried away, thinking thatthe poor young man would alter his tone presently. 

He was joined at once by a gray whiskered gentleman, scrupulouslydressed and mannered. Trefusis introduced himself, and the physicianlooked at him with some interest. Then he said:

"You have arrived too late, Mr. Trefusis. All is over, I am sorry tosay. "

"Was the long railway journey she took in this cold weather the cause ofher death?"

Some bitter words that the physician had heard upstairs made him awarethat this was a delicate question. But he said quietly: "The proximatecause, doubtless. The proximate cause. "

"She received some unwelcome and quite unlooked-for intelligence beforeshe started. Had that anything to do with her death, do you think?"

"It may have produced an unfavorable effect, " said the physician, growing restive and taking up his gloves. "The habit of referring suchevents to such causes is carried too far, as a rule. "

"No doubt. I am curious because the event is novel in my experience. Isuppose it is a commonplace in yours. Pardon me. The loss of a lady soyoung and so favorably circumstanced is not a commonplace either in myexperience or in my opinion. " The physician held up his head as hespoke, in protest against any assumption that his sympathies had beenblunted by his profession. 

"Did she suffer?"

"For some hours, yes. We were able to do a little to alleviate herpain--poor thing!" He almost forgot Trefusis as he added the apostrophe. 

"Hours of pain! Can you conceive any good purpose that those hours mayhave served?"

The physician shook his head, leaving it doubtful whether he meant toreply in the negative or to deplore considerations of that nature. He also made a movement to depart, being uneasy in conversation withTrefusis, who would, he felt sure, presently ask questions or makeremarks with which he could hardly deal without committing himself insome direction. His conscience was not quite at rest. Henrietta's painhad not, he thought, served any good purpose; but he did not want tosay so, lest he should acquire a reputation for impiety and lose hispractice. He believed that the general practitioner who attended thefamily, and had called him in when the case grew serious, had treatedHenrietta unskilfully, but professional etiquette bound him so stronglythat, sooner than betray his colleague's inefficiency, he would haveallowed him to decimate London. 

"One word more, " said Trefusis. "Did she know that she was dying?"

"No. I considered it best that she should not be informed of her danger. She passed away without any apprehension. "

"Then one can think of it with equanimity. She dreaded death, poorchild. The wonder is that there was not enough folly in the household toprevail against your good sense. "

The physician bowed and took his leave, esteeming himself somewhatfortunate in escaping without being reproached for his humanity inhaving allowed Henrietta to die unawares. 

A moment later the general practitioner entered. Trefusis, havingaccompanied the consulting physician to the door, detected the familydoctor in the act of pulling a long face just outside it. Restraining adesire to seize him by the throat, he seated himself on the edge of thetable and said cheerfully:

"Well, doctor, how has the world used you since we last met?"

The doctor was taken aback, but the solemn disposition of his featuresdid not relax as he almost intoned: "Has Sir Francis told you the sadnews, Mr. Trefusis?"

"Yes. Frightful, isn't it? Lord bless me, we're here to-day and goneto-morrow. "

"True, very true!"

"Sir Francis has a high opinion of you. "

The doctor looked a little foolish. "Everything was done that could bedone, Mr. Trefusis; but Mrs. Jansenius was very anxious that no stoneshould be left unturned. She was good enough to say that her sole reasonfor wishing me to call in Sir Francis was that you should have no causeto complain. "

"Indeed!"

"An excellent mother! A sad event for her! Ah, yes, yes! Dear me! A verysad event!"

"Most disagreeable. Such a cold day too. Pleasanter to be in heaven thanhere in such weather, possibly. "

"Ah!" said the doctor, as if much sound comfort lay in that. "I hope so;I hope so; I do not doubt it. Sir Francis did not permit us to tell her, and I, of course, deferred to him. Perhaps it was for the best. "

"You would have told her, then, if Sir Francis had not objected?"

"Well, there are, you see, considerations which we must not ignore inour profession. Death is a serious thing, as I am sure I need not remindyou, Mr. Trefusis. We have sometimes higher duties than indulgence tothe natural feelings of our patients. "

"Quite so. The possibility of eternal bliss and the probability ofeternal torment are consolations not to be lightly withheld from adying girl, eh? However, what's past cannot be mended. I have much tobe thankful for, after all. I am a young man, and shall not cut a badfigure as a widower. And now tell me, doctor, am I not in very badrepute upstairs?"

"Mr. Trefusis! Sir! I cannot meddle in family matters. I understand myduties and never over step them. " The doctor, shocked at last, spoke asloftily as he could. 

"Then I will go and see Mr. Jansenius, " said Trefusis, getting off thetable. 

"Stay, sir! One moment. I have not finished. Mrs. Jansenius has askedme to ask--I was about to say that I am not speaking now as the medicaladviser of this family; but although an old friend--and--ahem! Mrs. Jansenius has asked me to ask--to request you to excuse Mr. Jansenius, as he is prostrated by grief, and is, as I can--as a medical man--assureyou, unable to see anyone. She will speak to you herself as soon as shefeels able to do so--at some time this evening. Meanwhile, of course, any orders you may give--you must be fatigued by your journey, and Ialways recommend people not to fast too long; it produces an acute formof indigestion--any orders you may wish to give will, of course, beattended to at once. "

"I think, " said Trefusis, after a moment's reflection, "I will order ahansom. "

"There is no ill-feeling, " said the doctor, who, as a slow man, wasusually alarmed by prompt decisions, even when they seemed wise to him, as this one did. "I hope you have not gathered from anything I havesaid--"

"Not at all; you have displayed the utmost tact. But I think I hadbetter go. Jansenius can bear death and misery with perfect fortitudewhen it is on a large scale and hidden in a back slum. But when itbreaks into his own house, and attacks his property--his daughter washis property until very recently--he is just the man to lose his headand quarrel with me for keeping mine. "

The doctor was unable to cope with this speech, which conveyed vaguelymonstrous ideas to him. Seeing Trefusis about to leave, he said in a lowvoice: "Will you go upstairs?"

"Upstairs! Why?"

"I--I thought you might wish to see--" He did not finish the sentence, but Trefusis flinched; the blank had expressed what was meant. 

"To see something that was Henrietta, and that is a thing we must castout and hide, with a little superstitious mumming to save appearances. Why did you remind me of it?"

"But, sir, whatever your views may be, will you not, as a matter ofform, in deference to the feelings of the family--"

"Let them spare their feelings for the living, on whose behalf I haveoften appealed to them in vain, " cried Trefusis, losing patience. "Damntheir feelings!" And, turning to the door, he found it open, and Mrs. Jansenius there listening. 

Trefusis was confounded. He knew what the effect of his speech must be, and felt that it would be folly to attempt excuse or explanation. He puthis hands into his pockets, leaned against the table, and looked at her, mutely wondering what would follow on her part. 

The doctor broke the silence by saying tremulously, "I have communicatedthe melancholy intelligence to Mr. Trefusis. "

"I hope you told him also, " she said sternly, "that, however deficientwe may be in feeling, we did everything that lay in our power for ourchild. "

"I am quite satisfied, " said Trefusis. 

"No doubt you are--with the result, " said Mrs. Jansenius, hardly. "Iwish to know whether you have anything to complain of. "

"Nothing. "

"Please do not imply that anything has happened through our neglect. "

"What have I to complain of? She had a warm room and a luxurious bed todie in, with the best medical advice in the world. Plenty of peopleare starving and freezing to-day that we may have the means to diefashionably; ask THEM if they have any cause for complaint. Do you thinkI will wrangle over her body about the amount of money spent on herillness? What measure is that of the cause she had for complaint? Inever grudged money to her--how could I, seeing that more than I canwaste is given to me for nothing? Or how could you? Yet she had greatreason to complain of me. You will allow that to be so. "

"It is perfectly true. "

"Well, when I am in the humor for it, I will reproach myself and notyou. " He paused, and then turned forcibly on her, saying, "Why do youselect this time, of all others, to speak so bitterly to me?"

"I am not aware that I have said anything to call for such a remark. DidYOU, " (appealing to the doctor) "hear me say anything?"

"Mr. Trefusis does not mean to say that you did, I am sure. Oh, no. Mr. Trefusis's feelings are naturally--are harrowed. That is all. "

"My feelings!" cried Trefusis impatiently. "Do you suppose my feelingsare a trumpery set of social observances, to be harrowed to order andexhibited at funerals? She has gone as we three shall go soon enough. Ifwe were immortal, we might reasonably pity the dead. As we are not, wehad better save our energies to minimize the harm we are likely to dobefore we follow her. "

The doctor was deeply offended by this speech, for the statement thathe should one day die seemed to him a reflection upon his professionalmastery over death. Mrs. Jansenius was glad to see Trefusis confirmingher bad opinion and report of him by his conduct and language in thedoctor's presence. There was a brief pause, and then Trefusis, too farout of sympathy with them to be able to lead the conversation into akinder vein, left the room. In the act of putting on his overcoat in thehall, he hesitated, and hung it up again irresolutely. Suddenly he ranupstairs. At the sound of his steps a woman came from one of the roomsand looked inquiringly at him. 

"Is it here?" he said. 

"Yes, sir, " she whispered. 

A painful sense of constriction came in his chest, and he turned paleand stopped with his hand on the lock. 

"Don't be afraid, sir, " said the woman, with an encouraging smile. "Shelooks beautiful. "

He looked at her with a strange grin, as if she had uttered a ghastlybut irresistible joke. Then he went in, and, when he reached the bed, wished he had stayed without. He was not one of those who, seeing littlein the faces of the living miss little in the faces of the dead. Thearrangement of the black hair on the pillow, the soft drapery, and theflowers placed there by the nurse to complete the artistic effect towhich she had so confidently referred, were lost on him; he saw onlya lifeless mask that had been his wife's face, and at sight of it hisknees failed, and he had to lean for support on the rail at the foot ofthe bed. 

When he looked again the face seemed to have changed. It was no longera waxlike mask, but Henrietta, girlish and pathetically at rest. Deathseemed to have cancelled her marriage and womanhood; he had never seenher look so young. A minute passed, and then a tear dropped on thecoverlet. He started; shook another tear on his hand, and stared at itincredulously. 

"This is a fraud of which I have never even dreamed, " he said. "Tearsand no sorrow! Here am I crying! growing maudlin! whilst I am glad thatshe is gone and I free. I have the mechanism of grief in me somewhere;it begins to turn at sight of her though I have no sorrow; just as sheused to start the mechanism of passion when I had no love. And that madeno difference to her; whilst the wheels went round she was satisfied. Ihope the mechanism of grief will flag and stop in its spinning as soonas the other used to. It is stopping already, I think. What a mockery!Whilst it lasts I suppose I am really sorry. And yet, would I restoreher to life if I could? Perhaps so; I am therefore thankful that Icannot. " He folded his arms on the rail and gravely addressed the deadfigure, which still affected him so strongly that he had to exert hiswill to face it with composure. "If you really loved me, it is well foryou that you are dead--idiot that I was to believe that the passion youcould inspire, you poor child, would last. We are both lucky; I haveescaped from you, and you have escaped from yourself. "

Presently he breathed more freely and looked round the room to helphimself into a matter-of-fact vein by a little unembarrassed action, andthe commonplace aspect of the bedroom furniture. He went to the pillow, and bent over it, examining the face closely. 

"Poor child!" he said again, tenderly. Then, with sudden reaction, apostrophizing himself instead of his wife, "Poor ass! Poor idiot! Poorjackanapes! Here is the body of a woman who was nearly as old as myself, and perhaps wiser, and here am I moralizing over it as if I were GodAlmighty and she a baby! The more you remind a man of what he is, themore conceited he becomes. Monstrous! I shall feel immortal presently. "

He touched the cheek with a faint attempt at roughness, to feel how coldit was. Then he touched his own, and remarked:

"This is what I am hastening toward at the express speed of sixtyminutes an hour!" He stood looking down at the face and tasting thissombre reflection for a long time. When it palled on him, he rousedhimself, and exclaimed more cheerfully:

"After all, she is not dead. Every word she uttered--every idea sheformed and expressed, was an inexhaustible and indestructible impulse. "He paused, considered a little further, and relapsed into gloom, adding, "and the dozen others whose names will be with hers in the 'Times'to-morrow? Their words too are still in the air, to endure there toall eternity. Hm! How the air must be crammed with nonsense! Two soundssometimes produce a silence; perhaps ideas neutralize one another insome analogous way. No, my dear; you are dead and gone and done with, and I shall be dead and gone and done with too soon to leave me leisureto fool myself with hopes of immortality. Poor Hetty! Well, good-by, mydarling. Let us pretend for a moment that you can hear that; I know itwill please you. "

All this was in a half-articulate whisper. When he ceased he still bentover the body, gazing intently at it. Even when he had exhausted thesubject, and turned to go, he changed his mind, and looked again for awhile. Then he stood erect, apparently nerved and refreshed, and leftthe room with a firm step. The woman was waiting outside. Seeing that hewas less distressed than when he entered, she said:

"I hope you are satisfied, sir!"

"Delighted! Charmed! The arrangements are extremely pretty and tasteful. Most consolatory. " And he gave her half a sovereign. 

"I thank you, sir, " she said, dropping a curtsey. "The poor young lady!She was anxious to see you, sir. To hear her say that you were the onlyone that cared for her! And so fretful with her mother, too. 'Let him betold that I am dangerously ill, ' says she, 'and he'll come. ' She didn'tknow how true her word was, poor thing; and she went off without beingaware of it. "

"Flattering herself and flattering me. Happy girl!"

"Bless you, I know what her feelings were, sir; I have had experience. "Here she approached him confidentially, and whispered: "The family wereagain' you, sir, and she knew it. But she wouldn't listen to them. Shethought of nothing, when she was easy enough to think at all, but ofyour coming. And--hush! Here's the old gentleman. "

Trefusis looked round and saw Mr. Jansenius, whose handsome facewas white and seamed with grief and annoyance. He drew back from theproffered hand of his son-in-law, like an overworried child from anill-timed attempt to pet it. Trefusis pitied him. The nurse coughed andretired. 

"Have you been speaking to Mrs. Jansenius?" said Trefusis. 

"Yes, " said Jansenius offensively. 

"So have I, unfortunately. Pray make my apologies to her. I was rude. The circumstances upset me. "

"You are not upset, sir, " said Jansenius loudly. "You do not care adamn. "

Trefusis recoiled. 

"You damned my feelings, and I will damn yours, " continued Jansenius inthe same tone. Trefusis involuntarily looked at the door through whichhe had lately passed. Then, recovering himself, he said quietly:

"It does not matter. She can't hear us. "

Before Jansenius could reply his wife hurried upstairs, caught him bythe arm, and said, "Don't speak to him, John. And you, " she added, toTrefusis, "WILL you begone?"

"What!" he said, looking cynically at her. "Without my dead! Without myproperty! Well, be it so. "

"What do you know of the feelings of a respectable man?" persistedJansenius, breaking out again in spite of his wife. "Nothing is sacredto you. This shows what Socialists are!"

"And what fathers are, and what mothers are, " retorted Trefusis, givingway to his temper. "I thought you loved Hetty, but I see that you onlylove your feelings and your respectability. The devil take both! She wasright; my love for her, incomplete as it was, was greater than yours. "And he left the house in dudgeon. 

But he stood awhile in the avenue to laugh at himself and hisfather-in-law. Then he took a hansom and was driven to the house ofhis solicitor, whom he wished to consult on the settlement of his latewife's affairs. 

CHAPTER X

The remains of Henrietta Trefusis were interred in Highgate Cemeterythe day before Christmas Eve. Three noblemen sent their carriages tothe funeral, and the friends and clients of Mr. Jansenius, to a largenumber, attended in person. The bier was covered with a profusion ofcostly Bowers. The undertaker, instructed to spare no expense, providedlong-tailed black horses, with black palls on their backs and blackplumes upon their foreheads; coachmen decorated with scarves andjack-boots, black hammercloths, cloaks, and gloves, with many hiredmourners, who, however, would have been instantly discharged had theypresumed to betray emotion, or in any way overstep their function ofwalking beside the hearse with brass-tipped batons in their hands. 

Among the genuine mourners were Mr. Jansenius, who burst into tearsat the ceremony of casting earth on the coffin; the boy Arthur, who, preoccupied by the novelty of appearing in a long cloak at the head of apublic procession, felt that he was not so sorry as he ought to be whenhe saw his papa cry; and a cousin who had once asked Henrietta to marryhim, and who now, full of tragic reflections, was enjoying his despairintensely. 

The rest whispered, whenever they could decently do so, about a strangeomission in the arrangements. The husband of the deceased was absent. Members of the family and intimate friends were told by Daniel Janseniusthat the widower had acted in a blackguard way, and that the Janseniusesdid not care two-pence whether he came or stayed at home; that, but forthe indecency of the thing, they were just as glad that he was keepingaway. Others, who had no claim to be privately informed, made inquiriesof the undertaker's foreman, who said he understood the gentlemanobjected to large funerals. Asked why, he said he supposed it was on theground of expense. This being met by a remark that Mr. Trefusis was verywealthy, he added that he had been told so, but believed the moneyhad not come from the lady; that people seldom cared to go to a greatexpense for a funeral unless they came into something good by the death;and that some parties the more they had the more they grudged. Beforethe funeral guests dispersed, the report spread by Mr. Jansenius'sbrother had got mixed with the views of the foreman, and had given riseto a story of Trefusis expressing joy at his wife's death with frightfuloaths in her father's house whilst she lay dead there, and refusing topay a farthing of her debts or funeral expenses. 

Some days later, when gossip on the subject was subsiding, a freshscandal revived it. A literary friend of Mr. Jansenius's helped himto compose an epitaph, and added to it a couple of pretty and touchingstanzas, setting forth that Henrietta's character had been one of raresweetness and virtue, and that her friends would never cease to sorrowfor her loss. A tradesman who described himself as a "monumental mason"furnished a book of tomb designs, and Mr. Jansenius selected a highlyornamental one, and proposed to defray half the cost of its erection. Trefusis objected that the epitaph was untrue, and said that he did notsee why tombstones should be privileged to publish false statements. Itwas reported that he had followed up his former misconduct by callinghis father-in-law a liar, and that he had ordered a common tombstonefrom some cheap-jack at the East-end. He had, in fact, spokencontemptuously of the monumental tradesman as an "exploiter" of labor, and had asked a young working mason, a member of the InternationalAssociation, to design a monument for the gratification of Jansenius. 

The mason, with much pains and misgiving, produced an original design. Trefusis approved of it, and resolved to have it executed by the handsof the designer. He hired a sculptor's studio, purchased blocks ofmarble of the dimensions and quality described to him by the mason, andinvited him to set to work forthwith. 

Trefusis now encountered a difficulty. He wished to pay the mason thejust value of his work, no more and no less. But this he could notascertain. The only available standard was the market price, and this herejected as being fixed by competition among capitalists who could onlysecure profit by obtaining from their workmen more products than theypaid them for, and could only tempt customers by offering a share of theunpaid-for part of the products as a reduction in price. Thus hefound that the system of withholding the indispensable materials forproduction and subsistence from the laborers, except on condition oftheir supporting an idle class whilst accepting a lower standardof comfort for themselves than for that idle class, rendered thedetermination of just ratios of exchange, and consequently the practiceof honest dealing, impossible. He had at last to ask the mason what hewould consider fair payment for the execution of the design, though heknew that the man could no more solve the problem than he, and that, though he would certainly ask as much as he thought he could get, hisdemand must be limited by his poverty and by the competition of themonumental tradesman. Trefusis settled the matter by giving double whatwas asked, only imposing such conditions as were necessary to compel themason to execute the work himself, and not make a profit by hiring othermen at the market rate of wages to do it. 

But the design was, to its author's astonishment, to be paidfor separately. The mason, after hesitating a long time betweentwo-pounds-ten and five pounds, was emboldened by a fellow-workman, who treated him to some hot whiskey and water, to name the larger sum. Trefusis paid the money at once, and then set himself to find out howmuch a similar design would have cost from the hands of an eminentRoyal Academician. Happening to know a gentleman in this position, heconsulted him, and was informed that the probable cost would be fromfive hundred to one thousand pounds. Trefusis expressed his opinion thatthe mason's charge was the more reasonable, somewhat to the indignationof his artist friend, who reminded him of the years which a RoyalAcademician has to spend in acquiring his skill. Trefusis mentioned thatthe apprenticeship of a mason was quite as long, twice as laborious, and not half so pleasant. The artist now began to find Trefusis'sSocialistic views, with which he had previously fancied himself insympathy, both odious and dangerous. He demanded whether nothing wasto be allowed for genius. Trefusis warmly replied that genius costits possessor nothing; that it was the inheritance of the whole raceincidentally vested in a single individual, and that if that individualemployed his monopoly of it to extort money from others, he deservednothing better than hanging. The artist lost his temper, and suggestedthat if Trefusis could not feel that the prerogative of art was divine, perhaps he could understand that a painter was not such a fool as todesign a tomb for five pounds when he might be painting a portrait fora thousand. Trefusis retorted that the fact of a man paying a thousandpounds for a portrait proved that he had not earned the money, and wastherefore either a thief or a beggar. The common workman who sacrificedsixpence from his week's wages for a cheap photograph to present to hissweetheart, or a shilling for a pair of chromolithographic picturesor delft figures to place on his mantelboard, suffered greater privationfor the sake of possessing a work of art than the great landlord orshareholder who paid a thousand pounds, which he was too rich to miss, for a portrait that, like Hogarth's Jack Sheppard, was only interestingto students of criminal physiognomy. A lively quarrel ensued, Trefusisdenouncing the folly of artists in fancying themselves a priestly castewhen they were obviously only the parasites and favored slaves ofthe moneyed classes, and his friend (temporarily his enemy) sneeringbitterly at levellers who were for levelling down instead of levellingup. Finally, tired of disputing, and remorseful for their acrimony, theydined amicably together. 

The monument was placed in Highgate Cemetery by a small band ofworkmen whom Trefusis found out of employment. It bore the followinginscription:

THIS IS THE MONUMENT OF HENRIETTA JANSENIUS WHO WAS BORN ON THE 26THJULY, 1856, MARRIED TO SIDNEY TREFUSIS ON THE 23RD AUGUST, 1875, AND WHODIED ON THE 21ST DECEMBER IN THE SAME YEAR. 

Mr. Jansenius took this as an insult to his daughter's memory, and, as the tomb was much smaller than many which had been erected in thecemetery by families to whom the Janseniuses claimed superiority, citedit as an example of the widower's meanness. But by other persons it wasso much admired that Trefusis hoped it would ensure the prosperity ofits designer. The contrary happened. When the mason attempted to returnto his ordinary work he was informed that he had contravened tradeusage, and that his former employers would have nothing more to say tohim. On applying for advice and assistance to the trades-union of whichhe was a member he received the same reply, and was further reproachedfor treachery to his fellow-workmen. He returned to Trefusis to saythat the tombstone job had ruined him. Trefusis, enraged, wrote anargumentative letter to the "Times, " which was not inserted, a sarcasticone to the trades-union, which did no good, and a fierce one to theemployers, who threatened to take an action for libel. He had to contenthimself with setting the man to work again on mantelpieces and otherdecorative stone-work for use in house property on the Trefusisestate. In a year or two his liberal payments enabled the mason to savesufficient to start as an employer, in which capacity he soon began togrow rich, as he knew by experience exactly how much his workmen couldbe forced to do, and how little they could be forced to take. Shortlyafter this change in his circumstances he became an advocate ofthrift, temperance, and steady industry, and quitted the InternationalAssociation, of which he had been an enthusiastic supporter whendependent on his own skill and taste as a working mason. 

During these occurrences Agatha's school-life ended. Her resolution tostudy hard during another term at the college had been formed, not forthe sake of becoming learned, but that she might become more worthy ofSmilash; and when she learned the truth about him from his own lips, theidea of returning to the scene of that humiliation became intolerableto her. She left under the impression that her heart was broken, forher smarting vanity, by the law of its own existence, would not perceivethat it was the seat of the injury. So she bade Miss Wilson adieu; andthe bee on the window pane was heard no more at Alton College. 

The intelligence of Henrietta's death shocked her the more because shecould not help being glad that the only other person who knew ofher folly with regard to Smilash (himself excepted) was now silencedforever. This seemed to her a terrible discovery of her own depravity. Under its influence she became almost religious, and caused someanxiety about her health to her mother, who was puzzled by her unwontedseriousness, and, in particular, by her determination not to speakof the misconduct of Trefusis, which was now the prevailing topicof conversation in the family. She listened in silence to gossipingdiscussions of his desertion of his wife, his heartless indifferenceto her decease, his violence and bad language by her deathbed, hisparsimony, his malicious opposition to the wishes of the Janseniuses, his cheap tombstone with the insulting epitaph, his association withcommon workmen and low demagogues, his suspected connection with asecret society for the assassination of the royal family and blowingup of the army, his atheistic denial, in a pamphlet addressed to theclergy, of a statement by the Archbishop of Canterbury that spiritualaid alone could improve the condition of the poor in the East-end ofLondon, and the crowning disgrace of his trial for seditious libel atthe Old Bailey, where he was condemned to six months' imprisonment; apenalty from which he was rescued by the ingenuity of his counsel, whodiscovered a flaw in the indictment, and succeeded, at great cost toTrefusis, in getting the sentence quashed. Agatha at last got tired ofhearing of his misdeeds. She believed him to be heartless, selfish, andmisguided, but she knew that he was not the loud, coarse, sensual, andignorant brawler most of her mother's gossips supposed him to be. Sheeven felt, in spite of herself, an emotion of gratitude to the few whoventured to defend him. 

Preparation for her first season helped her to forget her misadventure. She "came out" in due time, and an extremely dull season she found it. So much so, that she sometimes asked herself whether she should ever behappy again. At the college there had been good fellowship, fun, rules, and duties which were a source of strength when observed and a sourceof delicious excitement when violated, freedom from ceremony, toffeemaking, flights on the banisters, and appreciative audiences for thesoldier in the chimney. 

In society there were silly conversations lasting half a minute, coolacquaintanceships founded on such half-minutes, general reciprocityof suspicion, overcrowding, insufficient ventilation, bad music badlyexecuted, late hours, unwholesome food, intoxicating liquors, jealouscompetition in useless expenditure, husband-hunting, flirting, dancing, theatres, and concerts. The last three, which Agatha liked, helped tomake the contrast between Alton and London tolerable to her, butthey had their drawbacks, for good partners at the dances, and goodperformances at the spiritless opera and concerts, were disappointinglyscarce. Flirting she could not endure; she drove men away when theybecame tender, seeing in them the falsehood of Smilash without his wit. She was considered rude by the younger gentlemen of her circle. Theydiscussed her bad manners among themselves, and agreed to punish her bynot asking her to dance. She thus got rid, without knowing why, ofthe attentions she cared for least (she retained a schoolgirl's cruelcontempt for "boys"), and enjoyed herself as best she could with such ofthe older or more sensible men as were not intolerant of girls. 

At best the year was the least happy she had ever spent. She repeatedlyalarmed her mother by broaching projects of becoming a hospital nurse, a public singer, or an actress. These projects led to some desultorystudies. In order to qualify herself as a nurse she read a handbook ofphysiology, which Mrs. Wylie thought so improper a subject for a younglady that she went in tears to beg Mrs. Jansenius to remonstrate withher unruly girl. Mrs. Jansenius, better advised, was of opinion that themore a woman knew the more wisely she was likely to act, and that Agathawould soon drop the physiology of her own accord. This proved true. Agatha, having finished her book by dint of extensive skipping, proceeded to study pathology from a volume of clinical lectures. Findingher own sensations exactly like those described in the book as symptomsof the direst diseases, she put it by in alarm, and took up a novel, which was free from the fault she had found in the lectures, inasmuchas none of the emotions it described in the least resembled any she hadever experienced. 

After a brief interval, she consulted a fashionable teacher of singingas to whether her voice was strong enough for the operatic stage. Herecommended her to study with him for six years, assuring her that atthe end of that period--if she followed his directions--she should bethe greatest singer in the world. To this there was, in her mind, theconclusive objection that in six years she should be an old woman. Soshe resolved to try privately whether she could not get on more quicklyby herself. Meanwhile, with a view to the drama in case her operaticscheme should fail, she took lessons in elocution and gymnastics. Practice in these improved her health and spirits so much that herprevious aspirations seemed too limited. She tried her hand at all thearts in succession, but was too discouraged by the weakness of her firstattempts to persevere. She knew that as a general rule there are feebleand ridiculous beginnings to all excellence, but she never appliedgeneral rules to her own case, still thinking of herself as an exceptionto them, just as she had done when she romanced about Smilash. Theillusions of adolescence were thick upon her. 

Meanwhile her progress was creating anxieties in which she had no share. Her paroxysms of exhilaration, followed by a gnawing sense of failureand uselessness, were known to her mother only as "wildness" and "lowspirits, " to be combated by needlework as a sedative, or beef tea as astimulant. Mrs. Wylie had learnt by rote that the whole duty of a ladyis to be graceful, charitable, helpful, modest, and disinterested whilstawaiting passively whatever lot these virtues may induce. But shehad learnt by experience that a lady's business in society is to getmarried, and that virtues and accomplishments alike are important onlyas attractions to eligible bachelors. As this truth is shameful, youngladies are left for a year or two to find it out for themselves; it isseldom explicitly conveyed to them at their entry into society. Hencethey often throw away capital bargains in their first season, andare compelled to offer themselves at greatly reduced pricessubsequently, when their attractions begin to stale. This was the fatewhich Mrs. Wylie, warned by Mrs. Jansenius, feared for Agatha, who, timeafter time when a callow gentleman of wealth and position was introducedto her, drove him brusquely away as soon as he ventured to hint that hisaffections were concerned in their acquaintanceship. The anxious motherhad to console herself with the fact that her daughter drove away theineligible as ruthlessly as the eligible, formed no unworldlyattachments, was still very young, and would grow less coy as sheadvanced in years and in what Mrs. Jansenius called sense. 

But as the seasons went by it remained questionable whether Agatha wasthe more to be congratulated on having begun life after leaving schoolor Henrietta on having finished it. 

CHAPTER XI

Brandon Beeches, in the Thames valley, was the seat of Sir CharlesBrandon, seventh baronet of that name. He had lost his father beforeattaining his majority, and had married shortly afterwards; so that inhis twenty-fifth year he was father to three children. He was a littleworn, in spite of his youth, but he was tall and agreeable, had awinning way of taking a kind and soothing view of the misfortunes ofothers, could tell a story well, liked music and could play and singa little, loved the arts of design and could sketch a little in watercolors, read every magazine from London to Paris that criticisedpictures, had travelled a little, fished a little, shot a little, botanized a little, wandered restlessly in the footsteps of women, anddissipated his energies through all the small channels that his wealthopened and his talents made easy to him. He had no large knowledge ofany subject, though he had looked into many just far enough to replaceabsolute unconsciousness of them with measurable ignorance. Never havingenjoyed the sense of achievement, he was troubled with unsatisfiedaspirations that filled him with melancholy and convinced him that hewas a born artist. His wife found him selfish, peevish, hankering afterchange, and prone to believe that he was attacked by dangerous diseasewhen he was only catching cold. 

Lady Brandon, who believed that he understood all the subjects hetalked about because she did not understand them herself, was one ofhis disappointments. In person she resembled none of the types of beautystriven after by the painters of her time, but she had charms to whichfew men are insensible. She was tall, soft, and stout, with ample andshapely arms, shoulders, and hips. With her small head, little ears, pretty lips, and roguish eye, she, being a very large creature, presented an immensity of half womanly, half infantile loveliness whichsmote even grave men with a desire to clasp her in their arms and kissher. This desire had scattered the desultory intellectual culture of SirCharles at first sight. His imagination invested her with the taste forthe fine arts which he required from a wife, and he married her in herfirst season, only to discover that the amativeness in her temperamentwas so little and languid that she made all his attempts at fondnessridiculous, and robbed the caresses for which he had longed of all theiranticipated ecstasy. Intellectually she fell still further short of hishopes. She looked upon his favorite art of painting as a pastime foramateur and a branch of the house-furnishing trade for professionalartists. When he was discussing it among his friends, she wouldoffer her opinion with a presumption which was the more trying as shefrequently blundered upon a sound conclusion whilst he was reasoning hisway to a hollow one with his utmost subtlety and seriousness. On suchoccasions his disgust did not trouble her in the least; she triumphed init. She had concluded that marriage was a greater folly, and men greaterfools, than she had supposed; but such beliefs rather lightened hersense of responsibility than disappointed her, and, as she had plenty ofmoney, plenty of servants, plenty of visitors, and plenty of exerciseon horseback, of which she was immoderately fond, her time passedpleasantly enough. Comfort seemed to her the natural order of life;trouble always surprised her. Her husband's friends, who mistrustedevery future hour, and found matter for bitter reflection in many pastones, were to her only examples of the power of sedentary habits andexcessive reading to make men tripped and dull. 

One fine May morning, as she cantered along the avenue at BrandonBeeches on a powerful bay horse, the gates at the end opened and a youngman sped through them on a bicycle. He was of slight frame, with finedark eyes and delicate nostrils. When he recognized Lady Brandon hewaved his cap, and when they met he sprang from his inanimate steed, atwhich the bay horse shied. 

"Don't, you silly beast!" she cried, whacking the animal with the buttof her whip. "Though it's natural enough, goodness knows! How d'ye do?The idea of anyone rich enough to afford a horse riding on a wheel likethat!"

"But I am not rich enough to afford a horse, " he said, approaching herto pat the bay, having placed the bicycle against a tree. "Besides, I amafraid of horses, not being accustomed to them; and I know nothing aboutfeeding them. My steed needs no food. He doesn't bite nor kick. He nevergoes lame, nor sickens, nor dies, nor needs a groom, nor--"

"That's all bosh, " said Lady Brandon impetuously. "It stumbles, andgives you the most awful tosses, and it goes lame by its treadles andthingamejigs coming off, and it wears out, and is twice as much troubleto keep clean and scrape the mud off as a horse, and all sorts ofthings. I think the most ridiculous sight in the world is a man on abicycle, working away with his feet as hard as he possibly can, andbelieving that his horse is carrying him instead of, as anyone can see, he carrying the horse. You needn't tell me that it isn't easier to walkin the ordinary way than to drag a great dead iron thing along with you. It's not good sense. "

"Nevertheless I can carry it a hundred miles further in a day than I cancarry myself alone. Such are the marvels of machinery. But I know thatwe cut a very poor figure beside you and that magnificent creature notthat anyone will look at me whilst you are by to occupy their attentionso much more worthily. "

She darted a glance at him which clouded his vision and made his heartbeat more strongly. This was an old habit of hers. She kept it up fromlove of fun, having no idea of the effect it produced on more ardenttemperaments than her own. He continued hastily:

"Is Sir Charles within doors?"

"Oh, it's the most ridiculous thing I ever heard of in my life, " sheexclaimed. "A man that lives by himself in a place down by the RiversideRoad like a toy savings bank--don't you know the things I mean?--calledSallust's House, says there is a right of way through our new pleasureground. As if anyone could have any right there after all the money wehave spent fencing it on three sides, and building up the wall by theroad, and levelling, and planting, and draining, and goodness knows whatelse! And now the man says that all the common people and tramps in theneighborhood have a right to walk across it because they are too lazy togo round by the road. Sir Charles has gone to see the man about it. Ofcourse he wouldn't do as I wanted him. "

"What was that?"

"Write to tell the man to mind his own business, and to say that thefirst person we found attempting to trespass on our property should begiven to the police. "

"Then I shall find no one at home. I beg your pardon for calling it so, but it is the only place like home to me. "

"Yes; it is so comfortable since we built the billiard room and tookaway those nasty hangings in the hall. I was ever so long trying toper--"

She was interrupted by an old laborer, who hobbled up as fast as hisrheumatism would allow him, and began to speak without further ceremonythan snatching off his cap. 

"Th'ave coom to the noo groups, my lady, crowds of 'em. An' a parsonwith 'em, an' a flag! Sur Chorles he don't know what to say; an' soochdoin's never was. "

Lady Brandon turned pale and pulled at her horse as if to back him outof some danger. Her visitor, puzzled, asked the old man what he meant. 

"There's goin' to be a proceyshon through the noo groups, " he replied, "an' the master can't stop 'em. Th'ave throon down the wall; three yardsof it is lyin' on Riverside Road. An' there's a parson with 'em, and aflag. An' him that lives in Sallust's hoos, he's there, hoddin''em on. "

"Thrown down the wall!" exclaimed Lady Brandon, scarlet with indignationand pale with apprehension by turns. "What a disgraceful thing! Whereare the police? Chester, will you come with me and see what they aredoing? Sir Charles is no use. Do you think there is any danger?"

"There's two police, " said the old man, "an' him that lives at Sallust'sdar'd them stop him. They're lookin' on. An' there's a parson among 'em. I see him pullin' away at the wall with his own han's. "

"I will go and see the fun, " said Chester. 

Lady Brandon hesitated. But her anger and curiosity vanquished herfears. She overtook the bicycle, and they went together through thegates and by the highroad to the scene the old man had described. A heapof bricks and mortar lay in the roadway on each side of a breach inthe newly built wall, over which Lady Brandon, from her eminence onhorseback, could see, coming towards her across the pleasure ground, acolumn of about thirty persons. They marched three abreast in good orderand in silence; the expression of all except a few mirthful faces beingthat of devotees fulfilling a rite. The gravity of the procession wasdeepened by the appearance of a clergyman in its ranks, which werecomposed of men of the middle class, and a few workmen carrying a bannerinscribed THE SOIL or ENGLAND THE BIRTHRIGHT OF ALL HER PEOPLE. Therewere also four women, upon whom Lady Brandon looked with intenseindignation and contempt. None of the men of the neighborhood had daredto join; they stood in the road whispering, and occasionally venturingto laugh at the jests of a couple of tramps who had stopped to see thefun, and who cared nothing for Sir Charles. 

He, standing a little way within the field, was remonstrating angrilywith a man of his own class, who stood with his back to the breach andhis hands in the pockets of his snuff-colored clothes, contemplatingthe procession with elate satisfaction. Lady Brandon, at once suspectingthat this was the man from Sallust's House, and encouraged by theloyalty of the crowd, most of whom made way for her and touched theirhats, hit the bay horse smartly with her whip and rode him, with aclatter of hoofs and scattering of clods, right at the snuff-coloredenemy, who had to spring hastily aside to avoid her. There was a roarof laughter from the roadway, and the man turned sharply on her. But hesuddenly smiled affably, replaced his hands in his pockets after raisinghis hat, and said:

"How do you do, Miss Carpenter? I thought you were a charge of cavalry. "

"I am not Miss Carpenter, I am Lady Brandon; and you ought to beashamed of yourself, Mr. Smilash, if it is you that have brought thesedisgraceful people here. "

His eyes as he replied were eloquent with reproach to her for beingno longer Miss Carpenter. "I am not Smilash, " he said; "I am SidneyTrefusis. I have just had the pleasure of meeting Sir Charles forthe first time, and we shall be the best friends possible when I haveconvinced him that it is hardly fair to seize on a path belonging tothe people and compel them to walk a mile and a half round his estateinstead of four hundred yards between two portions of it. "

"I have already told you, sir, " said Sir Charles, "that I intend to opena still shorter path, and to allow all the well-conducted work-people topass through twice a day. This will enable them to go to their workand return from it; and I will be at the cost of keeping the path inrepair. "

"Thank you, " said Trefusis drily; "but why should we trouble you whenwe have a path of our own to use fifty times a day if we choose, without any man barring our way until our conduct happens to please him?Besides, your next heir would probably shut the path up the moment hecame into possession. "

"Offering them a path is just what makes them impudent, " said LadyBrandon to her husband. "Why did you promise them anything? They wouldnot think it a hardship to walk a mile and a half, or twenty miles, toa public-house, but when they go to their work they think it dreadfulto have to walk a yard. Perhaps they would like us to lend them thewagonette to drive in?"

"I have no doubt they would, " said Trefusis, beaming at her. 

"Pray leave me to manage here, Jane; this is no place for you. BringErskine to the house. He must be--"

"Why don't the police make them go away?" said Lady Brandon, too excitedto listen to her husband. 

"Hush, Jane, pray. What can three men do against thirty or forty?"

"They ought to take up somebody as an example to the rest. "

"They have offered, in the handsomest manner, to arrest me if SirCharles will give me in charge, " said Trefusis. 

"There!" said Lady Jane, turning to her husband. "Why don't you givehim--or someone--in charge?"

"You know nothing about it, " said Sir Charles, vexed by a sense that shewas publicly making him ridiculous. 

"If you don't, I will, " she persisted. "The idea of having our groundbroken into and our new wall knocked down! A nice state of things itwould be if people were allowed to do as they liked with other peoples'property. I will give every one of them in charge. "

"Would you consign me to a dungeon?" said Trefusis, in melancholy tones. 

"I don't mean you exactly, " she said, relenting. "But I will givethat clergyman into charge, because he ought to know better. He is theringleader of the whole thing. "

"He will be delighted, Lady Brandon; he pines for martyrdom. But willyou really give him into custody?"

"I will, " she said vehemently, emphasizing the assurance by a plunge inthe saddle that made the bay stagger. 

"On what charge?" he said, patting the horse and looking up at her. 

"I don't care what charge, " she replied, conscious that she was beingadmired, and not displeased. "Let them take him up, that's all. "

Human beings on horseback are so far centaurs that liberties taken withtheir horses are almost as personal as liberties taken with themselves. When Sir Charles saw Trefusis patting the bay he felt as much outragedas if Lady Brandon herself were being patted, and he felt bitterlytowards her for permitting the familiarity. He uas relieved by thearrival of the procession. It halted as the leader came up to Trefusis, who said gravely:

"Gentlemen, I congratulate you on the firmness with which you have thisday asserted the rights of the people of this place to the use of one ofthe few scraps of mother earth of which they have not been despoiled. "

"Gentlemen, " shouted an excited member of the procession, "three cheersfor the resumption of the land of England by the people of England! Hip, hip, hurrah!"

The cheers were given with much spirit, Sir Charles's cheeks becomingredder at each repetition. He looked angrily at the clergyman, nowdistracted by the charms of Lady Brandon, whose scorn, as she surveyedthe crowd, expressed itself by a pout which became her pretty lipsextremely. 

Then a middle-aged laborer stepped from the road into the field, hat inhand, ducked respectfully, and said: "Look 'e here, Sir Charles. Don't'e mind them fellers. There ain't a man belonging to this neighborhoodamong 'em; not one in your employ or on your land. Our dooty to you andyour ladyship, and we will trust to you to do what is fair by us. Wewant no interlopers from Lunnon to get us into trouble with your honor, and--"

"You unmitigated cur, " exclaimed Trefusis fiercely, "what right have youto give away to his unborn children the liberty of your own?"

"They're not unborn, " said Lady Brandon indignantly. "That just showshow little you know about it. "

"No, nor mine either, " said the man, emboldened by her ladyship'ssupport. "And who are you that call me a cur?"

"Who am I! I am a rich man--one of your masters, and privileged to callyou what I please. You are a grovelling famine-broken slave. Now go andseek redress against me from the law. I can buy law enough to ruin youfor less money than it would cost me to shoot deer in Scotland or verminhere. How do you like that state of things? Eh?"

The man was taken aback. "Sir Charles will stand by me, " he said, aftera pause, with assumed confidence, but with an anxious glance at thebaronet. 

"If he does, after witnessing the return you have made me for standingby you, he is a greater fool than I take him to be. "

"Gently, gently, " said the clergyman. "There is much excuse to be madefor the poor fellow. "

"As gently as you please with any man that is a free man at heart, " saidTrefusis; "but slaves must be driven, and this fellow is a slave to themarrow. "

"Still, we must be patient. He does not know--"

"He knows a great deal better than you do, " said Lady Brandon, interrupting. "And the more shame for you, because you ought to knowbest. I suppose you were educated somewhere. You will not be satisfiedwith yourself when your bishop hears of this. Yes, " she added, turningto Trefusis with an infantile air of wanting to cry and being forcedto laugh against her will, "you may laugh as much as you please--don'ttrouble to pretend it's only coughing--but we will write to his bishop, as he shall find to his cost. "

"Hold your tongue, Jane, for God's sake, " said Sir Charles, taking herhorse by the bridle and backing him from Trefusis. 

"I will not. If you choose to stand here and allow them to walk awaywith the walls in their pockets, I don't, and won't. Why cannot you makethe police do something?"

"They can do nothing, " said Sir Charles, almost beside himself withhumiliation. "I cannot do anything until I see my solicitor. How can youbear to stay here wrangling with these fellows? It is SO undignified!"

"It's all very well to talk of dignity, but I don't see the dignity ofletting people trample on our grounds without leave. Mr. Smilash, will you make them all go away, and tell them that they shall all beprosecuted and put in prison?"

"They are going to the crossroads, to hold a public meeting and--ofcourse--make speeches. I am desired to say that they deeply regret thattheir demonstration should have disturbed you personally, Lady Brandon. "

"So they ought, " she replied. "They don't look very sorry. They aregetting frightened at what they have done, and they would be glad toescape the consequences by apologizing, most likely. But they shan't. Iam not such a fool as they think. "

"They don't think so. You have proved the contrary. "

"Jane, " said Sir Charles pettishly, "do you know this gentleman?"

"I should think I do, " said Lady Brandon emphatically. 

Trefusis bowed as if he had just been formally introduced to thebaronet, who, against his will, returned the salutation stiffly, unableto ignore an older, firmer, and quicker man under the circumstances. 

"This seems an unneighborly business, Sir Charles, " said Trefusis, quiteat his ease; "but as it is a public question, it need not prejudice ourprivate relations. At least I hope not. "

Sir Charles bowed again, more stiffly than before. 

"I am, like you, a capitalist and landlord. "

"Which it seems to me you have no right to be, if you are in earnest, "struck in Chester, who had been watching the scene in silence by SirCharles's side. 

"Which, as you say, I have undoubtedly no right to be, " said Trefusis, surveying him with interest; "but which I nevertheless cannot helpbeing. Have I the pleasure of speaking to Mr. Chichester Erskine, authorof a tragedy entitled 'The Patriot Martyrs, ' dedicated with enthusiasticdevotion to the Spirit of Liberty and half a dozen famous upholders ofthat principle, and denouncing in forcible language the tyranny of thelate Tsar of Russia, Bomba of Naples, and Napoleon the Third?"

"Yes, sir, " said Erskine, reddening; for he felt that this descriptionmight make his drama seem ridiculous to those present who had not readit. 

"Then, " said Trefusis, extending his hand--Erskine at first thought fora hearty shake--"give me half-a-crown towards the cost of our expeditionhere to-day to assert the right of the people to tread the soil we arestanding upon. "

"You shall do nothing of the sort, Chester, " cried Lady Brandon. "Inever heard of such a thing in my life! Do you pay us for the wall andfence your people have broken, Mr. Smilash; that would be more to thepurpose. "

"If I could find a thousand men as practical as you, Lady Brandon, I might accomplish the next great revolution before the end of thisseason. " He looked at her for a moment curiously, as if trying toremember; and then added inconsequently: "How are your friends? Therewas a Miss--Miss--I am afraid I have forgotten all the names except yourown. "

"Gertrude Lindsay is staying with us. Do you remember her?"

"I think--no, I am afraid I do not. Let me see. Was she a haughty younglady?"

"Yes, " said Lady Brandon eagerly, forgetting the wall and fence. "Butwho do you think is coming next Thursday? I met her accidentally thelast time I was in town. She's not a bit changed. You can't forget her, so don't pretend to be puzzled. "

"You have not told me who she is yet. And I shall probably not rememberher. You must not expect me to recognize everyone instantaneously, as Irecognized you. "

"What stuff! You will know Agatha fast enough. "

"Agatha Wylie!" he said, with sudden gravity. 

"Yes. She is coming on Thursday. Are you glad?"

"I fear I shall have no opportunity of seeing her. "

"Oh, of course you must see her. It will be so jolly for us all to meetagain just as we used. Why can't you come to luncheon on Thursday?"

"I shall be delighted, if you will really allow me to come after myconduct here. "

"The lawyers will settle that. Now that you have found out who we areyou will stop pulling down our walls, of course. "

"Of course, " said Trefusis, smiling, as he took out a pocket diary andentered the engagement. "I must hurry away to the crossroads. They haveprobably voted me into the chair by this time, and are waiting for meto open their meeting. Good-bye. You have made this place, which I wasgrowing tired of, unexpectedly interesting to me. "

They exchanged glances of the old college pattern. Then he nodded toSir Charles, waved his hand familiarly to Erskine, and followed theprocession, which was by this time out of sight. 

Sir Charles, who, waiting to speak, had been repeatedly baffled by thehasty speeches of his wife and the unhesitating replies of Trefusis, nowturned angrily upon her, saying:

"What do you mean by inviting that fellow to my house?"

"Your house, indeed! I will invite whom I please. You are getting intoone of your tempers. "

Sir Charles looked about him. Erskine had discreetly slipped away, andwas in the road, tightening a screw in his bicycle. The few persons whoremained were out of earshot. 

"Who and what the devil is he, and how do you come to know him?" hedemanded. He never swore in the presence of any lady except his wife, and then only when they were alone. 

"He is a gentleman, which is more than you are, " she retorted, and, witha cut of her whip that narrowly missed her husband's shoulder, sent thebay plunging through the gap. 

"Come along, " she said to Erskine. "We shall be late for luncheon. "

"Had we not better wait for Sir Charles?" he asked injudiciously. 

"Never mind Sir Charles, he is in the sulks, " she said, without abatingher voice. "Come along. " And she went off at a canter, Erskine followingher with a misgiving that his visit was unfortunately timed. 

CHAPTER XII

On the following Thursday Gertrude, Agatha, and Jane met for the firsttime since they had parted at Alton College. Agatha was the shyest ofthe three, and externally the least changed. She fancied herself verydifferent from the Agatha of Alton; but it was her opinion of herselfthat had altered, not her person. Expecting to find a correspondingalteration in her friends, she had looked forward to the meeting withmuch doubt and little hope of its proving pleasant. 

She was more anxious about Gertrude than about Jane, concerning whom, at a brief interview in London, she had already discovered that LadyBrandon's manner, mind, and speech were just what Miss Carpenter's hadbeen. But, even from Agatha, Jane commanded more respect than before, having changed from an overgrown girl into a fine woman, and made abrilliant match in her first season, whilst many of her pretty, proud, and clever contemporaries, whom she had envied at school, were stillunmarried, and were having their homes made uncomfortable by parentsanxious to get rid of the burthen of supporting them, and to profit inpurse or position by their marriages. 

This was Gertrude's case. Like Agatha, she had thrown away hermatrimonial opportunities. Proud of her rank and exclusiveness, she hadresolved to have as little as possible to do with persons who did notshare both with her. She began by repulsing the proffered acquaintanceof many families of great wealth and fashion, who either did not knowtheir grandparents or were ashamed of them. Having shut herself out oftheir circle, she was presented at court, and thenceforth accepted theinvitations of those only who had, in her opinion, a right to the samehonor. And she was far stricter on that point than the Lord Chamberlain, who had, she held, betrayed his trust by practically turning Leveller. She was well educated, refined in her manners and habits, skilled inetiquette to an extent irritating to the ignorant, and gifted witha delicate complexion, pearly teeth, and a face that would have beenGrecian but for a slight upward tilt of the nose and traces of a square, heavy type in the jaw. Her father was a retired admiral, with sufficientinfluence to have had a sinecure made by a Conservative governmentexpressly for the maintenance of his son pending alliance with someheiress. Yet Gertrude remained single, and the admiral, who had formerlyspent more money than he could comfortably afford on her education, and was still doing so upon her state and personal adornment, wascomplaining so unpleasantly of her failure to get taken off his hands, that she could hardly bear to live at home, and was ready to marry anythoroughbred gentleman, however unsuitable his age or character, whowould relieve her from her humiliating dependence. She was prepared tosacrifice her natural desire for youth, beauty, and virtue in a husbandif she could escape from her parents on no easier terms, but she wasresolved to die an old maid sooner than marry an upstart. 

The difficulty in her way was pecuniary. The admiral was poor. Hehad not quite six thousand a year, and though he practiced the utmosteconomy in order to keep up the most expensive habits, he could notafford to give his daughter a dowry. Now the well born bachelors ofher set, having more blue bood, but much less wealth, than they needed, admired her, paid her compliments, danced with her, but could not affordto marry her. Some of them even told her so, married rich daughters oftea merchants, iron founders, or successful stocktrokers, and then triedto make matches between her and their lowly born brothers-in-law. 

So, when Gertrude met Lady Brandon, her lot was secretly wretched, andshe was glad to accept an invitation to Brandon Beeches in order toescape for a while from the admiral's daily sarcasms on the marriagelist in the "Times. " The invitation was the more acceptable because SirCharles was no mushroom noble, and, in the schooldays which Gertrude nowremembered as the happiest of her life, she had acknowledged that Jane'sfamily and connections were more aristocratic than those of any otherstudent then at Alton, herself excepted. To Agatha, whose grandfatherhad amassed wealth as a proprietor of gasworks (novelties in his time), she had never offered her intimacy. Agatha had taken it by force, partlymoral, partly physical. But the gasworks were never forgotten, and whenLady Brandon mentioned, as a piece of delightful news, that she hadfound out their old school companion, and had asked her to join them, Gertrude was not quite pleased. Yet, when they met, her eyes were theonly wet ones there, for she was the least happy of the three, and, though she did not know it, her spirit was somewhat broken. Agatha, shethought, had lost the bloom of girlhood, but was bolder, stronger, and cleverer than before. Agatha had, in fact, summoned all herself-possession to hide her shyness. She detected the emotion ofGertrude, who at the last moment did not try to conceal it. It wouldhave been poured out freely in words, had Gertrude's social trainingtaught her to express her feelings as well as it had accustomed her todissemble them. 

"Do you remember Miss Wilson?" said Jane, as the three drove from therailway station to Brandon Beeches. "Do you remember Mrs. Miller andher cat? Do you remember the Recording Angel? Do you remember how I fellinto the canal?"

These reminiscences lasted until they reached the house and wenttogether to Agatha's room. Here Jane, having some orders to give inthe household, had to leave them--reluctantly; for she was jealouslest Gertrude should get the start of her in the renewal of Agatha'saffection. She even tried to take her rival away with her; but in vain. Gertrude would not budge. 

"What a beautiful house and splendid place!" said Agatha when Jane wasgone. "And what a nice fellow Sir Charles is! We used to laugh at Jane, but she can afford to laugh at the luckiest of us now. I always said shewould blunder into the best of everything. Is it true that she marriedin her first season?"

"Yes. And Sir Charles is a man of great culture. I cannot understand it. Her size is really beyond everything, and her manners are bad. "

"Hm!" said Agatha with a wise air. "There was always something aboutJane that attracted men. And she is more knave than fool. But she iscertainly a great ass. "

Gertrude looked serious, to imply that she had grown out of the habitof using or listening to such language. Agatha, stimulated by this, continued:

"Here are you and I, who consider ourselves twice as presentable andconversable as she, two old maids. " Gertrude winced, and Agatha hastenedto add: "Why, as for you, you are perfectly lovely! And she has asked usdown expressly to marry us. "

"She would not presume--"

"Nonsense, my dear Gertrude. She thinks that we are a couple of foolswho have mismanaged our own business, and that she, having managed sowell for herself, can settle us in a jiffy. Come, did she not say toyou, before I came, that it was time for me to be getting married?"

"Well, she did. But--"

"She said exactly the same thing to me about you when she invited me. "

"I would leave her house this moment, " said Gertrude, "if I thought shedared meddle in my affairs. What is it to her whether I am married ornot?"

"Where have you been living all these years, if you do not know that thevery first thing a woman wants to do when she has made a good match isto make ones for all her spinster friends. Jane does not mean any harm. She does it out of pure benevolence. "

"I do not need Jane's benevolence. "

"Neither do I; but it doesn't do any harm, and she is welcome to amuseherself by trotting out her male acquaintances for my approval. Hush!Here she comes. "

Gertrude subsided. She could not quarrel with Lady Brandon withoutleaving the house, and she could not leave the house without returningto her home. But she privately resolved to discourage the attentionsof Erskine, suspecting that instead of being in love with her as hepretended, he had merely been recommended by Jane to marry her. 

Chichester Erskine had made sketches in Palestine with Sir Charles, andhad tramped with him through many European picture galleries. He was ayoung man of gentle birth, and had inherited fifteen hundred a year fromhis mother, the bulk of the family property being his elder brother's. Having no profession, and being fond of books and pictures, he haddevoted himself to fine art, a pursuit which offered him on the cheapestterms a high opinion of the beauty and capacity of his own nature. Hehad published a tragedy entitled, "The Patriot Martyrs, " with an etchedfrontispiece by Sir Charles, and an edition of it had been speedilydisposed of in presentations to the friends of the artist and poet, and to the reviews and newspapers. Sir Charles had asked an eminenttragedian of his acquaintance to place the work on the stage and toenact one of the patriot martyrs. But the tragedian had objected thatthe other patriot martyrs had parts of equal importance to that proposedfor him. Erskine had indignantly refused to cut these parts down or out, and so the project had fallen through. 

Since then Erskine had been bent on writing another drama, withoutregard to the exigencies of the stage, but he had not yet begun it, inconsequence of his inspiration coming upon him at inconvenient hours, chiefly late at night, when he had been drinking, and had leisure forsonnets only. The morning air and bicycle riding were fatal to thevein in which poetry struck him as being worth writing. In spite of thebicycle, however, the drama, which was to be entitled "Hypatia, " wasnow in a fair way to be written, for the poet had met and fallen in lovewith Gertrude Lindsay, whose almost Grecian features, and some knowledgeof the different calculua which she had acquired at Alton, helped him tobelieve that she was a fit model for his heroine. 

When the ladies came downstairs they found their host and Erskine in thepicture gallery, famous in the neighborhood for the sum it had cost SirCharles. There was a new etching to be admired, and they were called onto observe what the baronet called its tones, and what Agatha would havecalled its degrees of smudginess. Sir Charles's attention often wanderedfrom this work of art. He looked at his watch twice, and said to hiswife:

"I have ordered them to be punctual with the luncheon. "

"Oh, yes; it's all right, " said Lady Brandon, who had given orders thatluncheon was not to be served until the arrival of another gentleman. "Show Agatha the picture of the man in the--"

"Mr. Trefusis, " said a servant. 

Mr. Trefusis, still in snuff color, entered; coat unbuttoned andattention unconstrained; exasperatingly unconscious of any occasion forceremony. 

"Here you are at last, " said Lady Brandon. "You know everybody, don'tyou?"

"How do you do?" said Sir Charles, offering his hand as a severeexpression of his duty to his wife's guest, who took it cordially, nodded to Erskine, looked without recognition at Gertrude, whose frostystillness repudiated Lady Brandon's implication that the stranger wasacquainted with her, and turned to Agatha, to whom he bowed. She made nosign; she was paralyzed. Lady Brandon reddened with anger. Sir Charlesnoted his guest's reception with secret satisfaction, but shared theembarrassment which oppressed all present except Trefusis, who seemedquite indifferent and assured, and unconsciously produced an impressionthat the others had not been equal to the occasion, as indeed they hadnot. 

"We were looking at some etchings when you came in, " said Sir Charles, hastening to break the silence. "Do you care for such things?" And hehanded him a proof. 

Trefusis looked at it as if he had never seen such a thing before anddid not quite know what to make of it. "All these scratches seem to meto have no meaning, " he said dubiously. 

Sir Charles stole a contemptuous smile and significant glance atErskine. He, seized already with an instinctive antipathy to Trefusis, said emphatically:

"There is not one of those scratches that has not a meaning. "

"That one, for instance, like the limb of a daddy-long-legs. What doesthat mean?"

Erskine hesitated a moment; recovered himself; and said: "Obviouslyenough--to me at least--it indicates the marking of the roadway. "

"Not a bit of it, " said Trefusis. "There never was such a mark as thaton a road. It may be a very bad attempt at a briar, but briars don'tstraggle into the middle of roads frequented as that one seems tobe--judging by those overdone ruts. " He put the etching away, showing nodisposition to look further into the portfolio, and remarked, "The onlyart that interests me is photography. "

Erskine and Sir Charles again exchanged glances, and the former said:

"Photography is not an art in the sense in which I understand the term. It is a process. "

"And a much less troublesome and more perfect process than that, " saidTrefusis, pointing to the etching. "The artists are sticking to the oldbarbarous, difficult, and imperfect processes of etching and portraitpainting merely to keep up the value of their monopoly of the requiredskill. They have left the new, more complexly organized, and moreperfect, yet simple and beautiful method of photography in the handsof tradesmen, sneering at it publicly and resorting to its aidsurreptitiously. The result is that the tradesmen are becoming betterartists than they, and naturally so; for where, as in photography, the drawing counts for nothing, the thought and judgment count foreverything; whereas in the etching and daubing processes, where greatmanual skill is needed to produce anything that the eye can endure, theexecution counts for more than the thought, and if a fellow only fitto carry bricks up a ladder or the like has ambition and perseveranceenough to train his hand and push into the van, you cannot afford to puthim back into his proper place, because thoroughly trained hands areso scarce. Consider the proof of this that you have in literature. Ourbooks are manually the work of printers and papermakers; you may cutan author's hand off and he is as good an author as before. What is theresult? There is more imagination in any number of a penny journal thanin half-a-dozen of the Royal Academy rooms in the season. No authorcan live by his work and be as empty-headed as an average successfulpainter. Again, consider our implements of music--our pianofortes, forexample. Nobody but an acrobat will voluntarily spend years at such adifficult mechanical puzzle as the keyboard, and so we have to take ourimpressions of Beethoven's sonatas from acrobats who vie with each otherin the rapidity of their prestos, or the staying power of theirleft wrists. Thoughtful men will not spend their lives acquiringsleight-of-hand. Invent a piano which will respond as delicately tothe turning of a handle as our present ones do to the pressure of thefingers, and the acrobats will be driven back to their carpets andtrapezes, because the sole faculty necessary to the executant musicianwill be the musical faculty, and no other will enable him to obtain ahearing. "

The company were somewhat overcome by this unexpected lecture. SirCharles, feeling that such views bore adversely on him, and were somehowiconoclastic and low-lived, was about to make a peevish retort, whenErskine forestalled him by asking Trefusis what idea he had formed ofthe future of the arts. He replied promptly. "Photography perfectedin its recently discovered power of reproducing color as well as form!Historical pictures replaced by photographs of tableaux vivants formedand arranged by trained actors and artists, and used chiefly for theinstruction of children. Nine-tenths of painting as we understand it atpresent extinguished by the competition of these photographs, andthe remaining tenth only holding its own against them by dint ofextraordinary excellence! Our mistuned and unplayable organs andpianofortes replaced by harmonious instruments, as manageable asbarrel organs! Works of fiction superseded by interesting companyand conversation, and made obsolete by the human mind outgrowing thechildishness that delights in the tales told by grownup children such asnovelists and their like! An end to the silly confusion, under the onename of Art, of the tomfoolery and make-believe of our play-hours withthe higher methods of teaching men to know themselves! Every artist anamateur, and a consequent return to the healthy old disposition to lookon every man who makes art a means of money-getting as a vagabond not tobe entertained as an equal by honest men!"

"In which case artists will starve, and there will be no more art. "

"Sir, " said Trefusis, excited by the word, "I, as a Socialist, can tellyou that starvation is now impossible, except where, as in England, masterless men are forcibly prevented from producing the food theyneed. And you, as an artist, can tell me that at present great artistsinvariably do starve, except when they are kept alive by charity, private fortune, or some drudgery which hinders them in the pursuit oftheir vocation. "

"Oh!" said Erskine. "Then Socialists have some little sympathy withartists after all. "

"I fear, " said Trefusis, repressing himself and speaking quietly again, "that when a Socialist hears of a hundred pounds paid for a drawingwhich Andrea del Sarto was glad to sell for tenpence, his heart is notwrung with pity for the artist's imaginary loss as that of a moderncapitalist is. Yet that is the only way nowadays of enlisting sympathyfor the old masters. Frightful disability, to be out of the reach ofthe dearest market when you want to sell your drawings! But, " he added, giving himself a shake, and turning round gaily, "I did not come hereto talk shop. So--pending the deluge--let us enjoy ourselves after ourmanner. "

"No, " said Jane. "Please go on about Art. It's such a relief to hearanyone talking sensibly about it. I hate etching. It makes your eyessore--at least the acid gets into Sir Charles's, and the differencebetween the first and second states is nothing but imagination, exceptthat the last state is worse than the--here's luncheon!"

They went downstairs then. Trefusis sat between Agatha and Lady Brandon, to whom he addressed all his conversation. They chatted without muchinterruption from the business of the table; for Jane, despite heramplitude, had a small appetite, and was fearful of growing fat; whilstTrefusis was systematically abstemious. Sir Charles was unusuallysilent. He was afraid to talk about art, lest he should be contradictedby Trefusis, who, he already felt, cared less and perhaps knew moreabout it than he. Having previously commented to Agatha on the beauty ofthe ripening spring, and inquired whether her journey had fatigued her, he had said as much as he could think of at a first meeting. For herpart, she was intent on Trefusis, who, though he must know, she thought, that they were all hostile to him except Jane, seemed as confident nowas when he had befooled her long ago. That thought set her teeth onedge. She did not doubt the sincerity of her antipathy to him even whenshe detected herself in the act of protesting inwardly that she was notglad to meet him again, and that she would not speak to him. Gertrude, meanwhile, was giving short answers to Erskine and listening toTrefusis. She had gathered from the domestic squabbles of the lastfew days that Lady Brandon, against her husband's will, had invited anotorious demagogue, the rich son of a successful cotton-spinner, tovisit the Beeches. She had made up her mind to snub any such man. But onrecognizing the long-forgotten Smilash, she had been astonished, andhad not known what to do. So, to avoid doing anything improper, she hadstood stilly silent and done nothing, as the custom of English ladies insuch cases is. Subsequently, his unconscious self-assertion had wroughtwith her as with the others, and her intention of snubbing him had fadedinto the limbo of projects abandoned without trial. Erskine alone wasfree from the influence of the intruder. He wished himself elsewhere;but beside Gertrude the presence or absence of any other person troubledhim very little. 

"How are the Janseniuses?" said Trefusis, suddenly turning to Agatha. 

"They are quite well, thank you, " she said in measured tones. 

"I met John Jansenius in the city lately. You know Jansenius?" he addedparenthetically to Sir Charles. "Cotman's bank--the last Cotman diedout of the firm before we were born. The Chairman of the TranscanadianRailway Company. "

"I know the name. I am seldom in the city. "

"Naturally, " assented Trefusis; "for who would sadden himself by pushinghis way through a crowd of such slaves, if he could help it? I meanslaves of Mammon, of course. To run the gauntlet of their faces inCornhill is enough to discourage a thoughtful man for hours. Well, Jansenius, being high in the court of Mammon, is looking out for a goodpost in the household for his son. Jansenius, by-the-bye is Miss Wylie'sguardian and the father of my late wife. "

Agatha felt inclined to deny this; but, as it was true, she had toforbear. Resolved to show that the relations between her family andTrefusis were not cordial ones, she asked deliberately, "Did Mr. Jansenius speak to you?"

Gertrude looked up, as if she thought this scarcely ladylike. 

"Yes, " said Trefusis. "We are the best friends in the world--as good aspossible, at any rate. He wanted me to subscribe to a fund for relievingthe poor at the east end of London by assisting them to emigrate. "

"I presume you subscribed liberally, " said Erskine. "It was anopportunity of doing some practical good. "

"I did not, " said Trefusis, grinning at the sarcasm. "This TranscanadianRailway Company, having got a great deal of spare land from the Canadiangovernment for nothing, thought it would be a good idea to settleBritish workmen on it and screw rent out of them. Plenty of Britishworkmen, supplanted in their employment by machinery, or cheap foreignlabor, or one thing or another, were quite willing to go; but as theycouldn't afford to pay their passages to Canada, the Company appealedto the benevolent to pay for them by subscription, as the change wouldimprove their miserable condition. I did not see why I should pay toprovide a rich company with tenant farmers, and I told Jansenius so. He remarked that when money and not talk was required, the workmen ofEngland soon found out who were their real friends. "

"I know nothing about these questions, " said Sir Charles, with an airof conclusiveness; "but I see no objection to emigration. " "The factis, " said Trefusis, "the idea of emigration is a dangerous one for us. Familiarize the workman with it, and some day he may come to see what acapital thing it would be to pack off me, and you, with the peerage, and the whole tribe of unprofitable proprietors such as we are, to St. Helena; making us a handsome present of the island by way of indemnity!We are such a restless, unhappy lot, that I doubt whether it would notprove a good thing for us too. The workmen would lose nothing but thecontemplation of our elegant persons, exquisite manners, and refinedtastes. They might provide against that loss by picking out a few ofus to keep for ornament's sake. No nation with a sense of beauty wouldbanish Lady Brandon, or Miss Lindsay, or Miss Wylie. "

"Such nonsense!" said Jane. 

"You would hardly believe how much I have spent in sending workmen outof the country against my own view of the country's interest, " continuedTrefusis, addressing Erskine. "When I make a convert among the workingclasses, the first thing he does is to make a speech somewhere declaringhis new convictions. His employer immediately discharges him--'giveshim the sack' is the technical phrase. The sack is the sword of thecapitalist, and hunger keeps it sharp for him. His shield is the law, made for the purpose by his own class. Thus equipped, he gives the worstof it to my poor convert, who comes ruined to me for assistance. As Icannot afford to pension him for life, I get rid of him by assisting himto emigrate. Sometimes he prospers and repays me; sometimes I hear nomore of him; sometimes he comes back with his habits unsettled. Oneman whom I sent to America made his fortune, but he was not a socialdemocrat; he was a clerk who had embezzled, and who applied to me forassistance under the impression that I considered it rather meritoriousto rob the till of a capitalist. "

"He was a practical Socialist, in fact, " said Erskine. 

"On the contrary, he was a somewhat too grasping Individualist. Howbeit, I enabled him to make good his defalcation--in the city they consider adefalcation made good when the money is replaced--and to go to New York. I recommended him not to go there; but he knew better than I, forhe made a fortune by speculating with money that existed only in theimagination of those with whom he dealt. He never repaid me; he isprobably far too good a man of business to pay money that cannot beextracted from him by an appeal to the law or to his commercial credit. Mr. Erskine, " added Trefusis, lowering his voice, and turning to thepoet, "you are wrong to take part with hucksters and money-huntersagainst your own nature, even though the attack upon them is led by aman who prefers photography to etching. "

"But I assure you--You quite mistake me, " said Erskine, taken aback. "I--"

He stopped, looked to Sir Charles for support, and then said airily:"I don't doubt that you are quite right. I hate business and men ofbusiness; and as to social questions, I have only one article of belief, which is, that the sole refiner of human nature is fine art. "

"Whereas I believe that the sole refiner of art is human nature. Artrises when men rise, and grovels when men grovel. What is your opinion?"

"I agree with you in many ways, " replied Sir Charles nervously; for alack of interest in his fellow-creatures, and an excess of interest inhimself, had prevented him from obtaining that power of dealing withsocial questions which, he felt, a baronet ought to possess, and hewas consequently afraid to differ from anyone who alluded to them withconfidence. "If you take an interest in art, I believe I can show you afew things worth seeing. "

"Thank you. In return I will some day show you a remarkable collectionof photographs I possess; many of them taken by me. I venture to thinkthey will teach you something. "

"No doubt, " said Sir Charles. "Shall we return to the gallery? I have afew treasures there that photography is not likely to surpass for sometime yet. "

"Let's go through the conservatory, " said Jane. "Don't you like flowers, Mr. Smi--I never can remember your proper name. "

"Extremely, " said Trefusis. 

They rose and went out into a long hothouse. Here Lady Brandon, findingErskine at her side, and Sir Charles before her with Gertrude, looked round for Trefusis, with whom she intended to enjoy a triflingflirtation under cover of showing him the flowers. He was out of sight;but she heard his footsteps in the passage on the opposite side of thegreenhouse. Agatha was also invisible. Jane, not daring to rearrangetheir procession lest her design should become obvious, had to walk onwith Erskine. 

Agatha had turned unintentionally into the opposite alley to that whichthe others had chosen. When she saw what she had done, and found herselfvirtually alone with Trefusis, who had followed her, she blamed him forit, and was about to retrace her steps when he said coolly:

"Were you shocked when you heard of Henrietta's sudden death?"

Agatha struggled with herself for a moment, and then said in asuppressed voice: "How dare you speak to me?"

"Why not?" said he, astonished. 

"I am not going to enter into a discussion with you. You know what Imean very well. "

"You mean that you are offended with me; that is plain enough. But whenI part with a young lady on good terms, and after a lapse of years, during which we neither meet nor correspond, she asks me how I darespeak to her, I am naturally startled. "

"We did not part on good terms. "

Trefusis stretched his eyebrows, as if to stretch his memory. "If not, "he said, "I have forgotten it, on my honor. When did we part, andwhat happened? It cannot have been anything very serious, or I shouldremember it. "

His forgetfulness wounded Agatha. "No doubt you are well accustomedto--" She checked herself, and made a successful snatch at her normalmanner with gentlemen. "I scarcely remember what it was, now that Ibegin to think. Some trifle, I suppose. Do you like orchids?"

"They have nothing to do with our affairs at present. You are not inearnest about the orchids, and you are trying to run away from a mistakeinstead of clearing it up. That is a short-sighted policy, always. "

Agatha grew alarmed, for she felt his old influence over her returning. "I do not wish to speak of it, " she said firmly. 

Her firmness was lost on him. "I do not even know what it means yet, " hesaid, "and I want to know, for I believe there is some misunderstandingbetween us, and it is the trick of your sex to perpetuatemisunderstandings by forbidding all allusions to them. Perhaps, leavingLyvern so hastily, I forgot to fulfil some promise, or to say farewell, or something of that sort. But do you know how suddenly I was calledaway? I got a telegram to say that Henrietta was dying, and I had onlytime to change my clothes--you remember my disguise--and catch theexpress. And, after all, she was dead when I arrived. "

"I know that, " said Agatha uneasily. "Please say no more about it. "

"Not if it distresses you. Just let me hope that you did not suppose Iblamed you for your share in the matter or that I told the Janseniusesof it. I did not. Yes, I like orchids. A plant that can subsist on ascrap of board is an instance of natural econ--"

"YOU blame ME!" cried Agatha. "_I_ never told the Janseniuses. Whatwould they have thought of you if I had?"

"Far worse of you than of me, however unjustly. You were the immediatecause of the tragedy; I only the remote one. Jansenius is not far-seeingwhen his feelings are touched. Few men are. "

"I don't understand you in the least. What tragedy do you mean?"

"Henrietta's death. I call it a tragedy conventionally. Seriously, ofcourse, it was commonplace enough. "

Agatha stopped and faced him. "What do you mean by what you said justnow? You said that I was the immediate cause of the tragedy, and you saythat you were talking of Henrietta's--of Henrietta. I had nothing to dowith her illness. "

Trefusis looked at her as if considering whether he would go anyfurther. Then, watching her with the curiosity of a vivisector, he said:"Strange to say, Agatha, " (she shrank proudly at the word), "Henriettamight have been alive now but for you. I am very glad she is not; so youneed not reproach yourself on my account. She died of a journey shemade to Lyvern in great excitement and distress, and in intensely coldweather. You caused her to make that journey by writing her a letterwhich made her jealous. "

"Do you mean to accuse me--"

"No; stop!" he said hastily, the vivisecting spirit in him exorcisedby her shaking voice; "I accuse you of nothing. Why do you not speakhonestly to me when you are at your ease? If you confess your realthoughts only under torture, who can resist the temptation to tortureyou? One must charge you with homicide to make you speak of anything butorchids. "

But Agatha had drawn the new inference from the old facts, and would notbe talked out of repudiating it. "It was not my fault, " she said. "Itwas yours--altogether yours. "

"Altogether, " he assented, relieved to find her indignant instead ofremorseful. 

She was not to be soothed by a verbal acquiescence. "Your behaviorwas most unmanly, and I told you so, and you could not deny it. Youpretended that you--You pretended to have feelings--You tried to makeme believe that Oh, I am a fool to talk to you; you know perfectly wellwhat I mean. "

"Perfectly. I tried to make you believe that I was in love with you. Howdo you know I was not?"

She disdained to answer; but as he waited calmly she said, "You had noright to be. "

"That does not prove that I was not. Come, Agatha, you pretended to likeme when you did not care two straws about me. You confessed as much inthat fatal letter, which I have somewhere at home. It has a great rentright across it, and the mark of her heel; she must have stamped on itin her rage, poor girl! So that I can show your own hand for the verydeception you accused me--without proof--of having practiced on you. "

"You are clever, and can twist things. What pleasure does it give you tomake me miserable?"

"Ha!" he exclaimed, in an abrupt, sardonic laugh. "I don't know; youbewitch me, I think. "

Agatha made no reply, but walked on quickly to the end of theconservatory, where the others were waiting for them. 

"Where have you been, and what have you been doing all this time?" saidJane, as Trefusis came up, hurrying after Agatha. "I don't know what youcall it, but I call it perfectly disgraceful!"

Sir Charles reddened at his wife's bad taste, and Trefusis repliedgravely: "We have been admiring the orchids, and talking about them. Miss Wylie takes an interest in them. "

CHAPTER XIII

One morning Gertrude got a letter from her father:

"My Dear Gerty: I have just received a bill for L110 from Madame Smithfor your dresses. May I ask you how long this sort of thing is to goon? I need not tell you that I have not the means to support you in suchextravagance. I am, as you know, always anxious that you should go aboutin a style worthy of your position, but unless you can manage withoutcalling on me to pay away hundreds of pounds every season to MadameSmith, you had better give up society and stay at home. I positivelycannot afford it. As far as I can see, going into society has not doneyou much good. I had to raise L500 last month on Franklands; and it istoo bad if I must raise more to pay your dressmaker. You might at leastemploy some civil person, or one whose charges are moderate. MadameSmith tells me that she will not wait any longer, and charges L50 for asingle dress. I hope you fully understand that there must be an end tothis. 

"I hear from your mother that young Erskine is with you at Brandon's. Ido not think much of him. He is not well off, nor likely to get on, ashe has taken to poetry and so forth. I am told also that a man namedTrefusis visits at the Beeches a good deal now. He must be a fool, forhe contested the last Birmingham election, and came out at the foot ofthe poll with thirty-two votes through calling himself a Social Democrator some such foreign rubbish, instead of saying out like a man that hewas a Radical. I suppose the name stuck in his throat, for his motherwas one of the Howards of Breconcastle; so he has good blood in him, though his father was nobody. I wish he had your bills to pay; he couldbuy and sell me ten times over, after all my twenty-five years' service. 

"As I am thinking of getting something done to the house, I had ratheryou did not come back this month, if you can possibly hold on atBrandon's. Remember me to him, and give our kind regards to his wife. Ishould be obliged if you would gather some hemlock leaves and send themto me. I want them for my ointment; the stuff the chemists sell is nogood. Your mother's eyes are bad again; and your brother Berkeley hasbeen gambling, and seems to think I ought to pay his debts for him. Iam greatly worried over it all, and I hope that, until you have settledyourself, you will be more reasonable, and not run these everlastingbills upon me. You are enjoying yourself out of reach of all theunpleasantness; but it bears hardly upon

"Your affectionate father, "C. B. LINDSAY. "

A faint sketch of the lines Time intended to engrave on Gertrude's browappeared there as she read the letter; but she hastened to give theadmiral's kind regards to her host and hostess, and discussed hermother's health feelingly with them. After breakfast she went to thelibrary, and wrote her reply:

"BRANDON BEECHES, "Tuesday. 

"Dear Papa: Considering that it is more than three years since youpaid Madame Smith last, and that then her bill, which included my courtdress, was only L150, I cannot see how I could possibly have been moreeconomical, unless you expect me to go in rags. I am sorry that MadameSmith has asked for the money at such an inconvenient time, but when Ibegged you to pay her something in March last year you told me to keepher quiet by giving her a good order. I am not surprised at her notbeing very civil, as she has plenty of tradesmen's daughters among hercustomers who pay her more than L300 a year for their dresses. I amwearing a skirt at present which I got two years ago. 

"Sir Charles is going to town on Thursday; he will bring you thehemlock. Tell mamma that there is an old woman here who knows somewonderful cure for sore eyes. She will not tell what the ingredientsare, but it cures everyone, and there is no use in giving an oculist twoguineas for telling us that reading in bed is bad for the eyes, whenwe know perfectly well that mamma will not give up doing it. If you payBerkeley's debts, do not forget that he owes me L3. 

"Another schoolfellow of mine is staying here now, and I think that Mr. Trefusis will have the pleasure of paying her bills some day. He is agreat pet of Lady Brandon's. Sir Charles was angry at first because sheinvited him here, and we were all surprised at it. The man has a badreputation, and headed a mob that threw down the walls of the park; andwe hardly thought he would be cool enough to come after that. But hedoes not seem to care whether we want him or not; and he comes when helikes. As he talks cleverly, we find him a godsend in this dull place. It is really not such a paradise as you seem to think, but you need notbe afraid of my returning any sooner than I can help. 

"Your affectionate daughter, "Gertrude Lindsay. "

When Gertrude had closed this letter, and torn up her father's, shethought little more about either. They might have made her unhappy hadthey found her happy, but as hopeless discontent was her normal state, and enjoyment but a rare accident, recriminatory passages withher father only put her into a bad humor, and did not in the leastdisappoint or humiliate her. 

For the sake of exercise, she resolved to carry her letter to thevillage post office and return along the Riverside Road, whereby she hadseen hemlock growing. She took care to go out unobserved, lest Agathashould volunteer to walk with her, or Jane declare her intention ofdriving to the post office in the afternoon, and sulk for the rest ofthe day unless the trip to the village were postponed until then. Shetook with her, as a protection against tramps, a big St. Bernard dognamed Max. This animal, which was young and enthusiastic, had taken astrong fancy to her, and had expressed it frankly and boisterously; andshe, whose affections had been starved in her home and in society, hadencouraged him with more kindness than she had ever shown to any humanbeing. 

In the village, having posted her letter, she turned towards a lane thatled to the Riverside Road. Max, unaware of her reason for choosing thelongest way home, remonstrated by halting in the middle of the lane, wagging his tail rapidly, and uttering gruff barks. 

"Don't be stupid, sir, " said Gertrude impatiently. "I am going thisway. "

Max, apparently understanding, rushed after her, passed her, anddisappeared in a cloud of dust raised by his effort to check himselfwhen he had left her far enough behind. When he came back she kissedhis nose, and ran a race with him until she too was panting, and hadto stand still to recover her breath, whilst he bounded about, barkingferociously. She had not for many years enjoyed such a frolic, and thethought of this presently brought tears to her eyes. Rather peevishlyshe bade Max be quiet, walked slowly to cool herself, and put up hersunshade to avert freckles. 

The sun was now at the meridian. On a slope to Gertrude's right hand, Sallust's House, with its cinnamon-colored walls and yellow frieze, gavea foreign air to the otherwise very English landscape. She passed bywithout remembering who lived there. Further down, on some waste landseparated from the road by a dry ditch and a low mud wall, a cluster ofhemlocks, nearly six feet high, poisoned the air with their odor. Shecrossed the ditch, took a pair of gardening gloves from her plaitedstraw hand-basket, and busied herself with the hemlock leaves, pullingthe tender ones, separating them from the stalk, and filling the basketwith the web. She forgot Max until an impression of dead silence, asif the earth had stopped, caused her to look round in vague dread. Trefusis, with his hand abandoned to the dog, who was trying how much ofit he could cram into his mouth, was standing within a few yards of her, watching her intently. Gertrude turned pale, and came out hastily fromamong the bushes. Then she had a strange sensation as if somethinghad happened high above her head. There was a threatening growl, acommanding exclamation, and an unaccountable pause, at the expirationof which she found herself supine on the sward, with her parasol betweenher eyes and the sun. A sudden scoop of Max's wet warm tongue in herright ear startled her into activity. She sat up, and saw Trefusison his knees at her side holding the parasol with an unconcernedexpression, whilst Max was snuffing at her in restless anxiety opposite. 

"I must go home, " she said. "I must go home instantly. "

"Not at all, " said Trefusis, soothingly. "They have just sent word tosay that everything is settled satisfactorily and that you need notcome. "

"Have they?" she said faintly. Then she lay down again, and it seemed toher that a very long time elapsed. Suddenly recollecting that Trefusishad supported her gently with his hand to prevent her falling back toorudely, she rose again, and this time got upon her feet with his help. 

"I must go home, " she said again. "It is a matter of life or death. "

"No, no, " he said softly. "It is all right. You may depend on me. "

She looked at him earnestly. He had taken her hand to steady her, forshe was swaying a little. "Are you sure, " she said, grasping his arm. "Are you quite sure?"

"Absolutely certain. You know I am always right, do you not?"

"Yes, oh, yes; you have always been true to me. You--" Here her sensescame back with a rush. Dropping his hand as if it had become red hot, she said sharply, "What are you talking about?"

"I don't know, " he said, resuming his indifferent manner with a laugh. "Are you better? Let me drive you to the Beeches. My stable is within astone's throw; I can get a trap out in ten minutes. "

"No, thank you, " said Gertrude haughtily. "I do not wish to drive. " Shepaused, and added in some bewilderment, "What has happened?"

"You fainted, and--"

"I did not faint, " said Gertrude indignantly. "I never fainted in mylife. "

"Yes, you did. "

"Pardon me, Mr. Trefusis. I did not. "

"You shall judge for yourself. I was coming through this field whenI saw you gathering hemlock. Hemlock is interesting on account ofSocrates, and you were interesting as a young lady gathering poison. SoI stopped to look on. Presently you came out from among the bushes as ifyou had seen a snake there. Then you fell into my arms--which led meto suppose that you had fainted--and Max, concluding that it was all myfault, nearly sprang at my throat. You were overpowered by the scent ofthe water-hemlock, which you must have been inhaling for ten minutes ormore. "

"I did not know that there was any danger, " said Gertrude, crestfallen. "I felt very tired when I came to. That was why I lay so long the secondtime. I really could not help it. "

"You did not lie very long. "

"Not when I first fell; that was only a few seconds, I know. But I musthave lain there nearly ten minutes after I recovered. "

"You were nearly a minute insensible when you first fell, and when yourecovered you only rested for about one second. After that you raved, and I invented suitable answers until you suddenly asked me what I wastalking about. "

Gertrude reddened a little as the possibility of her having ravedindiscreetly occurred to her. "It was very silly of me to faint, " shesaid. 

"You could not help it; you are only human. I shall walk with you to theBeeches. "

"Thank you; I will not trouble you, " she said quickly. 

He shook his head. "I do not know how long the effect of that abominablewater-weed may last, " he said, "and I dare not leave you to walk alone. If you prefer it I can send you in a trap with my gardener, but I hadrather accompany you myself. "

"You are giving yourself a great deal of unnecessary trouble. I willwalk. I am quite well again and need no assistance. "

They started without another word. Gertrude had to concentrate all herenergy to conceal from him that she was giddy. Numbness and lassitudecrept upon her, and she was beginning to hope that she was only dreamingit all when he roused her by saying, "Take my arm. "

"No, thank you. "

"Do not be so senselessly obstinate. You will have to lean on thehedge for support if you refuse my help. I am sorry I did not insist ongetting the trap. "

Gertrude had not been spoken to in this tone since her childhood. "I amperfectly well, " she said sharply. "You are really very officious. "

"You are not perfectly well, and you know it. However, if you makea brave struggle, you will probably be able to walk home without myassistance, and the effort may do you good. "

"You are very rude, " she said peremptorily. 

"I know it, " he replied calmly. "You will find three classes of menpolite to you--slaves, men who think much of their manners and nothingof you, and your lovers. I am none of these, and therefore give you backyour ill manners with interest. Why do you resist your good angel bysuppressing those natural and sincere impulses which come to you oftenenough, and sometimes bring a look into your face that might tame abear--a look which you hasten to extinguish as a thief darkens hislantern at the sound of a footstep. "

"Mr. Trefusis, I am not accustomed to be lectured. "

"That is why I lecture you. I felt curious to see how your goodbreeding, by which I think you set some store, would serve you inentirely novel circumstances--those of a man speaking his mind to you, for instance. What is the result of my experiment? Instead of rebukingme with the sweetness and dignity which I could not, in spite of my pastobservation, help expecting from you, you churlishly repel my offer ofthe assistance you need, tell me that I am very rude, very officious, and, in short, do what you can to make my position disagreeable andhumiliating. "

She looked at him haughtily, but his expression was void of offence orfear, and he continued, unanswered. 

"I would bear all this from a working woman without remonstrance, forshe would owe me no graces of manner or morals. But you are a lady. That means that many have starved and drudged in uncleanly discomfortin order that you may have white and unbroken hands, fine garments, andexquisite manners--that you may be a living fountain of those influencesthat soften our natures and lives. When such a costly thing as a ladybreaks down at the first touch of a firm hand, I feel justified incomplaining. "

Gertrude walked on quickly, and said between her teeth, "I don't want tohear any of your absurd views, Mr. Trefusis. "

He laughed. "My unfortunate views!" he said. "Whenever I make aninconvenient remark it is always set aside as an expression of certaindangerous crazes with which I am supposed to be afflicted. When I pointout to Sir Charles that one of his favorite artists has not accuratelyobserved something before attempting to draw it, he replies, 'You knowour views differ on these things, Trefusis. ' When I told Miss Wylie'sguardian that his emigration scheme was little better than a fraud, hesaid, 'You must excuse me, but I cannot enter into your peculiar views. 'One of my views at present is that Miss Lindsay is more amiable underthe influence of hemlock than under that of the social system which hasmade her so unhappy. "

"Well!" exclaimed Gertrude, outraged. Then, after a pause, "I was underthe impression that I had accepted the escort of a gentleman. " Then, after another pause, Trefusis being quite undisturbed, "How do you knowthat I am unhappy?"

"By a certain defect in your countenance, which lacks the crowningbeauty of happiness; and a certain defect in your voice which will neverdisappear until you learn to love or pity those to whom you speak. "

"You are wrong, " said Gertrude, with calm disdain. "You do notunderstand me in the least. I am particularly attached to my friends. "

"Then I have never seen you in their company. "

"You are still wrong. "

"Then how can you speak as you do, look as you do, act as you do?"

"What do you mean? HOW do I look and act?"

"Like one of the railings of Belgrave Square, cursed with consciousnessof itself, fears of the judgment of the other railings, and doubtsof their fitness to stand in the same row with it. You are cold, mistrustful, cruel to nervous or clumsy people, and more afraid ofthe criticisms of those with whom you dance and dine than of yourconscience. All of which prevents you from looking like an angel. "

"Thank you. Do you consider paying compliments the perfection ofgentlemanly behavior?"

"Have I been paying you many? That last remark of mine was not meantas one. On my honor, the angels will not disappoint me if they are nolovelier than you should be if you had that look in your face and thattone in your voice I spoke of just now. It can hardly displease you tohear that. If I were particularly handsome myself, I should like to betold so. "

"I am sorry I cannot tell you so. "

"Oh! Ha! ha! What a retort, Miss Lindsay! You are not sorry either; youare rather glad. "

Gertrude knew it, and was angry with herself, not because her retortwas false, but because she thought it unladylike. "You have no right toannoy me, " she exclaimed, in spite of herself. 

"None whatever, " he said, humbly. "If I have done so, forgive me beforewe part. I will go no further with you; Max will give the alarm if youfaint in the avenue, which I don't think you are likely to do, as youhave forgotten all about the hemlock. "

"Oh, how maddening!" she cried. "I have left my basket behind. "

"Never mind; I will find it and have it filled and sent to you. "

"Thank you. I am sorry to trouble you. "

"Not at all. I hope you do not want the hemlock to help you to get ridof the burden of life. "

"Nonsense. I want it for my father, who uses it for medicine. "

"I will bring it myself to-morrow. Is that soon enough?"

"Quite. I am in no hurry. Thank you, Mr. Trefusis. Good-bye. "

She gave him her hand, and even smiled a little, and then hurried away. He stood watching her as she passed along the avenue under the beeches. Once, when she came into a band of sunlight at a gap in the trees, shemade so pretty a figure in her spring dress of violet and white thathis eyes kindled as he gazed. He took out his note-book, and entered hername and the date, with a brief memorandum. 

"I have thawed her, " he said to himself as he put up his book. "Sheshall learn a lesson or two to hand on to her children before I havedone with her. A trifle underbred, too, or she would not insist so muchon her breeding. Henrietta used to wear a dress like that. I am glad tosee that there is no danger of her taking to me personally. "

He turned away, and saw a crone passing, bending beneath a bundle ofsticks. He eyed it curiously; and she scowled at him and hurried on. 

"Hallo, " he said. 

She continued for a few steps, but her courage failed her and shestopped. 

"You are Mrs. Hickling, I think?"

"Yes, please your worship. "

"You are the woman who carried away an old wooden gate that lay on SirCharles Brandon's land last winter and used it for firewood. You wereimprisoned for seven days for it. "

"You may send me there again if you like, " she retorted, in a crackedvoice, as she turned at bay. "But the Lord will make me even with yousome day. Cursed be them that oppress the poor and needy; it is one ofthe seven deadly sins. "

"Those green laths on your back are the remainder of my garden gate, "he said. "You took the first half last Saturday. Next time you want fuelcome to the house and ask for coals, and let my gates alone. I supposeyou can enjoy a fire without stealing the combustibles. Stow pay me formy gate by telling me something I want to know. "

"And a kind gentleman too, sir; blessings. "

"What is the hemlock good for?"

"The hemlock, kind gentleman? For the evil, sir, to be sure. "

"Scrofulous ulcers!" he exclaimed, recoiling. "The father of thatbeautiful girl!" He turned homeward, and trudged along with hishead bent, muttering, "All rotten to the bone. Oh, civilization!civilization! civilization!"

CHAPTER XIV

"What has come over Gertrude?" said Agatha one day to Lady Brandon. 

"Why? Is anything the matter with her?"

"I don't know; she has not been the same since she poisoned herself. And why did she not tell about it? But for Trefusis we should never haveknown. "

"Gertrude always made secrets of things. "

"She was in a vile temper for two days after; and now she is quitechanged. She falls into long reveries, and does not hear a word ofwhat is going on around. Then she starts into life again, and begs yourpardon with the greatest sweetness for not catching what you have said. "

"I hate her when she is polite; it is not natural to her. As to hergoing to sleep, that is the effect of the hemlock. We know a man whotook a spoonful of strychnine in a bath, and he never was the sameafterwards. "

"I think she is making up her mind to encourage Erskine, " said Agatha. "When I came here he hardly dared speak to her--at least, she alwayssnubbed him. Now she lets him talk as much as he likes, and actuallysends him on messages and allows him to carry things for her. "

"Yes. I never saw anybody like Gertrude in my life. In London, if menwere attentive to her, she sat on them for being officious; and if theylet her alone she was angry at being neglected. Erskine is quite goodenough for her, I think. "

Here Erskine appeared at the door and looked round the room. 

"She's not here, " said Jane. 

"I am seeking Sir Charles, " he said, withdrawing somewhat stiffly. 

"What a lie!" said Jane, discomfited by his reception of her jest. "Hewas talking to Sir Charles ten minutes ago in the billiard room. Men aresuch conceited fools!"

Agatha had strolled to the window, and was looking discontentedly at theprospect, as she had often done at school when alone, and sometimes didnow in society. The door opened again, and Sir Charles appeared. He, too, looked round, but when his roving glance reached Agatha, it castanchor; and he came in. 

"Are you busy just now, Miss Wylie?" he asked. 

"Yes, " said Jane hastily. "She is going to write a letter for me. "

"Really, Jane, " he said, "I think you are old enough to write yourletters without troubling Miss Wylie. "

"When I do write my own letters you always find fault with them, " sheretorted. 

"I thought perhaps you might have leisure to try over a duet with me, "he said, turning to Agatha. 

"Certainly, " she replied, hoping to smooth matters by humoring him. "Theletter will do any time before post hour. "

Jane reddened, and said shortly, "I will write it myself, if you willnot. "

Sir Charles quite lost his temper. "How can you be so damnably rude?"he said, turning upon his wife. "What objection have you to my singingduets with Miss Wylie?"

"Nice language that!" said Jane. "I never said I objected; and you haveno right to drag her away to the piano just when she is going to write aletter for me. "

"I do not wish Miss Wylie to do anything except what pleases her best. It seems to me that writing letters to your tradespeople cannot be avery pleasant occupation. "

"Pray don't mind me, " said Agatha. "It is not the least trouble to me. Iused to write all Jane's letters for her at school. Suppose I write theletter first, and then we can have the duet. You will not mind waitingfive minutes?"

"I can wait as long as you please, of course. But it seems such anabsurd abuse of your good nature that I cannot help protest!"

"Oh, let it wait!" exclaimed Jane. "Such a ridiculous fuss to make aboutasking Agatha to write a letter, just because you happen to want herto play you your duets! I am certain she is heartily sick and tired ofthem. "

Agatha, to escape the altercation, went to the library and wrote theletter. When she returned to the drawing-room, she found no one there;but Sir Charles came in presently. 

"I am so sorry, Miss Wylie, " he said, as he opened the piano for her, "that you should be incommoded because my wife is silly enough to bejealous. "

"Jealous!"

"Of course. Idiocy!"

"Oh, you are mistaken, " said Agatha, incredulously. "How could shepossibly be jealous of me?"

"She is jealous of everybody and everything, " he replied bitterly, "andshe cares for nobody and for nothing. You do not know what I have toendure sometimes from her. "

Agatha thought her most discreet course was to sit down immediately andbegin "I would that my love. " Whilst she played and sang, she thoughtover what Sir Charles had just let slip. She had found him a pleasantcompanion, light-hearted, fond of music and fun, polite and considerate, appreciative of her talents, quick-witted without being oppressivelyclever, and, as a married man, disinterested in his attentions. But itnow occurred to her that perhaps they had been a good deal together oflate. 

Sir Charles had by this time wandered from his part into hers; and henow recalled her to the music by stopping to ask whether he was right. Knowing by experience what his difficulty was likely to be, she gave himhis note and went on. They had not been singing long when Jane cameback and sat down, expressing a hope that her presence would not disturbthem. It did disturb them. Agatha suspected that she had come there towatch them, and Sir Charles knew it. Besides, Lady Brandon, even whenher mind was tranquil, was habitually restless. She could not speakbecause of the music, and, though she held an open book in her hand, shecould not read and watch simultaneously. She gaped, and leaned to oneend of the sofa until, on the point of overbalancing' she recoveredherself with a prodigious bounce. The floor vibrated at her everymovement. At last she could keep silence no longer. 

"Oh, dear!" she said, yawning audibly. "It must be five o'clock at thevery earliest. "

Agatha turned round upon the piano-stool, feeling that music and LadyBrandon were incompatible. Sir Charles, for his guest's sake, tried hardto restrain his exasperation. 

"Probably your watch will tell you, " he said. 

"Thank you for nothing, " said Jane. "Agatha, where is Gertrude?"

"How can Miss Wylie possibly tell you where she is, Jane? I think youhave gone mad to-day. "

"She is most likely playing billiards with Mr. Erskine, " said Agatha, interposing quickly to forestall a retort from Jane, with its usualsequel of a domestic squabble. 

"I think it is very strange of Gertrude to pass the whole day withChester in the billiard room, " said Jane discontentedly. 

"There is not the slightest impropriety in her doing so, " saidSir Charles. "If our hospitality does not place Miss Lindsay abovesuspicion, the more shame for us. How would you feel if anyone else madesuch a remark?"

"Oh, stuff!" said Jane peevishly. "You are always preaching longrigmaroles about nothing at all. I did not say there was any improprietyabout Gertrude. She is too proper to be pleasant, in my opinion. "

Sir Charles, unable to trust himself further, frowned and left the room, Jane speeding him with a contemptuous laugh. 

"Don't ever be such a fool as to get married, " she said, when he wasgone. She looked up as she spoke, and was alarmed to see Agatha seatedon the pianoforte, with her ankles swinging in the old school fashion. 

"Jane, " she said, surveying her hostess coolly, "do you know what Iwould do if I were Sir Charles?"

Jane did not know. 

"I would get a big stick, beat you black and blue, and then lock you upon bread and water for a week. "

Jane half rose, red and angry. "Wh--why?" she said, relapsing upon thesofa. 

"If I were a man, I would not, for mere chivalry's sake, let a womantreat me like a troublesome dog. You want a sound thrashing. "

"I'd like to see anybody thrash me, " said Jane, rising again anddisplaying her formidable person erect. Then she burst into tears, andsaid, "I won't have such things said to me in my own house. How dareyou?"

"You deserve it for being jealous of me, " said Agatha. 

Jane's eyes dilated angrily. "I!--I!--jealous of you!" She looked round, as if for a missile. Not finding one, she sat down again, and said in avoice stifled with tears, "J--Jealous of YOU, indeed!"

"You have good reason to be, for he is fonder of me than of you. "

Jane opened her mouth and eyes convulsively, but only uttered a gasp, and Agatha proceeded calmly, "I am polite to him, which you neverare. When he speaks to me I allow him to finish his sentence withoutexpressing, as you do, a foregone conclusion that it is not worthattending to. I do not yawn and talk whilst he is singing. When heconverses with me on art or literature, about which he knows twice asmuch as I do, and at least ten times as much as you. " (Jane gasped again)"I do not make a silly answer and turn to my neighbor at the other sidewith a remark about the tables or the weather. When he is willing to bepleased, as he always is, I am willing to be pleasant. And that is whyhe likes me. "

"He does NOT like you. He is the same to everyone. "

"Except his wife. He likes me so much that you, like a great goose asyou are, came up here to watch us at our duets, and made yourself asdisagreeable as you possibly could whilst I was making myself charming. The poor man was ashamed of you. "

"He wasn't, " said Jane, sobbing. "I didn't do anything. I didn't sayanything. I won't bear it. I will get a divorce. I will--"

"You will mend your ways if you have any sense left, " said Agatharemorselessly. "Do not make such a noise, or someone will come to seewhat is the matter, and I shall have to get down from the piano, where Iam very comfortable. "

"It is you who are jealous. "

"Oh, is it, Jane? I have not allowed Sir Charles to fall in love with meyet, but I can do so very easily. What will you wager that he will notkiss me before to-morrow evening?"

"It will be very mean and nasty of you if he does. You seem to thinkthat I can be treated like a child. "

"So you are a child, " said Agatha, descending from her perch andpreparing to go. "An occasional slapping does you good. "

"It is nothing to you whether I agree with my husband or not, " said Janewith sudden fierceness. 

"Not if you quarrel with him in private, as wellbred couples do. Butwhen it occurs in my presence it makes me uncomfortable, and I object tobeing made uncomfortable. "

"You would not be here at all if I had not asked you. "

"Just think how dull the house would be without me, Jane!"

"Indeed! It was not dull before you came. Gertrude always behaved like alady, at least. "

"I am sorry that her example was so utterly lost on you. "

"I won't bear it, " said Jane with a sob and a plunge upon the sofa thatmade the lustres of the chandeliers rattle. "I wouldn't have asked youif I had thought you could be so hateful. I will never ask you again. "

"I will make Sir Charles divorce you for incompatibility of temper andmarry me. Then I shall have the place to myself. "

"He can't divorce me for that, thank goodness. You don't know whatyou're talking about. "

Agatha laughed. "Come, " she said good-humoredly, "don't be an old ass, Jane. Wash your face before anyone sees it, and remember what I havetold you about Sir Charles. "

"It is very hard to be called an ass in one's own house. "

"It is harder to be treated as one, like your husband. I am going tolook for him in the billiard room. "

Jane ran after her, and caught her by the sleeve. 

"Agatha, " she pleaded, "promise me that you won't be mean. Say that youwon't make love to him. "

"I will consider about it, " replied Agatha gravely. 

Jane uttered a groan and sank into a chair, which creaked at theshock. Agatha turned on the threshold, and seeing her shaking her head, pressing her eyes, and tapping with her heel in a restrained frenzy, said quickly, "Here are the Waltons, and the Fitzgeorges, and Mr. Trefusis comingupstairs. How do you do, Mrs. Walton? Lady Brandon will be SO glad tosee you. Good-evening, Mr. Fitzgeorge. "

Jane sprang up, wiped her eyes, and, with her hands on her hair, smoothing it, rushed to a mirror. No visitors appearing, she perceivedthat she was, for perhaps the hundredth time in her life, the victimof an imposture devised by Agatha. She, gratified by the success of herattempt to regain her old ascendancy over Jane--she had made it withmisgiving, notwithstanding her apparent confidence--went downstairs tothe library, where she found Sir Charles gloomily trying to drown hisdomestic troubles in art criticism. 

"I thought you were in the billiard room, " said Agatha. 

"I only peeped in, " he replied; "but as I saw something particular goingon, I thought it best to slip away, and I have been alone ever since. "

The something particular which Sir Charles had not wished to interruptwas only a game of billiards. 

It was the first opportunity Erskine had ever enjoyed of speaking toGertrude at leisure and alone. Yet their conversation had never beenso commonplace. She, liking the game, played very well and chattedindifferently; he played badly, and broached trivial topics in spite ofhimself. After an hour-and-a-half's play, Gertrude had announced thatthis game must be their last. He thought desperately that if he were tomiss many more strokes the game must presently end, and an opportunitywhich might never recur pass beyond recall. He determined to tellher without preface that he adored her, but when he opened his lips aquestion came forth of its own accord relating to the Persian way ofplaying billiards. Gertrude had never been in Persia, but had seensome Eastern billiard cues in the India museum. Were not the Hindooswonderful people for filigree work, and carpets, and such things? Didhe not think the crookedness of their carpet patterns a blemish? Somepeople pretended to admire them, but was not that all nonsense? Was notthe modern polished floor, with a rug in the middle, much superior tothe old carpet fitted into the corners of the room? Yes. Enormouslysuperior. Immensely--

"Why, what are you thinking of to-day, Mr. Erskine? You have played withmy ball. "

"I am thinking of you. "

"What did you say?" said Gertrude, not catching the serious turn he hadgiven to the conversation, and poising her cue for a stroke. "Oh! I amas bad as you; that was the worst stroke I ever made, I think. I begyour pardon; you said something just now. "

"I forget. Nothing of any consequence. " And he groaned at his owncowardice. 

"Suppose we stop, " she said. "There is no use in finishing the game ifour hands are out. I am rather tired of it. "

"Certainly--if you wish it. "

"I will finish if you like. "

"Not at all. What pleases you, pleases me. "

Gertrude made him a little bow, and idly knocked the balls about withher cue. Erskine's eyes wandered, and his lip moved irresolutely. He hadsettled with himself that his declaration should be a frank one--heartto heart. He had pictured himself in the act of taking her handdelicately, and saying, "Gertrude, I love you. May I tell you so again?"But this scheme did not now seem practicable. 

"Miss Lindsay. "

Gertrude, bending over the table, looked up in alarm. 

"The present is as good an opportunity as I will--as I shall--as Iwill. "

"Shall, " said Gertrude. 

"I beg your pardon?"

"SHALL, " repeated Gertrude. "Did you ever study the doctrine ofnecessity?"

"The doctrine of necessity?" he said, bewildered. 

Gertrude went to the other side of the table in pursuit of a ball. Shenow guessed what was coming, and was willing that it should come; notbecause she intended to accept, but because, like other young ladiesexperienced in such scenes, she counted the proposals of marriage shereceived as a Red Indian counts the scalps he takes. 

"We have had a very pleasant time of it here, " he said, giving up asinexplicable the relevance of the doctrine of necessity. "At least, Ihave. "

"Well, " said Gertrude, quick to resent a fancied allusion to her privatediscontent, "so have I. "

"I am glad of that--more so than I can convey by words. "

"Is it any business of yours?" she said, following the disagreeable veinhe had unconsciously struck upon, and suspecting pity in his efforts tobe sympathetic. 

"I wish I dared hope so. The happiness of my visit has been due to youentirely. "

"Indeed, " said Gertrude, wincing as all the hard things Trefusishad told her of herself came into her mind at the heels of Erskine'sunfortunate allusion to her power of enjoying herself. 

"I hope I am not paining you, " he said earnestly. 

"I don't know what you are talking about, " she said, standing erect withsudden impatience. "You seem to think that it is very easy to pain me. "

"No, " he said timidly, puzzled by the effect he had produced. "I fearyou misunderstand me. I am very awkward. Perhaps I had better say nomore. " Gertrude, by turning away to put up her cue, signified that thatwas a point for him to consider; she not intending to trouble herselfabout it. When she faced him again, he was motionless and dejected, witha wistful expression like that of a dog that has proffered a caress andreceived a kick. Remorse, and a vague sense that there was somethingbase in her attitude towards him, overcame her. She looked at him for aninstant and left the room. 

The look excited him. He did not understand it, nor attempt tounderstand it; but it was a look that he had never before seen inher face or in that of any other woman. It struck him as a momentaryrevelation of what he had written of in "The Patriot Martyrs" as

"The glorious mystery of a woman's heart, "

and it made him feel unfit for ordinary social intercourse. He hastenedfrom the house, walked swiftly down the avenue to the lodge, where hekept his bicycle, left word there that he was going for an excursion andshould probably not return in time for dinner, mounted, and sped awayrecklessly along the Riverside Road. In less than two minutes he passedthe gate of Sallust's House, where he nearly ran over an old woman ladenwith a basket of coals, who put down her burthen to scream curses afterhim. Warned by this that his headlong pace was dangerous, he slackenedit a little, and presently saw Trefusis lying prone on the river bank, with his cheeks propped on his elbows, reading intently. Erskine, who had presented him, a few days before, with a copy of "The PatriotMartyrs and other Poems, " tried to catch a glimpse of the book overwhich Trefusis was so serious. It was a Blue Book, full of figures. Erskine rode on in disgust, consoling himself with the recollection ofGertrude's face. 

The highway now swerved inland from the river, and rose to a steepacclivity, at the brow of which he turned and looked back. The lightwas growing ruddy, and the shadows were lengthening. Trefusis was stillprostrate in the meadow, and the old woman was in a field, gatheringhemlock. 

Erskine raced down the hill at full speed, and did not look behind himagain until he found himself at nightfall on the skirts of a town, where he purchased some beer and a sandwich, which he ate with littleappetite. Gertrude had set up a disturbance within him which made himimpatient of eating. 

It was now dark. He was many miles from Brandon Beeches, and not sureof the way back. Suddenly he resolved to complete his unfinisheddeclaration that evening. He now could not ride back fast enough tosatisfy his impatience. He tried a short cut, lost himself, spent nearlyan hour seeking the highroad, and at last came upon a railway stationjust in time to catch a train that brought him within a mile of hisdestination. 

When he rose from the cushions of the railway carriage he foundhimself somewhat fatigued, and he mounted the bicycle stiffly. But hisresolution was as ardent as ever, and his heart beat strongly as, afterleaving his bicycle at the lodge, he walked up the avenue through thedeep gloom beneath the beeches. Near the house, the first notes of"Grudel perche finora" reached him, and he stepped softly on to the turflest his footsteps on the gravel should rouse the dogs and make themmar the harmony by barking. A rustle made him stop and listen. ThenGertrude's voice whispered through the darkness:

"What did you mean by what you said to me within?"

An extraordinary sensation shook Erskine; confused ideas of fairylandran through his imagination. A bitter disappointment, like that ofwaking from a happy dream, followed as Trefusis's voice, more finelytuned than he had ever heard it before, answered, "Merely that the expanse of stars above us is not more illimitable thanmy contempt for Miss Lindsay, nor brighter than my hopes of Gertrude. "

"Miss Lindsay always to you, if you please, Mr. Trefusis. "

"Miss Lindsay never to me, but only to those who cannot see throughher to the soul within, which is Gertrude. There are a thousand MissLindsays in the world, formal and false. There is but one Gertrude. "

"I am an unprotected girl, Mr. Trefusis, and you can call me what youplease. "

It occurred to Erskine that this was a fit occasion to rush forward andgive Trefusis, whose figure he could now dimly discern, a black eye. Buthe hesitated, and the opportunity passed. 

"Unprotected!" said Trefusis. "Why, you are fenced round and barred inwith conventions, laws, and lies that would frighten the truth from thelips of any man whose faith in Gertrude was less strong than mine. Goto Sir Charles and tell him what I have said to Miss Lindsay, and withinten minutes I shall have passed these gates with a warning never toapproach them again. I am in your power, and were I in Miss Lindsay'spower alone, my shrift would be short. Happily, Gertrude, though shesees as yet but darkly, feels that Miss Lindsay is her bitterest foe. "

"It is ridiculous. I am not two persons; I am only one. What does itmatter to me if your contempt for me is as illimitable as the stars?"

"Ah, you remember that, do you? Whenever you hear a man talking aboutthe stars you may conclude that he is either an astronomer or a fool. But you and a fine starry night would make a fool of any man. "

"I don't understand you. I try to, but I cannot; or, if I guess, Icannot tell whether you are in earnest or not. "

"I am very much in earnest. Abandon at once and for ever all misgivingsthat I am trifling with you, or passing an idle hour as men do when theyfind themselves in the company of beautiful women. I mean what I sayliterally, and in the deepest sense. You doubt me; we have broughtsociety to such a state that we all suspect one another. But whatever istrue will command belief sooner or later from those who have wit enoughto comprehend truth. Now let me recall Miss Lindsay to consciousness byremarking that we have been out for ten minutes, and that our hostess isnot the woman to allow our absence to pass without comment. "

"Let us go in. Thank you for reminding me. "

"Thank you for forgetting. "

Erskine heard their footsteps retreating, and presently saw the twoenter the glow of light that shone from the open window of the billiardroom, through which they went indoors. Trefusis, a man whom he had seenthat day in a beautiful landscape, blind to everything except a row offigures in a Blue Book, was his successful rival, although it wasplain from the very sound of his voice that he did not--could not--loveGertrude. Only a poet could do that. Trefusis was no poet, but a sordidbrute unlikely to inspire interest in anything more human than a publicmeeting, much less in a woman, much less again in a woman so etherealas Gertrude. She was proud too, yet she had allowed the fellow to insulther--had forgiven him for the sake of a few broad compliments. Erskinegrew angry and cynical. The situation did not suit his poetry. Insteadof being stricken to the heart with a solemn sorrow, as a PatriotMartyr would have been under similar circumstances, he felt slighted andridiculous. He was hardly convinced of what had seemed at first the mostobvious feature of the case, Trefusis's inferiority to himself. 

He stood under the trees until Trefusis reappeared on his way home, making, Erskine thought, as much noise with his heels on the gravel as aregiment of delicately bred men would have done. He stopped for a momentto make inquiry at the lodge as he went out; then his footsteps diedaway in the distance. 

Erskine, chilled, stiff, and with a sensation of a bad cold coming on, went into the house, and was relieved to find that Gertrude had retired, and that Lady Brandon, though she had been sure that he had ridden intothe river in the dark, had nevertheless provided a warm supper for him. 

CHAPTER XV

Erskine soon found plenty of themes for his newly begotten cynicism. Gertrude's manner towards him softened so much that he, believing herheart given to his rival, concluded that she was tempting him to make aproposal which she had no intention of accepting. Sir Charles, to whomhe told what he had overheard in the avenue, professed sympathy, butwas evidently pleased to learn that there was nothing serious in theattentions Trefusis paid to Agatha. Erskine wrote three bitter sonnetson hollow friendship and showed them to Sir Charles, who, failing toapply them to himself, praised them highly and showed them to Trefusiswithout asking the author's permission. Trefusis remarked that in acorrupt society expressions of dissatisfaction were always creditable toa writer's sensibility; but he did not say much in praise of the verse. 

"Why has he taken to writing in this vein?" he said. "Has he beendisappointed in any way of late? Has he proposed to Miss Lindsay andbeen rejected?"

"No, " said Sir Charles surprised by this blunt reference to a subjectthey had never before discussed. "He does not intend to propose to MissLindsay. "

"But he did intend to. "

"He certainly did, but he has given up the idea. "

"Why?" said Trefusis, apparently disapproving strongly of therenunciation. 

Sir Charles shrugged his shoulders and did not reply. 

"I am sorry to hear it. I wish you could induce him to change his mind. He is a nice fellow, with enough to live on comfortably, whilst heis yet what is called a poor man, so that she could feel perfectlydisinterested in marrying him. It will do her good to marry withoutmaking a pecuniary profit by it; she will respect herself the moreafterwards, and will neither want bread and butter nor be ashamed ofher husband's origin, in spite of having married for love alone. Makea match of it if you can. I take an interest in the girl; she has goodinstincts. "

Sir Charles's suspicion that Trefusis was really paying court to Agathareturned after this conversation, which he repeated to Erskine, who, much annoyed because his poems had been shown to a reader of Blue Books, thought it only a blind for Trefusis's design upon Gertrude. Sir Charlespooh-poohed this view, and the two friends were sharp with one anotherin discussing it. After dinner, when the ladies had left them, SirCharles, repentant and cordial, urged Erskine to speak to Gertrudewithout troubling himself as to the sincerity of Trefusis. But Erskine, knowing himself ill able to brook a refusal, was loth to expose himself. 

"If you had heard the tone of her voice when she asked him whetherhe was in earnest, you would not talk to me like this, " he saiddespondently. "I wish he had never come here. "

"Well, that, at least, was no fault of mine, my dear fellow, " said SirCharles. "He came among us against my will. And now that he appears tohave been in the right--legally--about the field, it would look likespite if I cut him. Besides, he really isn't a bad man if he would onlylet the women alone. "

"If he trifles with Miss Lindsay, I shall ask him to cross the Channel, and have a shot at him. "

"I don't think he'd go, " said Sir Charles dubiously. "If I were you, Iwould try my luck with Gertrude at once. In spite of what you heard, Idon't believe she would marry a man of his origin. His money giveshim an advantage, certainly, but Gertrude has sent richer men to therightabout. "

"Let the fellow have fair play, " said Erskine. "I may be wrong, ofcourse; all men are liable to err in judging themselves, but I think Icould make her happier than he can. "

Sir Charles was not so sure of that, but he cheerfully responded, "Certainly. He is not the man for her at all, and you are. He knows it, too. "

"Hmf!" muttered Erskine, rising dejectedly. "Let's go upstairs. "

"By-the-bye, we are to call on him to-morrow, to go through his house, and his collection of photographs. Photographs! Ha, ha! Damn his house!"said Erskine. 

Next day they went together to Sallust's House. It stood in the midst ofan acre of land, waste except a little kitchen garden at the rear. Thelodge at the entrance was uninhabited, and the gates stood open, withdust and fallen leaves heaped up against them. Free ingress had thusbeen afforded to two stray ponies, a goat, and a tramp, who lay asleepin the grass. His wife sat near, watching him. 

"I have a mind to turn back, " said Sir Charles, looking about him indisgust. "The place is scandalously neglected. Look at that rascalasleep within full view of the windows. "

"I admire his cheek, " said Erskine. "Nice pair of ponies, too. "

Sallust's House was square and painted cinnamon color. Beneath thecornice was a yellow frieze with figures of dancing children, imitatedfrom the works of Donatello, and very unskilfully executed. There wasa meagre portico of four columns, painted red, and a plain pediment, painted yellow. The colors, meant to match those of the walls, contrasted disagreeably with them, having been applied more recently, apparently by a color-blind artist. The door beneath the portico stoodopen. Sir Charles rang the bell, and an elderly woman answered it; butbefore they could address her, Trefusis appeared, clad in a painter'sjacket of white jean. Following him in, they found that the house was ahollow square, enclosing a courtyard with a bath sunk in the middle, anda fountain in the centre of the bath. The courtyard, formerly open tothe sky, was now roofed in with dusty glass; the nymph that had oncepoured out the water of the fountain was barren and mutilated; andthe bath was partly covered in with loose boards, the exposed partaccommodating a heap of coals in one corner, a heap of potatoes inanother, a beer barrel, some old carpets, a tarpaulin, and a brokencanoe. The marble pavement extended to the outer walls of the house, andwas roofed in at the sides by the upper stories which were supported byfluted stone columns, much stained and chipped. The staircase, towardswhich Trefusis led his visitors, was a broad one at the end opposite thedoor, and gave access to a gallery leading to the upper rooms. 

"This house was built in 11780 by an ancestor of my mother, " saidTrefusis. "He passed for a man of exquisite taste. He wished the placeto be maintained forever--he actually used that expression in hiswill--as the family seat, and he collected a fine library here, whichI found useful, as all the books came into my hands in good condition, most of them with the leaves uncut. Some people prize uncut copies ofold editions; a dealer gave me three hundred and fifty pounds for alot of them. I came into possession of a number of familyfetishes--heirlooms, as they are called. There was a sword that one ofmy forbears wore at Edgehill and other battles in Charles the First'stime. We fought on the wrong side, of course, but the sword fetchedthirty-five shillings nevertheless. You will hardly believe that Iwas offered one hundred and fifty pounds for a gold cup worth abouttwenty-five, merely because Queen Elizabeth once drank from it. This ismy study. It was designed for a banqueting hall. "

They entered a room as long as the wall of the house, pierced on oneside by four tall windows, between which square pillars, with Corinthiancapitals supporting the cornice, were half sunk in the wall. Therewere similar pillars on the opposite side, but between them, instead ofwindows, were arched niches in which stood life-size plaster statues, chipped, broken, and defaced in an extraordinary fashion. The flooring, of diagonally set narrow boards, was uncarpeted and unpolished. Theceiling was adorned with frescoes, which at once excited Sir Charles'sinterest, and he noted with indignation that a large portion of thepainting at the northern end had been destroyed and some glass roofinginserted. In another place bolts had been driven in to support the ropesof a trapeze and a few other pieces of gymnastic apparatus. The wallswere whitewashed, and at about four feet from the ground a dark bandappeared, produced by pencil memoranda and little sketches scribbled onthe whitewash. One end of the apartment was unfurnished, except by thegymnastic apparatus, a photographer's camera, a ladder in the corner, and a common deal table with oil cans and paint pots upon it. At theother end a comparatively luxurious show was made by a large bookcase, an elaborate combination of bureau and writing desk, a rack with arifle, a set of foils, and an umbrella in it, several folio albums on atable, some comfortable chairs and sofas, and a thick carpet under foot. Close by, and seeming much out of place, was a carpenter's bench withthe usual implements and a number of boards of various thicknesses. 

"This is a sort of comfort beyond the reach of any but a rich man, " saidTrefusis, turning and surprising his visitors in the act of exchangingglances of astonishment at his taste. "I keep a drawing-room of theusual kind for receiving strangers with whom it is necessary to beconventional, but I never enter it except on such occasions. What do youthink of this for a study?"

"On my soul, Trefusis, I think you are mad, " said Sir Charles. "Theplace looks as if it had stood a siege. How did you manage to break thestatues and chip the walls so outrageously?"

Trefusis took a newspaper from the table and said, "Listen to this:'In spite of the unfavorable nature of the weather, the sport of theEmperor and his guests in Styria has been successful. In three days 52chamois and 79 stags and deer fell to 19 single-barrelled rifles, theEmperor allowing no more on this occasion. '

"I share the Emperor's delight in shooting, but I am no butcher, and donot need the royal relish of blood to my sport. And I do not share myancestors' taste in statuary. Hence--" Here Trefusis opened a drawer, took out a pistol, and fired at the Hebe in the farthest niche. 

"Well done!" said Erskine coolly, as the last fragment of Hebe's headcrumbled at the touch of the bullet. 

"Very fruitlessly done, " said Trefusis. "I am a good shot, but of whatuse is it to me? None. I once met a gamekeeper who was a Methodist. Hewas a most eloquent speaker, but a bad shot. If he could have swappedtalents with me I would have given him ten thousand pounds to bootwillingly, although he would have profited as much as I by the exchangealone. I have no more desire or need to be a good shot than to beking of England, or owner of a Derby winner, or anything else equallyridiculous, and yet I never missed my aim in my life--thank blindfortune for nothing!"

"King of England!" said Erskine, with a scornful laugh, to show Trefusisthat other people were as liberty-loving as he. "Is it not absurd tohear a nation boasting of its freedom and tolerating a king?"

"Oh, hang your republicanism, Chester!" said Sir Charles, who privatelyheld a low opinion of the political side of the Patriot Martyrs. 

"I won't be put down on that point, " said Erskine. "I admire a man thatkills a king. You will agree with me there, Trefusis, won't you?"

"Certainly not, " said Trefusis. "A king nowadays is only a dummy put upto draw your fire off the real oppressors of society, and the fractionof his salary that he can spend as he likes is usually far too small forhis risk, his trouble, and the condition of personal slavery to whichhe is reduced. What private man in England is worse off than theconstitutional monarch? We deny him all privacy; he may not marry whomhe chooses, consort with whom he prefers, dress according to his taste, or live where he pleases. I don't believe he may even eat or drink whathe likes best; a taste for tripe and onions on his part would provokea remonstrance from the Privy Council. We dictate everything except histhoughts and dreams, and even these he must keep to himself if they arenot suitable, in our opinion, to his condition. The work we impose onhim has all the hardship of mere task work; it is unfruitful, incessant, monotonous, and has to be transacted for the most part with nervousbores. We make his kingdom a treadmill to him, and drive him to and froon the face of it. Finally, having taken everything else that men prizefrom him, we fall upon his character, and that of every person to whomhe ventures to show favor. We impose enormous expenses on him, stint him, and then rail at his parsimony. We use him as I use thosestatues--stick him up in the place of honor for our greater conveniencein disfiguring and abusing him. We send him forth through our crowdedcities, proclaiming that he is the source of all good and evil in thenation, and he, knowing that many people believe it, knowing that it isa lie, and that he is powerless to shorten the working day by one hour, raise wages one penny, or annul the smallest criminal sentence, howeverunjust it may seem to him; knowing that every miner in the kingdom canmanufacture dynamite, and that revolvers are sold for seven and sixpenceapiece; knowing that he is not bullet proof, and that every king inEurope has been shot at in the streets; he must smile and bow andmaintain an expression of gracious enjoyment whilst the mayor andcorporation inflict upon him the twaddling address he has heard athousand times before. I do not ask you to be loyal, Erskine; but Iexpect you, in common humanity, to sympathize with the chief figurein the pageant, who is no more accountable for the manifold evils andabominations that exist in his realm than the Lord Mayor is accountablefor the thefts of the pickpockets who follow his show on the ninth ofNovember. "

Sir Charles laughed at the trouble Trefusis took to prove his case, andsaid soothingly, "My dear fellow, kings are used to it, and expect it, and like it. "

"And probably do not see themselves as I see them, any more than commonpeople do, " assented Trefusis. 

"What an exquisite face!" exclaimed Erskine suddenly, catching sight ofa photograph in a rich gold and coral frame on a miniature easel drapedwith ruby velvet. Trefusis turned quickly, so evidently gratified thatSir Charles hastened to say, "Charming!" Then, looking at the portrait, he added, as if a little startled, "It certainly is an extraordinarilyattractive face. "

"Years ago, " said Trefusis, "when I saw that face for the first time, Ifelt as you feel now. "

Silence ensued, the two visitors looking at the portrait, Trefusislooking at them. 

"Curious style of beauty, " said Sir Charles at last, not quite soassuredly as before. 

Trefusis laughed unpleasantly. "Do you recognize the artist--theenthusiastic amateur--in her?" he said, opening another drawer andtaking out a bundle of drawings, which he handed to be examined. 

"Very clever. Very clever indeed, " said Sir Charles. "I should like tomeet the lady. "

"I have often been on the point of burning them, " said Trefusis; "butthere they are, and there they are likely to remain. The portrait hasbeen much admired. "

"Can you give us an introduction to the original, old fellow?" saidErskine. 

"No, happily. She is dead. "

Disagreeably shocked, they looked at him for a moment with aversion. Then Erskine, turning with pity and disappointment to the picture, said, "Poor girl! Was she married?"

"Yes. To me. "

"Mrs. Trefusis!" exclaimed Sir Charles. "Ah! Dear me!"

Erskine, with proof before him that it was possible for a beautiful girlto accept Trefusis, said nothing. 

"I keep her portrait constantly before me to correct my naturalamativeness. I fell in love with her and married her. I have fallen inlove once or twice since but a glance at my lost Hetty has cured me ofthe slightest inclination to marry. "

Sir Charles did not reply. It occurred to him that Lady Brandon'sportrait, if nothing else were left of her, might be useful in the sameway. 

"Come, you will marry again one of these days, " said Erskine, in aforced tone of encouragement. 

"It is possible. Men should marry, especially rich men. But I assure youI have no present intention of doing so. "

Erskine's color deepened, and he moved away to the table where thealbums lay. 

"This is the collection of photographs I spoke of, " said Trefusis, following him and opening one of the books. "I took many of them myselfunder great difficulties with regard to light--the only difficulty thatmoney could not always remove. This is a view of my father's house--orrather one of his houses. It cost seventy-five thousand pounds. "

"Very handsome indeed, " said Sir Charles, secretly disgusted at beinginvited to admire a photograph, such as house agents exhibit, of avulgarly designed country house, merely because it had cost seventy-fivethousand pounds. The figures were actually written beneath the picture. 

"This is the drawing-room, and this one of the best bedrooms. In theright-hand corner of the mount you will see a note of the cost ofthe furniture, fittings, napery, and so forth. They were of the mostluxurious description. "

"Very interesting, " said Sir Charles, hardly disguising the irony of thecomment. 

"Here is a view--this is the first of my own attempts--of the apartmentof one of the under servants. It is comfortable and spacious, andsolidly furnished. "

"So I perceive. "

"These are the stables. Are they not handsome?"

"Palatial. Quite palatial. "

"There is every luxury that a horse could desire, including plenty ofvalets to wait on him. You are noting the figures, I hope. There is thecost of the building and the expenditure per horse per annum. "

"I see. "

"Here is the exterior of a house. What do you think of it?"

"It is rather picturesque in its dilapidation. "

"Picturesque! Would you like to live in it?"

"No, " said Erskine. "I don't see anything very picturesque about it. What induced you to photograph such a wretched old rookery?"

"Here is a view of the best room in it. Photography gives you a fairidea of the broken flooring and patched windows, but you must imaginethe dirt and the odor of the place. Some of the stains are weatherstains, others came from smoke and filth. The landlord of the households it from a peer and lets it out in tenements. Three familiesoccupied that room when I photographed it. You will see by the figuresin the corner that it is more profitable to the landlord than an averagehouse in Mayfair. Here is the cellar, let to a family for one andsixpence a week, and considered a bargain. The sun never shines there, of course. I took it by artificial light. You may add to the rent thecost of enough bad beer to make the tenant insensible to the filth ofthe place. Beer is the chloroform that enables the laborer to endure thesevere operation of living; that is why we can always assure one anotherover our wine that the rascal's misery is due to his habit of drinking. We are down on him for it, because, if he could bear his life withoutbeer, we should save his beer-money--get him for lower wages. In short, we should be richer and he soberer. Here is the yard; the arrangementsare indescribable. Seven of the inhabitants of that house had worked foryears in my father's mill. That is, they had created a considerable partof the vast sums of money for drawing your attention to which you weredisgusted with me just now. "

"Not at all, " said Sir Charles faintly. 

"You can see how their condition contrasts with that of my father'shorses. The seven men to whom I have alluded, with three hundred others, were thrown destitute upon the streets by this. " (Here he turned over aleaf and displayed a photograph of an elaborate machine. ) "It enabled myfather to dispense with their services, and to replace them by a handfulof women and children. He had bought the patent of the machine for fiftypounds from the inventor, who was almost ruined by the expenses of hisingenuity, and would have sacrificed anything for a handful of readymoney. Here is a portrait of my father in his masonic insignia. Hebelieved that freemasons generally get on in the world, and as the mainobject of his life was to get on, he joined them, and wanted me to dothe same. But I object to pretended secret societies and hocus pocus, and would not. You see what he was--a portly, pushing, egotisticaltradesman. Mark the successful man, the merchant prince with argosieson every sea, the employer of thousands of hands, the munificentcontributor to public charities, the churchwarden, the memberof parliament, and the generous patron of his relatives hisself-approbation struggling with the instinctive sense of basenessin the money-hunter, the ignorant and greedy filcher of the laborof others, the seller of his own mind and manhood for luxuries anddelicacies that he was too lowlived to enjoy, and for the society ofpeople who made him feel his inferiority at every turn. "

"And the man to whom you owe everything you possess, " said Erskineboldly. 

"I possess very little. Everything he left me, except a few pictures, Ispent long ago, and even that was made by his slaves and not by him. Mywealth comes day by day fresh from the labor of the wretches who live inthe dens I have just shown you, or of a few aristocrats of labor who arewithin ten shillings a week of being worse off. However, there is someexcuse for my father. Once, at an election riot, I got into a freefight. I am a peaceful man, but as I had either to fight or be knockeddown and trampled upon, I exchanged blows with men who were perhaps aspeacefully disposed as I. My father, launched into a free competition(free in the sense that the fight is free: that is, lawless)--my fatherhad to choose between being a slave himself and enslaving others. He chose the latter, and as he was applauded and made much of forsucceeding, who dare blame him? Not I. Besides, he did something todestroy the anarchy that enabled him to plunder society with impunity. He furnished me, its enemy, with the powerful weapon of a large fortune. Thus our system of organizing industry sometimes hatches the eggs fromwhich its destroyers break. Does Lady Brandon wear much lace?"

"I--No; that is--How the deuce do I know, Trefusis? What anextraordinary question!"

"This is a photograph of a lace school. It was a filthy room, twelvefeet square. It was paved with brick, and the children were not allowedto wear their boots, lest the lace should get muddy. However, asthere were twenty of them working there for fifteen hours a day--allgirls--they did not suffer much from cold. They were pretty tightlypacked--may be still, for aught I know. They brought three or fourshillings a week sometimes to their fond parents; and they were veryquick-fingered little creatures, and stuck intensely to their work, asthe overseer always hit them when they looked up or--"

"Trefusis, " said Sir Charles, turning away from the table, "I beg yourpardon, but I have no appetite for horrors. You really must not ask meto go through your collection. It is no doubt very interesting, but Ican't stand it. Have you nothing pleasant to entertain me with?"

"Pooh! you are squeamish. However, as you are a novice, let us put offthe rest until you are seasoned. The pictures are not all horrible. Eachbook refers to a different country. That one contains illustrations ofmodern civilization in Germany, for instance. That one is France; that, British India. Here you have the United States of America, home ofliberty, theatre of manhood suffrage, kingless and lordless land ofProtection, Republicanism, and the realized Radical Programme, where allthe black chattel slaves were turned into wage-slaves (like my father'swhite fellows) at a cost of 800, 000 lives and wealth incalculable. You and I are paupers in comparison with the great capitalists of thatcountry, where the laborers fight for bones with the Chinamen, likedogs. Some of these great men presented me with photographs of theiryachts and palaces, not anticipating the use to which I would put them. Here are some portraits that will not harrow your feelings. This is mymother, a woman of good family, every inch a lady. Here is a Lancashirelass, the daughter of a common pitman. She has exactly the same physicalcharacteristics as my well-born mother--the same small head, delicatefeatures, and so forth; they might be sisters. This villainous-lookingpair might be twin brothers, except that there is a trace of good humorabout the one to the right. The good-humored one is a bargee on theLyvern Canal. The other is one of the senior noblemen of the BritishPeerage. They illustrate the fact that Nature, even when perverted bygenerations of famine fever, ignores the distinctions we set upbetween men. This group of men and women, all tolerably intelligentand thoughtful looking, are so-called enemies of society--Nihilists, Anarchists, Communards, members of the International, and so on. Theseother poor devils, worried, stiff, strumous, awkward, vapid, and rathercoarse, with here and there a passably pretty woman, are European kings, queens, grand-dukes, and the like. Here are ship-captains, criminals, poets, men of science, peers, peasants, political economists, andrepresentatives of dozens of degrees. The object of the collection isto illustrate the natural inequality of man, and the failure of ourartificial inequality to correspond with it. "

"It seems to me a sort of infernal collection for the upsetting ofpeople's ideas, " said Erskine. "You ought to label it 'A Portfolio ofParadoxes. '"

"In a rational state of society they would be paradoxes; but nowthe time gives them proof--like Hamlet's paradox. It is, however, acollection of facts; and I will give no fanciful name to it. You dislikefigures, don't you?"

"Unless they are by Phidias, yes. "

"Here are a few, not by Phidias. This is the balance sheet of anattempt I made some years ago to carry out the idea of an InternationalAssociation of Laborers--commonly known as THE International--or unionof all workmen throughout the world in defence of the interests oflabor. You see the result. Expenditure, four thousand five hundredpounds. Subscriptions received from working-men, twenty-two pounds sevenand ten pence halfpenny. The British workmen showed their sense of myefforts to emancipate them by accusing me of making a good thing out ofthe Association for my own pocket, and by mobbing and stoning me twice. I now help them only when they show some disposition to help themselves. I occupy myself partly in working out a scheme for the reorganization ofindustry, and partly in attacking my own class, women and all, as I amattacking you. "

"There is little use in attacking us, I fear, " said Sir Charles. 

"Great use, " said Trefusis confidently. "You have a very differentopinion of our boasted civilization now from that which you held when Ibroke your wall down and invited those Land Nationalization zealots tomarch across your pleasure ground. You have seen in my album somethingyou had not seen an hour ago, and you are consequently not quite thesame man you were an hour ago. My pictures stick in the mind longer thanyour scratchy etchings, or the leaden things in which you fancy you seetender harmonies in gray. Erskine's next drama may be about liberty, but its Patriot Martyrs will have something better to do than spoutbalderdash against figure-head kings who in all their lives neversecretly plotted as much dastardly meanness, greed, cruelty, andtyranny as is openly voted for in London by every half-yearly meetingof dividend-consuming vermin whose miserable wage-slaves drudge sixteenhours out of the twenty-four. "

"What is going to be the end of it all?" said Sir Charles, a littledazed. 

"Socialism or Smash. Socialism if the race has at last evolved thefaculty of coordinating the functions of a society too crowded andcomplex to be worked any longer on the old haphazard private-propertysystem. Unless we reorganize our society socialistically--humanly a mostarduous and magnificent enterprise, economically a most simple and soundone--Free Trade by itself will ruin England, and I will tell you exactlyhow. When my father made his fortune we had the start of all othernations in the organization of our industry and in our access to ironand coal. Other nations bought our products for less than they must havespent to raise them at home, and yet for so much more than they costus, that profits rolled in Atlantic waves upon our capitalists. Whenthe workers, by their trades-unions, demanded a share of the luck inthe form of advanced wages, it paid better to give them the little theydared to ask than to stop gold-gathering to fight and crush them. Butnow our customers have set up in their own countries improved copies ofour industrial organization, and have discovered places where ironand coal are even handier than they are by this time in England. Theyproduce for themselves, or buy elsewhere, what they formerly boughtfrom us. Our profits are vanishing, our machinery is standing idle, our workmen are locked out. It pays now to stop the mills and fightand crush the unions when the men strike, no longer for an advance, butagainst a reduction. Now that these unions are beaten, helpless, anddrifting to bankruptcy as the proportion of unemployed men in theirranks becomes greater, they are being petted and made much of by ourclass; an infallible sign that they are making no further progress intheir duty of destroying us. The small capitalists are left stranded bythe ebb; the big ones will follow the tide across the water, andrebuild their factories where steam power, water power, labor power, and transport are now cheaper than in England, where they used to becheapest. The workers will emigrate in pursuit of the factory, but theywill multiply faster than they emigrate, and be told that their ownexorbitant demand for wages is driving capital abroad, and must continueto do so whilst there is a Chinaman or a Hindoo unemployed to underbidthem. As the British factories are shut up, they will be replaced byvillas; the manufacturing districts will become fashionable resorts forcapitalists living on the interest of foreign investments; the farms andsheep runs will be cleared for deer forests. All products that canin the nature of things be manufactured elsewhere than where they areconsumed will be imported in payment of deer-forest rents from foreignsportsmen, or of dividends due to shareholders resident in England, butholding shares in companies abroad, and these imports will not be paidfor by ex ports, because rent and interest are not paid for at all--afact which the Free Traders do not yet see, or at any rate do notmention, although it is the key to the whole mystery of their opponents. The cry for Protection will become wild, but no one will dare resort toa demonstrably absurd measure that must raise prices before it raiseswages, and that has everywhere failed to benefit the worker. There willbe no employment for anyone except in doing things that must be done onthe spot, such as unpacking and distributing the imports, ministering tothe proprietors as domestic servants, or by acting, preaching, paving, lighting, housebuilding, and the rest; and some of these, as thecapitalist comes to regard ostentation as vulgar, and to enjoy a simplerlife, will employ fewer and fewer people. A vast proletariat, beginningwith a nucleus of those formerly employed in export trades, with theirmultiplying progeny, will be out of employment permanently. They willdemand access to the land and machinery to produce for themselves. Theywill be refused. They will break a few windows and be dispersed witha warning to their leaders. They will burn a few houses and murder apoliceman or two, and then an example will be made of the warned. Theywill revolt, and be shot down with machine-guns--emigrated--exterminatedanyhow and everyhow; for the proprietary classes have no idea of anyother means of dealing with the full claims of labor. You yourself, though you would give fifty pounds to Jansenius's emigration fundreadily enough, would call for the police, the military, and the RiotAct, if the people came to Brandon Beeches and bade you turn out andwork for your living with the rest. Well, the superfluous proletariatdestroyed, there will remain a population of capitalists living ongratuitous imports and served by a disaffected retinue. One day thegratuitous imports will stop in consequence of the occurrence abroad ofrevolution and repudiation, fall in the rate of interest, purchase ofindustries by governments for lump sums, not reinvestable, or whatnot. Our capitalist community is then thrown on the remains of the lastdividend, which it consumes long before it can rehabilitate its extinctmachinery of production in order to support itself with its own hands. Horses, dogs, cats, rats, blackberries, mushrooms, and cannibalism onlypostpone--"

"Ha! ha! ha!" shouted Sir Charles. "On my honor, I thought you wereserious at first, Trefusis. Come, confess, old chap; it's all a fad ofyours. I half suspected you of being a bit of a crank. " And he winked atErskine. 

"What I have described to you is the inevitable outcome of our presentFree Trade policy without Socialism. The theory of Free Trade is onlyapplicable to systems of exchange, not to systems of spoliation. Oursystem is one of spoliation, and if we don't abandon it, we must eitherreturn to Protection or go to smash by the road I have just mapped. Now, sooner than let the Protectionists triumph, the Cobden Club itself wouldblow the gaff and point out to the workers that Protection only meanscompelling the proprietors of England to employ slaves residentin England and therefore presumably--though by no meansnecessarily--Englishmen. This would open the eyes of the nation at lastto the fact that England is not their property. Once let them understandthat and they would soon make it so. When England is made the propertyof its inhabitants collectively, England becomes socialistic. Artificialinequality will vanish then before real freedom of contract; freedomof competition, or unhampered emulation, will keep us moving ahead; andFree Trade will fulfil its promises at last. "

"And the idlers and loafers, " said Erskine. "What of them?"

"You and I, in fact, " said Trefusis, "die of starvation, I suppose, unless we choose to work, or unless they give us a little out-doorrelief in consideration of our bad bringing-up. "

"Do you mean that they will plunder us?" said Sir Charles. 

"I mean that they will make us stop plundering them. If they hesitateto strip us naked, or to cut our throats if we offer them the smallestresistance, they will show us more mercy than we ever showed them. Consider what we have done to get our rents in Ireland and Scotland, andour dividends in Egypt, if you have already forgotten my photographs andtheir lesson in our atrocities at home. Why, man, we murder the greatmass of these toilers with overwork and hardship; their average lifetimeis not half as long as ours. Human nature is the same in them as in us. If we resist them, and succeed in restoring order, as we call it, wewill punish them mercilessly for their insubordination, as we did inParis in 1871, where, by-the-bye, we taught them the folly of givingtheir enemies quarter. If they beat us, we shall catch it, and serve usright. Far better turn honest at once and avert bloodshed. Eh, Erskine?"

Erskine was considering what reply he should make, when Trefusisdisconcerted him by ringing a bell. Presently the elderly womanappeared, pushing before her an oblong table mounted on wheels, like abarrow. 

"Thank you, " said Trefusis, and dismissed her. "Here is some good wine, some good water, some good fruit, and some good bread. I know thatyou cling to wine as to a good familiar creature. As for me, I make nodistinction between it and other vegetable poisons. I abstain from themall. Water for serenity, wine for excitement. I, having boiling springsof excitement within myself, am never at a loss for it, and have onlyto seek serenity. However, " (here he drew a cork), "a generous gobletof this will make you feel like gods for half an hour at least. Shall wedrink to your conversion to Socialism?"

Sir Charles shook his head. 

"Come, Mr. Donovan Brown, the great artist, is a Socialist, and whyshould not you be one?"

"Donovan Brown!" exclaimed Sir Charles with interest. "Is it possible?Do you know him personally?"

"Here are several letters from him. You may read them; the mereautograph of such a man is interesting. "

Sir Charles took the letters and read them earnestly, Erskine readingover his shoulder. 

"I most cordially agree with everything he says here, " said Sir Charles. "It is quite true, quite true. "

"Of course you agree with us. Donovan Brown's eminence as an artist hasgained me one recruit, and yours as a baronet will gain me some more. "

"But--"

"But what?" said Trefusis, deftly opening one of the albums at aphotograph of a loathsome room. 

"You are against that, are you not? Donovan Brown is against it, and Iam against it. You may disagree with us in everything else, but thereyou are at one with us. Is it not so?"

"But that may be the result of drunkenness, improvidence, or--"

"My father's income was fifty times as great as that of DonovanBrown. Do you believe that Donovan Brown is fifty times as drunken andimprovident as my father was?"

"Certainly not. I do not deny that there is much in what you urge. Still, you ask me to take a rather important step. "

"Not a bit of it. I don't ask you to subscribe to, join, or in any waypledge yourself to any society or conspiracy whatsoever. I only wantyour name for private mention to cowards who think Socialism right, butwill not say so because they do not think it respectable. They will notbe ashamed of their convictions when they learn that a baronet sharesthem. Socialism offers you something already, you see; a good use foryour hitherto useless title. "

Sir Charles colored a little, conscious that the example of his favoritepainter had influenced him more than his own conviction or the argumentsof Trefusis. 

"What do you think, Chester?" he said. "Will you join?"

"Erskine is already committed to the cause of liberty by his publishedwritings, " said Trefusis. "Three of the pamphlets on that shelf containquotations from 'The Patriot Martyrs. '"

Erskine blushed, flattered by being quoted; an attention that had beenshown him only once before, and then by a reviewer with the object ofproving that the Patriot Martyrs were slovenly in their grammar. 

"Come!" said Trefusis. "Shall I write to Donovan Brown that his lettershave gained the cordial assent and sympathy of Sir Charles Brandon?"

"Certainly, certainly. That is, if my unknown name would be of the leastinterest to him. "

"Good, " said Trefusis, filling his glass with water. "Erskine, let usdrink to our brother Social Democrat. "

Erskine laughed loudly, but not heartily. "What an ass you are, Brandon!" he said. "You, with a large landed estate, and bags of goldinvested in railways, calling yourself a Social Democrat! Are you goingto sell out and distribute--to sell all that thou hast and give to thepoor?"

"Not a penny, " replied Trefusis for him promptly. "A man cannot be aChristian in this country. I have tried it and found it impossible bothin law and in fact. I am a capitalist and a landholder. I have railwayshares, mining shares, building shares, bank shares, and stock of mostkinds; and a great trouble they are to me. But these shares do notrepresent wealth actually in existence; they are a mortgage on the laborof unborn generations of laborers, who must work to keep me and mine inidleness and luxury. If I sold them, would the mortgage be cancelled andthe unborn generations released from its thrall? No. It would only passinto the hands of some other capitalist, and the working class would beno better off for my self-sacrifice. Sir Charles cannot obey the commandof Christ; I defy him to do it. Let him give his land for a public park;only the richer classes will have leisure to enjoy it. Plant it at thevery doors of the poor, so that they may at last breathe its air, and itwill raise the value of the neighboring houses and drive the poor away. Let him endow a school for the poor, like Eton or Christ's Hospital, and the rich will take it for their own children as they do in thetwo instances I have named. Sir Charles does not want to minister topoverty, but to abolish it. No matter how much you give to the poor, everything except a bare subsistence wage will be taken from them againby force. All talk of practicing Christianity, or even bare justice, isat present mere waste of words. How can you justly reward the laborerwhen you cannot ascertain the value of what he makes, owing to theprevalent custom of stealing it? I know this by experience. I wanted topay a just price for my wife's tomb, but I could not find out itsvalue, and never shall. The principle on which we farm out our nationalindustry to private marauders, who recompense themselves by black-mail, so corrupts and paralyzes us that we cannot be honest even when we wantto. And the reason we bear it so calmly is that very few of us reallywant to. "

"I must study this question of value, " said Sir Charles dubiously, refilling his goblet. "Can you recommend me a good book on the subject?"

"Any good treatise on political economy will do, " said Trefusis. "Ineconomics all roads lead to Socialism, although in nine cases out often, so far, the economist doesn't recognize his destination, and incursthe malediction pronounced by Jeremiah on those who justify the wickedfor reward. I will look you out a book or two. And if you will call onDonovan Brown the next time you are in London, he will be delighted, Iknow. He meets with very few who are capable of sympathizing with himfrom both his points of view--social and artistic. "

Sir Charles brightened on being reminded of Donovan Brown. "I shallesteem an introduction to him a great honor, " he said. "I had no ideathat he was a friend of yours. "

"I was a very practical young Socialist when I first met him, " saidTrefusis. "When Brown was an unknown and wretchedly poor man, mymother, at the petition of a friend of his, charitably bought one ofhis pictures for thirty pounds, which he was very glad to get. Yearsafterwards, when my mother was dead, and Brown famous, I was offeredeight hundred pounds for this picture, which was, by-the-bye, a verybad one in my opinion. Now, after making the usual unjust allowance forinterest on thirty pounds for twelve years or so that had elapsed, thesale of the picture would have brought me in a profit of over sevenhundred and fifty pounds, an unearned increment to which I had norighteous claim. My solicitor, to whom I mentioned the matter, was ofopinion that I might justifiably pocket the seven hundred and fiftypounds as reward for my mother's benevolence in buying a presumablyworthless picture from an obscure painter. But he failed to convince methat I ought to be paid for my mother's virtues, though we agreed thatneither I nor my mother had received any return in the shape of pleasurein contemplating the work, which had deteriorated considerably by thefading of the colors since its purchase. At last I went to Brown'sstudio with the picture, and told him that it was worth nothing to me, as I thought it a particularly bad one, and that he might have it backagain for fifteen pounds, half the first price. He at once told me thatI could get from any dealer more for it than he could afford to give me;but he told me too that I had no right to make a profit out of his work, and that he would give me the original price of thirty pounds. I tookit, and then sent him the man who had offered me the eight hundred. To my discomfiture Brown refused to sell it on any terms, because heconsidered it unworthy of his reputation. The man bid up to fifteenhundred, but Brown held out; and I found that instead of putting sevenhundred and seventy pounds into his pocket I had taken thirty out ofit. I accordingly offered to return the thirty pieces. Brown, taking theoffer as an insult, declined all further communication with me. I theninsisted on the matter being submitted to arbitration, and demandedfifteen hundred pounds as the full exchange value of the picture. Allthe arbitrators agreed that this was monstrous, whereupon I contendedthat if they denied my right to the value in exchange, they must admitmy right to the value in use. They assented to this after putting offtheir decision for a fortnight in order to read Adam Smith and discoverwhat on earth I meant by my values in use and exchange. I now showedthat the picture had no value in use to me, as I disliked it, and thattherefore I was entitled to nothing, and that Brown must take back thethirty pounds. They were glad to concede this also to me, as they wereall artist friends of Brown, and wished him not to lose money by thetransaction, though they of course privately thought that the picturewas, as I described it, a bad one. After that Brown and I became verygood friends. He tolerated my advances, at first lest it should seemthat he was annoyed by my disparagement of his work. Subsequently hefell into my views much as you have done. "

"That is very interesting, " said Sir Charles. "What a noblething--refusing fifteen hundred pounds! He could ill afford it, probably. "

"Heroic--according to nineteenth century notions of heroism. Voluntarilyto throw away a chance of making money! that is the ne plus ultra ofmartyrdom. Brown's wife was extremely angry with him for doing it. "

"It is an interesting story--or might be made so, " said Erskine. "Butyou make my head spin with your confounded exchange values and stuff. Everything is a question of figures with you. "

"That comes of my not being a poet, " said Trefusis. "But we Socialistsneed to study the romantic side of our movement to interest women in it. If you want to make a cause grow, instruct every woman you meet in it. She is or will one day be a wife, and will contradict her husband withscraps of your arguments. A squabble will follow. The son will listen, and will be set thinking if he be capable of thought. And so the mindof the people gets leavened. I have converted many young women. Most ofthem know no more of the economic theory of Socialism than they know ofChaldee; but they no longer fear or condemn its name. Oh, I assure youthat much can be done in that way by men who are not afraid of women, and who are not in too great a hurry to see the harvest they have sownfor. "

"Take care. Some of your lady proselytes may get the better of you someday. The future husband to be contradicted may be Sidney Trefusis. Ha!ha! ha!" Sir Charles had emptied a second large goblet of wine, and wasa little flushed and boisterous. 

"No, " said Trefusis, "I have had enough of love myself, and am notlikely to inspire it. Women do not care for men to whom, as Erskinesays, everything is a question of figures. I used to flirt with women;now I lecture them, and abhor a man-flirt worse than I do a woman one. Some more wine? Oh, you must not waste the remainder of this bottle. "

"I think we had better go, Brandon, " said Erskine, his mistrust ofTrefusis growing. "We promised to be back before two. "

"So you shall, " said Trefusis. "It is not yet a quarter past one. By-the-bye, I have not shown you Donovan Brown's pet instrument for theregeneration of society. Here it is. A monster petition praying that theholding back from the laborer of any portion of the net value producedby his labor be declared a felony. That is all. "

Erskine nudged Sir Charles, who said hastily, "Thank you, but I hadrather not sign anything. "

"A baronet sign such a petition!" exclaimed Trefusis. "I did not thinkof asking you. I only show it to you as an interesting historicaldocument, containing the autographs of a few artists and poets. There isDonovan Brown's for example. It was he who suggested the petition, whichis not likely to do much good, as the thing cannot be done in any suchfashion However, I have promised Brown to get as many signatures as Ican; so you may as well sign it, Erskine. It says nothing in blank verseabout the holiness of slaying a tyrant, but it is a step in the rightdirection. You will not stick at such a trifle--unless the reviews havefrightened you. Come, your name and address. "

Erskine shook his head. 

"Do you then only commit yourself to revolutionary sentiments when thereis a chance of winning fame as a poet by them?"

"I will not sign, simply because I do not choose to, " said Erskinewarmly. 

"My dear fellow, " said Trefusis, almost affectionately, "if a man has aconscience he can have no choice in matters of conviction. I have readsomewhere in your book that the man who will not shed his blood for theliberty of his brothers is a coward and a slave. Will you not shed adrop of ink--my ink, too--for the right of your brothers to the workof their hands? I at first sight did not care to sign this petition, because I would as soon petition a tiger to share his prey with me asour rulers to relax their grip of the stolen labor they live on. ButDonovan Brown said to me, 'You have no choice. Either you believe thatthe laborer should have the fruit of his labor or you do not. If youdo, put your conviction on record, even if it should be as useless asPilate's washing his hands. ' So I signed. "

"Donovan Brown was right, " said Sir Charles. "I will sign. " And he didso with a flourish. 

"Brown will be delighted, " said Trefusis. "I will write to him to-daythat I have got another good signature for him. "

"Two more, " said Sir Charles. "You shall sign, Erskine; hang me if youshan't! It is only against rascals that run away without paying theirmen their wages. "

"Or that don't pay them in full, " observed Trefusis, with a curioussmile. "But do not sign if you feel uncomfortable about it. "

"If you don't sign after me, you are a sneak, Chester, " said SirCharles. 

"I don't know what it means, " said Erskine, wavering. "I don'tunderstand petitions. "

"It means what it says; you cannot be held responsible for any meaningthat is not expressed in it, " said Trefusis. "But never mind. Youmistrust me a little, I fancy, and would rather not meddle with mypetitions; but you will think better of that as you grow used to me. Meanwhile, there is no hurry. Don't sign yet. "

"Nonsense! I don't doubt your good faith, " said Erskine, hastilydisavowing suspicions which he felt but could not account for. "Heregoes!" And he signed. 

"Well done!" said Trefusis. "This will make Brown happy for the rest ofthe month. "

"It is time for us to go now, " said Erskine gloomily. 

"Look in upon me at any time; you shall be welcome, " said Trefusis. "Youneed not stand upon any sort of ceremony. "

Then they parted; Sir Charles assuring Trefusis that he had never spenta more interesting morning, and shaking hands with him at considerablelength three times. Erskine said little until he was in the RiversideRoad with his friend, when he suddenly burst out:

"What the devil do you mean by drinking two tumblers of such staggeringstuff at one o'clock in the day in the house of a dangerous man likethat? I am very sorry I went into the fellow's place. I had misgivingsabout it, and they have been fully borne out. "

"How so?" said Sir Charles, taken aback. 

"He has overreached us. I was a deuced fool to sign that paper, and sowere you. It was for that that he invited us. "

"Rubbish, my dear boy. It was not his paper, but Donovan Brown's. "

"I doubt it. Most likely he talked Brown into signing it just as hetalked us. I tell you his ways are all crooked, like his ideas. Did youhear how he lied about Miss Lindsay?"

"Oh, you were mistaken about that. He does not care two straws for heror for anyone. "

"Well, if you are satisfied, I am not. You would not be in such highspirits over it if you had taken as little wine as I. "

"Pshaw! you're too ridiculous. It was capital wine. Do you mean to say Iam drunk?"

"No. But you would not have signed if you had not taken that secondgoblet. If you had not forced me--I could not get out of it afteryou set the example--I would have seen him d--d sooner than have hadanything to do with his petition. "

"I don't see what harm can come of it, " said Sir Charles, braving outsome secret disquietude. 

"I will never go into his house again, " said Erskine moodily. "We werejust like two flies in a spider's web. "

Meanwhile, Trefusis was fulfilling his promise to write to DonovanBrown. 

"Sallust's House. 

"Dear Brown: I have spent the forenoon angling for a couple of veryyoung fish, and have landed them with more trouble than they are worth. One has gaudy scales: he is a baronet, and an amateur artist, save themark. All my arguments and my little museum of photographs were lost onhim; but when I mentioned your name, and promised him an introduction toyou, he gorged the bait greedily. He was half drunk when he signed; andI should not have let him touch the paper if I had not convinced myselfbeforehand that he means well, and that my wine had only freed hisnatural generosity from his conventional cowardice and prejudice. We must get his name published in as many journals as possible as asignatory to the great petition; it will draw on others as your namedrew him. The second novice, Chichester Erskine, is a young poet. He will not be of much use to us, though he is a devoted champion ofliberty in blank verse, and dedicates his works to Mazzini, etc. Hesigned reluctantly. All this hesitation is the uncertainty that comesof ignorance; they have not found out the truth for themselves, and areafraid to trust me, matters having come to the pass at which no mandares trust his fellow. 

"I have met a pretty young lady here who might serve you as a model forHypatia. She is crammed with all the prejudices of the peerage, but I ameffecting a cure. I have set my heart on marrying her to Erskine, who, thinking that I am making love to her on my own account, is jealous. Theweather is pleasant here, and I am having a merry life of it, but I findmyself too idle. Etc. , etc. , etc. "

CHAPTER XVI

One sunny forenoon, as Agatha sat reading on the doorstep of theconservatory, the shadow of her parasol deepened, and she, looking upfor something denser than the silk of it, saw Trefusis. 

"Oh!"

She offered him no further greeting, having fallen in with his habitof dispensing, as far as possible, with salutations and ceremonies. He seemed in no hurry to speak, and so, after a pause, she began, "SirCharles--"

"Is gone to town, " he said. "Erskine is out on his bicycle. Lady Brandonand Miss Lindsay have gone to the village in the wagonette, and you havecome out here to enjoy the summer sun and read rubbish. I know all yournews already. "

"You are very clever, and, as usual, wrong. Sir Charles has not gone totown. He has only gone to the railway station for some papers; he willbe back for luncheon. How do you know so much of our affairs?"

"I was on the roof of my house with a field-glass. I saw you come outand sit down here. Then Sir Charles passed. Then Erskine. Then LadyBrandon, driving with great energy, and presenting a remarkable contrastto the disdainful repose of Gertrude. "

"Gertrude! I like your cheek. "

"You mean that you dislike my presumption. "

"No, I think cheek a more expressive word than presumption; and I meanthat I like it--that it amuses me. "

"Really! What are you reading?"

"Rubbish, you said just now. A novel. "

"That is, a lying story of two people who never existed, and who wouldhave acted very differently if they had existed. "

"Just so. "

"Could you not imagine something just as amusing for yourself?"

"Perhaps so; but it would be too much trouble. Besides, cooking takesaway one's appetite for eating. I should not relish stories of my ownconfection. "

"Which volume are you at?"

"The third. "

"Then the hero and heroine are on the point of being united?"

"I really don't know. This is one of your clever novels. I wish thecharacters would not talk so much. "

"No matter. Two of them are in love with one another, are they not?"

"Yes. It would not be a novel without that. "

"Do you believe, in your secret soul, Agatha--I take the liberty ofusing your Christian name because I wish to be very solemn--do youreally believe that any human being was ever unselfish enough to loveanother in the story-book fashion?"

"Of course. At least I suppose so. I have never thought much about it. "

"I doubt it. My own belief is that no latter-day man has any faith inthe thoroughness or permanence of his affection for his mate. Yet hedoes not doubt the sincerity of her professions, and he conceals thehollowness of his own from her, partly because he is ashamed of it, and partly out of pity for her. And she, on the other side, is playingexactly the same comedy. "

"I believe that is what men do, but not women. "

"Indeed! Pray do you remember pretending to be very much in love with meonce when--"

Agatha reddened and placed her palm on the step as if about to springup. But she checked herself and said: "Stop, Mr. Trefusis. If you talkabout that I shall go away. I wonder at you! Have you no taste?', "None whatever. And as I was the aggrieved party on that--stay, don'tgo. I will never allude to it again. I am growing afraid of you. Youused to be afraid of me. "

"Yes; and you used to bully me. You have a habit of bullying women whoare weak enough to fear you. You are a great deal cleverer than I, andknow much more, I dare say; but I am not in the least afraid of younow. "

"You have no reason to be, and never had any. Henrietta, if she werealive, could testify that it there is a defect in my relations withwomen, it arises from my excessive amiability. I could not refuse awoman anything she had set her heart upon--except my hand in marriage. As long as your sex are content to stop short of that they can do asthey please with me. "

"How cruel! I thought you were nearly engaged to Gertrude. "

"The usual interpretation of a friendship between a man and a woman! Ihave never thought of such a thing; and I am sure she never has. We arenot half so intimate as you and Sir Charles. "

"Oh, Sir Charles is married. And I advise you to get married if you wishto avoid creating misunderstandings by your friendships. "

Trefusis was struck. Instead of answering, he stood, after one startledglance at her, looking intently at the knuckle of his forefinger. 

"Do take pity on our poor sex, " said Agatha maliciously. "You are sorich, and so very clever, and really so nice looking that you ought toshare yourself with somebody. Gertrude would be only too happy. "

Trefusis grinned and shook his head, slowly but emphatically. 

"I suppose _I_ should have no chance, " continued Agatha pathetically. 

"I should be delighted, of course, " he replied with simulated confusion, but with a lurking gleam in his eye that might have checked her, had shenoticed it. 

"Do marry me, Mr. Trefusis, " she pleaded, clasping her hands in arapture of mischievous raillery. "Pray do. "

"Thank you, " said Trefusis determinedly; "I will. "

"I am very sure you shan't, " said Agatha, after an incredulous pause, springing up and gathering her skirt as if to run away. "You do notsuppose I was in earnest, do you?"

"Undoubtedly I do. _I_ am in earnest. "

Agatha hesitated, uncertain whether he might not be playing with her asshe had just been playing with him. "Take care, " she said. "I maychange my mind and be in earnest, too; and then how will you feel, Mr. Trefusis?"

"I think, under our altered relations, you had better call me Sidney. "

"I think we had better drop the joke. It was in rather bad taste, and Ishould not have made it, perhaps. "

"It would be an execrable joke; therefore I have no intention ofregarding it as one. You shall be held to your offer, Agatha. Are you inlove with me?"

"Not in the least. Not the very smallest bit in the world. I do not knowanybody with whom I am less in love or less likely to be in love. "

"Then you must marry me. If you were in love with me, I should runaway. My sainted Henrietta adored me, and I proved unworthy ofadoration--though I was immensely flattered. "

"Yes; exactly! The way you treated your first wife ought to besufficient to warn any woman against becoming your second. "

"Any woman who loved me, you mean. But you do not love me, and if I runaway you will have the advantage of being rid of me. Our settlements canbe drawn so as to secure you half my fortune in such an event. "

"You will never have a chance of running away from me. "

"I shall not want to. I am not so squeamish as I was. No; I do not thinkI shall run away from you. "

"I do not think so either. "

"Well, when shall we be married?"

"Never, " said Agatha, and fled. But before she had gone a step he caughther. 

"Don't, " she said breathlessly. "Take your arm away. How dare you?"

He released her and shut the door of the conservatory. "Now, " he said, "if you want to run away you will have to run in the open. "

"You are very impertinent. Let me go in immediately. "

"Do you want me to beg you to marry me after you have offered to do itfreely?"

"But I was only joking; I don't care for you, " she said, looking roundfor an outlet. 

"Agatha, " he said, with grim patience, "half an hour ago I had no moreintention of marrying you than of making a voyage to the moon. But whenyou made the suggestion I felt all its force in an instant, and nownothing will satisfy me but your keeping your word. Of all the women Iknow, you are the only one not quite a fool. "

"I should be a great fool if--"

"If you married me, you were going to say; but I don't think so. I amthe only man, not quite an ass, of your acquaintance. I know my value, and yours. And I loved you long ago, when I had no right to. "

Agatha frowned. "No, " she said. "There is no use in saying anything moreabout it. It is out of the question. "

"Come, don't be vindictive. I was more sincere then than you were. Butthat has nothing to do with the present. You have spent our renewedacquaintance on the defensive against me, retorting upon me, teasing andtempting me. Be generous for once, and say Yes with a good will. "

"Oh, I NEVER tempted you, " cried Agatha. "I did not. It is not true. "He said nothing, but offered his hand. "No; go away; I will not. "He persisted, and she felt her power of resistance suddenly wane. Terror-stricken, she said hastily, "There is not the least use inbothering me; I will tell you nothing to-day. "

"Promise me on your honor that you will say Yes to-morrow, and I willleave you in peace until then. "

"I will not. "

"The deuce take your sex, " he said plaintively. 

"You know my mind now, and I have to stand here coquetting becauseyou don't know your own. If I cared for my comfort I should remain abachelor. "

"I advise you to do so, " she said, stealing backward towards the door. "You are a very interesting widower. A wife would spoil you. Considerthe troubles of domesticity, too. "

"I like troubles. They strengthen--Aha!" (she had snatched at the knobof the door, and he swiftly put his hand on hers and stayed her). "Notyet, if you please. Can you not speak out like a woman--like a man, Imean? You may withhold a bone from Max until he stands on his hind legsto beg for it, but you should not treat me like a dog. Say Yes frankly, and do not keep me begging. "

"What in the world do you want to marry me for?"

"Because I was made to carry a house on my shoulders, and will do so. I want to do the best I can for myself, and I shall never have such achance again. And I cannot help myself, and don't know why; that is theplain truth of the matter. You will marry someone some day. " She shookher head. "Yes, you will. Why not marry me?"

Agatha bit her nether lip, looked ruefully at the ground, and, aftera long pause, said reluctantly, "Very well. But mind, I think you areacting very foolishly, and if you are disappointed afterwards, you mustnot blame ME. "

"I take the risk of my bargain, " he said, releasing her hand, andleaning against the door as he took out his pocket diary. "You will haveto take the risk of yours, which I hope may not prove the worse of thetwo. This is the seventeenth of June. What date before the twenty-fourthof July will suit you?"

"You mean the twenty-fourth of July next year, I presume?"

"No; I mean this year. I am going abroad on that date, married or not, to attend a conference at Geneva, and I want you to come with me. I willshow you a lot of places and things that you have never seen before. It is your right to name the day, but you have no serious business toprovide for, and I have. "

"But you don't know all the things I shall--I should have to provide. You had better wait until you come back from the continent. "

"There is nothing to be provided on your part but settlements and yourtrousseau. The trousseau is all nonsense; and Jansenius knows me of oldin the matter of settlements. I got married in six weeks before. "

"Yes, " said Agatha sharply, "but I am not Henrietta. "

"No, thank Heaven, " he assented placidly. 

Agatha was struck with remorse. "That was a vile thing for me to say, "she said; "and for you too. "

"Whatever is true is to the purpose, vile or not. Will you come toGeneva on the twenty-fourth?"

"But--I really was not thinking when I--I did not intend to say that Iwould--I--"

"I know. You will come if we are married. "

"Yes. IF we are married. "

"We shall be married. Do not write either to your mother or Janseniusuntil I ask you. "

"I don't intend to. I have nothing to write about. "

"Wretch that you are! And do not be jealous if you catch me making loveto Lady Brandon. I always do so; she expects it. "

"You may make love to whom you please. It is no concern of mine. "

"Here comes the wagonette with Lady Brandon and Ger--and Miss Lindsay. I mustn't call her Gertrude now except when you are not by. Before theyinterrupt us, let me remind you of the three points we are agreedupon. I love you. You do not love me. We are to be married before thetwenty-fourth of next month. Now I must fly to help her ladyship toalight. "

He hastened to the house door, at which the wagonette had just stopped. Agatha, bewildered, and ashamed to face her friends, went in through theconservatory, and locked herself in her room. 

Trefusis went into the library with Gertrude whilst Lady Brandonloitered in the hall to take off her gloves and ask questions of theservants. When she followed, she found the two standing together at thewindow. Gertrude was listening to him with the patient expression shenow often wore when he talked. He was smiling, but it struck Jane thathe was not quite at ease. "I was just beginning to tell Miss Lindsay, "he said, "of an extraordinary thing that has happened during yourabsence. "

"I know, " exclaimed Jane, with sudden conviction. "The heater in theconservatory has cracked. "

"Possibly, " said Trefusis; "but, if so, I have not heard of it. "

"If it hasn't cracked, it will, " said Jane gloomily. Then, assuming withsome effort an interest in Trefusis's news, she added: "Well, what hashappened?"

"I was chatting with Miss Wylie just now, when a singular idea occurredto us. We discussed it for some time; and the upshot is that we are tobe married before the end of next month. "

Jane reddened and stared at him; and he looked keenly back at her. Gertrude, though unobserved, did not suffer her expression of patienthappiness to change in the least; but a greenish-white color suddenlyappeared in her face, and only gave place very slowly to her usualcomplexion. 

"Do you mean to say that you are going to marry AGATHA?" said LadyBrandon incredulously, after a pause. 

"Yes. I had no intention of doing so when I last saw you or I shouldhave told you. "

"I never heard of such a thing in my life! You fell in love with oneanother in five minutes, I suppose. "

"Good Heavens, no! we are not in love with one another. Can you believethat I would marry for such a frivolous reason? No. The subject turnedup accidentally, and the advantage of a match between us struck meforcibly. I was fortunate enough to convert her to my opinion. "

"Yes; she wanted a lot of pressing, I dare say, " said Jane, glancing atGertrude, who was smiling unmeaningly. 

"As you imply, " said Trefusis coolly, "her reluctance may have beenaffected, and she only too glad to get such a charming husband. Assumingthat to be the case, she dissembled remarkably well. "

Gertrude took off her bonnet, and left the room without speaking. 

"This is my revenge upon you for marrying Brandon, " he said then, approaching Jane. 

"Oh, yes, " she retorted ironically. "I believe all that, of course. "

"You have the same security for its truth as for that of all the foolishthings I confess to you. There!" He pointed to a panel of looking glass, in which Jane's figure was reflected at full length. 

"I don't see anything to admire, " said Jane, looking at herself with nogreat favor. "There is plenty of me, if you admire that. "

"It is impossible to have too much of a good thing. But I must not lookany more. Though Agatha says she does not love me, I am not sure thatshe would be pleased if I were to look for love from anyone else. "

"Says she does not love you! Don't believe her; she has taken troubleenough to catch you. "

"I am flattered. You caught me without any trouble, and yet you wouldnot have me. "

"It is manners to wait to be asked. I think you have treated Gertrudeshamefully--I hope you won't be offended with me for saying so. I blameAgatha most. She is an awfully double-faced girl. "

"How so?" said Trefusis, surprised. "What has Miss Lindsay to do withit?"

"You know very well. "

"I assure you I do not. If you were speaking of yourself I couldunderstand you. "

"Oh, you can get out of it cleverly, like all men; but you can'thoodwink me. You shouldn't have pretended to like Gertrude when you werereally pulling a cord with Agatha. And she, too, pretending to flirtwith Sir Charles--as if he would care twopence for her!"

Trefusis seemed N little disturbed. "I hope Miss Lindsay had nosuch--but she could not. "

"Oh, couldn't she? You will soon see whether she had or not. "

"You misunderstood us, Lady Brandon; Miss Lindsay knows better. Remember, too, that this proposal of mine was quite unpremeditated. Thismorning I had no tender thoughts of anyone except one whom it would beimproper to name. "

"Oh, that is all talk. It won't do now. "

"I will talk no more at present. I must be off to the village totelegraph to my solicitor. If I meet Erskine I will tell him the goodnews. "

"He will be delighted. He thought, as we all did, that you were cuttinghim out with Gertrude. "

Trefusis smiled, shook his head, and, with a glance of admiring homageto Jane's charms, went out. Jane was contemplating herself in the glasswhen a servant begged her to come and speak to Master Charles and MissFanny. She hurried upstairs to the nursery, where her boy and girl, disputing each other's prior right to torture the baby, had come toblows. They were somewhat frightened, but not at all appeased, by Jane'sentrance. She scolded, coaxed, threatened, bribed, quoted Dr. Watts, appealed to the nurse and then insulted her, demanded of the childrenwhether they loved one another, whether they loved mamma, and whetherthey wanted a right good whipping. At last, exasperated by her owninability to restore order, she seized the baby, which had criedincessantly throughout, and, declaring that it was doing it on purposeand should have something real to cry for, gave it an exemplarysmacking, and ordered the others to bed. The boy, awed by the fate ofhis infant brother, offered, by way of compromise, to be good if MissWylie would come and play with him, a proposal which provoked from hisjealous mother a box on the ear that sent him howling to his cot. Thenshe left the room, pausing on the threshold to remark that if she heardanother sound from them that day, they might expect the worst from her. On descending, heated and angry, to the drawing-room, she found Agathathere alone, looking out of window as if the landscape were especiallyunsatisfactory this time. 

"Selfish little beasts!" exclaimed Jane, making a miniature whirlwindwith her skirts as she came in. "Charlie is a perfect little fiend. Hespends all his time thinking how he can annoy me. Ugh! He's just likehis father. "

"Thank you, my dear, " said Sir Charles from the doorway. 

Jane laughed. "I knew you were there, " she said. "Where's Gertrude?"

"She has gone out, " said Sir Charles. 

"Nonsense! She has only just come in from driving with me. "

"I do not know what you mean by nonsense, " said Sir Charles, chafing. "I saw her walking along the Riverside Road. I was in the village road, and she did not see me. She seemed in a hurry. "

"I met her on the stairs and spoke to her, " said Agatha, "but she didn'thear me. "

"I hope she is not going to throw herself into the river, " said Jane. Then, turning to her husband, she added: "Have you heard the news?"

"The only news I have heard is from this paper, " said Sir Charles, taking out a journal and flinging it on the table. "There is a paragraphin it stating that I have joined some infernal Socialistic league, andI am told that there is an article in the 'Times' on the spread ofSocialism, in which my name is mentioned. This is all due to Trefusis;and I think he has played me a most dishonorable trick. I will tell himso, too, when next I see him. "

"You had better be careful what you say of him before Agatha, " saidJane. "Oh, you need not be alarmed, Agatha; I know all about it. He toldus in the library. We went out this morning--Gertrude and I--and when wecame back we found Mr. Trefusis and Agatha talking very lovingly to oneanother on the conservatory steps, newly engaged. "

"Indeed!" said Sir Charles, disconcerted and displeased, but trying tosmile. "I may then congratulate you, Miss Wylie?"

"You need not, " said Agatha, keeping her countenance as well as shecould. "It was only a joke. At least it came about in a jest. He has noright to say that we are engaged. "

"Stuff and nonsense, " said Jane. "That won't do, Agatha. He has gone offto telegraph to his solicitor. He is quite in earnest. "

"I am a great fool, " said Agatha, sitting down and twisting her handsperplexedly. "I believe I said something; but I really did not intendto. He surprised me into speaking before I knew what I was saying. Apretty mess I have got myself into!"

"I am glad you have been outwitted at last, " said Jane, laughingspitefully. "You never had any pity for me when I could not think of theproper thing to say at a moment's notice. "

Agatha let the taunt pass unheeded. Her gaze wandered anxiously, and atlast settled appealingly upon Sir Charles. "What shall I do?" she saidto him. 

"Well, Miss Wylie, " he said gravely, "if you did not mean to marry himyou should not have promised. I don't wish to be unsympathetic, and Iknow that it is very hard to get rid of Trefusis when he makes up hismind to act something out of you, but still--"

"Never mind her, " said Jane, interrupting him. "She wants to marryhim just as badly as he wants to marry her. You would be preciouslydisappointed if he cried off, Agatha; for all your interestingreluctance. "

"That is not so, really, " said Agatha earnestly. "I wish I had takentime to think about it. I suppose he has told everybody by this time. "

"May we then regard it as settled?" said Sir Charles. 

"Of course you may, " said Jane contemptuously. 

"Pray allow Miss Wylie to speak for herself, Jane. I confess I donot understand why you are still in doubt--if you have really engagedyourself to him. "

"I suppose I am in for it, " said Agatha. "I feel as if there were somefatal objection, if I could only remember what it is. I wish I had neverseen him. "

Sir Charles was puzzled. "I do not understand ladies' ways in thesematters, " he said. "However, as there seems to be no doubt that you andTrefusis are engaged, I shall of course say nothing that would make itunpleasant for him to visit here; but I must say that he has--to saythe least--been inconsiderate to me personally. I signed a paper at hishouse on the implicit understanding that it was strictly private, and now he has trumpeted it forth to the whole world, and publiclyassociated my name not only with his own, but with those of persons ofwhom I know nothing except that I would rather not be connected withthem in any way. "

"What does it matter?" said Jane. "Nobody cares twopence. "

"_I_ care, " said Sir Charles angrily. "No sensible person can accuseme of exaggerating my own importance because I value my reputationsufficiently to object to my approval being publicly cited in support ofa cause with which I have no sympathy. "

"Perhaps Mr. Trefusis has had nothing to do with it, " said Agatha. "Thepapers publish whatever they please, don't they?"

"That's right, Agatha, " said Jane maliciously. "Don't let anyone speakill of him. "

"I am not speaking ill of him, " said Sir Charles, before Agatha couldretort. "It is a mere matter of feeling, and I should not have mentionedit had I known the altered relations between him and Miss Wylie. "

"Pray don't speak of them, " said Agatha. "I have a mind to run away bythe next train. "

Sir Charles, to change the subject, suggested a duet. 

Meanwhile Erskine, returning through the village from his morning ride, had met Trefusis, and attempted to pass him with a nod. But Trefusiscalled to him to stop, and he dismounted reluctantly. 

"Just a word to say that I am going to be married, " said Trefusis. 

"To--?" Erskine could not add Gertrude's name. 

"To one of our friends at the Beeches. Guess to which. "

"To Miss Lindsay, I presume. "

"What in the fiend's name has put it into all your heads that MissLindsay and I are particularly attached to one another?" exclaimedTrefusis. "YOU have always appeared to me to be the man for MissLindsay. I am going to marry Miss Wylie. "

"Really!" exclaimed Erskine, with a sensation of suddenly thawing aftera bitter frost. 

"Of course. And now, Erskine, you have the advantage of being a poorman. Do not let that splendid girl marry for money. If you go furtheryou are likely to fare worse; and so is she. " Then he nodded and walkedaway, leaving the other staring after him. 

"If he has jilted her, he is a scoundrel, " said Erskine. "I am sorry Ididn't tell him so. "

He mounted and rode slowly along the Riverside Road, partly suspectingTrefusis of some mystification, but inclining to believe in him, and, in any case, to take his advice as to Gertrude. The conversation he hadoverheard in the avenue still perplexed him. He could not reconcile itwith Trefusis's profession of disinterestedness towards her. 

His bicycle carried him noiselessly on its india-rubber tires to theplace by which the hemlock grew and there he saw Gertrude sitting on thelow earthen wall that separated the field from the road. Her straw bag, with her scissors in it, lay beside her. Her fingers were interlaced, and her hands rested, palms downwards, on her knee. Her expression wasrather vacant, and so little suggestive of any serious emotion thatErskine laughed as he alighted close to her. 

"Are you tired?" he said. 

"No, " she replied, not startled, and smiling mechanically--an unusualcondescension on her part. 

"Indulging in a day-dream?"

"No. " She moved a little to one side and concealed the basket with herdress. 

He began to fear that something was wrong. "Is it possible that you haveventured among those poisonous plants again?" he said. "Are you ill?"

"Not at all, " she replied, rousing herself a little. "Your solicitude isquite thrown away. I am perfectly well. "

"I beg your pardon, " he said, snubbed. "I thought--Don't you think itdangerous to sit on that damp wall?"

"It is not damp. It is crumbling into dust with dryness. " An unnaturallaugh, with which she concluded, intensified his uneasiness. 

He began a sentence, stopped, and to gain time to recover himself, placed his bicycle in the opposite ditch; a proceeding which shewitnessed with impatience, as it indicated his intention to stay andtalk. She, however, was the first to speak; and she did so with acallousness that shocked him. 

"Have you heard the news?"

"What news?"

"About Mr. Trefusis and Agatha. They are engaged. "

"So Trefusis told me. I met him just now in the village. I was very gladto hear it. "

"Of course. "

"But I had a special reason for being glad. "

"Indeed?"

"I was desperately afraid, before he told me the truth, that he hadother views--views that might have proved fatal to my dearest hopes. "

Gertrude frowned at him, and the frown roused him to brave her. He losthis self-command, already shaken by her strange behavior. "You know thatI love you, Miss Lindsay, " he said. "It may not be a perfect love, but, humanly speaking, it is a true one. I almost told you so that day whenwe were in the billiard room together; and I did a very dishonorablething the same evening. When you were speaking to Trefusis in the avenueI was close to you, and I listened. "

"Then you heard him, " cried Gertrude vehemently. "You heard him swearthat he was in earnest. "

"Yes, " said Erskine, trembling, "and I thought he meant in earnest inloving you. You can hardly blame me for that: I was in love myself; andlove is blind and jealous. I never hoped again until he told me that hewas to be married to Miss Wylie. May I speak to you, now that I know Iwas mistaken, or that you have changed your mind?"

"Or that he has changed his mind, " said Gertrude scornfully. 

Erskine, with a new anxiety for her sake, checked himself. Her dignitywas dear to him, and he saw that her disappointment had made herreckless of it. "Do not say anything to me now, Miss Lindsay, lest--"

"What have I said? What have I to say?"

"Nothing, except on my own affairs. I love you dearly. "

She made an impatient movement, as if that were a very insignificantmatter. 

"You believe me, I hope, " he said, timidly. 

Gertrude made an effort to recover her habitual ladylike reserve, buther energy failed before she had done more than raise her head. Sherelapsed into her listless attitude, and made a faint gesture ofintolerance. 

"You cannot be quite indifferent to being loved, " he said, becoming morenervous and more urgent. "Your existence constitutes all my happiness. I offer you my services and devotion. I do not ask any reward. " (He wasnow speaking very quickly and almost inaudibly. ) "You may accept my lovewithout returning it. I do not want--seek to make a bargain. If you needa friend you may be able to rely on me more confidently because you knowI love you. "

"Oh, you think so, " said Gertrude, interrupting him; "but you will getover it. I am not the sort of person that men fall in love with. Youwill soon change your mind. "

"Not the sort! Oh, how little you know!" he said, becoming eloquent. "I have had plenty of time to change, but I am as fixed as ever. If youdoubt, wait and try me. But do not be rough with me. You pain memore than you can imagine when you are hasty or indifferent. I am inearnest. "

"Ha, ha! That is easily said. "

"Not by me. I change in my judgment of other people according to myhumor, but I believe steadfastly in your goodness and beauty--as if youwere an angel. I am in earnest in my love for you as I am in earnest formy own life, which can only be perfected by your aid and influence. "

"You are greatly mistaken if you suppose that I am an angel. "

"You are wrong to mistrust yourself; but it is what I owe to you and notwhat I expect from you that I try to express by speaking of you as anangel. I know that you are not an angel to yourself. But you are to me. "

She sat stubbornly silent. 

"I will not press you for an answer now. I am content that you know mymind at last. Shall we return together?"

She looked round slowly at the hemlock, and from that to the river. Then she took up her basket, rose, and prepared to go, as if undercompulsion. 

"Do you want any more hemlock?" he said. "If so, I will pluck some foryou. "

"I wish you would let me alone, " she said, with sudden anger. She added, a little ashamed of herself, "I have a headache. "

"I am very sorry, " he said, crestfallen. 

"It is only that I do not wish to be spoken to. It hurts my head tolisten. "

He meekly took his bicycle from the ditch and wheeled it along besideher to the Beeches without another word. They went in through theconservatory, and parted in the dining-room. Before leaving him she saidwith some remorse, "I did not mean to be rude, Mr. Erskine. "

He flushed, murmured something, and attempted to kiss her hand. But shesnatched it away and went out quickly. He was stung by this repulse, andstood mortifying himself by thinking of it until he was disturbed by theentrance of a maid-servant. Learning from her that Sir Charles was inthe billiard room, he joined him there, and asked him carelessly if hehad heard the news. 

"About Miss Wylie?" said Sir Charles. "Yes, I should think so. I believethe whole country knows it, though they have not been engaged threehours. Have you seen these?" And he pushed a couple of newspapers acrossthe table. 

Erskine had to make several efforts before he could read. "You were afool to sign that document, " he said. "I told you so at the time. "

"I relied on the fellow being a gentleman, " said Sir Charles warmly. "I do not see that I was a fool. I see that he is a cad, and but forthis business of Miss Wylie's I would let him know my opinion. Let metell you, Chester, that he has played fast and loose with Miss Lindsay. There is a deuce of a row upstairs. She has just told Jane that she mustgo home at once; Miss Wylie declares that she will have nothing to dowith Trefusis if Miss Lindsay has a prior claim to him, and Jane isannoyed at his admiring anybody except herself. It serves me right; myinstinct warned me against the fellow from the first. " Just thenluncheon was announced. Gertrude did not come down. Agatha was silentand moody. Jane tried to make Erskine describe his walk with Gertrude, but he baffled her curiosity by omitting from his account everythingexcept its commonplaces. 

"I think her conduct very strange, " said Jane. "She insists on going totown by the four o'clock train. I consider that it's not polite to me, although she always made a point of her perfect manners. I never heardof such a thing!"

When they had risen from the table, they went together to thedrawing-room. They had hardly arrived there when Trefusis was announced, and he was in their presence before they had time to conceal theexpression of consternation his name brought into their faces. 

"I have come to say good-bye, " he said. "I find that I must go totown by the four o'clock train to push my arrangements in person; thetelegrams I have received breathe nothing but delay. Have you seen the'Times'?"

"I have indeed, " said Sir Charles, emphatically. 

"You are in some other paper too, and will be in half-a-dozen more inthe course of the next fortnight. Men who have committed themselves toan opinion are always in trouble with the newspapers; some because theycannot get into them, others because they cannot keep out. If you hadput forward a thundering revolutionary manifesto, not a daily paperwould have dared allude to it: there is no cowardice like Fleet Streetcowardice! I must run off; I have much to do before I start, and it isgetting on for three. Good-bye, Lady Brandon, and everybody. "

He shook Jane's hand, dealt nods to the rest rapidly, making nodistinction in favor of Agatha, and hurried away. They stared after himfor a moment and then Erskine ran out and went downstairs two steps at atime. Nevertheless he had to run as far as the avenue before he overtookhis man. 

"Trefusis, " he said breathlessly, "you must not go by the four o'clocktrain. "

"Why not?"

"Miss Lindsay is going to town by it. "

"So much the better, my dear boy; so much the better. You are notjealous of me now, are you?"

"Look here, Trefusis. I don't know and I don't ask what there has beenbetween you and Miss Lindsay, but your engagement has quite upset her, and she is running away to London in consequence. If she hears that youare going by the same train she will wait until to-morrow, and I believethe delay would be very disagreeable. Will you inflict that additionalpain upon her?"

Trefusis, evidently concerned, looking doubtfully at Erskine, andpondered for a moment. "I think you are on a wrong scent about this, "he said. "My relations with Miss Lindsay were not of a sentimental kind. Have you said anything to her--on your own account, I mean?"

"I have spoken to her on both accounts, and I know from her own lipsthat I am right. "

Trefusis uttered a low whistle. 

"It is not the first time I have had the evidence of my senses in thematter, " said Erskine significantly. "Pray think of it seriously, Trefusis. Forgive my telling you frankly that nothing but your own utterwant of feeling could excuse you for the way in which you have actedtowards her. "

Trefusis smiled. "Forgive me in turn for my inquisitiveness, " he said. "What does she say to your suit?"

Erskine hesitated, showing by his manner that he thought Trefusis had noright to ask the question. "She says nothing, " he answered. 

"Hm!" said Trefusis. "Well, you may rely on me as to the train. There ismy hand upon it. "

"Thank you, " said Erskine fervently. They shook hands and parted, Trefusis walking away with a grin suggestive of anything but good faith. 

CHAPTER XVII

Gertrude, unaware of the extent to which she had already betrayed herdisappointment, believed that anxiety for her father's health, which shealleged as the motive of her sudden departure, was an excuse plausibleenough to blind her friends to her overpowering reluctance to speak toAgatha or endure her presence; to her fierce shrinking from the sort ofpity usually accorded to a jilted woman; and, above all, to her dreadof meeting Trefusis. She had for some time past thought of him as anupright and perfect man deeply interested in her. Yet, comparativelyliberal as her education had been, she had no idea of any interestof man in woman existing apart from a desire to marry. He had, in hisserious moments, striven to make her sensible of the baseness he saw inher worldliness, flattering her by his apparent conviction--whichshe shared--that she was capable of a higher life. Almost in the samebreath, a strain of gallantry which was incorrigible in him, and towhich his humor and his tenderness to women whom he liked gave varietyand charm, would supervene upon his seriousness with a rapidity whichher far less flexible temperament could not follow. Hence she, thinkinghim still in earnest when he had swerved into florid romance, had beendangerously misled. He had no conscientious scruples in his love-making, because he was unaccustomed to consider himself as likely to inspirelove in women; and Gertrude did not know that her beauty gave to an hourspent alone with her a transient charm which few men of imagination andaddress could resist. She, who had lived in the marriage market sinceshe had left school, looked upon love-making as the most seriousbusiness of life. To him it was only a pleasant sort of trifling, enhanced by a dash of sadness in the reflection that it meant so little. 

Of the ceremonies attending her departure, the one that cost her mostwas the kiss she felt bound to offer Agatha. She had been jealous of herat college, where she had esteemed herself the better bred of the two;but that opinion had hardly consoled her for Agatha's superior quicknessof wit, dexterity of hand, audacity, aptness of resource, capacity forforming or following intricate associations of ideas, and consequentpower to dazzle others. Her jealousy of these qualities was now barbedby the knowledge that they were much nearer akin than her own to thoseof Trefusis. It mattered little to her how she appeared to herself incomparison with Agatha. But it mattered the whole world (she thought)that she must appear to Trefusis so slow, stiff, cold, and studied, andthat she had no means to make him understand that she was not really so. For she would not admit the justice of impressions made by what she didnot intend to do, however habitually she did it. She had a theory thatshe was not herself, but what she would have liked to be. As to the onequality in which she had always felt superior to Agatha, and which shecalled "good breeding, " Trefusis had so far destroyed her conceit inthat, that she was beginning to doubt whether it was not her cardinaldefect. 

She could not bring herself to utter a word as she embraced herschoolfellow; and Agatha was tongue-tied too. But there was muchremorseful tenderness in the feelings that choked them. Their silencewould have been awkward but for the loquacity of Jane, who talked enoughfor all three. Sir Charles was without, in the trap, waiting to driveGertrude to the station. Erskine intercepted her in the hall as shepassed out, told her that he should be desolate when she was gone, andbegged her to remember him, a simple petition which moved her a little, and caused her to note that his dark eyes had a pleading eloquence whichshe had observed before in the kangaroos at the Zoological Society'sgardens. 

On the way to the train Sir Charles worried the horse in order to beexcused from conversation on the sore subject of his guest's suddendeparture. He had made a few remarks on the skittishness of youngponies, and on the weather, and that was all until they reached thestation, a pretty building standing in the open country, with a view ofthe river from the platform. There were two flies waiting, two porters, a bookstall, and a refreshment room with a neglected beauty piningbehind the bar. Sir Charles waited in the booking office to purchase aticket for Gertrude, who went through to the platform. The first personshe saw there was Trefusis, close beside her. 

"I am going to town by this train, Gertrude, " he said quickly. "Letme take charge of you. I have something to say, for I hear that somemischief has been made between us which must be stopped at once. You--"

Just then Sir Charles came out, and stood amazed to see them inconversation. 

"It happens that I am going by this train, " said Trefusis. "I will seeafter Miss Lindsay. "

"Miss Lindsay has her maid with her, " said Sir Charles, almoststammering, and looking at Gertrude, whose expression was inscrutable. 

"We can get into the Pullman car, " said Trefusis. "There we shall be asprivate as in a corner of a crowded drawing-room. I may travel with you, may I not?" he said, seeing Sir Charles's disturbed look, and turning toher for express permission. 

She felt that to deny him would be to throw away her last chance ofhappiness. Nevertheless she resolved to do it, though she should dieof grief on the way to London. As she raised her head to forbid him themore emphatically, she met his gaze, which was grave and expectant. Foran instant she lost her presence of mind, and in that instant said, "Yes. I shall be very glad. "

"Well, if that is the case, " said Sir Charles, in the tone of one whosesympathy had been alienated by an unpardonable outrage, "there canbe no use in my waiting. I leave you in the hands of Mr. Trefusis. Good-bye, Miss Lindsay. "

Gertrude winced. Unkindness from a man usually kind proved hard to bearat parting. She was offering him her hand in silence when Trefusis said:

"Wait and see us off. If we chance to be killed on the journey--whichis always probable on an English railway--you will reproach yourselfafterwards if you do not see the last of us. Here is the train; it willnot delay you a minute. Tell Erskine that you saw me here; that I havenot forgotten my promise, and that he may rely on me. Get in at thisend, Miss Lindsay. "

"My maid, " said Gertrude hesitating; for she had not intended to travelso expensively. "She--"

"She comes with us to take care of me; I have tickets for everybody, "said Trefusis, handing the woman in. 

"But--"

"Take your seats, please, " said the guard. "Going by the train, sir?"

"Good-bye, Sir Charles. Give my love to Lady Brandon, and Agatha, andthe dear children; and thanks so much for a very pleasant--" Here thetrain moved off, and Sir Charles, melting, smiled and waved his hatuntil he caught sight of Trefusis looking back at him with a grin whichseemed, under the circumstances, so Satanic, that he stopped as ifpetrified in the midst of his gesticulations, and stood with his arm outlike a semaphore. 

The drive home restored him somewhat, but he wee still full ofhis surprise when he rejoined Agatha, his wife, and Erskine in thedrawing-room at the Beeches. The moment he entered, he said withoutpreface, "She has gone off with Trefusis. "

Erskine, who had been reading, started up, clutching his book as ifabout to hurl it at someone, and cried, "Was he at the train?"

"Yes, and has gone to town by it. "

"Then, " said Erskine, flinging the book violently on the floor, "he is ascoundrel and a liar. "

"What is the matter?" said Agatha rising, whilst Jane staredopen-mouthed at him. 

"I beg your pardon, Miss Wylie, I forgot you. He pledged me his honorthat he would not go by that train. I will. " He hurried from the room. Sir Charles rushed after him, and overtook him at the foot of thestairs. 

"Where are you going? What do you want to do?"

"I will follow the train and catch it at the next station. I can do iton my bicycle. "

"Nonsense! you're mad. They have thirty-five minutes start; and thetrain travels forty-five miles an hour. "

Erskine sat down on the stairs and gazed blankly at the opposite wall. 

"You must have mistaken him, " said Sir Charles. "He told me to tell youthat he had not forgotten his promise, and that you may rely on him. "

"What is the matter?" said Agatha, coming down, followed by LadyBrandon. 

"Miss Wylie, " said Erskine, springing up, "he gave me his word that hewould not go by that train when I told him Miss Lindsay was going byit. He has broken his word and seized the opportunity I was mad andcredulous enough to tell him of. If I had been in your place, Brandon, Iwould have strangled him or thrown him under the wheels sooner than lethim go. He has shown himself in this as in everything else, a cheat, aconspirator, a man of crooked ways, shifts, tricks, lying sophistries, heartless selfishness, cruel cynicism--" He stopped to catch his breath, and Sir Charles interposed a remonstrance. 

"You are exciting yourself about nothing, Chester. They are in aPullman, with her maid and plenty of people; and she expressly gave himleave to go with her. He asked her the question flatly before my face, and I must say I thought it a strange thing for her to consent to. However, she did consent, and of course I was not in a position toprevent him from going to London if he pleased. Don't let us have ascene, old man. It can't be helped. "

"I am very sorry, " said Erskine, hanging his head. "I did not mean tomake a scene. I beg your pardon. "

He went away to his room without another word. Sir Charles followed andattempted to console him, but Erskine caught his hand, and asked to beleft to himself. So Sir Charles returned to the drawing-room, where hiswife, at a loss for once, hardly ventured to remark that she had neverheard of such a thing in her life. 

Agatha kept silence. She had long ago come unconsciously to theconclusion that Trefusis and she were the only members of the party atthe Beeches who had much common-sense, and this made her slow tobelieve that he could be in the wrong and Erskine in the right in anymisunderstanding between them. She had a slovenly way of summing upas "asses" people whose habits of thought differed from hers. Of allvarieties of man, the minor poet realized her conception of the humanass most completely, and Erskine, though a very nice fellow indeed, thoroughly good and gentlemanly, in her opinion, was yet a minor poet, and therefore a pronounced ass. Trefusis, on the contrary, was the lastman of her acquaintance whom she would have thought of as a very nicefellow or a virtuous gentleman; but he was not an ass, although hewas obstinate in his Socialistic fads. She had indeed suspected him ofweakness almost asinine with respect to Gertrude, but then all men wereasses in their dealings with women, and since he had transferred hisweakness to her own account it no longer seemed to need justification. And now, as her concern for Erskine, whom she pitied, wore off, shebegan to resent Trefusis's journey with Gertrude as an attack on herrecently acquired monopoly of him. There was an air of aristocraticpride about Gertrude which Agatha had formerly envied, and whichshe still feared Trefusis might mistake for an index of dignity andrefinement. Agatha did not believe that her resentment was the commonfeeling called jealousy, for she still deemed herself unique, but itgave her a sense of meanness that did not improve her spirits. 

The dinner was dull. Lady Brandon spoke in an undertone, as if someonelay dead in the next room. Erskine was depressed by the consciousness ofhaving lost his head and acted foolishly in the afternoon. Sir Charlesdid not pretend to ignore the suspense they were all in pendingintelligence of the journey to London; he ate and drank and saidnothing. Agatha, disgusted with herself and with Gertrude, and undecidedwhether to be disgusted with Trefusis or to trust him affectionately, followed the example of her host. After dinner she accompanied him ina series of songs by Schubert. This proved an aggravation instead ofa relief. Sir Charles, excelling in the expression of melancholy, preferred songs of that character; and as his musical ideas, like thoseof most Englishmen, were founded on what he had heard in church in hischildhood, his style was oppressively monotonous. Agatha took the firstexcuse that presented itself to leave the piano. Sir Charles felt thathis performance had been a failure, and remarked, after a cough or two, that he had caught a touch of cold returning from the station. Erskinesat on a sofa with his head drooping, and his palms joined and hangingdownward between his knees. Agatha stood at the window, looking at thelate summer afterglow. Jane yawned, and presently broke the silence. 

"You look exactly as you used at school, Agatha. I could almost fancy usback again in Number Six. "

Agatha shook her head. 

"Do I ever look like that--like myself, as I used to be?"

"Never, " said Agatha emphatically, turning and surveying the figure ofwhich Miss Carpenter had been the unripe antecedent. 

"But why?" said Jane querulously. "I don't see why I shouldn't. I am notso changed. "

"You have become an exceedingly fine woman, Jane, " said Agatha gravely, and then, without knowing why, turned her attentive gaze upon SirCharles, who bore it uneasily, and left the room. A minute later hereturned with two buff envelopes in his hand. 

"A telegram for you, Miss Wylie, and one for Chester. " Erskine startedup, white with vague fears. Agatha's color went, and came again withincreased richness as she read:

"I have arrived safe and ridiculously happy. Read a thousand thingsbetween the lines. I will write tomorrow. Good night. "

"You may read it, " said Agatha, handing it to Jane. 

"Very pretty, " said Jane. "A shilling's worth of attention--exactlytwenty words! He may well call himself an economist. "

Suddenly a crowing laugh from Erskine caused them to turn and stare athim. "What nonsense!" he said, blushing. "What a fellow he is! I don'tattach the slightest importance to this. "

Agatha took a corner of his telegram and pulled it gently. 

"No, no, " he said, holding it tightly. "It is too absurd. I don't thinkI ought--"

Agatha gave a decisive pull, and read the message aloud. It was fromTrefusis, thus:

"I forgive your thoughts since Brandon's return. Write her to-night, and follow your letter to receive an affirmative answer in person. Ipromised that you might rely on me. She loves you. "

"I never heard of such a thing in my life, " said Jane. "Never!"

"He is certainly a most unaccountable man, " said Sir Charles. 

"I am glad, for my own sake, that he is not so black as he is painted, "said Agatha. "You may believe every word of it, Mr. Erskine. Be sure todo as he tells you. He is quite certain to be right. "

"Pooh!" said Erskine, crumpling the telegram and thrusting it into hispocket as if it were not worth a second thought. Presently he slippedaway, and did not reappear. When they were about to retire, Sir Charlesasked a servant where he was. 

"In the library, Sir Charles; writing. "

They looked significantly at one another and went to bed withoutdisturbing him. 

CHAPTER XVIII

When Gertrude found herself beside Trefusis in the Pullman, she wonderedhow she came to be travelling with him against her resolution, if notagainst her will. In the presence of two women scrutinizing her as ifthey suspected her of being there with no good purpose, a malepassenger admiring her a little further off, her maid reading Trefusis'snewspapers just out of earshot, an uninterested country gentlemanlooking glumly out of window, a city man preoccupied with the"Economist, " and a polite lady who refrained from staring but not fromobserving, she felt that she must not make a scene; yet she knew he hadnot come there to hold an ordinary conversation. Her doubt did not lastlong. He began promptly, and went to the point at once. 

"What do you think of this engagement of mine?"

This was more than she could bear calmly. "What is it to me?" she saidindignantly. "I have nothing to do with it. "

"Nothing! You are a cold friend to me then. I thought you one of thesurest I possessed. "

She moved as if about to look at him, but checked herself, closed herlips, and fixed her eyes on the vacant seat before her. The reproach hedeserved was beyond her power of expression. 

"I cling to that conviction still, in spite of Miss Lindsay'sindifference to my affairs. But I confess I hardly know how to bring youinto sympathy with me in this matter. In the first place, you have neverbeen married, I have. In the next, you are much younger than I, in morerespects than that of years. Very likely half your ideas on the subjectare derived from fictions in which happy results are tacked on toconditions very ill-calculated to produce them--which in real lifehardly ever do produce them. If our friendship were a chapter in anovel, what would be the upshot of it? Why, I should marry you, or youbreak your heart at my treachery. "

Gertrude moved her eyes as if she had some intention of taking toflight. 

"But our relations being those of real life--far sweeter, after all--Inever dreamed of marrying you, having gained and enjoyed your friendshipwithout that eye to business which our nineteenth century keeps openeven whilst it sleeps. You, being equally disinterested in your regardfor me, do not think of breaking your heart, but you are, I suppose, alittle hurt at my apparently meditating and resolving on such a seriousstep as marriage with Agatha without confiding my intention to you. Andyou punish me by telling me that you have nothing to do with it--that itis nothing to you. But I never meditated the step, and so had nothing toconceal from you. It was conceived and executed in less than a minute. Although my first marriage was a silly love match and a failure, I havealways admitted to myself that I should marry again. A bachelor is a manwho shirks responsibilities and duties; I seek them, and consider itmy duty, with my monstrous superfluity of means, not to let theindividualists outbreed me. Still, I was in no hurry, having otherthings to occupy me, and being fond of my bachelor freedom, and doubtfulsometimes whether I had any right to bring more idlers into the worldfor the workers to feed. Then came the usual difficulty about the lady. I did not want a helpmeet; I can help myself. Nor did I expect to beloved devotedly, for the race has not yet evolved a man lovable onthorough acquaintance; even my self-love is neither thorough norconstant. I wanted a genial partner for domestic business, and Agathastruck me quite suddenly as being the nearest approach to what I desiredthat I was likely to find in the marriage market, where it is extremelyhard to suit oneself, and where the likeliest bargains are apt to besnapped up by others if one hesitates too long in the hope of findingsomething better. I admire Agatha's courage and capability, and believeI shall be able to make her like me, and that the attachment so begunmay turn into as close a union as is either healthy or necessary betweentwo separate individuals. I may mistake her character, for I do not knowher as I know you, and have scarcely enough faith in her as yet to tellher such things as I have told you. Still, there is a consoling dash ofromance in the transaction. Agatha has charm. Do you not think so?"

Gertrude's emotion was gone. She replied with cool scorn, "Very romanticindeed. She is very fortunate. "

Trefusis half laughed, half sighed with relief to find her soself-possessed. "It sounds like--and indeed is--the selfish calculationof a disilluded widower. You would not value such an offer, or envy therecipient of it?"

"No, " said Gertrude with quiet contempt. 

"Yet there is some calculation behind every such offer. We marry tosatisfy our needs, and the more reasonable our needs are, the morelikely are we to get them satisfied. I see you are disgusted with me;I feared as much. You are the sort of woman to admit no excuse for mymarriage except love--pure emotional love, blindfolding reason. "

"I really do not concern myself--"

"Do not say so, Gertrude. I watch every step you take with anxiety; andI do not believe you are indifferent to the worthiness of my conduct. Believe me, love is an overrated passion; it would be irremediablydiscredited but that young people, and the romancers who live upon theirfollies, have a perpetual interest in rehabilitating it. No relationinvolving divided duties and continual intercourse between two peoplecan subsist permanently on love alone. Yet love is not to be despisedwhen it comes from a fine nature. There is a man who loves you exactlyas you think I ought to love Agatha--and as I don't love her. "

Gertrude's emotion stirred again, and her color rose. "You have no rightto say these things now, " she said. 

"Why may I not plead the cause of another? I speak of Erskine. " Hercolor vanished, and he continued, "I want you to marry him. When you aremarried you will understand me better, and our friendship, shaken justnow, will be deepened; for I dare assure you, now that you can no longermisunderstand me, that no living woman is dearer to me than you. So muchfor the inevitable selfish reason. Erskine is a poor man, and inhis comfortable poverty--save the mark--lies your salvation from thebaseness of marrying for wealth and position; a baseness of which womenof your class stand in constant peril. They court it; you must shun it. The man is honorable and loves you; he is young, healthy, and suitable. What more do you think the world has to offer you?"

"Much more, I hope. Very much more. "

"I fear that the names I give things are not romantic enough. He is apoet. Perhaps he would be a hero if it were possible for a man to be ahero in this nineteenth century, which will be infamous in history asa time when the greatest advances in the power of man over nature onlyserved to sharpen his greed and make famine its avowed minister. Erskineis at least neither a gambler nor a slave-driver at first hand; if helives upon plundered labor he can no more help himself than I. Do notsay that you hope for much more; but tell me, if you can, what more youhave any chance of getting? Mind, I do not ask what more you desire; weall desire unutterable things. I ask you what more you can obtain!"

"I have not found Mr. Erskine such a wonderful person as you seem tothink him. "

"He is only a man. Do you know anybody more wonderful?"

"Besides, my family might not approve. "

"They most certainly will not. If you wish to please them, you must sellyourself to some rich vampire of the factories or great landlord. If yougive yourself away to a poor poet who loves you, their disgust will beunbounded. If a woman wishes to honor her father and mother to their ownsatisfaction nowadays she must dishonor herself. "

"I do not understand why you should be so anxious for me to marrysomeone else?"

"Someone else?" said Trefusis, puzzled. 

"I do not mean someone else, " said Gertrude hastily, reddening. "Whyshould I marry at all?"

"Why do any of us marry? Why do I marry? It is a function cravingfulfilment. If you do not marry betimes from choice, you will be drivento do so later on by the importunity of your suitors and of your family, and by weariness of the suspense that precedes a definite settlement ofoneself. Marry generously. Do not throw yourself away or sell yourself;give yourself away. Erskine has as much at stake as you; and yet heoffers himself fearlessly. "

Gertrude raised her head proudly. 

"It is true, " continued Trefusis, observing the gesture with some anger, "that he thinks more highly of you than you deserve; but you, on theother hand, think too lowly of him. When you marry him you must save himfrom a cruel disenchantment by raising yourself to the level he fanciesyou have attained. This will cost you an effort, and the effort will doyou good, whether it fail or succeed. As for him, he will find hisjust level in your estimation if your thoughts reach high enough tocomprehend him at that level. "

Gertrude moved impatiently. 

"What!" he said quickly. "Are my long-winded sacrifices to the god ofreason distasteful? I believe I am involuntarily making them so becauseI am jealous of the fellow after all. Nevertheless I am serious; I wantyou to get married; though I shall always have a secret grudge againstthe man who marries you. Agatha will suspect me of treason if you don't. Erskine will be a disappointed man if you don't. You will be moody, wretched, and--and unmarried if you don't. "

Gertrude's cheeks flushed at the word jealous, and again at his mentionof Agatha. "And if I do, " she said bitterly, "what then?"

"If you do, Agatha's mind will be at ease, Erskine will be happy, andyou! You will have sacrificed yourself, and will have the happinesswhich follows that when it is worthily done. "

"It is you who have sacrificed me, " she said, casting away herreticence, and looking at him for the first time during theconversation. 

"I know it, " he said, leaning towards her and half whispering thewords. "Is not renunciation the beginning and the end of wisdom? I havesacrificed you rather than profane our friendship by asking you to sharemy whole life with me. You are unfit for that, and I have committedmyself to another union, and am begging you to follow my example, lestwe should tempt one another to a step which would soon prove to you howtruly I tell you that you are unfit. I have never allowed you to roamthrough all the chambers of my consciousness, but I keep a sanctuarythere for you alone, and will keep it inviolate for you always. Not evenAgatha shall have the key, she must be content with the other rooms--thedrawing-room, the working-room, the dining-room, and so forth. Theywould not suit you; you would not like the furniture or the guests;after a time you would not like the master. Will you be content with thesanctuary?" Gertrude bit her lip; tears came into her eyes. She lookedimploringly at him. Had they been alone, she would have thrown herselfinto his arms and entreated him to disregard everything except theirstrong cleaving to one another. 

"And will you keep a corner of your heart for me?"

She slowly gave him a painful look of acquiescence. "Will you be brave, and sacrifice yourself to the poor man who loves you? He will save youfrom useless solitude, or from a worldly marriage--I cannot bear tothink of either as your fate. "

"I do not care for Mr. Erskine, " she said, hardly able to control hervoice; "but I will marry him if you wish it. "

"I do wish it earnestly, Gertrude. "

"Then, you have my promise, " she said, again with some bitterness. 

"But you will not forget me? Erskine will have all but that--a tenderrecollection--nothing. "

"Can I do more than I have just promised?"

"Perhaps so; but I am too selfish to be able to conceive anything moregenerous. Our renunciation will bind us to one another as our unioncould never have done. "

They exchanged a long look. Then he took out his watch, and began tospeak of the length of their journey, now nearly at an end. When theyarrived in London the first person they recognized on the platform wasMr. Jansenius. 

"Ah! you got my telegram, I see, " said Trefusis. "Many thanks forcoming. Wait for me whilst I put this lady into a cab. "

When the cab was engaged, and Gertrude, with her maid, stowed within, hewhispered to her hurriedly:

"In spite of all, I have a leaden pain here" (indicating his heart). "You have been brave, and I have been wise. Do not speak to me, butremember that we are friends always and deeply. "

He touched her hand, and turned to the cabman, directing him whither todrive. Gertrude shrank back into a corner of the vehicle as it departed. Then Trefusis, expanding his chest like a man just released from somecramping drudgery, rejoined Mr. Jansenius. 

"There goes a true woman, " he said. "I have been persuading her to takethe very best step open to her. I began by talking sense, like a man ofhonor, and kept at it for half an hour, but she would not listen to me. Then I talked romantic nonsense of the cheapest sort for five minutes, and she consented with tears in her eyes. Let us take this hansom. Hi!Belsize Avenue. Yes; you sometimes have to answer a woman according toher womanishness, just as you have to answer a fool according to hisfolly. Have you ever made up your mind, Jansenius, whether I am anunusually honest man, or one of the worst products of the socialorganization I spend all my energies in assailing--an infernalscoundrel, in short?"

"Now pray do not be absurd, " said Mr. Jansenius. "I wonder at a man ofyour ability behaving and speaking as you sometimes do. "

"I hope a little insincerity, when meant to act as chloroform--to savea woman from feeling a wound to her vanity--is excusable. By-the-bye, I must send a couple of telegrams from the first post-office we pass. Well, sir, I am going to marry Agatha, as I sent you word. There wasonly one other single man and one other virgin down at Brandon Beeches, and they are as good as engaged. And so--

"'Jack shall have Jill, Nought shall go ill, The man shall have his mareagain; And all shall be well. '"

APPENDIX

LETTER TO THE AUTHOR FROM MR. SIDNEY TREFUSIS. 

My Dear Sir: I find that my friends are not quite satisfied with theaccount you have given of them in your clever novel entitled "AnUnsocial Socialist. " You already understand that I consider it my dutyto communicate my whole history, without reserve, to whoever may desireto be guided or warned by my experience, and that I have no sympathywhatever with the spirit in which one of the ladies concerned recentlytold you that her affairs were no business of yours or of the people whoread your books. When you asked my permission some years ago to makeuse of my story, I at once said that you would be perfectly justifiedin giving it the fullest publicity whether I consented or not, providedonly that you were careful not to falsify it for the sake of artisticeffect. Now, whilst cheerfully admitting that you have done your bestto fulfil that condition, I cannot help feeling that, in presenting thefacts in the guise of fiction, you have, in spite of yourself, shownthem in a false light. Actions described in novels are judged by aromantic system of morals as fictitious as the actions themselves. Thetraditional parts of this system are, as Cervantes tried to show, forthe chief part, barbarous and obsolete; the modern additions are largelydue to the novel readers and writers of our own century--most of themhalf-educated women, rebelliously slavish, superstitious, sentimental, full of the intense egotism fostered by their struggle for personalliberty, and, outside their families, with absolutely no socialsentiment except love. Meanwhile, man, having fought and won his fightfor this personal liberty, only to find himself a more abject slavethan before, is turning with loathing from his egotist's dream ofindependence to the collective interests of society, with the welfareof which he now perceives his own happiness to be inextricably boundup. But man in this phase (would that all had reached it!) has not yetleisure to write or read novels. In noveldom woman still sets the moralstandard, and to her the males, who are in full revolt against theacceptance of the infatuation of a pair of lovers as the highestmanifestation of the social instinct, and against the restriction of theaffections within the narrow circle of blood relationship, and ofthe political sympathies within frontiers, are to her what she callsheartless brutes. That is exactly what I have been called by readersof your novel; and that, indeed, is exactly what I am, judged by thefictitious and feminine standard of morality. Hence some criticshave been able plausibly to pretend to take the book as a satire onSocialism. It may, for what I know, have been so intended by you. Whether or no, I am sorry you made a novel of my story, for the effecthas been almost as if you had misrepresented me from beginning to end. 

At the same time, I acknowledge that you have stated the facts, on thewhole, with scrupulous fairness. You have, indeed, flattered me verystrongly by representing me as constantly thinking of and for otherpeople, whereas the rest think of themselves alone, but on the otherhand you have contradictorily called me "unsocial, " which is certainlythe last adjective I should have expected to find in the neighborhoodof my name. I deny, it is true, that what is now called "society"is society in any real sense, and my best wish for it is that it maydissolve too rapidly to make it worth the while of those who are "notin society" to facilitate its dissolution by violently pounding it intosmall pieces. But no reader of "An Unsocial Socialist" needs to betold how, by the exercise of a certain considerate tact (which on theoutside, perhaps, seems the opposite of tact), I have contrived tomaintain genial terms with men and women of all classes, even thosewhose opinions and political conduct seemed to me most dangerous. 

However, I do not here propose to go fully into my own position, lestI should seem tedious, and be accused, not for the first time, of apropensity to lecture--a reproach which comes naturally enough frompersons whose conceptions are never too wide to be expressed within thelimits of a sixpenny telegram. I shall confine myself to correcting afew misapprehensions which have, I am told, arisen among readers whofrom inveterate habit cannot bring the persons and events of a novelinto any relation with the actual conditions of life. 

In the first place, then, I desire to say that Mrs. Erskine is not deadof a broken heart. Erskine and I and our wives are very much in and outat one another's houses; and I am therefore in a position to declarethat Mrs. Erskine, having escaped by her marriage from the vile castein which she was relatively poor and artificially unhappy andill-conditioned, is now, as the pretty wife of an art-critic, relativelyrich, as well as pleasant, active, and in sound health. Her chieftrouble, as far as I can judge, is the impossibility of shaking off herdistinguished relatives, who furtively quit their abject splendor todrop in upon her for dinner and a little genuine human society muchoftener than is convenient to poor Erskine. She has taken a patronizingfancy to her father, the Admiral, who accepts her condescensiongratefully as age brings more and more home to him the futility of hissocial position. She has also, as might have been expected, become anextreme advocate of socialism; and indeed, being in a great hurry forthe new order of things, looks on me as a lukewarm disciple because I donot propose to interfere with the slowly grinding mill of Evolution, andeffect the change by one tremendous stroke from the united and awakenedpeople (for such she--vainly, alas!--believes the proletariat already tobe). As to my own marriage, some have asked sarcastically whether I ranaway again or not; others, whether it has been a success. These arefoolish questions. My marriage has turned out much as I expectedit would. I find that my wife's views on the subject vary with thecircumstances under which they are expressed. 

I have now to make one or two comments on the impressions conveyedby the style of your narrative. Sufficient prominence has not, in myopinion, been given to the extraordinary destiny of my father, thetrue hero of a nineteenth century romance. I, who have seen societyreluctantly accepting works of genius for nothing from men ofextraordinary gifts, and at the same time helplessly paying myfather millions, and submitting to monstrous mortgages of its futureproduction, for a few directions as to the most business-like way ofmanufacturing and selling cotton, cannot but wonder, as I prepare myincome-tax returns, whether society was mad to sacrifice thus to him andto me. He was the man with power to buy, to build, to choose, to endow, to sit on committees and adjudicate upon designs, to make his own termsfor placing anything on a sound business footing. He was hated, envied, sneered at for his low origin, reproached for his ignorance, yet nothingwould pay unless he liked or pretended to like it. I look round atour buildings, our statues, our pictures, our newspapers, our domesticinteriors, our books, our vehicles, our morals, our manners, ourstatutes, and our religion, and I see his hand everywhere, for theywere all made or modified to please him. Those which did not please himfailed commercially: he would not buy them, or sell them, or countenancethem; and except through him, as "master of the industrial situation, "nothing could be bought, or sold, or countenanced. The landlord coulddo nothing with his acres except let them to him; the capitalist's hoardrotted and dwindled until it was lent to him; the worker's musclesand brain were impotent until sold to him. What king's son would notexchange with me--the son of the Great Employer--the Merchant Prince?No wonder they proposed to imprison me for treason when, by applying myinherited business talent, I put forward a plan for securing his fullservices to society for a few hundred a year. But pending the adoptionof my plan, do not describe him contemptuously as a vulgar tradesman. Industrial kingship, the only real kingship of our century, was his bydivine right of his turn for business; and I, his son, bid you respectthe crown whose revenues I inherit. If you don't, my friend, your bookwon't pay. 

I hear, with some surprise, that the kindness of my conduct to Henrietta(my first wife, you recollect) has been called in question; why, I donot exactly know. Undoubtedly I should not have married her, but it iswaste of time to criticise the judgment of a young man in love. SinceI do not approve of the usual plan of neglecting and avoiding a spousewithout ceasing to keep up appearances, I cannot for the life of me seewhat else I could have done than vanish when I found out my mistake. Itis but a short-sighted policy to wait for the mending of matters thatare bound to get worse. The notion that her death was my fault is sheerunreason on the face of it; and I need no exculpation on that score; butI must disclaim the credit of having borne her death like a philosopher. I ought to have done so, but the truth is that I was greatly affected atthe moment, and the proof of it is that I and Jansenius (the onlyother person who cared) behaved in a most unbecoming fashion, as meninvariably do when they are really upset. Perfect propriety at a deathis seldom achieved except by the undertaker, who has the advantage ofbeing free from emotion. 

Your rigmarole (if you will excuse the word) about the tombstone givesquite a wrong idea of my attitude on that occasion. I stayed away fromthe funeral for reasons which are, I should think, sufficiently obviousand natural, but which you somehow seem to have missed. Granted that myfancy for Hetty was only a cloud of illusions, still I could not, withina few days of her sudden death, go in cold blood to take part in agrotesque and heathenish mummery over her coffin. I should havebroken out and strangled somebody. But on every other point I--weaklyenough--sacrificed my own feelings to those of Jansenius. I let himhave his funeral, though I object to funerals and to the practice ofsepulture. I consented to a monument, although there is, to me, no morebitterly ridiculous outcome of human vanity than the blocks raised totell posterity that John Smith, or Jane Jackson, late of this parish, was born, lived, and died worth enough money to pay a mason todistinguish their bones from those of the unrecorded millions. Togratify Jansenius I waived this objection, and only interfered to savehim from being fleeced and fooled by an unnecessary West End middleman, who, as likely as not, would have eventually employed the very man towhom I gave the job. Even the epitaph was not mine. If I had had my wayI should have written: "HENRIETTA JANSENIUS WAS BORN ON SUCH A DATE, MARRIED A MAN NAMED TREFUSIS, AND DIED ON SUCH ANOTHER DATE; AND NOWWHAT DOES IT MATTER WHETHER SHE DID OR NOT?" The whole notion conveyedin the book that I rode rough-shod over everybody in the affair, andonly consulted my own feelings, is the very reverse of the truth. 

As to the tomfoolery down at Brandon's, which ended in Erskine andmyself marrying the young lady visitors there, I can only congratulateyou on the determination with which you have striven to make somethinglike a romance out of such very thin material. I cannot say that Iremember it all exactly as you have described it; my wife declaresflatly there is not a word of truth in it as far as she is concerned, and Mrs. Erskine steadily refuses to read the book. 

On one point I must acknowledge that you have proved yourself a masterof the art of fiction. What Hetty and I said to one another that daywhen she came upon me in the shrubbery at Alton College was known onlyto us two. She never told it to anyone, and I soon forgot it. Alldue honor, therefore, to the ingenuity with which you have filled thehiatus, and shown the state of affairs between us by a discourse on"surplus value, " cribbed from an imperfect report of one of my publiclectures, and from the pages of Karl Marx! If you were an economist Ishould condemn you for confusing economic with ethical considerations, and for your uncertainty as to the function which my father got hisstart by performing. But as you are only a novelist, I compliment youheartily on your clever little pasticcio, adding, however, that as anaccount of what actually passed between myself and Hetty, it is thewildest romance ever penned. Wickens's boy was far nearer the mark. 

In conclusion, allow me to express my regret that you can find nobetter employment for your talent than the writing of novels. The firstliterary result of the foundation of our industrial system upon theprofits of piracy and slave-trading was Shakspere. It is our misfortunethat the sordid misery and hopeless horror of his view of man's destinyis still so appropriate to English society that we even to-day regardhim as not for an age, but for all time. But the poetry of despair willnot outlive despair itself. Your nineteenth century novelists are onlythe tail of Shakspere. Don't tie yourself to it: it is fast wrigglinginto oblivion. 

I am, dear sir, yours truly, SIDNEY TREFUSIS.