MERELY MARY ANN

BY

ISRAEL ZANGWILL

AUTHOR OF "CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO, " "THE MASTER, " ETC. 

POPULAR EDITION

LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN

MCMXIII

First Impression, September, 1904

New Impressions, September, 1904 (twice). 

POPULAR SHILLING CLOTH EDITION, 1913. 

 The wrapper design is reproduced, by special permission, from a painting by Mr. Louis Loeb of Miss Eleanor Robson, the original "Mary Ann. "

MERELY MARY ANN

I

Sometimes Lancelot's bell rang up Mrs. Leadbatter herself, but far moreoften merely Mary Ann. 

The first time Lancelot saw Mary Ann she was cleaning the steps. Heavoided treading upon her, being kind to animals. For the moment she wasmerely a quadruped, whose head was never lifted to the stars. Her fadedprint dress showed like the quivering hide of some crouching animal. There were strange irregular splashes of pink in the hide, standing outin bright contrast with the neutral background. These were scraps of theoriginal material neatly patched in. 

The cold, damp steps gave Lancelot a shudder, for the air was raw. Hepassed by the prostrate figure as quickly as he could, and hastened tothrow himself into the easy-chair before the red fire. 

There was a lamp-post before the door, so he knew the house from itsneighbours. Baker's Terrace as a whole was a defeated aspiration aftergentility. The more auspicious houses were marked by white stones, thesteps being scrubbed and hearthstoned almost daily; the gloomierdoorsteps were black, except on Sundays. Thus variety was achieved byhouses otherwise as monotonous and prosaic as a batch of fourpennyloaves. This was not the reason why the little South London side-streetwas called Baker's Terrace, though it might well seem so; for Baker wasthe name of the builder, a worthy gentleman whose years and virtues maystill be deciphered on a doddering, round-shouldered stone in a deceasedcemetery not far from the scene of his triumphs. 

The second time Lancelot saw Mary Ann he did not remember having seen herbefore. This time she was a biped, and wore a white cap. Besides, hehardly glanced at her. He was in a bad temper, and Beethoven was barkingterribly at the intruder who stood quaking in the doorway, so that thecrockery clattered on the tea-tray she bore. With a smothered oathLancelot caught up the fiery little spaniel and rammed him into thepocket of his dressing-gown, where he quivered into silence like a struckgong. While the girl was laying his breakfast, Lancelot, who was lookingmoodily at the pattern of the carpet as if anxious to improve upon it, was vaguely conscious of relief in being spared his landlady'sconversation. For Mrs. Leadbatter was a garrulous body, who sufferedfrom the delusion that small-talk is a form of politeness, and that herconversation was a part of the "all inclusive" her lodgers stipulatedfor. The disease was hereditary, her father having been a barber, andremarkable for the coolness with which, even as a small boy whosefunction was lathering and nothing more, he exchanged views about theweather with his victims. 

The third time Lancelot saw Mary Ann he noticed that she was ratherpretty. She had a slight, well-built figure, not far from tall, smallshapely features, and something of a complexion. This did not displeasehim: she was a little aesthetic touch amid the depressing furniture. 

"Don't be afraid, Polly, " he said, more kindly. "The little devil won'tbite. He's all bark. Call him Beethoven and throw him a bit of sugar. "

The girl threw Beethoven the piece of sugar, but did not venture on thename. It seemed to her a long name for such a little dog. As shetimidly took the sugar from the basin by the aid of the tongs, Lancelotsaw how coarse and red her hand was. It gave him the same sense ofrepugnance and refrigescence as the cold, damp steps. Something he wasabout to say froze on his lips. He did not look at Mary Ann for somedays; by which time Beethoven had conquered his distrust of her, thoughshe was still distrustful of Beethoven, drawing her skirts tightly abouther as if he were a rat. What forced Mary Ann again upon Lancelot'smorose consciousness was a glint of winter sunshine that settled on herlight brown hair. He said: "By the way, Susan, tell your mistress--or isit your mother?"

Mary Ann shook her head but did not speak. 

"Oh: you are not Miss Leadbatter?"

"No; Mary Ann. "

She spoke humbly; her eyes were shy and would not meet his. He winced ashe heard the name, though her voice was not unmusical. 

"Ah, Mary Ann! and I've been calling you Jane all along. Mary Ann what?"

She seemed confused and flushed a little. 

"Mary Ann!" she murmured. 

"Merely Mary Ann?"

"Yessir. "

He smiled. "Seems a sort of white Topsy, " he was thinking. 

She stood still, holding in her hand the tablecloth she had just folded. Her eyes were downcast, and the glint of sunshine had leapt upon the longlashes. 

"Well, Mary Ann, tell your mistress there is a piano coming. It willstand over there--you'll have to move the sideboard somewhere else. "

"A piano!" Mary Ann opened her eyes, and Lancelot saw that they werelarge and pathetic. He could not see the colour for the glint ofsunshine that touched them with false fire. 

"Yes; I suppose it will have to come up through the window, thesestaircases are so beastly narrow. Do you never have a stout person inthe house, I wonder?"

"Oh yes, sir. We had a lodger here last year as was quite a fat man. "

"And did he come up through the window by a pulley?"

He smiled at the image, and expected to see Mary Ann smile in response. He was disappointed when she did not; it was not only that her stoliditymade his humour seem feeble--he half wanted to see how she looked whenshe smiled. 

"Oh dear no, " said Mary Ann; "he lived on the ground floor!"

"Oh!" murmured Lancelot, feeling the last sparkle taken from his humour. He was damped to the skin by Mary Ann's platitudinarian style ofconversation. Despite its prettiness, her face was dulness incarnate. 

"Anyhow, remember to take in the piano if I'm out, " he said tartly. "Isuppose you've seen a piano--you'll know it from a kangaroo?"

"Yessir, " breathed Mary Ann. 

"Oh, come, that's something. There is some civilisation in Baker'sTerrace after all. But are you quite sure?" he went on, the teasinginstinct getting the better of him. "Because, you know, you've neverseen a kangaroo. "

Mary Ann's face lit up a little. "Oh, yes I have, sir; it came to thevillage fair when I was a girl. "

"Oh, indeed!" said Lancelot, a little staggered; "what did it come therefor--to buy a new pouch?"

"No, sir; in a circus. "

"Ah, in a circus. Then, perhaps, you can _play_ the piano, too. "

Mary Ann got very red. "No, sir; missus never showed me how to do that. "

Lancelot surrendered himself to a roar of laughter. "This is a realoriginal, " he said to himself, just a touch of pity blending with hisamusement. 

"I suppose, though, you'd be willing to lend a hand occasionally?" hecould not resist saying. 

"Missus says I must do anything I'm asked, " she said, in distress, thetears welling to her eyes. And a merciless bell mercifully sounding froman upper room, she hurried out. 

How much Mary Ann did, Lancelot never rightly knew, any more than he knewthe number of lodgers in the house, or who cooked his chops in themysterious regions below stairs. Sometimes he trod on the toes of bootsoutside doors and vaguely connected them with human beings, peremptoryand exacting as himself. To Mary Ann each of those pairs of boots was apersonality, with individual hours of rising and retiring, breakfastingand supping, going out and coming in, and special idiosyncrasies of dietand disposition. The population of 5 Baker's Terrace was nine, mostlybell-ringers. Life was one ceaseless round of multifarious duties; withsix hours of blessed unconsciousness, if sleep were punctual. All theweek long Mary Ann was toiling up and down the stairs or sweeping them, making beds or puddings, polishing boots or fire-irons. Holidays werenot in Mary Ann's calendar; and if Sunday ever found her on her knees, itwas only when she was scrubbing out the kitchen. All work and no playmakes Jack a dull boy; it had not, apparently, made Mary Ann a brightgirl. 

The piano duly came in through the window like a burglar. It was a goodinstrument, but hired. Under Lancelot's fingers it sang like a bird andgrowled like a beast. When the piano was done growling Lancelot usuallystarted. He paced up and down the room, swearing audibly. Then he wouldsit down at the table and cover ruled paper with hieroglyphics for hourstogether. His movements were erratic to the verge of mystery. He had nofixed hours for anything; to Mary Ann he was hopeless. At any givenmoment he might be playing on the piano, or writing on the curiouslyruled paper, or stamping about the room, or sitting limp with despair inthe one easy-chair, or drinking whisky and water, or smoking a blackmeerschaum, or reading a book, or lying in bed, or driving away in ahansom, or walking about Heaven alone knew where or why. Even Mrs. Leadbatter, whose experience of life was wider than Mary Ann's, considered his vagaries almost unchristian, though to the highest degreegentlemanly. Sometimes, too, he sported the swallow-tail and thestarched breast-plate, which was a wonder to Mary Ann, who knew thatwaiters were connected only with the most stylish establishments. Baker's Terrace did not wear evening dress. 

Mary Ann liked him best in black and white. She thought he looked likethe pictures in the young ladies' novelettes, which sometimes caught hereye as she passed newsvendors' shops on errands. Not that she was readin this literature--she had no time for reading. But, even when clothedin rough tweeds, Lancelot had for Mary Ann an aristocratic halo; in hisdressing-gown he savoured of the grand Turk. His hands were masterful:the fingers tapering, the nails pedantically polished. He had fair hair, with moustache to match; his brow was high and white, and his grey eyescould flash fire. When he drew himself up to his full height, hethreatened the gas globes. Never had No. 5 Baker's Terrace boasted ofsuch a tenant. Altogether, Lancelot loomed large to Mary Ann; shedazzled him with his own boots in humble response, and went about sadafter a reprimand for putting his papers in order. Her whole theory oflife oscillated in the presence of a being whose views could so runcounter to her strongest instincts. And yet, though the universe seemedtumbling about her ears when he told her she must not move a scrap ofmanuscript, howsoever wildly it lay about the floor or under the bed, shedid not for a moment question his sanity. She obeyed him like a dog;uncomprehending, but trustful. But, after all, this was only of a piecewith the rest of her life. There was nothing she questioned. Life stoodat her bedside every morning in the cold dawn, bearing a day heaped highwith duties; and she jumped cheerfully out of her warm bed and took themup one by one, without question or murmur. They _were_ life. Life hadno other meaning any more than it has for the omnibus hack, which cannotconceive existence outside shafts, and devoid of the intermittent flickof a whip point. The comparison is somewhat unjust; for Mary Ann did notfare nearly so well as the omnibus hack, having to make her meals offsuch scraps as even the lodgers sent back. Mrs. Leadbatter was extremelyeconomical, as much so with the provisions in her charge as with thoseshe bought for herself. She sedulously sent up remainders till they wereexpressly countermanded. Less economical by nature, and hungrier byhabit, Mary Ann had much trouble in restraining herself fromsurreptitious pickings. Her conscience was rarely worsted; still therewas a taint of dishonesty in her soul, else had the stairs been less ofan ethical battleground for her. Lancelot's advent only made herhungrier; somehow the thought of nibbling at _his_ provisions was toosacrilegious to be entertained. And yet--so queerly are we and lifecompounded--she was probably less unhappy at this period than Lancelot, who would come home in the vilest of tempers, and tramp the room withthunder on his white brow. Sometimes he and the piano and Beethovenwould all be growling together, at other times they would all three bemute; Lancelot crouching in the twilight with his head in his hands; andBeethoven moping in the corner, and the closed piano looming in thebackground like a coffin of dead music. 

One February evening--an evening of sleet and mist--Lancelot, who hadgone out in evening dress, returned unexpectedly, bringing with him forthe first time a visitor. He was so perturbed that he forgot to use hislatchkey, and Mary Ann, who opened the door, heard him say angrily, "Well, I can't slam the door in your face, but I will tell you in yourface I don't think it at all gentlemanly of you to force yourself upon melike this. "

"My dear Lancelot, when did I ever set up to be a gentleman? You knowthat was always your part of the contract. " And a swarthy, thick-setyoung man with a big nose lowered the dripping umbrella he had beenholding over Lancelot, and stepped from the gloom of the street into thefuscous cheerfulness of the ill-lit passage. 

By this time Beethoven, who had been left at home, was in full ebullitionupstairs, and darted at the intruder the moment his calves appeared. Beethoven barked with short, sharp snaps, as became a biliousliver-coloured Blenheim spaniel. 

"Like master like dog, " said the swarthy young man, defending himself atthe point of the umbrella. "Really your animal is more intelligent thanthe overrated common or garden dog, which makes no distinction betweenpeople calling in the small hours and people calling in broad daylightunder the obvious patronage of its own master. This beast of yours isevidently more in sympathy with its liege lord. Down, Fido, down! Iwonder they allow you to keep such noisy creatures--but stay! I wasforgetting you keep a piano. After that, I suppose, nothing matters. "

Lancelot made no reply, but surprised Beethoven into silence by kickinghim out of the way. He lit the gas with a neatly written sheet of musicwhich he rammed into the fire Mary Ann had been keeping up, then assilently he indicated the easy-chair. 

"Thank you, " said the swarthy young man, taking it. "I would rather seeyou in it, but as there's only one, I know you wouldn't be feeling agentleman; and that would make us both uncomfortable. "

"'Pon my word, Peter, " Lancelot burst forth, "you're enough to provoke asaint. "

"'Pon my word, Lancelot, " replied Peter imperturbably, "you're more thanenough to provoke a sinner. Why, what have you to be ashamed of? You'vegot one of the cosiest dens in London and one of the comfortablestchairs. Why, it's twice as jolly as the garret we shared at Leipsic--upthe ninety stairs. "

"We're not in Germany now. I don't want to receive visitors, " answeredLancelot sulkily. 

"A visitor! you call me a visitor! Lancelot, it's plain you were nottelling the truth when you said just now you had forgiven me. "

"I had forgiven--and forgotten you. "

"Come, that's unkind. It's scarcely three years since I threw up mycareer as a genius, and you know why I left you, old man. When the firstfever of youthful revolt was over, I woke to see things in their truelight. I saw how mean it was of me to help to eat up your wretchedthousand pounds. Neither of us saw the situation nakedly at first--itwas sicklied o'er with Quixotic foolishness. You see, you had theadvantage of me. Your governor was a gentleman. He says, 'Very well, ifyou won't go to Cambridge, if you refuse to enter the Church as theyounger son of a blue-blooded but impecunious baronet should, and to stepinto the living which is fattening for you, then I must refuse to takeany further responsibility for your future. Here is a thousand pounds;it is the money I had set aside for your college course. Use it for yourmusical tomfoolery if you insist, and then--get what living you can. 'Which was severe but dignified, unpaternal yet patrician. But what doesmy governor do? That cantankerous, pig-headed old Philistine--God blesshim!--he's got no sense of the respect a father owes to his offspring. Not an atom. You're simply a branch to be run on the lines of the oldbusiness, or be shut up altogether. And, by the way, Lancelot, he hasn'taltered a jot since those days when--as you remember--the City orstarvation was his pleasant alternative. Of course, I preferredstarvation--one usually does at nineteen; especially if one knows there'sa scion of aristocracy waiting outside to elope with him to Leipsic. "

"But you told me you were going back to your dad, because you found youhad mistaken your vocation. "

"Gospel truth also! My heavens, shall I ever forget the blank horrorthat grew upon me when I came to understand that music was a science morebarbarous than the mathematics that floored me at school, that the lifeof a musical student, instead of being a delicious whirl of waltz tunes, was 'one dem'd grind, ' that seemed to grind out all the soul of thedivine art and leave nothing but horrid technicalities about consecutivefifths and suspensions on the dominant? I dare say most people stillthink of the musician as a being who lives in an enchanted world ofsound, rather than as a person greatly occupied with tedious feats ofpenmanship; just as I myself still think of a _prima ballerina_ not as ahard-working gymnast, but as a fairy, whose existence is all bouquets andlime-light. "

"But you had a pretty talent for the piano, " said Lancelot in milderaccents. "No one forced you to learn composition. You could have learntanything for the paltry fifteen pounds exacted by the Conservatoire--fromthe German flute to the grand organ; from singing to scoring band parts. "

"No, thank you. _Aut Caesar aut nihil_. You remember what I always usedto say: 'Either Beethoven----' (The spaniel pricked up his ears. ) --orbust. ' If I could not be a great musician it was hardly worth whileenduring the privations of one, especially at another man's expense. SoI did the Prodigal Son dodge, as you know, and out of the proceeds sentyou my year's exes in that cheque you with your damnable pride sent meback again. And now, old fellow, that I have you face to face at last, can you offer the faintest scintilla of a shadow of a reason for refusingto take that cheque? No, you can't! Nothing but simple beastlystuckuppishness. I saw through you at once; all your heroics were afraud. I was not your friend, but your protégé--something to practiseyour chivalry on. You dropped your cloak, and I saw your feet of clay. Well, I tell you straight, I made up my mind at once to be bad friendswith you for life; only when I saw your fiery old phiz at Brahmson's Ifelt a sort of something tugging inside my greatcoat like a thief aftermy pocket-book, and I kinder knew, as the Americans say, that in half anhour I should be sitting beneath your hospitable roof. "

"I beg your pardon--you will have some whisky. " He rang the bellviolently. 

"Don't be a fool--you know I didn't mean that. Well, don't let usquarrel. I have forgiven you for your youthful bounty, and you haveforgiven me for chucking it up; and now we are going to drink to the_Vaterland_, " he added, as Mary Ann appeared with a suspicious alacrity. 

"Do you know, " he went on, when they had taken the first sip of renewedamity dissolved in whisky, "I think I showed more musical soul than youin refusing to trammel my inspiration with the dull rules invented byfools. I suppose you have mastered them all, eh?" He picked up somesheets of manuscript. "Great Scot! How you must have schooled yourselfto scribble all this--you, with your restless nature--full scores, too!I hope you don't offer this sort of thing to Brahmson. "

"I certainly went there with that intention, " admitted Lancelot. "Ithought I'd catch Brahmson himself in the evening--he's never in when Icall in the morning. "

Peter groaned. 

"Quixotic as ever! You can't have been long in London then?"

"A year. "

"I suppose you'd jump down my throat if I were to ask you how much isleft of that----" he hesitated, then turned the sentence facetiously--"ofthose twenty thousand shillings you were cut off with?"

"Let this vile den answer. "

"Don't disparage the den; it's not so bad. "

"You are right--I may come to worse. I've been an awful ass. You knowhow lucky I was while at the Conservatoire--no, you don't. How shouldyou? Well, I carried off some distinctions and a lot of conceit, andcame over here thinking Europe would be at my feet in a month. I wasonly sorry my father died before I could twit him with my triumph. That's candid, isn't it?"

"Yes; you're not such a prig after all, " mused Peter; "I saw the oldman's death in the paper--your brother Lionel became the bart. "

"Yes, poor beggar, I don't hate him half so much as I did. He reminds meof a man invited to dinner which is nothing but flowers and serviettesand silver plate. "

"I'd pawn the plate, anyhow, " said Peter, with a little laugh. 

"He can't touch anything, I tell you; everything's tied up. "

"Ah well, he'll get tied up, too. He'll marry an American heiress. "

"Confound him! I'd rather see the house extinct first. "

"Hoity, toity! She'll be quite as good as any of you. "

"I can't discuss this with you, Peter, " said Lancelot, gently but firmly. "If there is a word I hate more than the word heiress, it is the wordAmerican. "

"But why? They're both very good words and better things. "

"They both smack of the most vulgar thing in the world--money, " saidLancelot, walking hotly about the room. "In America there's no otherstandard. To make your pile, to strike ile--oh, how I shudder to hearthese idioms! And can any one hear the word heiress without immediatelythinking of matrimony? Phaugh? It's a prostitution. "

"What is? You're not very coherent, my friend. "

"Very well, I am incoherent. If a great old family can only bolster upits greatness by alliances with the daughters of oil-strikers, then letthe family perish with honour. "

"But the daughters of oil-strikers are sometimes very charming creatures. They are polished with their fathers' oil. "

"You are right. They reek of it. Pah! I pray to Heaven Lionel willeither wed a lady or die a bachelor. "

"Yes; but what do you call a lady?" persisted Peter. 

Lancelot uttered an impatient snarl, and rang the bell violently. Peterstared in silence. Mary Ann appeared. 

"How often am I to tell you to leave my matches on the mantel-shelf?"snapped Lancelot. "You seem to delight to hide them away, as if I hadtime to play parlour games with you. "

Mary Ann silently went to the mantel-piece, handed him the matches, andleft the room without a word. 

"I, say, Lancelot, adversity doesn't seem to have agreed with you, " saidPeter severely. "That poor girl's eyes were quite wet when she went out. Why didn't you speak? I could have given you heaps of lights, and youmight even have sacrificed another scrap of that precious manuscript. "

"Well, she has got a knack of hiding my matches all the same, " saidLancelot somewhat shamefacedly. "Besides, I hate her for being calledMary Ann. It's the last terror of cheap apartments. If she only hadanother name like a human being, I'd gladly call her Miss something. Iwent so far as to ask her, and she stared at me in a dazed, stupid, sillyway, as if I'd asked her to marry me. I suppose the fact is, she's beencalled Mary Ann so long and so often that she's forgotten her father'sname--if she ever had any. I must do her the justice, though, to say sheanswers to the name of Mary Ann in every sense of the phrase. "

"She didn't seem at all bad-looking, any way, " said Peter. 

"Every man to his taste!" growled Lancelot. "She's as _platt_ anduninteresting as a wooden sabot. "

"There's many a pretty foot in a sabot, " retorted Peter, with an air ofphilosophy. 

"You think that's clever, but it's simply silly. How does that factaffect this particular sabot?"

"I've put my foot in it, " groaned Peter comically. 

"Besides, she might be a houri from heaven, " said Lancelot; "but a houriin a patched print-frock----" He shuddered, and struck a match. 

"I don't know exactly what houris from heaven are, but I have a kind offeeling any sort of frock would be out of harmony----!"

Lancelot lit his pipe. 

"If you begin to say that sort of thing, we must smoke, " he said, laughing between the puffs. "I can offer you lots of tobacco--I'm sorryI've got no cigars. Wait till you see Mrs. Leadbatter--my landlady--thenyou'll talk about houris. Poverty may not be a crime, but it seems tomake people awful bores. Wonder if it'll have that effect on me? _AchHimmel_! how that woman bores me. No, there's no denying it--there's mypouch, old man--I hate the poor; their virtues are only a shade morevulgar than their vices. This Leadbatter creature is honest after herlights--she sends me up the most ridiculous leavings--and I only hate herthe more for it. "

"I suppose she works Mary Ann's fingers to the bone from the samemistaken sense of duty, " said Peter acutely. "Thanks; think I'll try oneof my cigars. I filled my case, I fancy, before I came out. Yes, hereit is; won't _you_ try one?"

"No, thanks, I prefer my pipe. "

"It's the same old meerschaum, I see, " said Peter. 

"The same old meerschaum, " repeated Lancelot, with a little sigh. 

Peter lit a cigar, and they sat and puffed in silence. 

"Dear me!" said Peter suddenly; "I can almost fancy we're back in ourGerman garret, up the ninety stairs, can't you?"

"No, " said Lancelot sadly, looking round as if in search of something; "Imiss the dreams. "

"And I, " said Peter, striving to speak cheerfully, "I see a dog too much. "

"Yes, " said Lancelot, with a melancholy laugh. "When you funked becominga Beethoven, I got a dog and called him after you. "

"What? you called him Peter?"

"No, Beethoven!"

"Beethoven! Really?"

"Really. Here, Beethoven!"

The spaniel shook himself, and perked his wee nose up wistfully towardsLancelot's face. 

Peter laughed, with a little catch in his voice. He didn't know whetherhe was pleased, or touched, or angry. 

"You started to tell me about those twenty thousand shillings, " he said. 

"Didn't I tell you? On the expectations of my triumph, I livedextravagantly, like a fool, joined a club, and took up my quarters there. When I began to realise the struggle that lay before me, I took chambers;then I took rooms; now I'm in lodgings. The more I realised it, the lessrent I paid. I only go to the club for my letters now. I won't havethem come here. I'm living incognito. "

"That's taking fame by the forelock, indeed! Then by what name must Iask for you next time? For I'm not to be shaken off. "

"Lancelot. "

"Lancelot what?"

"Only Lancelot! Mr. Lancelot. "

"Why, that's like your Mary Ann!"

"So it is!" he laughed, more bitterly than cordially; "it never struck mebefore. Yes, we are a pair. "

"How did you stumble on this place?"

"I didn't stumble. Deliberate, intelligent selection. You see, it's thenext best thing to Piccadilly. You just cross Waterloo Bridge, and thereyou are at the centre, five minutes from all the clubs. The natives havenot yet risen to the idea. "

"You mean the rent, " laughed Peter. "You're as canny and careful as aScotch professor. I think it's simply grand the way you've beaten outthose shillings, in defiance of your natural instincts. I should havemelted them years ago. I believe you _have_ got some musical genius, after all. "

"You overrate my abilities, " said Lancelot, with the whimsical expressionthat sometimes flashed across his face even in his most unamiablemoments. "You must deduct the Thalers I made in exhibitions. As forliving in cheap lodgings, I am not at all certain it's an economy, forevery now and again it occurs to you that you are saving an awful lot, and you take a hansom on the strength of it. "

"Well, I haven't torn up that cheque yet----"

"Peter!" said Lancelot, his flash of gaiety dying away, "I tell you thesethings as a friend, not as a beggar. If you look upon me as the second, I cease to be the first. "

"But, man, I owe you the money; and if it will enable you to hold out alittle longer--why, in heaven's name, shouldn't you----?"

"You don't owe me the money at all; I made no bargain with you; I am nota money-lender. "

"_Pack dich zum Henker_!" growled Peter, with a comical grimace. "_Wasfür_ a casuist! What a swindler you'd make! I wonder you have the faceto deny the debt. Well, and how did you leave Frau Sauer-Kraut?" hesaid, deeming it prudent to sheer off the subject. 

"Fat as a Christmas turkey. "

"Of a German sausage. The extraordinary things that woman stuffedherself with. Chunks of fat, stewed apples, Kartoffel salad--all mixedup in one plate, as in a dustbin. "

"Don't! You make my gorge rise. _Ach Himmel_! to think that this nationshould be musical! O Music, heavenly maid, how much garlic I haveendured for thy sake!"

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Peter, putting down his whisky that he might throwhimself freely back in the easy-chair and roar. 

"Oh that garlic!" he said, panting. "No wonder they smoked so much inLeipsic. Even so they couldn't keep the reek out of the staircases. Still, it's a great country is Germany. Our house does a tremendousbusiness in German patents. "

"A great country? A land of barbarians rather. How can a people becivilised that eats jam with its meat?"

"Bravo, Lancelot! You're in lovely form to-night. You seem to go ahundred miles out of your way to come the truly British. First it wasoil--now it's jam. There was that aristocratic flash in your eye, too, that look of supreme disdain which brings on riots in Trafalgar Square. Behind the patriotic, the national note: 'How can a people be civilisedthat eats jam with its meat?' I heard the deeper, the oligarchic accent:'How can a people be enfranchised that eats meat with its fingers?' Ah, you are right! How you do hate the poor! What bores they are! Youaristocrats--the products of centuries of culture, comfort, andcocksureness--will never rid yourselves of your conviction that you arethe backbone of England--no, not though that backbone were picked cleanof every scrap of flesh by the rats of Radicalism. "

"What in the devil are you talking about now?" demanded Lancelot. "Youseem to me to go a hundred miles out of _your_ way to twit me with mypoverty and my breeding. One would almost think you were anxious toconvince me of the poverty of _your_ breeding. "

"Oh, a thousand pardons!" ejaculated Peter, blushing violently. "But, good heavens, old chap! There's your hot temper again. You surelywouldn't suspect _me_, of all people in the world, of meaning anythingpersonal? I'm talking of you as a class. Contempt is in your blood--andquite right! We're such snobs, we deserve it. Why d'ye think I evertook to you as a boy at school? Was it because you scribbled inaccuratesonatas and I had myself a talent for knocking tunes off the piano? Nota bit of it. I thought it was, perhaps, but that was only one of my manyyouthful errors. No, I liked you because your father was an old Englishbaronet, and mine was a merchant who trafficked mainly in thingsTeutonic. And that's why I like you still. 'Pon my soul it is. Yougratify my historic sense--like an old building. You are picturesque. You stand to me for all the good old ideals, including the pride which weare beginning to see is deuced unchristian. Mind you, it's a curiouskind of pride when one looks into it. Apparently it's based on the factthat your family has lived on the nation for generations. And yet youwon't take my cheque, which is your own. Now don't swear--I know onemustn't analyse things, or the world would come to pieces, so I alwaysvote Tory. "

"Then I shall have to turn Radical, " grumbled Lancelot. 

"Certainly you will, when you have had a little more experience ofpoverty, " retorted Peter. "There, there, old man! forgive me. I only doit to annoy you. Fact is, your outbursts of temper attract me. They arepleasant to look back upon when the storm is over. Yes, my dearLancelot, you are like the king you look--you can do no wrong. You arepicturesque. Pass the whisky. "

Lancelot smiled, his handsome brow serene once more. He murmured, "Don'ttalk rot, " but inwardly he was not displeased at Peter's allegiance, halfmocking though he knew it. 

"Therefore, my dear chap, " resumed Peter, sipping his whisky and water, "to return to our lambs, I bow to your patrician prejudices in favour offorks. But your patriotic prejudices are on a different level. There, Iam on the same ground as you, and I vow I see nothing inherently superiorin the British combination of beef and beetroot, to the German amalgam oflamb and jam. "

"Damn lamb and jam, " burst forth Lancelot, adding, with his whimsicallook: "There's rhyme, as well as reason. How on earth did we get on thistack?"

"I don't know, " said Peter, smiling. "We were talking about FrauSauer-Kraut, I think. And did you board with her all the time?"

"Yes, and I was always hungry. Till the last, I never learnt to stomachher mixtures. But it was really too much trouble to go down the ninetystairs to a restaurant. It was much easier to be hungry. "

"And did you ever get a reform in the hours of washing the floor?"

"Ha! ha! ha! No, they always waited till I was going to bed. I supposethey thought I liked damp. They never got over my morning tub, you know. And that, too, sprang a leak after you left, and helped spontaneously towash the floor. "

"Shows the fallacy of cleanliness, " said Peter, "and the inferiority ofBritish ideals. They never bathed in their lives, yet they looked thepink of health. "

"Yes--their complexion was high--like the fish. "

"Ha! ha! Yes, the fish! That was a great luxury, I remember. Aboutonce a month. "

"Of course, the town is so inland, " said Lancelot. 

"I see--it took such a long time coming. Ha! ha! ha! And the HerrProfessor--is he still a bachelor?"

As the Herr Professor was a septuagenarian and a misogamist, even inPeter's time, his question tickled Lancelot. Altogether the two youngmen grew quite jolly, recalling a hundred oddities, and reknitting theirfriendship at the expense of the Fatherland. 

"But was there ever a more madcap expedition than ours?" exclaimed Peter. "Most boys start out to be pirates----"

"And some do become music-publishers, " Lancelot finished grimly, suddenlyreminded of a grievance. 

"Ha! ha! ha! Poor fellow'" laughed Peter. "Then you _have_ found themout already. "

"Does anyone ever find them in?" flashed Lancelot. "I suppose they doexist and are occasionally seen of mortal eyes. I suppose wives andfriends and mothers gaze on them with no sense of special privilege, unconscious of their invisibility to the profane eyes of mere musicians. "

"My dear fellow, the mere musicians are as plentiful as niggers on thesea-shore. A publisher might spend his whole day receiving regiments ofunappreciated geniuses. Bond Street would be impassable. You look atthe publisher too much from your own standpoint. "

"I tell you I don't look at him from any standpoint. That's what Icomplain of. He's encircled with a prickly hedge of clerks. 'You willhear from us. ' 'It shall have our best consideration. ' 'We have noknowledge of the MS. In question. ' Yes, Peter, two valuable quartetshave I lost, messing about with these villains. "

"I tell you what. I'll give you an introduction to Brahmson. I knowhim--privately. "

"No, thank you, Peter. "

"Why not?"

"Because you know him. "

"I couldn't give you an introduction if I didn't. This is silly of you, Lancelot. "

"If Brahmson can't see any merits in my music, I don't want you to openhis eyes. I'll stand on my own bottom. And what's more, Peter, I tellyou once for all"--his voice was low and menacing--"if you try anyanonymous _deus ex machinâ_ tricks on me in some sly, roundabout fashion, don't you flatter yourself I shan't recognise your hand. I shall, and, by God, it shall never grasp mine again. "

"I suppose you think that's very noble and sublime, " said Peter coolly. "You don't suppose if I could do you a turn I'd hesitate for fear ofexcommunication? I know you're like Beethoven there--your bark is worsethan your bite. "

"Very well; try. You'll find my teeth nastier than you bargain for. "

"I'm not going to try. If you want to go to the dogs--go. Why should Iput out a hand to stop you?"

These amenities having re-established them in their mutual esteem, theychatted lazily and spasmodically till past midnight, with more smoke thanfire in their conversation. 

At last Peter began to go, and in course of time actually did take up hisumbrella. Not long after, Lancelot conducted him softly down the dark, silent stairs, holding his bedroom candlestick in his hand, for Mrs. Leadbatter always turned out the hall lamp on her way to bed. The oldphrases came to the young men's lips as their hands met in a last heartygrip. 

"_Lebt wohl_!" said Lancelot. 

"_Auf Wiedersehen_!" replied Peter threateningly. 

Lancelot stood at the hall door looking for a moment after hisfriend--the friend he had tried to cast out of his heart as a recreant. The mist had cleared--the stars glittered countless in the frosty heaven;a golden crescent moon hung low; the lights and shadows lay almostpoetically upon the little street. A rush of tender thoughts whelmed themusician's soul. He saw again the dear old garret, up the ninety stairs, in the Hotel Cologne, where he had lived with his dreams; he heard thepianos and violins going in every room in happy incongruity, publishingto all the prowess of the players; dirty, picturesque old Leipsic rosebefore him; he was walking again in the _Hainstrasse_, in the shadow ofthe quaint, tall houses. Yes, life was sweet after all; he was a cowardto lose heart so soon; fame would yet be his; fame and love--the love ofa noble woman that fame earns; some gracious creature breathing sweetrefinements, cradled in an ancient home, such as he had left for ever. 

The sentimentality of the Fatherland seemed to have crept into his soul;a divinely sweet, sad melody was throbbing in his brain. How glad he washe had met Peter again!

From a neighbouring steeple came a harsh, resonant clang, "One. "

It roused him from his dream. He shivered a little, closed the door, bolted it and put up the chain, and turned, half sighing, to take up hisbedroom candle again. Then his heart stood still for a moment. Afigure--a girl's figure--was coming towards him from the kitchen stairs. As she came into the dim light he saw that it was merely Mary Ann. 

She looked half drowsed. Her cap was off, her hair tangled loosely overher forehead. In her disarray she looked prettier than he had everremembered her. There was something provoking about the large dreamyeyes, the red lips that parted at the unexpected sight of him. 

"Good heavens!" he cried. "Not gone to bed yet?"

"No, sir. I had to stay up to wash up a lot of crockery. Thesecond-floor front had some friends to supper late. Missus says shewon't stand it again. "

"Poor thing!" He patted her soft cheek--it grew hot and rosy under hisfingers, but was not withdrawn. Mary Ann made no sign of resentment. Inhis mood of tenderness to all creation his rough words to her recurred tohim. 

"You mustn't mind what I said about the matches, " he murmured. "When Iam in a bad temper I say anything. Remember now for the future, willyou?"

"Yessir. "

Her face--its blushes flickered over strangely by thecandle-light--seemed to look up at him invitingly. 

"That's a good girl. " And bending down he kissed her on the lips. 

"Good night, " he murmured. 

Mary Ann made some startled, gurgling sound in reply. 

Five minutes afterwards Lancelot was in bed, denouncing himself as avulgar beast. 

"I must have drunk too much whisky, " he said to himself angrily. "Goodheavens. Fancy sinking to Mary Ann. If Peter had only seen---- Therewas infinitely more poetry in that red-cheeked _Mädchen_, and yet Inever---- It is true--there is something sordid about the atmospherethat subtly permeates you, that drags you down to it! Mary Ann! Atranspontine drudge! whose lips are fresh from the coalman's and thebutcher's. Phaugh!"

The fancy seized hold of his imagination. He could not shake it off, hecould not sleep till he had got out of bed and sponged his lipsvigorously. 

Meanwhile Mary Ann was lying on her bed, dressed, doing her best to keepher meaningless, half-hysterical sobs from her mistress's keen ear. 

II

It was a long time before Mary Ann came so prominently into the centreof Lancelot's consciousness again. She remained somewhere in the outerperiphery of his thought--nowhere near the bull's-eye, so to speak--asa vague automaton that worked when he pulled a bell-rope. Infinitelymore important things were troubling him; the visit of Peter hadsomehow put a keener edge on his blunted self-confidence; he hadstarted a grand opera, and worked at it furiously in all the intervalsleft him by his engrossing pursuit after a publisher. Sometimes hewould look up from his hieroglyphics and see Mary Ann at his sidesurveying him curiously, and then he would start, and remember he hadrung her up, and try to remember what for. And Mary Ann would turnred, as if the fault was hers. 

But the publisher was the one thing that was never out of Lancelot'smind, though he drove Lancelot himself nearly out of it. He was likean arrow stuck in the aforesaid bull's-eye, and, the target beingconscious, he rankled sorely. Lancelot discovered that the publisherkept a "musical adviser, " whose advice appeared to consist of thefamous monosyllable, "Don't. " The publisher generally published allthe musical adviser's own works, his advice having apparently beenneglected when it was most worth taking; at least so Lancelot thought, when he had skimmed through a set of Lancers by one of these worthies. 

"I shall give up being a musician, " he said to himself grimly. "Ishall become a musical adviser. "

Once, half by accident, he actually saw a publisher. "My dear sir, "said the great man, "what is the use of bringing quartets and fullscores to me? You should have taken them to Brahmson; he's the man youwant. You know his address, of course--just down the street. "

Lancelot did not like to say that it was Brahmson's clerks that hadrecommended him here; so he replied, "But you publish operas, oratorios, cantatas!"

"Ah yes!--h'm--things that have been played at the bigFestivals--composers of prestige--quite a different thing, sir, quite adifferent thing. There's no sale for these things--none at all, sir--public never heard of you. Now, if you were to write somesongs--nice catchy tunes--high class, you know, with pretty words----"

Now Lancelot by this time was aware of the publisher's wily ways; hecould almost have constructed an Ollendorffian dialogue, entitled"Between a Music-Publisher and a Composer. " So he opened his portfolioagain and said, "I have brought some. "

"Well, send--send them in, " stammered the publisher, almostdisconcerted. "They shall have our best consideration. "

"Oh, but you might just as well look over them at once, " said Lancelotfirmly, uncoiling them. "It won't take you five minutes--just let meplay one to you. The tunes are rather more original than the average, I can promise you; and yet I think they have a lilt that----"

"I really can't spare the time now. If you leave them, we will do ourbest. "

"Listen to this bit!" said Lancelot desperately. And dashing at apiano that stood handy, he played a couple of bars. "That's quite anew modulation. "

"That's all very well, " said the publisher; "but how do you suppose I'mgoing to sell a thing with an accompaniment like that? Look here, andhere! Why it's all accidentals. "

"That's the best part of the song, " explained Lancelot; "a sort ofundercurrent of emotion that brings out the full pathos of the words. Note the elegant and novel harmonies. " He played another bar or two, singing the words softly. 

"Yes; but if you think you'll get young ladies to play that, you've gota good deal to learn, " said the publisher gruffly. "This is the sortof accompaniment that goes down, " and seating himself at the piano fora moment (somewhat to Lancelot's astonishment, for he had graduallyformed a theory that music-publishers did not really know the stafffrom a five-barred gate), he rattled off the melody with his righthand, pounding away monotonously with his left at a few elementarychords. 

Lancelot looked dismayed. 

"That's the kind of thing you'll have to produce, young man, " said thepublisher, feeling that he had at last resumed his natural supremacy, "if you want to get your songs published. Elegant harmonies are allvery well, but who's to play them?"

"And do you mean to say that a musician in this God-forsaken countrymust have no chords but tonics and dominants?" ejaculated Lancelothotly. 

"The less he has of any other the better, " said the great man drily. "I haven't said a word about the melody itself, which is quite out ofthe ordinary compass, and makes demands upon the singer's vocalisationwhich are not likely to make a demand for the song. What you have toremember, my dear sir, if you wish to achieve success, is that music, if it is to sell, must appeal to the average amateur young person. Theaverage amateur young person is the main prop of music in this country. "

Lancelot snatched up his song and tied the strings of his portfoliovery tightly, as if he were clenching his lips. 

"If I stay here any longer I shall swear, " he said: "Good afternoon. "

He went out with a fire at his heart that made him insensitive to thefrost without. He walked a mile out of his way mechanically, then, perceiving his stupidity, avenged it by jumping into a hansom. Hedared not think how low his funds were running. When he got home heforgot to have his tea, crouching in dumb misery in his easy-chair, while the coals in the grate faded like the sunset from red to grey, and the dusk of twilight deepened into the gloom of night, relievedonly by a gleam from the street-lamp. 

The noise of the door opening made him look up. 

"Beg pardon, sir, I didn't yer ye come in. "

It was Mary Ann's timid accents. Lancelot's head drooped again on hisbreast. He did not answer. 

"You've bin and let your fire go out, sir. "

"Don't bother!" he grumbled. He felt a morbid satisfaction in thisaggravation of discomfort, almost symbolic as it was of his sunkfortunes. 

"Oh, but it'll freeze 'ard to-night, sir. Let me make it up. " Takinghis sullen silence for consent, she ran downstairs and reappeared withsome sticks. Soon there were signs of life, which Mary Ann assiduouslyencouraged by blowing at the embers with her mouth. Lancelot looked onin dull apathy, but as the fire rekindled and the little flames leaptup and made Mary Ann's flushed face the one spot of colour and warmthin the cold, dark room, Lancelot's torpidity vanished suddenly. Thesensuous fascination seized him afresh, and ere he was aware of it hewas lifting the pretty face by the chin. 

"I'm so sorry to be so troublesome, Mary Ann. There, you shall give mea kiss to show you bear no malice. "

The warm lips obediently met his, and for a moment Lancelot forgot hisworries while he held her soft cheek against his. 

This time the shock of returning recollection was not so violent asbefore. He sat up in his chair, but his right arm still twinednegligently round her neck, the fingers patting the warm face. "Afellow must have something to divert his mind, " he thought, "or he'd gomad. And there's no harm done--the poor thing takes it as a kindness, I'm sure. I suppose _her_ life's dull enough. We're a pair. " He felther shoulders heaving a little, as if she were gulping down something. At last she said, "You ain't troublesome. I ought to ha' yerd ye comein. "

He released her suddenly. Her words broke the spell. The vulgaraccent gave him a shudder. 

"Don't you _hear_ a bell ringing?" he said, with dual significance. 

"Nosir, " said Mary Ann ingenuously. "I'd yer it in a moment if therewas. I yer it in my dreams, I'm so used to it. One night I dreamt themissus was boxin' my yers and askin' me if I was deaf and I said to'er----"

"Can't you say 'her'?" cried Lancelot, cutting her short impatiently. 

"Her, " said Mary Ann. 

"Then why do you say ''er'?"

"Missus told me to. She said my own way was all wrong. "

"Oh, indeed!" said Lancelot. "It's missus that has corrupted you, isit? And pray what used you to say?"

"She, " said Mary Ann. 

Lancelot was taken aback. "She!" he repeated. 

"Yessir, " said Mary Ann, with a dawning suspicion that her ownvocabulary was going to be vindicated; "whenever I said 'she' she mademe say ''er, ' and whenever I said 'her' she made me say 'she. ' When Isaid 'her and me' she made me say 'me and she, ' and when I said 'I gotit from she, ' she made me say 'I got it from 'er. '"

"Bravo! A very lucid exposition, " said Lancelot, laughing. "Did sheset you right in any other particulars?"

"Eessir--I mean yessir, " replied Mary Ann, the forbidden words flyingto her lips like prisoned skylarks suddenly set free. "I used to say, 'Gie I thek there broom, oo't?' 'Arten thee goin' to?' 'Her did sayto I. ' 'I be goin' on to bed. ' 'Look at----'"

"Enough! Enough! What a memory you've got! Now I understand. You'rea country girl. "

"Eessir, " said Mary Ann, her face lighting up. "I mean yessir. "

"Well, that redeems you a little, " thought Lancelot, with his whimsicallook. "So it's missus, is it, who's taught you Cockneyese? Myinstinct was not so unsound, after all. I dare say you'll turn outsomething nobler than a Cockney drudge. " He finished aloud, "I hopeyou went a-milking. "

"Eessir, sometimes; and I drove back the milk-trunk in the cart, and Irode down on a pony to the second pasture to count the sheep and theheifers. "

"Then you are a farmer's daughter?"

"Eessir. But my feyther--I mean my father--had only two little fieldswhen he was alive, but we had a nice garden, with plum trees, and rosebushes and gillyflowers----"

"Better and better, " murmured Lancelot, smiling. And, indeed, theimage of Mary Ann skimming the meads on a pony in the sunshine was morepleasant to contemplate than that of Mary Ann whitening the wintrysteps. "What a complexion you must have had to start with!" he criedaloud, surveying the not unenviable remains of it. "Well, and whatelse did you do?"

Mary Ann opened her lips. It was delightful to see how the dull veil, as of London fog, had been lifted from her face; her eyes sparkled. 

Then, "Oh, there's the ground-floor bell, " she cried, movinginstinctively towards the door. 

"Nonsense: I hear no bell, " said Lancelot. 

"I told you I always _hear_ it, " said Mary Ann, hesitating and blushingdelicately before the critical word. 

"Oh well, run along then. Stop a moment--I must give you another kissfor talking so nicely. There! And--stop a moment--bring me up somecoffee, please, when the ground floor is satisfied. "

"Eessir--I mean yessir. What must I say?" she added, pausing troubledon the threshold. 

"Say, 'Yes, Lancelot, '" he answered recklessly. 

"Yessir, " and Mary Ann disappeared. 

It was ten endless minutes before she reappeared with the coffee. Thewhole of the second five minutes Lancelot paced his room feverishly, cursing the ground floor, and stamping as if to bring down its ceiling. He was curious to know more of Mary Ann's history. 

But it proved meagre enough. Her mother died when Mary Ann was achild; her father when she was still a mere girl. His affairs werefound in hopeless confusion, and Mary Ann was considered lucky to betaken into the house of the well-to-do Mrs. Leadbatter, of London, theeldest sister of a young woman who had nursed the vicar's wife. Mrs. Leadbatter had promised the vicar to train up the girl in the way adomestic should go. 

"And when I am old enough she is going to pay me wages as well, "concluded Mary Ann, with an air of importance. 

"Indeed--how old were you when you left the village?"

"Fourteen. "

"And how old are you now?"

Mary Ann looked confused. "I don't quite know, " she murmured. 

"O come, " said Lancelot laughingly; "is this your country simplicity?You're quite young enough to tell how old you are. "

The tears came into Mary Ann's eyes. 

"I can't, Mr. Lancelot, " she protested earnestly; "I forgot tocount--I'll ask missus. "

"And whatever she tells you, you'll be, " he said, amused at herunshakable loyalty. 

"Yessir, " said Mary Ann. 

"And so you are quite alone in the world?"

"Yessir--but I've got my canary. They sold everything when my fatherdied, but the vicar's wife she bought my canary back for me because Icried so. And I brought it to London and it hangs in my bedroom. Andthe vicar, he was so kind to me, he did give me a lot of advice, andMrs. Amersham, who kept the chandler's shop, she did give me ninepence, all in three-penny bits. "

"And you never had any brothers or sisters?"

"There was our Sally, but she died before mother. "

"Nobody else?"

"There's my big brother Tom--but I mustn't tell you about him. "

"Mustn't tell me about him? Why not?"

"He's so wicked. "

The answer was so unexpected that Lancelot, could not help laughing, and Mary Ann flushed to the roots of her hair. 

"Why, what has he done?" said Lancelot, composing his mouth to gravity. 

"I don't know; I was only six. Father told me it was something verydreadful, and Tom had to run away to America, and I mustn't mention himany more. And mother was crying, and I cried because Tom used to giveme tickey-backs and go blackberrying with me and our little Sally; andeverybody else in the village they seemed glad, because they had saidso all along, because Tom would never go to church, even when a littleboy. "

"I suppose then _you_ went to church regularly?"

"Yessir. When I was at home, I mean. "

"Every Sunday?"

Mary Ann hung her head. "Once I went meechin', " she said in low tones. "Some boys and girls they wanted me to go nutting, and I wanted to gotoo, but I didn't know how to get away, and they told me to cough veryloud when the sermon began, so I did, and coughed on and on till atlast the vicar glowed at father, and father had to send me out ofchurch. "

Lancelot laughed heartily. "Then you didn't like the sermon. "

"It wasn't that, sir. The sun was shining that beautiful outside, andI never minded the sermon, only I did get tired of sitting still. ButI never done it again--our little Sally, she died soon after. "

Lancelot checked his laughter. "Poor little fool!" he thought. Thento brighten her up again he asked cheerily, "And what else did you doon the farm?"

"Oh, please sir, missus will be wanting me now. "

"Bother missus. I want some more milk, " he said, emptying the milk-juginto the slop-basin. "Run down and get some. "

Mary Ann was startled by the splendour of the deed. She took the jugsilently and disappeared. 

When she returned he said: "Well, you haven't told me half yet. Isuppose you kept bees?"

"Oh yes, and I fed the pigs. "

"Hang the pigs! Let's hear something more romantic. "

"There was the calves to suckle sometimes, when the mother died or wassold. "

"Calves! H'm! H'm! Well, but how could you do that?"

"Dipped my fingers in milk, and let the calves suck 'em. The sillycreatures thought it was their mothers' teats. Like this. "

With a happy inspiration she put her fingers into the slop-basin, andheld them up dripping. 

Lancelot groaned. It was not only that his improved Mary Ann was againsinking to earth, unable to soar in the romantic aether where he wouldfain have seen her volant; it was not only that the coarseness of hernature had power to drag her down, it was the coarseness of her red, chapped hands that was thrust once again and violently upon hisreluctant consciousness. 

Then, like Mary Ann, he had an inspiration. 

"How would you like a pair of gloves, Mary Ann?"

He had struck the latent feminine. Her eyes gleamed. "Oh, sir!" wasall she could say. Then a swift shade of disappointment darkened theeager little face. 

"But I never goes out, " she cried. 

"I never _go_ out, " he corrected, shuddering. 

"I never _go_ out, " said Mary Ann, her lip twitching. 

"That doesn't matter. I want you to wear them indoors. "

"But there's nobody to see 'em indoors!"

"I shall see them, " he reminded her. 

"But they'll get dirty. "

"No they won't. You shall only wear them when you come to me. If Ibuy you a nice pair of gloves, will you promise to put them on everytime I ring for you?"

"But what'll missus say?"

"Missus won't see them. The moment you come in, you'll put them on, and just before going out--you'll take them off! See!"

"Yessir. Then nobody'll see me looking so grand but you. "

"That's it. And wouldn't you rather look grand for me than for anybodyelse?"

"Of course I would, sir, " said Mary Ann, earnestly, with a gratefullittle sigh. 

So Lancelot measured her wrist, feeling her pulse beat madly. Shereally had a very little hand, though to his sensitive vision theroughness of the skin seemed to swell it to a size demanding aboxing-glove. He bought her six pairs of tan kid, in a beautifulcardboard box. He could ill afford the gift, and made one of hiswhimsical grimaces when he got the bill. The young lady who served himlooked infinitely more genteel than Mary Ann. He wondered what shewould think if she knew for whom he was buying these dainty articles. Perhaps her feelings would be so outraged she would refuse toparticipate in the transaction. But the young lady was happilyunconscious; she had her best smile for the handsome, aristocraticyoung gentleman, and mentioned his moustache later to her bosom-friendin the next department. 

And thus Mary Ann and Lancelot became the joint owners of a secret, andco-players in a little comedy. When Mary Ann came into the room, shewould put whatever she was carrying on a chair, gravely extract hergloves from her pocket, and draw them on, Lancelot pretending not toknow she was in the room, though he had just said, "Come in. " Afterallowing her a minute he would look up. In the course of a week thisbecame mechanical, so that he lost the semi-ludicrous sense of secrecywhich he felt at first, as well as the little pathetic emotion inspiredby her absolute unconsciousness that the performance was not intendedfor her own gratification. Nevertheless, though he could now endure tosee Mary Ann handling the sugar-tongs, he remained cold to her for someweeks. He had kissed her again in the flush of her joy at the sight ofthe gloves, but after that there was a reaction. He rarely went to theclub now (there was no one with whom he was in correspondence exceptmusic-publishers, and they didn't reply), but he dropped in there oncesoon after the glove episode, looked over the papers in thesmoking-room, and chatted with a popular composer and one or two men heknew. It was while the waiter was holding out the coffee-tray to himthat Mary Ann flashed upon his consciousness. The thought of herseemed so incongruous with the sober magnificence, the massiverespectability that surrounded him, the cheerful, marble hearthreddened with leaping flame, the luxurious lounges, the well-groomedold gentlemen smoking eighteenpenny cheroots, the suave, noiselesssatellites, that Lancelot felt a sudden pang of bewildered shame. Why, the very waiter who stood bent before him would disdain her. He tookhis coffee hastily, with a sense of personal unworthiness. Thisfeeling soon evaporated, but it left lees of resentment against MaryAnn which made him inexplicable to her. Fortunately, her habit ofacceptance saved her some tears, though she shed others. And thereremained always the gloves. When she was putting them on she alwaysfelt she was slipping her hands in his. 

And then there was yet a further consolation. For the gloves had alsoa subtle effect on Lancelot. They gave him a sense of responsibility. Vaguely resentful as he felt against Mary Ann (in the intervals of hismore definite resentment against publishers), he also felt that hecould not stop at the gloves. He had started refining her, and he mustgo on till she was, so to speak, all gloves. He must cover up hercoarse speech, as he had covered up her coarse hands. He owed that tothe gloves; it was the least he could do for them. So, whenever MaryAnn made a mistake, Lancelot corrected her. He found these grammaticaldialogues not uninteresting, and a vent for his ill-humour againstpublishers to boot. Very often his verbal corrections soundedastonishingly like reprimands. Here, again, Mary Ann was forearmed byher feeling that she deserved them. She would have been proud had sheknown how much Mr. Lancelot was satisfied with her aspirates, whichcame quite natural. She had only dropped her "h's" temporarily, as onedrops country friends in coming to London. Curiously enough, Mary Anndid not regard the new locutions and pronunciations as superseding theold. They were a new language; she knew two others, her mother-tongueand her missus's tongue. She would as little have thought of using hernew linguistic acquirements in the kitchen as of wearing her glovesthere. They were for Lancelot's ears only, as her gloves were for hiseyes. 

All this time Lancelot was displaying prodigious musical activity, somuch so that the cost of ruled paper became a consideration. There wasno form of composition he did not essay, none by which he made ashilling. Once he felt himself the prey of a splendid inspiration, andsat up all night writing at fever pitch, surrounded with celestialharmonies, audible to him alone; the little room resounded with thethunder of a mighty orchestra, in which every instrument sang to himindividually--the piccolo, the flute, the oboes, the clarionets, filling the air with a silver spray of notes; the drums throbbing, thetrumpets shrilling, the four horns pealing with long, stately notes, the trombones and bassoons vibrating, the violins and violas sobbing inlinked sweetness, the 'cello and the contra-bass moaning theirunder-chant. And then, in the morning, when the first rough sketch waswritten, the glory faded. He threw down his pen, and called himself anass for wasting his time on what nobody would ever look at. Then helaid his head on the table, overwrought, full of an infinite pity forhimself. A sudden longing seized him for some one to love him, tocaress his hair, to smooth his hot forehead. This mood passed too; hesmoothed the slumbering Beethoven instead. After a while he went intohis bedroom, and sluiced his face and hands in ice-cold water, and rangthe bell for breakfast. 

There was a knock at the door in response. 

"Come in!" he said gently--his emotions had left him tired to the pointof tenderness. And then he waited a minute while Mary Ann was drawingon her gloves. 

"Did you ring, sir?" said a wheezy voice at last. Mrs. Leadbatter hadgot tired of waiting. 

Lancelot started violently--Mrs. Leadbatter had latterly left himentirely to Mary Ann. "It's my hastmer, " she had explained to himapologetically, meeting him casually in the passage. "I can't trollopup and down stairs as I used to when I fust took this housefive-an'-twenty year ago, and pore Mr. Leadbatter----" and herefollowed reminiscences long since in their hundredth edition. 

"Yes; let me have some coffee--very hot--please, " said Lancelot lessgently. The woman's voice jarred upon him; and her features were notredeeming. 

"Lawd, sir, I 'ope that gas 'asn't been burnin' all night, sir, " shesaid as she was going out. 

"It has, " he said shortly. 

"You'll hexcoose me, sir, but I didn't bargen for that. I'm only apore, honest, 'ard-workin' widder, and I noticed the last gas bill was'eavier than hever since that black winter that took pore Mr. Leadbatter to 'is grave. Fair is fair, and I shall 'ave to reckon it ahextry, with the rate gone up sevenpence a thousand, and my Rosieleavin' a fine nursemaid's place in Bayswater at the end of the monthto come 'ome and 'elp 'er mother, 'cos my hastmer----"

"Will you please shut the door after you?" interrupted Lancelot, bitinghis lip with irritation. And Mrs. Leadbatter, who was standing in theaperture with no immediate intention of departing, could find norepartee beyond slamming the door as hard as she could. 

This little passage of arms strangely softened Lancelot to Mary Ann. It made him realise faintly what her life must be. 

"I should go mad and smash all the crockery!" he cried aloud. He feltquite tender again towards the uncomplaining girl. 

Presently there was another knock. Lancelot growled, half prepared torenew the battle, and to give Mrs. Leadbatter a piece of his mind onthe subject. But it was merely Mary Ann. 

Shaken in his routine, he looked on steadily while Mary Ann drew on hergloves; and this in turn confused Mary Ann. Her hand trembled. 

"Let me help you, " he said. 

And there was Lancelot buttoning Mary Ann's glove just as if her namewere Guinevere! And neither saw the absurdity of wasting time upon anoperation which would have to be undone in two minutes. Then Mary Ann, her eyes full of soft light, went to the sideboard and took out theprosaic elements of breakfast. 

When she returned, to put them back, Lancelot was astonished to see hercarrying a cage--a plain square cage, made of white tin wire. 

"What's that?" he gasped. 

"Please, Mr. Lancelot, I want to ask you to do me a favour. " Shedropped her eyelashes timidly. 

"Yes, Mary Ann, " he said briskly. "But what have you got there?"

"It's only my canary, sir. Would you--please, sir, would youmind?"--then desperately: "I want to hang it up here, sir!"

"Here?" he repeated in frank astonishment. 

"Why?"

"Please, sir, I--I--it's sunnier here, sir, and I--I think it must bepining away. It hardly ever sings in my bedroom. "

"Well, but, " he began--then seeing the tears gathering on her eyelids, he finished with laughing good-nature--"as long as Mrs. Leadbatterdoesn't reckon it an extra. "

"Oh no, sir, " said Mary Ann seriously. "I'll tell her. Besides, shewill be glad, because she don't like the canary--she says its singingdisturbs her. Her room is next to mine, you know, Mr. Lancelot. "

"But you said it doesn't sing much. "

"Please, sir, I--I mean in summer, " exclaimed Mary Ann in rosyconfusion; "and--and--it'll soon be summer, sir. "

"Sw--e-ê-t!" burst forth the canary suddenly, as if encouraged by MaryAnn's opinion. It was a pretty little bird--one golden yellow frombeak to tail, as though it had been dipped in sunshine. 

"You see, sir, " she cried eagerly, "it's beginning already. "

"Yes, " said Lancelot grimly; "but so is Beethoven. "

"I'll hang it high up--in the window, " said Mary Ann, "where the dogcan't get at it. "

"Well, I won't take any responsibilities, " murmured Lancelot resignedly. 

"No, sir, I'll attend to that, " said Mary Ann vaguely. 

After the installation of the canary Lancelot found himself slippingmore and more into a continuous matter-of-course flirtation; more andmore forgetting the slavey in the candid young creature who had, atmoments, strange dancing lights in her awakened eyes, strange flashesof witchery in her ingenuous expression. And yet he made a desultorystruggle against what a secret voice was always whispering was adegradation. He knew she had no real place in his life; he scarcethought of her save when she came bodily before his eyes with herpretty face and her trustful glance. 

He felt no temptation to write sonatas on her eyebrow--to borrowPeter's variation, for the use of musicians, of Shakespeare's "writesonnets on his mistress's eyebrow"--and, indeed, he knew she could beno fit mistress for him--this starveling drudge, with passive passions, meek, accepting, with well-nigh every spark of spontaneity choked outof her. The women of his dreams were quite other--beautiful, voluptuous, full of the joy of life, tremulous with poetry and loftythought, with dark, amorous orbs that flashed responsive to his magicmelodies. They hovered about him as he wrote and played--Venusesrising from the seas of his music. And then--with his eyes full of thedivine tears of youth, with his brain a hive of winged dreams--he wouldturn and kiss merely Mary Ann! Such is the pitiful breed of mortals. 

And after every such fall he thought more contemptuously of Mary Ann. Idealise her as he might, see all that was best in her as he tried todo, she remained common and commonplace enough. Her ingenuousness, while from one point of view it was charming, from another was but apleasant synonym for silliness. And it might not be ingenuousness--orsilliness--after all! For was Mary Ann as innocent as she looked? Theguilelessness of the dove might very well cover the wisdom of theserpent. The instinct--the repugnance that made him sponge off herfirst kiss from his lips--was probably a true instinct. How was itpossible a girl of that class should escape the sordid attentions ofstreet swains? Even when she was in the country she was well-nigh ofwoo-able age, the likely cynosure of neighbouring ploughboys' eyes. And what of the other lodgers?

A finer instinct--that of a gentleman--kept him from putting anyquestions to Mary Ann. Indeed, his own delicacy repudiated the imagesthat strove to find entry in his brain, even as his fastidiousnessshrank from realising the unlovely details of Mary Ann's dailyduties--these things disgusted him more with himself than with her. And yet he found himself acquiring a new and illogical interest in theboots he met outside doors. Early one morning he went half-way up thesecond flight of stairs--a strange region where his own boots had neverbefore trod--but came down ashamed and with fluttering heart as if hehad gone up to steal boots instead of to survey them. He might haveasked Mary Ann or her "missus" who the other tenants were, but heshrank from the topic. Their hours were not his, and he only oncechanced on a fellow-man in the passage, and then he was not sure it wasnot the tax-collector. Besides, he was not really interested--it wasonly a flicker of idle curiosity as to the actual psychology of MaryAnn. That he did not really care he proved to himself by kissing hernext time. He accepted her as she was--because she was there. Shebrightened his troubled life a little, and he was quite sure hebrightened hers. So he drifted on, not worrying himself to mean anydefinite harm to her. He had quite enough worry with thosemusic-publishers. 

The financial outlook was, indeed, becoming terrifying. He was gladthere was nobody to question him, for he did not care to face thefacts. Peter's threat of becoming a regular visitor had been nullifiedby his father despatching him to Germany to buy up some more Teutonicpatents. "Wonderful are the ways of Providence!" he had written toLancelot. "If I had not flown in the old man's face and picked up alittle German here years ago, I should not be half so useful to himnow. . . . I shall pay a flying visit to Leipsic--not on business. "

But at last Peter returned, Mrs. Leadbatter panting to the door to lethim in one afternoon without troubling to ask Lancelot if he was "athome. " He burst upon the musician, and found him in the mostundisguisable dumps. 

"Why didn't you answer my letter, you impolite old bear?" Peter asked, warding off Beethoven with his umbrella. 

"I was busy, " Lancelot replied pettishly. 

"Busy writing rubbish. Haven't you got 'Ops. ' enough? I bet youhaven't had anything published yet. "

"I'm working at a grand opera, " he said in dry, mechanical tones. "Ihave hopes of getting it put on. Gasco, the _impresario_, is a memberof my club, and he thinks of running a season in the autumn. I had atalk with him yesterday. "

"I hope I shall live to see it, " said Peter sceptically. 

"I hope you will, " said Lancelot sharply. 

"None of my family ever lived beyond ninety, " said Peter, shaking hishead dolefully; "and then, my heart is not so good as it might be. "

"It certainly isn't!" cried poor Lancelot. "But everybody hits a chapwhen he's down. "

He turned his head away, striving to swallow the lump that would riseto his throat. He had a sense of infinite wretchedness and loneliness. 

"Oh, poor old chap; is it so bad as all that?" Peter's somewhatstrident voice had grown tender as a woman's. He laid his handaffectionately on Lancelot's tumbled hair. "You know I believe in youwith all my soul. I never doubted your genius for a moment. Don't Iknow too well that's what keeps you back? Come, come, old fellow. Can't I persuade you to write rot? One must keep the pot boiling, youknow. You turn out a dozen popular ballads, and the coin'll followyour music as the rats did the pied piper's. Then, if you have anyambition left, you kick away the ladder by which you mounted, and standon the heights of art. "

"Never!" cried Lancelot. "It would degrade me in my own eyes. I'drather starve; and you can't shake them off--the first impression iseverything; they would always be remembered against me, " he added, after a pause. 

"Motives mixed, " reflected Peter. "That's a good sign. " Aloud hesaid, "Well, you think it over. This is a practical world, old man; itwasn't made for dreamers. And one of the first dreams that you've gotto wake from is the dream that anybody connected with the stage can berelied on from one day to the next. They gas for the sake of gassing, or they tell you pleasant lies out of mere goodwill, just as they callfor your drinks. Their promises are beautiful bubbles, on a basis ofsoft soap and made to 'bust. '"

"You grow quite eloquent, " said Lancelot, with a wan smile. 

"Eloquent! There's more in me than you've yet found out. Now, then!Give us your hand that you'll chuck art, and we'll drink to yourpopular ballad--hundredth thousand edition, no drawing-room should bewithout it. "

Lancelot flushed. "I was just going to have some tea. I think it'sfive o'clock, " he murmured. 

"The very thing I'm dying for, " cried Peter energetically; "I'm asparched as a pea. " Inwardly he was shocked to find the stream ofwhisky run dry. 

So Lancelot rang the bell, and Mary Ann came up with the tea-tray inthe twilight. 

"We'll have a light, " cried Peter, and struck one of his own with ashadowy underthought of saving Mary Ann from a possible scolding, incase Lancelot's matches should be again unapparent. Then he uttered acomic exclamation of astonishment. Mary Ann was putting on a pair ofgloves! In his surprise he dropped the match. 

Mary Ann was equally startled by the unexpected sight of a stranger, but when he struck the second match her hands were bare and red. 

"What in heaven's name were you putting on gloves for, my girl?" saidPeter, amused. 

Lancelot stared fixedly at the fire, trying to keep the blood fromflooding his cheeks. He wondered that the ridiculousness of the wholething had never struck him in its full force before. Was it possiblehe could have made such an ass of himself?

"Please, sir, I've got to go out, and I'm in a hurry, " said Mary Ann. 

Lancelot felt intense relief. An instant after his brow wrinkleditself. "Oho!" he thought. "So this is Miss Simpleton, is it?"

"Then why did you take them off again?" retorted Peter. 

Mary Ann's repartee was to burst into tears and leave the room. 

"Now I've offended her, " said Peter. "Did you see how she tossed herpretty head?"

"Ingenious minx, " thought Lancelot. 

"She's left the tray on a chair by the door, " went on Peter. "What anodd girl! Does she always carry on like this?"

"She's got such a lot to do. I suppose she sometimes gets a bit queerin her head, " said Lancelot, conceiving he was somehow safe-guardingMary Ann's honour by the explanation. 

"I don't think that, " answered Peter. "She did seem dull and stupidwhen I was here last. But I had a good stare at her just now, and sheseems rather bright. Why, her accent is quite refined--she must havepicked it up from you. "

"Nonsense, nonsense!" exclaimed Lancelot testily. 

The little danger--or rather the great danger of being made to appearridiculous--which he had just passed through, contributed to rouse himfrom his torpor. He exerted himself to turn the conversation, and wasquite lively over tea. 

"Sw--eêt! Sw--w--w--w--eêt!" suddenly broke into the conversation. 

"More mysteries!" cried Peter. "What's that?"

"Only a canary. "

"What, another musical instrument! Isn't Beethoven jealous? I wonderhe doesn't consume his rival in his wrath. But I never knew you likedbirds. "

"I don't particularly. It isn't mine. "

"Whose is it?"

Lancelot answered briskly, "Mary Ann's. She asked to be allowed tokeep it here. It seems it won't sing in her attic; it pines away. "

"And do you believe that?"

"Why not? It doesn't sing much even here. "

"Let me look at it--ah, it's a plain Norwich yellow. If you wanted asinging canary you should have come to me, I'd have given you one 'madein Germany'--one of our patents--they train them to sing tunes, andthat puts up the price. "

"Thank you, but this one disturbs me sufficiently. "

"Then why do you put up with it?"

"Why do I put up with that Christmas number supplement over themantel-piece? It's part of the furniture. I was asked to let it behere, and I couldn't be rude. "

"No, it's not in your nature. What a bore it must be to feed it! Letme see, I suppose you give it canary seed biscuits--I hope you don'tgive it butter. "

"Don't be an ass!" roared Lancelot. "You don't imagine I bother myhead whether it eats butter or--or marmalade. "

"Who feeds it then?"

"Mary Ann, of course. "

"She comes in and feeds it?"

"Certainly. "

"Several times a day?"

"I suppose so. "

"Lancelot, " said Peter solemnly, "Mary Ann's mashed on you. "

Lancelot shrank before Peter's remark as a burglar from a policeman'sbull's-eye. The bull's-eye seemed to cast a new light on Mary Ann, too, but he felt too unpleasantly dazzled to consider that for themoment; his whole thought was to get out of the line of light. 

"Nonsense!" he answered; "why I'm hardly ever in when she feeds it, andI believe it eats all day long--gets supplied in the morning like acoal-scuttle. Besides, she comes in to dust and all that when shepleases. And I do wish you wouldn't use that word 'mashed. ' I loatheit. "

Indeed, he writhed under the thought of being coupled with Mary Ann. The thing sounded so ugly--so squalid. In the actual, it was not sounpleasant, but looked at from the outside--unsympathetically--it washopelessly vulgar, incurably plebeian. He shuddered. 

"I don't know, " said Peter. "It's a very expressive word, is 'mashed. 'But I will make allowance for your poetical feelings and give up theword--except in its literal sense, of course. I'm sure you wouldn'tobject to mashing a music-publisher!"

Lancelot laughed with false heartiness. "Oh, but if I'm to write thosepopular ballads, you say he'll become my best friend. "

"Of course he will, " cried Peter, eagerly sniffing at the red herringLancelot had thrown across the track. "You stand out for a royalty onevery copy, so that if you strike ile--oh, I beg your pardon, that'sanother of the phrases you object to, isn't it?"

"Don't be a fool, " said Lancelot, laughing on. "You know I only objectto that in connection with English peers marrying the daughters of menwho have done it. "

"Oh, is that it? I wish you'd publish an expurgated dictionary withmost of the words left out, and exact definitions of the conditionsunder which one may use the remainder. But I've got on a siding. Whatwas I talking about?"

"Royalty, " muttered Lancelot languidly. 

"Royalty? No. You mentioned the aristocracy, I think. " Then he burstinto a hearty laugh. "Oh yes--on that ballad. Now, look here! I'vebrought a ballad with me just to show you--a thing that is going likewildfire. "

"'Not _Good-night and good-bye_, I hope, " laughed Lancelot. 

"Yes--the very one!" cried Peter, astonished. 

"_Himmel_!" groaned Lancelot in comic despair. 

"You know it already?" inquired Peter eagerly. 

"No; only I can't open a paper without seeing the advertisement and thesickly-sentimental refrain. "

"You see how famous it is, anyway, " said Peter. "And if you want tostrike--er--to make a hit you'll just take that song and do adeliberate imitation of it. "

"Wha-a-a-t!" gasped Lancelot. 

"My dear chap, they all do it. When the public cotton to a thing theycan't have enough of it. "

"But I can write my own rot, surely. "

"In the face of all this litter of 'Ops. ' I daren't dispute that for amoment. But it isn't enough to write rot--the public want a particularkind of rot. Now just play that over--oblige me. " He laid both handson Lancelot's shoulders in amicable appeal. 

Lancelot shrugged them, but seated himself at the piano, played theintroductory chords, and commenced singing the words in his pleasantbaritone. 

Suddenly Beethoven ran towards the door, howling. 

Lancelot ceased playing and looked approvingly at the animal. 

"By Jove! He wants to go out. What an ear for music that animal'sgot!"

Peter smiled grimly. "It's long enough. I suppose that's why you callhim Beethoven. "

"Not at all. Beethoven had no ear--at least not in his latestperiod--he was deaf. Lucky devil! That is, if this sort of thing wasbrought round on barrel-organs. "

"Never mind, old man! Finish the thing. "

"But consider Beethoven's feelings!"

"Hang Beethoven!"

"Poor Beethoven. Come here, my poor maligned musical critic! Wouldthey give you a bad name and hang you? Now you must be very quiet. Put your paws into those lovely long ears of yours if it gets toohorrible. You have been used to high-class music, I know, but this isthe sort of thing that England expects every man to do, so the sooneryou get used to it the better. " He ran his fingers along the keys. "There, Peter, he's growling already. I'm sure he'll start again, themoment I strike the theme. "

"Let him! We'll take it as a spaniel obligato. "

"Oh, but his accompaniments are too staccato. He has no sense of time. "

"Why don't you teach him, then, to wag his tail like the pendulum of ametronome? He'd be more use to you that way than setting up to be amusician, which Nature never meant him for--his hair's not long enough. But go ahead, old man, Beethoven's behaving himself now. "

Indeed, as if he were satisfied with his protest, the little beastremained quiet, while his lord and master went through the piece. Hedid not even interrupt at the refrain. 

 "Kiss me, good-night, dear love, Dream of the old delight; My spirit is summoned above, Kiss me, dear love, good-night. "

"I must say it's not so awful as I expected, " said Lancelot candidly;"it's not at all bad--for a waltz. "

"There, you see!" said Peter eagerly; "the public are not such foolsafter all. "

"Still, the words are the most maudlin twaddle!" said Lancelot, as ifhe found some consolation in the fact. 

"Yes, but I didn't write _them_!" replied Peter quickly. Then he grewred and laughed an embarrassed laugh. "I didn't mean to tell you, oldman. But there--the cat's out. That's what took me to Brahmson's thatafternoon we met! And I harmonised it myself, mind you, everycrotchet. I picked up enough at the Conservatoire for that. You knowlots of fellows only do the tune--they give out all the other work. "

"So you are the great Keeley Lesterre, eh?" said Lancelot in amusedastonishment. 

"Yes; I have to do it under another name. I don't want to grieve theold man. You see, I promised him to reform, when he took me back tohis heart and business. "

"Is that strictly honourable, Peter?" said Lancelot, shaking his head. 

"Oh well! I couldn't give it up altogether, but I do practically stickto the contract--it's all overtime, you know. It doesn't interfere abit with business. Besides, as you'd say, it isn't music, " he saidslyly. "And just because I don't want it I make a heap of coin out ofit--that's why I'm so vexed at your keeping me still in your debt. "

Lancelot frowned. "Then you had no difficulty in getting published?"he asked. 

"I don't say that. It was bribery and corruption so far as my firstsong was concerned. I tipped a professional to go down and tellBrahmson he was going to take it up. You know, of course, well-knownsingers get half a guinea from the publisher every time they sing asong. "

"No; do they?" said Lancelot. "How mean of them. "

"Business, my boy. It pays the publisher to give it them. Look at theadvertisement!"

"But suppose a really fine song was published and the publisher refusedto pay this blood-money?"

"Then I suppose they'd sing some other song, and let that moulder onthe foolish publisher's shelves. "

"Great heavens!" said Lancelot, jumping up from the piano in wildexcitement. "Then a musician's reputation is really at the mercy of amercenary crew of singers, who respect neither art nor themselves. Ohyes, we are indeed a musical people!"

"Easy there! Several of 'em are pals of mine, and I'll get them totake up those ballads of yours as soon as you write 'em. "

"Let them go to the devil with their ballads!" roared Lancelot, andwith a sweep of his arm whirled _Good-night and good-bye_ into the air. Peter picked it up and wrote something on it with a stylographic penwhich he produced from his waistcoat pocket. 

"There!" he said, "that'll make you remember it's your ownproperty--and mine--that you are treating so disrespectfully. "

"I beg your pardon, old chap, " said Lancelot, rebuked and remorseful. 

"Don't mention it, " replied Peter. "And whenever you decide to becomerich and famous--there's your model. "

"Never! never! never!" cried Lancelot, when Peter went at ten. "Mypoor Beethoven! What you must have suffered! Never mind, I'll playyou your Moonlight sonata. "

He touched the keys gently, and his sorrows and his temptations fadedfrom him. He glided into Bach, and then into Chopin and Mendelssohn, and at last drifted into dreamy improvisation, his fingers movingalmost of themselves, his eyes, half closed, seeing only inward visions. 

And then, all at once, he awoke with a start, for Beethoven was barkingtowards the door, with pricked-up ears and rigid tail. 

"Sh! You little beggar, " he murmured, becoming conscious that the hourwas late, and that he himself had been noisy at unbeseeming hours. "What's the matter with you?" And, with a sudden thought, he threwopen the door. 

It was merely Mary Ann. 

Her face--flashed so unexpectedly upon him--had the piquancy of avision, but its expression was one of confusion and guilt; there weretears on her cheeks; in her hand was a bed-room candlestick. 

She turned quickly, and began to mount the stairs. Lancelot put hishand on her shoulder, and turned her face towards him, and said in animperious whisper:

"Now then, what's up? What are you crying about?"

"I ain't--I mean I'm _not_ crying, " said Mary Ann, with a sob in herbreath. 

"Come, come, don't fib. What's the matter?"

"I'm not crying; it's only the music, " she murmured. 

"The music, " he echoed, bewildered. 

"Yessir. The music always makes me cry--but you can't call itcrying--it feels so nice. "

"Oh, then you've been listening!"

"Yessir. " Her eyes drooped in humiliation. 

"But you ought to have been in bed, " he said. "You get little enoughsleep as it is. "

"It's better than sleep, " she answered. 

The simple phrase vibrated through him like a beautiful minor chord. He smoothed her hair tenderly. 

"Poor child!" he said. 

There was an instant's silence. It was past midnight, and the housewas painfully still. They stood upon the dusky landing, across which abar of light streamed from his half-open door, and only Beethoven'seyes were upon them. But Lancelot felt no impulse to fondle her; onlyjust to lay his hand on her hair, as in benediction and pity. 

"So you liked what I was playing, " he said, not without a pang ofpersonal pleasure. 

"Yessir; I never heard you play that before. "

"So you often listen!"

"I can hear you, even in the kitchen. Oh, it's just lovely! I don'tcare what I have to do then, if it's grates or plates or steps. Themusic goes and goes, and I feel back in the country again, andstanding, as I used to love to stand of an evening, by the stile, underthe big elm, and watch how the sunset did redden the white birches, andfade in the water. Oh, it was so nice in the springtime, with thehawthorn that grew on the other bank, and the bluebells----"

The pretty face was full of dreamy tenderness, the eyes lit upwitchingly. She pulled herself up suddenly, and stole a shy glance ather auditor. 

"Yes, yes, go on, " he said; "tell me all you feel about the music. "

"And there's one song you sometimes play that makes me feel floating onand on like a great white swan. "

She hummed a few bars of the _Gondel-Lied_--flawlessly. 

"Dear me! you have an ear!" he said, pinching it. "And how did youlike what I was playing just now?" he went on, growing curious to knowhow his own improvisations struck her. 

"Oh, I liked it so much, " she whispered enthusiastically, "because itreminded me of my favourite one--every moment I did think--Ithought--you were going to come into that. "

The whimsical sparkle leapt into his eyes. 

"And I thought I was so original, " he murmured. 

"But what I liked best, " she began, then checked herself, as ifsuddenly remembering she had never made a spontaneous remark before, and lacking courage to establish a precedent. 

"Yes--what you liked best?" he said encouragingly. 

"That song you sang this afternoon, " she said shyly. 

"What song? I sang no song, " he said, puzzled for a moment. 

"Oh yes! That one about--

 'Kiss me, dear love, good-night. '

I was going upstairs, but it made me stop just here--and cry. "

He made his comic grimace. 

"So it was you Beethoven was barking at! And I thought he had an ear!And I thought you had an ear! But no! You're both Philistines, afterall. Heigho!"

She looked sad. "Oughtn't I to ha' liked it?" she asked anxiously. 

"Oh yes, " he said reassuringly, "it's very popular. No drawing-room iswithout it. "

She detected the ironic ring in his voice. "It wasn't so much themusic, " she began apologetically. 

"Now--now you're going to spoil yourself, " he said. "Be natural. "

"But it wasn't, " she protested. "It was the words----"

"That's worse, " he murmured below his breath. 

"They reminded me of my mother as she laid dying. "

"Ah!" said Lancelot. 

"Yes, sir, mother was a long time dying--it was when I was a littlegirl, and I used to nurse her--I fancy it was our little Sally's deaththat killed her; she took to her bed after the funeral, and never leftit till she went to her own, " said Mary Ann, with unconsciousflippancy. "She used to look up to the ceiling and say that she wasgoing to little Sally, and I remember I was such a silly then, Ibrought mother flowers and apples and bits of cake to take to Sallywith my love. I put them on her pillow, but the flowers faded and thecake got mouldy--mother was such a long time dying--and at last I atethe apples myself, I was so tired of waiting. Wasn't I silly?" AndMary Ann laughed a little laugh with tears in it. Then growing graveagain, she added: "And at last, when mother was really on the point ofdeath, she forgot all about little Sally, and said she was going tomeet Tom. And I remember thinking she was going to America. I didn'tknow people talk nonsense before they die. "

"They do--a great deal of it, unfortunately, " said Lancelot lightly, trying to disguise from himself that his eyes were moist. He seemed torealise now what she was--a child; a child who, simpler than mostchildren to start with, had grown only in body, whose soul had beenstunted by uncounted years of dull and monotonous drudgery. The bloodburnt in his veins as he thought of the cruelty of circumstance and theheartless honesty of her mistress. He made up his mind for the secondtime to give Mrs. Leadbatter a piece of his mind in the morning. 

"Well, go to bed now, my poor child, " he said, "or you'll get no restat all. "

"Yessir. "

She went obediently up a couple of stairs, then turned her headappealingly towards him. The tears still glimmered on her eyelashes. For an instant he thought she was expecting her kiss, but she onlywanted to explain anxiously once again, "That was why I liked thatsong, 'Kiss me, good-night, dear love. ' It was what my mother----"

"Yes, yes, I understand, " he broke in, half amused, though somehow thewords did not seem so full of maudlin pathos to him now. "Andthere----"--he drew her head towards him--"Kiss _me_, good-night----"

He did not complete the quotation; indeed, her lips were already drawntoo close to his. But, ere he released her, the long-repressed thoughthad found expression. 

"You don't kiss anybody but me?" he said half playfully. 

"Oh no, sir, " said Mary Ann earnestly. 

"What!" more lightly still. "Haven't you got half a dozen young men?"

Mary Ann shook her head, more regretfully than resentfully. "I toldyou I never go out--except for little errands. "

She had told him, but his attention had been so concentrated on theungrammatical form in which she had conveyed the information, that thefact itself had made no impression. Now his anger against Mrs. Leadbatter dwindled. After all, she was wise in not giving Mary Annthe run of the London streets. 

"But"--he hesitated. "How about the--the milkman--and the--the othergentlemen. "

"Please, sir, " said Mary Ann, "I don't like them. "

After that no man could help expressing his sense of her good taste. 

"Then you won't kiss anybody but me, " he said, as he let her go for thelast time. He had a Quixotic sub-consciousness that he was saving herfrom his kind by making her promise formally. 

"How could I, Mr. Lancelot?" And the brimming eyes shone with softlight. "I never shall--never. "

It sounded like a troth. 

He went back to the room and shut the door, but could not shut out herimage. The picture she had unwittingly supplied of herself tookpossession of his imagination: he saw her almost as a dream-figure--thevirginal figure he knew--standing by the stream in the sunset, amid theelms and silver birches, with daisies in her hands and bluebells at herfeet, inhaling the delicate scent that wafted from the white hawthornbushes, and watching the water glide along till it seemed gradually towash away the fading colours of the sunset that glorified it. And ashe dwelt on the vision he felt harmonies and phrases stirring andsinging in his brain, like a choir of awakened birds. Quickly heseized paper and wrote down the theme that flowed out at the point ofhis pen--a reverie full of the haunting magic of quiet waters andwoodland sunsets and the gracious innocence of maidenhood. When it wasdone he felt he must give it a distinctive name. He cast about forone, pondering and rejecting titles innumerable. Countless lines ofpoetry ran through his head, from which he sought to pick a word or twoas one plucks a violet from a posy. At last a half-tender, half-whimsical look came into his face, and picking his pen out of hishair, he wrote merely--"Marianne. "

It was only natural that Mary Ann should be unable to maintainherself--or be maintained--at this idyllic level. But her fall wasaggravated by two circumstances, neither of which had any particularbusiness to occur. The first was an intimation from the misogamistGerman Professor that he had persuaded another of his old pupils toinclude a prize symphony by Lancelot in the programme of a CrystalPalace Concert. This was of itself sufficient to turn Lancelot's headaway from all but thoughts of Fame, even if Mary Ann had not beenluckless enough to be again discovered cleaning the steps--and withoutgloves. Against such a spectacle the veriest idealist is powerless. If Mary Ann did not immediately revert to the category of quadrupeds inwhich she had started, it was only because of Lancelot's supplementaryknowledge of the creature. But as he passed her by, solicitous asbefore not to tread upon her, he felt as if all the cold water in herpail were pouring down the back of his neck. 

Nevertheless, the effect of both these turns of fortune was transient. The symphony was duly performed, and dismissed in the papers aspromising, if over-ambitious; the only tangible result was a suggestionfrom the popular composer, who was a member of his club, that Lancelotshould collaborate with him in a comic opera, for the production ofwhich he had facilities. The composer confessed he had a fluent giftof tune, but had no liking for the drudgery of orchestration, and asLancelot was well up in these tedious technicalities, the two mightstrike a partnership to mutual advantage. 

Lancelot felt insulted, but retained enough mastery of himself to replythat he would think it over. As he gave no signs of life or thought, the popular composer then wrote to him at length on the subject, offering him fifty pounds for the job, half of it on account. Lancelotwas in sore straits when he got the letter, for his stock of money wasdwindling to vanishing point, and he dallied with the temptationsufficiently to take the letter home with him. But his spirit was notyet broken, and the letter, crumpled like a rag, was picked up by MaryAnn and straightened out, and carefully placed upon the mantel-shelf. 

Time did something of a similar service for Mary Ann herself, pickingher up from the crumpled attitude in which Lancelot had detected her onthe doorstep, straightening her out again, and replacing her upon hersemi-poetic pedestal. But, as with the cream-laid notepaper, thewrinklings could not be effaced entirely; which was more serious forMary Ann. 

Not that Mary Ann was conscious of these diverse humours in Lancelot. Unconscious of changes in herself, she could not conceive herselfrelated to his variations of mood; still less did she realise theinward struggle of which she was the cause. She was vaguely aware thathe had external worries, for all his grandeur, and if he was by turnsbrusque, affectionate, indifferent, playful, brutal, charming, callous, demonstrative, she no more connected herself with these vicissitudesthan with the caprices of the weather. If her sun smiled once a day itwas enough. How should she know that his indifference was often avictory over himself, as his amativeness was a defeat?

If any excuse could be found for Lancelot, it would be that which headministered to his conscience morning and evening like a soothingsyrup. His position was grown so desperate that Mary Ann almost stoodbetween him and suicide. Continued disappointment made his soul sick;his proud heart fed on itself. He would bite his lips till the bloodcame, vowing never to give in. And not only would he not move an inchfrom his ideal, he would rather die than gratify Peter by falling backon him; he would never even accept that cheque which was virtually hisown. 

It was wonderful how, in his stoniest moments, the sight of Mary Ann'scandid face, eloquent with dumb devotion, softened and melted him. Hewould take her gloved hand and press it silently. And Mary Ann neverknew one iota of his inmost thought! He could not bring himself tothat; indeed, she never for a moment appeared to him in the light of anintelligent being; at her best she was a sweet, simple, loving child. And he scarce spoke to her at all now--theirs was a silentcommunion--he had no heart to converse with her as he had done. Thepiano, too, was almost silent; the canary sang less and less, thoughspring was coming, and glints of sunshine stole between the wires ofits cage; even Beethoven sometimes failed to bark when there was aknock at the street door. 

And at last there came a day when--for the first time in hislife--Lancelot inspected his wardrobe, and hunted together his odds andends of jewelry. From this significant task he was aroused by hearingMrs. Leadbatter coughing in his sitting-room. 

He went in with an interrogative look. 

"Oh, my chest!" said Mrs. Leadbatter, patting it. "It's no use mydenyin' of it, sir, I'm done up. It's as much as I can do to crawl upto the top to bed. I'm thinkin' I shall have to make up a bed in thekitchen. It only shows 'ow right I was to send for my Rosie, thoughquite the lady, and where will you find a nattier nursemaid in allBayswater?"

"Nowhere, " assented Lancelot automatically. 

"Oh, I didn't know you'd noticed her running in to see 'er pore oldmother of a Sunday arternoon, " said Mrs. Leadbatter, highly gratified. "Well, sir, I won't say anything about the hextry gas, though a poorwidder and sevenpence hextry on the thousand, but I'm thinkin' if youwould give my Rosie a lesson once a week on that there pianner, itwould be a kind of set-off, for you know, sir, the policeman tells meyour winder is a landmark to 'im on the foggiest nights. "

Lancelot flushed, then wrinkled his brows. This was a new ideaaltogether. Mrs. Leadbatter stood waiting for his reply, with adeferential smile tempered by asthmatic contortions. 

"But have you got a piano of your own?"

"Oh no, sir, " cried Mrs. Leadbatter almost reproachfully. 

"Well; but how is your Rosie to practise? One lesson a week is of verylittle use anyway, but unless she practises a good deal it'll only be awaste of time. "

"Ah, you don't know my Rosie, " said Mrs. Leadbatter, shaking her headwith sceptical pride. "You mustn't judge by other gels--the way thatgel picks up things is--well, I'll just tell you what 'erschool-teacher, Miss Whiteman, said. She says----"

"My good lady, " interrupted Lancelot, "I practised six hours a daymyself. "

"Yes, but it don't come so natural to a man, " said Mrs. Leadbatter, unshaken. "And it don't look natural neither to see a man playin' thepianner--it's like seein' him knittin'. "

But Lancelot was knitting his brows in a way that was exceedinglynatural. "I may as well tell you at once that what you propose isimpossible. First of all, because I am doubtful whether I shall remainin these rooms; and secondly, because I am giving up the pianoimmediately. I only have it on hire, and I--I----" He felt himselfblushing. 

"Oh, what a pity!" interrupted Mrs. Leadbatter. "You might as well letme go on payin' the hinstalments, instead of lettin' all you've paid gofor nothing. Rosie ain't got much time, but I could allow 'er a 'our aday if it was my own pianner. "

Lancelot explained "hire" did not mean the "hire system. " But the ideaof acquiring the piano having once fired Mrs. Leadbatter's brain, couldnot be extinguished. The unexpected conclusion arrived at was that shewas to purchase the piano on the hire system, allowing it to stand inLancelot's room, and that five shillings a week should be taken off hisrent in return for six lessons of an hour each, one of the hourscounterbalancing the gas grievance. Reviewing the bargain, when Mrs. Leadbatter was gone, Lancelot did not think it at all bad for him. "Use of the piano. Gas, " he murmured, with a pathetic smile, recallingthe advertisements he had read before lighting on Mrs. Leadbatter's. "And five shillings a week--it's a considerable relief! There's noloss of dignity either--for nobody will know. But I wonder what thegovernor would have said!"

The thought shook him with silent laughter; a spectator might havefancied he was sobbing. 

But, after the lessons began, it might almost be said it was only whena spectator was present that he was not sobbing. For Rosie, who was anawkward, ungraceful young person, proved to be the dullest and mostbutter-fingered pupil ever invented for the torture of teachers; atleast, so Lancelot thought, but then he had never had any other pupils, and was not patient. It must be admitted, though, that Rosie giggledperpetually, apparently finding endless humour in her own mistakes. But the climax of the horror was the attendance of Mrs. Leadbatter atthe lessons, for, to Lancelot's consternation, she took it for grantedthat her presence was part of the contract. She marched into the roomin her best cap, and sat, smiling, in the easy-chair, wheezingcomplacently and beating time with her foot. Occasionally she wouldsupplement Lancelot's critical observations. 

"It ain't as I fears to trust 'er with you, sir, " she also remarkedabout three times a week, "for I knows, sir, you're a gentleman. Butit's the neighbours; they never can mind their own business. I told'em you was going to give my Rosie lessons, and you know, sir, thatthey _will_ talk of what don't concern 'em. And, after all, sir, it'san hour, and an hour is sixty minutes, ain't it, sir?"

And Lancelot, groaning inwardly, and unable to deny this chronometry, felt that an ironic Providence was punishing him for his attentions toMary Ann. 

And yet he only felt more tenderly towards Mary Ann. Contrasted withthese two vulgar females, whom he came to conceive as her oppressors, sitting in gauds and finery, and taking lessons which had betterbefitted their Cinderella--the figure of Mary Ann definitely reassumedsome of its antediluvian poetry, if we may apply the adjective to thatcatastrophic washing of the steps. And Mary Ann herself had growngloomier--once or twice he thought she had been crying, though he wastoo numbed and apathetic to ask, and was incapable of suspecting thatRosie had anything to do with her tears. He hardly noticed that Rosiehad taken to feeding the canary; the question of how he should feedhimself was becoming every day more and more menacing. He sawstarvation slowly closing in upon him like the walls of atorture-chamber. He had grown quite familiar with the pawnshop now, though he still slipped in as though his goods were stolen. 

And at last there came a moment when Lancelot felt he could bear it nolonger. And then he suddenly saw daylight. Why should he teach onlyRosie? Nay, why should he teach Rosie at all? If he _was_ reduced togiving lessons--and after all it was no degradation to do so, noabandonment of his artistic ideal, rather a solution of the difficultyso simple that he wondered it had not occurred to him before--whyshould he give them at so wretched a price? He would get anotherpupil, other pupils, who would enable him to dispense with the fewshillings he made by Rosie. He would not ask anybody to recommend himpupils--there was no need for his acquaintances to know, and if heasked Peter, Peter would probably play him some philanthropic trick. No, he would advertise. 

After he had spent his last gold breast-pin in advertisements, herealised that to get piano-forte pupils in London was as easy as to getsongs published. By the time he had quite realised it, it was May, andthen he sat down to realise his future. 

The future was sublimely simple--as simple as his wardrobe had grown. All his clothes were on his back. In a week or two he would be on thestreets; for a poor widow could not be expected to lodge, partiallyboard (with use of the piano, gas), an absolutely penniless younggentleman, though he combined the blood of twenty county families withthe genius of a pleiad of tone-poets. 

There was only one bright spot in the prospect. Rosie's lessons wouldcome to an end. 

What he would do when he got on the streets was not so clear as therest of this prophetic vision. He might take to a barrel-organ--butthat would be a cruel waste of his artistic touch. Perhaps he woulddie on a doorstep, like the professor of many languages whosestarvation was recorded in that very morning's paper. 

Thus, driven by the saturnine necessity that sneers at our punyresolutions, Lancelot began to meditate surrender. For surrender ofsome sort must be--either of life or ideal. After so steadfast andprotracted a struggle--oh, it was cruel, it was terrible; how noble, how high-minded he had been; and this was how the fates dealt withhim--but at that moment----

"Sw--eêt" went the canary, and filled the room with its rapturousdemi-semi-quavers, its throat swelling, its little body throbbing withjoy of the sunshine. And then Lancelot remembered--not the joy of thesunshine, not the joy of life--no, merely Mary Ann. 

Noble! high-minded! No, let Peter think that, let posterity thinkthat. But he could not cozen himself thus! He had fallen--horribly, vulgarly. How absurd of him to set himself up as a saint, a martyr, anidealist! He could not divide himself into two compartments like thatand pretend that only one counted in his character. Who was he, totalk of dying for art? No, he was but an everyday man. He wanted MaryAnn--yes, he might as well admit that to himself now. It was no usehum-bugging himself any longer. Why should he give her up? She washis discovery, his treasure-trove, his property. 

And if he could stoop to her, why should he not stoop to popular work, to devilling, to anything that would rid him of these sordid cares?Bah! away with all pretences?

Was not this shamefaced pawning as vulgar, as wounding to the artist'ssoul, as the turning out of tawdry melodies?

Yes, he would escape from Mrs. Leadbatter and her Rosie; he would writeto that popular composer--he had noticed his letter lying on themantel-piece the other day--and accept the fifty pounds, and whateverhe did he could do anonymously, so that Peter wouldn't know, after all;he would escape from this wretched den and take a flat far away, somewhere where nobody knew him, and there he would sit and work, withMary Ann for his housekeeper. Poor Mary Ann! How glad she would bewhen he told her! The tears came into his eyes as he thought of hernaïve delight. He would rescue her from this horrid, monotonousslavery, and--happy thought--he would have her to give lessons toinstead of Rosie. 

Yes, he would refine her; prune away all that reminded him of her wildgrowth, so that it might no longer humiliate him to think to what acompanion he had sunk. How happy they would be! Of course the worldwould censure him if it knew, but the world was stupid and prosaic, andmeasured all things by its coarse rule of thumb. It was the best thingthat could happen to Mary Ann--the best thing in the world. And thenthe world _wouldn't_ know. 

"Sw--eêt, " went the canary. "Sw--eêt. "

This time the joy of the bird penetrated to his own soul--the joy oflife, the joy of the sunshine. He rang the bell violently, as thoughhe were sounding a clarion of defiance, the trumpet of youth. 

Mary Ann knocked at the door, came in, and began to draw on her gloves. 

He was in a mad mood--the incongruity struck him so that he burst outinto a roar of laughter. 

Mary Ann paused, flushed, and bit her lip. The touch of resentment hehad never noted before gave her a novel charm, spicing her simplicity. 

He came over to her and took her half-bare hands. No, they were not soterrible, after all. Perhaps she had awakened to her iniquities, andhad been trying to wash them white. His last hesitation as to herworthiness to live with him vanished. 

"Mary Ann, " he said, "I'm going to leave these rooms. "

The flush deepened, but the anger faded. She was a child again--herbig eyes full of tears. He felt her hands tremble in his. 

"Mary Ann, " he went on, "how would you like me to take you with me?"

"Do you mean it, sir?" she asked eagerly. 

"Yes, dear. " It was the first time he had used the word. The bloodthrobbed madly in her ears. "If you will come with me--and be mylittle housekeeper--we will go away to some nice spot, and be quitealone together--in the country if you like, amid the foxglove and themeadowsweet, or by the green waters, where you shall stand in thesunset and dream; and I will teach you music and the piano"--her eyesdilated--"and you shall not do any of this wretched nasty work anymore. What do you say?"

"Sw--eêt, sw--eêt, " said the canary in thrilling jubilation. 

Her happiness was choking her--she could not speak. 

"And we will take the canary, too--unless I say good-bye to you aswell. "

"Oh no, you mustn't leave us here!"

"And then, " he said slowly, "it will not be good-bye--nor good-night. Do you understand?"

"Yes, yes, " she breathed, and her face shone. 

"But think, think, Mary Ann, " he said, a sudden pang of compunctionshooting through his breast. He released her hands. "_Do_ youunderstand?"

"I understand--I shall be with you, always. "

He replied uneasily: "I shall look after you--always. "

"Yes, yes, " she breathed. Her bosom heaved. "Always. "

Then his very first impression of her as "a sort of white Topsy"recurred to him suddenly and flashed into speech. 

"Mary Ann, I don't believe you know how you came into the world. Idare say you 'specs you growed. '"

"No, sir, " said Mary Ann gravely; "God made me. "

That shook him strangely for a moment. But the canary sang on:

"Sw-eêt. Sw-w-w-w-w-eêt. "

III

And so it was settled. He wrote the long-delayed answer to the popularcomposer, found him still willing to give out his orchestration, and theymet by appointment at the club. 

"I've got hold of a splendid book, " said the popular composer. "Awfullyclever; jolly original. Bound to go--from the French, you know. Haven'thad time to set to work on it--old engagement to run over to Monte Carlofor a few days--but I'll leave you the book; you might care to look overit. And--I say--if any catchy tunes suggest themselves as you go along, you might just jot them down, you know. Not worth while losing an idea;eh, my boy! Ha! ha! ha! Well, good-bye. See you again when I comeback; don't suppose I shall be away more than a month. Good-bye!" And, having shaken Lancelot's hand with tremendous cordiality, the popularcomposer rushed downstairs and into a hansom. 

Lancelot walked home with the libretto and the five five-pound notes. Heasked for Mrs. Leadbatter, and gave her a week's notice. He wanted todrop Rosie immediately, on the plea of pressure of work, but her motherreceived the suggestion with ill-grace, and said that Rosie should comeup and practise on her own piano all the same, so he yielded to thecomplexities of the situation, and found hope a wonderful sweetener ofsuffering. Despite Rosie and her giggling, and Mrs. Leadbatter and herbest cap and her asthma, the week went by almost cheerfully. He workedregularly at the comic opera, nearly as happy as the canary which sangall day long, and, though scarcely a word more passed between him andMary Ann, their eyes met ever and anon in the consciousness of a sweetsecret. 

It was already Friday afternoon. He gathered together his few personalbelongings--his books, his manuscripts, _opera_ innumerable. There wasroom in his portmanteau for everything--now he had no clothes. On theMonday the long nightmare would be over. He would go down to someobscure seaside nook and live very quietly for a few weeks, and gainstrength and calm in the soft spring airs, and watch hand-in-hand withMary Ann the rippling scarlet trail of the setting sun fade across thegreen waters. Life, no doubt, would be hard enough still. Struggles andtrials enough were yet before him, but he would not think of thatnow--enough that for a month or two there would be bread and cheese andkisses. And then, in the midst of a tender reverie, with his hand on thelid of his portmanteau, he was awakened by ominous sounds of objurgationfrom the kitchen. 

His heart stood still. He went down a few stairs and listened. 

"Not another stroke of work do you do in my house, Mary Ann!" Then therewas silence, save for the thumping of his own heart. What had happened?

He heard Mrs. Leadbatter mounting the kitchen stairs, wheezing andgrumbling: "Well, of all the sly little things!"

Mary Ann had been discovered. His blood ran cold at the thought. Thesilly creature had been unable to keep the secret. 

"Not a word about 'im all this time. Oh, the sly little thing. Whowould hever a-believed it?"

And then, in the intervals of Mrs. Leadbatter's groanings, there came tohim the unmistakable sound of Mary Ann sobbing--violently, hysterically. He turned from cold to hot in a fever of shame and humiliation. How hadit all come about? Oh yes, he could guess. The gloves! What a fool hehad been! Mrs. Leadbatter had unearthed the box. Why did he give hermore than the pair that could always be kept hidden in her pocket? Yes, it was the gloves. And then there was the canary. Mrs. Leadbatter hadsuspected he was leaving her for a reason. She had put two and twotogether, she had questioned Mary Ann, and the ingenuous little idiot hadnaïvely told her he was going to take her with him. It didn't reallymatter, of course; he didn't suppose Mrs. Leadbatter could exercise anycontrol over Mary Ann, but it was horrible to be discussed by her andRosie; and then there was that meddlesome vicar, who might step in andmake things nasty. 

Mrs. Leadbatter's steps and wheezes and grumblings had arrived in thepassage, and Lancelot hastily stole back into his room, his heartcontinuing to flutter painfully. 

He heard the complex noises reach his landing, pass by, and move uphigher. She wasn't coming in to him, then. He could endure the suspenseno longer; he threw open his door and said, "Is there anything thematter?"

Mrs. Leadbatter paused and turned her head. 

"His there anything the matter!" she echoed, looking down upon him. "Anice thing when a woman's troubled with hastmer, and brought 'ome 'erdaughter to take 'er place, that she should 'ave to start 'untin' afresh!"

"Why, is Rosie going away?" he said, immeasurably relieved. 

"My Rosie! She's the best girl breathing. It's that there Mary Ann!"

"Wh-a-t!" he stammered. "Mary Ann leaving you?"

"Well, you don't suppose, " replied Mrs. Leadbatter angrily, "as I cankeep a gel in my kitchen as is a-goin' to 'ave 'er own nors-end-kerridge!"

"Her own horse and carriage!" repeated Lancelot, utterly dazed. "Whatever are you talking about?"

"Well--there's the letter!" exclaimed Mrs. Leadbatter indignantly. "Seefor yourself if you don't believe me. I don't know how much two and a'arf million dollars is--but it sounds unkimmonly like anors-end-kerridge--and never said a word about 'im the whole time, thesly little thing!"

The universe seemed oscillating so that he grasped at the letter like adrunken man. It was from the vicar. He wrote:

"I have much pleasure in informing you that our dear Mary Ann is thefortunate inheritress of two and a half million dollars by the death ofher brother Tom, who, as I learn from the lawyers who have applied to mefor news of the family, has just died in America, leaving his money tohis surviving relatives. He was rather a wild young man, but it seems hebecame the lucky possessor of some petroleum wells, which made himwealthy in a few months. I pray God Mary Ann may make a better use ofthe money than he would have done, I want you to break the news to her, please, and to prepare her for my visit. As I have to preach on Sunday, I cannot come to town before, but on Monday (D. V. ) I shall run up andshall probably take her back with me, as I desire to help her through thedifficulties that will attend her entry into the new life. How pleasedyou will be to think of the care you took of the dear child during theselast five years. I hope she is well and happy. I think you omitted towrite to me last Christmas on the subject. Please give her my kindestregards and best wishes, and say I shall be with her (D. V. ) on Monday. "

The words swam uncertainly before Lancelot's eyes, but he got throughthem all at last. He felt chilled and numbed. He averted his face as hehanded the letter back to Mary Ann's "missus. "

"What a fortunate girl!" he said in a low, stony voice. 

"Fortunate ain't the word for it. The mean, sly little cat. Fancy nevertelling me a word about 'er brother all these years--me as 'as fed her, and clothed her, and lodged her, and kepper out of all mischief, as ifshe'd bin my own daughter, never let her go out Bankhollidayin' in loosecompany--as you can bear witness yourself, sir--and eddicated 'er out of'er country talk and rough ways, and made 'er the smart young woman sheis, fit to wait on the most troublesome of gentlemen. And now she'll goaway and say I used 'er 'arsh, and overworked 'er, and Lord knows what, don't tell me. Oh, my poor chest!"

"I think you may make your mind quite easy, " said Lancelot grimly. "I'msure Mary Ann is perfectly satisfied with your treatment. "

"But she ain't--there, listen! don't you hear her going on?" Poor MaryAnn's sobs were still audible, though exhaustion was making them momentlyweaker. "She's been going on like that ever since I broke the news to'er and gave her a piece of my mind--the sly little cat! She wanted togo on scrubbing the kitchen, and I had to take the brush away by mainforce. A nice thing, indeed! A gel as can keep a nors-end-kerridge downon the cold kitchen stones! 'Twasn't likely I could allow that. 'No, Mary Ann, ' says I firmly, 'you're a lady, and if you don't know what'sproper for a lady, you'd best listen to them as does. You go and buyyourself a dress and a jacket to be ready for that vicar, who's been areal good kind friend to you. He's coming to take you away on Monday, heis, and how will you look in that dirty print? Here's a suvrin, ' says I, 'out of my 'ard-earned savin's--and get a pair o' boots, too; you can gita sweet pair for 2s. 11d. At Rackstraw's afore the sale closes, ' and withthat I shoves the suvrin into 'er hand instead o' the scrubbin' brush, and what does she do? Why, busts out a-cryin', and sits on the dampstones, and sobs, and sulks, and stares at the suvrin in her hand as ifI'd told her of a funeral instead of a fortune!" concluded Mrs. Leadbatter alliteratively. 

"But you did--her brother's death, " said Lancelot. "That's what she'scrying about. "

Mrs. Leadbatter was taken aback by this obverse view of the situation;but, recovering herself, she shook her head. "_I_ wouldn't cry for nobrother that lef me to starve when he was rollin' in two and a 'arfmillion dollars, " she said sceptically. "And I'm sure my Rosie wouldn't. But she never 'ad nobody to leave her money, poor dear child, except me, please Gaud. It's only the fools as 'as the luck in _this_ world. " Andhaving thus relieved her bosom, she resumed her panting progress upwards. 

The last words rang on in Lancelot's ears long after he had returned tohis room. In the utter breakdown and confusion of his plans and hisideas it was the one definite thought he clung to, as a swimmer in awhirlpool clings to a rock. His brain refused to concentrate itself onany other aspect of the situation--he could not, would not, dared not, think of anything else. He knew vaguely he ought to rejoice with herover her wonderful stroke of luck, that savoured of the fairy-story, buteverything was swamped by that one almost resentful reflection. Oh, theirony of fate! Blind fate showering torrents of gold upon this foolish, babyish household drudge, who was all emotion and animal devotion, without the intellectual outlook of a Hottentot, and leaving men ofgenius to starve, or sell their souls for a handful of it! How was thewisdom of the ages justified! Verily did fortune favour fools. AndTom--the wicked--he had flourished as the wicked always do, like thegreen bay tree, as the Psalmist discovered ever so many centuries ago. 

But gradually the wave of bitterness waned. He found himself listeningplacidly and attentively to the joyous trills and roulades of the canary, till the light faded and the grey dusk crept into the room and stilledthe tiny winged lover of the sunshine. Then Beethoven came and rubbedhimself against his master's leg, and Lancelot got up as one wakes from adream, and stretched his cramped limbs dazedly, and rang the bellmechanically for tea. He was groping on the mantel-piece for the matcheswhen the knock at the door came, and he did not turn round till he hadfound them. He struck a light, expecting to see Mrs. Leadbatter orRosie. He started to find it was merely Mary Ann. 

But she was no longer merely Mary Ann, he remembered with another shock. She loomed large to him in the match-light--he seemed to see her througha golden haze. Tumultuous images of her glorified gilded future rose andmingled dizzily in his brain. 

And yet, was he dreaming? Surely it was the same Mary Ann, with the samewinsome face and the same large pathetic eyes, ringed though they werewith the shadow of tears. Mary Ann, in her neat white cap--yes--and inher tan kid gloves. He rubbed his eyes. Was he really awake? Or--athought still more dizzying--had he been dreaming? Had he fallen asleepand reinless fancy had played him the fantastic trick, from which, cramped and dazed, he had just awakened to the old sweet reality. 

"Mary Ann, " he cried wildly. The lighted match fell from his fingers andburnt itself out unheeded on the carpet. 

"Yessir. "

"Is it true"--his emotion choked him--"is it true you've come into twoand a half million dollars?"

"Yessir, and I've brought you some tea. "

The room was dark, but darkness seemed to fall on it as she spoke. 

"But why are you waiting on me, then?" he said slowly. "Don't you knowthat you--that you----"

"Please, Mr. Lancelot, I wanted to come in and see you. " He felt himselftrembling. 

"But Mrs. Leadbatter told me she wouldn't let you do any more work. "

"I told missus that I must; I told her she couldn't get another girlbefore Monday, if then, and if she didn't let me I wouldn't buy a newdress and a pair of boots with her sovereign--it isn't suvrin, is it, sir?"

"No, " murmured Lancelot, smiling in spite of himself. 

"With her sovereign. And I said I would be all dirty on Monday. "

"But what can you get for a sovereign?" he asked irrelevantly. He felthis mind wandering away from him. 

"Oh, ever such a pretty dress!"

The picture of Mary Ann in a pretty dress painted itself upon thedarkness. How lovely the child would look in some creamy white eveningdress with a rose in her hair. He wondered that in all his thoughts oftheir future he had never dressed her up thus in fancy, to feast his eyeson the vision. 

"And so the vicar will find you in a pretty dress, " he said at last. 

"No, sir. "

"But you promised Mrs. Leadbatter to----"

"I promised to buy a dress with her sovereign. But I shan't be here whenthe vicar comes. He can't come till the afternoon. "

"Why, where will you be?" he said, his heart beginning to beat fast. 

"With you, " she replied, with a faint accent of surprise. 

He steadied himself against the mantel-piece. 

"But----" he began, and ended, "is that honest?"

He dimly descried her lips pouting. "We can always send her another whenwe have one, " she said. 

He stood there, dumb, glad of the darkness. 

"I must go down now, " she said. "I mustn't stay long. "

"Why?" he articulated. 

"Rosie, " she replied briefly. 

"What about Rosie?"

"She watches me--ever since she came. Don't you understand?"

This time he was the dullard. He felt an extra quiver of repugnance forRosie, but said nothing, while Mary Ann briskly lit the gas and threwsome coals on the decaying fire. He was pleased she was going down; hewas suffocating; he did not know what to say to her. And yet, as she wasdisappearing through the doorway, he had a sudden feeling things couldn'tbe allowed to remain an instant in this impossible position. 

"Mary Ann, " he cried. 

"Yessir. "

She turned back--her face wore merely the expectant expression of asummoned servant. The childishness of her behaviour confused him, irritated him. 

"Are you foolish?" he cried suddenly; half regretting the phrase theinstant he had uttered it. 

Her lip twitched. 

"No, Mr. Lancelot!" she faltered. 

"But you talk as if you were, " he said less roughly. "You mustn't runaway from the vicar just when he is going to take you to the lawyer's tocertify who you are, and see that you get your money. "

"But I don't want to go with the vicar--I want to go with you. You saidyou would take me with you. " She was almost in tears now. 

"Yes--but don't you--don't you understand that--that, " he stammered;then, temporising, "But I can wait. "

"Can't the vicar wait?" said Mary Ann. He had never known her show suchinitiative. 

He saw that it was hopeless--that the money had made no more dint uponher consciousness than some vague dream, that her whole being was settowards the new life with him, and shrank in horror from the menace ofthe vicar's withdrawal of her in the opposite direction. If joy andredemption had not already lain in the one quarter, the advantages of theother might have been more palpably alluring. As it was, herconsciousness was "full up" in the matter, so to speak. He saw that hemust tell her plain and plump, startle her out of her simple confidence. 

"Listen to me, Mary Ann. "

"Yessir. "

"You are a young woman--not a baby. Strive to grasp what I am going totell you. "

"Yessir, " in a half-sob, that vibrated with the obstinate resentment of achild that knows it is to be argued out of its instincts by adultsophistry. What had become of her passive personality?

"You are now the owner of two and a half million dollars--that is aboutfive hundred thousand pounds. Five--hundred thousand--pounds. Think often sovereigns--ten golden sovereigns like that Mrs. Leadbatter gave you. Then ten times as much as that, and ten times as much as all that"--hespread his arms wider and wider--"and ten times as much as all that, andthen"--here his arms were prematurely horizontal, so he concluded hastilybut impressively--"and then FIFTY times as much as all that. Do youunderstand how rich you are?"

"Yessir. " She was fumbling nervously at her gloves, half drawing themoff. 

"Now all this money will last for ever. For you invest it--if only atthree per cent. --never mind what that is--and then you get fifteenthousand a year--fifteen thousand golden sovereigns to spend every----"

"Please, sir, I must go now. Rosie!"

"Oh, but you can't go yet. I have lots more to tell you. "

"Yessir; but can't you ring for me again?"

In the gravity of the crisis, the remark tickled him; he laughed with astrange ring in his laughter. 

"All right; run away, you sly little puss. "

He smiled on as he poured out his tea; finding a relief in prolonging hissense of the humour of the suggestion, but his heart was heavy, and hisbrain a whirl. He did not ring again till he had finished tea. 

She came in, and took her gloves out of her pocket. 

"No! no!" he cried, strangely exasperated: "An end to this farce! Putthem away. You don't need gloves any more. "

She squeezed them into her pocket nervously, and began to clear away thethings, with abrupt movements, looking askance every now and then at theovercast handsome face. 

At last he nerved himself to the task and said: "Well, as I was saying, Mary Ann, the first thing for you to think of is to make sure of all thismoney--this fifteen thousand pounds a year. You see you will be able tolive in a fine manor house--such as the squire lived in in yourvillage--surrounded by a lovely park with a lake in it for swans andboats----"

Mary Ann had paused in her work, slop-basin in hand. The concretedetails were beginning to take hold of her imagination. 

"Oh, but I should like a farm better, " she said. "A large farm withgreat pastures and ever so many cows and pigs and outhouses, and a--oh, just like Atkinson's farm. And meat every day, with pudding on Sundays!Oh, if father was alive, wouldn't he be glad!"

"Yes, you can have a farm--anything you like. "

"Oh, how lovely! A piano?"

"Yes--six pianos. "

"And you will learn me?"

He shuddered and hesitated. 

"Well--I can't say, Mary Ann. "

"Why not? Why won't you? You said you would! You learn Rosie. "

"I may not be there, you see, " he said, trying to put a spice ofplayfulness into his tones. 

"Oh, but you will, " she said feverishly. "You will take me there. Wewill go there instead of where you said--instead of the green waters. "Her eyes were wild and witching. 

He groaned inwardly. 

"I cannot promise you now, " he said slowly. "Don't you see thateverything is altered?"

"What's altered? You are here, and here am I. " Her apprehension madeher almost epigrammatic. 

"Ah, but you are quite different now, Mary Ann. "

"I'm not--I want to be with you just the same. "

He shook his head. "I can't take you with me, " he said decisively. 

"Why not?" She caught hold of his arm entreatingly. 

"You are not the same Mary Ann--to other people. You are a somebody. Before you were a nobody. Nobody cared or bothered about you--you wereno more than a dead leaf whirling in the street. "

"Yes, you cared and bothered about me, " she cried, clinging to him. 

Her gratitude cut him like a knife. "The eyes of the world are on younow, " he said. "People will talk about you if you go away with me now. "

"Why will they talk about me? What harm shall I do them?"

Her phrases puzzled him. 

"I don't know that you will harm them, " he said slowly, "but you willharm yourself. "

"How will I harm myself?" she persisted. 

"Well, one day you will want a--a husband. With all that money it isonly right and proper you should marry----"

"No, Mr. Lancelot, I don't want a husband. I don't want to marry. Ishould never want to go away from you. "

There was another painful silence. He sought refuge in a brusqueplayfulness. 

"I see you understand _I'm_ not going to marry you. "

"Yessir. "

He felt a slight relief. 

"Well, then, " he said, more playfully still, "suppose I wanted to go awayfrom _you_, Mary Ann?"

"But you love me, " she said, unaffrighted. 

He started back perceptibly. 

After a moment, he replied, still playfully, "I never said so. "

"No, sir; but--but----"--she lowered her eyes; a coquette could not havedone it more artlessly--"but I--know it. "

The accusation of loving her set all his suppressed repugnances andprejudices bristling in contradiction. He cursed the weakness that hadgot him into this soul-racking situation. The silence clamoured for himto speak--to do something. 

"What--what were you crying about before?" he said abruptly. 

"I--I don't know, sir, " she faltered. 

"Was it Tom's death?"

"No, sir, not much. I did think of him blackberrying with me and ourlittle Sally--but then he was so wicked! It must have been what missussaid; and I was frightened because the vicar was coming to take meaway--away from you; and then--oh, I don't know--I felt--I couldn't tellyou--I felt I must cry and cry, like that night when----" She pausedsuddenly and looked away. 

"When----" he said encouragingly. 

"I must go--Rosie, " she murmured, and took up the tea-tray. 

"That night when----" he repeated tenaciously. 

"When you first kissed me, " she said. 

He blushed. "That--that made you cry!" he stammered. "Why?"

"Please, sir, I don't know. "

"Mary Ann, " he said gravely, "don't you see that when I did that Iwas--like your brother Tom?"

"No, sir. Tom didn't kiss me like that. "

"I don't mean that, Mary Ann; I mean I was wicked. "

Mary Ann stared at him. 

"Don't you think so, Mary Ann?"

"Oh no, sir. You were very good. "

"No, no, Mary Ann. Don't say good. "

"Ever since then I have been so happy, " she persisted. 

"Oh, that was because you were wicked, too, " he explained grimly. "Wehave both been very wicked, Mary Ann; and so we had better part now, before we get more wicked. "

She stared at him plaintively, suspecting a lurking irony, but not sure. 

"But you didn't mind being wicked before!" she protested. 

"I'm not so sure I mind now. It's for your sake, Mary Ann, believe me, my dear. " He took her bare hand kindly, and felt it burning. "You're avery simple, foolish little thing--yes, you are. Don't cry. There's noharm in being simple. Why, you told me yourself how silly you were oncewhen you brought your dying mother cakes and flowers to take to your deadlittle sister. Well, you're just as foolish and childish now, Mary Ann, though you don't know it any more than you did then. After all, you'reonly nineteen. I found it out from the vicar's letter. But a time willcome--yes, I'll warrant in only a few months' time you'll see how wise Iam and how sensible you have been to be guided by me. I never wished youany harm, Mary Ann, believe me, my dear, I never did. And I hope, I dohope so much that this money will make you happy. So, you see, youmustn't go away with me now. You don't want everybody to talk of you asthey did of your brother Tom, do you, dear? Think what the vicar wouldsay. "

But Mary Ann had broken down under the touch of his hand and thegentleness of his tones. 

"I was a dead leaf so long, I don't care!" she sobbed passionately. "Nobody never bothered to call me wicked then. Why should I bother now?"

Beneath the mingled emotions her words caused him was a sense of surpriseat her recollection of his metaphor. 

"Hush! You're a silly little child, " he repeated sternly. "Hush! orMrs. Leadbatter will hear you. " He went to the door and closed ittightly. "Listen, Mary Ann! Let me tell you once for all, that even ifyou were fool enough to be willing to go with me, I wouldn't take youwith me. It would be doing you a terrible wrong. "

She interrupted him quietly, "Why more now than before?"

He dropped her hand as if stung, and turned away. He knew he could notanswer that to his own satisfaction, much less to hers. 

"You're a silly little baby, " he repeated resentfully. "I think you hadbetter go down now. Missus will be wondering. "

Mary Ann's sobs grew more spasmodic. "You are going away without me, "she cried hysterically. 

He went to the door again, as if apprehensive of an eavesdropper. Thescene was becoming terrible. The passive personality had developed witha vengeance. 

"Hush, hush!" he cried imperatively. 

"You are going away without me. I shall never see you again. "

"Be sensible, Mary Ann. You will be----"

"You won't take me with you. "

"How can I take you with me?" he cried brutally, losing every vestige oftenderness for this distressful vixen. "Don't you understand that it'simpossible--unless I marry you?" he concluded contemptuously. 

Mary Ann's sobs ceased for a moment. 

"Can't you marry me, then?" she said plaintively. 

"You know it is impossible, " he replied curtly. 

"Why is it impossible?" she breathed. 

"Because----" He saw her sobs were on the point of breaking out, and hadnot the courage to hear them afresh. He dared not wound her further bytelling her straight out that, with all her money, she was ridiculouslyunfit to bear his name--that it was already a condescension for him tohave offered her his companionship on any terms. 

He resolved to temporise again. 

"Go downstairs now, there's a good girl; and I'll tell you in themorning. I'll think it over. Go to bed early and have a long, nicesleep--missus will let you--now. It isn't Monday yet; we have plenty oftime to talk it over. "

She looked up at him with large, appealing eyes, uncertain, but calmingdown. 

"Do, now, there's a dear. " He stroked her wet cheek soothingly. 

"Yessir, " and almost instinctively she put up her lips for a good-nightkiss. He brushed them hastily with his. She went out softly, drying hereyes. His own grew moist--he was touched by the pathos of her implicittrust. The soft warmth of her lips still thrilled him. How sweet andloving she was! The little dialogue rang in his brain. 

"Can't you marry me, then?"

"You know it is impossible. "

"Why is it impossible?"

"Because----"

"Because what?" an audacious voice whispered. Why should he not? Hestilled the voice, but it refused to be silent--was obdurate, insistent, like Mary Ann herself. "Because--oh, because of a hundred things, " hetold it. "Because she is no fit mate for me--because she would degrademe, make me ridiculous--an unfortunate fortune-hunter, the butt of thewitlings. How could I take her about as my wife? How could she receivemy friends? For a housekeeper--a good, loving housekeeper--she isperfection, but for a wife--_my_ wife--the companion of mysoul--impossible!"

"Why is it impossible?" repeated the voice, catching up the cue. Andthen, from that point, the dialogue began afresh. 

"Because this, and because that, and because the other--in short, becauseI am Lancelot and she is merely Mary Ann. "

"But she is not merely Mary Ann any longer, " urged the voice. 

"Yes, for all her money, she is merely Mary Ann. And am I to sell myselffor her money--I who have stood out so nobly, so high-mindedly, throughall these years of privation and struggle! And her money is all indollars. Pah! I smell the oil. Struck ile! Of all things in theworld, her brother should just go and strike ile!" A great shuddertraversed his form. "Everything seems to have been arranged out of purecussedness, just to spite me. She would have been happier without themoney, poor child--without the money, but with me. What will she do withall her riches? She will only be wretched--like me. "

"Then why not be happy together?"

"Impossible. "

"Why is it impossible?"

"Because her dollars would stick in my throat--the oil would make mesick. And what would Peter say, and my brother (not that I care what_he_ says), and my acquaintances?"

"What does that matter to you? While you were a dead leaf nobodybothered to talk about you; they let you starve--you, with yourgenius--now you can let them talk--you, with your heiress. Five hundredthousand pounds. More than you will make with all your operas if youlive a century. Fifteen thousand a year. Why, you could have all yourworks performed at your own expense, and for your own sole pleasure ifyou chose, as the King of Bavaria listened to Wagner's operas. You coulddevote your life to the highest art--nay, is it not a duty you owe to theworld? Would it not be a crime against the future to draggle your wingswith sordid cares, to sink to lower aims by refusing this heaven-sentboon?"

The thought clung to him. He rose and laid out heaps of muddledmanuscript--_opera disjecta_--and turned their pages. 

"Yes--yes--give us life!" they seemed to cry to him. "We are dead dropsof ink, wake us to life and beauty. How much longer are we to lie here, dusty in death? We have waited so patiently--have pity on us, raise usup from our silent tomb, and we will fly abroad through the whole earth, chanting your glory; yea, the world shall be filled to eternity with theechoes of our music and the splendour of your name. "

But he shook his head and sighed, and put them back in their niches, andplaced the comic opera he had begun in the centre of the table. 

"There lie the only dollars that will ever come my way, " he said aloud. And, humming the opening bars of a lively polka from the manuscript, hetook up his pen and added a few notes. Then he paused; the polka wouldnot come--the other voice was louder. 

"It would be a degradation, " he repeated, to silence it. "It would bemerely for her money. I don't love her. "

"Are you so sure of that?"

"If I really loved her I shouldn't refuse to marry her. "

"Are you so sure of that?"

"What's the use of all this wire-drawing?--the whole thing is impossible. "

"Why is it impossible?"

He shrugged his shoulders impatiently, refusing to be drawn back into theeddy, and completed the bar of the polka. 

Then he threw down his pen, rose and paced the room in desperation. 

"Was ever any man in such a dilemma?" he cried aloud. 

"Did ever any man get such a chance?" retorted his silent tormentor. 

"Yes, but I mustn't seize the chance--it would be mean. "

"It would be meaner not to. You're not thinking of that poor girl--onlyof yourself. To leave her now would be more cowardly than to have lefther when she was merely Mary Ann. She needs you even more now that shewill be surrounded by sharks and adventurers. Poor, poor Mary Ann. Itis you who have the right to protect her now; you were kind to her whenthe world forgot her. You owe it to yourself to continue to be good toher. "

"No, no, I won't humbug myself. If I married her it would only be forher money. "

"No, no, don't humbug yourself. You like her. You care for her verymuch. You are thrilling at this very moment with the remembrance of herlips to-night. Think of what life will be with her--life full of allthat is sweet and fair--love and riches, and leisure for the highest art, and fame and the promise of immortality. You are irritable, sensitive, delicately organised; these sordid, carking cares, these wretchedstruggles, these perpetual abasements of your highest self--a few moreyears of them--they will wreck and ruin you, body and soul. How many menof genius have married their housekeepers even--good clumsy, homelybodies, who have kept their husbands' brain calm and his pillow smooth. And again, a man of genius is the one man who can marry anybody. Theworld expects him to be eccentric. And Mary Ann is no coarse city weed, but a sweet country bud. How splendid will be her blossoming under thesun! Do not fear that she will ever shame you; she will look beautiful, and men will not ask her to talk. Nor will you want her to talk. Shewill sit silent in the cosy room where you are working, and every now andagain you will glance up from your work at her and draw inspiration fromher sweet presence. So pull yourself together, man; your troubles areover, and life henceforth one long blissful dream. Come, burn me thattinkling, inglorious comic opera, and let the whole sordid past minglewith its ashes. "

So strong was the impulse--so alluring the picture--that he took up thecomic opera and walked towards the fire, his fingers itching to throw itin. But he sat down again after a moment and went on with his work. Itwas imperative he should make progress with it; he could not afford towaste his time--which was money--because another person--Mary Ann towit--had come into a superfluity of both. In spite of which the comicopera refused to advance; somehow he did not feel in the mood for gaiety;he threw down his pen in despair and disgust. But the idea of not beingable to work rankled in him. Every hour seemed suddenly precious--nowthat he had resolved to make money in earnest--now that for a year or twohe could have no other aim or interest in life. Perhaps it was that hewished to overpower the din of contending thoughts. Then a happy thoughtcame to him. He rummaged out Peter's ballad. He would write a song onthe model of that, as Peter had recommended--something tawdry andsentimental, with a cheap accompaniment. He placed the ballad on therest and started going through it to get himself in the vein. Butto-night the air seemed to breathe an ineffable melancholy, the words--nolonger mawkish--had grown infinitely pathetic:

 "Kiss me, good-night, dear love, Dream of the old delight; My spirit is summoned above, Kiss me, dear love, good-night!"

The hot tears ran down his cheeks, as he touched the keys softly andlingeringly. He could go no further than the refrain; he leant hiselbows on the keyboard, and dropped his head upon his arms. The clashingnotes jarred like a hoarse cry, then vibrated slowly away into a silencethat was broken only by his sobs. He rose late the next day, after asleep that was one prolonged nightmare, full of agonised, abortivestriving after something that always eluded him, he knew not what. Andwhen he woke--after a momentary breath of relief at the thought of theunreality of these vague horrors--he woke to the heavier nightmare ofreality. Oh, those terrible dollars!

He drew the blind, and saw with a dull acquiescence that the brightnessof the May had fled. The wind was high--he heard it fly past, moaning. In the watery sky, the round sun loomed silver-pale and blurred. To hisfevered eye it looked like a worn dollar. 

He turned away shivering, and began to dress. He opened the door alittle, and pulled in his lace-up boots, which were polished in thehighest style of art. But when he tried to put one on, his toes stuckfast in the opening and refused to advance. Annoyed, he put his hand in, and drew out a pair of tan gloves, perfectly new. Astonished, heinserted his hand again and drew out another pair, then another. Reddening uncomfortably, for he divined something of the meaning, heexamined the left boot, and drew out three more pairs of gloves, two newand one slightly soiled. 

He sank down, half dressed, on the bed with his head on his breast, leaving his boots and Mary Ann's gloves scattered about the floor. Hewas angry, humiliated; he felt like laughing, and he felt like sobbing. 

At last he roused himself, finished dressing, and rang for breakfast. Rosie brought it up. 

"Hullo! Where's Mary Ann?" he said lightly. 

"She's above work now, " said Rosie, with an unamiable laugh. "You knowabout her fortune. "

"Yes; but your mother told me she insisted on going about her work tillMonday. "

"So she said yesterday--silly little thing! But to-day she says she'llonly help mother in the kitchen--and do all the boots of a morning. Shewon't do any more waiting. "

"Ah!" said Lancelot, crumbling his toast. 

"I don't believe she knows what she wants, " concluded Rosie, turning togo. 

"Then I suppose she's in the kitchen now?" he said, pouring out hiscoffee down the side of his cup. 

"No, she's gone out now, sir. "

"Gone out!" He put down the coffee-pot--his saucer was full. "Gone outwhere?"

"Only to buy things. You know her vicar is coming to take her away theday after tomorrow, and mother wanted her to look tidy enough to travelwith the vicar; so she gave her a sovereign. "

"Ah yes; your mother said something about it. "

"And yet she won't answer the bells, " said Rosie, "and mother's asthma isworse, so I don't know whether I shall be able to take my lesson to-day, Mr. Lancelot. I'm so sorry, because it's the last. "

Rosie probably did not intend the ambiguity of the phrase. There wasreal regret in her voice. 

"Do you like learning, then?" said Lancelot, softened, for the firsttime, towards his pupil. His nerves seemed strangely flaccid to-day. Hedid not at all feel the relief he should have felt at foregoing his dailyinfliction. 

"Ever so much, sir. I know I laugh too much, sometimes; but I don't meanit, sir. I suppose I couldn't go on with the lessons after you leavehere?" She looked at him wistfully. 

"Well"--he had crumbled the toast all to little pieces now--"I don'tquite know. Perhaps I shan't go away after all. "

Rosie's face lit up. "Oh, I'll tell mother, " she exclaimed joyously. 

"No, don't tell her yet; I haven't quite settled. But if I stay--ofcourse the lessons can go on as before. "

"Oh, I _do_ hope you'll stay, " said Rosie, and went out of the room withairy steps, evidently bent on disregarding his prohibition, if, indeed, it had penetrated to her consciousness. 

Lancelot made no pretence of eating breakfast; he had it removed, andthen fished out his comic opera. But nothing would flow from his pen; hewent over to the window, and stood thoughtfully drumming on the paneswith it, and gazing at the little drab-coloured street, with its highroof of mist, along which the faded dollar continued to spinimperceptibly. Suddenly he saw Mary Ann turn the corner, and come alongtowards the house, carrying a big parcel and a paper bag in her unglovedhands. How buoyantly she walked! He had never before seen her move infree space, nor realised how much of the grace of a sylvan childhoodremained with her still. What a pretty colour there was on her cheeks, too!

He ran down to the street door and opened it before she could knock. Thecolour on her cheeks deepened at the sight of him, but now that she wasnear he saw her eyes were swollen with crying. 

"Why do you go out without gloves, Mary Ann?" he inquired sternly. "Remember you're a lady now. "

She started and looked down at his boots, then up at his face. 

"Oh yes, I found them, Mary Ann. A nice graceful way of returning me mypresents, Mary Ann. You might at least have waited till Christmas, thenI should have thought Santa Claus sent them. "

"Please, sir, I thought it was the surest way for me to send them back. "

"But what made you send them back at all?"

Mary Ann's lip quivered, her eyes were cast down. "Oh--Mr. Lancelot--youknow, " she faltered. 

"But I don't know, " he said sharply. 

"Please let me go downstairs, Mr. Lancelot. Missus must have heard mecome in. "

"You shan't go downstairs till you've told me what's come over you. Comeupstairs to my room. "

"Yessir. "

She followed him obediently. He turned round brusquely, "Here, give meyour parcels. " And almost snatching them from her, he carried themupstairs and deposited them on his table on top of the comic opera. 

"Now, then, sit down. You can take off your hat and jacket. "

"Yessir. "

He helped her to do so. 

"Now, Mary Ann, why did you return me those gloves?"

"Please, sir, I remember in our village when--when"--she felt adiffidence in putting the situation into words, and wound upquickly--"something told me I ought to. "

"I don't understand you, " he grumbled, comprehending only too well. "Butwhy couldn't you come in and give them to me instead of behaving in thatridiculous way?"

"I didn't want to see you again, " she faltered. 

He saw her eyes were welling over with tears. 

"You were crying again last night, " he said sharply. 

"Yessir. "

"But what did you have to cry about now? Aren't you the luckiest girl inthe world?"

"Yessir. "

As she spoke a flood of sunlight poured suddenly into the room; the sunhad broken through the clouds, the worn dollar had become a dazzlinggold-piece. The canary stirred in its cage. 

"Then what were you crying about?"

"I didn't want to be lucky. "

"You silly girl--I have no patience with you. And why didn't you want tosee me again?"

"Please, Mr. Lancelot, I knew you wouldn't like it. "

"What ever put that into your head?"

"I knew it, sir, " said Mary Ann firmly. "It came to me when I wascrying. I was thinking all sorts of things--of my mother and our Sally, and the old pig that used to get so savage, and about the way the organused to play in church, and then all at once somehow I knew it would bebest for me to do what you told me--to buy my dress and go back with thevicar, and be a good girl, and not bother you, because you were so goodto me, and it was wrong for me to worry you and make you miserable. "

"Tw-oo! Tw-oo!" It was the canary starting on a preliminary carol. 

"So I thought it best, " she concluded tremulously, "not to see you again. It would only be two days, and after that it would be easier. I couldalways be thinking of you just the same, Mr. Lancelot, always. Thatwouldn't annoy you, sir, would it? Because you know, sir, you wouldn'tknow it. "

Lancelot was struggling to find a voice. "But didn't you forgetsomething you had to do, Mary Ann?" he said in hoarse accents. 

She raised her eyes swiftly a moment, then lowered them again. 

"I don't know; I didn't mean to, " she said apologetically. 

"Didn't you forget that I told you to come to me and get my answer toyour question?"

"No, sir, I didn't forget. That was what I was thinking of all night. "

"About your asking me to marry you?"

"Yessir. "

"And my saying it was impossible?"

"Yessir; and I said, 'Why is it impossible?' and you said, 'Because----'and then you left off; but please, Mr. Lancelot, I didn't want to knowthe answer this morning. "

"But I want to tell you. Why don't you want to know?"

"Because I found out for myself, Mr. Lancelot. That's what I found outwhen I was crying--but there was nothing to find out, sir. I knew it allalong. It was silly of me to ask you--but you know I am silly sometimes, sir, like I was when my mother was dying. And that was why I made up mymind not to bother you any more, Mr. Lancelot, I knew you wouldn't liketo tell me straight out. "

"And what was the answer you found out? Ah, you won't speak. It looksas if you don't like to tell me straight out. Come, come, Mary Ann, tellme why--why--it is impossible. "

She looked up at last and said slowly and simply, "Because I am not goodenough for you, Mr. Lancelot. "

He put his hands suddenly to his eyes. He did not see the flood ofsunlight--he did not hear the mad jubilance of the canary. 

"No, Mary Ann, " his voice was low and trembling. "I will tell you why itis impossible. I didn't know last night, but I know now. It isimpossible, because--you are right, I don't like to tell you straightout. "

She opened her eyes wide, and stared at him in puzzled expectation. 

"Mary Ann"--he bent his head--"it is impossible--because I am not goodenough for you. "

Mary Ann grew scarlet. Then she broke into a little nervous laugh. "Oh, Mr. Lancelot, don't make fun of me. "

"Believe me, my dear, " he said tenderly, raising his head, "I wouldn'tmake fun of you for two million million dollars. It is the truth--thebare, miserable, wretched truth. I am not worthy of you, Mary Ann. "

"I don't understand you, sir, " she faltered. 

"Thank Heaven for that!" he said, with the old whimsical look. "If youdid you would think meanly of me ever after. Yes, that is why, Mary Ann. I am a selfish brute--selfish to the last beat of my heart, to the inmostessence of my every thought. Beethoven is worth two of me, aren't you, Beethoven?" The spaniel, thinking himself called, trotted over. "Henever calculates--he just comes and licks my hand--don't look at me as ifI were mad, Mary Ann. You don't understand me--thank Heaven again. Comenow! Does it never strike you that if I were to marry you, now, it wouldbe only for your two and a half million dollars?"

"No, sir, " faltered Mary Ann. 

"I thought not, " he said triumphantly. "No, you will always remain afool, I am afraid, Mary Ann. "

She met his contempt with an audacious glance. 

"But I know it wouldn't be for that, Mr. Lancelot. "

"No, no, of course it wouldn't be, not now. But it ought to strike youjust the same. It doesn't make you less a fool, Mary Ann. There!There! I don't mean to be unkind, and, as I think I told you oncebefore, it's not so very dreadful to be a fool. A rogue is a worsething, Mary Ann. All I want to do is to open your eyes. Two and a halfmillion dollars are an awful lot of money--a terrible lot of money. Doyou know how long it will be before I make two million dollars, Mary Ann?"

"No, sir. " She looked at him wonderingly. 

"Two million years. Yes, my child, I can tell you now. You thought Iwas rich and grand, I know, but all the while I was nearly a beggar. Perhaps you thought I was playing the piano--yes, and teaching Rosie--formy amusement; perhaps you thought I sat up writing half the night outof--sleeplessness, " he smiled at the phrase, "or a wanton desire to burnMrs. Leadbatter's gas. No, Mary Ann, I have to get my own living by hardwork--by good work if I can, by bad work if I must--but always by hardwork. While you will have fifteen thousand pounds a year, I shall beglad, overjoyed, to get fifteen hundred. And while I shall be grindingaway body and soul for my fifteen hundred, your fifteen thousand willdrop into your pockets, even if you keep your hands there all day. Don'tlook so sad, Mary Ann. I'm not blaming you. It's not your fault in theleast. It's only one of the many jokes of existence. The only reason Iwant to drive this into your head is to put you on your guard. Though Idon't think myself good enough to marry you, there are lots of men whowill think they are . . . Though they don't know you. It is you, not me, who are grand and rich, Mary Ann . . . Beware of men like me--poor andselfish. And when you do marry----"

"Oh, Mr. Lancelot!" cried Mary Ann, bursting into tears at last, "why doyou talk like that? You know I shall never marry anybody else. "

"Hush, hush! Mary Ann! I thought you were going to be a good girl andnever cry again. Dry your eyes now, will you?"

"Yessir. "

"Here, take my handkerchief. "

"Yessir. . . But I won't marry anybody else. "

"You make me smile, Mary Ann. When you brought your mother that cake forSally you didn't know a time would come when----"

"Oh, please, sir, I know that. But you said yesterday I was a youngwoman now. And this is all different to that. "

"No, it isn't, Mary Ann. When they've put you to school, and made you award in Chancery, or something, and taught you airs and graces, anddressed you up"--a pang traversed his heart, as the picture of her in thefuture flashed for a moment upon his inner eye--"why, by that time, you'll be a different Mary Ann, outside and inside. Don't shake yourhead; I know better than you. We grow and become different. Life isfull of chances, and human beings are full of changes, and nothingremains fixed. "

"Then, perhaps"--she flushed up, her eyes sparkled--"perhaps"--she grewdumb and sad again. 

"Perhaps what?"

He waited for her thought. The rapturous trills of the canary alonepossessed the silence. 

"Perhaps you'll change, too. " She flashed a quick deprecatory glance athim--her eyes were full of soft light. 

This time he was dumb. 

"Sw--eêt!" trilled the canary, "Sw--eêt!" though Lancelot felt thethrobbings of his heart must be drowning its song. 

"Acutely answered, " he said at last. "You're not such a fool after all, Mary Ann. But I'm afraid it will never be, dear. Perhaps if I also madetwo million dollars, and if I felt I had grown worthy of you, I mightcome to you and say--two and two are four--let us go into partnership. But then, you see, " he went on briskly, "the odds are I may never evenhave two thousand. Perhaps I'm as much a duffer in music as in otherthings. Perhaps you'll be the only person in the world who has everheard my music, for no one will print it, Mary Ann. Perhaps I shall bethat very common thing--a complete failure--and be worse off than evenyou ever were, Mary Ann. "

"Oh, Mr. Lancelot, I'm so sorry. " And her eyes filled again with tears. 

"Oh, don't be sorry for me. I'm a man. I dare say I shall pull through. Just put me out of your mind, dear. Let all that happened at Baker'sTerrace be only a bad dream--a very bad dream, I am afraid I must callit. Forget me, Mary Ann. Everything will help you to forget me, thankHeaven; it'll be the best thing for you. Promise me now. "

"Yessir . . . If you will promise me. "

"Promise you what?"

"To do me a favour. "

"Certainly, dear, if I can. "

"You have the money, Mr. Lancelot, instead of me--I don't want it, andthen you could----"

"Now, now, Mary Ann, " he interrupted, laughing nervously, "you're gettingfoolish again, after talking so sensibly. "

"Oh, but why not?" she said plaintively. 

"It is impossible, " he said curtly. 

"Why is it impossible?" she persisted. 

"Because----" he began, and then he realised with a start that they hadcome back again to that same old mechanical series of questions--if onlyin form. 

"Because there is only one thing I could ever bring myself to ask you forin this world, " he said slowly. 

"Yes; what is that?" she said flutteringly. 

He laid his hand tenderly on her hair. 

"Merely Mary Ann. "

She leapt up: "Oh, Mr. Lancelot, take me, take me! You do love me! Youdo love me!"

He bit his lip. "I am a fool, " he said roughly. "Forget me. I oughtnot to have said anything. I spoke only of what might be--in the dimfuture--if the--chances and changes of life bring us together again--asthey never do. No! You were right, Mary Ann. It is best we should notmeet again. Remember your resolution last night. "

"Yessir. " Her submissive formula had a smack of sullenness, but sheregained her calm, swallowing the lump in her throat that made herbreathing difficult. 

"Good-bye, then, Mary Ann, " he said, taking her hard red hands in his. 

"Good-bye, Mr. Lancelot. " The tears she would not shed were in hervoice. "Please, sir--could you--couldn't you do me a favour?--Nothingabout money, sir. "

"Well, if I can, " he said kindly. 

"Couldn't you just play _Good-night and Good-bye_, for the last time?You needn't sing it--only play it. "

"Why, what an odd girl you are!" he said, with a strange, spasmodiclaugh. "Why, certainly! I'll do both, if it will give you any pleasure. "

And, releasing her hands, he sat down to the piano, and played theintroduction softly. He felt a nervous thrill going down his spine as heplunged into the mawkish words. And when he came to the refrain, he hadan uneasy sense that Mary Ann was crying--he dared not look at her. Hesang on bravely:

 "Kiss me, good-night, dear love, Dream of the old delight; My spirit is summoned above, Kiss me, dear love, good-night. "

He couldn't go through another verse--he felt himself all a-quiver, everynerve shattered. He jumped up. Yes, his conjecture had been right. Mary Ann was crying. He laughed spasmodically again. The thought hadoccurred to him how vain Peter would be if he could know the effect ofhis commonplace ballad. 

"There, I'll kiss you too, dear!" he said huskily, still smiling. "That'll be for the last time. "

Their lips met, and then Mary Ann seemed to fade out of the room in ablur of mist. 

An instant after there was a knock at the door. 

"Forgot her parcels after a last good-bye, " thought Lancelot, andcontinued to smile at the comicality of the new episode. 

He cleared his throat. 

"Come in, " he cried, and then he saw that the parcels were gone, too, andit must be Rosie. 

But it was merely Mary Ann. 

"I forgot to tell you, Mr. Lancelot, " she said--her accents were almostcheerful--"that I'm going to church to-morrow morning. "

"To church!" he echoed. 

"Yes, I haven't been since I left the village, but missus says I ought togo in case the vicar asks me what church I've been going to. "

"I see, " he said, smiling on. 

She was closing the door when it opened again, just revealing Mary Ann'sface. 

"Well?" he said, amused. 

"But I'll do your boots all the same, Mr. Lancelot. " And the door closedwith a bang. 

They did not meet again. On the Monday afternoon the vicar duly came andtook Mary Ann away. All Baker's Terrace was on the watch, for her storyhad now had time to spread. The weather remained bright. It was cold, but the sky was blue. Mary Ann had borne up wonderfully, but she burstinto tears as she got into the cab. 

"Sweet, sensitive little thing!" said Baker's Terrace. 

"What a good woman you must be, Mrs. Leadbatter, " said the vicar, wipinghis spectacles. 

As part of Baker's Terrace, Lancelot witnessed the departure from hiswindow, for he had not left after all. 

Beethoven was barking his short, snappy bark the whole time at theunwonted noises and the unfamiliar footsteps; he almost extinguished thecanary, though that was clamorous enough. 

"Shut up, you noisy little devils!" growled Lancelot. And taking thecomic opera he threw it on the dull fire. The thick sheets grew slowlyblacker and blacker, as if with rage; while Lancelot thrust the fivefive-pound notes into an envelope addressed to the popular composer, andscribbled a tiny note:

"DEAR PETER, --If you have not torn up that cheque I shall be glad of itby return. 

"Yours, "LANCELOT. 

"P. S. --I send by this post a Reverie, called 'Marianne, ' which is thebest thing I have done, and should be glad if you could induce Brahmsonto look at it. "

A big, sudden blaze, like a jubilant bonfire, shot up in the grate andstartled Beethoven into silence. 

But the canary took it for an extra flood of sunshine, and trilled anddemi-semi-quavered like mad. 

"Sw--eêt! Sweêt!"

"By Jove!" said Lancelot, starting up, "Mary Ann's left her canarybehind!"

Then the old whimsical look came over his face. 

"I must keep it for her, " he murmured. "What a responsibility! Isuppose I oughtn't to let Rosie look after it any more. Let me see, whatdid Peter say? Canary seed biscuits . . . Yes, I must be careful not togive it butter. . . . Curious I didn't think of her canary when I sentback all those gloves . . . But I doubt if I could have squeezed itin--my boots are only sevens after all--to say nothing of the cage. "