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Title: The Vanity Girl

Author: Compton MacKenzie

Release date: April 10, 2012 [eBook #39422]

Language: English

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


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








THE
VANITY GIRL

_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_

THE VANITY GIRL
POOR RELATIONS
SYLVIA & MICHAEL
PLASHERS MEAD
SYLVIA SCARLETT

Harper & Brothers
_Publishers_




THE VANITY GIRL

_By COMPTON MACKENZIE_

_Author of_ "POOR RELATIONS" "SYLVIA SCARLETT" "SYLVIA & MICHAEL"

[Illustration: colophon]

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON




THE VANITY GIRL

Copyright, 1920, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America
Published September, 1920


_TO FAY COMPTON_

_My dear Fay._

_For several reasons I am anxious to inscribe this book to you. Unless
somehow or other I safeguard you publicly, you are liable to be accused
by gossip of having written it, an accusation that both you and I might
be justified in resenting. Many people suppose that you wrote an earlier
novel of mine called_ Carnival, _which, were it true, would make you out
to be considerably older than you are, since I take it that even your
precocity, though it did run to marriage at the age of seventeen (or was
it sixteen?), would hardly have allowed you to write_ Carnival _at the
same age. One day, if Mr. Matheson Lang will allow me to use my own
title--at present he is using it for a play that he and somebody else
have adapted from an Italian original--you may act the part of Jenny
Pearl; but that is as near as you will ever get to her creation. Then
lately a young gentleman wrote to ask me if I would inform him whether
the generally accepted theory that you had written the first two
chapters of_ Sinister Street _had any existence in fact. So you see, I
do not exaggerate when I say that you are liable to be credited with_
The Vanity Girl. _Equally I should not like gossip to pretend that the
heroine if not drawn by you was certainly drawn from you; and though any
friend of yours or mine would laugh at such a suggestion, it is just as
well to kill the cacklers before they lay their eggs. But the chief
reason for inscribing this book to you is my desire to record, however
inadequately, what pleasure and pride, dear Fay, your charm, your
talents, your beauty, and success have given to_

_Your affectionate brother,_

_Compton Mackenzie._

_Capri_, August 4, 1919.




THE
VANITY GIRL




_The Vanity Girl_




CHAPTER I

I


West Kensington relies for romance more upon the eccentricities of
individual residents than upon any variety or suggestiveness in the
scenery of its streets, which indeed are mostly mere lines of uniform
gray or red houses drearily elongated by constriction. Yet the suburb is
too near to London for some relics of a former rusticity not to have
survived; and it is refreshing for the casual observer of a city's
growth to find here and there a row of old cottages, here and there a
Georgian house rising from sooty flower-gardens and shadowed by rusty
cedars, occasionally even an open space of building land, among the
weeds of which ragged hedgerows and patches of degenerate oats still
endure.

How Lonsdale Road, where the Caffyns lived, should have come to obtrude
itself upon the flimsy architecture of the neighborhood is not so
obvious. Situated near what used to be the western terminus of the old
brown-and-blue horse-omnibuses, it is a comparatively wide road of
detached, double-fronted, three-storied, square houses (so square that
after the rows of emaciated residences close by they seem positively
squat), built at least thirty years before anybody thought of following
the District Railway out here. Each front door is overhung by a heavy
portico, the stout pillars of which, painted over and over again
according to the purse and fancy of the owner, vary in color from shades
of glossy blue and green to drabs and buffs and dingy ivories. The
steps, set some ten yards back from the pavement, are flanked by
well-grown shrubs; the ground floor is partially below the level of the
street, but there are no areas, and only a side entrance marked
"Tradesmen" seems to acknowledge the existence of a more humble world.

There are thirty-six houses in Lonsdale Road, not one of which makes any
sharper claim for distinction than is conferred by the number plainly
marked upon the gas-lamp suspended from the ceiling of its portico. Here
are no "Bellevues" or "Ben Lomonds" to set the neighborhood off upon the
follies of competitive nomenclature; and although at the back of each
house a large oblong garden contains a much better selection of trees
and flowering shrubs than the average suburban garden, not even the mild
pretentiousness of an appropriate arboreal name is tolerated. Away from
the traffic of the main street with its toy dairies and dolls' shops,
its omnibuses and helter-skelter of insignificant pedestrians, Lonsdale
Road comes to an abrupt end before a tumble-down tarred fence that
guards some allotments beside the railway, on the other side of which a
high rampart with the outline of cumulus marks the reverse of the
panoramic boundary of Earl's Court Exhibition. The road is a
thoroughfare for hawkers, policemen, and lovers, because a narrow lane
follows the line of the tumble-down fence, leading on one side to the
hinterland of West Kensington railway station and on the other gradually
widening into a terrace of small red-brick houses, the outworks of
similar terraces beyond. Why anybody at least fifty years ago should
have built in what must then have been open country or nursery gardens
along the North End Road these thirty-six porticoed houses remains
inexplicable. Whoever it was may fairly be honored as one of the
founders of West Kensington, perhaps second only to the one who divined
that by getting it called West Kensington instead of East Fulham or
South Hammersmith, and so maintaining in the minds of the professional
classes a consciousness of their gentility, he was doing as much for the
British Empire as if he had exploited their physique in a new colony.

With whatever romance one might be tempted to embellish the origin of
Lonsdale Road on account of an architectural superiority to the streets
around, it would be fanciful merely for that to endow it with any
influence upon the character of the people who live there. Apart from a
house where the drains are bad, that has achieved the reputation of
being haunted, because the landlord prefers to let it stay empty rather
than spend money on putting the drains in order, Lonsdale Road possesses
as unromantic a lot of residences as the most banal of West Kensington
streets. The nearest approach to a scandal is the way human beings and
cats go courting in the lane at the end; but since the former do not
live in Lonsdale Road and the latter are not amenable to any ethical
code administered by the police, the residents do not feel the burden of
a moral responsibility for their behavior.

Such a dignified road within seven minutes of the railway station had in
the year 1881 made a strong appeal to Mr. Gilbert Caffyn, who, having
just been appointed assistant secretary to the Church of England Purity
Society at the early age of twenty-six, with a salary of £150 a year,
was emboldened by his father's death and the inheritance of another £200
a year in brewery shares to persuade Miss Charlotte Doyle that their
marriage was immediately feasible. Mr. Caffyn had been all the more
anxious to press for a happy conclusion of a two years' engagement
because Mrs. Doyle was showing every sign of imminent decease, an event
which would eliminate a traditionally unsatisfactory relationship and
enrich her daughter with £300 a year of her own. Mr. Caffyn therefore
sold a quarter of his shares, purchased a ninety-nine years' lease of
17 Lonsdale Road, the last house on the right-hand side away from the
growing traffic of West Kensington, and got married. If No. 17 was
nearest the railway, it was also rather larger than the other houses, an
important consideration for the assistant secretary of the Church of
England Purity Society, who was bound to expect at least as many
children as a clergyman. Still, for all its extra windows, it was not a
very large house; and when in the year 1902 Mr. Caffyn, now secretary of
the Church of England Purity Society, with a salary of £400 a year,
looked at his wife, his nine children, his two servants, and himself, he
wondered how they all managed to squeeze in. He hoped that his wife, who
had been mercifully fallow for seven years, would not have any more
children, though it might almost be easier to have more children than to
provide for the rapid growing up of those he had already. Why, his
eldest son Roland was twenty. The question of his moving into cheap
rooms to suit his position as the earner of a guinea a week at a branch
bank had been mooted several times already, and Mr. Caffyn had been
compelled to turn his study (which he never used) into a bedroom for him
and his brother Cecil, now a lanky schoolboy of fifteen, rather than
expose himself to the likelihood of having to supplement the bank
clerk's salary from his own. Then there was Norah, who was eighteen ...
but at this moment Mr. Caffyn realized that he had only eight minutes to
catch his train up to Blackfriars, and the problem of Norah was put
aside. It was a hot morning in late September, and he had long ceased to
enjoy running to catch a train.

The departure of the head of the house shortly after his eldest son was
followed by Cecil's hulking off to St. James's with half a dozen books
under his arm, then by Agnes's and Edna's chattering down the road like
a pair of wagtails to their school, and last of all by Vincent's
apprehensive scamper to his school. In comparison with the noise during
breakfast, the house was quiet; but Dorothy, the second girl, was
fussing in the pantry, and Mrs. Caffyn was fussing in the dining-room,
while Gladys and Marjorie, two very pretty children of eight and seven,
were reiterating appeals to be allowed to play in the front garden. All
these noises, added to the noises made by the servants about their
household duties, seemed an indication to Norah Caffyn that she ought to
take advantage of such glorious weather to wash her hair. She withdrew
to the room shared with Dorothy and, having promised her mother to keep
an eye on the children, devoted all her attention to herself. She set
about the business of washing her hair with the efficiency she applied
to everything personal; it used to annoy her second sister that, while
she showed herself so practical in self-adornment, she would always be
so wantonly obtuse about household affairs.

"I believe you make muddles on purpose," her sister used to declare.

"I don't want to be domestic, if that's what you mean," Norah would
reply.

"Wasting your time always in front of a glass!"

"Sour grapes, my dear! If your hair waved like mine you'd look at
yourself often enough."

But this morning Dorothy was making a cake, and Norah was able to linger
affectionately over the shampoo, safe from her jealous sneers. When she
had dried away with a towel enough of the unbecoming lankness she went
over to the open window to recapture from the rich September sun the
gold that should flash among her fawn-soft hair. Down below among the
laurels and privets of the front garden her two youngest sisters were
engaged upon some grubby and laborious task which, though they looked
like two fat white rabbits, did not involve, so far as Norah could see,
without leaning out of the window, any actual burrowing; and she was
much too pleasantly occupied with her own thoughts to take the risk of
having to interfere. She had propped against the frame of the wide-open
window a looking-glass in which she was admiring herself; but the mirror
was not enough, and she often glanced over with a toss of her head to
the houses opposite, whence the retired colonel in No. 18 or the young
heir of No. 16 might perhaps be able to admire her, too. But Norah was
not only occupied in contemplating the beauty of her light-brown hair;
she was equally engaged with her heart's desire. For the ninth time in
two years she was deep in love, this time so deep indeed that she was
trying to bring her mind to bear seriously upon the future and the
problem of convincing her father that the affection she had for Wilfred
Curlew was something far beyond the capacity of a schoolgirl presented
itself anew for urgent solution. Yesterday, when her suitor had joined
the family in the dining-room after supper, her father had looked at him
with an expression of most discouraging surprise; if he should visit
them again to-night, as he probably would, her father might pass from
discouraging glances to disagreeable remarks, and might even attempt,
when Wilfred was gone, to declare positively that he visited Lonsdale
Road too often. Intolerable though it was that she at eighteen should
still be exposed to the caprice of paternal taboos, it was obvious that
until she made the effort to cut herself free from these antiquated
leading-strings she should remain in subjection.

Norah regarded the not very costly engagement-ring of intertwined
pansies bedewed with diminutive diamonds. In her own room this ring
always adorned the third finger of her left hand, and while she was
about the house during the day the third finger of her right hand; but
when her father came back from the city it had to be concealed, with old
letters and dance programs and moldering flowers, in a basket of girlish
keepsakes, the key of which was continually being left on her
dressing-table and causing her moments of acute anxiety in the middle
of supper. If it was not a valuable ring, it was much the prettiest she
had ever possessed, and it seemed to Norah monstrous that a father
should have the power to banish such a token of seniority from the
admiration of the world. What would happen if after supper to-night she
announced her engagement? Some time or other in the future of family
events one of the daughters would have to announce her engagement, and
who more suitable than herself, the eldest daughter? Was there, after
all, so much to be afraid of in her father? Was not this tradition of
his fierceness sedulously maintained by her mother for her own
protection? When she looked back at the past, Norah could see plainly
enough how all these years the mother had hoodwinked her children into
respecting the head of the family. He might not be conspicuously less
worthy of reverence than the fathers of many other families she knew,
but he was certainly not conspicuously more worthy of it. The romantic
devotion their mother exacted for him might have been accorded to a
parent who resembled George Alexander or Lewis Waller! But as he
was--rather short than tall (he was the same height as herself), fussy
(the daily paper must remain folded all day while he was at the office,
so that he could be helped first to the news as he was helped first to
everything else), mean (how could she possibly dress herself on an
allowance of £6 5s. a quarter?)--such a parent was not entitled to
dispose of his daughter; a daughter was not a newspaper to be kept
folded up for his gratification.

"For I am beautiful," she assured her reflection. "It's not conceit on
my part. Even my girl friends admit that I'm beautiful--yes, beautiful,
not just pretty. Father ought to be jolly grateful to have such a
beautiful daughter. I'm sure _he_ has no right to expect beautiful
children."

A figure moved like a shadow in the depths of one of the rooms in the
house opposite, and Norah leaned a little farther out of the window to
catch more sunbeams for her hair; but when the figure came into full
view she was disgusted to find it was only the servant, who flapped a
duster and withdrew without a glance at herself. "If father persists in
keeping me hidden away in West Kensington," she grumbled, "he can't
expect me to marry a duke. No, I'm eighteen, and I'll marry Wilfred--at
least I'll marry him when he can afford to be married, but meanwhile I
_will_ be engaged. I'm tired of all this deception." Norah was pondering
the virtue of frankness, when she heard a step behind her and, turning
round, saw her mother's wonted expression of anxiety and mild
disapproval.

"Oh well," said Norah, quickly, to anticipate the reproach on her lips,
"this is the only place I can dry my hair. And, mother, I can't wait any
longer to be engaged to Wilfred. I'm going to have it out with father
to-night."

Mrs. Caffyn looked frightened, which was what Norah intended, for she
felt in no mood to argue the propriety of sitting at an open window with
her hair down, and had deliberately introduced the larger issue.

"My dear child, I hope you will do nothing of the kind. Father has been
very worried during the last month by that horrid theater advertisement
which upset Canon Wilbraham so much, and he won't be at all in the right
mood."

Norah sighed patiently, avoided pouting, because she had been warned by
a girl friend whose opinion she valued against spoiling the shape of her
mouth, and with a shrug of her shoulders turned away and went on
brushing her hair.

"My dear child," Mrs. Caffyn began, deprecatingly.

"Oh well, I can't sit in any other room! Besides, the kids are playing
down below, and I can't keep an eye on them from anywhere else as well
as I can from here."

"Playing in the front garden?" repeated Mrs. Caffyn, anxiously.
Anything positive done by any of her children always made her anxious,
and she hurried across to the window to call down to them. The two
little girls had managed to smear themselves from head to foot with
grimy garden-mold, and most unreasonably Mrs. Caffyn could not see that
their grubbiness was of no importance compared with the question of
whether Norah's hair was not always exactly the color of mignonette
buds. She began to admonish them from the window, and they defended
themselves against her reproaches by calling upon their eldest sister to
testify that what they had done they had done with her acquiescence,
since she had not uttered a word against their behavior. Norah declared
that she could not possibly go down-stairs without undoing all the good
of her shampoo, and in the end Mrs. Caffyn, after ringing ineffectually
for her second daughter or one of the servants, had to go down herself
and rescue Gladys and Marjorie from the temptations of the front garden.

"Thank Heaven for a little peace," sighed Norah to herself. She sat
there in a delicious paradise of self-esteem and, looking at herself in
the glass, was so much thrilled in the contemplation of her own beauty
that she forgot all about her engagement, all about the lack of
spectators, all about everything except the way her features conformed
to what in women she most admired. She thought compassionately of her
mother's faded fairness, and wondered with a frown of esthetic concern
why her mother's face was so downy. If her own chin began to show signs
of fluffing over like that, she would spend her last halfpenny on
removing hairs that actually in some lights glistened like a smear of
honey; luckily there was nothing in her own face that she wanted to
change. Her mother must have been pretty once, but never more than
pretty, because she had blue eyes. How glad she was that with her light
hair went deep brown eyes instead of commonplace blue eyes, and that
her mouth instead of being rather full and indefinite was a firm bow
the beauty of which did not depend upon the freshness of youth. Not that
she need fear even the far-off formidable thirties with such a
complexion and such teeth. Apart from superfluous hairs her mother's
complexion was still good, and even her father had white teeth. Her own
nose, straight and small, was neither so straight nor so small as to be
insipid, and her chin, tapering exquisitely, was cleft, not dimpled.
Dimples seemed to Norah vulgar, and she could not imagine why they were
ever considered worthy of admiration. No, with all her perfection of
color and form she was mercifully free from the least suggestion of
"dolliness"; she was too tall, and had much too good a figure ever to
run any risk of that.

"I'm really more beautiful even than I thought, now that I'm looking at
myself very critically. And, of course, I shall get more beautiful,
especially when I've found out what way my hair suits me best. I shall
make all sorts of experiments with it. There's bound to be one way that
suits me better than others, if only it isn't too unfashionable. I
suppose father hopes secretly that I shall make a brilliant marriage,
because even he must realize that I am exceptionally beautiful."

She played condescendingly with the notion of being able to announce
that she was engaged to a viscount, and imagined with what awe the
family would receive the news.

"However, that's my affair," she decided. "It's not likely father will
bring back a viscount to supper. Besides, I'm not mercenary, and if I
choose to love a poor man I will. My looks were given to me, not to
father, and if he thinks he's going to get the benefit of them he's made
a great mistake."

Norah's meditations were suddenly interrupted by the entrance of her
sister Dorothy, a dark, pleasant, practical girl of sixteen, who was
already so much interested in household affairs that Norah feared her
indifference to dress was due to something more than immaturity, was
indeed the outcome of an ineradicable propensity toward dowdiness.

"I wish you wouldn't burst into rooms like that," she protested,
crossly.

But Dorothy only hummed round the room in search of what she was looking
for, and paid no more attention to her elder sister than a bee would
have done.

"And if you've got to come up-stairs to our room when you're in the
middle of cooking," Norah went on, "you might at least wipe your hands
and your arms first. You're covering everything with flour," she
grumbled.

"That's better than covering it with powder," retorted Dorothy.

"What a silly remark!"

"Is it, my dear? Sorry the cap fits so well."

Norah turned away from this obtrusive sister in disdain, asking herself
for perhaps the thousandth time what purpose in life she was possibly
intended to serve. Apart from the fact that she was dark and distinctly
not even good-looking, there seemed no excuse for Dorothy's existence,
and Norah made up her mind that she would not bother any more about
trying to make her dress with good taste; it simply was not worth while.

"Eureka!" cried Dorothy, triumphantly waving an egg-beater.

"What a disgusting thing to leave in a bedroom!" Norah exclaimed.

Her sister courtesied exasperatingly in the doorway for answer, and
before Norah could say another word was charging down the stairs three
at a time in a series of diminishing thuds.

Norah turned back, with a shudder for her sister's savagery, to the
contemplation of her own hair. In a revulsion against the indecency of
family life she resolved firmly that, whatever the fuss, she would be
engaged to Wilfred Curlew immediately, and that Wilfred himself must at
all costs quickly accumulate enough money to enable her to marry him and
escape from this den of sisters and brothers and parents.

"If father had only one child, or perhaps two, he might be entitled to
interference with our private lives; but when he's got nine, he must
expect us to look after ourselves. It's bad enough now when Cecil,
Agnes, Edna, and Vincent are all at school and out of the way, at any
rate for some of the time, but what will it be like in a few years?"

Norah shrank from the prospect of that overpopulated future for which
the temporary emptiness of Lonsdale Road was no consolation, and,
removing the mirror from the window-sill, she sat down at her
dressing-table and devoted herself to the adjustment of the arcuated pad
of mock hair that was an indispensable adjunct to the pompadour style
then in vogue.

Norah had just succeeded in achieving what was hitherto her most
successful effort with the pompadour when she heard somebody whistling
for her from the pavement; going to the window, she saw that it was her
friend, Lily Haden, whom she had known and hated at school two years
ago, but whom now, by one of those unaccountably abrupt changes of
feminine predilection, she liked very much. The new intimacy had only
lately been begotten out of a chance rencounter, and perhaps it would
never have been born if Roland, her eldest brother, had not condemned
Lily from the altitude of his twenty-year-old priggishness and found in
Dorothy a supporter of his point of view. That the brother and sister on
either side of her should be hostile to a friend of hers was enough to
make Norah fond of Lily, who belonged to a type of ethereal blonde that
she hoped did not compete too successfully with herself. Occasionally,
at the beginning of the new friendship, Norah was assailed by doubts
about this, which intensified her prejudice against blue eyes, not to
mention excessive slimness and immoderate length of neck. However,
though Lily was not really at all interesting, it was impossible to deny
that she was something more than pretty, and when, after a few carefully
observed walks, Norah discovered that the percentage of people who
looked twice at herself exceeded the percentage of those who looked
twice at Lily, she was almost inclined to admit that Lily was beautiful.
Quite sincerely, therefore, she was able to call down that she was
awfully glad to see her friend; quite honestly, too, she was able to
admire her standing there on the sunny pavement below.

The fine autumn weather had allowed the young women of West Kensington
to prolong their summery charms with brightly tinted dresses, and in all
the dull decades of their existence the houses of Lonsdale Road, even in
their first lilac-scented May, had perhaps never beheld a truer picture
of spring than this autumnal picture now before them of that tall, slim
girl in her linen dress of powder-blue swaying gently as a fountain is
swayed by the wind, and above her, framed by dingy bricks that
intensified the brilliance of the subject, that other girl in a kimono
tea-rose hued from many washings, herself like a tea-rose of exquisite
color and form. Yet Mrs. Caffyn, when she hurried into Norah's room,
could deduce no more from this rebirth of spring in autumn than a cause
for the critical stares of neighbors, and begged her either to invite
her friend indoors or to come away from the window.

"I wanted to ask Lily to lunch," said Norah, fretfully.

Mrs. Caffyn was in despair at the notion.

"You have plenty of time to talk to her. It's not yet twelve o'clock,"
she urged, "and with the children coming home from school and having to
be got off again it _is_ so difficult to manage with extra people at
meals."

"Everything seems difficult to manage in this house."

"I'm sorry to disappoint you, but you must try to think of other people
a little."

"It would be difficult to think of anything else in Lonsdale Road,
mother dear. Lily," she called out from the window, "come up and talk to
me before the animals come roaring home to be fed."

"Norah dear, I'd rather you didn't refer to your brothers and sisters
like that," Mrs. Caffyn rebuked, with an attempt at authority that only
made her daughter laugh. It may not have been a pleasant laugh to hear,
and Mrs. Caffyn may have been right to leave the room with a shake of
the head; but Norah's teeth were so white and regular that it was a
delightful laugh to look at, and Norah was so intent on watching its
effect in the glass that she did not notice her mother had gone away in
vexation. Presently she and Lily were deep in the discussion of
pompadour pads, so enthralling a subject that when Norah wanted to talk
about her engagement it was nearly dinner-time, and she felt more than
ever the injustice of not being able to invite her friend to the family
meal.

"I must talk to you about Wilfred," she said. "We must have a long talk,
because I'm determined to have it settled."

At that moment, with swinging of satchels and banging of doors and much
noisy laughter, Agnes and Edna, getting on, respectively, for thirteen
and fourteen, arrived back from the school that not so long ago Norah
and Lily had themselves attended.

"But it's impossible to talk now," grumbled Norah; and as if to
accentuate the truth of this remark her brother Vincent, aged ten, came
tearing down the road, dribbling a tin can before him and intoxicated
with the news of having been chosen to play half-back for his class. In
another two years, he boasted, he would be in the Eleven.

"Why don't you come round to Shelley Mansions this evening?" Lily
suggested. "We've invited some friends in."

One of the stipulations made about Norah's friendship with Lily had been
that she should never visit the home of her friend, about whose mother
all sorts of queer stories were current in West Kensington. To challenge
family opinion on this point seemed to her an excellent preliminary to
challenging it more severely by insisting on being openly engaged to
Wilfred Curlew. She hesitated for a moment, and then announced that she
would come.

"To supper?" Lily asked.

After another moment's hesitation Norah promised firmly that she would,
and her friend hurried away just as Cecil, a loutish boy with sleeves
and trousers much too short for him, slouched back from St. James's. The
house which a little while ago had been gently murmurous with that
absorbing conversation about pompadour pads now reverberated with the
discordant cries of a large family; an overpowering smell of boiled
mutton and caper sauce ousted the perfumes from Norah's room; her eyes
flashed with resentment, and she went down-stairs to take her place at
table.


II

If Norah had been a journalist like her suitor, Wilfred Curlew, she
would have described the resolution she made on that September morning
as an epoch-making resolution, for since the effect of it was rapidly
and firmly to set her on the path of independence it certainly deserved
one of the great antediluvian epithets.

Some months ago the Hadens had moved from their house in Trelawney Road
because the landlord was so disobliging--as a matter of fact, he was
unwilling to wait any longer for the arrears of rent--and they were now
inhabiting Shelley Mansions, a gaunt block of flats built on the
frontier of West Kensington to withstand the vulgar hordes of Fulham,
and as such considered the ultimate outpost of gentility. Most of the
tenants, indeed, like the Foreign Legion, were recruited from people who
found that their native land was barred to them for various reasons; but
if Shelley Mansions lacked the conveniences of civilized flat-life, such
as lifts and hall-porters, they possessed one great convenience that was
peculiar in West Kensington--nobody bothered about his neighbor's
business. Mrs. Haden's elder daughter, Doris, was no longer at home,
having recently gone on the stage and almost immediately afterward
married; and the small flat, with two empty spare rooms so useful for
boxes, was comparatively much larger than the Caffyns' house in Lonsdale
Road, the respectability and solid charms of which were spoiled by
overcrowding.

Mr. Haden was supposed to be in Burma; but people in the secure heart of
West Kensington used to say that Mr. Haden had never existed, a topic
that Norah remembered being debated at school, to the great perplexity
of the younger girls, who could not imagine how, if there was no Mr.
Haden, there could possibly be a Doris and Lily Haden. Nowadays, with
years of added knowledge, Norah would have liked to ask her friend more
particularly about her absent father; but she was of a cautious
temperament, and decided it was easier to accept the Oriental interior
of the Shelley Mansions drawing-room as evidence of the truth of the
Burmese legend. Her instinct was always against too much intimacy with
anybody, and she rather dreaded the responsibility of a secret that
might interfere with the freedom of her relations with Lily. Whatever
the origins of the household, she decided it was a much more amusing
household than the one in Lonsdale Road, and if No. 17 could have
achieved the same atmosphere by banishing Mr. Caffyn to Burma, Norah
would willingly have packed him off by the next boat.

Mrs. Haden had a loud voice, an effusive manner, and a complexion like
a field of clover seen from the window of a passing train. Her coiffure
resembled in shape and texture a tinned pineapple; it was, too, almost
the same color, probably on account of experimenting with henna on top
of peroxide. Norah's inclination to be shocked at her hostess's
appearance was mitigated by the pleasure it gave her in demonstrating
that Lily's really golden hair was not more likely to prove permanent.
Mrs. Haden earned her living by teaching elocution and by reciting.
These recitations were mostly interruptions to the conversation of
afternoon parties in private houses; but once a year at the Bijou
Theater, Notting Hill, she gave a grand performance advertised in the
press, when her own recitations were supplemented by a couple of one-act
plays never acted before or since, for the production of which some
moderately well-known professional friends used to give their services
free in order to help Mrs. Haden and the authors. Notwithstanding her
energy, she found it very hard to make both ends meet. Norah distinctly
remembered that Doris and Lily Haden had left school on account of
unpaid fees, and some of the objections raised now to her friendship
with Lily were due to Mrs. Caffyn's knowledge that the tradesmen of West
Kensington would not allow even a week's credit to the residents of
Shelley Mansions. If Mrs. Haden could have overcome their prejudice, her
hospitality would doubtless have been illimitable; with all the
difficulties they made, it was extensive enough, and she need not have
bothered to consecrate a special day to it. But perhaps it pleased her
to think that she owned one of the days of the week, for she used to
refer to the fame of her Thursdays with as much pride as if they were
family jewels.

It was to one of these enslaved Thursdays that Lily had invited Norah,
who at first sat shyly back in a wicker chair within the shade of a
palm, afraid, so fiercely did Mrs. Haden fix her during a recitation of
"Jack Barrett Went to Quetta," that the creakings of her chair were
irritating the reciter. Gradually the general atmosphere of freedom and
jollity communicated itself to the strange guest, and when the room was
so full of tobacco smoke that it was impossible for anybody to recite or
to sing or to dance without being almost asphyxiated, she had no qualms
about obeying Mrs. Haden's deafening proclamation that everybody must
stay to supper. A young man with a long nose, a long neck, an
extravagantly V-shaped waistcoat like a medieval doublet, and a skin
like a Blue Dorset cheese attached himself to Norah and advised her to
sit close to him because he knew his way about the flat. Presumably the
advantage of knowing your way about the flat was that you sat still
while other people waited on you, and that you obtained second helpings
from dishes that did not go round once. Norah seldom resisted an
invitation that enabled her to keep quiet while others worked, not
because she was lazy, but because rushing about was inclined to heighten
her complexion unbecomingly; moreover, since the young man in the
V-shaped waistcoat was enough like her notion of a distinguished actor
to rouse a mild interest in him, and not sufficiently unlike a gentleman
to destroy that interest, she was ready to listen to the advice he was
anxious to give her about all sorts of things, but chiefly about the
stage.

"Are you studying with Mrs. Haden?" he asked; and when Norah shook her
head he turned to her gravely and said: "Oh, but you ought, you know.
They may tell you she's a bit old-fashioned, but don't you believe them.
Pearl Haden knows her job in and out, and if you've got any talent
she'll produce it. Look at me. I was going out with Ma Huntley this
autumn as her second walking gentleman, but she wouldn't offer more than
two ten, and, as I told her, I really didn't feel called upon to accept
less than three. After all, I can always get seven by waiting, and I
didn't see why Ma should have me for two ten, especially as she expected
me to find my own wigs and ruffles. No, you take my advice and study
with Pearl Haden."

"You really recommend her, do you?" asked Norah, condescendingly.

She had never until that moment thought of going on the stage or of
taking lessons in elocution from anybody, but the idea of being able to
patronize the mother of a friend appealed to her, and, though she was a
little doubtful of the way her brothers and sisters would accept her
rendering of "Jack Barrett Went to Quetta," she supposed that Wilfred
would admire it. One of the charms of being engaged was the security of
admiration it provided.

"Though, of course," continued the gentleman in the V-shaped waistcoat,
"with your appearance you oughtn't to have to bother much about anything
else."

This was very gratifying to Norah; even if there should be trouble when
she got home, the evening would have been worth while for this assurance
that her looks were capable of making an impression upon artistic
society.

"You really think I ought to go on the stage?" she asked, assuming the
manner of a person who for a long while has been trying to make up her
mind on this very point.

"Everybody ought to go on the stage," the gentleman in the V-shaped
waistcoat enthusiastically announced; "at least, of course, not
everybody, but certainly everybody who is obviously cut out for the
profession like you. But don't be in a hurry to make up your mind," he
added. "You're very young." He must have been nearly twenty-five
himself. "There's no need to hurry. I was driven to it."

Norah appeared interested and sympathetic. She really was rather
interested, because the idea had passed through her mind that Wilfred
might go on the stage. If this young man could earn seven pounds a week,
surely Wilfred, who was much better looking, could earn ten pounds a
week, in which case they might be married at once.

"What drove you to it?" she asked, and then blushed in confusion; being
driven to anything was associated in Norah's mind with drink, and she
thought the young man might be embarrassed by her question.

"Oh, a woman!" he replied, in a lofty tone. "But don't let's talk about
things that are past and over. Let's eat and drink to-day, for
to-morrow--Did you ever read Omar Khayyam? A man in our crowd introduced
me to him last year. I tell you, after Omar Khayyam Kipling isn't in it.
I suppose you read a good deal of poetry?"

"A good deal," Norah admitted. "At least, I used to read a good deal."

This was true; she had read several volumes at school under the menaces
of the literature mistress.

"Well, if I may offer you some advice," said the young man, "go on
reading poetry. I may as well confess right out that poetry has been my
salvation. Have some more of this shape? It's a little soft, but the
flavor's excellent." After supper Norah took Lily aside and told her she
must go home at once.

"But, Norah," protested the daughter of the flat, without being able to
conceal a slight inflection of scorn, "the evening's only just
beginning. Lots of people come in after supper always."

Norah resented Lily's tone of superiority; but inasmuch as this was her
first experiment in open defiance, she decided not to go too far this
time, especially as she was not quite sure how far her father's
unreasonableness might not extend.

"Cyril Vavasour will see you home," said Lily. "He's awfully gone on
you. He told me you were one of the most beautiful girls he'd ever met."

Norah could not help feeling flattered by such a testimonial from one
whose experience among women had evidently been immense, and though she
might have expected a superlative without qualification from somebody
who met her in a West Kensington drawing-room, she realized that she
must expect a slight qualification from a world-wanderer like Mr.
Vavasour. A few minutes later Norah and her appreciative new
acquaintance descended the echoing steps of Shelley Mansions and were
soon safe from any suggestion of Fulham in the landscape and walking
slowly through the familiar streets of West Kensington, which in the
autumnal mistiness looked grave and imposing. The sky was clear above
them, and a fat, yellow moon was rolling along behind a battlement of
chimney-tops.

"O moon of my delight who know'st no wane!" quoted Mr. Vavasour, in a
devout apostrophe.

Perhaps it was because he imagined himself in a Persian garden much
farther away from West Kensington than even Fulham was that he allowed
himself to take Norah's arm; nor did she make any objection. After all,
he considered her one of the most beautiful girls he had ever met, and,
being engaged to be married, she could allow her arm to be taken without
danger or loss of dignity.

"And so you really advise me to go on the stage?" she asked, as if she
would insinuate that the taking of her arm was only a gesture of
interrogation.

"Absolutely," Mr. Vavasour replied.

"Yes, but of course my father's awfully old-fashioned, and he may think
I oughtn't to go on the stage."

"Too much exposed to temptation and all that, I suppose?" suggested Mr.
Vavasour.

"Oh no," said Norah, irritably, withdrawing her arm. "I didn't mean
that. I meant he might think the family wouldn't like it."

She had intended to give the impression of belonging to a poor but noble
family without giving the impression of being snobbish, and she was
rather annoyed with Mr. Vavasour for not understanding at once what she
meant.

"Oh, but people from the best families go on the stage nowadays," he
assured her.

"Yes, I suppose they do," Norah agreed.

"And of course you could always change your name," he added.

"Yes, of course I could do that," she admitted.

"I changed mine, for instance," he told her.

"I like the name Vavasour."

"Yes, I rather liked it myself," he said; but he did not volunteer his
own name, and she did not ask him to reveal what Howards or Montagus had
plucked him forever from their family tree. In any case this was not the
moment to embark on fresh confidences, for they were approaching the
main street and Norah was almost sure that the figure standing at the
corner of Lonsdale Road on the other side was her eldest brother,
Roland.

"Don't come any farther," she said. "Perhaps we'll meet again at Lily's
some day."

"We shall," Mr. Vavasour announced, with conviction. "Good night." He
swept his hat from his head with a flourish and Norah shook hands with
him. She had been rather afraid all the way back that he would try to
kiss her good night, but gentle blood and the bright arc-lamp under
which they were standing combined to deter him, and they parted as
ceremoniously as if his V-shaped waistcoat was really a medieval
doublet.

"Oh, it _was_ you," said Roland.

"How do you mean it _was_ me? Who did you think it was?"

"Do you know what the time is? Half past ten!"

"Thanks very much," said Norah, sarcastically. "The wrist-watch you gave
me at Christmas is not yet broken."

"Don't be silly, Norah," he protested. "Father's in an awful wax. I've
been hanging about here for the last half-hour, because I couldn't stand
it."

They were walking quickly down Lonsdale Road, and Norah was thinking how
clumsily he walked compared with Mr. Vavasour and yet how much better
looking he was.

"Did Wilfred come?" she asked.

Her brother nodded. "Yes, but I told him you weren't in, and he went off
in a bit of a gloom."

They had reached the gate of No. 17 by now, and the house seemed to
Norah unreasonably hushed for this hour of the evening. Beyond the
railway line the sky was lit up with the glare of the Exhibition, and
the music that the military band was playing--it was a selection from
"The Earl and the Girl"--was distinctly audible.

"Why should father object to my going out in the evening?" she asked,
turning to her brother sharply. "He used to object to your smoking."

Roland removed from his mouth the large pipe and thought ponderously for
a minute. It was quite true that only two years ago his father had
objected to his smoking, and that with great difficulty he had been able
to persuade him that bank clerks always smoked. Since that struggle his
father had yielded him a grudging admission that he was grown up. The
long years before he should be a bank manager rose like a huge array of
black clouds before his vision, and though he disapproved of sisters
acting on their own initiative, something in this autumnal
night--perhaps it was only the sound of the distant band--created in him
a sudden sympathy with any aspirations to freedom. Perhaps, if Norah had
encouraged him at that moment, he would have stood up for her
independence; but he felt that his company only irritated her and
without a word he led the way up the steps, dimly aware that he and she
had already set foot upon the diverging paths of their lives.

The dining-room had been cleared for action. Ordinarily at this hour the
room was full of young people playing billiards on the convertible
dining-table; but to-night the table had not been uncovered, the
children had all gone to bed, and Mr. Caffyn was reading the _Daily
Telegraph_, not as one might have supposed with enjoyment of the unusual
peace, but, on the contrary, in a vague annoyance that his perusal of
the leading article was not being interrupted by the butt-end of a cue
or the chronicle of London Day by Day being punctuated by billiard-balls
leaping into his lap. His patriarchal feelings had, in fact, been deeply
wounded by his daughter's behavior, and though for the first time in
months he had been able to put on his slippers without having to hold up
a noisy game while they were being looked for, he was not at all
grateful.

"I've had my supper," Norah informed him, brightly.

This really annoyed Mr. Caffyn extremely, for he had been looking
forward to telling his daughter that her supper had been kept waiting
until ten o'clock, when it had finally been removed in order to allow
the servants to go to bed. At this moment Mrs. Caffyn, who had hurried
down-stairs to the kitchen as soon as she heard Norah coming, arrived in
the dining-room with a tray.

"She's had her supper," said Mr. Caffyn, indignantly.

"Oh, I was afraid--" his wife began.

"Oh no, she's had her supper," said Mr. Caffyn. "Good Heavens! I don't
know what the world's coming to!"

Since her father was making a cosmic affair of her behavior in going out
to supper without leave, Norah decided to give him something to worry
about in earnest, and, seating herself in the arm-chair on the other
side of the fireplace, she prepared to argue with him. Mrs. Caffyn began
to murmur about going to bed and talking things over when father came
back from the office to-morrow, but Norah waved aside all
procrastination.

"I want to talk about my engagement," she began.

Roland, who had just reached the door, stopped. Wilfred Curlew was a
friend of his; in fact, it was he who had first brought him to the
house, and though he knew that anything in the nature of an engagement
between him and one of his sisters was ridiculous, he hoped that a
soothing testimony from him would prevent Wilfred's final exclusion from
the family circle.

"Norah, dear child, it isn't nice to begin playing jokes upon your
father at this hour, especially when he isn't very pleased with you,"
Mrs. Caffyn said, waving her eyes in the direction of the door.

"I'm not at all sleepy," said Norah, coldly. "And I'm not joking. I want
to know if father is going to let Wilfred and me be openly engaged?" she
persisted, holding up her left hand so that the gaslight illuminated the
ring upon the third finger.

"And who may Wilfred be?" demanded Mr. Caffyn.

This seemed to Roland a suitable moment for his intervention, and,
though he had for some time been aware that his father was growing
impatient of their habitual visitor, he pretended to accept this
attitude of Olympian ignorance and reminded him that Wilfred was a
friend who sometimes came in during the evening.

"You said once, if you remember, that he was rather a clever fellow. As
a matter of fact he's doing well, you know, considering that he's not
long gone in for journalism. He's just been taken on the staff of the
_Evening Herald_. He's been doing that murder in Kentish Town."

Mr. Caffyn rose from his chair and with an elaborate assumption of irony
inquired if his daughter proposed to engage herself on the strength of a
murder in Kentish Town. Norah had got up when her father did and was
listening with a contemptuous expression while he dilated on the folly
of long engagements.

"Yes, but I don't intend it to be a long engagement," Norah proclaimed,
when he paused for a moment to chew his heavy mustache. "I intend to get
married."

Mr. Caffyn swung round upon his heels and faced his daughter.

"This, I suppose, is the result of the education I've given you.
Insolence and defiance! Don't say another word or you'll make me lose my
temper. Not another word. Norah, I insist on silence. Do you hear me?
You have grievously disappointed my fondest hopes. I have not been a
strict father. Indeed, I have been too indulgent. But I never imagined
_my_ daughter capable of a folly like this. If I'd thought, twenty-one
years ago, when I bought this house with the idea of creating a happy
home for you all, that I should be repaid like this I would have.... I
would have...."

But Mr. Caffyn's apodosis was never divulged, because, seized with an
access of rage, he turned out the gas and hurried from the room. In the
hall he shouted back to know if his wife was going to sit up all night.
Mrs. Caffyn hurried after her husband as fast as she was able across the
darkened room.

"I'm coming, dear, now. Yes, dear, I'm coming now. Ouch! My knee!... I'm
sure Norah will be more sensible in the morning," she was heard
murmuring on her way up-stairs.

"I suppose he thinks I shall go on living with him forever," exclaimed
Norah, savagely throwing herself down into her father's arm-chair. "In
my opinion most parents are fit to be only children. Light the gas
again, Roland; I want to write a note to Wilfred."


III

By the time morning was come Norah had decided that she would rather go
on the stage than be engaged to Wilfred Curlew. The extraordinary thing
was that she should never have realized, before her conversation with
Mr. Vavasour, how obviously the stage was indicated as the right career
for her. It was true that she had never until now seriously contemplated
a career, and the mild way she had accepted herself merely as the most
important member of a large family was sufficient answer to the silly
accusations made by her father last night. Perhaps he would begin to
appreciate her now when he was on the point of losing her; perhaps he
would regret that he had ever suggested she was indifferent to the
claims of family life; in future she should take care to be indifferent
to everybody's feelings except her own; she would teach her father a
lesson. It never entered Norah's head that there would be any difficulty
about going on the stage apart from paternal opposition, and she
wondered how many famous people had owed their careers to a fortuitous
event like her meeting with Mr. Vavasour. At any rate, it would not be
more difficult to obtain her father's permission to embark on this
suddenly conceived adventure than it would be to obtain his permission
to wear on the third finger of her left hand the rather cheap ring that
was the outward sign of her intention to marry Wilfred. Confronted by
the two alternatives--success in the theater and matrimony with
Wilfred--she felt that success was much the less remote of the two; in
fact, the more she thought about it the farther away receded matrimony
and the more clearly defined became success. "I don't want to be a great
actress," she explained to herself; "I want to be a successful actress."
She half made up her mind to go out and talk to Lily about the new
project, but on second thoughts she decided not to alarm her parents by
any prospect so definite as would be implied in availing herself of the
practical assistance that Lily and her mother could afford her in
carrying out her plan. It would be more tactful to present as
alternatives the definite fact of being engaged to Wilfred or the
indefinite idea of being able some time or other in the future to adopt
the stage as a profession. The more Norah thought about Wilfred the less
in love with him she felt, and the less in love with him she felt the
easier would be her task to-night. In her note she had told him to come
in after supper, as usual, but she had not said a word about her
intention to precipitate their affair. Would it impress her father if
she and Wilfred were to meet him at the station and approach the subject
before supper? No, on the whole, she decided, it would be more prudent
to provoke the final scene otherwise, and her heart quickened slightly
at the thought of the surprise she was going to spring upon the family
that evening.

Norah was unusually pleasant to everybody all day: she gave Vincent some
sweets that she did not like herself; she offered to take Gladys and
Marjorie for a walk in Kensington Gardens, because a rumor had reached
her of a wonderful display of hats in one of the big shops in Kensington
High Street. She noticed that when her father came back from the office
he seemed to have forgotten about the scene of last night, and she saw
her mother's spirits rising at the prospect of an undisturbed evening.
After supper Mr. Caffyn sat down as usual in his arm-chair; Gladys and
Marjorie, tired after their long walk and exhausted with the
contemplation of shop-windows in which they had perceived nothing to
interest themselves, went off to bed without trying for a moment's
grace. The upper leaves of the dining-table were removed, and a party of
billiards was made up with Norah and Cecil matched against Roland and
Dorothy; Vincent was allowed to chalk the tips of the cues, Agnes and
Edna to quarrel over the marking. Mrs. Caffyn, with a sigh of relief for
the comfortable wheels on which the evening was running, took the
arm-chair opposite her husband and read with unusual concentration what
she imagined was yesterday's morning paper, but which, as a matter of
fact, was the morning paper of a month ago. Soon the front-door bell
rang, and a friend of Roland's, called Arthur Drake, with whom Norah had
been in love for a week about a year ago and of whom Dorothy was
slightly enamoured at the present, came in full of a new round game for
the billiard-table that he had just learned in another house. Cecil went
off to his home-work and left Arthur to explain the new game--a
complicated invention in which five small skittles, a cork, and a bell
suspended from the gas-bracket each played a part. Mr. Caffyn fended
off the butt-ends of the cues that were continually bumping into him
amid a great deal of shouting and laughter; Agnes trod on her mother's
corn; Vincent grazed his knuckles in fielding a billiard-ball that was
bound for his father's head.

"And where's old Wilfred?" Arthur Drake suddenly inquired.

Another ring at the front door answered his question and Norah's suitor
came in. He was a loose-jointed young man of about twenty-two, with
tumbled wavy hair, bright gray eyes, and a trick, when he was feeling
shy, of supporting with one arm the small of his back. His long,
dogmatic chin was balanced by an irregular and humorous mouth; his
personality was attractive, and if he had earned five times as much as
he earned as reporter on the staff of the _Evening Herald_, or even if
he had been paid for the fierce and satirical articles he wrote on the
condition of modern society for a socialist weekly called _The Red
Lamp_, he might not have been considered an unsuitable mate for Norah.
As it was, Mr. Caffyn looked up at him with as much abhorrence as he
would have betrayed at the entrance into his dining-room of the dog that
his children were always threatening to procure and the purchase of
which he was constantly forbidding. Wilfred tried hard to lose himself
in the round game, and whenever he was called upon to make a shot from
the corner where Mr. Caffyn was sitting he did so with such
unwillingness to disturb Mr. Caffyn that he always missed it. Every time
he found an opportunity to pass Norah in the narrow gangway between the
wall and the table he tried to squeeze her hand; and he did his best by
bribing Vincent with some horse-chestnuts he had collected that morning
at Kew, where his work had taken him to investigate an alleged outrage
in the Temperate House, to inspire Vincent with an unquenchable desire
to play Up Jenkins. Norah, however, had a plan of her own that made the
notion of occasionally clasping Wilfred's hand under the table during
Up Jenkins seem colorless, and Wilfred, who in his most optimistic
prevision of the evening had not counted upon more than two or three
kisses snatched by ruse, suddenly found himself invited by her to
abandon the game and come into the drawing-room next door.

The drawing-room of No. 17 was invested every Wednesday afternoon by a
quantity of punctilious ladies who came to call on Mrs. Caffyn. Owing to
the number of its ornaments and the flimsiness of its furniture, it was
not considered a suitable room for general use; moreover, as secretary
of the Church of England Purity Society, it occasionally fell to Mr.
Caffyn's lot to interview various clergymen there on confidential
matters, and in a house like 17 Lonsdale Road, worn and torn by
children, it was essential to preserve one room in a condition of gelid
perfection. So rarely was the room used that the over-worked servants
had not bothered to draw the curtains at dusk, and when Wilfred and
Norah retired into its seclusion the chilly gloom was accentuated by the
street-lamps gleaming through the bare lime-trees at the end of the
garden. Norah told her lover to light the gas, and not even the sickly
green incandescence availed to make her appear less beautiful to him in
this desert of ugly knickknacks.

"No, don't pull the curtains," she said, quickly, "and don't kiss me
here, because people might see you from the street. I didn't ask you to
come in here to make love."

Perhaps a sense of the theater had always been dormant in Norah, for she
went on as if she were making a set speech; but Wilfred was much too
deep in love to let the cynicism upon which he plumed himself apply to
her, and he listened humbly.

"We can't go on like this forever," she wound up. "We must be engaged
openly. I told father that last night, but he won't hear of it, so what
are we to do?"

"Darling, I'm ready to do anything."

"Oh, anything!" she repeated, petulantly. "What is anything? He'll be
here in a minute, and you've got to tell him that unless he consents to
our being engaged you'll persuade me to elope."

"Do you think he'd give way then?" Wilfred asked, doubtfully. He was
very much in love with Norah, but he could not help remembering that he,
too, had a father who, after an argument every Sunday evening, still
allowed him ten shillings a week for pocket-money. If he were to elope,
he should not only be certain to lose that supplement to his own
earnings, but he should also involve in deeper discredit the profession
he had adopted instead of the law, which Mr. Curlew, senior, had
designed him to enter by way of the office of an old friend who was a
solicitor.

Norah wished that her father would come in and interrupt what should
have been a passionate scene, but which was in reality as cold as the
room where it was being played. She watched herself and Wilfred, whom
the incandescent gas did not set off to advantage, in the large mirror
that formed the over-mantel of the fireplace, and she realized now, as
she had never realized before in her life, how amazingly she stood out
from her surroundings.

"You haven't kissed me once this evening," Wilfred began; but she shook
herself free from his tentative embrace, and with one eye on the door
for her father's entrance and the other on the mirror, or rather with
both eyes at one moment on the door and immediately afterward on the
mirror--a movement which displayed their brilliancy and depth--she went
on enumerating to her suitor the material difficulties that made their
engagement so hopeless.

"But I'm getting on," he insisted. "The editor was very pleased with the
way I handled that Kentish Town murder. They don't consider me at all a
dud in Fleet Street. I'm sure I give everybody in this house quite a
wrong impression of myself because I feel nervous and awkward when I'm
here; but I don't think there's really much doubt that in another couple
of years I shall be in quite a different position financially. Besides,
I hope to do original work, and if a friend of mine can raise the money
to start this new weekly--"

"Oh, if, if, if!" interrupted Norah, impatiently.

"Norah, don't you love me any more?"

"Of course I love you," she said. "Don't be so stupid."

"You seem different to-night."

"You wouldn't like me to be always the same, would you?"

"No, but--" He broke off, and turned away with a sigh to regard the
melancholy street-lamps twinkling through the lime-trees at the end of
the garden.

"I think it's I who ought to be angry, not you," said Norah. "I offered
to marry you at once, and you instantly began to make excuses."

"Norah!" protested the young man.

"Oh, how I hate everything!" she burst out, looking round her with a
sharper consciousness than she had ever experienced before of the
drawing-room's ugliness and life's banality. At this moment Mrs. Caffyn
put her head timidly round the door.

"You'd better come back to the dining-room, dear," she advised. "I think
father's just noticed you're not there."

"That's exactly what I meant him to do."

"Norah!" exclaimed her mother, in a shocked voice. "What has come over
you these last two days?"

Wilfred was supporting the small of his back in an unsuccessful effort
to look at ease, and Norah was wondering more than ever how she could
ever have fancied herself in love with him. How awkward he appeared
standing there, almost--she hesitated a moment before she allowed
herself to think the worst it was possible to think of anybody--almost
common! She looked half apprehensively at Wilfred to see if he had
divined her unspoken thought. She would not like him to know that she
was thinking him--almost common; he might never get over it. She was
sure he was particularly sensitive on that point because in _The Red
Lamp_ he was always declaiming against snobbery.

Suddenly they heard the dining-room door open, and Mrs. Caffyn had
barely time to breathe an agonized, "Oh, dear, what did I tell you would
happen?" before the head of the house came in. Upon the dining-room an
appalled silence must have fallen when Mr. Caffyn rose from his chair,
and one could fancy the frightened players, cues in hands, huddled
against the wall in dread of the imminent catastrophe. The whole house
was electric as before an impending storm, and above the stillness the
mutter of a passing omnibus sounded like remote thunder. With so much
atmospheric help Mr. Caffyn ought to have been able to achieve something
more impressive than his, "Oh, you're in here, are you? I wish you
wouldn't light the gas in the drawing-room when there's no need for it."

"I thought you wouldn't like us to sit in the dark," Norah murmured,
primly.

"Don't deliberately misunderstand me. You know perfectly well what I
mean. Moreover, I don't think it's nice for the children; it may put all
sorts of ideas into their young heads."

Inasmuch as Mr. Caffyn was secretary of the Church of England Purity
Society with private means of his own, while his daughter's suitor was
an agnostic journalist who had never yet earned more than thirty-five
shillings in one week, it is perhaps not astonishing that the young man
should have begun to apologize for lighting the gas needlessly. To
Norah, however, these apologies sounded infinitely pusillanimous; from
having been very much in love yesterday morning she had already reached
indifference, and this final exhibition of cowardice brought her to the
point of positively disliking Wilfred. Nevertheless, she managed somehow
to impress her father with her intention to die rather than give him up,
and after an argument of about ten minutes, in the course of which Norah
did all the talking, her father all the shouting, and her mother and
suitor all the fidgeting, Mr. Caffyn was at last sufficiently
exasperated and ordered Wilfred Curlew to leave the house immediately.
In spite of Mrs. Caffyn's entreaties the pitch of her husband's voice
had been so piercing that he had probably managed not merely to put
ideas into the heads of the children still in the dining-room, but even
to corrupt the dreams of the sleeping innocents up-stairs.

"Gilbert dear," his wife besought. "The servants!"

"I pay my servants to attend to me, not to my affairs," said Mr. Caffyn,
majestically. His wife might have replied that under the terms of their
marriage contract it was she who paid the servants out of her own money;
but having been married twenty-one years she had long ceased to derive
any satisfaction from putting herself in the right. Poor Wilfred,
finding that he must either say something to break the silence which had
succeeded Mr. Caffyn's denunciation of his behavior or retire, preferred
to retire, and with one arm firmly wedged into the small of his back he
stumbled awkwardly down the hall to the front door. Norah made no
attempt to alleviate the discomfiture of his exit; but Arthur Drake,
with a chivalry, or, to put it at its lowest valuation, with a social
tact that amazed her, covered Wilfred's retreat by such a display of
farewell courtesies as made even the practical Dorothy pause and
consider if there might not be something in love, after all.

"Bolt the door," Mr. Caffyn commanded. "And be sure that the chain is
properly fastened."

Then rather at a loss how to maintain the level of his majesty and
wrath, he luckily discovered that Vincent had not yet gone to bed, and
exhorted the assembled family to tell him if he paid £8 a term to Mr.
Randell for Vincent to grow up into a pot-boy or a billiard-marker.
Cecil, the recent winner of a senior scholarship at St. James's, had
been grinding at his home-work in the bedroom, and he came out into the
hall at this moment to plead pathetically for a few doors to be shut.
His father improved the occasion by holding up Cecil as a moral example
to the rest of the family, who were made to feel that if Gilbert Caffyn
had not produced Cecil Caffyn, Gilbert Caffyn's life would have been
wasted. The more he descanted upon Cecil's diligence and dutifulness the
more sheepish Cecil himself became, so that with every fresh encomium
his sleeves revealed another inch of ink-stained cuff. The only way to
stop Mr. Caffyn and restore Cecil to the algebraical problem from which
he had been raped by the noise outside his room seemed to be for
everybody to go to bed. Agnes and Edna, their heads stuffed full of new
ideas, went giggling up-stairs, whither Dorothy, yawning very
elaborately, followed them. Roland decided that Cecil groaning over an
algebra problem would be more endurable than having to listen to a
renewal of the argument between Norah and his father, and he, too,
retired. The gradual melting away of the audience quieted Mr. Caffyn,
who, when he had lowered or extinguished all the gas-jets except those
in the dining-room, felt that he had shown himself master of his own
house, and returned to his arm-chair with the intention of nodding over
the minor news in the paper until he was ready for bed himself. Norah,
however, in spite of her mother's prods and whispered protests, brought
him sharply back to the matter in dispute.

"Suppose I insist on being engaged to Wilfred?" she began.

"Good Heavens!" cried Mr. Caffyn. "Am I never to be allowed a little bit
of peace? Here am I working all day to keep you clothed and fed, and
every night of my life is made a burden to me. You don't appreciate
what it is to have a father like me." His wife patted him soothingly and
flatteringly upon the shoulder as if she would assure him that they all
really appreciated the quality of his fatherhood very much. "Why, I know
fathers," went on Mr. Caffyn, indignantly, "who spend every evening at
their clubs, and upon my soul, I don't blame them. I was talking to the
Bishop of Chelsea to-day. He came into the office to consult me about
the scandalous language used at the whelk-stalls in Walham Road on
Saturday nights--we're taking up the question with the municipal
authorities. He told me I looked tired out. 'You look tired out, Mr.
Caffyn,' he said. 'I am tired out, my lord,' I answered. And _he_ was
very sympathetic."

"You hear that, Norah dear?" said Mrs. Caffyn, twitching her fingers
with nervousness. "Now don't worry your father any more."

"As soon as he answers my question I sha'n't worry him any more. Suppose
I insist on being engaged to Wilfred Curlew? Suppose I run away and get
married to him?"

"Have you any conception what marriage means?" demanded Mr. Caffyn. "Do
you realize that I waited two years to marry your mother, and that I
didn't propose to her until it was quite evident that my poor father
must soon die? I suppose you don't want me to die, do you? Don't imagine
that my death will make any difference, please."

"Gilbert, Gilbert!" begged his wife.

"Well, really, nowadays children behave in such an extraordinary fashion
that it wouldn't surprise me at all to hear Norah was counting on my
death."

"Gilbert, Gilbert!" she repeated, and looked in agony at the gas, as if
she expected it to turn blue at such a horrible suggestion.

"If I don't marry Wilfred," Norah went on, "I must earn my own living."

"How?" inquired her father, with an assumption of blustering
incredulity.

"By going on the stage."

"On the stage?" he repeated. "Do you realize that only yesterday I had
to deal with the question of our attitude toward the posters of several
theaters?"

"That wouldn't have anything to do with me," said Norah.

"But how are you going on the stage?" her father continued.

"I should try to get an engagement."

"Oh, would you, indeed? Ha-ha! Your mind seems to be running on
engagements, my child. However, this engagement is even more visionary
and improbable than the other one," said Mr. Caffyn, with a laugh. "I'm
afraid you think it's easier than it is, my dear girl. I have a little
experience of the stage--I regret to say chiefly of its worst side--and
I can assure you that it's not at all easy, really."

"But if I can get an engagement?" persisted Norah.

"Why, in that case we'll talk about it," said her father. "Yes, yes,
there'll be plenty of time to talk about that later on. And now if you
have no objection I should like to read what Mr. Balfour is saying about
Protection. It's a pity you don't try to take some interest in the
affairs of your country instead of-- However, I suppose that's _too_ much
to expect from the younger generation."

"I must have your promise," Norah insisted. "If I write to Wilfred
to-night and tell him he mustn't come to the house any more, will you
let me go on the stage?"

"We'll see about it," parried Mr. Caffyn.

"No, I must have a definite promise."

"Must, Norah? Do, dear child, remember that you're speaking to your
father," murmured her mother.

"Oh, that's the modern way we bring up our children," said Mr. Caffyn.
"Before I know where I am I shall have Vincent ordering me up to bed."

His wife laughed with such conjugal enthusiasm at his joke that the last
vestige of Mr. Caffyn's ill humor disappeared, and, being suddenly
struck with the extreme beauty of his eldest daughter as she waited
there bright-eyed in expectation of his answer, he promised her that if
she would break off all communication with that confounded young Curlew
and could obtain an engagement for herself, he would probably not create
any difficulties. Her face lit up with satisfaction and, bending over,
she kissed her father on the forehead with as much good will as a young
woman kisses an elderly lover who has promised her some diamonds she has
long desired.


IV

Norah kept her word and wrote a letter to Wilfred Curlew in which she
pointed out the impossibility of embarking on a prolonged and quite
indefinite engagement, wished him good luck for the future, and made it
clear that she did not intend to have anything more to do with him. The
portion of the letter on which she most prided herself was the
postscript: "_Don't think that I bear you any ill will. I don't._" The
peace that had lately fallen over South Africa left Wilfred no
opportunity of putting his despair at the service of his country; but
Norah's behavior benefited the young journalist in the long run by
teaching him to mistrust human nature as much as God, a useful lesson
for a democrat. Norah, having disembarrassed herself of her suitor, set
out in earnest to get on the stage and confided her ambition to Lily.
Mrs. Haden's advice was asked, and Norah as a friend of her daughter was
given lessons in elocution and deportment without being charged a penny.
Mrs. Haden demonstrated to her that she stood very little chance of
getting on the stage until she could recite "Jack Barrett Went to
Quetta" or "Soldier, Soldier, Come from the Wars" with what she called
as much intention as herself; in other words, until the story of Jack
Barrett was awarded as much pomp of utterance as the Messenger's speech
in Hippolytus and the demobilized soldier greeted with Ophelia's
driveling whine. Mrs. Haden would not allow that her pupil's looks were
nearly as important as her ability to mouth Rudyard Kipling--perhaps,
the pupil thought, because her mistress had a pretty daughter of her
own. September deepened to October, October dimmed to November while
Norah was wrestling with her dread of seeming ridiculous and was
acquiring the unnatural diction that was to be of such value to her
first appearance. The lessons came to an abrupt end soon after Mrs.
Haden had begun upon her deportment, which to Norah seemed to consist of
holding her hands as if she were waiting to rinse them after eating
bread and treacle, and of sitting down on a chair as if she had burst
one suspender and expected the other to go every minute. One morning
when she arrived at Shelley Mansions for her lesson Lily came to the
door of the flat and with fearful backward glances cried out that her
mother was lying dead in bed.

"Dead?" echoed Norah, irritably. She was always irritated by a sudden
alarm. "I wish you wouldn't--" She was going to say "play jokes," but
she saw that Lily was speaking the truth, and, having been taught by
Mrs. Haden how to suit the action to the word, the expression to the
emotion, she contrived to look sympathetic.

"She must have died of heart, the doctor says. I went to see why she
didn't ring for her tea and she didn't answer, and when I thought she
was asleep she was really dead."

Norah shuddered.

"I'm awfully sorry I've disturbed you in the middle of all this," she
murmured.

"But I'm glad you've come," said Lily.

"It's awfully sweet of you, my dear, to be glad; but I wouldn't dream of
worrying you at such a moment. And don't stand there shivering in your
nightgown. Take my advice and dress yourself. It will distract your mind
from other things. You must come round and see me this afternoon, and
I'll try to cheer you up. I shall stay in for you. Don't forget."

Norah hurried away from Shelley Mansions, thinking while she walked home
how easily this untoward event in the Haden household might hasten the
achievement of her own ambition. Lily would obviously have to do
something at once, and it would be nice for her to have a companion with
whom she could start her career upon the stage. Norah had not intended
to take any definite steps until her nineteenth birthday in March, but
she was anxious to show her sympathy with Lily, and it was much kinder,
really, to make useful plans for the future than to hang about the
stricken flat, getting in everybody's light. If Lily came this afternoon
they would be able to discuss ways and means; it would be splendid for
Lily to be taken right out of herself; it would be nice to invite her
after the funeral to come and stay in Lonsdale Road, so that they could
talk over things comfortably without always having to go out in this wet
weather; yet such an excellent suggestion would be opposed by the family
on the ground that there was no room for a stranger. How intolerable
that the existence of so many brothers and sisters should interfere with
the claims of friendship! Perhaps she could persuade Dorothy to sleep
with Gladys and Marjorie for a week or two. She and Lily should have so
much to talk over, and if Dorothy were in the room with them it would be
an awful bore. Full of schemes for Lily's benefit, she approached her
sister on the subject of giving up her bed.

"Anything more you'd like?" asked Dorothy, indignantly.

"I think," said Norah, "that you are without exception the most selfish
girl I ever met in all my life."

Dorothy grunted at this accusation, but she refused to surrender her
bed, and Norah soon gave up talking in general terms about people who
were afraid to expose themselves to a little inconvenience for the sake
of doing a kind action, because Lily arrived next day with the news that
her sister had obtained leave to be "off" for a week and was advising
her to do everything she could to get an engagement as soon as possible.
There were problems of arrears of rent and unpaid bills from the
solution of which it would be advantageous for Lily to escape by going
on tour. The few personal possessions of their mother the sisters would
divide between them, and the undertaker was to be satisfied at the
expense of a fishmonger who, being new to West Kensington, had let Mrs.
Haden run an account.

"And your father?" Norah could not help asking; but Lily avoided a
reply, and Norah, who had been too well brought up to ask twice, formed
her own conclusions.

"Anyway, my dear," she assured her friend, "you can count on me. I
hadn't intended to do anything definite until I was nineteen, but of
course I'm not going to desert you. So we'll go and interview managers
together."

"Doris advises me to try Walter Keal," said Lily. "Dick--her
husband--has given me a letter for him which may be useful, he says."

"Who's Walter Keal?"

"Don't you know?" exclaimed Lily. "He sends out all the Vanity shows."

Norah bit her lips in mortification. She hated not to know things and
decided to avoid meeting Doris, who as a professional actress of at
least a year's standing would be likely to patronize her.

"You see," Lily went on, "he'll be sending out 'Miss Elsie of Chelsea'
at the end of December, and if we could get in the chorus we should be
all right till June."

"The chorus?" echoed Norah, disdainfully. "I never thought of joining
the chorus of a musical comedy."

"It might only be for a few months, and when you're with Walter Keal
there's always the chance of getting to the Vanity."

"A Vanity girl!" repeated Norah, scornfully. "For everybody to look at!"

Lily told her friend that it was better to be looked at as a Vanity girl
than to spend her life looking at other people from a window in West
Kensington.

"But I can't sing," Norah objected.

"Sing! Who ever heard of a chorus-girl that could sing?"

The lowly position of a Vanity girl was not proof against the alchemy of
Norah's self-esteem; she made up her mind to renounce Pinero and all his
works and go into musical comedy.

When the two friends reached the small street off Leicester Square and
saw extending up the steps of the building in which the offices of Mr.
Walter Keal were situated an endless queue of girls waiting to interview
the manager, Norah was discouraged.

"Oh, he has lots of companies," Lily explained. Then she addressed
herself to a dirty-faced man with a collar much too large for him who
was in charge of the entrance.

"You give me your letter, and it'll be all right."

"But it's for Mr. Keal himself," Lily protested.

"That's all right, my dear; your turn'll come."

The women immediately in front looked round indignantly at Lily, and
Norah, who was beginning to feel self-conscious, begged her not to make
a fuss. This was advice Lily always found easy to take, and, the
introduction from her brother-in-law stowed away in the dirty-faced
man's pocket, she and Norah took their places in the queue. Every ten
minutes or so a good-looking girl, obviously well pleased with herself,
would descend briskly from the glooms above; but mostly at intervals of
about thirty seconds depressed women, powdering their noses as
nonchalantly as possible, came down more slowly. Foot by foot Norah and
Lily, who by now had a trail of women behind them, struggled higher up
the steps. There was a continuous murmur of sibilant talk punctuated by
shrill laughter, and the atmosphere, thickly flavored with cheap scent,
perspiration, damp, clothes, and cigarette smoke, grew more oppressive
with each step of the ascent. At last they turned the corner of the
first landing and saw ahead of them a shorter flight; half-way up this,
another landing crowded with girls came into view, the three doors
opening on which were inscribed "Walter Keal's Touring Companies" in
white paint; a muffled sound of typewriting seemed auspiciously
business-like amid this babbling, bedraggled, powdered mass of anxious
women. By the central door another dirty-faced man was ushering in the
aspirants one at a time.

"We ought to have given my letter to him," said Lily.

"Well, don't go back for it now," Norah begged, looking in dismay at the
throng behind.

They must have been waiting over two hours when at last they found
themselves face to face with the janitor. A bell tinkled as a bright
figure emerged from the door on the left and hurried away down the steps
without regarding the envious glances of the unadmitted; immediately
afterward the door in front of them opened, and they passed through to
the office.

"One at a time," the janitor called; but Norah quickly shut the door
behind them, and she and Lily were simultaneously presented for the
inspection of Mr. Walter Keal.

The office was furnished with a large roll-top desk, three chairs, and a
table littered with papers which a dowdy woman in pince-nez was trying
to put in some kind of order. The walls were hung with playbills; the
room was heavy with cigar smoke. Mr. Walter Keal, a florid, clean-shaven
man with a diamond pin in his cravat, a Malmaison carnation in his
buttonhole, and a silk hat on the back of his head, was bending over the
desk without paying the least attention to the new-comers. Standing
behind him in an attitude that combined deference toward Mr. Keal with
insolence toward the rest of the world was a young man of Jewish
appearance who stared critically at the two girls.

"You don't remember me, Mr. Keal," began Lily, timidly. "I was
introduced to you once in the Strand by my brother-in-law, Richard
Granville."

"I'm sure you were," interrupted Mr. Keal, curtly; but when he looked up
and saw that Lily was pretty he changed his tone. "That's all right;
don't be frightened. I've met so many girls in my time. Well, what can I
do for you?"

"I had a letter of introduction from my brother-in-law, Mr. Granville,"
Lily began again.

"Never heard of the gentleman," said Mr. Keal.

Norah, feeling that she and Lily stood once more on an equality, came
forward with assurance.

"We thought you were choosing girls for the chorus in 'Miss Elsie of
Chelsea.'"

"Full up," the manager snapped.

The Jewish young man bent over and whispered something to his master,
who took a long look at the girls.

"However, I might find you two extra places. What experience have you
had? None, eh? Can you sing? You think so. Um--yes--all girls think they
can sing. Well, I'll give you a chance, but I can't offer more than a
guinea a week of seven performances. If you don't like to take that,
there are plenty who will and be grateful. It's my Number One company."

Norah did not wait for Lily, but accepted for both of them.

"Are they going to let us have the club in Lisle Street, Fitzmaurice?"
the manager turned to inquire of his assistant.

"Yes, Mr. Keal. The club has arranged to lend their concert-room every
morning and afternoon this week, but if you want any evening calls we
shall have to make other arrangements."

"But ---- it all," Mr. Keal exclaimed, "when are we going to get the
stage?"

"They won't be able to let us have it till the week before Christmas."

"That's a nice ruddy job," grumbled Mr. Keal. "All right, dears," he
said, "go in there and get your contracts." He pointed to the room
adjoining, where, amid an infernal rattle of typewriters, Lily and Norah
sold their untried talents to Mr. Keal for a guinea a week of seven
performances, extra matinées to be paid for at half rate, and a
fortnight's salary in lieu of notice to be considered just. When she
took up the pen to sign the contract Norah paused.

"You've put your own name, Lily," she said, doubtfully.

"Oh, I can't be bothered to think of a new name. Besides, my own is
quite a good one for the stage."

"Yes, but I ought to change mine. I think I shall call myself Dorothy
Lonsdale. Do you like that?"

"You've got a sister called Dorothy. Won't she be rather annoyed?"

Norah tried to think of another name, but she was confused by the noise
of the typewriters, and at last she ejaculated, impatiently:

"Oh, bother, I must be Dorothy! I've always known it would suit me much
better than her. I shouldn't mind if she called herself Norah. Besides,
I sha'n't be Dorothy Caffyn, so what does it matter?"

They were told that their contracts would be handed to them at the
rehearsal called for to-morrow morning at the Hungarian Artistes' Club,
Lisle Street, Leicester Square.

"How easy it is, really," said Norah, when she and Lily were going
down-stairs again, past the line of tired women still waiting to be
admitted. "Though I thought his language was rather disgusting. Didn't
you?"

"I didn't notice it," said Lily. "But you'll have to get used to bad
language on the stage."

"I shall never get used to it," Norah vowed, with a disdainful glance at
a particularly common-looking girl who, tossing the feathers in her hat
like a defiant savage, called out:

"God! Flo, look at Mrs. Walter Keal coming down-stairs."

The girls round her laughed, and Norah hurried past angrily. She had
been intending to patronize Lily; after that remark it was not so easy.

Just as they reached the foot of the first flight of steps the
dirty-faced janitor bawled over the balustrade, "Mr. Keal can't see any
more ladies to-day."

Sighs of disappointment and murmurs of indignation rose from the
actresses; then they turned wearily round and prepared to encounter the
December rain.

"You'd better come and call for me to-morrow," said Norah, "so that we
can go to the rehearsal together. Think of me to-night when I'm trying
to explain to father what I've done."

"Will he be very angry?"

"Yes, I expect he will, and though I know how to manage him it's always
a nuisance having to argue," said Norah. "You're lucky not to have a
father."

Lily looked at her friend quickly and suspiciously.

"I mean you're lucky to be quite on your own," she explained.

The moment Mr. Caffyn came home from the city that evening Norah
revealed to him that she had got an engagement in a touring company and
reminded him of his promise. As she had expected, he tried to go back on
his word, and even brought up the old objection to a daughter of his
going on the stage.

"Nobody will know that I'm your daughter," she said. "I shall change my
name, of course."

"But people are sure to hear about it," Mr. Caffyn argued.

Norah pulled him up suddenly.

"It's no good going on about it, father. I've got an engagement and I'm
going to accept it. If you try to prevent me I shall do something much
worse."

Mr. Caffyn's dislike of the stage may not have been as deep as he
pretended, or he may have thought that his daughter really intended to
do something desperate and that he might be called upon to support her
in married life, which would be more expensive than supporting her on
the stage. Moreover, she seemed so confident that perhaps he might never
have to support her on the stage, and what a delightful solution of her
future that would be! After all, she was the eldest of six girls, and
six girls rapidly growing up might become too much even for the
secretary of the Church of England Purity Society to control
successfully.

Mrs. Caffyn melted into tears at the idea of her eldest daughter's
earning her own living, and Norah decided to profit by maternal
weakness.

"The only thing, mother dear, is that I shall be very poor."

"Darling child!"

"You see, I don't like to ask father to make me a larger allowance than
he makes at present."

"Oh no," agreed Mrs. Caffyn, apprehensively. "I beg you won't ask him to
do that."

"So my idea was--" Norah began. She paused for a moment to think how she
could express herself most tactfully. "Mother, you have a certain amount
of money of your own, haven't you?"

"Yes, dear."

"And I suppose it's really you who makes me my allowance of twenty-five
pounds a year? What I thought was that perhaps you'd rather give me a
lump sum now when it would be more useful than go on paying me an
allowance. Another thing is that I should hate to feel I was coming into
money when you died, and, of course, if you gave me my money now I
shouldn't feel that."

"My dear child, how am I to find any large sum of money now? It's very
sweet of you to put it in that way, but you don't understand how
difficult these matters are."

"How much money have you got of your own?" asked Norah.

Mrs. Caffyn thought this was rather an improper question; but Norah was
looking so very grown up that she did not like to elude the answer as
she had been wont to elude many answers of many childish questions
through all these years of married life.

"Well, dear," she said, with the air of one who was revealing a
dangerous family secret, "I suppose you're old enough to hear these
things now. I have three hundred pounds a year of my own--at least, when
I say of my own, you mustn't think that means three hundred a year to
spend on myself. Your father is very just, and though he helps me as
much as he is able, all the money is taken up in household expenses."

"Well, twenty-five pounds a year," said Norah, "at five per cent. is the
interest on five hundred pounds."

"Is it, dear?" asked her mother, in a frightened voice.

"If you give me five hundred pounds now you wouldn't have to pay me
twenty-five pounds a year. And if you lived for another twenty-five
years you'd save one hundred and twenty-five pounds that way."

Mrs. Caffyn looked as if she would soon faint at these rapid
calculations.

"How am I to get five hundred pounds?" she asked, hopelessly.

"You must go and see the manager of your bank."

"But Roland is a clerk in my bank," Mrs. Caffyn objected. "And what
would _he_ say?"

"Roland!" repeated Norah, with scorn. "You don't suppose Roland knows
everything that goes on in the bank?"

"No, I suppose he doesn't," agreed Mrs. Caffyn, wonderingly.

"If you like _I'll_ go and see the bank manager," Norah offered. "He
took rather a fancy to me, I remember, when he came to supper with us
once."

"Norah, how recklessly you talk!" protested Mrs. Caffyn. But Norah was
firm and she did not rest until she had persuaded her mother to ask for
an interview with the manager, to whom she made herself so charming and
with whom she argued so convincingly that in the end she succeeded in
obtaining the £500.

"Though what your father will say I don't like to think, dear," said
Mrs. Caffyn, as she tremblingly mounted an omnibus to go home.

"I don't see why father should know anything about it, and if he does he
can't say anything. It's your money."

"Let's hope he'll never find out," Mrs. Caffyn sighed, though she had
little hope really of escaping from detection in what she felt was
something perilously like a clever bank robbery--the sort of thing one
read about in illustrated magazines.

Norah determined to be very cautious at rehearsals and she advised Lily
to be the same.

"Of course, we shall gradually make friends with the other girls, but
don't let's be in too much of a hurry, especially as we've got each
other. And if you take my advice you'll be very reserved with the men."

Since Norah had found how easy it was to get on the stage her opinion of
Mr. Vavasour had sunk, and since she had found how easy it was to get
out of love her opinion of men in general had sunk. On the other hand,
her opinion of herself as an actress and as a woman had risen
proportionately. Meanwhile the rehearsals proceeded as rehearsals do,
and the No. I company of "Miss Elsie of Chelsea" was harried from
club-room to club-room, from suburban theater to metropolitan theater,
until it was ready to charm the city of Manchester on Boxing Night.

On Christmas Eve, the last evening that Norah would spend at home for
some time, she decided in an access of honesty to tell Dorothy that she
had taken her name for purposes of the stage. Most unreasonably, Dorothy
protested loudly against this, and it transpired in the course of the
dispute that she had all her life resented being the only one of the
family who had not been given two names. Norah's own second name,
Charlotte, which was also her mother's, had never struck her before as
anything in the nature of an asset, but now with much generosity she
offered to lend it to Dorothy, who refused it as scornfully as she could
without hurting her mother's feelings.

"Why couldn't you have taken Lina or Florence or Amy or Maud?" Dorothy
demanded. These were the second names of the other sisters. "And,
anyway, what's the matter with your own name?"

"I don't know," said Norah. "Dorothy Lonsdale struck me as a good
combination, and the more I think of it the better I like it."

"Lonsdale," everybody repeated. "Are you going to call yourself
Lonsdale?"

"It's the family name," Norah reminded them.

This was quite true; Lonsdale had been the maiden name of Mrs. Caffyn's
mother, who, according to a family legend, had been a distant kinswoman
of Lord Cleveden. Indeed, before Mr. Caffyn was married he had often
used this connection to overcome his father's opposition to a long
engagement. When he had bought the house in Lonsdale Road he had liked
to think for a while that in a way he was doing something to restore the
prestige of a distant collateral branch; the transaction had possessed a
flavor of winning back an old estate. Naturally, as he grew older, he
ceased to attach the same importance to mere birth, especially when he
found that he did not require any self-assertion to get on perfectly
well with the bishops who came to consult him about diocesan scandals.
Therefore he was inclined to take his eldest daughter's part and
applaud her choice of a stage name.

"But suppose I wanted to go on the stage myself?" Dorothy insisted. "I
might want to use my own name."

"Well, so you could," Norah urged. "You could be Miss Dorothy Caffyn.
But you won't go on the stage, so what's the good of arguing like that?
Anyway, I've signed the contract as Dorothy Lonsdale, so there's nothing
to be done. _I_ can't change."

"I do think it's mean of you," expostulated the real Dorothy, bursting
into tears.

Norah would not allow anybody to come and see her off at Euston on
Christmas morning, and Mr. Caffyn, who did not at all like the idea of a
four-wheeler's waiting outside his house on such a day, helped his
daughter's plans by marshaling the whole family for church half an hour
earlier than usual, so that the farewells were said indoors. Lily had
left the flat a fortnight ago and, having been staying in some
Bloomsbury lodgings recommended by her sister, was to meet her friend at
the station. At a quarter to eleven, amid the clangor of church bells,
the cab of Norah Caffyn turned out of Lonsdale Road into the main street
of West Kensington, and at noon on the platform at Euston Miss Lily
Haden wished a Merry Christmas to Miss Dorothy Lonsdale.




CHAPTER II


I

The ostriches of northern Patagonia are said to indulge in co-operative
nesting: half a dozen hens one after another proceed to lay in a shallow
cavity numerous eggs, the incubation of which is left to a male bird.
Similarly, for the consummation of a musical comedy half a dozen
lyrists, librettists, and composers lay their heads together in a
shallow cavity and leave the result of their labor to be given life by a
producer. "Miss Elsie of Chelsea," not being an exceptional musical
comedy, will not repay a more thorough analysis. The first act developed
in a painter's studio; in the second act everybody from the models in
the chorus to the millionaire and his daughter whom the painter wanted
to marry were transported to Honolulu. It was produced at the Vanity
Theater under Mr. John Richards's management in the early autumn of the
year 1902, and for many seasons it attracted large audiences all over
the civilized world.

During the first fortnight of the tour, a fortnight of unending rain in
Manchester, Dorothy, as she must be called henceforth, was inclined to
think that life on the stage was not much more exciting than life in
West Kensington, and certainly twice as tiring. It was holiday time,
with two performances a day for eight days, and only in the second
week--or more strictly in the third week, for Boxing Day fell upon a
Friday that year--was she able to look about her in the small world
where she must spend the next six months of her existence. She soon came
to the conclusion that such an environment would not be tolerable for
longer, and she made up her mind to escape from touring as soon as
possible into a London engagement.

While she was still rehearsing in town she had paid one or two visits to
the Vanity Theater, partly because it pleased her to hand in a card
inscribed, "Miss Dorothy Lonsdale. Mr. Walter Keal's Miss Elsie of
Chelsea Co.," but chiefly with the object of studying the demeanor,
dress, appearance, and talents of the various members of the Vanity
chorus, especially of the show-girls. The result of her observations was
a strong belief that she was as graceful, as well able to set off
clothes, as beautiful, and as good an actress as any of them. At the
same time, she had begun to hear girls in the company talk about
"getting across the footlights" and had realized that her own
personality's powers of projection were still untested. If at the end of
the tour it was brought home to her that with all her qualities "off"
she lacked the most important one of all "on," she should immediately
retire from the stage forever. The life itself did not attract her, and
to spend years growing older and older in the environment of a
provincial company seemed to Dorothy wilful self-deception; liberty at
such a price would be worse than a comfortable servitude to suburban
convention.

When on that wet Christmas morning at Euston she had seen the companions
to close contact with whom she was bound for six months--a polychromatic
group of crude pink complexions, mauve veils, electric seal, and
exaggerated boots, looking in the mass like a shop-window in a
second-rate thoroughfare, the sort of shop-window that has bundles of
overcoats hanging outside the doorway, which indeed the men
resembled--she had felt a sudden revulsion from them all, which those
days in Manchester had done nothing to cure.

The first fortnight's bills for board and lodging had already shown
Dorothy that existence on a guinea a week was not going to be easy; if
she were ever engaged for London, she should require money to dress
herself well at the beginning of her career, and it was imperative to
save every penny she possibly could now in order to preserve intact the
£500 she had obtained from her mother. An immediate economy would be
effected in their weekly expenses if she and Lily could persuade another
girl to share lodgings with them, and Dorothy began to study the ranks
of the chorus for a suitable partner. Of course, from a social point of
view she would have preferred to live with one of the principals, but
the principals had not yet paid any attention to her, and she would not
risk making advances first; besides, their standard of living might be
too high for one who did not intend to waste money on the provinces. But
when she considered her companions of the chorus, the dreadful language
many of them used, the outrageous stories they told at the top of their
voices, and, worst of all, their cockney accents, Dorothy shrank from
extending the enforced intimacy of the dressing-room to her weekly home.
This problem had not been solved when on the third Sunday after
Christmas the company left Manchester for Birmingham, and by the newly
arranged order of traveling Miss Dorothy Lonsdale found herself allotted
to share a compartment with Miss Lily Haden, Miss Fay Onslow, and Miss
Sylvia Scarlett.

Miss Onslow was unmistakably the senior member of the chorus and had
reached the happy period of an actress's life when she has no more need
to bother about keeping her reminiscences too nicely in focus. She was,
in fact, as even she herself admitted, not far off forty; in a railway
train on a wet January afternoon the kindest observer would have assumed
that her next landmark was fifty. A month ago Dorothy would have
shuddered to find herself on an equality with such a person; but
asperous is the astral road, and she had to make the best of Miss Onslow
by treating her with at least as much cordiality as she would have shown
to a small dressmaker from whom she wanted a dress by the end of the
week. Gradually, as her new surroundings became familiar, Dorothy had
brought herself to call Miss Onslow "Onzie," and though the abbreviation
made her gorge rebel as from cod-liver oil, she bravely persevered.
Instinctively she knew that this was the only woman in the chorus whose
counsel she could trust, the only one who would honestly tell her if she
looked better with or without an artificial teardrop. The sum of Onzie's
experience was hers for the asking; the middle-aged actress was an
academician of grease-paint, serving alike as a warning and an example
to the student; while her knowledge of the various towns in which the
company had dates was evidently profound. Already she had provided
Dorothy with an address for Birmingham; but these rooms to be enjoyed
without the prickings of extravagance required a third partner. Dorothy,
anxious to profit still further by Onzie's experience, suggested that
she should join Lily and herself; but that very experience for which the
novice was greedy made the old professional shake her head:

"No, thank you, ducky," she said. "I always live alone nowadays. You
see, I've got my own little peculiarities. Besides, when my best boy
comes down to see me he likes to see me alone. When I was with the
'Geisha' crowd last year I obliged one of the girls by sharing rooms
with her in Middlesbrough, and as luck would have it George selected
Middlesbrough to pay me a little visit. He was really very aggravated
indeed, and he said to me, 'Fay,' he said, 'whatever's the use of me
coming all the way up to Middlesbrough if I can't ever see you?' So I
had to tell the other girl--Lexie Sharp her name was--that the
arrangement didn't work, and what do you think she did? Well, if you'll
believe me, she went about telling everybody that I was jealous of her
over George! Luckily for me she was a girl who was very well known for
her tongue and nobody paid any attention to her; still, it was
uncomfortable for me, though I deserved it for breaking one of my rules.
Who knows? George may come up to Birmingham. It's just the sort of place
he would select for a visit, because, being a London fellow, he feels
out of it in too small a town. Of course, he has nothing to do with the
stage himself. Oh dear me, no, nothing whatever! He lives at Tulse Hill
with two aunts, one of which has a growth in the throat and may go off
at any moment, which prevents George working, as she's so particular
about having him always close at hand. Well, any one ought to understand
an aunt's feelings--I'm sure I can--but some of the girls last year used
to criticize him something dreadful behind my back, until really I was
glad to say good-by to them all. But this seems a much nicer crowd we're
in now."

"We've only been in it a fortnight," said Miss Scarlett from the other
corner of the carriage.

Dorothy looked at the speaker curiously. She was a girl who had joined
the company for the last three rehearsals and during this first
fortnight in Manchester had kept herself apart. Lily had spoken to her
once or twice, but Dorothy, who was afraid there might be an unpleasant
reason for such deliberate seclusion, had begged Lily not to be in too
great a hurry to make friends with her. During Onzie's monologue Miss
Scarlett had apparently been unconscious of what was happening in the
compartment, and from the corner opposite Lily she had been staring out
at the landscape, that was scarred and grimed and misshapen by industry
like the hands of the toilers who lived in it. She was different from
all the other girls, Dorothy was thinking--rather foreign-looking with
her deep, brown, slanted eyes and mass of untidy brown hair, her wide
nose, high cheek-bones, and distinctly ugly mouth, the underlip of which
only just escaped protruding. She was dressed, too, in a style that was
quite unlike that of anybody else and without any regard for the
prevailing fashion. Dorothy remembered with a flickering smile that
when she had first seen her at rehearsals she had thought she was one of
the Hungarian artistes who had come to see why her club-room was being
used by a theatrical company. Now when in a deep voice she suddenly
turned round and commented on Fay Onslow's last remark Dorothy was
astonished to hear that she spoke the same kind of English as herself;
she indeed, in her surprise, almost gave utterance aloud to her thought
that this gipsy creature was a lady.

"Hell! I've left my cigarettes behind," the lady ejaculated.

"There now, what a nuisance for you!" said the good-natured Onzie. "Have
one of mine, dear."

"Which are they? Turks or Virgins?" asked Miss Scarlett, leaning over
and screwing up her eyes to see what Onzie was offering.

Dorothy corrected her opinion and decided that Miss Scarlett had been a
lady once upon a time; yet even while she was condemning her vulgarity
she was thinking that her ladyhood was not so far away in the past. Her
speech and manner had the assurance of age, but she could not be much
more than twenty-two or twenty-three, perhaps not even so much as that.

Presently the train stopped for a dreary Sunday wait, and while some of
the gentlemen of the company, with a view to future favors, were
scuttling about the platform in search of tea for the ladies from whom
they would demand them, Dorothy took this opportunity of asking Lily
what she thought about inviting Sylvia Scarlett to share their rooms at
Birmingham.

"She seems quite different from the other girls," Dorothy explained. "I
mean, she talked as if she was a lady. Don't you think so? And really,
you know, we can't afford these rooms unless we do get a third person."

Lily was quite ready to accept Miss Scarlett's company, though, as
Dorothy thought impatiently, she would have been equally willing to
accept the dresser's, if Dorothy had thought of inviting the dresser to
share rooms with them.

"Do you want a cup of tea, Lil?" a young man came along and asked at
this moment. When Lily declared that she should love a cup of tea, he
hurried off toward the buffet.

"Do you know him?" asked Dorothy, in surprise.

"Only since we joined the company."

"But he's one of the chorus-boys, isn't he?"

"Yes."

"And you let him call you Lily already?" Dorothy hoped it was no worse
than Lily; it had sounded dreadfully like Lil.

"Why shouldn't I?"

"Of course, it's your own business," said Dorothy, turning coldly away
to eye Sylvia Scarlett, who was striding up and down the platform with
both hands in the pockets of a frieze overcoat and looking so
independent of everybody in the world that she felt shy of interrupting
her. At that moment Lily was carried off by the chorus-boy for a cup of
tea, which, had it been arsenic, Dorothy could not have declined more
indignantly, and she found herself alone upon the platform and exposed
to the glances of the comedian, a debased sport from the famous Vanity
comedian whose mannerisms he had reproduced in the provinces as well as
he was able for fifteen years, and would probably continue to reproduce
for as many more. A small and ugly man, Joe Wiltshire had become so
hardened to women's snubs that by sheer recklessness and
indiscrimination he managed to fill his bag. If he was weak with
rocketing pheasants he never hesitated to pot a sitting rabbit; in other
words, he made love to every woman he met and found 5 per cent. of them
amenable. Now with a view to impressing the prettiest girl in the chorus
he was being funny with two bottles of stout and a corkscrew; but though
he managed to cheer up the porter on duty, he failed to amuse Dorothy,
who seized an opportunity of escaping from the performance by attaching
herself to Sylvia Scarlett on her return promenade.

"I say," she began, in her best West Kensington manner. "I hope you
won't think it awful cheek on my part, but my friend and I--you know,
that pretty, fair girl who was in our carriage--would be awfully glad if
you'd join us this week in our digs. Awfully nice rooms, but rather
expensive for two, though we ought to be able to manage quite reasonably
with three. Of course, if you're already fixed--"

"I've never been fixed in my life," said Miss Scarlett, sharply, "and I
certainly don't intend to be fixed in Birmingham."

"No, I say, shut up; don't laugh. Have you been on the stage long?"

"Two weeks and two days."

"Oh, I say, really, then this is your first shop?"

Dorothy felt more at ease now that she knew she had not got to deal with
a veteran of the profession; this new girl was obviously not one to be
patronized, but there was now no reason to anticipate patronage on her
side. With the removal of this danger Dorothy became more natural in her
manner, and by the time the line was cleared for the theatrical special
to proceed the bargain had been struck by which Sylvia Scarlett would
share rooms with herself and Lily.

"I say, I hope you don't mind my making personal remarks," said Dorothy,
"but you're looking most awfully tired."

She had intended this remark to effect a breach in the other girl's
reserve, but it apparently had the contrary effect of raising the
barrier still higher. She drew back slightly huffed, and Sylvia, leaning
over, with a quick expansive gesture put a hand on her arm and told her
not to be offended if she was not being confidential, but that she was
enjoying the luxury of complete privacy after a period of disagreeable
publicity. Dorothy would have preferred more exact information; even in
childhood she had always felt inclined to cry when people had asked her
riddles, and Roland's favorite way of teasing her had been to invent
riddles without answers; however, she comforted herself with the
reflection that Sylvia really was a lady, which at any rate ought to be
a guaranty that the answer to that conundrum was not vulgar like the
dreadful answers to dressing-room conundrums.

The train dragged on through the wet January dusk and into the dripping
night of blurred lamps and distant furnaces, of ghostly Sunday travelers
and long platforms like stagnant streams. Conversation in the
compartment hung heavily upon the air like the moist breath of the tired
women in the four corners of it. Dorothy, whose touchstone of behavior
was self-respect, asked herself why Fay Onslow should mind living with
other girls, such intimate revelations of her private habits was she
making in the course of this journey. If a woman as fat as she was did
not feel the loss of her dignity in searching for a flea like that, why
should she want to live alone? And that was by no means the least
dignified thing she had done. This ostentatious disregard of life's
little decencies was certainly a regrettable side of theatrical life.
However, the fact that she herself had gone on the stage prevented
Dorothy from betraying her disapproval of such behavior. It would have
been contrary to her method of dealing with life to admit that she could
even expose herself to anything unseemly, still less that she might
succumb to it. From the moment that Dorothy went on the stage the
profession became above criticism, and the sense of collective propriety
that she inherited as her father's daughter was no longer capable of
being shocked. She crucified her fastidiousness; she was persecutor and
martyr at the same time and derived an equal consciousness of
superiority from either aspect of herself; in fact, the only thing in
life that seriously troubled Dorothy was a minute bleb of skin on her
left eyelid, and even that could be removed by a beauty doctor.

It was raining harder than ever when the train reached Birmingham, and
the girls decided to indulge in the luxury of a cab. The rooms looked as
if they really would be very comfortable, and the landlady insisted
proudly that managers had been known to stay in them, not mere business
managers whose only aim in life seemed to be making fusses about the
starching of their white shirts, but acting managers, one of whom had
even brought his children, which, as she pointed out, proved that the
lodgings were homely.

Sylvia was some time getting ready for supper, and Dorothy, thinking it
would not be nice to begin without her, made Lily wait quite half an
hour. When Sylvia did come down at last, Dorothy was nearly sure that
she had been crying, and the mystery of her origin once more obtruded
itself. Dorothy wished now that she had arranged for Sylvia and herself
to share the second room instead of Lily and herself. This strange new
girl perplexed her self-assurance, and she proposed that if the new
association prospered--they drank to its success in the pale India ale
which the landlady provided--they should take it week about to sleep in
the single room. Dorothy tried to extract confidences from Sylvia by
confiding in her the history of Lily as far as she knew it; when that
did not elicit anything she offered a gilded version of her own prior
circumstances. The following week at Derby she shared the bedroom with
Sylvia and went so far as to give her an almost truthful account of the
Wilfred Curlew business, but nothing could she get from Sylvia in
return. Moreover, there was nothing in her belongings that afforded a
clue to her history; there was not a single photograph or initialed
ornament; all her possessions were left lying about the room, and her
trunk was never locked; and when every morning the girls called at the
stage door for their correspondence she only in the company never
received a letter, nor even bothered to look if there was one waiting
for her in the rack. But if Sylvia was mute about the past she was not
at all reserved about the present. There was nobody like her for seizing
upon the eccentricities of the various members of the company to make
merry with, and if sometimes Dorothy felt that she went too far in
laughing at herself, she could not be angry because she used to laugh as
much, indeed more, at Lily. She was a match, too, for any landlady; and
gradually, as the association begun at Birmingham hardened into
permanency, Dorothy and Lily left the entire management of their weekly
home to Sylvia: who had a delightful capacity for keeping the weekly
bills reasonable without ever seeming to be economical.

Dorothy was too firmly convinced of the reality of her own beauty to be
an idealist, but if in after life any portion of her early experience on
the stage seemed to her worthy of idealization these first weeks with
Sylvia and Lily seemed so. Partly this was due to her discovery that
touring was not so unpleasant when she did not have to bother about
anything except her own appearance; but chiefly it was due to her
growing conviction of ultimate success. There was beginning to be no
doubt that even from the chorus of a musical comedy company on tour her
personality was getting across the footlights. Even Sylvia, the
mercilessly critical Sylvia, had prophesied success for her, and
Dorothy's dreams went past to the music of approaching triumphs. Her
mind was all a pageant, and the commonplace of touring existence--the
aroma of the theater, the flight from the great manufacturing towns on
still Sabbath mornings of black frost, the kaleidoscopic mustering of
the company at railway stations, the emptiness of new rooms untouched as
yet by the transience of the three girls, the garish mirrors hung with
velvet that held her beauty, the undulating horsehair sofas, the
sea-shells on the mantelpiece, the fire glowing in the grate, the dim
gas when they came home from the performance, the smell of Cheddar
cheese in the little room, the bright gas shining on the three places
laid for supper, the petticoats hanging over the bed up-stairs, the
oil-cloth in the passages, the noise of the landlady's family in the
stuffy kitchen--all these and a hundred more externals of touring
existence were in the years to come regarded affectionately as winter is
beheld from the radiance of a summer afternoon.

So from Derby "Miss Elsie of Chelsea" went to Leeds, from Leeds to
Bradford, from Bradford to Liverpool, from Liverpool to Newcastle. Then
from Newcastle the company ascended into Scotland, where genial
landladies and cakes and enthusiastic audiences compensated for east
winds.


II

Gradually, under the pressure of Sylvia's teasing, Dorothy allowed
herself to make friends with the other girls and to be superficially
polite with the men. She was never popular in the company in the way
that for different reasons Sylvia and Lily were popular; but perhaps her
disdain and conceit were pardoned as tokens of future success, because
she was not ostracized as she certainly would have been ostracized
without the fascination that favorites of fortune always exert upon the
rest of mankind. Besides, people said such spiteful things behind her
back that they had to be fairly pleasant to her face. The men in the
chorus one after another tried in vain to attract her attention whenever
the requirements of the scene gave them an excuse for talking to her.
But Dorothy used to respond as if the dialogue could really be heard by
the audience, which may have been artistic, but did not allow her
admirers much opportunity of cultivating a friendship. Off the stage she
would have nothing to do with any of them. The comedian made one or two
more attempts to charm her with buffoonery, but she told him that he was
even less funny off the stage than on, upon which he lost his temper
and swore she was a stuck-up cow; an alleged lack of humor in Scotland
had recently deprived Mr. Wiltshire of some of his best laughs, and he
was in no mood to be criticized by a chorus-girl.

"If you speak to me again like that," said Dorothy, primly, "I shall
complain to Mr. Warren."

"Wow-wow-wow!" the comedian mimicked.

"Never mind, Joe," said Sylvia, who was standing close by in the wings.
"If you manage to break your leg with your next entrance you'll get a
laugh, all right."

"You think yourself very funny, don't you?" growled Mr. Wiltshire.

"Yes, but I haven't got to convince a Scotch audience that I am," said
Sylvia.

The comedian's cue came before he could retort, and, falling over his
feet in a way that would have made a more southerly audience rock with
mirth, he took the stage.

"Vulgar little beast!" said Dorothy.

Mr. Wiltshire never relaxed his efforts to charm the people of
Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, and Aberdeen to laughter, but he gave up
trying to amuse Dorothy, and thenceforth devoted himself to girls with a
keener sense of humor.

Once when Dorothy had refused to go for a long walk in the country round
Aberdeen, the glittering of the granite buildings on a fine March
morning tempted her out too late, and she wandered by herself along the
sea-shore toward the mouth of the Don until she was able, so windless
was the day, so warm the sun against the low sandy cliffs, to sit down
on the beach. It happened that Mr. David Bligh, the tenor in "Miss Elsie
of Chelsea," passed that way, and, seeing Dorothy, took a seat beside
her. She had never intended her reserve with the other men in the
company to include David Bligh, and from having felt rather sad at being
left behind by Sylvia and Lily she now congratulated herself on her good
fortune.

"All alone?" asked the tenor, fluting with his voice, as he always did
when he was speaking to a woman.

"All alone," said Dorothy. "Isn't it too bad?"

They discussed loneliness with poetic similes harvested from the sea,
upon the horizon of which nothing but a solitary tramp, hull down, was
visible. So long as Mr. David Bligh's attention had been devoted to Miss
May Seymour, the leading lady, Dorothy had been inclined to think that
he was not very good-looking, that he did not possess a very good voice,
and that probably he was not quite a gentleman. Now that he was beside
her on this lonely beach she was inclined to modify all these judgments
in his favor, and when suddenly he burst forth into "_Che gelido
manino_," suiting the action to the word by simultaneously taking hold
of her hand, she decided that not merely was his voice rather good, but
that it was lovely.

"You really have a lovely voice," she told him.

He shrugged his shoulders, sighed, and with his stick drew some notes of
music in the sand.

"I wonder why you never took up opera," she inquired, in tender
astonishment.

"What's the good? The British public doesn't want British singers. Oh
no," he said, with a glance full of reproach for the indifference of the
sky, "I'm not fat enough for opera."

He went up the tonic scale to "la," frightening away some small
sea-birds that had just alighted on the gleaming sand by the tide's
edge.

"Let me hear your voice," he asked, abruptly.

Dorothy was gratified by this request. She had taken for granted the
tenor's interest in her appearance, but that this should extend to her
voice seemed to indicate something more profound than a casual
attraction. She assured him that she was too shy, but he continued to
persuade her, and at last she sang a part of one of the leading lady's
songs.

"Yes, it would be worth while taking some trouble with it," he judged.
"If you like I'll give you lessons. Have you got a piano in your rooms?"

"We have got a piano this week, as it happens," said Dorothy, "though I
should doubt if it had ever been played on. Come to tea this afternoon,
and we'll try it."

"You live with that Haden girl, don't you?"

"Do you think she's pretty?" Dorothy asked.

The tenor shrugged his shoulders.

"Oh yes, so-so. I really haven't noticed her much. She dyes her hair, I
suppose."

"No, it's natural," said Dorothy, resisting the temptation to insert a
qualifying, "I believe."

They discussed the varieties of feminine beauty; when the tenor had
managed to convey without direct compliments that Dorothy had every
feature a woman ought to have, she was convinced by his good taste that
her voice must be out of the ordinary.

"Good gracious! It's past two o'clock," she exclaimed, at last, when her
appetite began to assert itself in spite of ozone and flattery. "How
time flies!"

"_I_ dine at half past two. We'd better be strolling back."

It was after that hour when they reached Aberdeen, because David Bligh
was continually stopping on the desolate roads that led across the
low-lying lands between the city and the sea to illustrate with snatches
of song many episodes of his adventurous life as an actor in musical
comedy. Dorothy might have been bored by all this talk about himself if
he had not made it so clear that he really did admire her; as it was,
she assented warmly when he murmured, outside her lodgings:

"How quickly one can make friends sometimes!"

How quickly, indeed, when a man will show his admiration with his eyes
and a woman with her ears.

The others had not returned from their expedition along Deeside when tea
was finished, so Dorothy and the tenor took down the photographs and
china ornaments from the top of the piano, and presently an unfamiliar
sound brought in Mrs. Maclachlan, the landlady, to say that the piano
had not been used since her eldest daughter died ten years ago, and that
she would prefer that it was not used now. This was the kind of occasion
on which Dorothy missed Sylvia, who would have known how to deal with
the old woman; but David Bligh, without heeding her protests, continued
to strum. Mrs. Maclachlan at once put the bass clef out of action by
sitting down upon the notes, where, with arms akimbo, she maintained her
position and poured forth a torrent of unintelligible Scots labials.
Dorothy, horrified at the idea of a brawl with a woman who, even if she
did let rooms, obviously belonged to the servant class, begged the actor
not to play any more. In the end he agreed to resign from the contest
with Mrs. Maclachlan on condition that Dorothy would try her voice on
the piano in his rooms, where he was so encouraging about its quality
that she gave herself up to serious study, one result of which was that
henceforth she always had the second bedroom to herself, because her
voice seemed to require most exercise when Sylvia and Lily required most
sleep. The other girls in the company showed no inclination to believe
that Dorothy's friendship with David Bligh was founded upon his skill in
voice-production and they used to declare with conscious virtue that
such singing-lessons were merely an excuse for making love.

"Be careful, dear, with Bligh," Fay Onslow warned Dorothy. "He's known
all over the road for the way he treats girls. Look at May Seymour!
Really, I'm quite sorry for the poor thing. I'm sure she's beginning to
look her age."

This was good news about May Seymour, who had ignored her when she
joined the company; but though in other respects the leading lady's fate
might serve as a warning, Dorothy was much too secure of herself to
need any advice about David Bligh. To be sure, he had several times
seized the opportunity of examining his pupil's throat to kiss her, but
she had accepted the kisses with no more sense of their reality than if
they had been a doctor's bill, which in a way they were. However,
Dorothy was not accustomed to let herself be over-charged, and these
kisses were the only honorarium Mr. Bligh ever got. He was so much
piqued by her indifference that he mistook for a grand passion the
mortification set up by his failure to get her hopelessly in love with
him, and he made such a complete fool of himself over Dorothy that the
girls of the company were more annoyed than ever, and from having at
first been charitably anxious about her virtue they now became equally
severe upon her cruelty.

"The poor boy's getting quite thin," Fay Onslow declared. "You really
oughtn't to treat him like that. It's beginning to show in his acting."

Dorothy consulted Sylvia about David Bligh's decline, not because she
cared whether he was declining or not, but because it was an excuse to
talk about herself.

"Serve him right," said Sylvia.

"But I shouldn't like to think that he was really suffering on my
account."

"Lily and I are the only people who really suffer," said Sylvia.

"What do you mean?"

"My dear Dorothy, _we_ have to listen to the practising."

"You don't really mind my practising, do you?"

"I get rather bored with it sometimes."

"Yes, I suppose it is rather boring sometimes."

Dorothy decided that it was also rather boring of Sylvia to switch the
topic from her effect on David Bligh to the slight annoyance her
practising might sometimes cause her friends. However, she forgave her
by remembering that Sylvia had not the same inducement as herself to
study singing.

Meanwhile, Dorothy's occupation of the leading man left Lily free to
develop her deplorable taste for chorus-boys, and Dorothy found that her
own habit of practising scales in the morning and going out for walks
with David Bligh in the afternoon had resulted in continuous tea-parties
at their rooms, to which, whenever she wanted to stay at home in the
afternoon, she was most unfairly exposed. She might have put up with
Lily's behavior for the rest of the tour if at last a moment had not
come when it inconvenienced her personally. At Nottingham, which the
company reached in mid-April, the weather was so fine that Dorothy
accepted an invitation from an admirer in the front of the house to go
for a picnic on the river Trent. Until now she had discouraged all
introductions effected by the footlights, and she often marveled to
Sylvia at the way other girls accepted invitations to private houses
without knowing anything about their hosts. Perhaps she was already
beginning to feel that David Bligh had taught her all he knew about
voice-production, or perhaps the exceptionally smart automobile
grumbling outside the stage-door struck her as a proper credential, or
perhaps these April airs were irresistible.

"Really, you know, Sylvia," she said, "I think it would be rather fun to
go. But I'm shocked at myself for suddenly breaking my rules like this.
I wonder why I am breaking them. It must be the spring."

"The what?" repeated Sylvia.

"The spring," said Dorothy, hoping she did not look as affected as she
felt.

"If you had said the springs," said Sylvia, "I would have agreed
with you."

The owner of the car was the spoiled son of a rich lace manufacturer,
and, according to the stage-door keeper, famous in Nottingham for his
entertainment of actresses. What seemed more important to Dorothy was
that he had just arrived from Cambridge for the Easter vacation, which
decided her to accept his hospitality.

"You'll bring two friends?" suggested the young man.

"I'll bring the two girls with whom I share rooms."

"Topping!" he ejaculated, and with a sympathetic tootle of satisfaction
the champing car leaped forward into the night.

"You can't come to-morrow?" gasped Dorothy, when with much graciousness
she had advised Lily of the treat in store for her.

"No; I've promised to go with Tom to Sherwood Forest."

"Never mind, Maid Marian," said Sylvia. "We shall get along without you.
If you see the ghost of my namesake Will in the greenwood, give him my
love."

Dorothy was too angry to speak, and her resentment against Lily was
increased next morning when the big car arrived with three young men,
one of whom would have to spend an acrobatic day balancing himself on
tête-à-têtes. Nor was the picnic a great success; early in the afternoon
it came on to rain, and anything more dreary than the appearance of the
river Trent was unimaginable.

"Never mind," said the host, "you'll have to come up to Cambridge; we'll
entertain you properly there."

Apart from the rain which spoiled her hat, and the absence of Lily which
ruined any intimate conversation about herself, Dorothy was chiefly
upset by the contemptuous way in which these young Cambridge men
referred to the leading man.

"Why on earth do managers dress actors up in yachting costume?" asked
one of them. "I never saw such an ass as that man looked--David Blighter
or whatever he calls himself."

Dorothy could see Sylvia checking an impulse not to accentuate her
discomfiture by announcing her friendship with the despised tenor; but
she felt sufficiently humiliated without that, and when they got back to
their rooms she implored Sylvia to speak to Lily on the subject of
being too friendly with the men in the company.

"It makes us all so cheap," Dorothy pointed out. "Of course, we're on
tour and not likely to meet many friends who know us in London. Still,
it is unpleasant. You heard the way those boys talked about David? What
would they have said to Tom Hewitt? Besides, I get worried about Lily.
She _is_ very weak and she has been badly brought up. I'm awfully fond
of her, as you know, and I'd do anything for her; but really I cannot
stand that Hewitt creature, and I don't see why Lily should force him
upon us."

"I think it's rather foolish of her myself," agreed Sylvia. "At the same
time, I'm afraid that with Lily it's inevitable."

"Yes, but she lets him make love to her," protested Dorothy. "She
doesn't care a bit about him, really, but she's too lazy to say 'no'. I
came down the other day to find her sitting on his lap! Well, I think
that's disgusting. _You_ don't sit on people's laps; _I_ don't sit on
people's laps. Why should she? I know perfectly well what it is to be in
love; I've been in love lots of times. I don't want you to think I'm
setting out to make myself seem better than I am. As I told you, the
only reason I went on the stage was because I couldn't marry the man I
loved. So who more likely to have sympathy with people in love than
myself? What I object to is playing about with boys of the company. Look
at them! The most awful set of bounders imaginable. It's so bad for you
and me to have them coming in and out of our rooms at all hours. That
Hewitt creature actually proposed to come back to supper the other
night. However, I told Lily that if he did I should go to a hotel. After
all, we are a little different from the other girls of the company."

"I wonder if we are?" Sylvia queried.

"Of course we are," said Dorothy. "You surely don't consider yourself
on a level with Fay Onslow? Or with Sadie Moore and Clarice Beauchamp?
Those awful girls!"

"I think we're all about the same," said Sylvia. "Some of us drop our
aitches, some of us our p's and q's, some of us sing flat and the others
sing sharp; but alas! my dear Dorothy, we all look very much alike when
we're waiting for the train on Sunday morning."

"I sing perfectly in tune," said Dorothy, coldly.

"Please don't snub, me, Dorothy," Sylvia begged. "I can hardly bear it."

"There's no need for you to be sarcastic; you must admit I'm right about
Lily."

Sylvia suddenly produced an eye-glass and, fixing it in her eye, stared
mockingly at Dorothy.

"What about David?" she asked.

"You can't compare me with Lily."

"No, but I might compare David with Tom," she said, letting the
eye-glass drop in a way that Dorothy found extremely irritating.

After their host's remarks about the tenor Dorothy felt she could not
argue the point farther, and now in addition to her anger against Lily
she began to hate her singing-master. However, Sylvia must have felt
that she was right and have spoken to Lily, because the following week
at Leicester Lily, with most unwonted energy, attacked her on the
subject:

"I don't know why you should grumble to Sylvia about me. I don't grumble
to her about you. When have I ever grumbled about your practising? You
say the only reason you let yourself get talked about with David Bligh
is because he's useful to you. You say he's helping you with your voice.
Well, Tom helps me with my bag. What's the difference? It's only since
you were asked out by those men who had a car that you suddenly
discovered how impossible Tom was and began laughing at his waistcoats.
I didn't laugh at Cyril Vavasour's waistcoat, which was more
extraordinary than Tom's."

"I've never grumbled about Tom's carrying your bag," Dorothy explained,
patiently. "What I said to Sylvia was that I didn't think you ought to
let him kiss you. I don't think it's dignified."

"Well, as long as he doesn't want to kiss you, I don't see what you've
got to complain about."

The bare notion of Tom's wanting to kiss her was so unpleasant to
Dorothy that she had to withdraw from the conversation. Thenceforth the
breach between her and Lily began to widen; in fact, if it had not been
for Sylvia she would have told Lily that she could not share rooms with
her any longer. She was afraid, however, that Sylvia might be so sorry
for Lily that she would find herself left alone, which would put her in
an undignified position, because the other girls might say that it was
because she wanted to carry on, as they would vulgarly express it, with
Bligh; besides, living alone was too expensive.

Since Nottingham, Dorothy had been criticizing the tenor almost as
sharply as she criticized Tom Hewitt, and she was in no mood to
encourage the idea that there was anything between him and her; all her
lessons now were merely repetitions of what he had taught her already,
and it became obvious to Dorothy that he was what he was in the
profession simply because he was not good enough to be anything better.
He had so often bragged to her about his success with other girls that
he deserved to suffer on her account, and she felt quite like Nemesis
when soon after this, while they were walking in the town of Leicester,
she told him that this was to be their last walk together.

"Don't stand still in that theatrical way," she commanded. "Everybody's
looking at you."

The kidney-stones of the Leicester streets had been hurting her feet,
and she was in no mood for mercy.

"So this is the end," fluted David Bligh, with such emotion that the top
note narrowly escaped being falsetto. "After all these weeks you're
going to throw me away like an old chocolate-box."

He swished his cane with such demonstrative violence that, without
seeing what he was doing, he cut a passer-by hard on the knuckle and
thereby provoked a scene of humble apologies that made Dorothy more
furious than ever.

"At least you might not make me look a fool in a public thoroughfare,"
she told him.

"I'm awfully sorry, Dolly. I didn't know what I was doing for the
moment."

"Don't call me Dolly," she said. "You know how I hate abbreviations."

"I don't seem to be able to do anything right this morning."

"Look at the ridiculous walk you've brought me! Nothing but
cobble-stones, and passers-by bumping into one, and now we're getting
down among the factories. You know how I hate being stared at."

"You didn't mind being stared at in Nottingham the week before last."

"Oh God! aren't you impossible!" cried Dorothy, herself now dramatically
turning right round and leaving him undecided whether to follow her or
retire in the opposite direction.

Half a dozen factory-girls, arm in arm, who, with the horrible quickness
of their class for anything that causes discomfort to other people, had
noticed the quarrel, began to shout after Dorothy that her little boy
was crying for his mother; while she, in torments of rage and
humiliation, and of hatred for the man who was the cause of them,
hurried uphill toward a more civilized quarter of the town. Five minutes
later the tenor overtook Dorothy and begged pardon for losing her like
that; he explained that, having got involved in a crowd of
factory-girls, he could not hurry without making himself more
ridiculous.

"You don't mind making me ridiculous," she said, bitterly.

"My dear girl, it was you that turned away, not me."

"Oh, go to the devil!" she burst out. "I'll have nothing more to do with
you. You can console yourself with May Seymour."

The people who turned to stare after the lovely girl that seemed an
incarnation of this blue-and-white April day might have been as shocked
as Dorothy was at herself to think that she had just descended to the
level of an actor by telling him to go to the devil.


III

The month of May found the "Miss Elsie of Chelsea" company billed to
appear in the suburban theaters, and Dorothy was called upon to make up
her mind whether she should take rooms with Sylvia and Lily in the
center of London or economize for a few weeks by staying at home. Four
months of separation from her family had not made her particularly
anxious to return to them. At the same time, since she was not yet a
London actress, it might be more prudent to wait a little while before
she cut herself off too completely from Lonsdale Road. The only thing
that worried her about staying at home was the thought that all the
members of her family would inevitably insist on going to see her act
during the week that they were to play at the Grand Theater, Fulham.
Even if her father should be shy of patronizing a musical comedy so near
the Bishop of London's palace, she saw no way of preventing at any rate
Roland and her sister Dolly from going; since she had stolen her
sister's name, Dorothy, notwithstanding her dislike of abbreviations,
had always managed to think of her as Dolly. Yes; it was obvious that
whether she stayed up in town or stayed in West Kensington, she should
be unable to prevent some of the family from going to see her, and, as
they would not appreciate the fact that not even the greatest actresses
begin by playing Lady Macbeth, she must make the best of their
inspection.

So, one Sunday afternoon when the laburnum buds were yellowing in
Lonsdale Road, Dorothy drove back to No. 17. Everything was much the
same except that Dolly--Dorothy was firm from the moment she entered the
house about refusing to answer any more to Norah--had, presumably in
revenge for the loss of her name, taken her sister's bed. Mr. Caffyn was
glad to hear that the difficulties and dangers of stage life had been
exaggerated, and promised that he would warn the Bishop of Hampstead,
who was billed to preside at a forthcoming meeting of the Church and
Stage Society, not to make too much of them in his anxiety about
theatrical souls. Dorothy succeeded in deterring her relations from
going to the theater the first week at Camberwell; but the following
week, when the playbills of "Miss Elsie of Chelsea" flaunted themselves
in every shop-window of West Kensington, a large party, not merely of
the immediate family, but of uncles and aunts and cousins raked together
from every obscure suburb in London, swarmed for the Thursday matinée,
and, what was worse, insisted on buzzing round Dorothy outside the
stage-door in order to take her out to tea between the performances.
They alluded with some disappointment to the inconspicuousness of the
part she played, and they all agreed that the outstanding feature of the
performance was the comedian. They thought it must be very nice for
Dorothy to have such a splendid humorist perpetually at hand.

"But he's not funny off the stage," explained Dorothy, crossly.

This seemed greatly to surprise the aunts and uncles, who evidently did
not believe her. In the middle of tea the party was joined by Roland,
Cecil, and Vincent; not having been able to get away for the matinée,
they had arrived to swell the family reunion before going to the evening
performance, for which they had booked stalls in the very front row,
where, later on, to Dorothy's intense disgust, she saw Wilfred Curlew
sitting with them'. However, he did have the decency not to wait after
the play to accompany herself and her brothers back to West Kensington.

The next morning, before she was dressed, Dorothy was informed that a
young gentleman was waiting to see her in the drawing-room, and
discovered, when she got down, that a representative of a monthly
magazine called _The Boudoir_ had come to ask for an interview. The
young man, talking rather as if the magazine was a draper's shop, told
her that his paper was making a special feature of beautiful actresses.
He cannonaded Dorothy with all sorts of questions, and forced her to
surrender the information that her favorite parts were Lady Teazle,
Viola, Portia, and Beatrice.

"Comedy, in fact?" said the young man.

"Oh yes, comedy," Dorothy agreed, after a moment's hesitation to decide
whether Portia, whose speech about the quality of mercy she had once
declaimed at a school breaking-up, ought to be considered a comic
figure.

"You have no ambitions for tragedy?"

"No," she told him. "I think there's enough tragedy in ordinary life."

"Would you recommend the stage as a profession?" he inquired.

"Rather a difficult question. It depends so much on the girl."

"Quite," agreed the young man, wisely. "But have you any advice for
beginners?"

"My advice is to be natural," said Dorothy.

"Quite," agreed the young man again.

"Natural both on the stage and off," she added.

The young man, with an air of devout concentration, wrote down this
valuable maxim, while Dorothy, looking at herself in the mirror, allowed
various expressions of delicious naturalness to stand the test of her
own critical observation.

"With whom did you study?" the interviewer inquired next.

"Principally with the late Mrs. Haden," said Dorothy, feeling very
generous in mentioning Lily's mother after the way the daughter had
behaved with Tom Hewitt. "A delightful teacher of the old school, now,
alas! no longer with us."

The young man shook his head sadly.

"But my real lessons," Dorothy added, brightly, lest the loss of Mrs.
Haden to art might be too much for the interviewer's emotions--"my real
lessons were derived from watching famous actresses. No famous actress,
continental or English, ever came to London whom I did not go to see. I
often went without"--she paused to think what she could have gone
without, for it might sound absurd to say that she went without
clothes--"I often walked," she corrected herself, "in order to have the
necessary money to buy a seat."

"That'll interest our readers very much," said the young man. "Yes,
that's the personal note which always appeals to our readers." He sucked
his pencil with relish. "And who is your favorite actress?"

"In England or abroad?"

"Oh, in England," the young man hurriedly explained; probably he was
jibbing at the prospect of having to write a foreign name.

"In England, Ellen Terry, decidedly," Dorothy replied.

"Quite"; the young man sighed with relief. "Perhaps you would care to
give me a photograph of yourself," he suggested.

"With pleasure," she said, taking from the mantelpiece one that she had
sent her mother about a month ago.

"Of course," the interviewer hemmed, nervously, "that will be twelve and
sixpence for the cost of reproduction."

"Twelve and six?" repeated Dorothy.

"The block will cost twelve and sixpence, that is to say."

"Twelve and six?" she repeated once more.

But she gave him the money; controlling her annoyance at the idea that
this young man might be making a profit out of her innocence, she
conducted him cheerfully to the door and presented him with a tulip from
one of Dolly's flower-pots.

"You're fond of gardening?" he asked, with half-open note-book.

"I adore flowers," said Dorothy. "Good-by."

To her mother she explained the sad necessity she had been under of
having to give away her favorite photograph.

"But, mother, I'll write for another one," she promised.

"Oh, Norah dear, I hope you will," said Mrs. Caffyn, much distressed.

"Only, as they're rather expensive, you won't mind giving me a guinea,
will you?" Dorothy murmured, with a frown for the old "Norah."

"No, darling Norah--darling child, I mean, of course not. I'd no idea
you were spending your salary like that," said Mrs. Caffyn, searching in
her purse for the money.

That evening, during the first act a note was sent round to Dorothy from
Wilfred Curlew to say that he had been to see her every night this week,
and that he had persuaded a friend of his to give her some publicity in
a magazine with which he was connected.

"At a cost of twelve and six," Dorothy scoffed to herself.

She did not send a word of thanks to Wilfred, and being unable from the
stage to perceive his presence anywhere in the theater, she supposed
that, having been there every night this week, he must by now have
reached the gallery.

When the interview appeared the other girls were very jealous, and all
of them vowed that they had never heard of _The Boudoir_.

"With a blush Miss Lonsdale handed our interviewer an exquisite bunch of
flowers culled by the beautiful young actress from her garden, a 'thing
of beauty' in the dreary desert of London streets," read out one of the
girls.

"Good God, have mercy on us!" exclaimed Clarice Beauchamp, holding a
hairpin dipped in eye-black over the gas. "It's a wonder the editor
hasn't written before now to ask if he can't keep you."

The irritation in the dressing-room caused by the interview was allayed
by a rumor that John Richards would visit the Alexandra Theater, Stoke
Newington, where they were playing their last week in the suburbs, with
a view to choosing girls for the Vanity production in the autumn. No
confirmation could be obtained of this; but the chorus put on extra
make-up and acted with all its eyes and all its legs for a shadowy
figure at the back of one of the private boxes. After the first act the
business manager, who had come behind for some purpose, was surrounded
by all the girls, each of whom in turn begged him to tell her
confidentially what Mr. Richards had said about the show and if he had
had any criticisms to make about herself.

"Mr. Richards?" repeated the manager.

"Now, don't pretend you know nothing about it," they expostulated. "_We_
know he's in front."

"Well, you know more than I do," said the manager.

"Then who is it at the back of the box on the prompt side?"

"You silly girls! That's the late mayor of Hackney."

"Then why do they make such a fuss of him?" persisted the girl who had
started the rumor. "There was a carriage outside the box-office half an
hour before the overture, and people were all round it, staring as if it
was the king."

"It's a very sad story," the manager explained. "He's blind, poor
fellow, and now, whenever he goes to the theater, they watch him being
helped out of his brougham."

During the second act not an eye nor a leg was thrown in the direction
of the mysterious stranger, whose identity was a great disappointment to
the girls; they had counted on Mr. Richards visiting them in the course
of the tour, and here it was coming to an end without a sign of him.

However, they were consoled by being told at the last minute that they
were going to play three nights at Oxford before the tour came to a
definite conclusion. Everybody agreed that it would be a delightful way
to wind up, and when the company assembled at Paddington on a brilliant
morning in earliest June, they seemed, in the new clothes they had been
able to buy during the last month in London, more like a large
picnic-party going up to Maidenhead than a touring company.

Dorothy had decided that the visit to Oxford was an occasion to justify
breaking into the £500 she had got out of her mother, which was still
practically intact, owing to the economy exerted all these weeks. Her
new dresses and new hats, combined with that interview in _The Boudoir_,
gave the rest of the chorus an impression that there was somebody behind
Dorothy, and they regarded her with a jealous curiosity that was most
encouraging.


IV

The three girls had only just finished dinner at their lodgings in Eden
Square when Sylvia proposed a walk round Oxford. Dorothy agreed to go
out if she were allowed time to change her things; but Lily declared
that she was tired after the journey, and preferred to look at
illustrated papers in deshabille. Many undergraduates turned their heads
to stare at Dorothy's beauty or Sylvia's eye-glass when the two girls
were walking down the High toward St. Mary's College, through the gates
of which Sylvia calmly suggested that they should pass in order to
explore the gardens.

"But suppose they tell us that girls aren't allowed to go in," Dorothy
demanded, in a panic.

"We'll go out again."

"But we should look so foolish."

"We always look foolish," said Sylvia. "Anything more foolish than you
look at the present moment I can't imagine, except myself."

Before Dorothy could prevent her, Sylvia had asked a tall and haughty
undergraduate if there was any reason why they should not take a walk in
the college grounds. The young man blushed painfully, and Dorothy, who
could see that his embarrassment at being spoken to by an actress was
causing intense delight to a group of idlers in the college lodge, was
angry with Sylvia for exposing the two of them to a share in the
ridicule.

"All right, Dorothy," said Sylvia, cheerfully. "He says we can."

The tall and haughty undergraduate strode away up the High to escape
from his friends' chaff, and the two girls wandered about the college
until they found themselves in the famous St. Mary's Walks, where upon a
seat embowered in foliage they listened to the bells that were ringing
down the golden day and ringing in the unhastening Sabbath eve. Close at
hand, but hidden from view by leafy banks, the pleasurable traffic of
the Cherwell sounded continuously in a low murmur of talk that, blending
with the swish of paddles and comfortable sound of jostling punts,
seemed the very voice of indolent June. Dorothy supposed that she, like
nature, must be looking most beautiful in this bewitching light, and
regretted that the only passers-by should be ecclesiastical figures bent
in grave intercourse, or a few young men arguing in throaty voices about
topics she did not recognize.

"I don't think we've chosen a very good place," she complained, with a
discontented pout.

"We've chosen the place," said Sylvia, "where nearly four years ago, on
a Sunday afternoon in August, I agreed to get married."

"Married?" repeated Dorothy, in amazement. "Are you married?"

"Yes, I believe I'm married for the present; but I sha'n't be soon."

"Oh, Sylvia, do tell me about it! I won't say a word to anybody else."

But Sylvia, having said so much, would say no more; jumping up and
insisting that she was thirsty, she reminded Dorothy that they had
promised to help Charlie Clinton entertain his brother and some
undergraduate friends. Charlie Clinton was an obscure member of the
company who had suddenly sprung into considerable prominence by
revealing that he had a brother at Oxford and was himself the black
sheep of a respectable family. Dorothy, realizing that the blackest
sheep is better form than the whitest goat, had accepted the invitation,
but she was not much impressed by the collection of undergraduates
gathered in his rooms, and was vexed that she had wasted her most
becoming hat on young men who wanted to talk about nothing but music.
She was vexed, too, at finding that David Bligh had been invited, and
that he was talking affectedly about good music and sounding with his
fluty voice rather like an undergraduate himself. Lily came and danced a
classical dance which seemed to please everybody else, though Dorothy
could not see anything in it. Bligh sang German songs, and was so much
applauded that he condescendingly proposed that his pupil should sing,
who refused so angrily that none of the undergraduates dared approach
her. It was indeed a thoroughly boring evening, and she wondered if
Oxford was going to produce nothing better than this.

The theater on Monday night, notwithstanding the fine weather, was
packed; but the audience was noisy, and the men in the chorus who had
not been invited to Charlie Clinton's party severely condemned the bad
manners of undergraduates.

"They're a rowdy lot of bounders, that's what they are," Tom Hewitt
proclaimed, loosening the collar around his aggressive neck.

Dorothy, who had been looking forward to astonishing some of the girls
in the dressing-room with her news about Sylvia, forgot everything in a
delightful triumph she was able to enjoy at the expense of Clarice
Beauchamp. A note was brought round after the first act addressed:

     To the fair artist's model in pink. Front row. O. P. side.

Clarice Beauchamp had the impudence to contest Dorothy's right to open
this note, and while some of the artist's models were rapidly
transforming themselves into Polynesian beauties and others as rapidly
assuming the aristocratic costumes of a millionaire's yachting-party,
Clarice and Dorothy, who belonged to the latter division, argued
heatedly. At last Fay Onslow, to whom the note could not possibly refer,
was allowed to open it and give her verdict:

     Fair lady, my name is Lonsdale. On the Grampian hills my father
     feeds his flock! In other words, will you and the lady with the
     monocle who yesterday afternoon picked out quite the most
     unattractive man in St. Mary's as your guide come and picnic with
     me on the upper river to-morrow? A friend of mine at the House is
     dying to meet you, but he is much too shy to write himself. If you
     can come, just send back your address by bearer and I'll send my
     tame cab to fetch you to-morrow at twelve o'clock.

     Yours sincerely,

     ARTHUR LONSDALE.

"I knew it was for me," said Dorothy. "Sylvia and I were in St. Mary's
College yesterday afternoon."

Clarice Beauchamp, much mortified, had to surrender her claim to the
note.

"But what a strange coincidence that he should be called Lonsdale!"
Onzie exclaimed. "Most extraordinary, I call it. Who knows? He might be
a relation."

"He might be," said Dorothy, calmly.

Lily looked up from her place as if she were going to speak, but, though
she said nothing, Dorothy was glad that the terms of the note gave her
no excuse for asking her to-morrow, even if Sylvia did maliciously
propose that Lily should go instead of herself.

"Oh, but they particularly want you," Dorothy protested.

"Anyway, I can't go," Lily said; "I've promised to go round some of the
colleges with Tom."

Dorothy winced at the threatened sacrilege.

Next morning a cab jingled up to the girls' lodgings, and they were
driven to the nearest point of embarkation for a picnic on the upper
river. Their host, a short young man with very fair hair and a round
pink face, introduced himself and led the way to the Rollers, over which
punts and canoes were dragged from the lower level of the Cherwell to
the wider sweeps of the Isis. A tall young man who was standing by a
couple of canoes moored to the bank came forward to greet them. His most
immediately conspicuous feature was a pair of white flannel trousers
down the seams of which ran stripes of vivid blue ribbon; but when he
was introduced to Dorothy as Lord Clarehaven she forgot about his
trousers in the more vivid blue of his name. All sorts of ideas rushed
through her mind--a sudden dread that he might think Sylvia more
attractive than herself, a sudden contempt for the party of the evening
before, a sudden rapture in which blue sky, blue blood, and the blue
stripes of the trousers merged exquisitely, and a sudden apprehension
created by her pleated reflection in the water that she was not looking
her best. After Lord Clarehaven she should not have been surprised if
the first young man had also had a title; but he was apparently only Mr.
Lonsdale, and, though entitled to respect as a friend of Lord
Clarehaven, would probably interest Sylvia more than herself.

Dorothy's dread that she and Lord Clarehaven might not find themselves
in the same canoe was soon dispelled, because Lord Clarehaven was
evidently as eager for her company as she was for his, and they were
soon leaving the others behind. There is no form of conveyance which
makes for so much intimacy of regard as a canoe, and Dorothy, when she
had once been able to reassure herself by means of a pocket-mirror that
she had not been ruffled by the cab-drive or by the nervous business of
getting gracefully into a wabbling canoe, settled herself down to be
admired at a distance of about four feet. Moreover, she indulged for the
first time in her life in the pleasure of admiring somebody else, a
state of mind which doubled her charm by taking away much of her
self-consciousness. If Lord Clarehaven was below the standard of
aristocracy set by our full-blooded lady novelists, he was equally far
removed from the chinless convention of banal caricature. He had the
long legs, the narrow hips and head, and the big teeth of the Norman;
but his fair hair was already thinning upon a high, retreating forehead,
his nose was small, and if the protuberant eyes that one sees in
Pekinese spaniels and other well-bred mammals were a faint intimation of
approaching degeneracy in the stock, Dorothy was not sufficiently versed
in physiognomy to recognize such symptoms; already fascinated by his
title and his trousers, she was quite ready to be fascinated by his
eyes.

"I was lunching in St. Mary's yesterday with Arthur Lonsdale," he was
explaining, "and I noticed you from the lodge. I should have come up and
spoken to you myself, but I was rather frightened by your friend's
eye-glass. In fact, I'm still not at all at ease with her. She looks
deuced clever, I mean, don't you think?"

"She is awfully clever."

"Poor girl, but I suppose it's not such a bore for a girl as it would
be for a man. I'm an awful ass myself, you know. I mean, I'm absolutely
incapable of doing anything."

"How did you know we belonged to the company?" asked Dorothy, implying
that with all his modesty he must possess acute powers of judgment
hidden away somewhere.

"Well, to tell you the truth, we didn't know. Somebody said your friend
was a medical student, only I wasn't going to have that, and some man
said he'd noticed you at the station, so Lonnie and I went to the
theater on the off-chance and tried to spot you."

"Which you did?"

"Oh, rather. Only, then we couldn't spot your name. I was all for
Clarice Beauchamp."

"She's an awfully horrid girl," said Dorothy, quickly.

"Is she? I'm sorry to hear that. And Lonnie betted you were Fay Onslow.
So we were quits. Funny thing you should have the same name as Lonnie.
No relation, I suppose?"

He was evidently so sure of this that Dorothy was rather piqued and
asked, loftily, which Lonsdale he was.

"Cleveden's son."

"Oh, then I am a relation," said Dorothy. "Though of course a very, very
distant one."

"By Jove! that's great!" said Clarehaven.

He seemed enthusiastic, but Dorothy could not make out whether he
believed her or not, and she rather wished she had kept the relationship
for the dressing-room. She hoped that Sylvia would not give Lonsdale an
impression that she claimed to be his first cousin; this abrupt plunge
into the whirlpool of society might make her act extravagantly. What a
pity that she had not known who he was before they met, and "Oh!" she
cried, aloud.

"What's the matter?" Clarehaven asked.

"Nothing. At least I think I touched a fish," said Dorothy.

But her exclamation was caused by dismay at recalling that she had
addressed him as "Arthur Lonsdale, Esquire," when for the first time in
her life she might have written "The Honorable Arthur Lonsdale," for
everybody to see. What must he have thought of her ignorance? And now
here in a canoe with her was Lord Clarehaven, but, owing to the foolish
modesty that English titles affect, she did not know if he was a
marquis, an earl, a viscount, or a mere baron. The prospect of the green
river was leaden with the thought of her stupidity.

"You're looking very sad," said Clarehaven. "What's the matter?"

"I was thinking how beautiful it was here," she sighed.

"Topping, isn't it?"

"Topping," she echoed, awarding to the utterance of the epithet as much
emotion as if it were robbed from Shakespeare's magic store. Amid a
sweet smell of grass and to the accompaniment of lapping water and a
small sibilant wind they lunched on the salmon and mayonnaise, the
prawns in aspic, the galantine and cold chicken, the meringues and
strawberries of how many Oxford picnics. Above them dreamed a huge sky;
elm-trees guarded the near horizon; wasps had not begun, nor did Sylvia
tease Dorothy about being related to Lonsdale when Clarehaven presented
them as long-lost cousins.

By the end of the afternoon Dorothy had sufficiently confirmed her
admirer's first impression to be invited to lunch with him at Christ
Church the following day, in which invitation Sylvia was of course
included. Then slowly they drifted back down the river, on the dimples
and eddies of which the overhanging trees cast a patina as upon the
muscles of an ancient bronze.

"How unreal the theater seems!" sighed Dorothy when they drove up to the
stage-door.

"Does it?" Sylvia laughed. "It seems to me much more real than our
pretty behavior this afternoon."


V

Dorothy slept badly that night. Her regret for the mistake she had made
in addressing Arthur Lonsdale as esquire magnified itself horribly in
the mean little bedroom of the lodgings in Eden Square. All night long
she was waking up to reproach herself for her stupidity in not taking
the trouble to make sure who he was before she sent back the note. Her
blunder was all the more unpardonable because she should have been
sufficiently interested in receiving a letter from a namesake to take
this trouble. And now suppose Lord Clarehaven were to put her under the
necessity of addressing him on the outside of an envelope? How was she
to know what to write? "Lord Clarehaven, Christ Church College"? It
sounded rather empty. In any case, she should have to ask for him at the
lodge to-morrow, and how the porter would sneer behind her back if she
should make a mistake! In despair Dorothy wandered into the next room
where Sylvia and Lily were sleeping tranquilly.

"Oh dear!" she lamented.

"What's the matter?" asked Sylvia, jumping up in bed.

"Sylvia, I can't sleep. I think there's a rat in my room. I suppose
Arthur Lonsdale didn't say if Lord Clarehaven was a marquis, did he?"

"Damn your eyes, Dorothy, did you wake me up to ask that? Go and get
hold of Debrett, if you want to know so badly."

Dorothy went back to her bedroom in peace of mind. Of course! How easy
it was, really, and she fell into a delicious sleep, from which,
notwithstanding her disturbed night, she was early awake to dress and be
out of the house by ten o'clock in order to search the Oxford bookshops
for a _Peerage_.

"We have a _Baronetage_" said one bookseller.

Dorothy shrugged her shoulders compassionately, and went from shop to
shop until she found the big red volume of her desire. She paid without
a moment's hesitation the price of it, called a cab, and drove back to
Eden Square, that she might have plenty of time to devour the contents
before going to Christ Church. Her breath came fast when she actually
read Clarehaven and began to absorb the wonderful information below:


CLAREHAVEN, EARL OF. (Clare) [Earl U.K. 1816. Bt. E. 1660.]

ANTHONY GILBERT CLARE, 5th Earl, and 10th Baronet; _b._ Oct. 15, 1882;
_s._ 1896; ed. at Eton and Christ Church; is 2d Lieut, in North Devon
Dragoons, and patron of one living.

_Arms_--Purpure, two flanches ermine, on a chief sable a moon in her
complement argent. _Crest_--A moon in her complement argent, arising
from a cloud proper. _Supporters_--Two angels vested purpure, winged and
crined or, each holding in the exterior hand a key or. _Motto_--_Claro
non clango_.

_Seat_--Clare Court, Devonshire. _Town residence_--129 Curzon Street, W.
_Club_--Bachelors'.


SISTERS LIVING

_Lady_ Arabella. b. 1885.

_Lady_ Constantia. b. 1887.


WIDOW LIVING OF FOURTH EARL

Augusta (Countess of Clarehaven) 2d dau. of 9th Earl of Chatfield: _m._
1880 the 4th Earl who _d._ 1896. _Residence_--Clare Court, Devonshire.

PREDECESSORS--[1] Anthony Clare, _M.P._ for Devon (a descendant of
Richard Fitzgilbert, Baron of Clare, a companion of the Conqueror, son
of Gilbert Crispin, Earl of Brione in Normandy, who was son of Geoffrey,
a natural son of Richard I. Duke of Normandy), was cr. a Bt. 1660; _d._
1674; _s._ by his son [2] _Sir_ Gilbert, 2d Bt.; _d._ 1710; _s._ by his
son [3] _Sir_ Anthony, 3d Bt.; _d._ 1747; _s._ by his nephew [4] _Sir_
William, 4th Bt.; _d._ 1764; _s._ by his cousin [5] _Sir_ Anthony, 5th
Bt.; cr. _Baron Clarehaven_ (peerage of Great Britain) 1796; _d._ 1802;
_s._ by his son [6] Gilbert, 2d Baron; cr. _Viscount Clare_ and _Earl of
Clarehaven_ (peerage of United Kingdom) 1816; _d._ 1826; _s._ by his son
[7] Richard Crispin, 2d Earl. _b._ 1788. _m._ 1818 Lady Caroline Lacey
who _d._ 1859, 2d dau. of 3d Marquess of Longlan; _d._ 1864; s. by his
son [8] Geoffrey William, _P.C._, 3d Earl. _b._ 1820; sometime Lord
Lieut. of Devon; M.P. for S. Devon (C); Vice-Chamberlain of H. M. Queen
Victoria's Household. _m._ 1845 the Hon. Louisa Travers, who _d._ 1890,
dau. of the 26th Baron Travers; _d._ 1867; _s._ by his son [9] Gilbert
Crispin, 4th Earl, _b._ 1845; Lieut. Royal Horse Guards, 1866-67: _m._
1880 Lady Augusta Fanhope, 2d dau. of 9th Earl of Chatfield; _d._ 1896;
_s._ by his son [10] Anthony Gilbert, 5th Earl and present peer; also
Viscount Clare and Baron Clarehaven.


Half a dozen times word for word she read through these magic pages,
until she felt that she simply could not make a mistake at lunch. Then a
page or two farther on, past Clarendon and Clarina, she came to:


CLEVEDEN, BARON. (Lonsdale) [Baron G.B. 1762.]

CHARLES ARTHUR BRABAZON LONSDALE. _G.C.M.G., G.C.I.E._ 5th Baron; _b._
Oct. 10, 1858; _s._ 1888; ed. at Eton and at Ch. Ch. Oxford. (B.A.
1880); is a J.P. and D.L. for Warwickshire and Verderer of the Forest of
Arden; Hon. Col. of Yeo.; sat as M.P. for West Warwick--(C) 1880-1884;
was Assist. Private Sec. to the Premier--(M. Salisbury) 1885-6; Gov. and
Com. in Ch. of E. Australia. 1893-99; and Gov. of Central India.
1899-1901; _K.C.M.G._ 1893; _G.C.M.G._ 1898; _G.C.I.E._ 1899: _m._ 1882
Lady Helen Druce (an Extra Woman of the Bed-chamber to H.M. Queen
Victoria), dau. of 10th Earl of Monteith and has issue.

_Arms_--Argent, an oak tree englanté vert. _Crest_--A bugle horn or,
enguiché and stringed vert. _Supporters_--On either side a forester
sounding a horn proper. _Motto_--J'y serai.

_Seat_--Cressingham Hall, Warwick. _Clubs_--Carlton. Travellers'.


SON LIVING

_Hon._ ARTHUR GEORGE MORNINGTON. _b._ Feb. 24, 1883.


DAUGHTER LIVING

_Hon._ Sylvia May. _b._ 1885.

"Sylvia?" Dorothy said to herself. But she decided to stick to the name
Dorothy, and went on reading about her family.


BROTHER LIVING

_Rev_. the Hon. George, _b._ 1860; ed. at Eton, and at St. Mary's Coll.
Oxford. (B.A. 1883. M.A. 1886); is R. of Bingham-cum-Bingham Monachorum;
_m._ 1894 Mary Alice, dau. of the late Rev. Francis Greville, V. of St.
Wilfred's, Tilchester, and Hon. Canon of Tilchester, and has issue
living, Arthur Brabazon--_b._ 1896. Mary--_b._ 1898. Georgina Maud--_b._
1900. _Residence_--Bingham Rectory, Hants.


SISTERS LIVING

_Hon._ Frances Louisa, _b._ 1863. _m._ 1885 Sir William
Honeywood-Greene, 6th Bt. _Residence_--Arden Towers, Warwick.

_Hon._ Caroline, _b._ 1865. _m._ 1886 Sir Stanley Pinkerton, K.C.V.O.
Master of the King's Spaniels. _Residence_--210 Eaton Square, S.W.

_Hon._ Horatia. _b._ 1867.

There followed a couple of pages devoted to collateral branches of the
Lonsdales. These were something new: the Clares apparently lacked
collaterals. Presently it dawned on Dorothy that these collaterals
treated of the more distant relations of the family, and in a fever she
began to search for confirmation of the legend in Lonsdale Road that
through their grandmother, Mrs. Doyle, the Caffyns were connected with
Lord Cleveden. On and on she read through colonels and rectors with
their numerous offspring, through consuls and captains and judges and
doctors even; but there was no mention of Doyles, still less of Caffyns.
The connection must indeed be very remote: perhaps it was hidden among
the predecessors.

PREDECESSORS.--[1] George Lonsdale, Verderer of the Forest of Arden;
M.P. for Warwickshire 1740-62; cr. _Baron Cleveden_, of Cressingham, co.
Warwick (peerage of Great Britain) 1762; _d._ 1764; _s._ by his son [2]
Arthur, 2d Baron; _d._ 1822; _s._ by his son [3] Charles, 3d Baron; _b._
1790: _m._ 1830 the Hon. Horatia Brabazon, who _d._ 1851, dau. of 3d
Viscount Brabazon; _d._ 1840; _s._ by his son [4] George Brabazon, 4th
Baron; _b._ 1832; a Lord-in-Waiting to H. M. Queen Victoria 1858-64:
_m._ 1856 Lady May Mornington, who _d._ 1895, 3d dau. of 11th Earl of
Belgrove; _d._ 1888; _s._ by his son [5] Charles Arthur Brabazon, 5th
Baron and present peer.

Dorothy sighed her disappointment, but resolved that she would adopt the
family crest and motto as her own. _J'y serai_ underneath a bugle-horn:
how well it would look on her note-paper. Fired by its inspiration, she
began to dress herself for lunch with the Earl of Clarehaven, and when,
an hour later, she ushered Sylvia into the Christ Church lodge with a
hardihood that contrasted strongly with the reluctance she had shown
when Sylvia had dragged her into St. Mary's on Sunday, there was no need
to inquire for Lord Clarehaven by his correct title, because the host
was there himself to meet his guests and escort them across the
spaciousness of Tom Quad to his rooms in Peckwater. It appeared that at
the last minute an urgent summons to play cricket for the Eton Ramblers
had prevented Lonsdale from coming. Dorothy, notwithstanding her
knowledge of the Lonsdale collaterals, was not sorry, for she did not
wish to discuss the relationship with one of the family, especially
before Sylvia, to whom she now turned with a hint of patronage.

"My dear, you will be disappointed. Mr. Lonsdale is not coming to
lunch."

Sylvia said she would try to put up with the disappointment and hoped
that an equally entertaining substitute had been provided.

"I've asked a fellow called Tufton," said Clarehaven. "His father's a
sleeping partner or something of jolly old John Richards at the Vanity,
and I thought he might be useful. Besides, he's not at all a bad egg. We
elected him to the Bullingdon this term."

Dorothy looked at her host gratefully and admiringly.

"How awfully sweet of you!" she murmured, with the lightest, briefest
touch of her fingers on his wrist, and thinking how well the people who
mattered knew how to do things.

They had reached Peckwater by now, the architecture of which, brightened
by many window-boxes in full bloom, reminded Dorothy of streets in
Mayfair. Her morning with Debrett had in fact turned her head so
completely that she sought everywhere for illustrations of grandeur in
the life around her; in this regard Clarehaven's rooms, by conforming
perfectly to her notions of what they should be, made her want to kiss
herself with satisfaction. To begin with, the door of his bedroom,
slightly ajar, allowed a glimpse of numerous pairs of boots running up
the scale from brogues to waders, which somehow spoke more eloquently of
riches and leisure than if the luncheon-table had been laid with gold.
Dorothy was contemplating the tints of these boots like a poet in an
autumnal glade when Clarehaven presented Mr. Tufton, who, to do him
justice, looked as well turned out as one of his host's hunting-tops and
in a chestnut-colored suit with extravagantly rolled collar maintained
his personality against the boots and the cigars and the brown sherry
and the old paneling and the studies of grouse by Thorburn that gave
this room its air of mellow opulence.

Dorothy told Mr. Tufton brightly that he had missed a wonderful
afternoon yesterday.

"I was playing polo," he explained.

Dorothy, having an idea that polo was nearly as dangerous as
bull-fighting, shuddered.

"I say, do you feel a draught?" inquired the host, anxiously.

"Oh no, it's delicious here."

A voice from the quad was shouting "Tony," and Dorothy, remembering
Anthony from Debrett, could not resist telling Clarehaven that he was
being called. Clarehaven was moving over to the window to discourage
whoever was demanding his presence, when another voice came clearly up
through the June air.

"Shut up, Ridgway! Tony's lunching some does, you silly ass!"

Dorothy could not help thinking that Sylvia ought to have pretended not
to hear this allusion instead of bursting out into what was really a
vulgar peal of laughter.

"I think there _is_ a draught," said Mr. Tufton, closing the windows so
gravely that one felt much of his inmost meditation was devoted to the
tactful handling of moments like this.

"Are these your sisters?" Dorothy asked, picking up a photograph of two
girls, each holding a foxhound.

"Yes, those are my sisters Bella and Connie," Clarehaven replied.
"They're awful keen on puppy-walking."

Perhaps, after all, abbreviations were sometimes tolerable, and names
like Arabella and Constantia were rather long.

"Isn't your second name Gilbert?" she asked.

"Yes. Dreadful infliction, isn't it?"

Dorothy decided not to say that her father's name was Gilbert, to which
she had been leading up, and took her seat at table, noticing with
pleasure that the full moon of the house of Clare adorned the silver.
After lunch they looked at albums of snapshots, during the examination
of which Mr. Tufton was most useful, because he was continually saying:
"By Jove! Isn't that Lady Connie?" or: "By Gad! Isn't that the covert
where Lady Bella got her left and right last October?" or: "Hello! I see
Lady Clarehaven has followed my advice about the pergola." If Mr. Tufton
could advise countesses as stately as the Countess of Clarehaven and
refer to the daughters of an earl as Lady Bella and Lady Connie, what
might not Dorothy do with patience and discretion? Meanwhile she took no
risks, and if she had to mention the members of her host's family she
alluded to them as "your mother" or "your elder sister" or "your younger
sister."

"But what a glorious place Clare Court must be!" she exclaimed.

"Oh, I don't know," said the owner of it. "The train service is
absolutely rotten."

"You'll have your new car this vac.," Mr. Tufton reminded him. "I wrote
the firm a very strong letter yesterday." Then seeing that his friend
was growing gloomy at the prospect of Devonshire even with a new car, he
suggested a stroll round Meadows, and cleverly arranged to lag behind
with Sylvia.

Clarehaven when he was alone with Dorothy did not find much more to say,
but he was able to look at her with a more open admiration than when his
glances had been disconcerted by Sylvia's monocle.

"You know I'm tremendously quelled by your friend," he avowed. "By Jove!
you know, I feel she's always criticizing a fellow. Now with you I feel
absolutely at my ease."

"I'm glad," Dorothy murmured. Then for two full moments she let her deep
eyes flash into his.

"I say, when you look at me like that," said Clarehaven, solemnly, "you
absolutely bring my heart into my mouth. By Gad! I feel it being hooked
up like a trout."

"I'm afraid it's a very easy heart to hook," she laughed.

"Oh no, it's not! Oh no, really it's not! I can assure you that I'm not
in the least susceptible."

"Ah, you'll forget all about me to-morrow."

"My dear Dorothy! You don't object to my calling you Dorothy? My dear
Dorothy, if you knew how unlikely I am to forget all about you
to-morrow...."

"Well?"

"Well, I'm not going to forget about you, that's all."

"We shall see."

"Yes, we shall," said Clarehaven, fiercely.

Dorothy was anxious to add still a small touch to his obvious
appreciation, and she conceived the daring idea of inviting him back to
tea in the lodgings. She felt that there in the dingy little room her
grace and beauty would appear more desirable than ever, and if he
should fancy from her invitation that she intended to make herself cheap
he would soon perceive from her behavior how far removed she was from
the average chorus-girl. Clarehaven applauded the suggestion, and though
Sylvia looked rather bored by it, Tufton was enthusiastic; so they
visited a pastry-cook's and bought lots of expensive cakes and
chocolates, for which the guest of honor paid.

"How the poor live!" exclaimed Dorothy, pointing with a dramatic gesture
at the drab little houses of Eden Square as if she would comment upon an
aspect of Oxford that was hardly credible after Christ Church.

"Yes, this is our quad," chuckled Sylvia. "Old Tom!"

"I've never been here before," said Clarehaven, anxious to convince
Dorothy that really he was not susceptible. "I've heard of Eden Square,
of course, but this is my first visit. It's where all the theatrical
people stay, isn't it, Tuffers?"

"It may be," replied Mr. Tufton, who, having paid for everything he
possessed with money his father was making out of the theater, naturally
did not wish to show himself too familiar with its domestic life.

"Number ten," said Dorothy, gaily. "Here we are!"

She opened the front door and led the way along a narrow passage to the
sitting-room, and, flinging wide open the door, drew back for Clarehaven
to enter first.

"You'll have to excuse the general untidiness," she warned him.

The sentence was out before she had time to realize that the general
untidiness included a searing vision of Lily in an arm-chair,
imparadised upon the lap of the impossible Tom Hewitt. Sylvia dashed
forward to the rescue of Dorothy, who was standing speechless with
mortification, and began introducing everybody to one another as fast as
she could. Clarehaven's devotion to the stage did not seem impaired by
this abrupt manifestation of low life behind the scenes, and Tufton, who
in other company would probably have been as much outraged as Dorothy
herself by such a reflection upon the source of his wealth, copied his
friend's lead. Tom Hewitt with a mumbled excuse about having to see the
manager retired as soon as possible. Lily, notwithstanding that her left
cheek was flushed and that the hair on the left side of her head was
more conspicuously a part of the general untidiness than the hair on the
right, seemed utterly unconscious of having as good as torn up the
Debrett in which Dorothy had invested this morning, and actually talked
away in her languorous style to Clarehaven and Tufton as if Tom Hewitt's
lap was the natural place on which to pass a lovely summer afternoon.

For Dorothy that tea-party was a martyrdom from which she began to think
that she should never recover. Wherever she looked she saw that horrible
picture of Lily and Tom. Once Clarehaven asked for another lump of
sugar, and, tormented by the vision, she put two chocolates in his cup.
Tufton passed his cup for a little more milk, and she emptied it away
into the slop-bowl. Finally in an effort to restore her equanimity she
took a chocolate that concealed a sticky caramel within, and when her
mouth was all twisted and her teeth felt as if they were being pulled
out by the roots Clarehaven asked if she could not spare him a
photograph. He was being kind, thought Dorothy, miserably; the
Fitzgilberts and Crispins and Clares of all those generations were
gathering to help him hide the contempt he must feel for this tea-party;
Lacy and Travers and Fanhope were behind him, pleading the obligations
of nobility. And if he were not being kind she must suppose that he
rather liked Lily, which would be worst of all. But what a lesson she
had been given, what a lesson, indeed! If but once it might be granted
to her that a folly should be expiated in the pain of the moment, she
would never play tricks with fortune again.

When Clarehaven rose to make his farewells Dorothy did not attempt to
detain him, but with a sorrowful grace shook his hand and would not even
give him the photograph.

"No, no, I'd rather send you one from London."

"But you'll forget," he protested.

"No, I sha'n't. One hundred and twenty-nine Curzon Street. Or will you
be at Clare Court?"

"I'll write to you."

"No, no," said Dorothy. It would never do for him to write to Lonsdale
Road; besides, he might take it into his head to visit her there, which
might be more disastrous than this tea-party. What would he think, for
instance, of the misshapen boots that were usually waiting outside
Roland's room like two large black-beetles? No, when she had thought out
her campaign she would send him a photograph, and if, looking back on
this afternoon, he decided that she was not worth while--well, she must
put up with it. Dorothy was so sorry for herself that Clarehaven was
flattered by her melancholy countenance into supposing that he had made
a deep impression. In the narrow passage Tufton slipped behind and
whispered to her that she must look her best to-night.

"Why?"

"Stable information," he said, and hurried after his friend, Lord
Clarehaven.

When the three girls were alone together in the fatal sitting-room
Dorothy's repressed rage with Lily broke out uncontrollably.

"I hope you don't think I'll ever live with you again after that
disgusting exhibition. I suppose you think just because you went with me
to Walter Keal that you can do as you like. I don't know what Sylvia
thinks of you, but I can tell you what I think. You make me feel
absolutely sick. That beastly chorus-boy! The idea of letting anybody
like that even look at you! Thank Heaven, the tour's over. I'm going
down to the theater. I can't stay in this room. It makes me blush to
think of it. I'll take jolly good care who I live with in future."

Something in Lily's fragility, something in her still untidy hair and
uncomprehending muteness, inflamed Dorothy beyond the bounds of
toleration, and in despair of just words to humiliate her sufficiently
she slapped her face.

"Hit her back, my lass," cried Sylvia, putting up her eye-glass to watch
the fray; but Lily collapsed tearfully into the arm-chair, and Dorothy
rushed out of the room.

The sight of Debrett's scarlet and gold upon her dressing-table was
enough to reconjure all her mortification, and she was just going to
weep her heart out upon the bed as, no doubt, below Lily was weeping
hers out upon the shoulders of a ghostly Tom Hewitt, when Tufton's
parting advice recurred to her. She had to look her best to-night. Why?
He must have some reason to say that.

"_J'y serai_?" cried Dorothy, mustering all her family pride to keep
back her tears.


VI

Although fortified by the motto, Dorothy was still suffering from the
memory of that afternoon, and when she arrived at the theater to dress
and saw Tom Hewitt standing by the stage-door she tried to pass him
without acknowledging his salute.

"Mr. Richards will be in front to-night," he told her, portentously.

"Oh, we're always hearing that," said Dorothy. "I don't believe it."

"It's a fact. Warren told me so himself. And Mr. Keal's come down with
him."

So this was why Tufton had advised her to look her best to-night; the
visit could only mean that the great man wanted girls for the autumn
production at the Vanity. Dorothy began to cheer up. Even if Lily's
behavior had disgusted Lord Clarehaven irreparably, such behavior would
not spoil her own chance of being engaged by John Richards, and at the
Vanity there would be plenty of titled admirers. No doubt most of them
would be younger sons or elder sons who had not yet succeeded, but ...
"_j'y serai_," murmured Dorothy. "It's a good thing that I don't fall in
love very easily. And it's lucky I didn't let myself cry," she added,
congratulating her reflection in the dressing-room mirror.

Every girl was painting herself and powdering herself and pulling up her
stockings and patting her hair and, regardless of the undergraduates she
had met during the week, preparing to act as she had never acted before.
Dorothy took neither more nor less trouble with her appearance than she
took every night.

This time rumor was incarnate in fact, for the great Mr. Richards came
and stood in the wings during a large portion of the play, and Dorothy,
convinced that the one thing she ought not to do was to throw a single
glance in his direction, devoted all her attention to the front of the
house. There were lots of flowers; but nobody, neither principal nor
chorus-girl, was handed such a magnificent basket of pink roses as
herself, and nobody who had not suffered as she had suffered that
afternoon in the depths could have been so gloriously thrilled on the
heights as Dorothy was when the curtain fell at the close of the
performance amid the shouts and cheers of youthful art-loving England,
and she was stopped in the wings by Mr. Water Keal.

"Come here, dear," he said. "I want to introduce you to Mr. Richards."

The impresario was a large and melancholy man whose voice reverberated
in the back of a cavernous throat with so high a palate that consonants
were lost in its echoes and his speech seemed to consist entirely of
vowels.

"Who sent you the prehy flowers, dear?" he asked, lugubriously.

"The Earl of Clarehaven," said Dorothy, with a brilliant smile.

"Ha--ha, vehy 'ice, vehy 'ice," he muttered, fondling the card attached.
"Goo' gir'! Goo' gir'!"

The millionaire's yachting friends wore evening gowns for the latter
part of the second act, and Dorothy in old rose, with her basket of
flowers and exquisite neck and shoulders, was indeed looking her best.

"Goo' gir'!" Mr. Richards boomed once more; then as she passed from the
royal presence he patted her shoulder in congratulation, dusted the
powder from his fingers, lit an enormous cigar, and wandered away with
Mr. Keal.

When Dorothy reached the dressing-room every girl was speculating on the
depth of the impression she had made upon Mr. Richards, but not one of
them could claim that the great man had patted her on the back or
noticed her flowers. Presently the call-boy came with a message that
Miss Lonsdale was to be at the theater to-morrow morning at eleven
o'clock without fail, and it was obvious to the most jealous observer
that Dorothy's chance had come. She was so much elated by her good
fortune that she was reconciled to Lily, told everybody what a
delightful lunch she had had with Lord Clarehaven and what a delightful
picnic she had had with Lord Clarehaven and how she had met a cousin of
hers, Arthur Lonsdale, who was the only son of Lord Cleveden.

"You know, he was governor of Central India," Dorothy reminded the
dressing-room.

"India!" echoed Miss Onslow. "That sounds hot stuff, anyway."

Dorothy buried her face in the roses to get rid of the effluvium of such
vulgarity. And then in the middle of her success, just when her true
friends should have been most pleased, Sylvia, who had shared--well,
not shared, but had been allowed to assist at her triumph--Sylvia it
was who asked, in a voice audible to the whole dressing-room:

"On which side of the road are you related to young Lonsdale?"

Luckily the joke was too obscure to be generally understood; but Dorothy
decided to banish Sylvia from the list of her friends that in Lily's
company she might henceforth inhabit an outer darkness unlit by
Debrett's scarlet and gold.

"I expect I shall soon forget what an awful life touring is," said
Dorothy to herself that night, as she turned back the limp cotton sheets
and looked distastefully at the hummocky mattress. There was a trenchant
symbolism, too, in massacring a flea with Debrett; no other volume would
have been heavy enough.

The next morning Mr. Richards seemed to be inviting her--so gentle were
his accents, so soft his intonation--to join the Vanity company next
September at three pounds a week. Mr. Keal and his Jewish assistant, Mr.
Fitzmaurice, were present at her triumph; and when Dorothy was going
down-stairs from the manager's office, Mr. Fitzmaurice hurried after her
and begged her not to forget that it was he who had been the first to
recognize her talents.

"Well, call me a cab, there's a good boy," said Dorothy, to reward him;
and Mr. Fitzmaurice, who only six months ago had looked at her so
critically on that wet December morning in Leicester Square, now ran
hither and thither in the summer weather until he had found her a cab.

"What swank!" Dorothy heard Clarice Beauchamp say when, with a rattle
and a dash, she drove up to the station, where the company were
mustering for their last journey together. But she had only a gracious
smile for poor Clarice; and at Paddington, although she parted with
Sylvia and Lily cordially enough, she did not invite either of them to
come and see her in Lonsdale Road.




CHAPTER III


I

Not even the Irishman's passion for originality is strong enough to
resist the common impulse of human nature to follow the course of the
sun; he must migrate westward like the Saxon before him, and it is
surely remarkable to find a theater holding out against a social
tendency to which an Irishman succumbs. When a flood of new
thoroughfares submerged old theatrical London in the last years of the
nineteenth century and created a new theaterdom farther west; when the
barbarous hoardings of the Strand Improvement obliterated so many
resorts of leisure, and, like the people of Croton, the London County
Council diverted a stream of traffic to flow where once was the Sybaris
of Holywell Street and the Opéra Comique; when the Lyceum and the
Adelphi changed the quality of their wares; when Terry's became a cinema
palace and His Grace of Bedford sold Drury Lane overnight--the Vanity
was almost the only theater that preserved its position and its
character. The peak of Ararat was not more welcome to the water-weary
eyes of Noah than to patrons of a theater as old-fashioned as the Ark
was the sight of that little island upon which the Vanity maintained
itself amid the wrecks and ruins of the engulfed Strand. Close by, as if
to commemorate the friendly rivalry of Church and Stage, upon another
island St. Clement Dane's cleft the traffic of Fleet Street long after
Temple Bar had been swept away; and it was agreeably appropriate that
the church where Doctor Johnson, our greatest conservative, was wont to
bow his head before the slow grinding of God's mills should have for
company in a visible protest against the illusion of progress that
monument of English conservatism, the Vanity Theater. More secure upon
its island in the Strand than the Eddystone Lighthouse upon its rock in
the Channel, the illuminated portico of the Vanity blazed away as
brightly as it ever did before the destruction of the mean streets that
used to obscure its glory. Not far off, the Savoy Hotel served as
prologue and epilogue to its entertainments; and no alliance between one
of the new theaters in Piccadilly and the Ritz or Carlton could yet
claim to have superseded that time-honored alliance between the Vanity
and the Savoy.

In the early 'seventies the sacred lamp of burlesque, as journalists
moved to poesy by their theme have it, was lighted at the Vanity, and in
the waning 'eighties the gas-lamp of burlesque, with nothing but an
added brightness to mark the change, became the electric bulb of musical
comedy. Time moved slowly at the Vanity; tenors grew hoarse and
comedians grew stiff, but they were not easily superseded; many ladies
grew stout, but the boards of the Vanity were strong, and even the
places of those dearly loved by the gods who married young were only
taken by others equally beloved and exactly like their predecessors;
puns disappeared gradually from the librettos; the frocks of the chorus
exaggerated the fashion of the hour; very seldom a melody was
sufficiently novel to escape being whistled by the town; but in the
opening years of the twentieth century the Vanity was intrinsically what
the Vanity had been thirty years before and what no doubt it would be
thirty years thence. The modish young men who applauded "Miss Elsie of
Chelsea" sat in the stalls where their fathers and in some cases their
grandfathers had applauded "Hamlet Up to Date." The fathers vowed that
the Vanity had deteriorated since the days when mutton-chop whiskers
were cultivated and the ladies of the chorus flirted bustles on the
outside of a coach-and-four; but the sons were quite content with the
present régime and considered jolly old John Richards as good as any
impresario of the 'eighties. Unless the standard of beauty had
universally declined at the dawn of the new century, that opinion of
youth must be indorsed; it is doubtful if twenty more beautiful girls
than the Vanity chorus contained in the autumn of 1903 could have been
found in any other city or in any other country, and certainly not in
any other theater. When a few years after this date John Richards was
knighted for his services to human nature and applied to the College of
Heralds for a grant of arms, a friend with a taste for Latin robbed
Propertius for the motto and gave him _Tot milia formosarum_, which,
though lending itself to a ribald translation of "The foremost harem of
smiling Totties," was not less well deserved by John Richards than by
Pluto, to whom the poet addressed the original observation.

Dorothy, by spending in complete seclusion the two months before
rehearsals began, prepared herself to shimmer as clearly as she could in
the shimmering galaxy that was to make "The River Girl" as big a hit as
"Miss Elsie of Chelsea." She declined to accompany her family to the
seaside in August, being sure that August at Eastbourne would be bad for
her complexion; therefore she remained behind in Lonsdale Road with the
cook, who by the time Dorothy had finished with her began to have
ambitions to be a lady's maid. Nothing is more richly transfigured by
unfamiliarity than the empty streets of a London suburb in mid-August,
when their sun-dyed silence quivers upon the air like noon in Italy. At
such a season the sorceress Calypso might not have disdained West
Kensington for her spells; Dorothy, dream-haunted and with nothing more
strenuous than singing-lessons and fashion papers to impinge upon the
drowsy days, lived on self-enchantment. She never sent Lord Clarehaven
the promised photograph, not did she even write him a letter; after
deliberation she had decided that it would be more effective to appear
upon his next horizon like a new planet rather than to wane slowly from
his recollection like a summer moon. To write from an address at which
it would be impossible to renew their acquaintance would be foolish.
Besides, with such a future as hers at the Vanity was surely bound to
be, did one Clarehaven more or less matter? He had served his purpose in
demonstrating the ease with which she could reach beyond other girls;
but, as Mary, the cook, had observed last night in recounting her
rupture with the milkman, "plenty more mothers had sons," and if
Clarehaven arrived impatiently at the same conclusion about the supply
of daughters, that was better than exposing herself to the greater
humiliation of being taken up in an idle moment and as readily dropped
again. Dorothy's imagination had been touched by reading of three Vanity
marriages that were now sharing the attention of the holiday press with
giant gooseberries and vegetable marrows of mortal seeming. The younger
son of a duke, the eldest son of a viscount, a Welsh baronet had, one
after another, made those gaps in the Vanity chorus, to fill one of
which Dorothy had been chosen by the provident Mr. Richards; she
accepted the omen, and made up her mind that for her it should always be
marriage or nothing.

It would be unfair at this stage in Dorothy's career to accuse her of
formulating any definite plan to win a coronet, still less of casting
her eye upon Lord Clarehaven's coronet in particular; but during these
sun-drenched August days she did resolve to do nothing that might spoil
the fulfilment of the augury. Left to herself, and free from the
criticism of friends or relations, it would have been strange if
Dorothy's estimate of her own powers had not been rather heightened by
so much lazy self-contemplation. One day she had met an acquaintance
marooned like herself upon this desert isle of holidays, and on being
asked what she was doing in London at such a season, had replied
truthfully enough that she was just looking round; but she did not add
that she was looking round at herself in a mirror. This cloistral
felicity lasted as long as the lime-trees in West Kensington kept their
summer greenery; at the end of August the leaves began to wither, the
rumble of returning cabs was heard more often every day, and the first
rehearsal of "The River Girl" was called. Dorothy's seclusion was over;
of the girls who passed through the Vanity stage-door that August
morning there was none so fresh as she.

"How odd," she thought, "that only this time last year the notion of
going on the stage had never even entered my head."

Dorothy had paused for a moment on the threshold of the theater, and was
listening while the door swung to and fro behind her and syncopated the
dull beat of the traffic in the Strand to a sort of ragtime tune. How
different these rehearsals were going to be from those of last year in
the Lisle Street club-room, and how right she had been to escape from
the provinces so quickly.

From the first moment Dorothy felt more herself in the Vanity than she
had felt all those six months of touring. She was, of course, stared at
and criticized, but she was never acutely conscious of the jealousy that
had glared from the eyes of her companions in the provinces. The beauty
of her rivals in this metropolitan chorus only made her own beauty more
remarkable; she, being the first to recognize this, accorded to her
associates such a frank and such an obviously sincere admiration that
she gained a reputation for simplicity, which the other girls ascribed
to innocence. From innocence to mystery is but a short step in an
ambient like the Vanity, and without a Lily or a Sylvia to tell the
other girls too much about her, Dorothy developed the mysterious aspect
of herself and left her innocence undefined. At the Vanity there was
none of the destructive intimacy of touring life. Nobody ever saw the
ladies of this chorus in polychrome on the wet platform of a Yorkshire
railway station; nobody ever saw the ladies of this chorus tilting with
a hatpin at pickled onions; nobody, in fact, had any excuse for being
disillusioned by the ladies of the Vanity, because, being individually
and collectively aware of their national importance, they were never
really off the stage; indeed, except occasionally in their bedrooms,
perhaps, they were never really behind the scenes. The fancy of a casual
observer, who lingered for a moment at the stage-door to watch the
ladies of the Vanity tripping out of their hansoms, was as much
stimulated by the sight as the fancy of the regular patron who from the
front of the house was privileged to observe them tripping on to the
stage. They were brilliant butterflies by day and gorgeous moths by
night; though nature forbids us to suppose that they never were
caterpillars, their larval state is as unimaginable as the touch of time
that worked the metamorphosis.

Dorothy did not allude to the chrysalis of West Kensington from which
she had just emerged, nor did she mention more than she could help the
caterpillar existence of touring. True to her native caution, she
avoided committing herself to any sudden friendships that might
afterward be regretted, but she fluttered round all the girls in turn,
and with Miss Birdie Underhill and Miss Maisie Yorke, two members of the
sextet sung from punts in the first act, she made a tolerably high
excursion into the empyrean. Birdie and Maisie were tall blondes of the
same type as herself, but, being some years older, they were beginning
to think that, inasmuch as they had not been able to find even the
younger son of a baron whose attentions conformed to his title, they
ought to accept the hands of two devoted and moderately rich
stock-brokers who had long and patiently admired them. Perhaps it was
the first faint intimations of maternity demanding expression that led
these two queens of the chorus to hint so graciously to Dorothy at the
inheritance they designed for her. To pass from butterflies to bees for
a metaphor, they fed her with queens' food (prepared by Romano's) and
taught her that the drones must either be married or massacred--even
both if necessary. Dorothy was too wise to think she knew everything,
and, being acquisitive rather than mimetic, she gained from the two
queens the cynicism of a wide experience without subjecting herself to
the wear and tear of the process.

Lest a too exclusive attention to Miss Underhill and Miss Yorke should
leave her stranded when they quitted the chorus, Dorothy frequented
equally the company of a very lovely brunette called Olive Fanshawe, who
was certainly the most popular girl in the dressing-room and of a sweet
and gentle disposition, without either affectation or duplicity. Apart
from the advantage of being friends with a girl so genuinely beloved,
Dorothy was attracted to Olive Fanshawe's ivory skin and lustrous dark
hair; that would set off her own roses and mignonette to perfection, and
she was glad when Olive proposed that perhaps later on they might share
a flat. She decided, however, to stay at home during the winter, or at
any rate until she should have obtained a more prominent place in the
chorus and be justified in launching out on her own with some prospect
of practical homage in return.

Dorothy's early confidence in herself had been slightly shaken in the
first six weeks of "The River Girl," because Clarehaven had not once
been to see her, or, if he had, had never written to tell her how lovely
she looked on the banks of a scene-painter's Thames. If he still took
the least interest in her, he could easily have found out where she was,
and it was significant that she had seen nothing of Tufton, either.
Dorothy began to be afraid that those two days at Oxford had vanished
from Clarehaven's memory; so, lacking as yet any great incentive to make
the best of herself off the stage, she decided not to waste money
either on a flat or on winter clothes. No address out of Mayfair would
suit her, and no furs less expensive than sables would become her fair
beauty. At nineteen she need not be in too much of a hurry, and she
should certainly be wise to wait until the springtime would provide her
with the prettiest frocks for much less outlay. As for taking a flat,
why, anything might have happened by the spring.

Dorothy's plans, however, were precipitated by the behavior of her
father. It appeared that a friendly archdeacon had warned Mr. Caffyn
privately of the forthcoming sale of some church schools in the center
of a large maritime town in the west of England in order that a cinema
theater might be erected on their site to the glory of God, the profit
of His Church, and the convenience of His little ones. The archdeacon
drew Mr. Caffyn's attention to the clause in the contract by which the
morality of every performance was secured, and strongly advised him to
follow his own example and invest in the theater. Mr. Caffyn, who was
not of a speculative temperament, felt that, though he should be unwise
to risk brewery stock profitable enough at a date when the Liberal party
had scarcely yet swelled the womb of politics, he was being offered an
excellent opportunity to add to his wife's income, which was not
yielding more than three and a half per cent. upon her capital. It was
on top of this important decision that Dorothy came back from the
theater one foggy November night to be met by her mother in the dim hall
of No. 17.

"A most terrible thing has occurred," Mrs. Caffyn whispered. "Hush!
Don't disturb Cecil. Tread quietly. The poor boy is tired out with
working for his Christmas examinations, and father might hear us."

To Mrs. Caffyn the drawing-room seemed the only fit environment for an
appalling problem the day had brought her, the only atmosphere that
could brace her to confront its solution, but Dorothy, who was cold
after her nerves by drinking the fresh tea brought in for a late
arrival. Dorothy came down-stairs, rather cross at having been disturbed
from her afternoon nap, and Mr. Caffyn, a Cenci of suburban prose,
confronted his wife and daughter.

"I have seldom felt such a fool," he began upon a note of pompous
reminiscence that whistled in his mustache like a wind through withered
sedge on the margin of a December stream. "I have _never_ felt such a
fool," he corrected himself, "as I was made to feel this afternoon by my
own wife and my own daughter. I go to your bank," he proclaimed, fixing
his wife's wavering eye--"I go to your bank, and there, in the presence
of my eldest son, I ask to see Mr. Jones, the manager, with a view to
improving your financial position."

"How kind of you, dear," she murmured, in an attempt to propitiate him
before it was too late.

"Yes," Mr. Caffyn went on, apparently not in the least softened by the
compliment. "In your interest I abandon for a whole hour my own
work--the work of the society I represent, although, mark you, I knew
full well that by so doing I should be kept in the office another whole
hour after my usual time."

Dorothy looked sarcastically at her wrist-watch, and her father bellowed
like a bull on the banks of that stream in midsummer.

"Silence, Norah!"

"Are you speaking to me?" she inquired. "Because if you are, I'd rather,
firstly, that you spoke to me without shouting; secondly, that you
didn't call me Norah; and thirdly, that you didn't say I was talking
when I was only looking at my watch."

Mr. Caffyn, throwing up his head in a mute appeal for Heaven to note his
daughter's unnatural behavior, swallowed a crumb the wrong way, the
noisy attempts to rescue which allowed his wife a moment's grace to dab
her forehead with a handkerchief; her tears, like the crumb, had chosen
another route, and the fresh tea was excessively hot.

"Where was I?" Mr. Caffyn demanded, indignantly, when he had disposed of
the crumb.

"I think you'd just got to my bank, dear," his wife suggested, timidly.

"Ah yes! Well, Jones and I were going into the details of your
investments, and I was just calculating what would be the amount of your
extra income should I consent to your investing your capital in
accordance with the advice of the Archdeacon of Brismouth, when Jones,
who I may remark _en passant_ has been a friend of mine for twenty years
and should know better, calmly informs me that without consulting your
husband you have withdrawn five hundred pounds from your capital in
order to fling it away upon your daughter. I thought he was perpetrating
a stupid joke; but he actually showed me a record of this abominable
transaction, and I had no alternative but to accept his word. I need
hardly say that any chance I might have had of finishing off my work at
the society vanished as far as this afternoon was concerned, and
so"--here Mr. Caffyn became bitterly ironical--"I ventured to permit
myself the luxury of a hansom-cab from the offices of your bank to the
corner of Carlington Road, where the four-mile circle of fares
terminates, and now, if you please, I should like an explanation of this
outrage."

"The explanation is perfectly simple," Dorothy began.

"I was speaking to your mother, not to you. The money is hers."

"Precisely," said his daughter, "and that is the explanation."

"Dearest child," Mrs. Caffyn implored her, "don't aggravate dear father.
We must admit that we were both very much in the wrong, particularly
myself."

"Not at all," said Dorothy, quickly cutting short her father's sigh of
satisfaction at the admission. "Not at all. We were both absolutely in
the right. The transaction was a purely business one. Mother has allowed
me twenty-five pounds a year since my seventeenth birthday."

"Mother has allowed you?" echoed Mr. Caffyn. "Even if we grant that this
sum was technically paid out of your mother's income, you must
understand that it should be considered as coming from me--from me, your
father."

"You and mother can settle that afterward. It doesn't invalidate my
argument, which is that such a lump sum is likely to be more useful to
me at the beginning of my career on the stage than an annual pittance--"

"Pittance?" repeated Mr. Caffyn, aghast. "Do you call twenty-five pounds
a pittance?"

"Please don't go on interrupting me," said Dorothy, coldly. "I'm now
doing a calculation in my head. Twenty-five pounds a year is five per
cent.--"

"Five per cent.!" shouted Mr. Caffyn. "Your mother was only getting
three and a half per cent."

"Oh, please don't interrupt," Dorothy begged, "because this is getting
very complicated. In that case mother owes me, roughly, about another
two hundred and fifty pounds. However, we'll let that pass. You are both
released from all responsibility for me, and if you both live more than
twenty years longer you will actually be making twenty-five pounds a
year out of this arrangement. In twenty years you'll be sixty-eight,
won't you? Well, there's no reason why you shouldn't live to
seventy-two, and if you do you'll make one hundred pounds out of me. So
I don't think you can grumble."

"Dear child," sobbed Mrs. Caffyn, "I don't think it's very polite, and
it certainly isn't kind, to talk about poor father's age like that.
Let's admit we both did wrong and ask him to forgive us."

"I am not going into the question of right and wrong," replied Dorothy,
loftily. "It's quite obvious to me that you have a perfect right to do
what you like with your own money and that I have a perfect right to
avail myself of your kindness. Father's extraordinary behavior has made
it equally clear to me that I can't possibly stay on in this house; in
any case, the noise the children make in the morning will end by driving
me away, and the sooner I go the better."

"I forbid you to speak to your parents like that," said Mr. Caffyn.

Dorothy could not help laughing at his authority, and he played his last
card:

"Do you realize that you are not yet of age and that if I choose I can
compel you to remain at home?"

"I don't think it would be worth your while," she told him, "for the
sake of five hundred pounds, which in that case you'd certainly never
see again. I don't want to break with my family completely, but if I
find that your prehistoric way of behaving is liable to spoil my career,
I sha'n't hesitate to do so."

Dorothy guessed that she had defeated her father; Mrs. Caffyn, too, must
have guessed it, for she suddenly gasped:

"I think I must be going to faint."

And by summoning the memories of a mid-Victorian childhood she actually
succeeded. Luckily her husband had eaten most of the cakes; so that when
she was rescued from the wreck of the tea-table and helped up to her
room only one sandwich was adhering to her best gown.


II

It is hardly necessary to say that Dorothy did not confide in the girls
at the theater what had happened at home, but she let it be generally
understood that she was now looking out for rooms, and she talked a good
deal of where one could and where one could not live in a flat. About a
week later Olive Fanshawe took her aside and asked if she was serious
about moving into a flat at last; and, upon Dorothy's assuring her that
she was, Olive divulged under the seal of great secrecy that a friend of
hers, a man of high rank with much power and influence in the country,
was anxious to do something for her.

"He's a strange man," she told Dorothy, "and though I know you'll think
it's impossible for anybody to want to look after a girl in a flat
without other things in return, he really doesn't make love to me at
all. He gets tired of society and political dinners and the Palace."

"The Palace?" Dorothy repeated.

"Buckingham Palace. You didn't think I meant the Crystal Palace?" said
Olive, with a laugh.

Dorothy, with Debrett for a footstool, when she chose to treat the
volume thus, was offended by this raillery, and explained that she had
only wished to know whether she meant St. James's Palace or Buckingham
Palace.

"Darling, I was only teasing you.... Well, my friend wants to have a
place where he can lunch quietly sometimes or have tea and forget about
the cares of grandeur. You won't mind if I don't tell you his name, will
you?"

Dorothy did mind extremely, but inasmuch as she had affected an air of
mystery about herself and her origin, she felt she could not reasonably
object to Olive's secrecy.

"He told me to find another girl to live with me," Olive continued, "and
he said he would pay the rent of the flat and find all that's necessary
in the way of decorations and furniture. I've been waiting such a long
time for the right girl; I thought you didn't want to live up in town or
I should have suggested it sooner. He's seen you from the front, and he
admired you very much and couldn't understand why I didn't ask you at
once."

Dorothy was struck by Olive's frankness and still more was she struck by
her incapacity for jealousy. She could not think of any other girl who
would have been so obviously pleased as Olive was to hear a friend
admired by their own man. Three months at the Vanity had made Dorothy
chary of believing the assertion that there was nothing more between
her and the mysterious great one than good-fellowship, because she was
quite sure by now that all men expected more, and her judgment of
Olive's character led her to suppose that Olive would be too kind to
refuse him more. However, that was her business, and since there was
evidently going to be a simulation of complete innocence about the
transaction, no offer could have suited her better.

"My dear Olive," she said, "nothing could be nicer for me, and of course
I happen to be one of the few girls who would or could understand that
there is nothing in it. What a pity the weather's so wet for
house-hunting."

"That's what the great man said, and he told me to hire an electric
brougham until I've found the place I want."

"Of course," said Dorothy, as if the idea of searching for a flat
outside an electric brougham, a rare luxury in those days, was
inconceivable.

For a fortnight she and Olive glided here and there along the dim,
wintry streets, until at last they noticed that the stiff Georgian
houses at the far end of Halfmoon Street bulged out into an
efflorescence of bright new flats, which on inspection seemed to provide
exactly the address and the comfort they required.

"It's an awfully good address," said Dorothy. "Clarges Street would have
been a little nearer to Berkeley Square, but...." She forgave the extra
block or two with a gesture.

"It's so quiet," added Olive.

"And really not far from Devonshire House, though from Stratton Street
we should have overlooked the garden."

"But we can take San Toy for her walks in Green Park." San Toy was
Olive's Pekinese spaniel.

"I shall have my bedroom in apple green," Dorothy announced. "Apple
green with rose-du-barri curtains; and you'd better have cream with
café-au-lait in yours, unless you have eau-de-nil and sage.... I think
the fourth-story flat was the nicest."

"Yes, it's more romantic to be high up," Olive agreed.

"And the light is better for one's dressing-table," Dorothy added.

In dread of a maternal attempt to bring about a reconciliation between
herself and her father, Dorothy had hoped to avoid spending Christmas at
home. But the flat could not be ready until February; so, partly to keep
her mother quiet, partly because she was a little apprehensive of the
paternal prerogative with which Mr. Caffyn had threatened her minority,
she consented on Christmas morning to be kissed by his mustache. Perhaps
he was more willing to forgive her owing to his wife's conduct of her
financial affairs having provided an excuse to transfer them into his
own hands.

Dorothy's absence from the last Christmas gathering at home had not
sharpened her appetite for this kind of celebration, and she did not at
all like the sensation of being in the bosom of her family; Gulliver was
scarcely more disgusted by the Brobdingnagian maids of honor. Seizing
the occasion to impress upon her younger brothers and sisters her
disapproval of any inclination to boast about having a famously
beautiful sister at the Vanity, she was mortified to learn that her
career was regarded by the juniors as a slur upon their social standing.
Cecil informed her bluntly that in his society--the society of
industrious scholars at St. James's--actresses were regarded with
horror, and that though an unpleasant rumor had pervaded the school of
Caffyn's having a sister on the stage, he had managed to stifle such
deleterious gossip. It seemed that the traditions of the preparatory
school responsible for Vincent's budding social sense strictly forbade
any allusion to family life in any form whatsoever; at Randell's _all_
relatives were regarded as a disgrace, and only last term a boy had been
called upon to apologize for the extraordinary appearance his mother
had presented at the prize-giving. Another boy, whose father was reputed
to belong to the Royal Academy, had been forced to allay with largess of
tuck the hostile criticism leveled against a flowing cravat his parent
had worn at the school sports. As for sisters, Vincent affirmed, their
very existence was regarded as a shameful secret; but a sister on the
stage ... he turned away in despair of words to express what a
humiliation that would bring upon him were it known. Agnes and Edna
assured Dorothy they had far too many enthralling topics of conversation
already to bother about her; but when one or two of the mistresses had
inquired how she was getting on and had regretted that she was not
acting in Shakespeare, they had certainly not revealed that she was now
called Dorothy Lonsdale, because the real Dorothy was also an old girl;
so that even if one of the mistresses in an unbridled moment should
visit the Vanity, she would search for Miss Norah Caffyn upon the
program and come away no wiser than she went.

Meanwhile, the decoration and furnishing of the flat went on in strict
accordance with Dorothy's ideas, since she had better taste than Olive,
who, besides, was too much afraid of spending another person's money.
Dorothy had not yet been introduced to the great man, but she was sure
that he would like Olive to have all she wanted, or, in other words, all
she herself wanted. They moved in during February, and it was arranged
that the first Sunday evening should be dedicated to the entertainment
of their benefactor, who had returned to town for the opening of
Parliament. About six o'clock on the evening in question Dorothy rose
from a deliciously deep and comfortable Chesterfield sofa, looked round
her affectionately at her own drawing-room aglow with chintz and
daffodils, and in her bedroom, when she sat down in front of a triple
mirror to do her light-brown hair before dressing for dinner,
apostrophized her good fortune aloud, and admired herself more than
ever.

Dorothy acknowledged to herself that Olive's great man surpassed her
preconception of him kindled by dressing-room legends; at first she had
been inclined to criticize her friend's occasional ventures into
political prophecy as self-importance or girlish credulity; but as soon
as she saw the source of them she admitted that this time Olive's
romanticism was justified. Their guest was a tall, grizzled man, more
military to the outward eye than political, and he treated Olive with
just the god-fatherly manner she had led Dorothy to expect. She made a
good deal of fuss over him in the way of finding cushions for his head
and mixing his cocktail with extra care; but nothing in her obviously
sincere affection conveyed a hint of cloaking another kind of emotion.
Although the great man preserved his own anonymity, he talked so freely
about people of whom Dorothy had often read in the papers that his
absorbing conversation soon made her forget the strain upon her
curiosity to know who he was. He approved of the way the flat had been
decorated and complimented the two girls on their good taste, all the
credit of which Olive at once ascribed to her companion. About eleven
o'clock the great man passed his hand over his eyes in a way that seemed
to hint at a deep-seated, perhaps an incurable, fatigue, and announced
that he must be going to bed.

"Though, unfortunately," he added, "I must write one or two letters
first at my club. Happy children," he said, turning to them in the hall
and holding a hand of each. "We must try to meet next Sunday evening;
but I'm dreadfully busy, and I may not be able to get away."

Turning up the collar of his fur coat, he told Olive not to ring for the
lift and walked very wearily, it seemed to Dorothy, down the stairs of
the flats.

"I don't want to be inquisitive," she said, when they were back in the
drawing-room still haunted by the ghost of an excellent cigar. "But I
should like to know who he really is."

"Dorothy," her friend begged, "it's the only stipulation he's made, and
I don't think it would be fair to break it."

"You don't trust me," Dorothy complained.

"My dear, it isn't that; but I certainly should have to tell him that I
told you, and I'm sure he wouldn't like it. After all, we ought to be
very grateful for this jolly flat where we're perfectly free and have
nothing to bother about. Remember what happened to Psyche."

Dorothy was inclined to add "and also to Fatima"; but since she could
not pretend that the great man did in any way remind her of Bluebeard
and since the flat undoubtedly was delightful, she did her best to
restrain her curiosity, even though sometimes it irritated her like
prickly heat.

"It's a pity he had to go away to write his letters at a club," she
said.

"But he couldn't write from this address."

"No, but we could keep some plain paper for him," said Dorothy. "And
that reminds me, what is your crest?"

Olive looked alarmed.

"I don't think I've got a crest," she said. "My father's a solicitor in
Warwickshire."

"Warwickshire?" repeated Dorothy. "That's an odd coincidence. I wonder
if he knows Lord Cleveden."

Olive shook her head vaguely.

"He knows a good deal about Warwickshire; in fact, he's writing a book
called _Warwickshire Worthies_. He's been writing it for years. Does
Lord Cleveden come from Warwickshire?"

"Of course," said Dorothy, and then after a minute with a far-away look
she added, "So do I."

"Oh, Dorothy, then there really is a mystery? I thought it was only
dressing-room gossip."

"You have your secrets, Olive. Mayn't I be allowed mine? Though I
suppose I haven't any legal right to it, I am going to put my crest on
my note-paper, because I like the motto. It's a bugle-horn, and the
motto is _J'y serai_. I needn't translate it for you, as you went to a
convent in Belgium."

Olive laughed affectionately at her friend's little joke, and they
decided to reap the full advantage of a quiet Sunday by going to bed
early.

"He's a great dear, isn't he?" said Olive by the door of her room.

"Oh, a great dear. How horrid it is that a man like that would be so
misjudged by the world that he has to keep his name a secret. But, of
course, I understand his point of view. I've had some experience of
family pride, and it's a tremendous thing to be up against. However, it
will be all the same a hundred years hence. Good night, darling. Your
great man is a great, great success."

"I'm so glad you like him, Dorothy dear."

"I like him immensely."

Just before Dorothy got into bed she called out to her friend, who in a
dressing-gown of amber silk hurried to know what she wanted.

"I only wanted to tell you that you simply must get this new
tooth-paste. I like it immensely."

"Oh, I'm glad it's a success," Olive exclaimed.

"It's a great, great success."

Dorothy wondered when she was fading into sleep how long it would be
before she should be able to recommend a tooth-paste to the world at
large, recommend it in glowing words with a photograph of herself
smiling at the delicious tube.


III

Soon after Dorothy and Olive were established in Halfmoon Street Birdie
Underhill and Maisie Yorke, by getting married on the same day at the
same church to bridegrooms in the same profession, obtained as much
publicity in the newspapers as was possible for two Vanity girls who
had failed to acquire a title on abandoning the stage. The service in a
double sense was fully choral, and the two queens had a train of
bridesmaids from the Vanity, all looking as demure as Quakeresses in
their dove-gray frocks, and certainly holding their own in the mere
externals of maidenhood with the sisters of the bridegrooms, who were as
fresh and rural as if Bayswater, their home, was in the Lake district
and had been immortalized by Wordsworth in a sonnet. One reporter was so
much impressed by the ceremony that his account of it was headed
"Dignified Wedding of Two Vanity Girls."

"Yes," said Dorothy, when with Olive she was driving away from the
reception, "it was charmingly done, of course; but, poor dears, it is
rather a come-down."

"But I thought their men were awfully twee," said Olive.

"Twee" was society's attempt at this date to voice the ineffable, in
which respect it was at least as successful as the terminology of most
mystics and philosophers: yet although Plotinus might have been glad of
it in the sunset-stained fog of neo-Platonism, the practical Dorothy
considered that this was too transcendental for stock-brokers.

"After all," she said, poised serenely above the abyss of reality, "what
is a stock-broker?"

"They'll be fairly well off, and they'll have nice houses, and children
perhaps," Olive argued. "And I expect they're tired of the theater by
now. I don't think either of them would ever have got anything better
than the Punt Sextet; and Maisie told me when I was kissing her good-by
and wishing her all happiness that she was twenty-seven. Isn't it
terrible to think of?"

"Twenty-seven!" Dorothy echoed. She would have been less shocked if the
sum had referred to Maisie's lovers rather than to her years. "Well, of
course, she admitted once to me that she was twenty-four. I only hope
that when I'm twenty-seven I sha'n't be singing with five other girls in
punts."

"You won't be, darling. You'll either be a great star or you'll be
brilliantly and happily married."

Olive was really a very easy girl to live with; and the former of these
predictions seemed likely to come true when Dorothy was actually
promoted to occupy one of the punts after the girl first selected had
proved a failure in such a conspicuous position; the other vacant punt
had been successfully filled by Queenie Molyneux. This girl, though she
was not nearly so beautiful as Dorothy, had a good deal of talent, which
gave even the two solo lines she was allowed in the sextet what any
serious dramatic critic who had learned French at school would have
called _espièglerie_. Miss Molyneux had reason to hope that such a
phrase would one day be applied to her acting, because people whose
judgment was to be trusted went about saying that she had a career
before her, not merely in musical comedy, but perhaps even in real
comedy, where she would be written about by critics who were not afraid
to use foreign words at what they would call the "psychological moment."
In view of the fact that Miss Molyneux might henceforth be considered a
rival, Dorothy took care to be very friendly with her, and to be seen
fairly often lunching with her at Romano's or supping at the Savoy,
although she was a girl whose reputation even at the Vanity was
whispered about, and whose private life far exceeded in _espièglerie_
her two lines in the sextet. Notwithstanding this, it was Queenie
Molyneux whom Dorothy chose to be her companion at a supper-party given
by Lord Clarehaven soon after the beginning of the Easter holidays,
seven months after the production of "The River Girl."

Clarehaven had reappeared without a word of warning, and in a note that
he sent round to invite Dorothy and a friend to supper he seemed quite
unconscious that there was anything in his behavior to be excused. He
hoped that she had not forgotten him, as if his silence of nearly a
year was perfectly natural; he mentioned that Lonsdale was with him,
congratulated her upon her singing in the sextet, and begged for an
answer to be sent down to the stage-door. Somehow it was not very
difficult for Dorothy to forgive him, and she accepted the invitation.
The obvious friend to have taken out with her would have been Olive
Fanshawe, because Olive was a brunette and Queenie was not. However, if
Clarehaven was capable of being even temporarily fascinated by another
girl's outward charms, Dorothy felt that she might as well give him up
at once; she did not intend her life to be spoiled by beauty
competitions. Dorothy wanted to impress Clarehaven more deeply than with
the skin-deep loveliness that belonged in her own style as much to Olive
as to herself, and in order to impress him she felt that a moral
contrast would be more effective than the hackneyed contrast between
brunette and blonde. Of course, she did not mean the kind of moral
contrast that Lily had provided on that dreadful afternoon in Oxford;
that had been merely a painful exhibition of vulgarity. Olive was so
sweet and good and well behaved that between them they might achieve the
insipid, to obviate which Dorothy chose Queenie, who would set off, if
not her complexion, at any rate her point of view.

At the end of the evening, when Clarehaven, hesitating for a barely
perceptible moment, had said good-by to Dorothy outside Halfmoon
Mansions and stepped reproachfully back into his hansom, she decided on
her way up-stairs that the supper-party might be considered a success.
To begin with, all the other people supping at the Savoy had stared at
their table more than at any other. Then, Arthur Lonsdale had evidently
taken a fancy to Queenie Molyneux, and if Dorothy was not mistaken
Queenie had taken a fancy to him. His way of talking had been just the
foil she required for her own, and when they drove away together to
Ridgemount Mansions there was no doubt in Dorothy's mind that Lonsdale
would tell the cab not to wait and end by missing that last train at
Goodge Street. However, what happened to the cab or, for that matter, to
Lonsdale and Queenie Molyneux was of slight importance beside the fact
that Clarehaven had evidently lost nothing of his admiration for
herself, or, if he had lost it, had regained it all and more this
evening. When he and his friend compared notes to-morrow how sharply the
difference between herself and some other Vanity girls would be brought
home to him.

Yet, successful as the supper-party had been, it remained for the time
another isolated event in the relations between herself and Clarehaven,
from whom she had not heard another word during the vacation.

"He's frightened of you, that's what it is," said Miss Molyneux, whose
friendship with Lonsdale, begun that night, was being hotly kept up,
though she was running no risks by inviting Dorothy to be a spectator of
it.

"Frightened of what?"

"Oh, he thinks you're too good to be amusing and not good enough for
anything else. Arthur told me so. Not in so many words, but his lordship
found the drive home rather lonely."

"Anything else?" repeated Dorothy. "What do you mean by anything else?"

"Why, to marry, of course," replied her friend.

It was strange that the first girl to express in words the thought that
was haunting the undiscovered country at the back of Dorothy's mind
should be the one girl at the Vanity to whom marriage probably meant
less than to any other.

"But why not?" thought Dorothy, in bed that night. "He's independent.
Nobody can stop him. Countess of Clarehaven," she murmured. The title
took away her breath for a moment, and it seemed as if the very traffic
of Piccadilly paused in the presence of a solemn mystery. "Countess of
Clarehaven!"

The omnibuses rolled on their way again, and the idea took its place in
the natural scheme of things. Queenie little thought that her scoffing
allusion to the state of affairs between Clarehaven and herself would
have such a contrary effect to what she intended. Queenie had meant to
crow over her, but she had made a slip when she had let out that
Clarehaven was frightened. It was not Clarehaven who was frightened; it
was his friend Lonsdale. No doubt, Clarehaven had not yet whispered of
marriage even to himself; no doubt he was merely thinking at present
what a much luckier chap Lonsdale was than himself. But Lonsdale was
frightened....

"And he has reason to be," said Dorothy, turning on the light and
picking up Debrett.

It happened that the great man telephoned next morning to say that he
was coming to lunch that day, and after lunch Dorothy alluded lightly to
Lord Clarehaven.

"I believe I once met his mother," said the great man. "Wasn't she a
daughter of Chatfield?"

Dorothy nodded.

"Yes, I remember the story now," he went on. "She had a good deal of
trouble with her husband. But he's been dead some years, eh?"

"Eighteen ninety-six," said Dorothy.

"Yes, I thought so. I don't know anything about the son; he sounds, from
your description, rather a young ass."

However deeply Dorothy would have resented such a comment from any one
else, she accepted it from the great man as merited; she was even
grateful to him for it; from the instant that Clarehaven presented
himself to her vision as rather a young ass, it did not seem so
impossible that she should one day marry him. These months at the Vanity
had already considerably cheapened the peerage in Dorothy's estimation,
and intercourse with the great man had imparted to her some of his own
worldly contempt for inconspicuous young peers. Dorothy began to ponder
the likelihood of being able to elevate Clarehaven from single "young
assishness" to the dignity of the great man himself; a clever wife could
do much, a beautiful wife more. She was so serenely confident of herself
that when, a few days after this conversation, the subject of it
telegraphed from Oxford to say he should call for her the following day
to take her out to lunch, she was neither astonished nor at all unduly
elated.

"You wouldn't mind his lunching here?" she asked Olive. "He's quite a
nice boy. Rather young, of course, after the great man; but he'll
improve."

Olive was delighted to welcome Clarehaven, and Dorothy was glad of an
opportunity to display her independence and pleasant surroundings. She
had warned Olive not to leave her alone with their guest after lunch,
because she was anxious to avoid discouraging him too much by positively
refusing to let him make love to her, although she wished him to go away
with the impression that only luck had been against him.

"You seem very comfortable here," he commented, suspiciously, when, on
his departure, Dorothy escorted him to the door of the flat.

"I am very comfortable," she admitted.

"Is it your flat or Miss Fanshawe's?"

"Both."

He looked round at the paneled hall and frowned.

"I can't make you out," he confessed.

"Isn't mystery woman's prerogative?" she asked, and then in case she had
frightened him with such a long word she let him kiss her hand before he
went away.

Certainly for a girl who was not much over twenty Dorothy could not be
accused of clumsiness. Her admirer had gone away piqued by the richness
of her surroundings, the correctness of her demeanor, most of all by the
touch of her hand upon his lips. Yes, she might congratulate herself.

"Rather a dear!" said Olive.

"Yes," Dorothy agreed. "Rather--but dreadfully young. Though his title
only dates back to the eighteenth century, the baronetcy is older, and
his ancestors really did come over with the Conqueror."

And one felt that such antiquity compensated Dorothy for some of that
youthfulness she deplored.

During the next fortnight Clarehaven paid several visits to town, but
Dorothy was steadily unwilling to be much alone with him, and, finally,
one hot afternoon in mid-May, exasperated by her indifference and
caution, he went back to Oxford in a fit of petulance (temper would have
been too strong a word to describe his behavior, which was like a
spoiled child's) and relapsed into another spell of silence. A week or
so after this Queenie Molyneux asked Dorothy one day how long it was
since she had heard from Clarehaven, and when Dorothy countered the
awkward question by asking, rather bitterly, how long it was since she
had heard from Lonsdale, Queenie admitted that he, too, had been silent
for some time.

"I'm afraid I'm too expensive for Lonnie," she laughed, lightly. "He's a
nice boy, but love in a cottage would never suit me, and love anywhere
else wouldn't suit him. So that's that."

"You don't know what it is to be in love," said Dorothy.

"Cut it out!" said Miss Molyneux. "I'd rather not learn."

Dorothy would have liked to cut her own tongue out for playing her false
by uttering such a sentiment to a girl like Queenie. However, she had no
wish to seem a whit less hard than her rival--Dorothy was beginning to
achieve such a projection of her personality across the footlights that
Queenie really had become a rival, though Queenie might have put it the
other way round--and she consoled herself for Clarehaven's absence by
giving a great deal of attention to the new frocks that the fine
weather demanded; also in consequence of a suggestion by the great man
she began to take riding-lessons, with which she made as rapid progress
as with her dancing, to which she had already been devoting herself for
some time.

Toward the end of the month Dorothy and Olive were criticizing the
fashions in the windows of Bond Street when somebody slapped her on the
back and, turning round with half a thought that she was being called
upon to reply to a novel method of attack by Clarehaven, she perceived
Sylvia Scarlett. It was typical of Sylvia to greet her like this on
meeting her again for the first time after a year, but the old awe of
Sylvia prevented her from expressing her dislike of such horseplay in
Bond Street, and a sudden shyness drove her into self-assertion. She
began to talk about lunching at Romano's and supping at the Savoy and of
the success she had made in "The River Girl" sextet, to all of which
Sylvia listened with a smile until she broke abruptly into her discourse
with:

"Look here! A little less of the Queen of Sheba, if you don't mind.
Don't forget I'm one of the blokes as is glad to smell the gratings
outside a baker's."

Dorothy did not think this remark particularly amusing; there was quite
enough genuine cockney to be endured on the stage without having to
listen to an exaggerated imitation of it in Bond Street. Olive, however,
was laughing, and Dorothy decided to take Sylvia down a peg by asking
what she was doing now.

"Resting, Dolly, but always open to a good offer. Same old firm. Lily
and Skinner. The original firm makes boots; we mar them. The trouble is
that I can't find anything to skin; I tried Rabbit's, the rival
boot-shop, but even they wanted cash. However, Lily's quite content to
go on resting, so that's all right."

"My dear," exclaimed Dorothy, in affected dismay, "you're not still
living with that dreadful girl?"

"Oh, go to hell!" said Sylvia, sharply, and strode off down Bond Street.

"What an attractive girl!" Olive exclaimed.

Dorothy stared at her in bewilderment.

"What do _you_ see attractive in _her_?"

"She's just the sort of person who would amuse the great man," Olive
declared.

"I'm sorry that I bore him so much."

Olive seized her hand.

"Dorothy," she murmured, reproachfully, "you know you don't bore him. He
was only saying yesterday that he wished he could ride with you in the
Row."

"You'd better get Sylvia Scarlett to share the flat with you," went on
Dorothy.

"How can you say things like that? You know I love you better than
anybody in the world. You know how beautiful I think you, how clever,
Dorothy; it's really unkind to suggest that any other girl could take
your place."

"If you're so anxious to know her," Dorothy continued, "I'll write and
ask her to come and see us."

"Dorothy, you quite misunderstand me."

"I shouldn't like you to think I would stand in the way of your meeting
anybody you took a fancy to, man or woman."

Olive protested again and again that Dorothy had utterly misjudged her
and that she never wished to see Sylvia Scarlett again. The argument
lasted so long and the whole question of whether or not Sylvia should be
invited to Halfmoon Mansions assumed such importance that after lunch
Dorothy wrote and invited Sylvia, and not merely Sylvia, but Lily as
well, to come and have tea with them the next day. She told herself when
she had posted the letter that she was probably committing a great folly
by introducing to her friends two people who knew so much about her, and
she asked herself in amazement what mad obstinacy had led her into such
a course of action.

"Most girls would avoid her," she thought. "But if I avoid her, she'll
despise me; and I _do_ hate the way she can make people look idiotic."

Dorothy was not accustomed to analyze her emotions much; she was usually
too fully occupied with the analysis of her features; but before she
went to sleep that night she had admitted to herself that she was
thoroughly frightened of Sylvia.

In the morning a messenger-boy brought the answer.

     MULBERRY COTTAGE,

     TINDERBOX LANE, W.

     DEAR DOROTHY,--Rudeness evidently pays, and as Lily is bursting
     with curiosity to see you, we'll come to tea to-morrow. I'm
     tremendously impressed by your note-paper. Is the trumpet hanging
     in the corner a crest or a trade-mark? I thought when I first
     opened your letter that you had gone into the motor business. "_J'y
     serai_" is good, but I suggest "I blow my own trumpet" would be
     better, or, if you must have a French motto, you could change your
     crest to a whip and put underneath "_Je fais claquer mon fouet_."
     But perhaps this would suit me better than you. Lily has buried at
     least half a dozen Tom Hewitts since last June, so we'll come
     unaccompanied by any skeletons to your feast. Don't mind my teasing
     you. I believe you wish me well. I much look forward to hearing
     your Abyssinian friend singing of Mount Abora. Forgive my allusions
     to literature and display of idiomatic French. They're the only
     things I can set off against Romano's and the Savoy.

     Yours ever,

     SYLVIA.

     P.S.--It was decent of you to apologize for what you said about
     Lily, and perhaps you were right to be a little haughty with me
     after that remark of mine in the dressing-room at Oxford. I'll try
     to keep a check on myself in future if you'll be as charming as you
     know how to be when you choose.

"I'm afraid," said Dorothy, when she read this letter, "that Sylvia has
grown rather affected. Poor girl, it will be good for her to meet some
nice people again."

She did not read the postscript to Olive, but she was much relieved by
it, and she showed her relief by praising Lily's beauty and telling
Olive that in taking a fancy to Sylvia she had once more evinced her
good taste.

"If one could only cure her of her affectations she would be a charming
companion for the great man, but as it is.... We must get some people
for this afternoon," she broke off, going to the telephone.

Dorothy took more trouble over Sylvia's party than over anything since
she chose the decorations of the flat; difficult though it was, she
managed to collect several men whom she supposed to be intelligent,
chiefly because they had less money than her other friends. It was like
looking for gold in an alms-bag to find in their circle enough men to
whose intelligence even Dorothy could subscribe, and she asked herself
doubtfully what the great man would have thought of the result. Well,
well--Sylvia might be critical, but she had no right to be as critical
as that, and perhaps one or two of them were more intelligent than she
thought.

Among the men invited that afternoon was Harry Tufton, who had just been
sent down from Oxford. Anxious to show himself worthy of his election to
the Bullingdon, he had let himself be driven from his wonted gravity and
discretion by some ambitious demon, and, after mixing his wine with this
fiery spirit, had painted either the dean's nose or the dean's door
red--the story varied with his listeners' credulity. Hence his arrival
in London, where he had made haste to invite Dorothy out to supper and
give her some news of his friend Lord Clarehaven. She had been engaged
that evening, and now she bethought herself of asking him to tea. It was
a daring move, but somehow she believed that Tufton would appreciate it,
and perhaps be impressed by her ability to keep friends with girls like
Sylvia and Lily. Nevertheless, it certainly was daring to invite the
very person who had seen with his own eyes of what Lily was capable; it
was also a temptation to Sylvia's tongue.

Dorothy considered that her party was a success, and she was pleased to
observe that Sylvia was evidently struck by the intelligence of a young
Liberal journalist called Vernon Townsend. This young man, lately down
from Oxford, was delighting the select minority who read a brilliant
weekly called _The Point of View_ with his hebdomadal destructiveness as
a critic of the drama. The Aristotelian way in which he used to prove in
two thousand words winged with scorn that "The River Girl" was not so
good a play as "John Gabriel Borkmann" was a great consolation to his
readers, who were mostly unacted playwrights. After a column of
Townsend's smoke they were sure that they were in the van of progress,
riding, one might say, in the engine-driver's cab upon a mighty express
that was thundering away from mediocrity. If sometimes in the course of
their journey the coal-dust of realism made them look a little dirty,
that was a small penalty to pay for riding in front of the common herd.

"It must be jolly to run the funicular up Parnassus," said Sylvia to
this young man. "And jolly to drink of the Pierian spring or from the
well of truth without either of them leaving a nasty taste in the
mouth."

"Very good," he allowed, and laughed with the serious attention that
critics give to jokes. "But you must take in _The Point of View_."

"I will. From your description it must have all the feverish brilliance
of a young consumptive. I suppose the air on the top of Parnassus is
good for this Keats of weekly reviews?"

"That's an extremely intelligent girl," said Mr. Townsend to his
hostess. "Why haven't I ever noticed her on the stage?"

Mr. Townsend went often to the Vanity because he was searching for
talent; he had a theory that all good actresses and all good plays were
born to blush unseen.

"It's a good theory," said Sylvia, "and of course you'll add the
audience. One might extract a moral from the fact that they're much more
careless about turning down the lights during the performance of a play
in Paris than they are in London. Dorothy, Mr. Townsend assures me that
I ought to be a great actress."

Dorothy smiled encouragingly and passed on to see that her guests were
well supplied with cakes. Yes, the party was going well. Sylvia was
entertaining other people and herself being entertained. Lily was
sitting languorously back in a deep chair, listening to a young
candidate for Parliament whose father had so successfully imposed a
patent medicine upon his contemporaries that there seemed no reason why
his son should not as successfully cure the body politic. Dorothy
frankly admitted Lily's beauty when Olive commented upon it.

"She's like a lovely spray of flowers," said Olive.

Dorothy thought that this was rather an exaggerated simile, and she
could not help adding that she hoped Lily would not fade as quickly.

Presently Tufton came up to his hostess and begged her to do him the
honor of a little talk.

"Everybody is very happy. Charming little party. Yes," he assured her.
"But you mustn't tire yourself. Let me get you an ice."

Dorothy was flattered by this almost obsequious manner, and it flashed
upon her that he was trying to get in with her, not, as the girls at the
theater would have put it, "get off" like most men.

"Your two friends from Oxford are much improved," he began. "Do you
remember our little scene after lunch? I felt for you tremendously. It's
good of you to carry your old friends along with you on the path to
success."

"You think I'm going to be successful?"

"You _are_ successful. In confidence, you'll be encouraged to hear that
Richards expects a lot from you. Yes, he told my father. You've not seen
Clarehaven lately?" Dorothy shook her head, and Mr. Tufton nodded
gravely; behind those solemn indications of cerebral activity two twin
souls rubbed noses.

"Of course I haven't seen him just lately. You heard of my little joke?
It had quite a 'varsity success. Yes, I painted the dean's door. Well,
somebody had to pull the evening together, and I tossed up with
Ulster--the Duke of Ulster--you haven't run across him? No? Awful good
chap. Yes. 'Look here, Harry,' he said to me, 'something's got to be
done. Which of us two is going to paint Dickie's door vermilion?' Dickie
is the dean. 'Toss you,' said I. 'Right, said he. 'Woman,' said I, and
lost. So I got a bucket of paint and splashed it around, don't you know.
Everybody shouted, 'Jolly old Tuffers,' and the authorities handed me my
passports. But, after all, what earthly use is a degree to me?"

Dorothy looked a wise negative and brought the conversation back to
Clarehaven.

"I suppose you'll be seeing him again very soon now?"

Mr. Tufton nodded. "And I can prophesy that you'll be seeing him again
very soon."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"You mustn't be cynical," he warned her.

"Can one help it?"

"You've no reason to be cynical. I suppose Clarehaven is almost my most
intimate friend, and I can assure you that you have no reason to be
cynical. Difficulties there have been, difficulties there will be, but
always remember that I'm your friend whatever happens."

And most of all her friend, Dorothy thought, if she happened to become a
countess.

After this tea-party Sylvia and Lily often came to Halfmoon Mansions;
when in July Dorothy and Olive took a cottage at Sonning they were often
invited down there for picnics on the Thames. The other girls at the
theater could not understand why it was necessary to look beyond
Maidenhead for repose and refreshment from singing in a punt every
night; and although such of them as were invited to Sonning enjoyed
themselves, they always went back to town more firmly convinced than
ever that Dolly Lonsdale was a most mysterious girl. Yet it ought not to
have been impossible to understand the pleasure of hurrying away from
the Vanity to catch the eleven forty-five at Paddington, and of
alighting from the hot train about a quarter to one of a warm summer
night to be met by a scent of honeysuckle in the station road, to see
the white flowers in their garden and the thatched roof of their cottage
against the faintly luminous sky, and, while they paused for a moment to
fumble in their bags among the powder-puffs and pocket-mirrors for the
big key of their door, to listen to the train's murmur still audible far
away in the stillness of the level country beyond.

"I ought always to live in the country," said Dorothy, gravely.

But in August rehearsals for "The Duke and the Dairymaid" began, and the
cottage at Sonning had to be given up. The new production at the Vanity
included a trio between the ducal tenor and two subsidiary dairymaids,
to be one of whom Dorothy was chosen by the management. She might fairly
consider that her new part was exactly three times as good as that she
had played in the sextet; moreover, her salary was doubled, and by what
could only be considered a stroke of genuine luck Queenie Molyneux, who
would certainly have been chosen for the other dairymaid, was lured away
to the rival production of "My Mistake" at the Frivolity Theater. Millie
Cunliffe, who took her place, had a finer mouth than Queenie's, which
was too large and expressive for anything except lines like those with
which she led the Pink Quartet at the Frivolity; but Millie had not such
a beautiful mouth as Dorothy, and it was not nearly so apt at singing or
speaking; her ankles, too, were not so slim and shapely as Dorothy's,
nor were they made for dancing like hers. So Dorothy enjoyed a vogue
with gods and mortals, and was now plainly visible to the naked eye in
the constellation of musical comedy.


IV

The departure of Queenie Molyneux to the Frivolity had a more intimate
bearing on Dorothy's future than the mere removal of a rival of the
footlights to a safe distance: it gave her back Clarehaven.

That Savoy supper-party last Easter had not seemed likely at the time to
lead to a situation even as much complicated as Dorothy's ambition to
marry an earl. When Arthur Lonsdale escorted Queenie home afterward, he
had probably counted upon such a climax to the entertainment; but he
must have been astonished to hear from his friend next morning that
Dorothy was not to be won lightly by a Savoy supper nor kept with the
help even of the tolerably large income that friend enjoyed. From the
moment that the immediate gratification of Clarehaven's passion was
denied him, Lonsdale must have divined a danger of the affair's turning
out serious, and he had obviously done all he could to discourage him
from frequenting Dorothy's unresponsive company; she learned, indeed,
from various sources that he was devoting his leisure to curing
Clarehaven. Then suddenly the melody of Queenie's Pink Quartet enchained
him, and he was always to be seen at the Frivolity. Long days cramming
for the Foreign Office were followed by long evenings at the Frivolity
and ... anyway, Queenie seemed to have decided she liked Lonsdale better
than wealth. But if the melody of the Pink Quartet in "My Mistake" was
an eternal joy, so, too, was the melody of the trio in "The Duke and the
Dairymaid"; henceforth Clarehaven from his stall could nightly feed his
passion for Dorothy without being subjected to the mockery and tutelage
of his former companion. What between lunches at Verrey's and suppers at
the Savoy it was not surprising that before the leaves had fallen from
the London plane-trees he should have hung a necklace of pearls round
her neck. Unfortunately, though Clarehaven showed his appreciation of
Dorothy by figuratively robbing his coronet of its pearls, he did not go
so far as to offer her the coronet itself; and when he suggested that
she should leave Halfmoon Street for an equally pleasant flat round the
corner, she was naturally very indignant and asked him what kind of a
girl he thought she was.

"You don't care twopence about me," he said, woefully.

"How can I let myself care about you?" she countered. "You ought to know
me well enough by this time to be sure that I would never accept such an
offer as you've just made me. I know that you can't marry me. I know
that you have your family to consider. In the circumstances, isn't it
better, my dear Tony, that we should part? I'm dreadfully sorry that our
parting should come after your proposal rather than before it. But
horribly as you've misjudged me, somehow I can't bear you any ill will,
and in token of my forgiveness I shall always wear these pearls. Pearls
for tears, they say. I'm afraid that sometimes these old sayings come
only too true."

"Yes, but I can't get along without you," protested Clarehaven.

She smiled sadly.

"I'm afraid you can get along without me in every way except one, only
too easily."

"Why did you lead me on, if you weren't in earnest?"

"Lead you on?"

"You asked me back to the flat. You gave me every encouragement.
Obviously somebody is paying for this flat, so why shouldn't I?"

"Lord Clarehaven!" exclaimed Dorothy, with the stern grandeur of an
Atlantic cliff rebuffing a wave. "You have said enough."

She rang the bell and asked Effie, the maid whose attentions she shared
with Olive, to show his lordship the door. His poor lordship left
Halfmoon Mansions in such perturbation that he forgot to slip the usual
sovereign into Effie's hand, and she cordially agreed with her mistress
when he was gone that kind hearts are indeed more than coronets.
Dorothy's simple faith in her own abilities had received such a shock
that she began to cry; but it was restored by a sudden suspicion that
she possessed a latent power for tragedy that might take her out of the
squalid world of the Vanity into the ether of the legitimate drama. She
had never suspected this inner fountain that grief had thus unsealed,
and she let her tears go trickling down her cheeks with as much pleasure
as a small boy who has found a watering-can on a secluded garden path.

"Don't carry on so, miss," Effie begged. "Men are brutes, and that's
what all us poor women have to learn sooner or later. Don't take on
about his lordship. A fine lordship, I'm sure. Give me plain Smith, if
that's a lordship. Look at your poor eyes, miss, and don't cry any
more."

Dorothy did look at her poor eyes, and immediately compromised with her
emotions by going out and ordering a new dress. When she came back
Olive, who had been given a heightened account of the scene by Effie,
was exquisitely sympathetic; and the great man, when he was informed of
Clarehaven's disgraceful offer, was full of good worldly advice and
consolation.

"I think you can rely upon your powers of catalysis, Dorothy," he said.

She did not think her failure to understand such a strange word
reflected upon her education, and asked him what it meant.

"In unchemical English, as unchemical as your own nice light-brown hair,
_you_ won't change; but if I'm not much mistaken you'll play the very
deuce with Master Clarehaven's mental constitution."

This was encouraging; if Dorothy's faith in her beauty and abilities
had been slightly shaken by Clarehaven's omission to marry her, the loss
was more than made up for by an added belief in her own importance and
in the beauty of her character.

Among the men who sometimes came to the flat was a certain Leopold
Hausberg, a financier reputed to be already fabulously rich at the age
of thirty-five, but endowed with an unfortunately simian countenance by
the wicked fairy not invited to his circumcision. He possessed in
addition to his wealth the superficial geniality and humor of his race,
and was not accustomed to find that Englishwomen were better able than
any others to resist Oriental domination. Hausberg had not concealed his
partiality for Lily, and Dorothy, in her desire to accentuate her own
virtue, told Sylvia, soon after Clarehaven's proposal, that it would be
useful for Lily to have a rich friend like that. Sylvia flashed at her
some objectionable word out of Shakespeare and would not be mollified by
Dorothy's exposition of the difference between her character and Lily's,
although Dorothy took care to remind her of a remark she had once made
when they were on tour together about the inevitableness of Lily's
decline.

Dorothy had good reason, therefore, to feel annoyed with Sylvia when she
found out presently that Sylvia was apparently working on Leopold
Hausberg to do exactly what she herself had been so rudely scolded for
suggesting. As much fuss was being made about Lily's behavior as if she
had refused the dishonorable attentions of an earl; yet with all this
ridiculous pretense Sylvia was taking care to do for Lily what she was
either too stupid or too hypocritical to do for herself. If Lily's
happiness lay in the devotion of vulgar young men, she might at least
get the money she wanted for them out of Hausberg without letting a
friend do her dirty work. When the continually cheated suitor approached
Dorothy with complaints about the way Sylvia was managing the business
she listened sympathetically to his hint that Sylvia was trying to keep
Lily from him until she had made enough money for herself, and she took
the first opportunity of being revenged upon Sylvia for the horrid
Shakespearian epithet by telling her what Hausberg had said.

One Saturday night in November Olive and Dorothy came home immediately
after the performance to rest themselves in preparation for a long drive
in the country with the great man, who seldom had an opportunity for
motoring and had made a great point of the enjoyment he was expecting
to-morrow. They had not long finished supper when there was a furious
ringing at the bell, and Hausberg, in a state of blind anger, was
admitted to the flat by the frightened maid.

"By God!" he shouted to Dorothy. "Come with me!"

She naturally demurred to going out at this time of night, but Hausberg
insisted that she was deeply involved in whatever it was that had put
him in this rage, and in the end, partly from curiosity, partly from
fear, she consented to accompany him. While they were driving along,
Hausberg explained that he had at last persuaded Lily to abandon Sylvia
and accept an establishment in Lauriston Mansions, St. John's Wood. He
had furnished the flat regardless of expense, and this afternoon, when
Lily was supposed to have been moving in, he had been sent the latch-key
and bidden to present himself at midnight.

"Very well," said Hausberg between his teeth. "Wait until you see
what.... You wait...." he became inarticulate with rage.

They had reached Lauriston Mansions and, though it was nearly one
o'clock in the morning, a group of figures could be seen in silhouette
against the lighted entrance, among which the helmets of a couple of
policemen supplied the traditional touch of the sinister.

"Haven't you got it out yet?" Hausberg demanded of the porter, who
replied in a humble negative.

"What _are_ you talking about?" Dorothy asked, and then with authentic
suddenness she felt the authentic nameless dread clutching authentically
at her heart. Why, _it_ must be a dead body; grasping Hausberg's arm and
turning pale, she asked if Lily had killed herself.

"Killed herself?" echoed Hausberg. "Not she. I'm talking about this
damned monkey that your confounded friends have left in my flat."

The porter came forward to say that there was a gentleman present who
had a friend who he thought knew the address of one of the keepers of
the monkey-house at the Zoo, and that if Mr. Hausberg would give orders
for this gentleman to be driven in the car to his friend's address no
doubt something could be done about expelling the monkey. The gentleman
in question, a battered and crapulous cab-tout, presented himself for
inspection, and one of the policemen offered to accompany him and
impress the reported keeper with the urgency of the situation. While
everybody was waiting for the car to return, the lobby of the flat
became like the smoking-room of a great transatlantic steamer where
travelers' tales are told, such horrible speculations were indulged in
about the fierceness of the monkey.

"So long as it ain't a yourang-gatang," said one, "we haven't got
nothing to be afraid of. But a yourang-gatang's something chronic if you
can believe all they say."

"A griller's worse," said another.

"Is it? Who says so?"

"Why, any one knows there ain't nothing worse than a griller," declared
the champion of that variety. "A griller 'll bite a baby's head off the
same as any one else might look at you. A griller's worse than chronic;
it's ferocious."

"Would it bite the head off of an yourang-gatang?" demanded the first
theorist, truculently.

"Certainly it would; so when he's let out you'd better get behind George
here so as to hide your ugly mug."

This caused a general laugh, and the upholder of the orang-utan seemed
inclined to back his favorite with an appeal to force, until the porter
interposed to prevent a squabble.

"Now, what's the good in arguing if it's a griller or a yourang-gatang?"
he demanded, in a nasal whine. "All I know is it got my poor trouser leg
into a rare old yourang-atangle when I was 'oppin it out of the front
hall."

"Is there much damage done?" Hausberg asked.

"Damage?" repeated the porter. "Damage ain't the word. It looks as if
there'd been a young volcano turned loose in the flat."

"But what I don't understand," Dorothy began, primly, "is why I have
been brought into this."

Various ladies in light attire from the upper flats were beginning to
peer over into the well of the staircase, and Dorothy was wondering if
she were not being compromised by this midnight adventure.

"Let's get the monkey out first," said Hausberg, "and then I'll tell you
why."

After listening for another three-quarters of an hour to disputes
between the various supporters of the gorilla and the orang-utan, which
extended to a heated argument about the comparative merits of Mr.
Balfour and Mr. Chamberlain, the car came back, and the intruder, which
was announced to be a chimpanzee, was ejected by the keeper, and, after
an attempt to hand it over to the police, shut up till morning in a
boot-hole.

The flat presented a desolate spectacle when Dorothy and Hausberg
entered it; the chimpanzee had smashed the ornaments, ripped up the
curtains, tore the paper from the walls, and wrenched off all the
lamp-brackets; he had then apparently been seized with a revulsion
against the bananas and nuts strewn about the passage for his supper and
had gnawed the porter's hat.

"Now," said Hausberg, sternly, to the owner of the hat, who was tenderly
nursing it, "just tell this lady exactly what has happened here."

"Well, sir, about twelve o'clock this morning a gentleman drove up to
the mansions with a crate and said he was a friend of Mr. Hausberg's and
had brought him a marble Venus for a present, and I was to put it in the
hall of the flat. I particularly remember he said a Venus, because I
thought he said a green'ouse, which surprised me for the moment, and I
asked him if he didn't, mean a portable aquarium, which is what my
wife's brother has in the window of his best parlor."

"Go on, you fool!" Hausberg commanded. "We don't want to hear about your
wife's brother."

"Well, I accepted delivery of this Venus and between us we got this
Venus--"

"Don't go on rhyming like that," said Hausberg. "Tell the story properly
in plain prose."

"Between us--I mean to say me and the lift-boy together--we deposited in
the hall this crate which had a tin lining for the chim-pansy to breathe
with according to instructions duly received. When I turned up my nose
at this Venus, which smelled very heavy, the gentleman, who didn't give
his name, explained that you was intending to use it for a hat-stand,
and told us not to wait, as he'd unpack the crate hisself. I looked at
him a bit hard, but he give me something for me and the boy between us
before we come down-stairs again, and I thought no more about it. The
gentleman drove off about ten minutes afterward with a friendly nod, and
I was just sitting down to my dinner in the domestic office on the
ground floor when the people underneath--of course you'll understand I'm
referring to the flat now--the people underneath came down and
complained that something must have happened over their heads, as the
noise was something shocking and bits of the ceiling was coming down, or
they said it would be coming down in two two's if the noise wasn't
stopped. Well, of course up I went to investigate, and when I opened the
door and seed all the wall-paper hanging in strips I thought something
funny must have occurred, and I felt a bit nervous and began swallering.
Then all of a sudding, before I knew where I was, something had me by
the trouser leg, and if I'd of been a religious man I'd of said right
out it was the devil himself; but when I seed it was a great hairy
animal I run for the front door and slammed it to behind me, it being on
the jar for a piece of luck, because if it hadn't of been on the jar my
calf was a goner."

"Why didn't you send for me at once?"

"Well, sir, how was I to know you hadn't put the chim-pansy there for
the purpose?"

"Do you think I take flats for chimpanzees?" demanded Hausberg.

"No, sir, I don't, but if you'll pardon me, there's a lot of queer
things goes on in these mansions, and I've learned not to interfere
before I'm asked to, and sometimes not then. Only last week Number
Fourteen got the D. T.'s on him and threw a sewing-machine at me when
his young lady called me up to see what could be done about quieting him
down. And now this here monkey has cost me a pair of trousers and a new
hat with the name of the mansions worked on the front which I shall have
to replace, and I only hope I sha'n't be the loser by it."

"Get out," snarled Hausberg.

He was in such a rage that he looked more like a large monkey than ever
while he was striding in and out of every dismantled room; and Dorothy
realized the extreme malice of the joke that had been played upon him.

"You know who did this?" he said to her, wrathfully.

She shook her head.

"Do you mean to tell me you don't know that it was your friend Lord
Clarehaven?"

"Rubbish!" said Dorothy. "Why should he shut a chimpanzee in _your_
flat?"

"Your friend Clarehaven," Hausberg went on, "and that little swine
Lonsdale are responsible for this; but when I tell you that they drove
down this afternoon to Brighton with Lily and that cursed friend of
hers--"

"How do you know?" she interrupted, with some emotion.

"You don't suppose I set a girl up in a flat without having her watched
first, do you? When I buy," said Hausberg, "I buy in the best market.
Here's the detective's report."

He handed her a half-sheet of note-paper written in a copperplate hand
with a record of Lily's day, ending up with the information that she and
her friend Sylvia Scarlett, accompanied by the Earl of Clarehaven and
the Honorable Arthur Lonsdale, had driven down to Brighton immediately
after lunch and reached the Britannia Hotel at five o'clock, "as
confirmed per telephone."

"Well," said Hausberg, grimly, "Lily has been paid out by losing my
protection, but, by God! I'll get even with the rest of them soon or
late."

"You don't really think that I had anything to do with this?" asked
Dorothy. "Why, I haven't seen either Clarehaven or Lonsdale for a month!
I didn't even know that they had met Sylvia and Lily. They didn't meet
them in Halfmoon Street. Why do you drag me here at this hour of the
night?"

Hausberg seemed convinced by her denials, and his manner changed
abruptly.

"I'm sorry I suspected you as well. I might have known better. I see now
that we've both been made to look foolish. What can I do to show you I'm
sorry for behaving like this? We're old pals, Dorothy. I was off my head
when I came round here and they told me the trick that had been played
on me. Damn them! Damn them! I'll--But what can I do to show you I'm
sorry?"

"You'd better invest some money for me," said Dorothy, severely.

"How much do you want?"

"No, no," she said. "I've got two hundred and fifty pounds that I want
to invest; only, of course, I must have a really good investment."

"That's all right," he promised. "I'll do a bit of gambling for you."

They had left the flat behind them and were walking slowly down-stairs
when suddenly from one of the doors on the landing immediately below a
man slipped out, paused for a moment when he heard their footsteps
descending, thought better of his timidity, hurried on down, and was out
of sight before they reached the landing.

"Good Heavens!" Dorothy ejaculated, seizing her companion's arm.

"I'm afraid I've made you jumpy," he said. "Poor old Dorothy, I shall
have to find a jolly good investment to make up for it."

Hausberg was quite his old suave self again; it was Dorothy who was pale
and agitated now.

"It was nothing," she murmured; but it was really a great deal, because
the man she had seen was Mr. Gilbert Caffyn, the secretary of the Church
of England Purity Society.

Dorothy did not enjoy her motor drive that Sunday. It was pale-blue
November weather with the sun like a topaz hanging low in the haze above
the Surrey hills, but the knowledge that Clarehaven all this month,
perhaps even for longer, had been carrying on with Lily and Sylvia when
she had taken such care to keep them apart tormented her beyond any
capacity to enjoy the landscape or the weather. Heartless treachery,
then, was the result of being kind to old friends--and oh, what an
odious world it was! There would have to be a grand breaking of
friendships presently--yes, and a grand dissolution of family ties as
well, for, at any rate, in the midst of this miserable and humiliating
affair she had at least been granted the consolation of catching out her
father, which might be useful one day. Olive wondered, when the great
man left them after supper, why Dorothy had been so gloomy on the drive.
She had told the story of the chimpanzee so well, and the great man had
laughed more heartily over it than over anything she could remember. Why
was Dorothy so sad? Was there something she had left out? Surely on
Hausberg's mere word she was not thinking anything horrid about Sylvia's
going for a drive with Clarehaven? They had probably just driven down to
Brighton for dinner to laugh over the chimpanzee.

"I shall see Sylvia once more," said Dorothy, "and that will be for the
last time."

"But I'm sure you'll find Hausberg has made everything appear in the
worst light," Olive protested. "I'm sure Sylvia would never snatch a man
away from any girl."

"I don't understand how you can go on being friends with me and yet
defend her," said Dorothy.

Olive begged her dearest Dorothy to wait for Sylvia's explanation before
she got angry with herself, and on Monday afternoon Sylvia of her own
accord came to the flat.

"I know everything," said Dorothy, frigidly.

"Then for Heaven's sake tell me what Hausberg said when he opened the
door and saw the chimpanzee. Did he say, 'Are you there, Lily?' and did
the chimpanzee answer with a cocoanut?"

"Chimpanzee," repeated Dorothy, wrathfully. "You who call yourself my
friend deliberately set out to ruin my whole life, and when I reproach
you with it you talk about chimpanzees!"

"Don't be silly, Dorothy," Sylvia scoffed. "Hausberg wanted a lesson for
saying I was living on Lily, and with Arthur Lonsdale's help I gave him
one."

"And what about Clarehaven?" asked Dorothy. "Did he help you?"

"Oh, that foolish fellow wanted a lesson, too. So I took him down to
Brighton and gave him a jolly good one, though it wasn't so brutal as
Hausberg's."

"Thanks very much," said Dorothy, sarcastically. "In future when
my--my--"

"Your man. Say it out," Sylvia advised.

"When a friend of mine requires a lesson I prefer to give it him
myself."

"My dear Dorothy," exclaimed Sylvia, with a laugh, "you're not upsetting
yourself by getting any ridiculous ideas into your head about Clarehaven
and myself? I assure you that--"

"I don't want your assurances," Dorothy interrupted. "It doesn't matter
to me what you do with Clarehaven, except that as a friend of mine I
think you might have been more loyal."

"Don't be foolish. I'm the last person to do anything in the least
disloyal."

"Really?" sneered Dorothy.

"Clarehaven simply came down to Brighton to talk about you. He's
suffering from the moth and star disease. Though you won't believe me, I
was very fond of you, Dorothy dear; I am still, really," she added, with
a little movement of affection that Dorothy refused to notice. "But I do
think you're turning into a shocking little snob. That's the Vanity
_galère_. No girl there could help being a snob unless she were as
simple and sweet as Olive."

"Perhaps you'd like to steal Olive from me, too?" Dorothy asked,
bitterly.

"I tell you," the other answered, "it's not a question of stealing
anybody. I kept Clarehaven up all night drinking whiskies-and-sodas
while I lectured him on his behavior to you. We sat in the sitting-room.
If you want a witness, ask the waiter, who has varicose veins and didn't
forget to remind us of the fact."

"I suppose Lonsdale and Lily were sitting up with you at this
conference? Do you think I was born yesterday? Well, I warn you that I
shall tell Queenie Molyneux what's happened."

"If you do," said Sylvia, "I've an idea that Lonsdale will be only too
delighted. I fancy that's exactly what he wanted."

"This is all very sordid," said Dorothy, loftily. Then she told Sylvia
that she never wished to see her again, and they parted.

Dorothy insisted that Olive ought also to quarrel with Sylvia, but, much
to her annoyance, Olive dissented. She said that in any case the dispute
had nothing to do with her, and actually added that in her opinion
Sylvia had behaved rather well.

"I'm sure she's speaking the truth," she said.

Dorothy thought how false all friends were, and promised that henceforth
she would think about no one except her own much-injured self.

"One starts with good resolutions not to be selfish," she told Olive,
"and then one is driven into it by one's friends."

Sylvia's story seemed contradicted next day by the arrival of Clarehaven
in a most complacent mood, for when Dorothy asked how he had enjoyed his
week-end he did not seem at all taken aback and hoped that her Jew
friend had enjoyed his.

"I wish I could make you understand just how little you mean to me," she
raged. "How dare you come here and brag about your--your-- Oh, I wish I'd
never met you."

"If you don't care anything about me," he said, "I can't understand why
you should be annoyed at my taking Sylvia Scarlett down to Brighton. I
don't pretend to be in love with her. I'm in love with you."

Dorothy interrupted him with a contemptuous gesture.

"But it's true, Dorothy. I'm no good at explaining what I feel, don't
you know; but ever since that day I first saw you in St. Mary's I've
been terrifically keen on you. You drove me into taking up Sylvia. I
don't care anything about Sylvia. Why, great Scot! she bores me to
death. She talks forever until I don't know where I am. But I must do
something. I can't just mope round London like an ass. You know, you're
breaking my heart, that's what you're doing."

"You'd better go abroad," said Dorothy. "They mend hearts very well
there."

"If you're not jolly careful I shall go abroad."

"Then go," she said, "but don't talk about it. I hate people who talk,
just as much as you do."

Within a week Lord Clarehaven had equipped himself like the hero of a
late nineteenth-century novel to shoot big game in Somaliland, and on
the vigil of his departure Arthur Lonsdale came round to see Dorothy.

"Look here. You know," he began, "I'm the cause of all this.
Hard-hearted little girls and all that who require a lesson."

"Yes, it's evident you've been spending a good deal of time lately with
Sylvia," said Dorothy.

"Now don't start backfiring, Doodles. I've come here as a friend of the
family and I don't want to sprain my tongue at the start. Poor old Tony
came weeping round to me and asked what was to be done about it."

"It?" asked Dorothy, angrily. "What is _it_? The chimpanzee?"

"No, no, no. _It_ is you and Tony. If you go on interrupting like this
you'll puncture my whole speech. When Tony skidded over that rope of
pearls and you froze him with a look, he came and asked my advice about
what to do next. So I loosened my collar like Charles Wyndham and said:
'Make her jealous, old thing. There's only one way with women, which is
to make them jealous. I'm going to make the Molyneux jealous. If you
follow my advice, you'll do the same with the Lonsdale.'"

Dorothy nearly put her fingers in her ears to shut out any more horrible
comparisons between herself and Queenie, but she assumed, instead, a
martyred air and submitted to the gratification of her curiosity.

"Well, just about that fatal time," Lonsdale continued, "Tony and I went
for a jolly little bump round at Covent Garden and bumped into Sylvia
and Lily _en pierrette_, as they say at my crammer's, where they're
teaching me enough French to administer the destinies of Europe for ten
years to come. Where were we? Oh yes, _en pierrette_. 'Hello, hello' I
said. 'Two jolly little girls _en pierrette_, and what about it? Well,
we had two or three more bumps round, and Tony was getting more and more
depressed about himself, and so I said, 'Why don't we go down to
Brighton and cheer ourselves up?' 'That's all right,' said Sylvia, 'if
you'll help me put a jolly old chimpanzee in a fellow's flat.' I said,
I'll put a jolly old elephant, if you like.' You see, the notion was
that when Hausberg opened the door of the flat he should say, 'Are you
there, Lily?' It was all to be very amusing and jolly."

"And what has this to do with Clarehaven?" asked Dorothy.

"Wait a bit. Wait a bit. I'm changing gears at this moment, and if you
interrupt I shall jam. You see, my notion was that Tony should buzz down
to Brighton with us and ... well ... there's a nasty corner here.... I
told you, didn't I, that the only way with hard-hearted little girls is
to make them jealous? And the proof of the pudding, as they say, is in
the eating, what? Anyway, no sooner did Queenie hear I'd eloped with an
amorous blonde than we made it up. Look here, the road's clear now, so
let's be serious. Tony's madly in love with you. It's no use telling me
you're a good little girl, because look round you. Where's the evidence?
I mean to say, your salary's six pounds a week. So, I repeat, where's
the evidence? You may dream that you dwell in marble halls on six pounds
a week, but you can't really do it."

"If Lord Clarehaven has sent you here to insult me," said Dorothy, "he
might at least have had the courage to come and do it himself."

"You're taking this very unkindly. On my word of honor I assure you,
Doodles, that Tony's trip to Brighton ended in talk. I know this,
because I heard them. In fact, I summoned the night porter and asked him
to stop the beehive next door."

"This conversation is not merely insulting," said Dorothy, "it's very
coarse."

"I see you're prejudiced, Doodles. Now Queenie was also prejudiced; in
fact, at one point she was so prejudiced that she jabbed me with a comb.
But I calmed her down and she gradually began to appreciate the fact
that not only is there a silver lining to every cloud, but that there is
also a cloud to most silver linings. Bored with mere luxury, she
realized that a good man's love--soft music, please--should not be
lightly thrown away; and now, to be absolutely serious for one moment,
what about commissioning me to buzz down to Devonshire and tell Tony
that there's no need for him to go chasing the okapi through equatorial
Africa?"

"All this levity may be very amusing to you, Mr. Lonsdale, but to me it
is only painful."

"Well, of course, if you're going to take my friendly little run round
the situation like that, there's nothing more to be said."

"Nothing whatever," Dorothy agreed.

Lonsdale retired with a shrug, and a day or two later Lord Clarehaven's
departure for Mombasa was duly recorded in the _Morning Post_. Dorothy's
self-importance had been so deeply wounded by the manner in which
Lonsdale had commented upon her position in the world that for some time
she could scarcely bear to meet people, and she even came near to
relinquishing the publicity of the stage, because she began to feel that
the nightly audience was sneering at her discomfiture. The gift of a
set of Russian sables from Hausberg and the news that her investments
were prospering failed to rouse her from the indifference with which she
was regarding life. All that had seemed so rich in the flat now merely
oppressed her with a sense of useless display. The continual assurances
she received that only the melodious trio had saved "The Duke and the
Dairymaid" from being something like a failure gave her no elation. Her
silks and sables were no more to her than rags; her crystal flasks of
perfumes, and those odorous bath-salts, in which the lemon and the
violet blended so exquisitely the sharp with the sweet, had lost their
savor; even her new manicure set of ivory-and-gold did not pass the
unprofitable hours so pleasantly as that old ebony set of which she had
been so proud in West Kensington, it seemed a century ago. Lonsdale by
his attitude had made her feel that the luxury of her surroundings was
not the natural expression of a personality predestined to find in rank
its fit expression, but merely the stock-in-trade of a costly doll.

It was Tufton who provided Dorothy with a new elixir of life that was
worth all the scent in Bond Street, and a restorative that made the most
pungent toilet vinegar insipid as water.

"I don't think you ought to take it so badly," he said. "Shooting the
rhino for the sake of a woman is better than throwing the other kind of
rhino at her head. It shows that he's pretty badly hit."

"The rhino?" asked Dorothy, with a pale smile.

"No, no," protested Tufton, shocked at carrying a joke too far.
"Clarehaven. Wait till he comes back. If he comes back as much in love
as he went away you'll hear nothing more about flats round the corner.
Curzon Street is also round the corner, don't forget, and my belief is
that you'll move straight in from here."

"You're a good pal, Harry."

"Well, I don't think my worst enemy has ever accused me of not sticking
to my friends."

This was true; but then Mr. Tufton did not make friends lightly. Old
walls afford a better foothold to the climber than new ones.

When Dorothy pondered these words of encouragement she cheered up; and
that night John Richards, who had watched her performance from the
stage-box, told his sleeping partner that he intended to bring her along
in the next Vanity production.

"She gets there," he boomed. "Goo' gir'! Goo' gir'!"


V

Dorothy indulged her own renewed _joie de vivre_ by investigating the
glimpse of her father's private _joie de vivre_ vouchsafed to her that
night in St. John's Wood, and without much difficulty she found out that
for the last two years he had been maintaining there a second
establishment, which at the very lowest calculation must be costing him
£400 a year. It was not remarkable that he had wanted to obtain a higher
rate of interest on his wife's capital. His daughter debated with
herself how to play this unusual hand, and she decided not to lead these
black trumps too soon, but to reserve them for the time when they might
threaten her ace of hearts and that long suit of diamonds. At present
she was not suffering the least inconvenience from her family, and since
she went to live in Halfmoon Street it had not been her habit to visit
Lonsdale Road more often than once a month. These visits, rare as winter
sunshine in England, were not much warmer: the family basked for a while
in the radiance of Dorothy's rich clothes, but they soon found that
clothes only give heat to the person who wears them, and since Dorothy
did not encourage them to follow the sun like visitors to the azure
coast, they made the best of their own fireside and avoided any risk of
taking cold by depending too much on her deceptive radiance.

Meanwhile, Hausberg had turned Dorothy's £250 into £500 by nothing more
compromising than good advice; and by March, to celebrate her
twenty-first birthday, the £500 had become £2,000. Not even then did
Hausberg ask anything from her in return; occasionally a dim suspicion
crossed her mind that a profound cause must lie underneath this display
of good will, and she asked herself if he was patiently, very patiently,
angling for her; but when time went by without his striking, the
suspicions died away and did not recur. Moreover, her financial adviser
was engaged in dazzling Queenie Molyneux with diamonds, to the manifest
chagrin of Lonsdale, who had let the liaison between himself and Queenie
come to mean much more to him than he had ever intended that evening at
the Savoy. In the end his mistress was so much dazzled by the diamonds
that she put on rose-colored spectacles to save her eyes and, looking
through them at Hausberg, decided to accept his devotion. Lonsdale took
the theft of his love hardly; whatever chance he might have had of
entering the Foreign Office disappeared under an emotional strain that
in so round and pink a young man was nearly grotesque. This seemed to
Dorothy a suitable moment to repay evil with good, and when, shortly
afterward, she saw the disconsolate lover gloomily contemplating a
half-bottle of Pol Roger '98 on a solitary table at the Savoy she went
over to him and offered to be reconciled.

He squeezed Dorothy's hand gratefully, sighed, and shook his head.

"I can't keep away from the old place. Every night we used to come here
and--" The recollection was too much for him; he could do nothing but
point mutely to the half-bottle.

"That makes you think," he said, at last. "After the dozens of bottles
we've had together, to come down to that beastly little dwarf alone."

"And you've failed in your examination, too?" inquired Dorothy, tenderly
rubbing it in.

"Just as well, Doodles, just as well. I should be afraid to attach
myself even to an embassy at present."

The band struck up the music of the Pink Quartet.

"Good God!" he exclaimed. "This is too much. Here, Carlo, Ponto,
Rover--What's your name?"

The waiter leaned over obsequiously.

"Here, take this fiver with my compliments to Herr Rumpelstiltzkin and
ask him to cut out that tune and give us the 'Dead March' instead."

"Why not the 'Wedding March'?" asked Dorothy, maliciously.

"I give you my solemn word of honor," said Lonsdale, "that if only
Queenie--well, I think I can get up this hill on the top speed--if I
were the first, I _would_ marry Queenie. You know, I'm beginning to
think Tony made rather an ass of himself, buzzing off like that to
Basutoland or wherever it is. By the way, has it ever struck you what an
anomaly--that's a good word--I got that word out of a _précis_ at my
crammer's. It's a splendid word and can be used in summer and winter
with impunity, what? Has it ever struck you what an anomaly it is that
you can get a license to shoot big game and drive a car, but that you
can't get a license to shoot Hausbergs? Well, well, if Queenie had your
past and your own future and could cut out some of the presents, by
Jove! I would marry her. I really would."

Dorothy said to herself that she had always liked Arthur Lonsdale in
spite of everything, and when he asked her now if her friends were not
waiting for her she told him that they could wait and gratified the
forsaken one by sitting down at his table.

"Of course, when Queenie and I parted," he went on, "she made it
absolutely clear to me that this fellow Hausberg meant nothing to her;
in fact, between ourselves, she rather gave me to understand that things
might go on as they were. But you know, hang it! I can't very well do
that sort of thing. The funny thing is that the more I refuse, the more
keen she gets. I mean to say it is ridiculous, really, because of course
she can't be very much in love with _me_. To begin with, well, she's
about twice my height, what? No, I think I shall have to go in for
motor-cars. They used to be nearly as difficult to manage as women not
so long ago, but they seem to be answering to civilization much more
rapidly. It's a pity somebody can't blow along with some invention to
improve women. Skidding all over the place, don't you know, as they do
now ... but I cannot understand why Hausberg should have fixed on
Queenie. I always thought he was after you, and I'm not sure he isn't.
Did you turn him down?"

"He has only been helping me with some investments."

"I never heard of a Jew helping people with their investments just for
the pleasure of helping."

"I had money of my own to invest," Dorothy explained. "Family money."

"Lonsdale money, in fact, eh?" laughed the heir of the house.

"Well, if you really want to know, it is Lonsdale money. Money left in
trust for me by my grandmother, who was a Lonsdale. I know you laugh at
this, but it's perfectly true."

"Oh no, I don't laugh at you," said Lonsdale. "I never thought you were
a joke. In fact, I asked the governor if he could trace anything about
your branch in the family history. But the trouble with him is that he's
not very interested in anything except politics. Frightfully
narrow-minded old boy. He's been abroad most of his life, poor devil.
He's out of touch with things."

Dorothy thought that if her Lonsdale ancestry could appear sufficiently
genuine to induce the heir of the family to consult his father about it
there was not much doubt of its impressing the rest of the world. It
happened that among the party with which she was supposed to be supping
that night was a young Frenchman with some invention that was going to
revolutionize the manufacture of motor-cars. She decided to introduce
him to Lonsdale, and a month or two later she had the gratification of
hearing that Lord Cleveden had been persuaded to allow his son the
capital necessary to begin a motor business in which the Frenchman, with
his invention, was to be one of the partners, and a well-known
professional racing-motorist another. The firm expressed their gratitude
to Dorothy not only by presenting her with a car, but also by paying her
a percentage on orders that came through her discreet advertisement of
their wares. If Clarehaven came back now and asked Lonsdale what she had
been doing since he left England, surely he would no longer try to damn
the course of their true love.

Just after Dorothy and Olive had left town for their holiday in July the
great man died suddenly, and, naturally, Olive was very much upset by
the shock.

"Never mind," said Dorothy. "Luckily I've made some money, so we needn't
leave the flat."

"I wasn't thinking of that point of view," Olive sobbed. "I was thinking
how good he'd always been to me and how much I shall miss him."

"Well, now you can tell me who he was," Dorothy suggested, consolingly.

"No, darling, oh no; this is the very time of all others when I wouldn't
have anybody know who he was."

Dorothy, however, searched the papers, and she soon came to the
conclusion that the great man was none other than the Duke of Ayr. Such
a discovery thrilled her with the majesty of her retrospect, and she
fancied that even Clarehaven would be a little impressed if he knew who
Olive's friend was:

John Charles Chisholm-Urquhart, K.T., 9th and last Duke of Ayr; also
Marquess and Earl of Ayr, Marquess and Earl of Dumbarton, Earl of
Kilmaurs and Kilwinning, Viscount Dalry and Dalgarven, Viscount of
Brackenbrae, Lord Urquhart, Inverew, and Troon, Baron Chisholm, Earl
Chisholm, Baron Hurst, Baron Urquhart of Coylton, Lord Urquhart of
Dumbarton, and Baron Dalgarven.

The last Duke of Ayr! Nobody in the world to inherit one of all those
splendid titles! Not even a duchess to survive him!

The press commented just as ruefully as Dorothy upon the extinction of
another noble house. Dukes and dodos, great families and great auks, one
felt that they would soon all be extinct together.

"It's a great responsibility to marry a peer," Dorothy thought.

She gently and tactfully let Olive know that she had found out the
identity of the great man, and they went together to stand for a minute
or two outside Ayr House, where the hatchment, crape-hung, was all that
was left of so much grandeur and of such high dignities and honors. Nor
did Dorothy allude to the duke's omission to provide for Olive in his
will, though, being a bachelor without an heir, he might easily have
done so. No doubt death had found him unprepared; but the funeral must
have been wonderful, with the pipers sounding "The Lament" for Chisholm
when the coffin was lowered into the grave.

"I'm very glad they're closing 'The Duke and the Dairymaid' this week,"
said Dorothy. "I should hate to see that title now on every 'bus and
every hoarding."

The Vanity's last production had not been such a success as either of
its two predecessors, and many people about town began to say that if
John Richards was not careful the Frivolity was going to cut out the
Vanity. Therefore in the autumn of 1905 a tremendous effort was made to
eclipse all previous productions with "The Beauty Shop." Early in August
John Richards sent for Dorothy, gave her a song to study, and told her
to come again in a week's time to let him hear what she made of it. To
print baldly the words of this great song without the melody, without
the six beauties supporting it from the background, without the
entranced scene-shifters and the bewitched audience, without even a
barrel-organ to recall it, is something like sacrilege, but here is one
verse:

    When your head is in a whirl.
    And your hair won't curl,
    And you feel such a very, very ill-used girl.
            _Chorus._ Little girl!

    Then that is the time--
            _Chorus._ Every time! Every time!

    To visit a Bond Street Beauty Shop.
            _Chorus._ To visit our Bond Street Beauty Shop.

    And when you come out,
    And you're seen about
    In the places you formerly frequented--
            _Chorus._ On the arm of her late-lamented.

    Why every one will cry,
    Oh dear, oh lord, oh my!
    There's Dolly with her collie!
    All scented and contented!
            _Chorus._ She's forgotten the late-lamented.

    For Dolly's out and about again,
    She doesn't give a damn for a shower of rain.
    Here's Dolly with her collie!
    And London! _Chorus._ Dear old London!
    London is itself again!

"Goo' gir' said Mr. Richards when Dorothy had finished and the dust in
his little office in the cupola of the Vanity had subsided. "Goo' gir'.
I thi' you'll ma' a 'ice 'ihel hit in that song."

The impresario was right: Dorothy did make a resounding hit; and a more
welcome token of it than her picture among the letterpress and
advertisements of every illustrated paper, the dedication of a new
face-cream, and the christening of a brand of cigarettes in her honor,
was the reappearance of Clarehaven with character and complexion much
matured by the sun of Africa, so ripe, indeed, that he was ready to fall
at her feet. She received him gently and kindly, but without
encouragement; he was given to understand that his treatment had driven
her to take refuge in art, the result of which he had just been
witnessing from the front of the house. Besides, she told him, now that
Olive's friend was dead, she must stay and look after her. People had
misjudged Olive and herself so much in the past that she did not intend
to let them misjudge her in future. She was making money at the Vanity
now, and she begged Lord Clarehaven, if he had ever felt any affection
for her, to go away again and shoot more wild animals. Cupid himself
would have had to use dum-dum darts to make any impression on Dorothy in
her present mood.

Such nobility of bearing, such wounded beauty, such weary grace, could
only have one effect on a man who had spent so many months among hippos
and black women, and without hesitation Clarehaven proposed marriage.
Dorothy's heart leaped within her; but she preserved a calm exterior,
and a sad smile expressed her disbelief in his seriousness. He
protested; almost he declaimed. She merely shook her head, and the
desperate suitor hurried down to Devonshire in order to convince his
mother that he must marry Dorothy at once, and that she must
demonstrate, either by visit or by letter, what a welcome his bride
would receive from the family. Clarehaven lacked eloquence, and the
dowager was appalled. Lonsdale was telegraphed for, and presently he
came up to town to act as her emissary to beg Dorothy to refuse her son.

"It'll kill the poor lady," he prophesied. "I know you're not wildly
keen on Tony, so let him go, there's a dear girl."

"I never had the slightest intention of doing anything else. You don't
suppose that just when I've made my first success I'm going to throw
myself away on marriage. You ought to know me better, Lonnie."

Lonsdale was frankly astonished at Dorothy's attitude; but he was glad
to be excused from having to argue with her about the unsuitableness of
the match, because he did sincerely admire her, and, moreover, had some
reason to be grateful for her practical sympathy at the time of his
break with Queenie Molyneux. He went away from Halfmoon Street with
reassurances for the countess.

It was at this momentous stage in Dorothy's career that Mr. Caffyn, awed
by the evidence of his daughter's fame he beheld on every side, chose to
call for her one evening at the stage-door with a box of chocolates, in
which was inclosed a short note of congratulation and an affectionately
worded request that she would pay the visit to her family that was now
long overdue. Dorothy pondered for a minute her line of action before
sending down word that she would soon be dressed and that the gentleman
was to wait in her car. When she came out of the theater and told the
chauffeur to drive her to West Kensington, Mr. Caffyn expressed his
pleasure at her quick response to his appeal. They drove along, talking
of matters trivial enough, until in the silence of the suburban night
the car stopped before 17 Lonsdale Road.

"Good-by," said Dorothy.

"You'll come in for a bit?" asked her father, in surprise.

"Oh no; you'll be wanting to get to bed," she said.

"Well, it's very kind of you to drive me back," Mr. Caffyn told her,
humbly. "Very kind indeed. You'll be interested to know that this is a
much nicer motor than the Bishop of Chelsea's. He was kind enough to
drive me back from the congress of Melanesian Missions the other day,
and so I'm acquainted with his motor."

"He didn't drive you to Lauriston Mansions, did he?" Dorothy asked.

The sensitive springs of the car quivered for a moment in response to
Mr. Caffyn's jump.

"What do you mean?" he stammered.

"Oh, I know all about it," his daughter began, with cold severity. "It's
all very sordid, and I don't intend to go into details; but I want you
quite clearly to understand once and for all that communication between
you and me must henceforth cease until I wish to reopen it. It's
extremely possible, in fact it's probable, in fact I may say it's
certain that I'm shortly going to marry the Earl of Clarehaven, and
inasmuch as one of the charms of my present position is the fact that I
have no family, I want you all quite clearly to understand that after my
marriage any recognition will have to come from me first."

Mr. Caffyn was too much crushed at being found out in his folly and
hypocrisy to plead his own case, but he ventured to put in a word for
his wife's feelings and begged Dorothy not to be too hard on her.

"You're the last person who has any right to talk about my mother. Come
along, jump out, father. I must be getting back. I've a busy day
to-morrow, with two performances."

The sound of Mr. Caffyn's pecking with his latch-key at the lock was
drowned in the noise of the car's backing out of Lonsdale Road. Dorothy
laughed lightly to herself when she compared this interview with the one
she had had not so many months ago about the £500, which, by the way,
she must send back to her mother if Hausberg advised her to sell out
those shares. No doubt, such a sum would be most useful to her father
with his numerous responsibilities.

"And now," she murmured to herself, "I see no reason why I shouldn't
meet Tony's mother."


VI

Dorothy had not been entirely insincere with Lonsdale in comparing
marriage with success to the detriment of marriage. Success is a
wonderful experience for the young, in spite of the way those who obtain
it too late condemn it as a delusion; few girls of twenty-one,
luxuriously independent and universally flattered, within two years of
going on the stage would have seen marriage even with an earl in quite
such wonderful colors as formerly. Fame may have its degrees; but when
Dorothy, traveling in her car, heard errand-boys upon the pavement
whistling "Dolly and her Collie" she had at least as much right to feel
proud of herself as some wretched novelist traveling by tube who sees a
young woman reading a sixpenny edition of one of his works, or a mother
whose dribbling baby is prodded by a lean spinster in a tram, or a hen
who lays a perfectly ordinary egg and makes as much fuss over it as if
it were oblong.

It was certain that if Dorothy chose she could have one of the two
principal parts in the next Vanity production and be earning in another
couple of years at least £60 a week. There was no reason why she should
remain in musical comedy; there was no reason why she should not take to
serious comedy with atmosphere and surreptitious curtains at the close
of indefinite acts; there was no reason why some great dramatist should
not fall in love with her and invert the usual method of sexual
procedure by laying upon her desk the offspring of their spiritual
union. The possibilities of the future in every direction were
boundless.

At the same time even as a countess her starry beams would not
necessarily be obscured. As Countess of Clarehaven she might have as
many pictures of herself in the illustrated papers as now; she could not
give her name to face-creams, but she might give it to girls' clubs: one
countess had even founded a religious sect, and another countess had ...
but when one examined the history of countesses there was as much
variety as in the history of actresses. And yet as a Vanity countess
would it not be most distinguished of all not to appear in the
illustrated papers, not to found sects and dress extravagantly at
Goodwood? Would it not be more distinguished to live quietly down in
Devonshire and make no more startling public appearances than by
sometimes opening a bazaar or judging a collection of vegetables? Would
it not be more distinguished to be the mother of young Lord Clare and
Lady Dorothy Clare, and Lady Cynthia Clare, and the Honorable Arthur
Clare.... Dorothy paused; she was thinking how improper it was that the
younger sons of an earl should be accorded no greater courtesy than
those of a viscount or a baron, when his daughters were entitled to as
much as the daughters of a duke or a marquess. And after all, why
shouldn't Tony be created a marquess? That was another career for a
countess she had omitted to consider--the political hostess, the
inspiration and amanuensis of her husband's speeches to the House of
Lords. Some infant now squalling in his perambulator would write his
reminiscences of a great lady's _salon_ in the early years of the
twentieth century, when the famous Dorothy Lonsdale stepped out of the
public eye, but kept her hold upon the public pulse as the wise and
beautiful Marchioness of Clarehaven. The second Marquess of Clarehaven,
she dreamed; and beneath this heading in a future Debrett she read
below, "Wife Living of the First Marquess. Dorothy (Marchioness of
Clarehaven)"; if Arthur Lonsdale married well, that marchioness might
not object to one of her younger daughters marrying his eldest son.
Dorothy started. How should she herself be recorded in Debrett?
"Dorothy, daughter of Gilbert Caffyn"? Even that would involve a mild
falsification of her birth certificate, and if her sister Dorothy
married that budding young solicitor from Norbiton they might take
action against her. She hurriedly looked up in Debrett and _Who's Who_
all the other actresses who had married into the peerage. In Debrett
their original names in their stark and brutal ugliness were immortally
inscribed; but in _Who's Who_ their stage names were usually added
between brackets. "The Earl of Clarehaven, _m._ 1905 Norah _d._ of G.
Caffyn (known on the stage as Dorothy Lonsdale)." Ugh! At least she
would not advertise the obvious horror of her own name so blatantly. She
would not be more conspicuous than "Norah (Dorothy) _d._ of G. Caffyn."
But how the girls at the theater would laugh! The girls at the theater?
Why should the girls at the theater be allowed any opportunity of
laughter--at any rate in her hearing? No, if she decided to accept Tony
she should obliterate the theater. There should be no parade about her
marriage; she would be married simply, quietly, and ruthlessly.

At the Vanity, Dorothy and her collie were a ravishing success; but she
was a better actress off the stage than she was on, and she had soon
persuaded herself that she really was still uncertain whether to accept
Clarehaven's hand or not. The minor perplexities of stage name and real
name, of town and country life, of publicity and privacy as a countess,
magnified themselves into serious doubts about the prudence of marrying
at all, and by the month of December Clarehaven was nearly distracted by
her continuous refusals of him. The greater favorite she became with the
public the more he desired her; and she would have found it hard to
invent any condition, however flagrantly harsh, that would have deterred
him from the match. Tufton almost went down on his knees to implore her
to marry the lovesick young earl, his greatest friend; and even Lonsdale
talked to Dorothy about her cruelty, and from having been equipped a
month ago with invincible arguments against the match, now told her that
in spite of everything, he thought she really ought to make the poor lad
happy.

"He's as pale as a fellow I bumped in the back last Thursday, cutting
round Woburn Square on the wrong side," he declared.

"No, he's not so sunburnt as he was," Dorothy agreed.

"Sunburnt? He's moonburnt--half-moonburnt--starburnt! But sunburnt! My
dear Doodles, you're indulging in irony. That's what you're doing."

"I don't see why I should marry him when his mother hasn't even written
me a letter. I don't want his family to feel that he's disgracing them
by marrying me. If Lady Clarehaven will tell me with her own lips that
she'll be proud for her son to marry me, why, then I'll think about it."

"No, really, dash it, my dear girl," Lonsdale expostulated. "You're
being unreasonable. You're worse than a Surrey magistrate. Let the old
lady alone until you're married and she has to make the best of a bad
bargain."

"Thanks very much," Dorothy said. "That's precisely the attitude I wish
to guard myself against."

Lonsdale's failure to soften Dorothy's heart made Clarehaven hopeless;
he reached Devonshire to spend Christmas with his family in a mood so
desperate that his mother began to be nervous. The head-keeper at Clare
Court spoke with alarm of the way his lordship held his gun while
getting over stiles.

"Maybe, my lady, that after lions our pheasants seem a bit tame to his
lordship, though I disremember as I ever saw them wilder than what they
be this year--but if you'll forgive the liberty, my lady, a gun do be as
dangerous in Devonshire as in Africa, and 'tis my belief that his
lordship has summat on his mind, as they say."

A shooting accident upon a neighboring estate the very day after this
warning from the keeper determined Lady Clarehaven to put her pride in
her pocket and write to Dorothy.

     CLARE COURT, DEVON,

     _January 2, 1906_.

     DEAR MISS LONSDALE,--I fear you must have thought me most remiss in
     not writing to you before, but you will, perhaps, understand that
     down here in the country the notion of marrying an actress presents
     itself as a somewhat alarming contingency, and I was anxious to
     assure myself that my son's future happiness was so completely
     bound up in such a match that any further opposition on my part
     would be useless and unkind. Our friend Arthur Lonsdale spoke so
     highly of you and of the dignity of your attitude that I was much
     touched, and I must ask you to forgive my lack of generosity in not
     writing before to tell you how deeply I appreciated your refusal to
     marry my son. I understand now that his departure from England a
     year ago was due to this very cause, and I can only bow before the
     strength of such an affection and withdraw my opposition to the
     marriage. I am assuming, perhaps unjustifiably, that you love Tony
     as much as he loves you. Of course, if this is not so, it would be
     an impertinence on my part to interfere in your private affairs,
     and if you write and tell me that you cannot love Tony I must do my
     best as a mother to console him. But if you do love him, as I can't
     help feeling that you must, and if you will write to me and say
     that no barrier exists between you and him except the old-fashioned
     prejudice against what would no doubt be merely superficially an
     ill-assorted union, I shall welcome you as my daughter-in-law and
     pray for your happiness. I must, indeed, admit to being grievously
     worried about Tony. He has not even bothered to keep up the
     shooting-book, and such extraordinary indifference fills me with
     alarm.

     Yours sincerely,

     AUGUSTA CLAREHAVEN.

Dorothy debated many things before she answered this letter; but she
debated longest of all the question of whether she should write back on
crested note-paper or simple note-paper. Finally she chose the latter.

     7 HALFMOON MANSIONS,

     HALFMOON STREET, W

     _January 6, 1906._

     DEAR LADY CLAREHAVEN,--Your letter came as a great joy to me. I
     don't think I have ever pretended that I did not love Tony with all
     my heart, and it was just because I did love him so much that I
     would not marry him without his mother's consent.

     My own Puritan family disowned me when I went on the stage, and I
     said to myself then that I would never again do anything to bring
     unhappiness into a family. I should prefer that if I marry Tony the
     wedding should be strictly quiet. I cannot bear the way the papers
     advertise such sacred things nowadays. Having had no communication
     with my own family for more than two years, I do not want to reopen
     the painful memories of our quarrel. My only ambition is to lead a
     quiet, uneventful life in the depths of the country, and I hope you
     will do all you can to persuade Tony to remain in Devonshire. You
     will not think me rude if I do make one condition beforehand. I
     will marry him if you will promise to remain at Clare Court and
     help me through the difficult first years of my new position.
     Please write and let me have your promise to do this. You don't
     know how much it would help me to think that you and his sisters
     will be at my side. Perhaps you will think that I am assuming too
     much in asking this. I need not say that if you find me personally
     unsympathetic I shall not bear any resentment, and in that case
     Tony and I can always live in Curzon Street. But I do so deeply
     pray that you will like me and that his sisters will like me. Your
     letter has given me much joy, and I only wait for your answer to
     leave the stage (which I hate) forever.

     Yours sincerely,

     DOROTHY LONSDALE.

     The dowager was won. By return of post she wrote:

     MY DEAR DOROTHY,--Thank you extremely for your very nice letter.
     Please do exactly as you think best about the details of your
     wedding. You will receive a warm welcome from us all.

     Yours affectionately,

     AUGUSTA CLAREHAVEN.

During these negotiations Olive had been away at Brighton getting over
influenza, and Dorothy decided to join her down there and be married out
of town to avoid public curiosity. She had telegraphed to Clarehaven to
leave Devonshire, and Mr. Tufton was enraptured by being called in to
help with advice about the special license.

"My dear Dorothy," he assured her, enthusiastically, "you deserve the
best--the very best."

"I don't want any one at the Vanity to know what's going to happen."

Tufton waved his hands to emphasize how right she was.

"It'll be a terrible blow to the public," he said, "and also to John
Richards. You were his favorite, you know. Yes. And think of the
beautiful women he has known! But you're right, you mustn't consider
anybody except yourself."

"It's rather difficult for me to do that," Dorothy sighed.

"I know. I know. But you must do it. Clarehaven and I will come down
with the license, and then ... my dear Dorothy, I really can't tell you
how pleased I am. Do, do beg the dowager not to change that pergola. But
I shall be down, I hope, some time in the spring."

"Of course."

"And what about Olive?" he asked.

"Poor Olive," she sighed. "And only last week she lost dear little San
Toy. Yes, she'll miss me, I'm afraid, but she'll be glad I'm going to be
so happy."

"All your friends will be glad."

"And now, Harry, please get me a really nice hansom, because I must
simply tear round hard for frocks and frills."

Dorothy spent most of the money that Hausberg had made for her on old
pieces of family jewelry; she also ordered numerous country tweeds; of
frills she had enough.

A few days later Clarehaven, accompanied by Tufton and the special
license, reached Brighton, where he and Dorothy were quietly married in
the Church of the Ascension. Lady Clarehaven thought, when she drove
back to the rooms to break the news to Olive, how few of the passers-by
would think that she had just been married. She commented upon this to
Tony, who replied with a laugh that Brighton was the last place in
England where passers-by stopped to inquire if people were married.

"Tony," she said, with a pout, "I don't like that sort of joke, you
know."

"Sorry, Doodles."

"And don't call me Doodles any more. Call me Dorothy."

Olive was, of course, tremendously surprised by her friend's
announcement; but she tried not to show how much hurt she was by not
having been taken into her confidence beforehand.

"I wanted it to be a complete secret," Dorothy explained. "And I didn't
want all the papers in London to write a lot of rubbish about me."

"Darling, you can count on me as a pal to help you all I know. You've
only got to tell me what you want."

Dorothy pulled herself together to do something of which she was rather
ashamed, but for which she could perceive no alternative.

"Olive, I hate having to say what I'm going to say, and you must try to
understand my point of view. I never intend to go near the stage-door of
a theater again. I don't want to know any of my friends on the stage any
more. If you want to help me, the best way you can help me is not to see
me any more."

Clarehaven came into the room at this moment, and Dorothy rose to make
her farewells.

"Good-by, Olive," she said. "We're going down to Clare Court to-morrow,
and I don't expect we shall see each other again for a long time."

"I say," Clarehaven protested. "What rot, you know! Of course you'll
meet again. Why, Olive must come down and recover from her next illness
in Devonshire. We shall be pining for news of town by the spring, and--"

Lady Clarehaven looked at her husband, who was silent.

"Have you wired to your mother when we arrive to-morrow?" she asked.

"You're sure you won't drive down?"

"In January?" Dorothy exclaimed.

"Well, I've told the car to meet us at Exeter. That will only mean a
seventy-mile drive--you won't mind that--and we'll get to Clare before
dark."

"Forgive these family discussions in front of you," said Dorothy to her
friend. Then shaking her hand formally, she went out of the room.

During the drive up to town, while Clarehaven was sitting back playing
with his wife's wrist and looking fatuously content, he turned to her
once and said:

"Dorothy, you _were_ rather brutal with poor old Olive."

She withdrew her hand from his grasp, and not until he ceased condoling
with Olive did she let him pick it up again.

"And oh dear, oh lord, oh my!" he exclaimed, "we must have the jolly old
collie down at Clare."

"The collie?" she repeated. "What collie?"

"Your collie." He began to whistle the bewitching tune.

"Please don't. One hears it everywhere," she said, fretfully. "Olive
will look after the dog. She's just lost her Pekinese."




CHAPTER IV


I

About the time that the fifth Earl of Clarehaven upset the lares and
penates of his house by marrying a Vanity girl the people of Great
Britain, having baited with red rags the golden calf of Victorianism
until the poor beast had leaped from its pedestal and disappeared in the
flowing tide, were now accepting from a lamasery of Liberal reformers
the idol of silver speech, forgetting either that silver tarnishes more
quickly than gold or that new brooms sweep clean, but soon wear out.
However, the new era lasted for quite a month, and long enough for the
Dowager Countess of Clarehaven to reach the conclusion that her son's
marriage was a sign of the times. Poets extract consolation for their
private woes and joys from observing that nature sympathizes with them.
When they are fain to weep, the skies weep with them; April's weather
follows the caprice of the girl next door; even great Ocean laughs when
his little friend the rhymester gets two guineas for a sonnet. What is
permitted to a poet will not be denied to a countess, and if the dowager
considered her chagrin to be a feather in the mighty wing of
revolution--to the widows of Conservative peers down in Devonshire the
return of the Liberal party in 1906 seemed nothing less than
revolution--she should not, therefore, be accused of exaggeration.

When in 1880 Lady Augusta Fanhope married the fourth Earl of Clarehaven
she brought neither beauty nor wealth to that dissolute and extravagant
man of thirty-five, who as a subaltern in the Blues had earned a kind
of fame by the size of his debts and by the length of his whiskers. Soon
after he succeeded to the title fashion made him cut short the whiskers;
but his debts increased yearly, and if he had not died during his son's
minority there would have been little left for that son to inherit.
Nobody understood why he married Lady Augusta, herself least of all.
Even when he was still alive she had taken refuge in the Anglican
religion; when he died she presented a memorial window by Burne-Jones to
Little Cherrington church. By now, when he had been dead ten years and
his son was bringing an actress to rule over Clare Court, the dowager
had come to regard her late husband as a saint. Fashion had trimmed his
whiskers; time had softened his memory; the stained-glass window had
done the rest.

"I'm glad your father never lived to see these dreadful Radicals
sweeping the country," she said to her daughters on this January day
that before it faded into darkness would bring such changes to Clare.
What the dowager really meant to express was her relief that the last
earl was not alive to meet his daughter-in-law; he ought not to have
been easily shocked, but marriage with an actress would certainly have
shocked him greatly, and his language when shocked was bad. The effect
of Dorothy's letter had already worn a little thin; the dowager's
pre-figuration of her approximated more closely every moment to an old
standing opinion of actresses she had formed from a large collection of
letters and photographs left behind by her husband, which she had lacked
the courage to burn unread. Her daughters Arabella and Constantia argued
that this Dorothy must be a "top-holer" to make their brother so
desperate. Last month he had taken them for several long walks and waxed
so eloquent over her beauty and charm and virtue that they had accepted
his point of view; with less to lose than their mother and unaware of
their father's weakness, they saw no reason why an actress should not
make Tony as good a wife as anybody.

"But love is blind," said the dowager. None knew the truth of this
better than she. "And in any case, dear children, beauty is only
skin-deep."

"Luckily for us, mother," said Arabella.

"I think you exaggerate your plainness," the dowager observed. "You do
not make the least attempt to bring out your good features. You, dearest
Bella, have very nice ankles; but if you wear shoes like that and never
pull up your stockings their slimness escapes the eye. And you, Connie,
have really beautiful ears; but when you jam your cap down on your head
like that you cause them to protrude in a way that cannot be considered
becoming."

The girls laughed; they were too much interested in country life to
bother about their appearance. Boots were made to keep out moisture and
get a good grip of muddy slopes: caps were meant to stay on one's head,
not to show off one's ears. Besides, they were ugly; they had decided as
much when they were still children, and, now that they were twenty-one
and nineteen, would be foolish to begin repining. Arabella's ankles
might be slim, but her teeth were large and prominent; her eyes were
pale as the wintry sky above them; her hands were knotted and raw; her
nose stuck to her face like a piece of mud thrown at a fence; her hair
resembled seaweed. As for Constantia, her nose was much too large; so
was her tongue; so were her hands; her eyes were globular, like marbles
of brown agate; everything protruded; she was like a person who has been
struck on the back of the head in a crowd.

"The question is," said Arabella, "are we to drive over to Exeter to
meet them? Because if we are I must tell Crowdy to see about putting us
up some sandwiches."

"Well, unless you're very eager to go," the dowager pleaded, "I should
appreciate your company. Were I left quite alone, I might get a
headache, and I am so anxious to appear cheerful. I think we ought to
assume that Dorothy will be as nervous as we are. I think it would be
kind to assume that."

"I vote for letting Deacock take the car by himself," Constantia
declared. "I always feel awkward at meeting even old friends at a
station, and it'll be so awfully hard to talk with the wind humming in
my ears."

When the noise of the car had died away among the knolls and hollows of
the great park the dowager turned to her daughters:

"It's such a fine day for the season of the year that perhaps I might
take a little drive in the chaise."

It was indeed a fine day of silver and faint celeste, such a one as in
January only the West Country can give. The leafless woods and isolated
clumps of trees breathed a dusky purple bloom like fruit; the grass was
peacock green. The dowager, moved by the brilliance of the landscape and
the weather to a complete apprehension of the fact that she was no
longer mistress of Clare, had been seized with a desire to take a last
sentimental survey of her dominion. Although her daughters had made
other plans for the morning, they willingly put them aside to encourage
such unwonted energy. While the pony was being harnessed, the dowager
took Arabella's arm and walked up and down the pergola that ran like a
battlement along a spur of the gardens and was the most conspicuous
object to those approaching Clare Court through the park.

"It's too late to change it before Dorothy comes," she decided,
mournfully. "But I do hope that there will be no more taking of Mr.
Tufton's advice. I'm sure that curved seat he persuaded me to put at the
end was a mistake. People deposit seats in gardens without thinking.
Nobody will ever sit there. It simply means that one will always have to
walk round it. So unnecessary! I do hope that Dorothy will give orders
to remove it."

"Connie," Arabella exclaimed, with a joyful gurgle, "don't you love the
way mother practises the idea of Dorothy? She used to be just the same
when we were expecting a new governess."

Her sister, who was munching an apple, nodded her agreement without
speaking.

The dowager was about to propose a descent by the terraces to visit her
water-lily pool (which would have involved a tiresome climb up again for
nothing, because the rose-hearted water-lilies of summer were nothing
now but blobs of decayed vegetation) when the wheels of the chaise
crackled on the drive and the girls insisted that if she were going to
have enough time for an expedition before lunch she must start at once.

Clare Court viewed from the southeast appeared as a long, low house of
gray stone with no particular indication of its age for the
unprofessional observer, to whom, indeed, the chief feature might have
seemed the four magnolias that covered it with their large glossy
leaves, the rufous undersides of which, mingling with the stone, gave it
a warmth of color that otherwise it would have lacked. The house was
built on a moderate elevation, the levels of which were spacious enough
to allow for ornamental gardens on the south side of the drive; these
had been laid out in the Anglo-Italian manner with pergolas and
statuary, yews instead of cypresses, and box-bordered terraces leading
gradually down to the ornamental pool overhung on the far side by
weeping willows. The kitchens and servants' quarters on either side of
the house were masked by shrubberies and groves of tall pines, in the
ulterior gloom of which the drive disappeared on the way to the stables
and the home farm.

The dowager got into the chaise, and the pony, a dapple gray of some
antiquity, proceeded at a pace that did not make it difficult for the
two girls, who by now had summoned to heel half a dozen dogs of various
breeds, to keep up with it on foot.

"Shall we turn aside and look at the farm?" Constantia suggested, where
the road forked.

"No, I think I'd like to drive down to the sea first of all," said the
dowager.

"Bravo, mother!" both her daughters applauded.

The dogs, understanding from their mistresses' accents that some
delightful project was in the air, began to bark loudly while they
scampered through the scraggy rhododendrons and put up shrilling
blackbirds with as much gusto as if they were partridges. The drive kept
in the shadow of the pines for about two hundred yards, until where the
trees began to grow smaller and sparser it emerged upon a spacious sward
that between bare uplands went rolling down to the sea a mile away. To
one looking back Clare Court now appeared under a strangely altered
aspect as a gray pile rising starkly from a wide lawn and unmellowed by
anything except the salt northwest wind; even the dowager and her
daughters, who had lived in it all these years, could never repress an
exclamation of wonder each time they emerged from the dim pinewood and
beheld it thus. On the other side of the house there had been sunlight
and a rich prospect of parkland losing itself in trees and a carefully
cultivated seclusion. Here was nothing except a line of gray-green downs
undulating against space, in a dip of which was the shimmer of fusing
sky and sea. Except at midsummer the pines were tall enough to cut off
the low westering sun from the house, and on this January day from where
they were standing in pale sunlight the gray pile seemed frozen. The
sense of desolation was increased by a walled-up door in the center of
the house, above which angelic supporters sustained the full moon of
Clare on a stone escutcheon. The first baronet had failed to establish
his right to the three chevronels originally borne by that great family
and had been granted arms that accorded better with the rococo taste of
his period.

"I've always wanted to plant a hedge of those hydrangeas with black
stalks in front of the pines," said the dowager, pensively, "but unless
they come blue they wouldn't look nice, and perhaps they wouldn't be
able to stand the wind on this side. But the effect would be lovely in
summer. Blue sky! Blue sea! Blue hydrangeas! Dark pine-trees and vivid
grass! It really would be a wonderful effect. Of course, it may be that
Tony's wife will be quite interested in flowers. One never can tell.
Come along, Clement." Clement was the pony, so-called because he was
such a saint.

The drive now skirted the edge of the downs in a gradual descent to
Clarehaven, a small cove formed by green headlands as if earth had
thrust out a pair of fists to scoop up some of the sea for herself. The
ruins of two round towers were visible on both headlands; on the slopes
of the westernmost stood a little church surrounded by tumble-down
tombstones that, even as the bodies of those whom they recorded had
become part of the earth on which they lived, were themselves growing
yearly less distinguishable from the outcrops of stone that no mortal
had set upon these cliffs. Two cottages marked the end of the drive,
which lost itself beyond them in a rocky beach that was strewn with
fragments of ancient masonry. At sight of the chaise several children
had bolted into the cottages like disturbed rabbits, and presently a
couple of women tying on clean aprons came out to greet the countess and
offer the hospitality of their homes. Their husbands, one of whom was
called Bitterplum, the other less picturesquely Smith, were mermen of
toil, fishers in summer and for the rest of the year agricultural
laborers.

"It's very kind of you, Mrs. Smith, and of you, too, Mrs. Bitterplum,"
said the dowager, "but I can only stay a few minutes. What a beautiful
day, isn't it? You must get ready to welcome his lordship, you know.
He'll be bringing her ladyship to see you very shortly. Are Bitterplum
and Smith quite well?"

"Oh ess, ess, ess," murmured the wives, wiping their mouths with their
aprons. Then Mrs. Smith volunteered:

"Parson Beadon's to the church."

At this moment a black figure appeared from the little building, and
after experiencing some difficulty in locking the church door behind him
hurried down the path to meet the important visitors. Mr. Beadon, the
rector of Clarehaven-cum-Cherringtons, was a tall, lean man, the ascetic
cast of whose countenance had been tempered by matrimony as the
indigestible loaf of his dogma had been leavened by expediency. Although
Lord Clarehaven was patron of the living that included Great
Cherrington, its church warden was a fierce squire who owned most of the
land round; here Mr. Beadon was nearly evangelical, with nothing more
vicious than a surpliced choir to mark the corruption of nineteen
hundred years of Christianity. At Little Cherrington, where the dowager
worshiped and where she had her stained-glass window of the fourth earl,
he indulged in linen vestments as a dipsomaniac might indulge in herb
beer; but at Clarehaven, with none except Mrs. Bitterplum and Mrs. Smith
to mark his goings on, he used to have private orgies of hagiolatry,
from one of which he was now returning.

After Mr. Beadon had greeted the dowager and the two girls he asked,
anxiously, if Tony had arrived, and confided with the air of a very
naughty boy that he had been holding a little celebration of St. Anthony
with special intention for the happiness of the marriage. St. Anthony
was not on the dowager's visiting-list, having no address in the Book of
Common Prayer; but she could hardly be cross with the rector for
observing his festival, inasmuch as he had the same name as her son. Mr.
Beadon was a good man whose services at Little Cherrington were exactly
what she wanted and who had, moreover, written an excellent history of
Clarehaven and the Devonshire branch of the Clare family. At the same
time, the bishop was also a good man, and she devoutly hoped that the
Bohemianism of Mr. Beadon's services at Clarehaven would not take away
what was left to his episcopal appetite from the claims of diabetes.

"One of Mrs. Bitterplum's children has been serving me," said Mr.
Beadon. "Yes, it was an impressive little--Eucharist." He had brought
his lips together for Mass, and Eucharist came out with such a cough
that the dowager begged him not to take cold. Mrs. Bitterplum brought
him out a cup of chocolate, a supply of which he kept in her cottage to
assuage the pangs of hunger after his long walk and arduous ritual on an
empty stomach. He swallowed the chocolate quickly, not to lose the
pleasure of company back to Little Cherrington; but with all the heat
and hurry of his late breakfast he could not stop talking.

"Mrs. Bitterplum is always kind enough--yes--curious old West Country
name...."

Arabella and Constantia had turned away to hide their smiles.

"I have failed hitherto to trace its origin. No.... Oh, indeed yes, when
you're ready, Lady Clarehaven. Good day to you, Mrs. Smith. Good day,
and thank you, Mrs. Bitterplum."

The pony's head had been turned inland, and Mr. Beadon talked earnestly
to the dowager while the chaise was driving slowly back. The topic of
the marriage led him along the by-paths of family lore in numerous
allusions to the historical importance of the various spots where the
dowager lingered during her last drive as mistress of Clare; but the
rector's discourse was so much intruded upon by gossip of nothing more
than parochial interest that it will be simpler to give a direct
abstract of the family history.

In the middle of the thirteenth century a younger member of the great
family of Clare whose demesnes stretched east and west from Suffolk to
Wales fell in with one of those pirate Mariscos that from Lundy Island
swept the Bristol Channel for ships laden with food and wine; in the
course of his seafaring he had discovered a cove on the north coast of
Devonshire that struck him as an excellent center for piracy on his own
account, notwithstanding that his chief patron had recently been hanged,
drawn, and quartered. He fortified his cove with round towers at either
entrance and thus created Clarehaven, where his descendants for a
hundred years or more levied toll on passing traffic and made an
alliance with the gentleman pirates of Fowey, whom in the reign of
Edward III they helped to drive back the discomfited men of Kent from
the west. The baser sort of pirates that in time came to haunt Lundy
made the less professional exploits of the Clares no longer worth while,
and before the close of the fourteenth century they had for many years
abandoned the sea and were reaping a more peaceful harvest from the
land. During the great days of Elizabeth the old spirit was reincarnate
in one or two members of the family, who fared farther than the Bristol
Channel and rounded fiercer capes than Land's End; but when in the early
years of the seventeenth century a great storm drove the sea to
overwhelm Clarehaven, there was not more to destroy than a few cottages
belonging to the fishermen that were now all that remained of the
medieval pirates. Then came the Great Rebellion, when Anthony Clare,
Esquire, mustered his grooms and fishermen to meet Sir Bevil Grenville
marching from Cornwall for the king. Finding large Roundhead forces at
Bideford between him and Sir Bevil, he retired again to the obscurity of
North Devon until the glorious Restoration, when with a relative he
appeared in Parliament as member for the borough of Clarehaven, and was
created a baronet by Charles II for his loyalty. Sir Anthony, with a
borough in his pocket and two thousand acres of land on which to develop
agriculture and choose a site for a house, abandoned what was left of
the old pirate's keep and began to build Clare Court. He chose an
aspect facing the sea, but died before the house was finished; Sir
Gilbert, his son, being more interested in digging for badgers than for
foundations, suspended building and contented himself with half a house.
Sir Anthony, the third baronet, took after his great-grandfather and
dreamed of sailing north to help the Earl of Mar in 1715. He must often
have stood in that now walled-up doorway under the escutcheon of his
house and gazed northward between the uplands to the sea; luckily for
his successors the days were long past when a Clare could go on board
his own ship lying at anchor in Clarehaven as snug as a horse in his
stable. Sheriffmuir was far from Devon, but the news of that ambiguous
battle reached the baronet before he had taken a rash step forward for a
lost cause. Every night for thirty years he was carried to bed drunk,
and, though he was never too drunk to sip from a goblet which had not
been previously passed across a finger-bowl to the king over the water,
he was too drunk and gouty to come out in '45. The nephew who succeeded
him two years later worked hard for the second George to atone for his
uncle's disaffection, and the family came to be favorably regarded at
court. Sir William was a bachelor and hated the sea. When not at St.
James's he used to live in Clare Lodge, a trim, red-brick house he had
built for himself about a mile eastward of the family mansion,
overlooking the hamlet of Little Cherrington and many desirable acres of
common land.

Mr. Beadon was discoursing of Sir William when the dowager paused to
admire the view from Clare Lodge. An excellent tenant had lately vacated
it, and she was wondering how long it would be before she and the girls
should be living there. She turned her attention once more to the
rector's mild criticism of Sir William, who had not attempted to make
Clarehaven a real borough, but who had bought Little Cherrington, and
inclosed all the acres he coveted. When he died in 1764, his cousin
Anthony enjoyed a tolerably rich inheritance, to which he added by
marrying a Miss Arabella Hopley with a dowry of £10,000. This lady, by
the death of her brother in a hunting accident, some years later became
heiress of Hopley Hall and three thousand acres of good land adjoining
the Clare estate; Sir Anthony loyally sent the two members for his
borough, which by now was reduced to three or four cottages moldering at
the tide's edge, to vote for the government; and on being rewarded in
the year 1796 with the barony of Clarehaven, he decided to finish Clare
Court. Before his succession he had spent a good deal of time at the
famous health resort of Curtain Wells, and he was not satisfied with the
sea view that did not include sunshine; it was he who pulled down the
kitchens and stables behind and built the present front of Clare Court.
His son Gilbert was prominent during the Napoleonic wars for seeing that
his tenantry kept a lookout for Bonaparte; and by putting down smuggling
he performed a vicarious penance for the deeds of his ancestors. It was
he who completed Clare Court; and in 1816, ten years before his death,
he was created Earl of Clarehaven and Viscount Clare, a peer of that
United Kingdom lately achieved by Pitt with such a mixture of glory and
shame. To mark his appreciation of the divine favor the first earl built
at Little Cherrington a chapel-of-ease to Clarehaven church, the
congregation of which by that time was the three electors of the
borough. He then bought the living of Great Cherrington, and presented
this shamrock of a cure to his natural son, who became rector of
Clarehaven-cum-Cherringtons. This gentleman paid a curate £40 a year to
look after the three churches and was last seen in an intoxicated
condition on the quay of Boulogne harbor.

The present incumbent, who was anxious that the dowager should not
object to a step up he proposed to take next Easter by introducing
colored vestments at Little Cherrington and linen vestments at Great
Cherrington for those very early services that fierce Squire Kingdon
would never get up to attend, perhaps alluded to the history of his
predecessor in order to emphasize his own superiority. It was all very
discreetly done, even to selecting the moment when the two girls were
examining a shepherd's sick dog and therefore out of hearing.

"How different from the late lord," Mr. Beadon sighed. "Mrs.
Beadon"--the rector paid tribute to his outraged celibacy by never
referring to her as his wife--"Mrs. Beadon often wonders why I don't
write a special memoir of him."

The dowager gazed affectionately at the chlorotic window by Burne-Jones.

"Perhaps his life was too quiet," she said. "I think the window is
enough."

"_Claro non clango._ But when Mr. Kingdon dies," said the rector,
tartly, "I understand that Mrs. Kingdon will erect an organ to _his_
memory."

They passed out of the church and stood looking down into the lap of the
fair landscape outspread before them, talking of other ancestors: of
Richard, the second earl, who married the daughter of a marquis and saw
Clarehaven disfranchised in 1832, by which time the borough was so
rotten that there was nothing perceptible of it except a few
seaweed-covered stones at low tide; it was he who destroyed a couple of
good farms to provide himself with a park worthy of his rank, which he
inclosed with a stone wall and planted trees, the confines of which his
descendants now tried proudly to trace in the wintry haze. Lest any want
of patriotism should be imputed to the second earl, Mr. Beadon reminded
his listeners of how Geoffrey, the third earl, did his duty to his
country, first as a member of Parliament for one of the divisions of
Devonshire, when he showed the Whigs that the disfranchisement of his
borough was not enough to keep a Clare out of Parliament, and afterward
as Lord Lieutenant of the county; his duty to his sovereign by acting as
Vice-Chamberlain to her Majesty's household. Of his son Gilbert, the
fourth earl, enough has been said; though it may be added here that he
sold Hopley Hall and many acres besides.

"On the whole, though, I think he was right," said Mr. Beadon. "These
Radicals, you know."

"Come and have lunch with us," the dowager invited.

It would be the last independent hospitality she could offer at Clare
Court.


II

While the dowager was presiding over lunch at Clare for the last time,
while her daughters were getting more and more openly excited about the
arrival of their sister-in-law, and while even Mr. Beadon partook of
their excitement to such an extent that he ate much less than usual,
Dorothy was sitting down to lunch in the restaurant-car of the Western
express. Her old life was being left behind more rapidly and with less
regret than the country through which the train was traveling. Happiness
always widens the waist of an hour-glass. Dorothy was so happy in being
a countess that on this railway journey time and space passed with equal
speed; and she looked so happy that all those who recognized her or were
informed by one of the waiters who she was commented upon her radiant
air. They decided with that credulous sentimentality imported into Great
Britain with Hengist and Horsa that she must be very deeply in love with
her husband; no one suspected that she might be more deeply in love with
herself. The head waiter, anxious to pay his own humble tribute to the
happy pair, removed the vase of faded flowers from the table they
occupied and put in its place another vase of equally faded flowers. If
he could have changed the lunch as easily, no doubt he would have done
so, but train lunches are as immemorial as elms, and it would have taken
more than the marriage of a Vanity girl to a Devonshire nobleman to
persuade the Great Western Railway Company that sauce tartare is not
the only condiment, and that there are more fish in the sea than the
anemic brill.

In days now mercifully forever fled Dorothy had often admired with a
touch of envy the select minority of the human race that seemed able to
obtain from the staff of a great railway station all the attention it
wanted. Now she had entered that select minority, and perhaps nothing
brought home more sharply the fact that she was a countess than the
attitude of the station-master at Exeter.

"Welcome back to the West, my lord," he said to Clarehaven, who thanked
him for his good wishes with the casual rudeness that minor officials of
all countries find so attractive in their acknowledged patrons.

A perspiring woman with a little boy in her arms clutched the
station-master's sleeve and begged to be informed if the express that
was now lying along the platform like a great sleek snake was the slow
train to whatever insignificant market-town she was bound. It was
annoying for the station-master to have his little chat with Lord
Clarehaven interrupted like this, especially by a woman who seemed under
the impression that he was a porter. However, the official possessed a
store of nobility from which to oblige an importunate inferior, and
majestically he condescended to reveal that the slow train would leave
in half an hour from the obscure platform it haunted. The station-master
was forthwith invited to look after a much-dinted tin box while the
perspiring and anxious creature's little boy was accommodated in the
cloak-room; before he could protest she had darted off.

"Wonderful what they expect you to do for them, isn't it?" he laughed,
with the lordly magnanimity that once inspired the English nation with
confidence in the capacity of its chosen representatives to rule the
world. At this moment a porter announced that his lordship's car was in
the station-yard.

"Be under no apprehensions about your baggage, my lord," said the
station-master. "I shall expedite it myself. Be under no apprehensions,"
he repeated; "it will certainly reach Cherrington Lanes to-night."

The porter, who was as eager as his chief to show his appreciation of
being employed at a railway station patronized by Lord and Lady
Clarehaven, overstepped the bounds of good will by picking up the
perspiring woman's tin box in order to place it in the car. Luckily his
chief perceived the horrible mistake in time and bellowed at him to take
it out and leave it on the pavement outside the station. Then raising
his cap, a gesture reserved for noblemen and irritation of the scalp,
the station-master bowed Lord and Lady Clarehaven upon their way.

"Car going well, Deacock?"

"Not too well, my lord."

"Make the old thing hum, because I want her ladyship to reach Clarehaven
before dark."

The chauffeur touched his cap, and the car answered generously to his
efforts in spite of continual criticisms leveled against it by the
owner.

"We must get a Lee-Lonsdale," he said to his wife.

"That would be very nice for Lonnie," she agreed. "Mine, of course, was
more a car for town. So I sold it."

She did not add that her own Lee-Lonsdale had provided her with a
bracelet of rubies.

"The setting is new," she had said to Tony when she showed him this
heirloom. "But the stones are old."

And who should have contradicted her?

The green miles were rolled up like a length of silk; milestones
fluttered like paper in the wake of the car; and by five o'clock they
were driving through the lodge gates. Mrs. Crawley with nine little
Crawleys, the fruit of Mr. Crawley's spare time from the peach-house at
Clare, flung a few primroses into the car and cheered their new lady.
Dorothy thought the primroses were very pretty and stood up to nod her
thanks; she did not realize that even an earl's estate in Devonshire
might find it hard to produce so many primroses in the month of January;
but she looked so beautiful standing up in the car that Mrs. Crawley
felt the exertions of her large and ubiquitous family were well
rewarded. The car leaped forward again, followed by shrill cheers that
lingered upon the evening air and echoed many times in Dorothy's heart.
The spellbound hush of landed property held earth in thrall, and the
countess wished to enjoy it.

"Not too fast through the park," she begged.

The car slowed down; at the top of the first incline from which the
house was visible it stopped to give Dorothy a moment in which to admire
her great possessions. The whole sky was plumed with multitudinous small
clouds rosy as the ruffled throats of linnets in spring; on the summit
of the last long incline before them Clare Court with its gardens and
terraces and gleaming pergola dreamed in the enchantment of the wintry
sunsets; in the dark groves on either side the trunks of the pines
glowed like pillars of fire. Nothing broke the stillness except a
mistlethrush singing very loud from an oak-tree close at hand, and when
the bird was silent the lowing of a cow far away on some other earth, it
seemed. Suddenly from woodland near the drive came a sound like
pattering leaves; a line of fallow deer rippled forth and broke into
startled groups that nosed the air now vibrant with the noise of dogs
approaching.

"How lovely!" Dorothy exclaimed. "You never told me there were deer,"
she added, reproachfully, as if the absence of deer had been the one
thing that all this time had kept her from accepting Clarehaven's hand.
"And how divine it must be here in summer."

"Well, if you hadn't been such a timid little deer, we might have been
here, anyway, last October."

Dorothy might have retorted that if Clarehaven had not been so bold a
hart she might have been here the summer before last; but she did not
remind him of that little flat round the corner, because the herd
dashed off to a more remote corner of the park at sight of several dogs
scampering down the drive with loud yaps of excitement, and Tony's
sisters running behind. Dorothy jumped out of the car to meet her
relations for the first time, glad to encounter them like this with dogs
barking and so much of the conversation directed to keeping them in
order, for she had half expected in that preludial hush to behold the
dowager materializing from the misty dusk like a gigantic genie from an
uncorked jar.

"Only two hours from Exeter. Pretty good for the old boneshaker, what?"
said Tony. "Deacock drove her along like a thoroughbred."

The chauffeur touched his cap and, smiling complacently, leaned over to
pat the tires of the car.

"Mother's waiting at the house," said Arabella. "She would have driven
down in the chaise to meet Dorothy, but she didn't know exactly when
you'd be here and was so afraid of catching cold just when she most
wanted not to."

There followed a stream of gossip about the health of various animals,
and about the way Marlow, the head-keeper, was looking forward to
shooting Cherrington Long Covert, and how much afraid he had been that
Tony would not be back before the end of the month, and how glad he was
that he was back, in the middle of which Constantia informed Dorothy
that there was a meet at Five Tree Farm two days hence and asked her if
she was going to hunt for the rest of the season. Arabella kicked her
sister so clumsily that Dorothy noticed the warning, and with a sudden
impulse to risk all, even death, in the attempt, she replied that of
course she intended to hunt for the rest of the season. Tony began to
protest, but she cut him short.

"My dear boy, when I lived with my grandmother I always hunted. And I've
kept up riding ever since."

"Well, that's topping," exclaimed Connie.

"Yes, that really is topping," echoed Arabella.

"But alas! I don't shoot," Dorothy confessed, "so if it won't bore you
too much you'll have to give me lessons."

"Oh, rather," began Connie, immediately. "Well, you see, the most
important thing is not to look across your barrels. I find that most
people--Well, for instance, supposing you put up a woodcock...."

"I say, Connie, shut up, shut up," Tony exclaimed. "You can't begin at
once. You'll put our eyes out in the car with that stick."

The shooting-lesson was postponed; and clambering into the car, in
another five minutes they had all reached the house. Dorothy's first
emotion at sight of the dowager was relief at finding that she was quite
a head shorter than herself. In spite of Napoleon, height is, on the
whole, an advantage to human beings in moments of stress. Dorothy had
involuntarily imagined her mother-in-law as a tall, beaked woman with a
cold and flashing eye, in fact with all the attributes the well-informed
novelist usually awards to dowagers. This dowdy little woman, whose
slight resemblance to a beaver was emphasized by wearing a cape made of
that animal's fur, had to stand on tiptoe to greet her daughter-in-law,
and it was unreasonable to be frightened of a woman who in an emotional
crisis had to stand on tiptoe. Nevertheless, Dorothy was sincerely
grateful for her kindly welcome, and took the first opportunity of
whispering some of her hopes and fears for the future to her
mother-in-law, who invited her, after tea, to come up-stairs to her den
and have a little talk. When they entered the small square room in an
angle of the house twilight was still sapphire upon the window-panes,
one of which looked out over the park and the other mysteriously down
into the grove of pines. Fussing about with matches, the dowager
explained apologetically that she preferred always to trim and light her
own lamp.

"One gets these little fads living in the depths of the country."

"Of course," Dorothy agreed, planning with herself some similar fad for
the near future.

The lamp was lighted; the windows changed from sapphire to indigo as the
jewel changes when it is no longer held against the light; in the golden
glow the walls of the room broke into blossom, it seemed. Dorothy,
reacting from Mr. and Mrs. Caffyn's taste in domestic decoration, had
supposed that all well-bred and artistic people devoted themselves to
plain color schemes such as she had elaborated in the Halfmoon Street
flat; but here was a kind of decoration that, though she knew
instinctively it could not be impeached on the ground of bad taste, did
astonish her by its gaudiness. Such a prodigality of brilliant
red-and-blue macaws, of claret-winged pompadouras and birds of paradise
swooping from bough to bough of such brilliant foliage; such sprawling
purple convolvuluses and cleft crimson pomegranates on the trellised
screen; such quaint old china groups on the mantelpiece; such
tumble-down chairs and faded holland covers; and everywhere, like fruit
fallen from those tropic boughs, such vividly colored balls of wool.

"Oh," exclaimed Dorothy, divining in a flash of inspiration how to make
the most of her totem, "it's exactly like my grandmother's room!"

"I am fond of my little den," said the dowager, "and as long as you so
kindly want me to stay on at Clare I hope you won't turn me out of it."

Dorothy expostulated with a gesture; she would have liked to show her
appreciation of the room in some perfect compliment, but she could think
of nothing better than to suggest sharing it, a prospect that she did
not suppose would attract her mother-in-law.

"I feel a dreadful intruder," she sighed.

"My dear child, please. I might have known that Tony would have chosen
well for himself, and I do hope you understand--I tried to explain to
you in my letter--how old-fashioned and out of the world we are down
here. My husband was a very quiet man, and for the last ten years of his
life a great invalid. The result was that I scarcely appreciated how
things had changed in the world, and I foolishly fancied that Tony was
just as much of a country cousin as myself. His sudden departure to
Africa like that came as a great shock to me. One scarcely realizes down
here that there is such a place as Africa." Heaven and her wall-paper
were the only scenes of tropical luxuriance in the imagination of which
the dowager indulged herself. "And, of course, my mother was very much
upset at the idea of the marriage."

Dorothy started. Was there, then, a super-dowager to be encountered?

"I see that Tony has not told you about her. Chatfield Hall, where my
brother lives, whom you will learn to know and love as Uncle Chat, is
only fifteen miles from Clare."

Dorothy did not know how to prevent her mother-in-law's perceiving her
mortification; to think that in her long study of Debrett she had
omitted to make herself acquainted with what was therein recorded of the
family of Fanhope! Really she did not deserve to be a countess!

"My mother," went on the dowager, "who as you've no doubt guessed is now
an extremely old lady, was inclined to blame me for Tony's choice. She
has always been accustomed to expect a good deal from her children. Even
Uncle Chat has never yet ventured to introduce a motor-car to Chatfield.
So you must not be disappointed if at first she's a little brusk. Poor
old darling, she's almost blind, but her hearing is as acute as ever,
and oh dear, I am so glad you have a pretty voice."

"Did you think I should have a cockney accent?" Dorothy asked.

"Well, to be frank, the contingency had presented itself," the dowager
admitted. "And I am so glad you don't use too much scent. I know
everybody uses scent nowadays, but my mother, whose sense of smell is
even more acute than her hearing, abominates scent. It does seem so
ironical that she should have kept her sense of smell and almost lost
her sight. You mustn't be frightened by her; but if you are you must
remember that we're all frightened by her, which ought to be a great
consolation. I thought we would drive over and see her to-morrow. It
would be nice to feel that the ice was broken."

"Even if I do get rather wet," Dorothy laughed.

The dowager smiled anxiously; she was not used to extensions of familiar
phrases, and her daughter-in-law's remark made her sharply aware that a
stranger was in the house.

"You think you'd rather wait a day or two before you go?" she suggested.

"Oh no, I think we ought to go and see Lady Chatfield as soon as
possible," said Dorothy.

"I'm so glad you agree with me."

"I'm rather sensitive where mothers are concerned," said Dorothy.

She felt that now was her moment to win the dowager immovably to her
side. There was something in the atmosphere of this gay little room,
some intimacy as of a garden long tended by a gentle and lonely soul,
that invited a contribution from one who was privileged to enter it like
this. Dorothy felt that the room needed "playing up to." The medium that
tempted her was the fairy-tale; a room like this was meant for
fairy-tales.

"I told you, didn't I, that this room reminded me of my grandmother's
room, and what you tell me about Lady Chatfield reminds me a little of
her character. My grandmother was a Lonsdale, a descendant of a younger
branch of the Cleveden Lonsdales. Her husband was an Irish landowner
called Doyle who was involved somehow with political troubles. I don't
quite know what happened, but he lost most of his money and died quite
suddenly soon after my mother was born. My grandmother came back to
England with her little daughter and settled down in Warwickshire, her
native county. When my mother was quite young--about twenty--she fell in
love with my father, who was reading for Holy Orders in the
neighborhood. My grandmother opposed the match, but my mother ran away,
and my father, instead of becoming a clergyman, took up rescue work in
the slums."

"A fine thing to do," the dowager commented, approvingly.

"Yes, but unfortunately my grandmother was very proud and very
unreasonable. She never forgave my mother, although she had me to live
with her until I was eleven, when she died. I was brought up in the
depths of the country and ever since I have always longed to get back to
it. I used to ride with friends of my grandmother. One of them was the
Duke of Ayr. Did you ever meet him? He died the other day, but of course
I hadn't seen him for many years."

"I did meet him long ago," said the dowager. "He was a great influence
for good in the country."

"Oh, a wonderful man," Dorothy agreed. "Well, the few family heirlooms
my grandmother still possessed were left to me, together with a small
sum of money, which I'm sorry to say my father spent. That was my excuse
for going on the stage. I told him that it was his fault and his fault
only that I had to earn my own living. But the rescue work had affected
his common sense. He turned me out of the house. I lived for a whole
year on fifty pounds. But I was determined to succeed, and when I met
Tony and he asked me to marry him I refused, because I had grown proud.
You can understand that, can't you? Tell me, dear Lady Clarehaven, that
you can understand my anxiety to prove that I could be a success.
Besides, when I was a child the estrangement between my mother and my
grandmother had greatly affected my imagination. I didn't want to find
myself the cause of estranging another mother from her son. Have you
forgiven me? Do you think that you will ever love me?"

The dowager wept and declared that as soon as her own mother was
pacified she should make it her business to reconcile Dorothy with hers.

"Oh no," cried Dorothy, "that's impossible. My father must learn a
little humility first. When he has learned his lesson I will be
reconciled with my family, but meanwhile haven't you a place in your
heart for me?"

The dowager, so far as it was possible for a small woman to perform the
action with one so much taller than herself, clasped Dorothy to her
heart.

"How I wish my husband were alive to be with us this evening," she
exclaimed.

It was probably as well that he was not; if he had been, neither age nor
decency would have intervened to prevent the fourth earl from making
love to his daughter-in-law. The fifth earl interrupted any further
exchanges of confidences by bursting into the room to protest against
his wife's desertion.

"Your mother has been so sweet to me, Tony," she said.

"Of course she has," he answered. "She knows what I've had to go through
to bring off this coup."

"Indeed," the dowager confessed, "I never suspected he had such
determination. Dear old boy, it only seems yesterday that he was such a
little boy, and now--" She broke off with a sigh and patted him on the
shoulder.

"Your mother and I have just decided that it would be best if I am
presented to Lady Chatfield to-morrow," Dorothy announced.

"What?" cried Clarehaven. "No. Look here! Steady, mother! I'm absolutely
against that. I'm sorry to appear the undutiful grandson and all that,
but really, don't you know, I must discourage her a bit. I didn't bring
Dorothy down to Clare to be buzzing over to Chatfield all the time.
We'll get Uncle Chat over here to dinner one night, and that'll be quite
enough."

The dowager looked appealingly at her daughter-in-law, who at once took
matters into her own hands.

"Don't be absurd, Tony. Of course we shall go to-morrow."

He would have continued to protest, but his wife fixed him with those
deep-brown eyes of hers.

"Now, don't go on arguing, there's a dear boy, or your mother will think
we do nothing but quarrel."

Tony was silent, and the dowager regarded her daughter-in-law with open
admiration. She had never seen one of the males of Clare or Fanhope
quelled so completely since the days when she was a little girl and saw
her own fierce old mother quell her husband.

That night in the bridal chamber of Clare the fifth earl chose a not
altogether suitable costume of pink-silk pajamas in which to give
utterance to his plans for the future. If Dorothy had been beautiful in
the dowager's bower, she was much more fatally beautiful now in a
dishabille of peach bloom and with her fawn-colored hair glinting in the
candle-light against the dark panels of this ancient and somber room.
When Clarehaven began to walk up and down in the excitement of his
projects she went slowly across to a Caroline chair with high wicker
back, sitting down in which she waited severely and serenely until he
had finished. Tony might prance about in his pajamas, but he was no more
free than a colt which a horse-breaker holds in tether to be jerked down
upon his four legs when he has kicked his heels long enough.

"I didn't marry you," her husband was protesting, "to come and live down
here and be ruled by Grandmother Chatfield. I don't give a damn for my
grandmother; she's a meddlesome old woman who ought to have been dead
ten years ago. As for Uncle Chat, he bores me to death. He can only talk
about cigars and pigs. Look here, Doodles, we're going to stay here
three or four more days, and then we're off to the Riviera. We'll make
Lonnie come with us and drive down through France--topping roads--and I
want to try the pigeons at Monte. After that I thought we'd go to Cairo,
or perhaps we might go to Cairo first and take Monte on the way back.
Anyway, Curzon Street will be ready by the beginning of May. I'm having
it devilishly comfortably done up. I didn't tell you about that; it's
going to be the most comfortable house in London. I tried every chair
myself in Waring's. I'm sorry I had to bore you at all with my family,
but I'm awfully fond of my mother, and I knew she wouldn't be happy till
she'd seen you, and all that. Well, now it's done, and we can buzz on
again as soon as possible."

"Any more plans?" asked Dorothy.

"No, I thought we'd go up to Scotland for August, and after that I don't
see why we shouldn't have a good shoot here in September. But I haven't
thought much about next autumn."

"That's where I'm cleverer than you," said his wife. "I've not only
thought about next autumn, but about next week, and about next year, and
the year after that, and the year after that, too. Listen, old thing.
When you first met me you wanted to put me in a little flat round the
corner, didn't you? Please don't interrupt me. You couldn't understand
then why I wouldn't accept your offer; I don't think you really
understand very much better even now. London for me doesn't exist any
longer. How you can possibly expect me to go away from this glorious
place, which I already love as if I'd lived here all my life, to tear
about the Continent with you as if I wasn't your wife at all, I don't
know. If you don't realize what you owe to your name, I realize it. I
don't choose that people should say: 'There goes that ass Clarehaven who
married a girl from the Vanity. Look at him!' I don't choose that people
should point you out as my husband. I choose to be your wife, and I
intend that all your family--and when I say your family I mean your
mother's family, too--shall go down on their knees and thank God that
you did marry a Vanity girl, and that a Vanity girl knew what she owed
to her country in these dreadful days when common Radicals are trying to
destroy all that we hold most sacred. I want you to take your place in
the House of Lords, when you've lost that trick of talking to everybody
as if they were waiters at the Savoy. Why, you don't deserve to be an
earl!"

"My dear thing, you mustn't attach too much importance to a title. You
must remember...."

"Are you trying to correct my tone?" she asked, coldly. "Because, let me
tell you that all this false modesty about your position is only
snobbery dressed out in a new disguise. Anyway, I didn't marry you to be
criticized."

"Oh well, of course, if you insist on staying down here for the present
I suppose I must," said Tony. "Anyway, I dare say we can have some jolly
parties to cheer the place up a bit."

"No, we sha'n't have any jolly parties--at any rate yet awhile," said
Dorothy. "I don't intend to begin by turning Clare gardens into bear
gardens."

"Good Heavens! what is the matter with you?" he demanded. "What has my
mother been saying?"

"Your mother hasn't been saying anything. I said all these things over
to myself a thousand thousand times before I married you."

"Well, why didn't you tell me some of your ideas before you did marry
me?" he muttered.

"Do you regret it?" she asked, standing up.

"Don't be a silly old thing, Doodles. Of course I don't regret it. But
having married the loveliest girl in London, I should like to splash
around a bit with you. My tastes are bonhomous. I'd always thought....
Dash it, I love you madly, you know that. I'm proud of you."

"Aren't you proud that the loveliest girl in London is willing to be
loved by you only? God! my dear boy, you ought to be grateful that
you've got me to yourself."

She held out her arms, and it was not remarkable that in those arms and
with those lips Clarehaven forgot all about driving along the topping
roads of France in a Lee-Lonsdale car. When his wife released him from
the first real embrace she had ever given him he staggered like one who
has been enchanted.

"Dash it...." he murmured, blinking his eyes to quench the fire that
burned them. "I'm not very poetical, don't you know--but your
kisses--well, really, do you know I think I shall take to reading
poetry?"


III

The next morning Dorothy paced the picture-gallery of Clare that ran the
whole length of the north side of the house. She had several ordeals to
pass in the few days immediately ahead, and she derived much help from
the contemplation of her predecessors at Clare. Gradually from the
glances of those tranquil dames, some of whom for more than two
centuries had gazed seaward through the panes of those high narrow
windows mistily iridescent from a thousand salt gales, Dorothy caught an
attitude toward life; from their no longer perturbable expressions, from
their silent testimony to the insignificance of everything in the
backward of time, she acquired confidence in herself. What was old Lady
Chatfield except a picture, and how could she harm an interloper even
more vulnerable than an actress? She should try this afternoon to think
of the super-dowager as one of the long row of noble dames and console
herself with the thought that in another hundred years the fifth
Countess of Clarehaven would be accounted the loveliest of all the
ladies in this gallery. Who was there to outmatch her? Even the first
countess, with all Romney had yielded from his magic store of roses,
would have to admit she was surpassed by her successor.

"But who shall paint my portrait?" Dorothy asked herself. "Romney should
be alive now. There's no painter as good as he for my style of beauty.
And how shall I be painted? If I manage to ride to hounds as
triumphantly as I hope I shall, I might be painted in a riding-habit.
The black would set off my hair and my complexion and my figure. I don't
want everybody at the Academy to say that my dress is so wonderful, as
if without a dress I should be nothing. Thirty years from now I will be
painted again in some wonderful dress. But oh, if only I don't fail at
the meet on Monday! If only--if only...."

At lunch Tony suggested that he should drive Dorothy to Chatfield in the
car and that his mother and sisters should go in the barouche. The
dowager reminded him how much his grandmother objected to motor-cars at
Chatfield and urged that it was unfair on Dorothy to irritate the old
lady wantonly.

"I never heard such nonsense," Tony exclaimed. "She'll soon be expecting
us to row over to Chatfield in the Ark. Well, I sha'n't go at all. You
and Dorothy had better drive over together in the victoria."

The dowager threw out a signal of distress to her daughter-in-law, who
said firmly but kindly that they would all drive over together in the
drag.

"We shall look like a village treat," muttered Tony, sulkily.

"But I'm anxious to see the country," said Dorothy. "And you drive much
too fast in the car for me to see anything. I don't want to arrive blown
to pieces."

Naturally in the end Dorothy had her way about going in the drag, and
she wondered what Tony could have wished better than to swing through
the gates of Chatfield Park and pull up with a clatter at the gates of
Chatfield Hall. The very sound of the footman's feet alighting on the
gravel drive was like a seal upon the dignity of their arrival. Uncle
Chat came out to greet them, a round, red-faced man with short
side-whiskers, dressed in a pepper-and-salt suit. He had been a widower
for ten years, but his wife before she died--slowly frightened to death
by her mother-in-law, as malicious story-tellers said--had left him two
sons and two daughters. Paignton, the eldest boy, was a freshman at
Trinity, Cambridge, and was at present away on a visit; Charles, the
second boy, was still at home, with Eton looming in a day or so; Dorothy
liked his fresh complexion and the schoolboy impudence that not even his
grandmother had been able to squash. She told him that she was going to
hunt on Monday for the first time for several years, and he promised to
be her equerry and show her some gaps that might be welcome.

"But it's not difficult country," he assured her. "Not like Ireland."

"No. My great-grandfather was killed by an Irish wall," she said.

Tony looked up at this. Perhaps he was thinking that if she rode as
recklessly as she talked she really would be killed out hunting. Of the
other easy members of the family Mary and Maud were jolly girls still in
the thrall of a governess, while Lady Jane, Tony's aunt, was milder even
than his mother, and, having now been for over fifty years at the
super-dowager's beck and call, had the look of one who is always
listening for bells.

The super-dowager herself lived in a self-propelling invalid chair in
which, though she was reputed to be blind, she propelled herself about
the ground floor of Chatfield with as much agility as the mole, another
animal whose blindness is probably exaggerated. Beyond occasionally
knocking over a table, she did more damage with her tongue than with her
chair and kept the kitchen in a state of continuous alarm. One of her
favorite pastimes was to coast down the long corridor that divided them
from the rest of the house, and, pulling up suddenly beside the cook, to
accuse her of burning whatever dish she was preparing. The only servants
at Chatfield who felt at all secure were those high-roosting birds, the
housemaids.

"Who's making all this noise?" demanded the super-dowager, advancing
rapidly into the hall soon after the Clarehaven party had arrived, and
scattering the group right and left.

"Tony has brought his wife to see you," said her daughter. "They only
reached Clare last night."

"Tony's wife?" repeated the old lady. "And who may she be? Chatfield, if
Paignton marries an actress you understand that I leave here at once?
I've made that quite clear, I hope?"

"If you have, Lady Chatfield," said Dorothy, "I'm sure that Paignton
won't marry an actress."

"Who's that talking to me?"

At this moment Arabella and Constantia, who, because their noses were
respectively too small and too large, easily caught cold, sneezed
simultaneously.

"Augusta," said the super-dowager.

"Yes, mamma."

"Don't tell me that's not Bella and Connie, because I know it is. Can
nothing be done about their taking cold like this? They never come here
but they must go sneezing and sniffing about, until one might suppose
Chatfield was draughty."

Considering that for her peregrinations the super-dowager insisted upon
every door of the ground floor's being left open, one might have been
justified in supposing so.

"Where's that girl?" demanded the old lady. "Why doesn't she come close?
Has she got a cold, too?"

"No, no," laughed Dorothy, "I haven't got a cold."

"Your voice is pleasant, child," said the super-dowager. "Augusta, her
voice is pleasant. Chatfield, her voice is pleasant. Clarehaven, come
here. Your wife has a pleasant voice."

"Of course she has," said the grandson. "You ought to have heard her
sing 'Dolly and her Collie.'"

If looks could have killed her husband, Dorothy would have been the
third dowager present at that moment; but strange to say, the old lady
seemed to like the idea of Dorothy's singing.

"She _shall_ sing me 'Dolly and her Collie'; she shall sing it to me
after tea. Come, let's have tea," and, giving a violent twirl to her
wheel, the old lady shot forward in advance of the party toward the
drawing-room, beating by a neck the footman at the door, who in order to
avoid dropping the tray had to perform a pirouette like a comic juggler.

"Why did you make me look such a fool?" Dorothy muttered to Tony at the
first opportunity.

"My dear girl, believe me, I'm the only person who knows how to manage
the silly old thing."

Dorothy was miserable all through tea, wondering if the super-dowager
was really in earnest about making her sing. She wondered what the
servants would think, what her mother-in-law would think, what her uncle
would think, what her new cousins would think, what the whole county of
Devon would think, what all England would think of her humiliation.
Perhaps the old lady was not in earnest. Perhaps it was merely a test of
her dignity. Were ever sandwiches in the world so dry as these?

"What's that?" the super-dowager was exclaiming. "Certainly not! Nobody
can hear this song except myself. I should never dream of allowing a
public performance at Chatfield. This is not a performance. This is a
contribution to my miserable old age."

The old lady swooped about the room like a hen driving intruding
sparrows from her grain; when all were banished she swung rapidly
backward and commanded Dorothy to begin. Poor Dorothy tried to explain
how the effect of the song had depended upon the accessories. There had
been the music, for instance.

"Never mind about the music," said the super-dowager.

"And there was a chorus of six."

"Never mind about the chorus."

"And then I haven't got my dog."

"Never mind about the dog."

Dorothy, who had thought that she had put "Dolly and her Collie" behind
her forever, had to stand up and sing to Lady Chatfield as she had sung
to Mr. Richards in the cupola of the Vanity not so many months ago.

"The words are rubbish," said the old lady. "The tune is catchy, but not
so catchy as the tunes they used to write. Your voice is pleasant. Come
nearer to me, child. They tell me you're handsome. Yes, well, I can
almost see that you are. And I'm glad of it, for the Clares are an ugly
race."

Considering that the super-dowager was directly responsible for Tony's
mother, and therefore partially responsible for Arabella and Constantia,
this opinion struck Dorothy as lacking proportion.

"Beauty is required in the family. You understand what I mean? Let's
have none of these modern notions of waiting five or six years before
you do your duty. Produce an heir."

The old lady said this so sharply that Dorothy felt as if she ought to
put her hand in her pocket and produce one then and there.

"Call Tony in to me. Tony," she said, "you're an ass; but not such an
ass as I thought you were."

"Good song, isn't it, grandmother?" he chuckled.

"Don't interrupt me. I said you were only not such an ass as I thought.
You're still an ass. Your wife isn't. You understand what I mean?
Produce an heir. Now I must go to bed." She swept out of the room like a
swallow from under the eaves of a house.

On the way back to Clare, Bella and Connie could not contain their
delight at the success Dorothy had made with their grandmother.
Tompkins, the Chatfield butler, had confided in Connie just before she
left that her ladyship had been heard to hum on entering her bedroom--an
expression of superfluous good temper in which she had not indulged
within his memory. The old lady was always cross at going to bed,
probably because she could not wheel it about like her chair. Nor was
grandmother the only victim to Dorothy's charm: Uncle Chat had been full
of compliments; Charles and the girls had declared she was a stunner;
Aunt Jane had corroborated Tompkins's story about humming.

The dowager, who always came away from Chatfield with a sense of renewed
youth, though sometimes, indeed, feeling like a naughty little girl, was
almost sprightly on the drive back to Clare. She had expected to be
roundly scolded by her mother, and here she was going away with her
pockets full of nuts, as it were; the little anxieties of daily life
dropped from her shoulders, and when the drag met a very noisy motor in
a narrow stretch of road she sat perfectly still and listened to the
coachman's soothing clicks with profound trust in his ability to calm
the horses.

"By the way, I hope you won't mind the suggestion, dear," she said to
Dorothy, "but I think it would be nice to arrange a little dinner-party
for Saturday night--just our particular neighbors, you know--Mr. and
Mrs. Kingdon, Mr. and Mrs. Beadon, Mr. Hemming the curate, Doctor Lane,
and Mr. Greenish of Cherrington Cottage."

Tony groaned.

"What could be nicer?" said Dorothy. "But...."

"You're going to say it sounds rather sudden. Yes--well, it will be
sudden. But it struck me that it would be much nicer if we were a little
sudden. You see, your wedding was rather sudden, and our neighbors will
appreciate such a mark of intimacy. No doubt the Kingdons and the
Beadons will have called this afternoon, and I thought that if you don't
object I would send out the invitations myself and make it a sort of
wedding breakfast. I know it all sounds very muddled, but my
inspirations nearly always turn out well. I should like to feel on
Sunday that we were all old friends. Besides, if you're really going to
hunt on Monday, it will be nice for you to meet Mr. Kingdon, who is
master of the Horley."

"I think it's a delightful idea," Dorothy exclaimed. "Thank you so much
for suggesting it."

"This is going to be a terrible winter and spring," Clarehaven groaned.

"Tony, please don't be discouraging," said his mother. "I'm feeling so
optimistic since our visit to Chatfield. Why, I'm even hoping to
reconcile Mr. Kingdon and Mr. Beadon. Not, of course, that they're open
enemies, but I should like the squire to appreciate the rector's
beautiful character, and it seems such a pity that a few lighted candles
should blind him to it. Mr. Kingdon will take in Dorothy; the rector
will take me; you, Tony dear--please don't look so cross--ought to take
in Mrs. Kingdon, who's a great admirer of yours--such a nice woman,
Dorothy dear, with a most unfortunate inability to roll her r's--it's so
sad, I think. Then the doctor will take in Mrs. Beadon; Mr. Greenish,
Arabella; and Mr. Hemming, Connie."

"I like Tommy Hemming," said Connie. "He's a sport."

"I should call him a freak," Clarehaven muttered.

"We ought to do some riding to-morrow and Friday," his sister went on,
quite unconcerned by his opinion of the curate. "I think Dorothy ought
to ride Mignonette on Monday. She's a perfect ripper--a chestnut."

Dorothy liked the name, which reminded her of her own hair, and
certainly had she chosen for herself she would have chosen a chestnut
for the meet at Five Tree Farm. The dowager's forecast was right--both
the Kingdons and the Beadons had called upon the new countess, and the
dowager pattered up-stairs to her bird-bright room to send out
invitations for Saturday.

"You see what you've let yourself in for," said Tony to his wife that
night. "However, you'll be as fed up as I am when you've had one or two
of these neighborly little dinners. And look here, Doodles, seriously I
don't think you ought to hunt. I'm not saying you can't ride, but you
ought to wait till next season, at any rate. You may have a nasty
accident, and--well, yes, I'm the one to say it, after all--you may make
a priceless fool of yourself."

"Do you think so?" Dorothy asked. "Do you think I made a priceless fool
of myself when I sang to your grandmother this afternoon? If I can carry
that off, I can certainly ride after a fox. Kiss me. You mean well, but
you don't yet know what I can do."

A former Anthony kissed away kingdoms and provinces; this Anthony kissed
away doubts and fears and scruples as easily.

Dorothy dressed herself very simply for the neighborly little
dinner-party. She decided that white would be the best sedative for any
tremors felt by the neighbors at the prospect of finding their society
led by an actress; and she made up her mind to cast a special spell upon
the M. F. H. and so guard herself from the consequences of any mistake
she might make at the meet. There was nothing about Mr. Kingdon that
diverged the least from the typical fox-hunting squire that for two
hundred years has been familiar to the people of Great Britain. His neck
was thick and red; his voice came in gusts; and he recounted as good
stories of his own the jokes in _Punch_ of the week before last. What
deeper sense in Squire Kingdon was outraged by the rector's ritualism it
would be hard to say, for his body did not appear to be the temple of
anything except food and drink; perhaps, like the bull that he so much
resembled, an imperfectly understood nervous system was wrought upon by
certain colors. The congregation of Great Cherrington would scarcely
have been stirred from their lethargic worship to see the squire with
lowered head charge up the aisle, when Mr. Beadon began to play the
picador with a colored stole, and toss Mr. Beadon over his shoulders
into the font. Mrs. Kingdon was to her husband as a radish is to a
beet-root. The weather is a bad lady's maid, and the weather had made of
Mrs. Kingdon's complexion something that ought to have infuriated her
husband as much as Mr. Beadon's colored stoles. In spite of her hard and
highly colored appearance, she was a mild enough woman, given to deep
sighs in pauses of the conversation, when she was probably thinking
about the rolling of her r's and regretting that three of her children
had inherited this impotency of palate or tongue.

"We must all pull together," she said to Dorothy, who expressed her
anxiety to find herself lugging at the same rope as Mrs. Kingdon against
whatever team opposed them.

"Very true, Mrs. Kingdon," the rector observed. "I wish the squire was
always of your opinion."

"Mr. Beadon can never forget that he is a clergyman," whispered Mrs.
Kingdon when the rector passed on.

Yet the monotone of Mr. Beadon's clericality had once been illuminated
when he had broken that vow of celibacy to which he had attached such
importance in order to marry Mrs. Beadon. In the confusion of the Sabine
rape Mrs. Beadon might have found herself wedded, but that any man in
cold blood and with many women to choose from should have deliberately
chosen Mrs. Beadon passed normal comprehension. Her husband treated her
in the same way as he treated the crucifix from Oberammergau that he
kept in a triptych by his bed. He would admire her, respect her, almost
worship her, and then abruptly he would shut her up with a little click.
Mrs. Beadon was much thinner even than her husband; while she was
eating, the upper part of her chest resembled a musical box, her throat
a violin played pizzicato, the accumulated music of which expressed
itself during digestion in remote trills and far-off scales. She was
seldom vocal in conversation, but voluble in psalms and hymns; she
performed many kind actions such as blowing little boys' noses on the
way to school, and though she did not blow Dorothy's nose, she squeezed
her hand and confided that the news of Lord Clarehaven's marriage had
meant a great deal to her.

"Oh, so much!" she had time to repeat before her husband closed the
doors of the triptych.

Mr. Hemming, the curate, was a muscular and, did not his clerical collar
forbid one to suppose so, a completely fatuous young man. When he was
pleased about anything he said, "Oh, cheers!" When he was displeased he
shook his head in silence. Mr. Beadon told Dorothy that he was a loyal
churchman, and certainly once in the course of the evening he came to
the rescue of his rector, who had been pinned in a corner of the room,
by asking the squire, why he wore a pink coat when he hunted. The squire
replied that such was the custom for an M. F. H., and Mr. Hemming, with
a guffaw, said that it was also the custom for a fisher of men to wear
sporting colors. This irreverent attempt to put fishing on an equality
with fox-hunting naturally upset the squire, and the dowager's hopes, of
an early reconciliation between him and the rector were destroyed.

Of the other two guests, Doctor Lane was a pleasant, elderly gentleman
whose chief pride was that he still read _The Lancet_ every week. One
felt in talking to him that a man who still read _The Lancet_ after
twenty-five years of Cherrington evinced a sensitiveness to medical
progress that was laudable and peculiar. He was a widower without
children and devoted what little leisure he had to the study of newts,
salamanders, and olms; a pair of olms, which a friend had brought him
back from Carniola, he kept in a subterranean tank in his garden,
enhancing thereby in the eyes of the village his reputation as a
physician. The last guest, Mr. Greenish, was a well-groomed bachelor of
about forty, one of that class who suddenly appear for no obvious reason
in remote country villages and devote themselves to gardening or other
forms of outdoor life, who are useful about the parish, and who often
play billiards well. They may be criminals hiding from justice; more
probably they are people who have inherited money late in life from
aunts, and who, having long dreamed of retiring into the country, do so
at the first opportunity. Mr. Greenish did not hunt, but he was a good
shot, and Clarehaven found him the least intolerable of his immediate
neighbors.

It cannot be said that Dorothy found it difficult to shine at such a
party; indeed, she was such a success that when the evening came to an
end no doubt remained in the dowager's mind that to-morrow morning
Little Cherrington church would have double its usual congregation to
see the new countess. In fact, Mr. Kingdon was so much taken with her
that he announced his own intention of worshiping at Little Cherrington,
and the rector regretted that he had not known of this beforehand in
order that he might have seized the opportunity, in the absence of the
squire, to test the congregation of Great Cherrington with a linen
chasuble. As a matter of fact, on the way home he plotted with Mr.
Hemming to do this, and was successful in passing off the vestment on
the congregation as a flaw in the curate's surplice.

Dorothy looked particularly attractive that Sunday in her coat and skirt
of lavender box-cloth, for the fashion of the moment was one that well
showed off a figure like hers. The rector's sermon on a text from the
Song of Solomon alluded with voluptuous imagery to the romance of the
married state, and, being entirely unintelligible to the congregation,
was considered round the parishes to be one of the best sermons he had
ever preached. If only to-morrow, thought Dorothy, when she walked out
of the churchyard through a crowd of uncovered rustics, she could leave
the hunting-field as triumphantly. Her rides on the preceding days with
Clarehaven and the girls had been successful. They had all congratulated
her, and any lingering anxiety in her husband's mind seemed to have
passed away. As the moment drew near, however, Dorothy began to be
nervous about breaches of hunting etiquette, and she spent Sunday
afternoon in turning over the pages of bound volumes of _Punch_ in order
to extract from the weekly hunting joke hints what not to do. A
succession of irate M. F. H.'s, purple in the face and shaking crops at
presumptuous cockneys, haunted her dreams that night; when she woke to a
moist gray morning, for the first time in her life she felt really
nervous. It was in vain that she sought to reassure herself by recalling
past triumphs on the stage or by telling herself how easily she had
dealt with Lady Chatfield. Failure in either of those cases would not
have been irremediable; but let her make no mistake, before to-day's
dusk she should have settled the whole of her future life. If she made a
fool of herself she should never escape from being pointed out as a
Vanity girl; if she succeeded, the Vanity girl would be forgotten, and
by sheer personal prowess she might lead the county. It was a tribute to
Dorothy's complexion that not even on this rather shaky morning did she
feel the need for rouge. Five Tree Farm was only three miles from Clare
Court, and the meets there, being considered the best of the season,
always had very large fields. She was disappointed that Tony was not in
pink, but he told her he did not care enough about hunting to dress up
for it.

"That's what I like about shooting," he said, "there isn't all this
confounded putting it on."

The master cantered up and congratulated Dorothy on her first appearance
with the Horley Hunt.

"We're going to draw Dedenham Copse first," he informed her, and
cantered off again, shouting loudly to two unfortunate young men with
bicycles who were doing no harm at all, but whom he persisted in abusing
as "damned socialists." Suddenly, hounds gave tongue with changed,
almost intolerable eager note; there was a thud of hoofs all round her;
confused cries; the sound of a horn shrilling to the gray sky....

"Wonderful morning for scent," she heard somebody say, and flushed
because she thought a personal remark had been passed about herself; but
before she had time to worry who had said it and why it had been said
Mignonette was nearly leading the field.

"Dorothy," shouted her husband, "for God's sake don't get too far in
front. Hold your mare in a bit. And for God's sake don't ride over
hounds."

But Dorothy paid no attention to him and was soon galloping with the
first half-dozen. By her side appeared Charlie Fanhope.

"Topping run," he breathed. "I say, you're looking glorious. Awful to
think I shall be on the way to Eton this time to-morrow."

She smiled at him; from out of the past came the memory of an old
colored Christmas supplement on the walls of the nursery in Lonsdale
Road. A girl and a boy on rocking-horses, brown and dapple-gray, the boy
wearing a green-velvet cap and jacket, the girl befrilled and besashed,
were both plunging forward with rosy smiles. Underneath it had been
inscribed: "Yoicks! Tally-ho!" While her mare's heels thudded over the
soft turf, Dorothy kept saying to herself, "Yoicks! Yoicks! Yoicks!"
Charlie Fanhope, riding beside her, was as fresh and rosy as the boy in
the picture.

"You can't take that gate, can you?" he was saying.

Before her like a ladder rose a five-barred gate. At the riding-school
in Knightsbridge Dorothy had jumped obstacles quite as high; but those
had been obstacles that collapsed conveniently when touched by the heels
of her horse.

"I say I don't think you can take that gate," Charlie Fanhope repeated,
anxiously. "I'll open it. I'll open it."

But Dorothy in a dream left all to Mignonette; remembering from real
life to grip the pommel, to keep her wrists down, and to sit well back,
she seemed to be uttering a prolonged gasp that was carried away by the
wind as a diver's gasp is lost in the sound of the water. Where was her
cousin? Left behind to crackle through one of those gaps he knew of.
Yoicks! Yoicks! Yoicks! They were in a wide, down-sloping meadowland
intensely green, and checkered with the black and red riders in groups;
hounds were disappearing at the bottom of the slope in a thick coppice.
Nursery pictures of Caldecott came back to Dorothy when she saw the
squire with his horn and his mulberry-colored face and his huge bay
horse go puffing past to investigate the check, which lasted long enough
for Dorothy to receive many felicitations upon her horsewomanship.

"My word! Doodles," said her husband, cantering up to her side. "You
really are a wonder, but for the Lord's sake be careful."

"I told you that you didn't yet really know me," she murmured; before he
could reply, from the farthest corner of the coppice came the whip's
"Viewhalloo." Hounds gave tongue again with high-pitched notes of
excitement as of children playing. Forrard away! For-rard! They were off
again with the fox gone away toward Maidens' Common, and before the
merry huntsmen the prospect of the finest run in Devonshire. Thirty
minutes at racing speed and never a check; wind singing; hoofs thudding;
a view of the fox; Dorothy always among the first half-dozen riders.

They killed some twelve miles away from Clare in Tangley Bottom, and
nobody would have accused the master, when he handed Dorothy the brush,
of being influenced by the countess's charming company at dinner on
Saturday night. Best of all in a day of superlatives, Clarehaven had
taken a nasty toss; his wife had him in hand as securely as she had
Mignonette.

"Glorious day," Connie sighed when at last they were walking through the
gates of the park.

"Glorious," echoed Dorothy.

A faint flush low on the western sky symbolized her triumph. And though
one or two malicious women said that it was a pity Lord Clarehaven
should have married a circus girl, the legend never spread. Besides,
they had not been introduced to the Diana of Clare, who soon had the
county as securely in hand as her horse and her husband.

Dorothy, tired though she was, felt the need of confiding in somebody
the tale of her triumph. She was even tempted to write to Olive. In the
end she chose her mother; perhaps the kindness of the dowager had
stirred a dormant piety.

She wrote:

     MY DEAR MOTHER,--I am sorry I could not come and see you before I
     got married, but you can understand how delicate and difficult my
     position was, and how much everything depended on myself. No doubt,
     later on when I am thoroughly at home in my new surroundings, it
     will be easier for us to meet again. I don't know if father told
     you that I did explain to him my motives in treating you all rather
     abruptly. Or did he never refer to a little talk we once had? You
     will be glad to hear that I am very, very happy. My husband adores
     me, my mother-in-law has been more than kind, and my sisters-in-law
     equally so. On Thursday we drove over to Chatfield Hall to see my
     husband's grandmother, old Lady Chatfield, who is famous for
     speaking her mind, and of course not at all prejudiced in my favor
     by my having been on the stage. However, we had a jolly little talk
     together and everybody is delighted with the impression I made. On
     Saturday we had a small dinner-party. The rector, who is very High
     Church and would not, therefore, appeal to father, was there. Mr.
     Kingdon, the squire, would be more his style. There was also a Mr.
     Greenish, who promised to teach me gardening. Quite a jolly
     evening. Yesterday morning all the villagers cheered when I came
     out of church, and to-day I hunted with the Horley. I was rather a
     success. I hope you got the check for £500 I sent you, and that you
     will buy yourself something nice with it. It isn't exactly a
     present, but in a way it counts as one, doesn't it? You must try to
     be a little more firm with father in future. Don't forget that
     though I may seem heartless I am not really so. I hope you will
     write to me sometimes. You should address the envelope to The
     Countess of Clarehaven, but if you speak about me to your friends
     you should speak about me as Lady Clarehaven.

     Your loving daughter,

     DOROTHY CLAREHAVEN.


IV

For two years Dorothy's life as a countess went quietly along, gathering
in its train a number of pleasant little memories that in after years
were to mean something more than pleasure. The major difficulties of her
new position were all encountered and defeated in that first week;
thenceforward nothing seriously disturbed her for long. In the autumn of
the year in which Clarehaven married, the dowager, after consulting
Dorothy, decided that his restlessness was finally cured and that the
danger of his wanting to tear about the Continent in Lee-Lonsdale cars
no longer threatened the family peace. In these circumstances the
dowager thought it would be tactful to move into Clare Lodge with
Arabella and Constantia.

She should not be too far away if her daughter-in-law had need of her,
and by moving that little way off she should do much to prevent her
son's chafing against the barriers of domesticity. It would be easier
for Dorothy to act as hostess of the shooting-parties that were arranged
for the autumn if she were apparent as the only hostess. In the
administration of the village the two countesses shared equally--the
dowager by superintending the making of soup and gruel for sick
villagers, Dorothy by assisting at its distribution. The rector won
Dorothy's heart by his readiness to discuss with her the history of the
great family into which she had married, and by preparing a second
edition of his _Clarehaven and the Clares_ for when it should be wanted,
affixing against the fifth earl's name an asterisk, like a second star
of Bethlehem, that should direct the wise reader to this foot-note:

     ...The present Earl in January, 1906, delighted his many friends
     and well-wishers in the county by wedding the beautiful Miss
     Dorothy Lonsdale, a distant connection of that Lord Cleveden who is
     famous as a most capable administrator in the land of the golden
     wattle and upon "India's coral strand."

She for her part won Mr. Beadon's heart by often attending his services
at Clarehaven, and not merely by attending herself, but by insisting
upon Mrs. Bitterplum's and Mrs. Smith's attending, too. This arrangement
suited everybody, because the dowager at Little Cherrington was able to
worship her stained-glass window without a sense that, whatever she
might be before God's throne, she was now of secondary importance in the
church. The step up that the rector had promised himself for Easter was
effected without an apoplexy from Mr. Kingdon, possibly because the
white stole did not inflame his taurine eye. At Whitsuntide, however,
when a red stole appeared, his face followed the liturgical sequence,
and there was a painful scene in the churchyard on a hot morning in
early June. Dorothy, on being appealed to by the rector, drove over to
Cherrington Hall that afternoon and remonstrated with Mr. Kingdon on his
inconsiderate behavior. She pointed out that Mrs. Beadon was in an
interesting condition at the moment and that if Mr. Kingdon had his
prejudices to consider, Mr. Beadon had his conscience; that it was not
right for the squire to add fuel to the ancient rivalry between Great
and Little Cherrington; and finally that inasmuch as the bishop was
shortly coming to stay at Clare for a confirmation, it would be unkind
to pain his sensitive diocesan spirit with these parochial disputes.
Dorothy's arguments may not have convinced the squire, but her beauty
and condescension penetrated where logic was powerless, and Mr. Beadon
was allowed to preach for more than twenty bee-loud Sundays after
Trinity wearing a grass-green stole round his neck and with never a word
of protest from the squire. Nor were the Sundays within the octaves of
St. Peter or St. James, of St. Lawrence or St. Bartholomew, profaned by
the squire's objections to the tribute of red silk that Mr. Beadon paid
to the blood of the martyrs. His wife celebrated her husband's victory
by producing twins at Lammastide, and everybody in the neighborhood said
that the religious tone of Cherrington was remarkably high.

In September Dorothy had her first shooting-party, to which, among
others, Arthur Lonsdale and Harry Tufton were invited. Tony had been in
camp with his yeomanry regiment during most of August; he seemed glad to
be back at Clare; the shooting was good; the visits of his old friends
from London did not apparently disturb him. Notwithstanding Connie's
lessons, Dorothy never became a good shot; she really hated killing
birds. However, she encouraged Clarehaven to go on with his favorite
sport, and herself hunted hard all the season. She was much admired as a
horsewoman, and the fact that she had not so long ago been a Vanity girl
was already as dim as most old family curses are. In early spring Tony
suggested that it would be a good idea to go up to town for the season.

"A very good idea," she agreed. "Bella and Connie ought to be
presented." Dorothy spoke as calmly as if she had been presented
herself. "It's a pity I can't present them," she added, "but I should
not like to be presented myself. I don't think that actresses ought to
be presented, even if they do retire from the stage when they marry.
Sometimes an individual suffers unjustly; but it's better that one
person should suffer than that all sorts of precedents should be
started. Of course, your mother will present them."

"But look here, I thought we'd go up alone," Tony argued. "I told you
I'd had the house done up very comfortably. I don't think the girls
would enjoy London a bit."

"They may not enjoy it," said Dorothy, "but they ought to go."

May and June were spent in town in an unsuccessful attempt to induce
many eligible bachelors even to dance with Arabella and Constantia, let
alone to propose to them. Dorothy condoled with the dowager on Arthur
Lonsdale's bad taste in not wanting to marry Arabella; Arthur himself
was lectured severely on his obligations, and she could not understand
why he would not stop laughing, particularly as Lady Cleveden herself
had been in favor of the match. Dorothy went to the opera twice a week;
but she refused to go near the Vanity. Once she drove over to West
Kensington to see her mother, whose chin had more hairs than ever, but
who otherwise was not much changed. The rest of the family alarmed her
with the flight of time. Gladys and Marjorie were the Agnes and Edna of
four years ago; Agnes and Edna themselves were getting perilously like
the Norah and Dorothy of four years ago; Cecil was a medical student
smoking bigger pipes than Roland, who himself had grown a very heavy
black mustache. The countess managed to avoid seeing her father, and
when her mother protested his disappointment she said that he would
understand. Mrs. Caffyn was too much awed by having a countess for a
daughter to insist, and she assured her that not only did she fully
appreciate her reasons for withdrawing from open intercourse with her
family, but that she approved of them. The countess gave her a sealskin
coat for next winter, kissed her on both cheeks, and disappeared as
abruptly from West Kensington as Enoch from the antediluvian landscape.

The responsibility of two plain sisters became too much for Clarehaven;
after Ascot he admitted that he should be thoroughly glad to get back
to Clare, which was exactly what his wife had hoped.

While Dorothy was studying with the rector the lives of obscure saints
and the histories of prominent noblemen, she took lessons with the
doctor in natural history and with Mr. Greenish in horticulture. Mr.
Greenish enjoyed sending off on her account large orders to nursery
gardeners all over England for rare shrubs that he had neither the money
nor the space to buy for himself. Both at the Temple Show and at Holland
House he had been continually at Lady Clarehaven's elbow with a
note-book; and the glories of next summer in the Clare gardens made
bright his wintry meditations. Mr. Greenish himself looked rather like a
tuber, and it became a current joke that one day Dorothy would plant him
in a secluded border. The dowager was delighted by her daughter-in-law's
hobby, for which, though it ran to the extravagance of ordering the
whole stock of a new orange tulip at a guinea a bulb, not to mention
twenty roots of sunset-hued _Eremurus warer_ at forty shillings apiece,
and a hundred of topaz-hung _Eremurus bungei_ at ten shillings, she had
nothing but enthusiasm.

"My golden border will be lovely," Dorothy announced.

"It will be unique," Mr. Greenish added. "Lady Clarehaven is
specializing in shades of gold, copper, and bronze," he explained to the
dowager.

"These roots oddly resemble echinoderms," said Doctor Lane, looking at
the roots of the _Eremurus_.

"I should have said starfish," Mr. Greenish put in.

"Starfish _are_ echinoderms," said the doctor, severely.

"Wonderful!" the dowager exclaimed, with the eyes of a child looking
upon the fairies. She herself never rose to the height of her
daughter-in-law's Incalike ambitions; but her own Japanese tastes
(expensive enough) were gratified. Those black-stemmed hydrangeas were
ordered by the hundred to bloom by the edge of the pines, and Dorothy
presented her with twenty-four of M. Latour-Marlias's newest and most
expensive hybrid water-lilies. Nor did the hydrangeas come pink; they
knew that they were being employed by a noble family and preserved the
authentic blue of their patrons' blood. As the rector hoped before he
died that popular clamor in the Cherringtons would compel him to flout
his bishop by holding an open-air procession upon the feast of Corpus
Christi, so Dorothy aspired to convert the two villages from vegetables
to flowers. She knew, however, that it would be useless to attempt too
much at first in this direction, and at Mr. Greenish's suggestion she
decided to open her campaign by organizing a grand entertainment for the
two Cherringtons, Clarehaven, and the several villages and hamlets in
the neighborhood. Uncle Chat was called in to help with his advice, and
while Tony was in camp she made her preparations. Marquees were hired
from Exeter; the countryside pulsated with the spirit of competition.
Dorothy drew up the bills herself with a nice compromise between the
claims of age and strict precedence in her list of patrons.


CLAREHAVEN AND CHERRINGTON

  AGRICULTURAL FÊTE AND

     FLOWER SHOW

Saturday, August 31, 1907

UNDER THE PATRONAGE OF

The Earl of Chatfield; the Earl and Countess of Clarehaven; Lavinia,
Countess of Chatfield; Augusta, Countess of Clarehaven; the Viscount
Paignton; the Lady Jane Fanhope; the Lady Arabella Clare; the Lady
Constantia Clare; the Lady Mary Fanhope; the Lady Maud Fanhope; George
Kingdon, Esq., J.P., M.F.H., and Mrs. Kingdon; the Rev. Claude Conybeare
Beadon, M.A., and Mrs. Beadon; Dr. Eustace Lane; Horatio Greenish, Esq.

Prizes for live stock, including poultry, pigeons, and rabbits.

Prizes for collections of mixed vegetables.

A special prize offered by the Earl of Chatfield for the best collection
of runner-beans.

A special and very _valuable_ prize offered by the Countess of
Clarehaven for the best collection of _flowers_ from a cottage garden.

A special prize offered by the Dowager Countess of Clarehaven for the
best collection of wild flowers made by a village child within a
four-mile radius of Clare Court.

A special prize offered by Doctor Lane for a collection of insect pests
set and mounted by the scholars of Cherrington Church Schools and Horley
Board Schools.

The Countess of Clarehaven has kindly consented to give away the prizes.

The band of the Loyal North Devon Dragoons (by kind permission of
Colonel Budding-Robinson, M.V.O., and officers) will play during the
afternoon.

Swings, roundabouts, cocoanut-shies, climbing greasy pole for a side of
bacon offered by H. Greenish, Esq., sack-races, egg-and-spoon races,
hat-trimming competition for agricultural laborers.


ILLUMINATIONS AND FIREWORKS

Entrance, one shilling. After five o'clock, sixpence. After eight,
threepence. Children free.


REFRESHMENTS


It was a blazing day, one of those typical days when rustic England
seems to consist entirely of large cactus dahlias and women perspiring
in bombazine. Tony, to Dorothy's annoyance, had declined to open the
proceedings with a speech, and with Uncle Chat also refusing, Mr.
Kingdon had to be asked to address the competitors. He bellowed a number
of platitudes about the true foundations of England's greatness, told
everybody that he was a Conservative--a Tory of the old school. He might
say amid all this floral wealth a Conservatory. Ha-ha! He had no use for
new-fangled notions, and, by Jove! when he looked round at the
magnificent display that owed so much to the energy and initiative of
Lady Clarehaven, by Jove! he couldn't understand why anybody wanted to
be anything else except a Conservative.

"No politics, squire," the village atheist cried from the back of the
tent, and Mr. Kingdon, who had been badly heckled by that gentleman at a
recent election meeting, descended from the rostrum.

When the time came to distribute the awards Dorothy sprang the little
surprise of which only Mr. Greenish was in the secret, by making a
speech herself. She spoke with complete self-assurance and, as the
_North Devon Courant_ said, "with a gracious comprehension of what life
meant to her humbler neighbors."

"Fellow-villagers of the two Cherringtons and of Clarehaven," she began,
evoking loud applause from Mr. and Mrs. Bitterplum and Mr. and Mrs.
Smith, who between them had raised the largest marrow, for which they
would shortly receive ten shillings as a token of England's gratitude,
"in these days when so much is heard of rural depopulation I confess
that looking round me at this crowded assembly I am not one of the
alarmists. I confess that I see no signs of rural depopulation among the
merry faces of the little children of our healthy North Devon breed. I
regret that the committee did not include in its list of prizes another
for the best collection of home-grown children." (Loud cheers from the
audience, in the middle of which one of the little Smiths of Clarehaven
had to be led out of the tent because there was some doubt whether in
chewing one of the prize dahlias he had not swallowed an earwig.)
"Meanwhile, I can only marvel at the enthusiasm and good will with which
you have all worked to make our first agricultural fête the success it
undoubtedly has been. I am told by people who understand these things
that no finer runner-beans have ever appeared than the collection of
runner-beans for which, after long deliberation by the judges, Mr. Isaac
Hodge of Little Cherrington has been awarded the prize." (Cheers.) "I
will not detain you with eulogies of the potatoes shown by our worthy
neighbor, Mr. Blundell of Great Cherrington. Nor shall I detain you by
singing the praises of the really noble beet-roots from the garden of
Mr. Adam Crump of Horley Hill. But I should like to say here how much I
regret that the collections of flowers fell so far below the standard
set by the vegetables. We must remember that without beauty utility is
of little use. This autumn I shall be happy to present flower seeds to
all cottage gardens who apply for them. Mr. Greenish has kindly
consented to act as my distributer. Next year I shall present five
pounds and a silver cup for the best exhibit from these seeds. And now
nothing remains for me except to congratulate once more the winners on
their well-deserved success, and the losers on a failure that only the
exceptional quality of the winning exhibits prevented being a success,
too."

Amid loud cheers Dorothy pinned rosettes to the lapels of the perspiring
competitors, shook hands with each one, to whom she handed his prize
wrapped in tissue-paper, and, bowing graciously, descended from the
dais.

"Now if I can make a speech like that at a flower-show," she said to her
husband that evening, "why can't you speak in the House of Lords?"

The fact of the matter was that Dorothy was beginning to worry herself
over Clarehaven's lack of interest in the affairs of his country. Since
they had been married the only additional entry in Debrett under his
title was the record of his being a J.P. for the county of Devon.
Dorothy felt that this was not enough; he should be preparing himself by
his demeanor in the House of Lords to be offered at least an
under-secretaryship when the Radicals should be driven from power.

"All right," said Tony. "But I can't very well play the hereditary
legislator and all that if you insist upon keeping me down in the
country."

"When does Parliament reassemble?" she asked.

"Oh, I don't know. Some time in the autumn, I suppose."

"Very well, then, we'll go up to town on one condition, which is that
you will make a speech. If you haven't spoken within a week of the
opening I shall come back here."

Tony, in order to get away from Devonshire, was ready to promise
anything, but at the end of October, on a day also memorable in the
history of Clare for the largest battue ever held in those coverts,
Dorothy told her husband that she was going to have a baby.

He flushed with the slaughter of hundreds of birds, she flushed with
what all this meant to her and him and England, faced each other in the
bridal chamber of Clare that itself was flushed with a crimson October
sunset.

"Tony, aren't you wildly happy?"

"Why, yes ... of course I am ... only, Doodles, I suppose this means you
won't go up to town? Oh well, never mind. Gad! you look glorious this
evening." He put his arms round her and kissed her.

"Not that way," she murmured. "Not that way now."


V

The pride and joy that Dorothy felt were so complete that she would take
no risk of spoiling them by allowing her husband to intrude upon her at
such a time. This boy of hers--there was no fear in her sanguine and
circumspect mind that she might produce a daughter--was the fruit of
herself and the earldom. To this end had she let Clarehaven make love to
her, and if now she should continue to allow him such liberty she should
be cheapening herself like a woman of pleasure. If at first she had
rejoiced in her own position as a countess, all that self-satisfaction
was now incorporated in this unborn son to be magnified by him into
nobility and all that was expressed by nobility in its fullest sense.
The thrill that every woman, however much she may dread or resent it,
feels at the first prospect of maternity was for Dorothy heightened
beyond any comparison that would not be blasphemous. On this small green
earth would walk a Viscount Clare that, having taken flesh from a Vanity
girl, should be the savior of his country. It no longer mattered that
her husband was blind to the duties of his rank when she held in her
womb, not some political pawn-broker like Disraeli, but an incarnation
of the benign genius of aristocracy, a being that would indeed ennoble
herself. Yet the father of this prodigy regarded him merely as an
unwelcome hindrance to his plan for spending the winter in London. If it
were not for the duty she owed to a great house to produce other
children, and so by every means in mortal power save the family from
extinction, she should never again live with Tony as his wife. What had
been all their kisses except the prelude to this event? Did he with his
boots and his guns suppose that as a man he counted with this unborn son
within her? Poor vain fool, not to have comprehended that every conjugal
duty, every social obligation, every movement of her head, every flash
of her eye, every offer of her hand since she came to Clare had been
consecrated to this great issue. Yet his flimsy imagination, which, were
it never so flimsy, might at such a moment have managed to spur his body
to kneel in awe of the future, had thought of nothing except to make
love as lightly as he had made incessant love to her ever since they
were married. Love! What did she care for that kind of love? Only for
this result, only because she had believed that perfect fruit comes from
perfect blossom, had she yielded to him all of herself with passion,
sometimes with ecstasy. And now her reward was at hand. The wild
autumnal gales might sweep round the ancient house, but at last it was
secure; she, Dorothy Lonsdale, had secured it.

There was no hunting, of course, for Dorothy this season, not even in
so mild a form as cubbing, and, amorous of solitude, she often used to
walk by herself to Clarehaven; there, on one of those green headlands
that had withstood the sea when the fortifications of Clare had crumbled
in the foaming tide, she would sit by the hour, drinking in from the
salt blast strength and endurance for this son of hers dedicate from the
womb to his country and to his order. On those wild days the little
church, which belonged to the dim origins of the family and had been
built by sea-rovers to abide in their hearts while they were seafaring,
became a true shrine for her. She would take refuge there from the fury
of the storm, and there sit in an ancient chair bleached and worm-eaten,
her eyes fixed upon that east window stained by nothing save spindrift
and scud from the sea. The wind would howl and shriek, would rattle at
the hasps of the narrow windows like hands entreating shelter, would
drum and whistle and moan by the old oaken doors, while Dorothy sat in a
stillness of gray light, herself radiant with that first beauty of
coming motherhood before the weary months of waiting have begun to drag
the cheeks. There for hours she would sit, her eyes shining, her neck
blue-veined with blood coursing to reinforce the second life that was in
the making, her complexion not paragoned by the petal of any rose in all
the roses that ever had or ever would bloom at Clare.

Everything in the little church had taken on a luminous gray from the
open space of light by which it was surrounded. The altar was of
granite; the candlesticks of pewter; the crucifix of silver. Wise with
all his follies, the rector had chosen this church to express whatever,
still untainted by expediency or snobbery, was left of his inmost
aspirations, and here he had allowed nothing to affront the stark
simplicity of such architecture. Here there were no chrysanthemums in
brazen vases, only sprigs of sea-holly gathered by children on the salt
edge of the downs, sea-holly from the fled summer that preserved the
illusion of having been gathered yesterday. The benches had not been
varnished; year by year they had slowly assumed that desiccated
appearance of age which gives to wood thus mellowed a strangely
immaterial look, a lightness and a grace, rough-hewn though it be, that
varnished wood never acquires. In this building, wrought, it seemed, by
labor of wind and cloud, of air and rain, Dorothy's coloring exceeded
richness; when the yellow winter sun shone through the landward windows
the effulgence mingled with the hue of her cheeks to incarnadine the
very air around her and blush upon the stones beyond. How often had she
sat thus in meditation upon nothing except the power and strength of her
unborn son! Could her husband wait beside her in this church where his
pirate ancestors, dripping with sea-water, had thanked God for their
deliverance and for booty stacked upon the beach below? Not he! He would
be trying to play with her wrist all the time, pecking at her with
kisses like a canary at a lump of sugar.

Dorothy had no desire to make a secret of her condition; she was only
too anxious that everybody who could appreciate its importance should be
made aware of it. Yet there was nothing in her of the gross femininity
that takes a pleasure in accentuating the outward signs of approaching
motherhood and, as if it had done something unusual, rejoices in a
physical condition that is attainable by all women. Dorothy's pride lay
in giving an heir to a great family, not in adding another piece of
carnality to the human race. Compared with most women, the grace and
beauty with which she expressed her state was that of a budding daffodil
beside a farrowing sow. So little indeed did Tony realize her condition
that in January, on the anniversary of their wedding, he half jestingly
rallied her on simulating it to keep him down in Clare. He added other
reasons, which offended her so deeply that for the rest of these months
she demanded a room to herself. Dorothy knew that by loosening the
physical hold she had over him she was taking a risk, but she staked
everything in the future upon the birth of this son, and she declined to
imperil his perfection upon earth by unpleasant thoughts in these
crucial months of his making. Perhaps, if she had been patient and taken
a little trouble to explain her point of view more fully to Tony, he
might have understood, but she was so intent upon aiding this other life
within her that she could not spare a moment to educate her husband.

The super-dowager of Chatfield had kissed her grandson's wife on
Christmas Eve, and when at Candlemas the old lady died Dorothy was sad
to think she had not lived to kiss her son. The manner of her death was
characteristic. February had come in with a spell of balmy weather, and
Lady Chatfield, according to her habit on fine days, insisted upon going
out to sun herself in front of the house. In this occupation she was
often annoyed by hens invading the drive; to guard herself against their
aggression she used always to be armed with several bundles of fagots,
which she kept at her side to fling at the aggressive birds. Her son had
often begged that she would allow the hens to be kept far enough away
from the house to secure her against their trespassing; but the old lady
really enjoyed the sport and passed many contented hours shooting at
them like this with fagots. Unfortunately, that Candlemas morning,
either she had come out insufficiently provided with ammunition or the
birds were particularly venturesome. When the luncheon-bell rang there
was not a fagot left, and a quantity of hens were clucking with impunity
round her still form. At such a crisis her self-propelling chair must
have refused to work for the first time; with ammunition exhausted,
transport destroyed, communications cut, and the enemy advancing from
every point, the old lady had died of exasperation. The dowager, grieved
by what in her heart she felt was an unseemly way of dying and faintly
puzzled how to picture her mother in the heavenly courts, spent a good
deal of time in Little Cherrington church, praying that she would be
humble in Paradise. The dowager's childlike and apprehensive fancy
played round an apocalyptic vision of her mother criticizing the sit of
a halo, or poking with a palm-branch just men in the eye. She confided
some of these fears to Mr. Beadon, who tried to impress upon her his own
conceptions of Eternal Life, gently and respectfully rebuking her for
the materialism of which she was guilty. Dorothy found something most
admirable in the super-dowager's death; she wished her own unborn son
might inherit his great-grandmother's pertinacity and defiance for the
time when, like intrusive poultry, democracy should invade the
privileges of his order.

The dowager's loss of her mother was followed in March by a blow that
upset her more profoundly. During a fierce gale a large elm-tree in
Little Cherrington churchyard was blown down and in its fall broke the
Burne-Jones window that commemorated the fourth earl. It was no great
loss to art, but the effect upon the dowager was tremendous. The shock
of seeing the irreverent winds of March blowing through that colored
screen she had set up between herself and the reality of her husband
destroyed the figment of him that her pampered imagination had
elaborated, and she remembered him as he was--an ill-tempered gambler, a
drunken spendthrift, always with that fixed leer of ataxy for a pretty
woman ... she remembered how once she had overheard somebody say that
Clarehaven was now a rake without a handle. Her conscience was pricked;
she must warn Dorothy of what the Clare inheritance might include.

"Dorothy dear," she implored. "I don't like to seem interfering, but I
do beg you not to leave Tony alone too much. I fear for him. I--" with
whispers and head-shakes she poured out the true story of her married
life.

But Dorothy, with her whole being concentrated upon that unborn son, had
no vigilance to waste on Tony. If he should go to the bad, let him go.
The sins of the fourth earl and the follies of the fifth should all be
forgotten in that paragon the sixth. At the same time, the dowager's
story left its mark on Dorothy; thenceforward, when she paced the long
picture-gallery of Clare, she would often ask herself in affright what
passions and vices, what weakness, shame, and folly, had been cloaked by
those painted forms of ancestors. She would give him her flesh; but he
must inherit from them also; from those unblinking eyes he must derive
some of the gleams in his own. But it should be from his mother that he
derived most ... then she caught her breath. If that were so he would
have in him something of Gilbert Caffyn, of that hypocrite her father.
When the dowager's window was broken air was let in upon Dorothy's
painted screen as well. She was honest with herself on those mornings
when she paced the long gallery; she made no more pretense of romantic
origins; the Lonsdale bugle-horn was cracked and useless. By what she
was should her son live, not by what she liked to think she might be.
Some of the strength that she had summoned for him during those autumnal
hours in the little church by the sea she begged now for herself; while
she defied those frigid glances that ever watched her progress up and
down, up and down that long gallery, she stripped herself of all sham
glories and for the sake of him within her dedicated herself to truth.
Lady Godiva, riding naked through the streets of Coventry, was not more
heroic than Dorothy riding naked through her own mind for the sake of
that Lucius-Clare-to-be called by courtesy Viscount Clare.

Dorothy had chosen Lucius for his name after that other viscount who was
Secretary of State to Charles I, that Lucius Cary who was killed at
Newbury and whose story she had happened upon while reading tales of the
great dead. If Lucius, Viscount Clare, could be like Lucius, Viscount
Falkland, what would West Kensington matter? What would the Vanity mean,
or that flat round the corner? What would signify the plebeian soul of
her father?

The only person at present to whom Dorothy confided the name she had
chosen was Arabella. The two girls had been very sympathetic during
those winter months, and had entirely devoted themselves to their
sister-in-law. At first, when she had withdrawn herself every day to go
and meditate in Clarehaven church, they had been shy of intruding upon
her; but their interest in family affairs, from those of guinea-pigs to
those of cottagers, had become so much a part of their ordinary life
that they could not resist trying to obtain Dorothy's permission for
them to be interested in hers. Connie, whose main object was to watch
over Dorothy's physical well-being, was ready to give it as much
devotion as she would have given to a favorite mare in foal or to a
litter of blind retriever pups; Arabella, who had inherited some of the
dowager's ability to dream, was content to sit for as long as Dorothy
wanted her company and talk of nothing except the future greatness of
her nephew. Connie brought pillows for Dorothy's back; Arabella brought
her books, in one of which Dorothy read about that very noble gentleman,
Lucius Cary.

In February Clarehaven went up to town, partly because shooting was
over, partly because he did not want to attend his grandmother's
funeral. His behavior was commented upon harshly by Fanhopes and Clares
alike; barely two years after her marriage Dorothy found that she, who
was supposed to have been going to bring the families to ruin and
disgrace, was now regarded as their salvation. Whatever she said was
listened to with respect, whatever she did was regarded with approval.
Before her pregnancy, Dorothy's conceit would have been gratified by
such deference; now it only possessed a value for her son's sake. She
longed more than ever for general esteem; but she coveted it for him,
that he might grow up with pride and confidence in his mother.

When primroses lightened the woods of Clare like an exquisite dawn
between the dusk of violets and the deep noon of bluebells, Connie
exercised her authority over her half of Dorothy, forbade so much
reading indoors, and prescribed walks. Dorothy now haunted the recesses
of the woodland; when Tony, who had received a number of reproachful
letters for staying in town at such a time, came back, she was gentler
with him than any of the others were.

Those days spent in watching the deer, already snow-flecked to match the
dappled sunlight of the woods, had been so enriched by contemplation of
the active grace and beauty of these wild things that Dorothy discovered
in herself a new affection for Tony, an affection born of gratitude to
him, because it was he who had given her all this. He came back on a
murmurous afternoon of mid-May. Dorothy was sitting upon the summit of a
knoll where a few tall beeches scarcely troubled the sunlight with their
high fans of lucent green. Beneath her ran a meadow threaded with the
gold of cowslips, and while she stared into cuckoo-haunted distances she
heard above the buzzing of the bees the sound of his car. Starting up,
she waved to him, so that he stopped the car and ran up the slope to
greet her.

"Why, Doodles, what's the matter?" he exclaimed. "You've been crying."

He was embarrassed by her hot wet cheeks when she pressed them to his.

"No, they're happy tears," she said. "I was thinking of him and that one
day all this will be his." She caught the landscape in a gesture. "All
the autumn, Tony, I prayed for him to be great and strong, and all the
winter that he might be great and good. Now I think I should be happy if
he did nothing more remarkable than love this land--his land. Tony,
don't you feel how wonderful it is that you and I should give somebody
all this?"

Formerly, when Dorothy had talked about their son, the father had not
been able to grasp that there would ever be such a person. Now in this
month before the birth he experienced a sudden awe in regarding his
wife. That embrace she had given him for welcome, her figure, the look
in her eyes--they were strange to him; she was strange to him--a new
mysterious creature that awed him as an abstraction of womanhood, not as
a lovely girl that granted or refused him kisses.

"I say, Doodles, I feel an awful brute for going away like that."

She laughed lightly.

"You needn't. I was happier alone. Don't look so disconsolate. I'm glad
you've come now."

"I didn't stay up for the Derby," he pleaded, in extenuation of his
neglect.

She laughed again.

"Tony, you haven't yet heard his name. I've chosen Lucius."

"That's a rum name. Why Latin all of a sudden? Or if Latin, why not
Marcus Antoninus, don't you know?"

"It's a name I like very much."

He looked at her suspiciously.

"Who did you know called Lucius?"

"Nobody. It's a name I like. That's all."

"You promise me you never knew anybody called Lucius?" He had caught her
hand.

"Never."

"All right. You can have it."

But the nimbus round her motherhood was for the husband melted by the
breath of jealousy. Let children come to interrupt their love, she would
be his again soon; and what trumpery she made of those women with whom
he had played in London as a lonely child plays with dolls.

Dorothy's confinement was expected about the middle of June. When the
nurse arrived, for the first time in all these months she began to have
fears. She never doubted that the baby would be a boy; but she had dark
fancies of monstrosity and madness, and the nurse had all she could do
to reassure her. The weather during the first week of the month was damp
and gusty; after that gilded May-time it seemed worse than it really
was. The rustling of the vexed foliage held a menace that the sharp
whistle of the winter gales had lacked. However, by the middle of the
month the weather had changed for the better, and the last day was
perfect.

When Dorothy's travail began in the afternoon, the nurse asked for the
mowing of the lawns to be stopped, because she thought the noise would
irritate her patient. Dorothy, however, told her that she liked the
noise; in the comparatively long intervals between the first pains the
mower consoled her with its pretense of mowing away the minutes and thus
of audibly bringing the time of her achievement nearer.

The car was sent off to Exeter for another doctor, notwithstanding
Dorothy's wish that nobody except Doctor Lane should attend her. The old
gentleman had much endeared himself by his lessons in natural history,
and that he should crown his teaching by a practical demonstration of
his knowledge struck her as singularly appropriate. Doctor Lane himself
expressed great anxiety for assistance, because it looked as if the
confinement was going to be long and difficult. So hard was her labor,
indeed, that when the Exeter doctor arrived it was decided to give her
chloroform.

"Nothing's the matter, is it?" she murmured, perceiving that
preparations were going on round her. "Why doesn't he come? Nurse," she
called, "if babies take a long time, it means usually that the head is
very large, doesn't it?"

"Very often, my lady, yes. Oh yes, it does mean that very often. Try and
lie a little bit easier, dear. That's right."

"I think I'm rather glad," said Dorothy, painfully. "Lord Salisbury had
an enormous head."

"Fever?" whispered Doctor Lane, in apprehensively questioning tones.
"Tut, tut!"

Dorothy tried to smile at the silly old thing; but the pain was too much
for smiles.

There was another long consultation, and presently she heard Lord
Clarehaven being sent for.

"What's the matter?" she asked, sharply. "I'm not going to die, am I? I
won't. I won't. He mustn't be brought up by anybody else."

The nurse patted her hand. Outside some argument was going on, rising
and falling like the lawn-mower.

"A pity it's so dark," Dorothy murmured. "The mower had stopped, and I
liked the humming. All that talking in the corridor isn't so restful.
What's the time?"

"About half past ten, my lady."

A mighty pain racked her, a rending pain that seemed to leave her with
reluctance as if it had failed to hurt her enough. Her whole body
shivered when the pain passed on, and she had a feeling that it was a
personality, so complete was it, a personality that was only waiting in
a corner of the room and gathering new strength to rend her again.

Delirium touched her with hot fingers. It seemed that her body was like
the small triangle of uncut corn round which the reaper relentlessly
hums. It was coming again; it would tear the fibers of her again; it was
coming; the humming was nearer every moment. In an effort to check the
incommunicable experiences of fever, she asked if it was not the
lawn-mower that was humming.

"No, dear, it's the doctors talking to his lordship."

"What about?"

The humming ceased, for they gave her chloroform. When she came to
herself she lay for a second or two with closed eyes; then slowly,
luxuriously nearly, she opened them wide to look at her son. There was
nobody.

"Where is he?" she gasped, sitting up, dizzy and sick with the drug,
but with all her nerves strung to unnatural, uncanny perceptiveness.

The dowager was leaning over the bed and begging her to lie down.

"What's burning my face?" cried Dorothy.

"It must be my tears," her mother-in-law sobbed.

"Why are you crying? My boy, where is he? Where is he? Oh, tell me, tell
me, please tell me!"

The dowager and the nurse were looking at each other pitifully.

"Dorothy, my poor child, he was born dead."

The mother shrieked, for a pain that cut her ten thousand times more
sharply than all the pains of her travail united in a single spasm.

"It was a question, dear, of saving your life or losing the baby's."

"You're lying to me," Dorothy shrieked. "It was a monster! I know that.
It was a monster, and it had to be strangled. Oh, Doctor Lane, Doctor
Lane, why did you let them bring another doctor? You promised me you
wouldn't."

"No, no," said the dowager. "It was a perfect little boy with such
lovely little hands and toes. Everything perfect; but his head was too
large, dear. It was a question of you or him, and of course Tony
insisted that he should be sacrificed."

"Where is he? Tony!"

Her husband came in and knelt by the bed.

"Why did you do that? Why? Why didn't you let me die? He would have been
so much better than me. Can't you understand? Can't you understand?"

Everybody had stolen from the room to leave them together; but when he
leaned over to kiss her she struck him on the mouth.

"You only wanted me for one thing," she cried.

"Doodles, don't treat me like this. I can't express myself. I never
imagined that anything could be so horrible. I was asked to decide. You
don't suppose I could have lived with a cursed child who had killed
you!"

"How dare you curse him?"

"Dorothy, we'll have another. Don't be so miserable."

Suddenly she felt that nothing mattered.

"Will we?" she asked, indifferently.

"And we'll go up to town this autumn."

"Yes, there's nothing to keep us here," she said, "now."




CHAPTER V


I

One Hundred and Twenty-nine Curzon Street was the dowry that the third
Marquess of Longlan provided for his daughter, Lady Caroline Lacey, on
her marriage in 1818 with Viscount Clare, the only son of the second
Earl of Clarehaven. It was a double-fronted Georgian house with a
delicate fanlight over the door, from which a fan-shaped flight of steps
guarded by a pair of tall iron flambeau-stands led down to the pavement.
That famous old beau, the first marquess, had given an eye to the
architecture, and, being himself a man of fine proportions, had seen to
it that the rooms of his new house would set off his figure to
advantage. Solid without being stolid, dignified but never pompous,
graceful but nowhere flimsy, and for everybody except the servants, who
lived like corpses in a crypt, convenient--the town residence of Lord
Clarehaven was as desirable as those desirable young men of Assyria upon
whom in their blue clothes Aholah doted not less promiscuously than
house-agents have doted upon a good biblical word.

When the second earl took charge of his wife's dowry, the fashions of
the Regency were in the meridian, and the house was decorated and
furnished to suit the prevailing mode. Apart from the verse of the
period, there have been few manifestations of art and craft more
detestable either for beauty or for comfort than those of the Regency.
Great bellying lumps of furniture as fat and foul as the First Gentleman
himself, and with as much superfluity of ornament as the First
Gentleman's own clothes, were introduced into 129 Curzon Street to spoil
the fine severity of the Georgian structure. Ugly furniture was added by
the third earl, whose taste--he was a vice-chamberlain of the royal
household in the 'fifties--was affected by his position as a mind is
affected by misfortune. The dowager during the esthetic ardors that
glowed upon the first years of her married life hung a few green and
yellow draperies in the drawing-room, and during the early 'nineties she
stocked these with woolen spiders or with butterflies of silk and
velvet; in fact, when the fifth earl took over the control of his town
house it was filled from the cellars to the attics with the accumulated
abominations of eighty-five barbarous years. No doubt he would never
have noticed the ugliness of the furniture if the discomfort of it had
not been so obtrusive; but when he was planning to live merrily with his
bride in Curzon Street he invited Messrs. Waring & Gillow to bring the
house up to date with its own period and the present, allowing them a
free hand with everything except the chairs, beds, and sofas, of which
it was stipulated that none was to rate form or style above comfort. On
the whole the result was an improvement; and since there are always
enough relays of new competitors in the race for originality, purchasers
were soon found even for those triads of chairs that are still seen in
mid-Victorian drawing-rooms like empty cruets upon the mantelpiece of a
coffee-room, and Tony was able to get a good price for the furniture of
Gillows, who were by now as thoroughly worm-eaten as their handicraft.
The arrangement with the decorators being modified by Dorothy's
unwillingness to live in London, he postponed the complete renovation of
the house to that happy date in the future when he and she should agree
that East West, town's best.

Now at Clare, when Dorothy was lying in bed, careless of everything,
Tony invited her to choose patterns from the books of wall-papers and
chintzes sent down by Messrs. Waring & Gillow. Finding his wife in no
mood to choose anything, he decided to gratify as well as he was able
the taste she had expressed five or six years ago in the Halfmoon Street
flat. The result was a series of what are called "chaste color schemes,"
which after being debauched by numerous chairs upholstered in glossy
scarlet leather became positively meretricious under the temptation of
silver-cased blotters and almanacs; four months after Dorothy's
confinement the transformation of 129 Curzon Street into the dream of a
Vanity girl was complete. She was still in too listless a mood to do
anything except give a tired assent to whatever her husband proposed;
physically and emotionally she was worn out, and when a second
agricultural fête and flower-show was billed for August 25, 1908, she
scarcely had the heart to present in person the silver cup and five
pounds for the best flowers grown from the seeds she had supplied with
such enthusiasm. Every adjunct of the show accentuated her own failure;
from the women with their new babies to the chickens and the parsnips,
everything seemed a rebuke to her own sterility.

Dorothy's pride might often degenerate into mere self-confidence, but it
had hitherto been her mainstay in life; her failure to produce that son
had sapped the foundations of pride by destroying self-confidence; her
dignity as Tony's wife had been assailed, and she began to fret about
the shallowness of her feeling for her husband. She would have been able
to support a blow that fell with equal heaviness upon both, because she
would have rejoiced in proving to Tony that she was more courageous than
he; but he, from want of imagination, had let her feel that she had made
a fuss about nothing; his attitude had been such, indeed, that in
resuming relations with him she could not dispel the morbid fancy that
she was behaving like his kept mistress. Once, in her determination to
define their respective views of marriage, she asked him how he could
bear to make love to a woman who was apparently so cold; in his answer
he implied that her coldness was rather attractive than otherwise.

"But if you thought I really hated you to come near me?" she pressed.

"You don't really," he replied, and she turned away with a sigh of
exasperation at the astonishing lack of sensitiveness in the male.

"You're nervy and strung up just at present," he went on. "And perhaps
it has been bad for you to have so much of me all the time. But when you
go back to town and find that you're envied by other women...."

"Because I'm married to you?" she interrupted, sharply.

"No, no, Doodles, I'm not so conceited as all that. Envied because you
will be the loveliest of them all. But other men will envy me because
I've got you for a wife. I don't think you realize how lovely you are."

She did realize it perfectly; but she resented a compliment that was
inspired by self-satisfaction.

"The pleasure in being married to me, then," she challenged, "is that
you're keeping me from other men? You wouldn't mind if I told you that I
hated you, that I only married you to have rank and money, that I hooked
you in the way an angler hooks a fat trout?"

"I was quite content to be hooked," said Tony.

"If I were unfaithful to you?"

His eyes hardened for a moment, like those of a groom who is being
defied by a jibbing horse.

"Try it, old thing," he advised, and the whistle that lisped gently
between his set teeth made expressive the quick breaths of rage that
such a question evoked.

It was the day after the flower-show; they were sitting on the curved
seat at the end of the pergola. Dorothy's question had an effect upon
the conversation as if a painter had begged them to sustain a certain
attitude until he could perpetuate it by his art; the stillness of deep
summer undisturbed by a bird's note or by a whisper of a falling leaf
was like thick green paint from which their forms, hastily sketched in,
faintly emerged. Tony's whistle had ceased and he was stroking his
mustache as if the action could help him to realize that he was alive.
There seemed no reason why they should not sit there forever, like the
statues all round, or the ladies and lovers in a picture by Mr. Marcus
Stone. It was Tony who broke the spell by getting up and announcing
business with somebody somewhere.

Dorothy, left alone on the seat, watched his form recede along the
pergola, and asked herself in perplexity what she wanted as a substitute
for that well-groomed, easy, and assured piece of manhood. If she was
trying to tell herself that she pined to love a man without thought of
children or considerations of rank and fortune, she could always elope
with the first philanderer that presented himself. But she could not
imagine any man for whose sake she would sacrifice as much. To be sure,
she was not yet twenty-five; there lay before her many long years, one
of which a grand passion might shorten to an hour. But could she ever
fall in love? It was not merely because she was hard and ambitious that
she was not in love with Tony and that she could not imagine herself in
love with anybody else. In all her life no man had presented himself
whom she could imagine in the occupation of anything like the half of
one's personality that being in love would imply. Indeed, if she looked
back upon the men she had known, she liked Tony best personally, apart
from the material advantages that being married to him offered. Perhaps
the mood she was in was nothing more than a morbid fastidiousness caused
by physical exhaustion; perhaps by going up to town and leading another
sort of life she should be able to view marriage more naturally. She had
always criticized other women for the ease with which they fell into a
habit of indulging themselves with the traditional prerogatives of their
sex. Her own path had always lain so obviously in front of her nose that
she had been impatient of the incommunicable aspirations expressed by
other women with sighs and yearning glances; to her such women had
always appeared like the tiresome people who are proud of not possessing
what they would call "the bump of locality." Such dubious and
apprehensive temperaments had always irritated her; madness itself was
for Dorothy the result of a carefully cultivated hysteria; even illness
had always seemed to her only a fraudulent method of securing attention.
Was she now to array herself in the trappings of conventional
femininity? She bent her mind--and it was not a pliable mind--as
straight as she was able, and told herself that even if she failed
ultimately to produce an heir no one could question her fitness and
willingness to produce an heir. Anything that went wrong in the marriage
would not be her fault. As a wife she had justified herself; and if
motherhood was to be denied her--oh well, what did all this matter? She
was too much exhausted to keep her mind straight, and at the first
relaxation of her will it jumped away from her control like the
mainspring of a watch, the quivering coils of which, though they were
all of a piece, were impossible to trace consecutively to their
beginning or end. The monotonous green of late summer depressed her
wherever she looked; earth was hot and tired, as hot and tired as one of
the women at the show yesterday. Life was not much more varied than a
big turnip-field in which two or three coveys of birds were put up, some
to be killed, some to be wounded, some to whir away into turnip-fields
beyond.

"Which means that I'm still thoroughly exhausted," Dorothy murmured.
"But I can't think of the past because he is there, and the future seems
dreary because he will never be there."

When at the beginning of October the moment came to drive up to London,
the problems of birth and death, of love and happiness, were
overshadowed by the refusal of the car to go even as far as Exeter.

"We really must get a Lee-Lonsdale," said Tony. He made this
announcement in the same tone, Dorothy reflected bitterly, as he had
announced that they would have another baby.

When the butler opened the door of 129 Curzon Street, the house was full
of birds' singing.

"Canaries, don't you know, and all that," Tony explained. "I thought
you'd like to be reminded of the country."

Dorothy looked at him sharply to see if he was teasing her, but he was
serious enough, and for the first time since that night in June when her
son was born dead she was able to feel an affection for him so personal
and so intimate that if they had been alone at the moment she might have
flung herself into his arms. He had taken a box for the theater that
night and was most eager for her to dine out with him, but she was much
tired after the journey and excused herself. Since he was evidently
dismayed by the prospect of an unemployed evening, she begged him to go
without her, which after a short and not very stoutly contested argument
he agreed to do.

Dorothy went up early to her bedroom, where for a long while she sat at
the open window, listening to the traffic. How often she had sat thus at
the window of her bedroom in Halfmoon Street and what promises of
grandeur had then seemed implicit in the majestic sound. Only three
years ago she had still been in Halfmoon Street; she could actually
remember one October night like this, an October night when the still
warm body of a dead summer was being pricked by wintry spears. On such a
night as this Olive had called to her not to take cold, had warned her
that it was bad for her voice to sit at an open window. She had been
thinking about herself in Debrett and planning to be a marchioness; it
was Olive's interruption which had brought home sharply to her the
necessity of cutting herself off forever from the theater if she married
Clarehaven. Yes, it had been a night just like this, and that other
window was not five minutes away from where she was sitting now.

A taxi humming round a distant corner reminded Dorothy of an evening on
the lawns at Clare when Doctor Lane had lectured her on the habits of
night-jars.

"Country sights and country sounds," she exclaimed, and she shivered in
a revulsion against them all, because, though she had proved her ability
to share in that country life, the blind overseer Fate had withdrawn her
to another environment and the overseer must always be propitiated.

The sound of the traffic was casting a spell upon Dorothy's tired
nerves; she began to take pleasure in it, welcoming it as a sound
familiar and cherished over many years. She looked back at herself a
year ago sitting in Clarehaven church, with almost a blush for the
affectation of it all, or rather for what must have seemed like
affectation to other people. She had allowed herself to exaggerate
everything, to dream sublimely and wake ridiculously, to be more than
she was ever meant to be. Not music of wind and sea, but this dull music
of London traffic was the fit accompaniment for her. She knew that now,
when her own sighs absorbed in the countless sighs of the millions round
her took their place in the great harmony of human sorrow. Above the
castanets of hansoms and the horns of motors the omnibuses rolled like
drums ... the hansoms were going back, back, the motors were going
forward; but the omnibuses were going home, home, home. And was not her
own journey through life like journeys she had taken as a child when the
omnibus after a glittering evening went home, rumbling and rolling home?

Dorothy had nearly fallen asleep; waking to full consciousness with a
start, she laughed at her fancies; quickly shutting the window, she drew
the curtains and walked about the golden bedroom as if she would assure
herself that the evening was not nearly spent yet, that not for her was
some dim omnibus waiting to carry her home ... home. She checked the
fresh impulse to dwell upon the monotonous rumble of the traffic and
drove the sound from her mind. Of what could she complain, really? What
other girl like herself would not envy her good fortune? What other girl
would not laugh at her for thinking that life was dull because she had
failed at the first attempt to produce a son? In this comfortable
bedroom, amid flowers of chintz, was she not already more at home than
she had ever been along the herbaceous borders of Clare? The fact was
that her life at Clare had been a part sustained with infinite verve and
accomplishment through many months, but always a part. Yes, it had been
a part which she had sustained so brilliantly that she had nearly ruined
the well-mounted but not very brilliant play in which she had been
performing. The dowager had been right when she had expressed her fears
for the effect upon Tony of his wife's behavior. She had considered her
warning as kindly, but quite unnecessary; she had even pitied the poor
little beaver-like dowager for likening her own position with that rake
of a husband to that which Dorothy occupied in respect of the son. But
the dowager had been right. Herself had risked the substance for the
shadow, and in her lust for personal success she might abruptly have
found that the play had stopped running. Luckily, it was not too late to
remedy the mistake. Here was the scene set for a new act in which Tony
must be allowed his chance. Poor old boy, he was not asking for much,
and he was still so dependent upon her that it would be a pleasure to
spoil him a little now. Should she not really be flattered that he loved
her more than an heir to his name, his rank, and his fortune? What would
it signify if the house of Clare became extinct? Would those ladies in
the long gallery, those ladies simpering eternally at sea and sky, be a
whit less immobile if children laughed on the lawns below? Would they
blink their eyes or move a muscle of their rosy lips? Not they. And if
strangers held their beauty in captivity, would they care? Not they.
And if the earth fell into the sun so that nothing of poor mortality,
not even Shakespeare, endured, would they simper less serenely in the
moment before their painted lips blistered and were consumed? Not a whit
less serenely. None of the people on other planets would care if the
fifth Earl of Clarehaven was the last; even if the people of Mars had a
telescope big enough to see what was happening on earth, they would only
watch us with less compassion than we watch ants on a burning log.

"And if by chance they have got such a telescope," Dorothy murmured,
"how absurd we must look."

Earth shrank to nothing even as she spoke, for on that thought she fell
asleep where she was sitting and did not wake until Tony came back.

"Hullo, Doodles! Why do you go to sleep in your chair?" he asked.

"Did you enjoy the theater?"

"Well, as a matter of fact," he admitted, "I didn't use the box. I
thought, as you wouldn't come, I'd drop in and have a look at the new
show at the Vanity. Pretty good, really. Your friend Olive Fanshawe was
in a quintet. She has a few lines to speak, too, and looks very jolly. I
wish you'd come with me one night. I think you'd enjoy it."

"I will if you like," said Dorothy.

"No, really?" he exclaimed, his eyes lighting up. "Now, isn't that
splendid! I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll have a party for my
birthday next week. Dine at the Carlton. Two boxes at the Vanity, and
supper afterward at the Savoy. I say I shall enjoy it, Doodles!"

"How old will you be?" she asked, with a smile.

"Twenty-six. Aging fast. Have to hurry up and enjoy ourselves while we
can."

"I shall be twenty-five in March," she said.

Then suddenly she seemed able to throw off all her fatigue and to forget
all her disappointment.

"Sorry I've been so dull these last few weeks," she murmured. "Tony, do
you still love me?"

"You never need ask me that," he said. "But do you love me?"

She nodded.

"Couldn't you say it? You never have, you know. Couldn't you just
whisper 'yes'?"

"Yes."

"Cleared it," he shouted, and while he was in his dressing-room she
heard him singing:

    "For Dolly's out and about again,
     She doesn't give a damn for a shower of rain.
     Here's Dolly with her collie!
     And London, dear old London,
     London is itself again."

This outburst was followed by a silence which was presently broken by a
sound of torn paper.

"What are you tearing up, Tony?"

"Oh, nothing," he called back, in accents of elaborate indifference.
"Only an old program."

In the morning Dorothy looked in the paper-basket, the bottom of which
was lightly powdered by the fragments of a letter. She stooped to pick
up the pieces; then she stopped.

"What does it matter who it was for? It was never sent. But I was only
just in time."

On October 15th a party of eight visited "The Belle of Belgravia" at the
Vanity. Besides Tony and Dorothy, there were Arthur Lonsdale, who had
long forgotten all about Queenie Molyneux and could now watch a musical
comedy as coldly as a dramatic critic whose paper did not depend on the
theatrical advertisements. He brought his partner, Adrian Lee, whose
pretty little wife, all cheeks and hair, looked much more like an
actress than Dorothy, though she was really the daughter of a bishop.
People used to wonder how a bishop came to have such a daughter; they
forgot that while he was a vicar he had written a commentary on the Song
of Solomon, with foot-notes as luscious as the plums that sink to the
bottom of a cake. Harry Tufton came, and a Mrs. Foster-ffrench who went
everywhere except where she most wanted to go and was always a little
resentful that even with her two "f's" she could not hook herself up to
some altitudes. However, that was Mrs. Foster-ffrench's private sorrow,
and she did not let it mar a jolly evening. The other guests were Capt.
Archibald Keith, late of the 16th Hussars, who had abandoned the cavalry
in order to write the librettos of musical comedies, and a Mrs.
Mainwaring, who kept a fashionable hat-shop in Bruton Street and was the
widow of poor Dick Mainwaring, a brother of Lord Hughenden. Everybody
always spoke about him as poor Dick Mainwaring, but whether because he
had been killed at Paardeburg or because he had married Rita Daubeny was
uncertain; it probably varied with the point of view of the speaker. The
friends of Mrs. Mainwaring put down any oddness in her behavior to
French creole blood and a childhood in Martinique; to the former was
also attributable her chic in hats; to the latter the dryness and pallor
of her complexion; French blood or French brandy, Martinique or Martell,
the Hon. Mrs. Richard Mainwaring certainly did stimulate conversation
just as paprika stimulates the appetite. But however jocund her life,
her hats were chaste, and however sharp her play, her name was
honorable. Moreover, so many people owed her money that they had to be
pleasant to her. Mrs. Foster-ffrench, in spite of her name, had no
French blood to excuse her odd behavior; in fact, she had nothing except
a hyphen and those two "f's." Mr. Foster-ffrench was a younger son who,
having failed to grow sisal profitably in the Bahamas, was now
experimenting in Mozambique with the jikungo or Inhambane nut, and
liable at any moment to experiment with vanila in Tahiti or pearls on
the Great Barrier Reef; the only experiment he was never likely to make
was going back to Mrs. Foster-ffrench. Dorothy wondered what Tony found
to attract him in such a gathering; yet he was in tremendous spirits,
obviously delighted that Archie Keith should have met the Vanity
comedian that afternoon and warned him who would be in front. He was
proud that all the girls on the stage kept their eyes on Dorothy
throughout the evening, proud that the comedian inserted two special
gags for the benefit of the jolly party, which were rewarded by a loud
burst of laughter; and when the alarmed audience trained their
opera-glasses upon the boxes as a beleagured garrison might train their
guns upon the wild yell of savages he was radiant. After the performance
they sat round a large circular table in the Savoy, and when the
orchestra played "Dolly and her Collie" there was so much applause from
the tables all round that Dorothy could not help feeling rather proud of
the pleasure her return to town had given and was touched to think that
her memory was still green. The evening wound up at the Lees' flat in
Berkeley Street, when Adrian Lee and Clarehaven hospitably lost a good
deal of money to their guests in the course of three hours' baccarat.

Now that Dorothy had broken her rule and had visited the Vanity for the
first time since she had left the boards, she felt that she could not
maintain her policy of isolation any longer; she told Clarehaven as much
when they were strolling back down Curzon Street and breathing in the
air of night after those feverish rooms.

"Doodles, my dear thing, I'm delighted! I never wanted you to give up
any of your old friends. It was you who insisted on cutting them out
like that."

"And if," she went on, "we can sit in a box with Rita Mainwaring, I
don't think I can keep up this pretense of not being able to meet
Olive."

"I quite agree with you. I should love to meet Olive again."

"Then what about asking her to lunch?" Dorothy suggested.

"The sooner the better," he assented, enthusiastically.

A note was sent round to the Vanity, in which Dorothy, without making
the least allusion to anything that had happened in the past, most
cordially invited Olive to lunch with them two days later. Olive
replied, thanking Dorothy for the invitation, but mentioned that she was
now living with Sylvia Scarlett, and, since she did not like to go
without her and since she knew Dorothy and Sylvia were no longer on good
terms, was afraid she must decline lunch, though she promised to come
and see her old friend some afternoon.

"Living with Sylvia Scarlett, eh?" commented Tony, with raised eyebrows.

They were sitting in the smoking-room, where in the silence that ensued
the red arm-chairs seemed to be commenting upon this problem raised so
suddenly, seemed, like wise and rubicund ministers of state, to be
bringing their minds to bear silently upon things in general. "Sylvia
Scarlett!" Dorothy kept saying to herself, while the scarlet leather
answered her. She was perplexed. For one reason she should like to meet
Sylvia again, because she felt that better, perhaps, than anybody Sylvia
would appreciate her point of view. Could she but bring herself to be
frank with Sylvia, she could think of no one who would respond with a
more intelligent sympathy to the tale of her disappointment. Moreover,
if she showed the least disinclination to exclude Sylvia she might give
Tony the impression that she was still resenting that week-end at
Brighton, a notion which her pride was not sufficiently subdued to
contemplate with equanimity. Yet to make friends again with Sylvia
openly would be to penetrate rather more deeply into the hinterland of
the bohemian seacoast than she had intended, even after going to the
Vanity with Mrs. Mainwaring and Mrs. Foster-ffrench.

"I suppose you wouldn't care to have Sylvia here," Tony said at last;
"though of course...."

Dorothy interrupted him sharply. "Why not?" she asked. "Why should I
object to have Sylvia here any more than I should object to being seen
at the theater with Rita Mainwaring?"

"I thought that perhaps...." he began again.

She told him to ring for a messenger-boy and immediately wrote to invite
Sylvia to lunch as well.

It was difficult, considering the circumstances in which Dorothy had
parted from Sylvia and Olive, for any of the girls to avoid a feeling of
constraint when they met again; Dorothy, for her part, had to make a
great effort not to let her nervousness give an impression that she was
being reserved with her old friends. Lonsdale, however, who had
fortunately been invited, was very talkative, and Tony was in boisterous
spirits, so boisterous, indeed, that once or twice Dorothy looked at him
in surprise. When he returned her glance defiantly she wondered if she
had not made a mistake in her policy; if before consenting to come down
to her husband's level she had properly safeguarded herself. No doubt in
spite of her disapproval he would have gambled and drunk and made an ass
of himself with the Mainwarings and the Foster-ffrenches, but by
withholding herself she would have retained, at any rate, as much power
over him as would have kept him outwardly deferential to his wife. Now
he was no longer afraid of her.

Dorothy was roused from her abstraction by hearing herself addressed as
Cousin Dorothy by Lonsdale. He was in a corner with Sylvia, and they
were amusing themselves, presumably at her expense; Dorothy darted an
angry look at Sylvia, who shook her head with so mocking a disclaimer
that Dorothy gave up the notion of confiding in her old friend. Sylvia
evidently still regarded her with hostility and contempt, and was as
ready to pour ridicule upon her now as she used to be in the
dressing-room on tour. On tour! The days on tour crowded upon her
memory. From the corner where Sylvia and Lonsdale were chatting she
heard Lily's name mentioned. What was that? Lily had married a croupier
in Rio de Janeiro? But how unimportant it was who married what in this
world. After so short a time, life lost its tender hues of sunrise or
sunset and became garish or dim. On tour! The funny old life trickled
confusedly past her vision like a runaway film, and she took Olive's
hand affectionately. Olive was as sympathetic as if she had never been
treated so heartlessly that day in Brighton, as eager to hear that
Dorothy was happy, as eager to accept her assurances that she was. Tears
stood in her eyes when she was told about the baby; but somehow her
sympathy was not enough for Dorothy, who only awarded her a half-hearted
sort of confidence that was sentimentalized to suit the listener. If she
could have confided in Sylvia she would have told the story without
sparing herself, but Sylvia had snubbed her; and, anyway, the past was
not to be recaptured by talking about it.

Notwithstanding Sylvia's indifference, Dorothy went out of her way to
invite her often to Curzon Street that autumn and early winter. She was
fascinated by her play at baccarat and _chemin de fer_; she wondered
upon what mysterious capital she was drawing, for, though her name was
not coupled with any man who would pay her debts, she was apparently
able to lose as much money as she chose. It seemed impossible that it
should be her own money; but so many things about Sylvia seemed
impossible. In January Olive showed symptoms of a tendency to
consumption; Sylvia, without waiting an instant to win back any of her
losses, took her off to Italy for a long rest.

"_I_ despise Tony, and _she_ despises me," Dorothy thought. "But isn't
she right?"

She looked round her at the drawing-room of 129 Curzon Street, where in
a foliage of tobacco smoke the faces of the gamblers stared out like
fruit, and upon the green tablecloth the cards lay like fallen petals.
Was not Sylvia right to despise her for encouraging Mrs. Mainwaring and
Captain Keith and Mrs. Foster-ffrench and half a dozen others like them?
Was not Sylvia right to despise her for setting out as a countess so
haughtily and coming down to this? How she must have laughed when Olive
told her about the parting in Brighton, and how little she would believe
her tales of rural triumphs like the meet at Five Tree Farm. Sylvia
probably considered that she had found her true level in seeing that her
gambling guests were kept well supplied with refreshments.

In March even Clarehaven grew tired of baccarat with Captain Keith and
the rest of them, and one morning a big new six-cylinder Lee-Lonsdale
was driven up to 129 Curzon Street by the junior member of the firm, who
wanted to advertise his wares on the Continent. Clarehaven's man and
Dorothy's maid took the heavy luggage by train; the car with Dorothy,
Lonsdale, Clarehaven, and a chauffeur swept like an arpeggio the road
from London to Dover, transhipped to Calais, and made a touring-car
record from Paris to Monte Carlo, whence Lonsdale, after booking some
orders, returned to England without it. Tony lost five thousand pounds
at roulette, a small portion of which he recovered over pigeons. He
would probably have lost much more had not Dorothy told him, on a
rose-hung night of stars and lamplight, that she was going to have
another baby and that she must go back to Clare.

The prospective father was so pleased with the news that he set out to
beat the record established by Lonsdale on the way down, drove into a
poplar-tree, and smashed the car. Dorothy had a miscarriage and lay ill
for a month at a small village between Grenoble and Lyons. Tony was
penitent; but he was obviously bored by having to spend this idle month
in France, and as soon as Dorothy was well enough to travel and he had
assured himself that she was not nervous after the accident, he drove
northward faster than ever. They reached Clare at the end of May.


II

The bluebells were out when Dorothy came home, their pervasive sweetness
sharpened by the pungency of young bracken; even as sometimes the
heavenly clouds imitate the hills and valleys of earth or lie about at
sunset like islands in a luminous and windless ocean, so now earth
imitated heaven, and the bluebells lay along the woodland like drifts of
sky. May was not gone when Dorothy came back; the cuckoo was not even
yet much out of tune; the fallow deer did not yet display all their
snowy summer freckles; the whitethroat still sang to his lady sitting
close in the nettles by the orchard's edge; apple-blossom was still
strewn upon the lengthening grass; the orange-tip still danced along the
glades; the red and white candles upon the horse-chestnuts were not yet
burned out. It was still May; but June like a grave young matron stood
close at hand, and May like a girl grown tired of her flowers and of her
finery would presently fall asleep in her arms. And like the merry month
Dorothy pillowed her head upon the green lap of June. For several weeks
she made no allusion to the accident on the way home from Monte Carlo;
nor, beyond the perpetually manifest joy she took in the seasonable
pageant, did she give any sign of her distaste for the way she and Tony
had spent the past year. The problem of what was to happen next autumn
was not yet ripe for discussion, and in order to enjoy fully the present
peace Dorothy persuaded Clarehaven to accept an invitation to go fishing
in Norway, after which he would camp with the yeomanry for three weeks;
and then another year would have to be catered for so that not one
minute of it should be wasted--in other words, that it should be
squeezed as dry as an orange to extract from it the last drop of
pleasure. Tony wanted her to come with him to Norway, but she made her
health an excuse and sent him off alone.

In July the countess and the dowager were pacing the turf that ran by
the edge of that famous golden border now in its prime. The rich light
of the summer afternoon flattered the long line of massed hues which had
been so artfully contrived. The unfamiliar beauty of the bronzed
Himalayan asphodels, of citron kniphofias from Abyssinia and
sulphur-lilies from the Caucasus, of ixias tawny as their own African
lions, of canary-colored Mexican tigridias and primrose-hooded gladioli
that bloom in the rain forest of the Victoria Falls, mingled with the
familiar forms of lemon-pale hollyhocks and snapdragons, with violas
apricot-stained, and with many common yellow flowers of cottage gardens
to which the nurserymen had imparted a subtle and aristocratic shade.

"What a success your golden border has been," the dowager exclaimed.

Dorothy felt suddenly that she could not any longer tolerate such
compliments. The life-blood of her marriage seemed to be running dry
before her eyes while she was amusing herself with golden borders, and
she wanted her mother-in-law to understand how critical the position
was, and what disasters lurked in the future while the sun flattered the
flowers, and she flattered her son's wife.

"I'm going to be very frank," Dorothy began. "I want to know more about
Tony's father."

The dowager with a look of alarm leaned over the border to hide her
embarrassment.

"My dear," she said, "how cleverly you've combined this little
St.-John's-wort with these copper-colored rock-roses. They look
delightful together."

"Why did you marry him?" Dorothy asked.

"Dorothy! Such a question, but really, I suppose--well, I don't know. I
suppose really because he asked me."

"Your mother didn't insist upon it?"

"Well, of course, my mother didn't oppose it," the dowager admitted.
"No, certainly not ... she didn't actually oppose it; in fact possibly
... yes ... well.... I think one might almost say that she.... Oh,
aren't these trolliums gorgeous? They are trolliums, aren't they? I
always get confused between trilliums and trolliums?"

"Trolli_us_. Persuaded you into it?" Dorothy supplemented. "Did you love
him?"

This was altogether too intimate an inquiry, and the dowager, failing to
bury her blushes in the opulent group of butter-colored flowers that she
was bending over to admire, took refuge in her bringing-up.

"We were brought up differently in those days," she said. "I don't think
that men depended upon their wives to quite the same extent they do
now."

"I'm asking you all this," Dorothy explained, "because as far as the
future is concerned Tony and I are standing now at crossroads. If I
oppose or, even without opposing them, if I fail to share in his
pleasures, my attitude won't have any sobering effect. But if I take
part with him willingly and enjoy what he enjoys, it may be that I shall
have enough influence to prevent his going too far. Frankly, he doesn't
seem to have an idea that there may be something else in life besides
self-indulgence, the instant and complete self-indulgence that he always
allows himself. Money and rank only exist for him because they are
useful to that end. The only thing he was ever denied for five minutes
of his life was myself, and after a period of active sulking he got me.
I suppose you spoiled him, really."

The dowager looked melancholy.

"I'm not reproaching you," said Dorothy. "I quite understand the
temptation. That's why I asked if you ever loved your husband. I thought
that perhaps you didn't and that you'd had to love Tony much more in
consequence. I'm sorry about that son of mine, because I should have
liked to prove that it is possible to devote oneself utterly to a son
without spoiling him. Meanwhile, I'm afraid it's too late to do anything
with Tony. You must forgive me for this attack upon illusions. I shall
never make another. I only wanted you to know, because you were kind to
me when I first came here, that I've done my best and that there's
nothing more to be done."

"But you're so beautiful," said the dowager. "I was never beautiful."

"Oh, so far as keeping him more or less faithful is worth while, I don't
suppose I shall have the least difficulty," Dorothy admitted. "But each
time I tame him with a kiss I reduce my own self-respect a little bit,
and I blunt his respect for me. If I were his mistress, my kisses would
be bribes to make him spend money on me; as his wife my kisses are
bribes to prevent his spending money on other women. Anyway, this is the
last that you or any one else shall ever hear on this rather unpleasant
subject. I think these tigridias that Mr. Greenish was so keen to
combine with the ixias were a mistake. They are quite faded by the
afternoon."

It was now Dorothy's turn to direct the conversation toward flowers,
while the dowager endeavored to keep it personal.

"I've often thought," she began, "what a pity it was for you to cut
yourself off so completely from your own family."

"I certainly shouldn't find them of any help to me now," said Dorothy.

"Well, I don't know. I think that a mother can always be helpful," the
dowager argued. "I think it's a pity that you should have felt the
necessity of eliminating your family like this. I dare say I was to
blame in the first place, and I'm afraid that I gave you the impression
that we were much more snobbish down here than we really are. Your
impulse was natural in the circumstances, but I had hoped that I had
been able to prove to you that my opposition was only directed against
your profession, and you who know what Tony is will surely appreciate my
alarm at the idea of his marrying merely to gratify himself at the
moment. My own dear old mother was perhaps a little more sensitive than
I am to old-fashioned ideas of rank. She belonged to a period when such
opinions were widely spread in the society she frequented. I confess
that since she died I have found myself inclining more and more every
day to what would once have been called Red Radicalism. You know, I
really can't help admiring some of the things that this dreadful
government is trying to do." The epithet was so persistently applied by
the county that for the dowager it had lost any independent
significance; it was like calling a tradesman "dear sir."

Dorothy was tempted to ask the dowager if she did believe the account
she had given of her family, but she felt that if she suggested even the
possibility of such skepticism she should be admitting its
justification. And then suddenly she had a profound regret that her
mother had never seen Clare, had never trodden this ancient turf nor sat
beneath those cedar-trees. If the dowager had extended the courtesy of
breeding to accept those legends her daughter-in-law had spread about
herself, her courtesy would certainly not be withheld from accepting
that daughter-in-law's mother. The idea took shape; it positively would
be jolly to invite her mother to stay for a month at Clare. Tony would
not be bored; he would be away all the time.

"And not merely your family," the dowager was saying. "Oh no, it's not
merely cutting yourself from them, but also from your friends. I've
heard somebody called Olive alluded to once or twice, and surely she
would enjoy visiting here. Though please don't think me a foolish
busybody. Perhaps Olive prefers London."

"Olive has just got married. She was married last week."

"Then I've heard you talk about a Sylvia, who possibly might care to
stay down here. Dear child, don't misunderstand me, I beg. I'm only
trying to suggest that you are conceivably making a mistake in dividing
your life into two. After all, look at this border. See how the
old-fashioned favorites of us all are improved by these rarer flowers.
And do notice how well the simple flowers hold their own with those
exotics that have been planted out from the greenhouse. You see what I'm
trying to tell you? If Tony has certain tastes, if he likes people of
whom you and I might even mildly disapprove, let him see them here in
another setting. However, that you must decide later on. The only thing
I should like to lay stress upon is your duty toward your family...."

"To my mother only," Dorothy interrupted. "I have no duty toward my
father."

"Perhaps you will think differently when you have seen your mother. I
like her so much already. How could I do otherwise when she has given me
a daughter-in-law for whom I have such a great admiration?"

Dorothy took the dowager's hand and looked down earnestly and
affectionately into her upturned gaze.

"Why are you always so sweet to me?" she asked.

"Whatever I am, my dear child, it is only the expression of what I
feel."

That evening Dorothy wrote to her mother.

     CLARE COURT, DEVON,

     _July 8, 1909_.

     MY DEAR MOTHER,--Such a long time since I saw you. Don't you think
     you could manage a visit to Clare next week? Come for at least a
     month. It will do you all the good in the world and I should so
     much enjoy seeing you. You will find my mother-in-law very
     sympathetic. I had thought of suggesting that you should bring
     Agnes and Edna with you, but I think that perhaps for the first
     time you'd rather be alone. The best train leaves Paddington at
     eleven-twenty. Book to Cherrington Lanes and change at Exeter. On
     second thoughts I'll meet you at Exeter on Wednesday next. So don't
     make any excuses.

     Your loving daughter,

     DOROTHY.

The prospect of her mother's visit was paradoxically a solace for
Dorothy's disappointed maternity. The relation between them was turned
upside down, and her mother became a little girl who must be looked
after and kept from behaving badly, and who when she behaved well would
be petted and spoiled.

Heaven knows what domestic convulsions and spiritual agitations braced
Mrs. Caffyn to telegraph presently:

     Am bringing three brats will they be enough.

For a moment Dorothy thought that she was coming with Vincent, Gladys,
and Marjorie, so invariably did she picture her family as all of the
same age as when seven years ago she first left Lonsdale Road to go to
the stage. A little consideration led her to suppose that _hats_ not
_brats_ were intended, and she telegraphed back:

     You will want a nice shady hat for the garden.

Dorothy went to meet Mrs. Caffyn at Exeter in order that the three hours
in the slow train between there and Cherrington Lanes might give her an
opportunity of recovering herself from that agitation which had made her
telegram so ambiguous. It was impossible to avoid a certain amount of
pomp at the station, because the station-master, on hearing that her
ladyship was expecting her ladyship's mother, led the way to the
platform where the express would arrive and unrolled before her a red
carpet of good intentions.

"Stand aside there," he said, severely, to a boy with a basket of
newspapers.

"First stop Plymouth," shouted the porters when the express came
thundering in.

"Stand aside," thundered the station-master, more loudly; perhaps he was
addressing the train this time.

Mrs. Caffyn looked out of a second-class compartment and popped in again
like some shy burrowing animal that fears the great world.

"What name, my lady, would be on the luggage?" asked the station-master
when, notwithstanding her emersion from a second-class compartment, he
had seen Mrs. Caffyn embraced by her ladyship.

"Caffyn! Caffyn!" he bellowed. "Stand aside there, will you? Both vans
are being dealt with, my lady," he informed her.

The luggage was identified; a porter was bidden to carry it to No. 5
platform; and the station-master, taking from Mrs. Caffyn a string-bag
in which nothing was left except a paper bag of greengages, led the way
to the slow train for Cherrington.

"I traveled second-class," Mrs. Caffyn whispered, nervously, while the
station-master was stamping about in a first-class compartment, dusting
the leather seats and arranging the small luggage upon the rack. "I
hesitated whether I ought not to travel third, but father was very nice
about it."

"Please change this ticket to first-class as far as Cherrington Lanes,
Mr. Thatcher," said Dorothy.

"Immediately, my lady," he announced; and as he hurried away down the
platform Mrs. Caffyn regarded him as the Widow Twankay may have regarded
the Genie of the Lamp.

"I've brought five hats with me," Mrs. Caffyn announced when the slow
train was on its way and Mr. Thatcher was left standing upon the
platform and apparently wondering if he could not give it a push from
behind as a final compliment to her ladyship. "And now--oh dear, I must
remember to call you Dorothy, mustn't I? By the way, you know that
Dorothy is going to have a baby in November? Her husband is so pleased
about it. He's doing very well, you know. Oh yes, the Norbiton Urban
District Council have intrusted him with--well, I'm afraid I've
forgotten just what it is, but he's doing very well, and I thought you'd
be interested to hear about Dorothy. But I really _must_ remember not to
call you Norah."

"It wouldn't very much matter, mother."

"Oh, wouldn't it?" Mrs. Caffyn exclaimed, brightening. "Well, now, I'm
sure that's a great weight off my mind. All the way down I've been
worrying about that. And now just tell me, because I don't want to do
anything that will make you feel uncomfortable. What am I to call your
sisters-in-law? I understand about your mother-in-law. She will be Lady
Clarehaven. Is that right? But your sisters-in-law?"

"Bella and Connie."

"Bella and Connie?" repeated Mrs. Caffyn. "Nothing else? I see. Well, of
course, in that case I don't think I shall feel at all shy."

Although Dorothy was no longer concerned whether her mother did or did
not behave as if she were in the habit of visiting at great houses
during the summer, she could not resist indulging her own knowledge a
little, not with any idea of display, but because she enjoyed the
feeling that somebody was dependent upon her superior wisdom in worldly
matters. Mrs. Caffyn enjoyed her lessons, just as few women--or men, for
that matter--can resist opening a book of etiquette that lies to hand.
They would not buy one for themselves, because that would seem to
advertise their ignorance; but if it can be read without too much
publicity it will be read, for it makes the same appeal to human egoism
that is made by a medical dictionary or a work on palmistry. One topic
Dorothy did ask Mrs. Caffyn to avoid, which was the life of her own
mother. After that conversation by the golden border she had little
doubt that the dowager did not accept as genuine the tapestry she had
woven of her life; but that was no reason for drawing attention to all
the fabulous beasts in the background.

"Perhaps you'd better not say anything about Grandmother Doyle," Dorothy
advised. "I had to give an impression that she was related to Lord
Cleveden, and if you talk too much about her it would make me look
rather foolish."

"But she did belong to the same family," said Mrs. Caffyn.

"Yes, but I'd rather you didn't mention it. You can talk about Roland
and Cecil and Vincent, only please avoid the topic of Grandmother
Doyle."

"Of course I'll avoid anything you like," Mrs. Caffyn offered. "And
perhaps I'd better throw these greengages out of the window."

The dowager was much too tactful, as Dorothy had foreseen, to ask Mrs.
Caffyn any questions; she, with a license to talk about her children,
was never at a loss for conversation. There is no doubt that she
thoroughly enjoyed herself at Clare, and with two garden hats worn
alternately she sat in placid survey of her daughter's grandeur, drove
with the dowager in the chaise, congratulated Mrs. Beadon and Mrs.
Kingdon upon their children, patted every dog she met, and went home
first-class surrounded by baskets of peaches.

Notwithstanding the dowager's advice, Dorothy sent her mother home
before Tony came back, not because she was ashamed of her, but because
she dreaded his geniality and cordial invitations to bring the whole
family to Curzon Street. She could not bear the idea of her father's
arriving at all hours, for since the revelation of his tastes that night
in St. John's Wood she fancied that he would rather enjoy the excuse his
son-in-law's house would offer him of forgetting that he was still
secretary of the Church of England Purity Society. So long as Tony did
not meet any of her family he would not bother about them; but if he
did, the temptation to his uncritical hospitality would be too strong.

The partridges were very plentiful that autumn at Clare; the pheasants
never gave better sport. Dorothy invited Olive and her husband, a
pleasant young actor called Airdale, to visit Clare, but Olive had to
decline, because she was going to have a baby. Sylvia Scarlett Dorothy
did not invite; but Sylvia Lonsdale came with her brother, and late in
the autumn the Clarehavens went to stay with the Clevedens in
Warwickshire. Lord Cleveden talked to Tony about the need for a strong
colonial policy, and Lady Cleveden talked to Dorothy about the
imperative necessity of finding a wife for Arthur at once. The shooting
was not so good as at Clare, and Tony decided that he required London as
a tonic for the rural depopulation of his mind.

"These fellows who've been in administrative posts get too
self-important," he confided to Dorothy. "Now I don't take any interest
in the colonies. Except, of course, British East and the Straits. When a
fellow talks to me about Queensland my mind becomes a blank. I feel as
if I was being prepared for Confirmation, don't you know?"

They reached town toward the end of November, and within a week the old
set was round them. Baccarat and _chemin de fer_, the Vanity and the
Orient, smart little dances and rowdy little suppers, Mrs.
Foster-ffrench and the Hon. Mrs. Richard Mainwaring, they were back in
the middle of them all. Sylvia Scarlett turned up again, still
apparently with plenty of money to waste on gambling. She and Dorothy
drifted farther apart, if that were possible, and their coolness was
added to by Sylvia's recommendation of a rising young painter called
Walker for Dorothy's portrait, which Dorothy considered a failure,
though when afterward she was painted by an artist who had already risen
that was a failure, too. Sylvia seemed to misunderstand her wantonly;
Dorothy armed herself against her old friend's contempt and tried to
create an impression of complete self-sufficiency. Once in the spring an
occasion presented itself for knocking down the barrier they had erected
between themselves. Sylvia had just brought the sum of her losses at
cards to over six hundred pounds, and Dorothy, on hearing of it,
expressed her concern.

"I suppose you wonder where I find the money to lose?" Sylvia asked.

"Oh no, I wasn't thinking that. I'm not interested in your private
affairs," said Dorothy, freezing at the other's aggressive tone.

"No?" said Sylvia. "You easily forget about your friends' private
affairs, don't you? But I warned Olive that your chauffeur wouldn't be
able to find the way to West Kensington."

"How can you...." the countess broke out. Then she stopped herself. If
she tried to explain what had kept her from visiting Olive Airdale all
these months, she should have to reveal her own intimate hopes, her own
jealousy and disillusionment; she would prefer that Sylvia supposed it
was nothing more than snobbery that kept her away from Olive. If once
she began upon explanations she should have to explain why she so seldom
visited or spoke of her family. She should have to admit that she could
no longer answer for Tony, even so far as to be sure that he would not
invite her father to sit down with him to baccarat. And even those
explanations would not be enough; she should have to go back to the
beginning of her married life and expose such rags and tatters of
dreams. Her mind went back to that railway carriage on a wet January
afternoon when "Miss Elsie of Chelsea" traveled from Manchester to
Birmingham. She remembered the supper that was kept waiting for Sylvia
and her cheeks all dabbled with tears and a joke she had made about
trusting in God and keeping her powder dry. She had tried to win
Sylvia's confidence then and she had been snubbed. Should she volunteer
her own confidence now?

"I'm sorry you've lost so much money in my house," said the countess.

Then she blushed; the very pronoun seemed boastful.

"Never mind. I'm going down to Warwickshire to-morrow to help Olive
bring an heir into the world."

"Does she want a girl or a boy?" Dorothy asked.

"My dear," said Sylvia, "she is so anxious not to show the least sign of
favoritism even before birth that in order to achieve a perfect
equipoise she'll either have to have twins or a hermaphrodite."

In April Dorothy heard that her friend actually had produced twins.

"It seems so easy," she sighed, "when one hears about other people."

"Cheer up, Doodles," said Tony. "I won four hundred last night. It's
about time I got some of my own back from Archie Keith; he's been
plucking us all for months, lucky devil. I shall chuck shimmy."

"I wish you would," said Dorothy.

"Solemn old Doodles," he laughed. "Harry Tufton wants me to take up
racing. By Jove, I'm not sure I sha'n't. You'd like that better,
wouldn't you?"

"I'd like anything better than these eternal cards," she declared,
passionately.

At the same time she was a little nervous of the new project, and she
took an early opportunity of speaking about it to Tufton, who addressed
her with the accumulated wisdom of the several thousand hours he had
spent in the Bachelors' Club.

"My dear Dorothy," he began, flashing her Christian name as his mother
flashed her diamonds. "I'm very glad you've broached this subject. The
fact is, Tony really must draw in a little bit. I don't know how much
he's lost these last two years; but he has lost a good deal, and it
certainly isn't worth while losing for the benefit of people like Archie
Keith and Rita Mainwaring. Only the other day at the Bachelors' I was
speaking to Hughenden, and he said to me, 'Harry, my boy, why don't you
exercise your influence with Tony Clarehaven and get rid of that harpy
who unfortunately has the right to call herself my sister-in-law?' Well,
that was rather strong, don't you know? And your cousin Paignton spoke
to me about him, told me his father was rather worried about Tony--the
Chatfield push feel it's not dignified. As I said to him: 'My dear
fellow, if you want to lose money, why don't you lose money in a
gentlemanly way? There are always horses.'"

"But I don't want him to lose his money at all," Dorothy protested.

"Quite, quite," Mr. Tufton quacked. "But you'd prefer him to lose money
over horses than present it free of income tax to Archie Keith and Rita
Mainwaring? At this rate he'll soon lose all his old friends, as well as
his money."

Dorothy looked at the speaker; she was wondering if this was the
fidgeting of a more than usually apprehensive ship's rat.


III

The Clarehaven property outside the park itself did not now include more
than three thousand acres; but some speculations in which the fourth
earl indulged after selling the old Hopley estate had grown considerably
in value during his son's minority; and when Tony came of age, in
addition to his land, which, after the payment of the dowager's jointure
and all taxes, brought him in a net income of about three thousand
pounds a year, he had something like seventy thousand pounds invested in
Malayan enterprises which paid 10 per cent, and brought up his net
income to well over eight thousand pounds. He had already been forced to
sell out a considerable sum for the benefit of Captain Keith, Mrs.
Mainwaring, and the rest of them; but should he decide to start a
racing-stable he would have plenty of capital left on which to draw.
Dorothy protested that he ought not to look upon a racing-stable as a
sound and safe investment for capital that was now producing a steady
income and that, with rubber booming as it was, would probably be much
augmented in the near future. Yet she was afraid to be too discouraging,
for, whatever might be urged against horse-racing, it offered a more
dignified activity to a gambler than baccarat.

Clarehaven began his career on the turf with a sobriety which contrasted
with his extravagance at cards. He bought the stable of Mr. Tufton,
senior, and, leaving it in the cautious hands of old William Cobbett at
Newmarket, was content during his first season to compete in a few minor
handicaps and selling-plates. Such betting as he did was, on the whole,
lucky; he found himself toward the end of the season with a margin of
profit; and triumphantly he announced to Dorothy that he was going to
invest in some really first-class yearlings at Tattersall's and
Doncaster. She did not dissuade him, because she had had a talk with
honest old William Cobbett, who had assured her that his lordship was
willing to listen to his advice, and that if he would be guided by him
there was no reason why his lordship should not win some of the great
classic races the year after next, fortune being favorable. He spoke of
the black, white, and purple of Clarehaven as of colors once famous upon
famous courses, and implied that Saturday afternoons at Windsor or
Lingfield Park were hardly worthy of the time-honored combination.
Dorothy could not help agreeing with the trainer; throughout this first
season there had been a great deal too much of Captain Keith and Mrs.
Foster-ffrench, too much of a theatrical garden-party about those
Saturday afternoons, and although this year Tony had been lucky, another
year he might be unlucky and fritter away his money and his reputation
in the company of people who saw no difference between the green baize
of a card-table and the green turf of a racecourse. Several people had
talked of the fourth earl's great deeds upon the turf during the
'seventies; she, still susceptible to intimations of grandeur, viewed
with dismay these degenerate week-ends and encouraged Tony to aim
higher. If he would not speak in the House of Lords, he might at least
win the Derby; and if he won the Derby, surely his lust for gambling
would be satiated and he might retire to Clare to raise blood-stock. The
idea of owning some mighty horse, the paragon of Ormonde or Eclipse or
Flying Childers, obsessed her; she pictured ten years hence a small boy
attired in Gainsborough blue, proudly mounted upon a race-horse that
should be the sire and grandsire and great-grandsire of a hundred
classic winners. She became poetical, so keen was her ambition, so vivid
her hope; this mighty horse should be called Moonbeam, should be a ray
from the full moon of Clare to illuminate them all--Anthony--herself,
that son, who might almost be called Endymion. Why not? Disraeli had
called one of his heroes Endymion. Affected? Yes, but Endymion Viscount
Clare! Why should Endymion for a boy be more affected than Diana for a
girl? And why not Diana, too? Lady Diana Clare! They might be twins. Why
not? Mrs. Beadon had produced twins, Olive had produced twins. Moonshine
suffused Dorothy's castle in Spain, and moonstruck she paced the
battlements.

Tony bought a string of horses at Tattersall's, and at Doncaster paid
£600 and £750, respectively, for two yearlings with which old William
Cobbett expressed himself particularly well satisfied. It happened that
year that a young Greek called Christides, who had lately come of age,
won the Champagne Stakes and, in his elation, bought a yearling for
three thousand guineas. It further happened that after a triumphal
dinner he gave to several friends, among whom was Tony, he lost twice
that sum at auction bridge. Though Mr. Christides was extremely rich,
his native character asserted itself by an abrupt return to prudence. He
had allowed himself a fixed sum to spend at Doncaster, and, having
exceeded his calculations, he must sell the yearling--a black colt by
Cyllene out of Maid of the Mist. There was no question that he was the
pick of the yearlings; if old William Cobbett had not protested so
firmly against the price, Clarehaven would have been tempted to buy him
at the sale. Dorothy, with her mind still a tenant of Spanish castles,
saw in the Maid of the Mist colt the horse of her dreams, and by letting
her superstition play round the animal she became convinced that it held
the fortunes of Clare. Was not the sire Cyllene, which easily became
Selene--Dorothy was deep in moon-lore--and would not the offspring of
Selene and Maid of the Mist be well called Moonbeam? Moreover, was not
the colt black with one splash of white on the forehead? When,
therefore, Mr. Christides offered the yearling to settle his losses with
Tony, in other words for £2,722, Dorothy was anxious for him to accept.
Old William Cobbett was frightened by the price, but he could urge
nothing against the colt except, perhaps, the slightest tendency to a
dipped back, so slight, however, that when Mr. Christides, still true to
his native character, knocked off the odd £22, the small sum was enough
to cure the slight depression.

Dorothy thoroughly enjoyed the winter that followed the purchase of the
colt. As soon as Moonbeam--of course he was given the name at once--was
safe in William Cobbett's stable the trainer admitted that there was not
another yearling to touch him. In the two colts which he himself had
advised his patron to buy he could hardly bring himself to take the
least interest, and in fact both of them afterward did turn out
disappointments, one bursting blood-vessels when called upon for the
least effort, and the other a duck-hearted beast that for all his fine
appearance never ran out a race. But Moonbeam was everything that a colt
could be.

"The heart of a lion," said honest old William, "and as gentle as a dove
with it all. Be gad! my lady, I believe you're a real judge of
horseflesh, and damme--forgive the uncouth expression--but damme, if
ever I go to another sale without you."

"But will he win the Derby?" Dorothy asked.

"Well now, come, come, come! This is early days to begin prophesying.
But I wouldn't lay against him, no, begad! I wouldn't lay ten to one
against him--not now I wouldn't. Dipped back? Not a bit. If ever I said
his back was dipped I must have been dipped myself. You beauty! You
love! You jewel!"

After which honest old William took out a bandana handkerchief as big
and bright as the royal standard and blew his nose till the stable
reverberated with the sound.

"See that? Not a blink," he chuckled. "Not a blink, begad! That colt, my
lady, is the finest colt ever seen at Cobbett House. You bird! You gem!"

Tony himself was as enthusiastic as Dorothy or the trainer, and there
was no talk of London for a long while. He rented a small hunting-lodge
in the neighborhood to please Dorothy, and what between shooting over
the Cambridgeshire turnips and hunting hard with two or three noted
packs the winter went past quickly enough. Even better than the shooting
and the hunting were the February days when Moonbeam was put into
stronger work and, in the trainer's words, "ate it."

"He's a glutton for work," said honest old William.

Dorothy and he used to ride on the Heath and watch the horses at
exercise, and if only Moonbeam was successful next season with his
two-year-old engagements and if only he would win the Derby and if only
next year she might have a son....

Moonbeam's first public appearance was at the Epsom Spring Meeting when
he ran unplaced in the Westminster Plate, much to Dorothy's alarm.

"He wasn't intended to do anything," the trainer explained, soothingly.
"This was just to see how he and Joe Flitten took to each other. Well,
Joe, what do you think of him?"

"All right, Mr. Cobbett," said the young jockey, who was considered to
be the most promising apprentice at headquarters.

The colt's next engagement was for the Woodcote Stakes at the Epsom
Summer Meeting, when he was ridden by Harcourt, one of the leading
jockeys of the day, and was backed to win a large sum. Something did go
wrong this time, for, though he was running on strongly at the finish,
he was again unplaced.

"Dash it!" Clarehaven exclaimed, ruefully. "I hope this isn't going to
happen every time. You and her ladyship have made a mistake, I'm afraid,
Cobbett. If you ask me, he pecked."

Honest old William looked very grave.

"If you ask _me_, my lord, it was his jockey. The colt was badly ridden.
Still, it was a disappointment, there's no getting over it. But it's
early days to begin fretting, and he was running on. No doubt about
that. Tell you what, my lord, if you'll take my advice you'll give Joe
Flitten the mount for Ascot, and if Joe doesn't bring out what there is
in him, why then we'll have to put our heads together, that's all about
it."

So Joe Flitten, the Cobbett Lodge apprentice, rode Moonbeam in the New
Stakes, when the colt made most of his rivals at Epsom look like
platers; although it was to be noted that Sir James Otway's unnamed colt
by Desmond out of Diavola, which had won the Woodcote Stakes, did not
run.

"Like common ordinary platers," honest old William avowed.

After this performance the racing-press began to pay attention to
Moonbeam, and when in July he won the Hurst Park Foal Plate with
ridiculous ease they admitted that his victory at Ascot was no fluke.

In August Tony rented a grouse-moor in Yorkshire. His other horses were
not doing too well, but he was feeling prosperous, for Moonbeam had
already repaid him several times over his losses at Epsom; and at the
end of the month a jolly party drove over to York in a four-in-hand to
see the colt canter away with the Gimcrack Stakes. At this meeting
Dorothy really felt that Tony was what in another sense the press would
have called "an ornament to the turf." There were no Mrs. Mainwarings
and Captain Keiths with them at York, and she never felt less like a
Vanity girl than when she heard the crowd cheering Moonbeam's
victory--he was by now a popular horse--and looked round proudly at her
party; at Uncle Chat with Paignton and Charlie Fanhope; at Bella and
Connie, both bright red with joy; at Arthur and Sylvia Lonsdale, and at
Miss Horatia Lonsdale, a delightful aunt who was helping Dorothy
chaperon the girls, an easy enough task as regards Bella and Connie and
not very difficult as regards her niece.

Finally in the autumn Moonbeam won the Middle Park Plate and was voted
the finest two-year-old seen at Newmarket for several seasons.

"And now let him keep quiet till the Guineas," said William Cobbett,
with a sigh of satisfaction.

"You wouldn't run him in the Dewhurst?"

"No, no, let him rest with what he's done."

"Cobbett is right," said Lord Stilton, one of the stewards of the Jockey
Club, who came into the paddock at that moment. "You've got the Derby
next year, Clarehaven, if you don't overwork him. That apprentice of
yours is a treasure, Cobbett."

"A good boy, my lord."

"You don't know my wife," Tony was saying.

"My congratulations, Lady Clarehaven. I hear you picked out with my old
friend William here."

Later on Dorothy was presented to Lady Stilton. She in turn presented
her daughter, the beautiful and charming Lady Anne Varley, whose
engagement to the young Duke of Ulster had just been announced.

"My dear Dorothy," said Harry Tufton that evening, "you must admit that
my advice was good. How much better this sort of thing becomes you than
..." He waved his arms in a gesture of despair at finding any adjective
sufficiently contemptuous for those evenings at Curzon Street before his
lifelong friend, Tony Clarehaven, had followed his advice and sported
the black, white, and purple colors so famous forty years ago.

The prospect of winning the Derby next year really did seem to have
completed Tony's cure. He raised no objections when Dorothy insisted
that his mother and his sisters should spend the autumn in town, and he
actually went three times to the House of Lords to vote against some
urgent measure of reform. He did not make a speech, but he coughed once
in the middle of an oration by a newly created Radical peer, so
significant and so nearly vocally expressive a cough that it deserved to
be recorded in Hansard as a contribution to the debate.

Dorothy had been desirous of the dowager's help to consolidate a
position in London society that now for the first time appeared tenable.
Her meeting with Lady Stilton had given her a foothold on the really
high cliffs, and if Tony did not spoil everything she saw no reason why
she should not repeat on a larger scale in town her success in
Devonshire. It was a pity that Bella and Connie were so ugly; if she
could bring off brilliant matches for them, what a help that would be.
Of course, it was not the season; most people were out of town
notwithstanding that Parliament was sitting; but still surely somewhere
in the crowded pages of Debrett could be found suitors for the hands of
her sisters-in-law. The nearest approach to a match was when Lord
Beccles, the lunatic heir of the Marquis of Norwich, became perfectly
manageable if he was allowed to drive with Bella in Hyde Park,
chaperoned by his nurse and watched by a footman who held a certificate
from one of the largest private asylums in England. If Lord Beccles was
a congenital idiot, there were three other sons of Lord Norwich who were
sane enough, the eldest of whom, Lord Alistair Gay, agreed with Dorothy
that, if Lady Arabella was willing, the marriage would be a kindness to
his poor brother. Bella would not take the proposal seriously, and it
was evident that she regarded her drives with the poor idiot in the
light of a minor charity ranking with the care of a distempered dog or
of a cottager's baby.

"You surely aren't serious, Dorothy," she laughed.

"Well, it would give you a splendid position. You would be a countess
now and probably a marchioness very soon. Lady Norwich is dead. Lord
Norwich is very old, and idiots often live a long time. I'm not
suggesting that it would be anything more than a formal marriage, but
you apparently don't mind his dribbling with excitement when he sees the
Albert Memorial and.... However, I wouldn't persuade you into a match
for anything. Only it doesn't seem to me that it would imply anything
more than you do for him at present."

The dowager told Dorothy that she would rather dear Bella married
somebody simpler than poor Lord Beccles, to which Dorothy retorted that
it might be difficult to find even a commoner more simple. Moonbeam's
victories as a two-year-old had restored that self-confidence which had
been so shaken since her marriage; Dorothy, like most nations and most
human beings, was more admirable in adversity than in triumph. The
disposition she had shown to recognize her suburban family did not last;
she knew that the integument with which she was so carefully wrapping up
her reality could be stripped from it by her relations in a second. Only
now, after she had been a countess for six years, had Dorothy
discovered the narrow bridge that is swung over the center of the
universe--the well-laid and lighted bridge so delicately adjusted to
eternity that the least divergence from correctness by one of its
frequenters might be enough to imperil its balance. That bridge Dorothy
was now crossing with all her eyes for her feet, as it were, and she
certainly could not afford to be distracted by a family. If Sylvia
Scarlett had been in London to watch this new progress she would have
made many unkind jokes about the countess; but Sylvia was away acting in
America, and in any case she would have found the door of 129 Curzon
Street closed against her.

The dowager worried over the way Dorothy was ignoring her mother, and,
fortified with strong smelling-salts, she braved the Underground to pay
a visit to West Kensington, an experience she so thoroughly enjoyed that
she could not keep it a secret for long, but one day began to praise the
beauty of Edna and Agnes.

"Frankly, my dear Dorothy," she told her daughter-in-law, "I must say I
think that you would be likely to have much more success as a
match-maker for your sisters than for dear Bella and dear Connie, who
even in London seem unable to avoid that appearance of having just run
up and down a very windy hill. Why not have Edna and Agnes to live with
you until they're married? And when they are married invite the youngest
two, who will also be very beautiful girls, I'm convinced. Really, I
never saw such complexions as you and all your sisters have."

Dorothy thought the dowager's suggestion most impracticable.

"Yes, but my most impracticable suggestions nearly always turn out
well."

Perhaps, so sure was she of the impression that Agnes and Edna would
create in a London ballroom, the dowager would have had her way if she
had remained in town for the spring, but in the month of February,
anticipating St. Valentine's Day by a week, the Rev. Thomas Hemming
wrote from Cherrington to say that Mrs. Paxton, his godmother, had just
offered him the living of Newton Candover in Hampshire and would Lady
Constantia Clare become Lady Constantia Hemming? Lady Constantia would.
The trousseau was bought under the eyes of Dorothy, who, regardless of
the fact that she was going to marry a parson, insisted that Connie
should look beyond viyella for certain items. Soon after Easter Mr.
Beadon had to find another curate and Connie's room at Clare Lodge was
empty.

Tony was too much occupied with Moonbeam's chances of winning the two
thousand guineas at the end of April to bother who married his sister;
but he wrote her a generous check that compensated for the decline in
value of the vicar's glebe at Newton Candover.

"And I suppose," said Dorothy, "that next January Connie will have a
son."

"Never mind," said her husband. "Next June you and I shall have the
Derby winner."

Honest William Cobbett had made no secret of his conviction that
Moonbeam was going to canter away with the Guineas, and in the ring his
patron's horse was favorite at five to two.

"It'll have to be something very hot and dark that can beat him," he
told Clarehaven. "Has your lordship betted very plentiful?"

"I shall drop about ten thousand if the colt fails," said Clarehaven,
airily. "But most of my big bets are for the Derby. I got sixes against
him twice over to two thousand and fives twelve times in thousands. If
he wins to-day I shall plunge a bit."

The trainer blinked his limpid blue eyes.

"Oh, then you don't consider you've done anything in the way of plunging
so far?"

"Nothing," said Clarehaven, flicking his mount and calling to Dorothy
to ride along with him to the Birdcage. They had taken a small house for
the meeting, and they were just off to escort Moonbeam to the
starting-post. Lonsdale and Tufton had also come down to Newmarket, the
former mounted under protest on a hack which he rode as if he were
driving a car.

"Well, so long, Cobbett," the owner cried. "Hope we shall all be feeling
as happy in another half-hour as we are now."

"Never fear, my lord. As I told you, there's only the Diavola colt to be
afraid of. There's not a bit of doubt he won the Dewhurst in rare
fashion, and of course that made his win at Epsom in the Woodcote look
good. And now Sir James has gone and sold him for seven thousand guineas
with a contingency to this man Houston--somebody new to racing. Well,
seven thousand guineas is a nice little price, and there's been a lot of
money forthcoming from the Winsley crowd. Dick Starkey always tries to
serve up something extra hot for Newmarket. There's nothing gives
greater delight to a provincial stable like Starkey Lodge than to do us
headquarter folk out of the Guineas, which, as you may say, is our
specialty. Stupid name, though, to give such a nice-looking animal.
Chimpanzee!"

Dorothy uttered an exclamation. She divined the owner's name at once,
and when Lonsdale told her it was Leopold Hausberg who had been away in
South Africa and returned more rich than ever with a license to call
himself Lionel Houston in future, she was not at all surprised, but her
heart began to beat faster.

"Come along, come along, you two. We sha'n't be in time to escort the
horses from the Birdcage."

"I say, Tony," said Lonsdale, anxiously, "the bookies are shouting
twenty to one bar two, and Moonbeam has gone out to eleven to four."

"Damn!" ejaculated his owner. "I wonder if there's time for me to get
any more money on?"

"No, leave it alone," Lonsdale begged. "Good Heavens! It makes me feel
absolutely sick when I think of having ten thousand pounds on the result
of one race. Why, compared with that, flying is safer than walking."

Two Cambridge undergraduates riding by jostled his cob so roughly that
for the next few moments his attention was bent on maintaining himself
in the saddle.

"Flying would certainly be safer than riding for you," Clarehaven
laughed.

"The horse's mechanism is primitive, that's what it is--it's primitive,"
said Lonsdale. "And to risk ten thousand pounds on a primitive mechanism
like a horse--Shut up, you brute, _you're_ not entered for the Guineas.
I say, this steering-gear is very unreliable, you know."

Dorothy had wanted to ask Lonsdale more about the owner of Chimpanzee;
but at this moment the sun burst forth from behind a great white April
cloud full-rigged, the shadow of which floated over the glittering green
of the Heath just as the horses emerged from the Birdcage, escorted on
either side by horsemen and horsewomen of fame and beauty. It was a fair
scene, to play a part in which Dorothy exultantly felt that it was worth
while to lose even more than £10,000. The coats of the horses shimmered
in the sunlight; the colors of the jockeys blended and shifted like
flowers in the wind; no tournament of the Middle Ages with all its
plumes and pennons could have offered a fairer scene.

Tufton joined his friends, and, turning their mounts, they rode back
toward the winning-post.

"I say, Tony, Chimpanzee has shunted to three's--only a fraction's
difference now between him and Moonbeam," he was murmuring.

"Tell me more about Houston," said Dorothy to Lonsdale. "I don't think I
can bear to watch the race."

"Cheer-oh, Doodles! You can't feel more queasy than I do. And I've told
you all I know about Houston."

"But why should he call his horse Chimpanzee?"

There was a roar from the crowd.

"They're off!"

They were off on that royal mile of Newmarket.

"Flitten was told to ride him out from the start. Damn him, why doesn't
he do so?" said Tony.

"He is, old boy. He's all right. Don't get nervy," said Tufton.

"Which is Chimpanzee?"

"That bay on the outside."

"What colors?"

"Yellow. Harcourt up."

"Take him along! Take him along! Good God, he's not using the whip
already, is he?"

"No, no! No, no!"

"Damnation!" cried Tony, "why didn't we keep to the inclosure? I believe
my horse is beaten. Don't look round, you little blighter! It's not an
egg-and-spoon race."

The spectators were roaring like the sea.

"Moonbeam! Chimpanzee! Moonbeam! Moonbeam!" was shouted in a crescendo
of excitement.

There was a momentary lull.

"Moonbeam by a head," floated in a kind of unisonant sigh along the
rails.

"O Lord!" Lonsdale gulped. "I'd sooner drive a six-cylinder Lee-Lonsdale
at sixty miles an hour through a school treat."

The strain was over; the noble owner had led in the noble winner; the
ceremonies of congratulation were done; there was a profitable
settlement to expect on Monday; yet Dorothy was ill at ease. The
resuscitation of Hausberg clouded her contentment. Coincidence would not
explain his purchase of the Diavola colt, his naming of it Chimpanzee,
and his running it to beat Moonbeam. To be sure, he had failed, but a
man who had taken so much trouble to create an effect would be more
eager than ever after such a failure to ... "to do what?" she asked
herself. Was he aiming at revenge? Such a fancy was melodramatic, absurd
... after all these years deliberately to aim at revenge for a practical
joke. Besides, she had had nothing to do with the affair in St. John's
Wood. Nor had Tony except as an accessory after the fact. Yet it was
strange; it was even sinister. And how odd that Lonsdale should be
present at this sinister resurrection.

"Lonnie," she said, "do you remember about the monkey?"

"What monkey? Did you have a monkey on Moonbeam?"

"Not money, you silly boy--the chimpanzee you put in Hausberg's rooms."

"Of course I remember it. So does he, apparently, as he's called his
horse after it."

"I know. I feel nervous. I think he's going to bring us bad luck."

"Hello, Doodles, you're looking very gloomy for the wife of the man who
is going to win the Derby," said Tony, coming up at that moment, all
smiles. "I've just bet fifty pounds for you on one of Cobbett's fillies,
which he says is a good thing for the Wilbraham. And the stable's in
luck."

Dorothy won £250 in a flash, it seemed--the race was only four
furlongs--and when in the last race of the day she backed the winner of
the Bretby Handicap and won another £250 Tony told her cheerfully that
she ought not to gamble because she was now a monkey to the good.
Dorothy was depressed. The £500, outside the ill omen of its being
called a monkey in slang, assumed a larger and more portentous
significance by reminding her of the £500 she had borrowed from her
mother when she first went on the stage and of the way she had invested
some of it afterward with Leopold Hausberg. All her delight in
Moonbeam's victory had been destroyed by a dread of the unknown, and she
suddenly pulled Tony's sleeve, who was busily engaged in taking bets
against his horse for the Derby. He turned round rather irritably.

"What is the matter with you?"

"Give it up," she begged. "Don't bet any more."

"Give up betting when I've just won twenty-five thousand pounds over the
Guineas and am going to win one hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds
over the Derby? Besides, I thought you were going to live happily ever
afterward if Moonbeam won?"

He turned away again with a laugh, and Tufton's grave head-shake was not
much consolation to Dorothy. She was walking away a few paces in order
not to overhear Tony's jovial badinage with the bookmakers, when a suave
voice addressed her over the shoulder and, looking round, she saw
Leopold Hausberg.

"You've forgotten me, Lady Clarehaven," he was saying. "I must explain
that I--"

"Yes, yes," Dorothy interrupted, quickly, "you're Mr. Houston. I've just
been told so by Mr. Lonsdale, whom no doubt you also remember."

She mentioned Lonsdale's name deliberately to see if Houston would speak
about the monkey or even show a hint of displeasure at the mention of
Lonsdale's name, but there was no shadow on his countenance, and he only
asked her if she would not introduce him to her husband.

"I should like to congratulate him," he said, "though his win hit me
pretty hard."

At this moment Tony with a laugh closed his betting-book and joined
them.

"By Jove! there's not a sportsman among you," he called back to the
bookmakers. "What do you think, Doodles? There's not one of them who'll
give me four thousand to a thousand against Moonbeam for the Derby....
I'm sorry, I didn't see you were talking to somebody."

Dorothy made the introduction.

"I'll give you four thousand to a thousand, Lord Clarehaven," the
new-comer offered. "Or more if you wish to bet. I don't think my horse
showed his true form to-day. He swerved badly at the start, and my
jockey says he was kicked."

Clarehaven was delighted to find somebody who would lay against
Moonbeam, and he entered in his book a bet of £20,000 to £5,000.

"I had the pleasure of meeting Lady Clarehaven before her marriage,"
Houston was explaining. "I should have called upon you long ago, but
I've been away for some years in South Africa."

"Making money, eh?" said Tony, holding in his mouth like a cigarette the
pencil that was going to make money for him.

"I've not done so badly," said the other, deprecatingly.

"Look here, you must dine with us to-night," Tony declared, cheerily.
"We're having a little celebration at the Blue Boar."

"Delighted, I'm sure. That's what I always like about racing," said
Houston, "it brings out all our best sporting qualities as a nation."

Dorothy thought her husband was going to say something rude, but she
need not have been worried. He had no intention of being rude to a man
who would lay so heavily against the horse he thought was bound to win.
In fact, he went out of his way to be specially friendly to Houston, and
during the month of May the financier was at Curzon Street almost every
day. Moreover, he brought with him others like himself who were willing
to bet heavily with Clarehaven, and Dorothy began to think that even
Captain Keith and Mrs. Mainwaring and those Saturday afternoons of
peroxide and pink powder at Windsor or Lingfield Park were better than
this nightmare of hooked noses and splay mouths.

"Well," said Lonsdale, "if anybody ever talks to me again about the
'lost' tribes or the missing link, I shall ask him if he's looked in
Curzon Street. He'll find both there."

"Tony's being a little bit promiscuous," said Henry Tufton. "But of
course one _must_ remember that the king was very fond of Jews. And then
there was Disraeli, don't you know, and the late queen."

Just before the Derby, Houston, whom, in spite of the menace he seemed
to hold out against the future of Tony's career on the turf, Dorothy
could not help liking in the intervals when she forgot about her
premonitions of misfortune, said to her in a tone that it would have
been hard to accuse of insincerity:

"Look here, I want to show you I'm a true friend, and I warn you that my
horse is going to win the Derby. Nothing can beat him. Tell Clarehaven
to hedge. I wish I'd not laid that bet now, for I hate taking his money.
I suppose he'd be insulted if I offered to cancel the bet? But I would,
if he would."

Dorothy told Tony about Houston's offer; but he laughed at her and said
that, like all Jews, Houston did not relish losing his money.
Nevertheless, finding that his liabilities were alarmingly high and
knowing that Houston, not content with laying against Moonbeam, was
backing Chimpanzee wherever he could, Tony invested some money on the
second favorite and declined to lay another halfpenny against him. As a
matter of fact, the money he invested thus was in comparison with the
thousands for which he had backed Moonbeam a trifle; but rumor
exaggerated the sum, and when Chimpanzee won the Derby, with Moonbeam
just shut out of a place, there were unpleasant rumors in the clubs.

Dorothy did not go to Epsom--her nerves could not have stood the
strain--and when she heard of Moonbeam's defeat she was grateful to her
impulse. Nowadays her self-confidence was very easily upset, and from
the moment Houston had appeared upon the scene at Newmarket she had
never in her heart expected that Moonbeam would win the great race.

It was Tony himself who brought her the bad news. In a gray tail-coat
and with gray top-hat set askew upon his flushed face--flushed with
more than temper and disappointment, she thought--he strode up and down
the smoking-room at Curzon Street, swinging his field-glasses round and
round by their straps, until she begged him not to break the chandelier.

"Break the chandelier," he laughed. "That's good, by Jove! What about
breaking myself? You don't seem to understand what this means, my dear
Doodles. I've lost sixty thousand pounds over that cursed animal. Sixty
thousand pounds! Do you hear? And I've got four days to find the money.
Do you realize I shall have to mortgage Clare in order to settle up on
Monday?"

"Mortgage Clare?" Dorothy gasped; she turned white and swayed against
the table. At that moment Tony let the straps escape from his hand and
the glasses went crashing into a large mirror.

"Yes, mortgage Clare," he repeated, savagely.

It was only the noise of the broken glass that kept her from fainting;
weakly she pointed at the mirror and with a wavering smile upon her
usually firm lips she whispered something about seven years of bad luck.

"Well, it's nothing to laugh about," said Tony.

"I wasn't laughing. Oh, Tony, you can't lose Clare; you mustn't."

"Oh well, I mayn't lose it. I may have some luck late in the season. But
my other horses have let me down badly so far."

"You won't go on betting?"

"How else am I to get back what I've lost? I can't make sixty thousand
pounds by selling papers!"

"Oh, but you...." She put her hand up to her forehead and sank into one
of those comfortable chairs upholstered in red leather. "How did Cobbett
explain Moonbeam's defeat?" She felt that, however agonizing, she must
have the tale of the race to give her an illusion of action, and to
silence these bells that were ringing in her brain: "Clare! Clare!
Clare!"

"Cobbett?" exclaimed Tony, viciously. "He's about fit to train a
bus-horse to jog from Piccadilly to Sloane Street. 'The colt doesn't
like the Epsom course, and that's about the size of it,' said Mr.
Cobbett to me. 'Course be damned, you old plowboy!' I told him. 'If you
hadn't insisted upon giving the mount to that cursed apprentice of yours
my horse would have won.' 'I don't think it was the lad's fault, my
lord,' said Cobbett, getting as red as a turkey-cock. 'Don't you dare to
contradict me,' I said. By God! Doodles, I was in such a rage that it
was all I could do not to take the obstinate old fool by the shoulders
and shake the truth into him. 'I'd contradict the King of England, my
lord, if I trained his horses and he told me I didn't know my business,'
'Well, I tell you that you don't know your business,' I answered. 'Why
didn't you let me do as I wanted and get O'Hara over from France to ride
him?' 'If you remember, my lord, in the Woodcote Stakes, we gave the
mount to Harcourt, and he made a mess of the race.' I couldn't stand
there shouting 'O'Hara! Not Harcourt!' It wouldn't have been dignified
in the paddock, and so I just told him quietly that I should have to
consider if after to-day's fiasco I could still intrust my horses to a
man who wouldn't listen to reason; after that I pulled myself together
with a couple of stiff brandies and drove the car home myself. By the
way, I ran over a kid in Hammersmith and broke its leg or something.
Altogether it's been my worst day from birth up."

Dorothy would have liked to reproach him for drinking, to have expressed
her dismay at the accident to the child, to have whispered a word of
hope for the future, to have taken his foolish flushed face between her
hands and kissed it ... but the only speech and action she could trust
herself to make or take was to ring for a footman to sweep up the broken
glass from the floor of the smoking-room.

Two days later, while Tony was hard at work raising the money to pay
his debts on Monday, a letter came from Newmarket:

     COBBETT HOUSE, NEWMARKET,

     _June 7, 1912._

     _To the Earl of Clarehaven._

     MY LORD,--After our conversation in the paddock at Epsom on
     Wednesday I must give your lordship notice that I must respectfully
     decline to train your horses any longer in my stables. I would be
     much obliged if your lordship will give instructions to who I must
     transfer them.

     I am,

     Yours respectfully,

     W. COBBETT.

Houston, who happened to be with Tony when this letter arrived, asked
him why he did not train with Richard Starkey at Winsley on the
Berkshire Downs.

"Yes, that's all very well," said Clarehaven, "but what about the
Leger?"

"I'm not going to run Chimpanzee for the Leger. In fact, I've sold him
to an Australian syndicate for the stud. Your horse will be the only
representative of the stable."

Finally Clarehaven's horses were transferred to Starkey Lodge, and
Moonbeam, as the obvious choice of the stable, gave the public a good
win at Doncaster. The victory did not do Clarehaven much good in
narrower circles, where many people had backed Chimpanzee to win the
Leger. The rumors that had gone round the clubs after the Derby sprang
to life again, and with an added virulence circulated freely. Lord
Stilton, as a friend of his father, warned Tony in confidence that he
would not be elected to the Jockey Club and advised him to go slow for a
while.

"If the Stewards wish for an explanation," said Tony, loftily, "they can
have an explanation."

"It is not a question of your horse's running," said Lord Stilton.
"Technically there are no grounds for criticism. But a certain amount of
comment has been aroused by your change of stables and by your
friendship with this man Houston. Altogether, my dear fellow, I advise
you to go slow--yes, to go slow."

Tony, with the amount of money he had won back by Moonbeam's victory in
the Leger, did not feel at all inclined to go slow, and with Richard
Starkey at his elbow he bought several highly priced yearlings at the
Doncaster sales. He would show that pompous old bore Stilton that the
Derby could be won without being a member of the Jockey Club.


IV

Moonbeam's victory in the St. Leger had apparently freed Clare from
mortgages, and it enabled the owner to meet a large number of bills that
fell due shortly afterward. Dorothy, who was continually hearing from
Tony how decently Houston was behaving to him, began to wonder if her
dread of the Jew had not been hysterical; and when in October he
proposed a cruise round the Mediterranean in his new yacht she did not
attribute to the proposal a new and subtle form of danger. She and
Houston were talking together in the drawing-room at Curzon Street while
Tony was occupied with somebody who had called on business. During the
summer these colloquies down in the smoking-room had kept Dorothy's
nerves strung up to expect the worst when she used to hear Tony
accompany the visitor to the door and come so slowly up-stairs after he
was gone. But since Doncaster the interviews had been much shorter, and
Tony had often run up-stairs at the end of them, leaving the visitor to
be shown out by a footman. Throughout that trying time Houston had been
always at hand, suave and attentive, not in the least attentive beyond
the limits of an old friendship, but rather in the manner of Tufton,
though of course with greater age and experience at the back of it. His
ugliness, which, when Dorothy had first beheld it again so abruptly
that afternoon in the ring at Newmarket had appalled her, was by now so
familiar again that she was no longer conscious of it, or if she was
conscious of it she rather liked it. Such ugliness strengthened
Houston's background, and when Tony's affairs seemed most desperate gave
Dorothy a hope; the more rugged the cliff the more easily will the
wrecked mariner scale its forbidding face. Yes, Houston had really been
invaluable during an exhausting year, and when now he proposed this
yachting trip she welcomed the project.

"I think it would be good for Clarehaven to get him away from England
for a while--to give him a change of air and scene. We'll lure him with
the promise of a few days at Monte Carlo, and something will happen to
make it impossible to go near Monte Carlo, eh? A nice, quiet little
party. I have cabins for eight guests. Three hundred ton gross. Nothing
extravagant as a yacht goes."

"And what do you call her? _The Chimpanzee?_" asked Dorothy, with a
smile.

"No, no, no," he replied. "_The Whirligig._ A good name for a small
yacht, don't you think?"

"Tell me," said Dorothy, earnestly. "Why did you call your horse
Chimpanzee? You know, when I first heard it, I felt you were still
brooding over that stupid business in those flats. What were they
called?"

"Lauriston Mansions."

"Ah, you haven't forgotten the name. I had. But what centuries ago all
that seems."

"Does it?"

"To me, oh, centuries!" she exclaimed, vehemently.

Houston's eyes narrowed, as if he were seeking to bring that far-off
scene into focus with the present.

"I oughtn't to have reminded you of it," said Dorothy, lightly. "It was
tactless of me."

"Not at all," said Houston. "Besides, contemporary with that there are
many pleasant hours to remember" ... he hesitated for a second and blew
out the end of the sentence in a puff of cigarette smoke ... "with you."

"Yes, I have often wondered why you were so kind to me. I think I must
have been very tiresome in those days."

"On the contrary, you were the loveliest girl in London."

"Girl," Dorothy half sighed.

"Come, my dear Lady Clarehaven." Was he mocking her with the title? "My
dear Lady Clarehaven," he repeated, with the least trace of emphasis
upon the conventional epithet. "You don't expect me to be so bold as to
say what you are now?"

For one moment he opened wide his dark eyes, and in that moment Dorothy
decided that the party on the yacht should include the dowager and
Bella. Simultaneously with this decision she was saying, with a laugh of
affected dismay, "Oh no, please, Mr. Houston."

Tony was not at first in favor of the proposed trip, and pleaded that he
wanted to see how his yearlings wintered; but Houston insisted that
Starkey would look after them better without being worried by the owner.
Then Tony urged the claims of pheasants. He had neglected his pheasants
of late, and it would be a pity to let the Clare coverts alone for
another year.

"Besides, I ought to look after the property," he added.

Dorothy had heard this declaration of duty urged too often to be taken
in by it any longer. A week in Devonshire would cure Tony of a
landowner's anxiety whether about his pheasants or his peasants; after
that he would discover in his bland way that London was more convenient
than the country.

"You can get plenty of shooting in the Mediterranean," said Houston.
"There's a desert island in the Ægean with mouflon that nobody ever
succeeds in getting."

"What? I'll bet you two hundred to one in sovereigns that I bag a
couple," Tony cried.

"I won't bet, because you'll lose your money. A friend of mine lay off
for a week of fine weather--that's a rare occurrence in those
waters--lost nearly a stone climbing the rocks, and at the end of it
came away without hitting one."

"Ridiculous," Tony scoffed. "What gun did he use?"

"Don't ask me," laughed Houston. "All I know is he was a first-class
shot, and if he couldn't succeed I don't believe anybody can."

"That's rot," Tony declared, angrily. "When are we going to start?"

"She's in commission and now lying at Plymouth, which will save your
mother a long journey by train."

"My mother?" Tony echoed, in astonishment.

Dorothy revealed her plan for inviting the dowager and Bella, and Tony
was so anxious to prove he was right about the mouflon that he made no
objections.

"Then," Dorothy continued, "I thought Harry Tufton had better be asked.
He'll be so good at buying souvenirs in port. Your mother is sure to
want souvenirs, and you'd hate to scour round for them yourself."

"I suppose Lonnie couldn't come," Tony suggested.

Houston knitted his brows, but said hurriedly that Lonsdale would be an
ideal passenger for a cruise. Dorothy did not like to oppose the
suggestion; yet she was relieved when Lonsdale replied that, having
luckily arrived on this earth many years after the Flood, he did not
propose to slight dry land. "Sea-trips," he wrote, "beginning with the
Ark's have always been crowded and unpleasant. Besides, I'm learning to
fly."

"Silly ass!" said Tony, tearing up the note.

The dowager was rather fluttered by the notion of a cruise in a yacht.
Her knowledge of the sea was chiefly derived from Lady Brassey's journal
of a voyage in the _Sunbeam_, the continual references of which to
seasickness were not encouraging. Bella, who since Connie's marriage had
taken to writing short stories, was as eager for local color as a child
for a box of paints, and her enthusiasm at the idea of visiting the
classic sea was so loudly expressed that the dowager had not the heart
to disappoint her. She did, however, make one stipulation that surprised
her daughter-in-law.

"If I go," she said, "you must promise me to invite one of your sisters.
Now please, Dorothy, listen to me. You owe it to them. Of course, I
should like you to invite them all and your mother, who could talk to me
while you were all climbing volcanoes and searching for the ruins of
Carthage; but I dare say Mr. Houston won't have room. However, one of
them you must invite."

And then suddenly the dowager's suggestion seemed to provide a perfect
solution of a problem that had been vexing Dorothy. In thinking over
Houston's attitude she had been forced to explain it by the existence of
something like a tender feeling for herself. To speak of tenderness in
connection with him seemed absurd; but she was beginning to fancy that
perhaps in the old days he had in his heart all the time wanted her for
himself. If that were so, he had certainly behaved very well both now
and then. No doubt he had realized that so long as her marriage with
Clarehaven was attainable he stood no chance; but if that should have
definitely come to nothing, he must have intended to ask her to marry
him. It was with that idea he had helped her with investments, had
avoided the least hint of an ulterior motive, and had always treated her
so irreproachably. If he had concealed his love so carefully in the
past, it was not ridiculous to suppose that he might be in love with her
now. The other day he had been on the verge of saying something much
more intimate than anything in the most intimate conversation they had
ever had together. Perhaps he fancied that she and Tony were nothing to
each other now--alas! with gambling as his ruling passion Tony might
have given Houston some reason to suppose that she no longer stood where
she used to stand in his eyes--or perhaps with a real chivalry he had
perceived the dangerous course that Tony was taking and wished to save
her without obtruding himself too much. Poor ugly man, with all his
wealth he was a pathetic figure. He would suffer when he saw how devoted
she was to Tony; she had made up her mind to charm Tony back to his old
adoration of herself; this cruise might be her last opportunity.

Then why not ask one of her sisters? Such a sister, reflecting if
somewhat faintly her own glories, might console Houston for an eternal
impossibility. In that case she must invite the eldest now at home, and
with her roses and rich brown hair might serve as a substitute for
herself.

"Of course she hasn't my personality," Dorothy admitted. "And she hasn't
my brown eyes. But she is beautiful, and what an excellent thing it
would be if Houston should marry her. Jews have such a sense of family
duty."

With the inclusion of Agnes the party was complete, and in the middle of
November _The Whirligig_ left Plymouth for the Mediterranean. Tony's
astonishment at the production of this beautiful sister-in-law was
laughable; but if heavy weather in the Bay of Biscay had not blanched
most of her roses, while Dorothy's own throve in the fierce Atlantic
airs, that astonishment might have turned to something less laughable.
Houston, indeed, did ask Dorothy once in an undertone if it was not
rather imprudent of her deliberately to create a rival for herself; but
by the time the yacht had rounded Cape St. Vincent and was lying at ease
in the harbor of Cadiz Tony was nearly as much his wife's slave as he
was in the first days of their marriage. Dorothy, who had felt a
momentary qualm about the success of her project when she saw the effect
of Agnes's fair form of England against this passionate beauty of the
south, decided that, on the contrary, it would be this very effect that
would impress Houston much more than Tony. So far as mortal women are
concerned, she had never had to bother much about Tony except when she
herself had been cold with him. The fickle goddess of fortune was her
only rival; but on board _The Whirligig_ he seemed out of reach of
temptation by her. Yes, the party was well chosen. Tufton by this time
had recovered sufficiently from the heavy seas to help the dowager
obtain her souvenirs of the various ports at which they called, and she
at last forgave him for his advice about the pergola; Bella, inspired by
a visit to Fielding's tomb at Lisbon, which was the first assurance she
had received that England even existed since the Lizard Light had
dropped below the horizon, was much occupied with a diary of her
impressions; Tony was occupied by herself; and what should Houston do
except occupy himself with Agnes? At the same time Dorothy had her
doubts. Whenever she was sitting quietly with Tony in some snug windless
corner of the yacht their host would always find an excuse to intervene.

After Cadiz they called at Malaga, Cartagena, and Alicante, whence by
Valencia and Barcelona they were to sail by the shores of France toward
the lights of Monte Carlo, which Houston now wanted to visit, although
in London he had said that nothing should induce him to take the yacht
there. Tony unexpectedly argued against a visit to Monte Carlo, and was
only eager to attack the mouflon on that inaccessible Ægean isle. So the
yacht's course was set eastward from Alicante.

"Why did you change your mind about Monte Carlo?" Dorothy asked Houston.

"Isn't it fairly obvious?"

She thought he was going to seize her hand and plunge headlong into a
declaration of passion; but he turned away quickly and called her
attention to the view. They were passing the southern shores of
Formentera, so close that upon the sandy beach flamingos preening their
wings in the sunset were plainly visible. The yacht called at Cagliari
and Palermo, visited the Ionian islands, and reached the Ægean by way
of the Corinth canal. The bet about the mouflon had to be canceled in
the end, because the sea was never sufficiently calm to allow a boat to
be lowered off Antaphros, and was still less likely to remain calm long
enough for a boat to leave the deserted island again. They made several
attempts to land, sailing there from their headquarters at Aphros, the
white houses of which, stained with the purple Bougainvillea and
mirrored in the calm waters of the harbor, seemed eternally to promise
fine weather. Luckily the island also offered sufficient entertainment
to compensate Tony for the loss of the mouflon; there was a club of
which many rich ship-owners were members, where high play at écarté was
the rule, and Tony, with the good luck that often attends strangers,
repaid his hosts by winning from them nearly twenty thousand drachmas.
The war in the Balkans made it difficult for the yacht to visit
Constantinople, which was her original destination; and it was decided
to substitute Alexandria and allow the members of the party to spend a
few days in Cairo; from Egypt they would cruise along the coast of
Syria, turn westward again by Cyprus and Rhodes, and with luck land a
boat at Antaphros on the journey home, for Tony still regretted those
mouflon.

Agnes would probably have found her stay in Aphros romantic enough at
any time; but now with the supreme romance of war added and with
handsome young Aphriotes going north upon their country's business by
every steamer, she wished no higher ecstasy from this wonderful voyage.
Agnes had enjoyed a great success on the island, where she had taught
the young men and maidens to dance whatever ragtime was then the mode in
West Kensington; where with them, when the dancing was done, she had
climbed to the ruined temple of Aphrodite on the heights above the town
and sat beneath a waning semilune that emptied her silver upon the bare
and rounded hills, upon the sea, and upon a necklace of sapphire
islands, past which the troopship now winking in the harbor below would
sail at dawn. Like father, like son, even love shoots more arrows than
usual in time of war. Agnes did not think that Egypt or Palestine could
offer better than this, and when the parents of her new friends Antonia
and Ariadne Venieris invited her to stay with them in their ancient
house until the yacht came back, she begged her sister to make it easy
for her to accept this invitation. Dorothy saw no reason to refuse, and
they sailed away without her.

Three weeks later, when the yacht reached Rhodes, Dorothy found a letter
from Madame Venieris awaiting her arrival, in which she announced that
Agnes had married a young lieutenant called Sommaripa; she did not know
what Lady Clarehaven would think of her; she did not know how to make
her excuses; but at least she could assure Lady Clarehaven that the
bridegroom, who was now in Thrace, was an excellent young man, an orphan
with plenty of money and well regarded at court. Meanwhile, the bride
must be her guest until peace was signed and her husband was released
from service.

Agnes herself wrote as follows:

     APHROS,

     _January 19, 1913._

     MY DEAR DOODLES,--I suppose you're awfully fed up with me; but he
     is such a perfect darling and so frightfully good-looking. He owns
     a lot of land and a castle in Aphros that belonged to the
     Venetians. His ancestors were Dukes of Aphros. He's an orphan and
     his name is--don't laugh--Phragkiskos (Francis!) Sommaripa. I
     shouldn't have married in such a tearing hurry if he hadn't been
     going to the front. I'm writing to mother and father, etc. I
     suppose they'll have fits; but I really don't believe there is such
     a place as Lonsdale Road any more. He told me I was another
     Aphrodite risen from the foam. Aphros is Greek for foam. I dare say
     it sounds rather exaggerated when written down, but when he said it
     with his foreign accent I collapsed in his arms. Oh, my dear, don't
     be cross when you come back with the yacht. Love to everybody on
     board.

     Your loving sister, AGNES SOMMARIPA.

The news of her sister's escapade--well, it was something more than an
escapade--affected Dorothy with a jealousy that she recognized for what
it was in time to prevent herself from betraying the emotion she felt;
so eager, indeed, was she to hide it that she proclaimed her approval of
what Agnes had done, and so emphatically that the dowager was much
agitated lest Bella should follow her example; but Bella did nothing
more alarming than to sit down forthwith in the saloon and begin a very
passionate and romantic story founded upon fact and drenched in local
color.

Meanwhile, the Italian governor of Rhodes was taking steps to assure
himself that _The Whirligig_ was not a Greek war-ship with evil designs
upon the Turkish population, which he was petting as a nurse pets a
child she has lately had the gratification of smacking. As soon as the
police spies guaranteed the harmlessness of the yacht the governor was
hospitable and invited the members of the party to shoot the red-legged
partridges and woodcock upon the Rhodian uplands. Tony, Bella, and
Tufton accepted the invitation; the dowager, fearful lest Bella should
envy the repose of some fascinating Turk's harem in the interior,
accompanied them in the motor-car as far as the road permitted, where
she alighted and passed the time in picking the red and purple anemones
that blew in myriads all around, until the sportsmen had killed enough
birds and were ready for lunch.

Houston suggested to Dorothy that they should take a walk round the town
while the others were away; she accepted, for she was anxious to shake
off this brooding jealousy which had oppressed her since the news in
Agnes's letter.

"I shouldn't worry myself about your sister," he was saying.

Dorothy frowned to think he should have read her thoughts so easily.

"I'm not worrying. I think she has done exactly right."

"Envying her, in fact," Houston added.

"Why should I envy her?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Don't we always rather envy the people who do things with such
decision? Don't we sometimes feel that we're wasting time?"

He said this so meaningly that Dorothy pretended not to hear what he had
said and looked up to admire the fortified gate of St. Catherine through
which they were passing.

"It's like Oxford!" she exclaimed.

Her jealousy of Agnes was stimulated by this comparison, for when they
came to the Street of the Knights she was reminded of that day when she
walked down the High with Sylvia, that Sunday afternoon which had been
the prelude of everything. How many years ago?

"O God!" she exclaimed, reverting in her manner, as she often used in
Houston's company, to that hard Vanity manner. "O God! I shall be
twenty-nine in March!"

"I'm over forty."

"But you're a man. What does your age matter?"

She was looking at him, and thinking while she spoke how ugly he was.
Perhaps he realized her thought, for his face darkened with that blush
of the very sallow complexion, that blush which seems more like a
bruise.

"You mean I'm too hideous?"

"Don't be silly. Let's explore this gateway."

They passed under a Gothic arch and found themselves in a cloistered
quadrangle, so much like a small Oxford college that only a tall palm
against the blue sky above the roofs told how far they were from Oxford.

"It's uncanny," said Dorothy. "How stupid Tony was to go off shooting
without first exploring the town. How stupid of him!"

Dorothy wanted her husband's presence as she had never wanted it; she
wanted to help the illusion that she was back in Oxford with all the
adventure of life before her. She wanted to see him here in this
familiar setting and revive ... what?

"I hope Agnes will be happy," she sighed.

Close by a couple of Jews in wasp-striped gabardines were arguing about
something in a mixture of Spanish and Yiddish; without thinking and
anxious only to get back to the present, Dorothy asked Houston if he
could understand what they were talking about. Again that dark blush
showed like a bruise.

"Why should I understand them?" he asked, savagely.

"No, of course. I really don't know," she stammered, in confusion, for
she was thinking how much better a gabardine would suit Houston than his
yachting-suit and how exactly his pendulous under lip resembled the
under lips of the two disputants. An odd fancy came into her mind that
she would rather like to be carried off by Houston, to be held in
captivity by him in the swarming ghetto through which they had picked
their way a few minutes ago, to sit peering mysteriously through the
lattice of some crazy balcony ... to surrender to some one strong and
Eastern and.... Oh, but this was absurd! The sun was hot in this
quadrangle; she was in an odd state; it must be that the news about
Agnes had upset her more than she had thought. At that moment her eyes
rested upon the broken headpiece of a tomb that was leaning against the
cloister, and she found herself reading in a dream: "Gilbert Clare of
Clarehaven. With God. 1501." The palm still swayed against the blue sky;
the Jews still chattered at one another. Dorothy looked round her with a
dazed expression, and then impulsively knelt down among the rubble that
surrounded the tombstone and read the words again: "Gilbert Clare of
Clarehaven. With God. 1501." The Italian curator of the museum that was
being formed in the old hospital drew near and explained to Dorothy in
French that this was the tombstone of an English knight.

"An ancestor of mine," Dorothy told him.

The curator smiled politely; being a Latin, he certainly did not believe
her.

"I've never seen you so much interested by anything," said Houston.

"I never have been so thrilled by anything," she declared. "Gilbert
Clare of Clarehaven! Clarehaven! And when he left it he must have often
thought of our little church on the headland; and when he died here, how
he must have longed to be at home."

"Does Clare mean very much to you?" Houston asked.

"_You_ could never imagine how much. For Clare I would do anything!"

"Anything? That's a rash statement."

"Anything," she repeated.

Houston tried to persuade the curator to let him have the tombstone for
Dorothy to take away with her; but the curator was shocked at such a
suggestion and explained that it was an unusual inscription--the
earliest of the kind in English that he knew; he should have expected
Latin at such a date.

The countess failed to rouse much enthusiasm in the earl about the tomb
of his ancestor, but the dowager was glad he was with God; Bella had a
subject for another story; and Tufton photographed it. The next day the
wind seemed likely to shift round into the north, and _The Whirligig_
left the exposed harbor, traveling past the mighty limestone cliffs of
the Dorian promontory, past Cos and many other islands, until once more
her anchor was dropped in the sheltered blue waters of Aphros.

There were interminable discussions at the house of Monsieur and Madame
Venieris; but there was no doubt whatever that Agnes was married.

"And do you know, my dear Doodles," her sister added, when they were
alone, "do you know I believe I'm already going to have a baby?"

Dorothy could stand no more; but when she begged that all speed should
be made for England there came a series of breathless days during which
Tony stalked the mouflon on the heights of Antaphros. In the end he
actually did hit one, and though it fell at the foot of a difficult
precipice he scrambled down somehow, raised the carcass with ropes, and
rowed triumphantly away with it to the yacht. Houston tossed him double
or quits for the sovereign he had won; Tony won five tosses in
succession and thirty-two pounds.

"My luck's in," he shouted, gleefully. "Come on, Houston, full speed
ahead. I want to see my horses again."

When the yacht reached Plymouth the whole party went ashore and traveled
up to Clare.

"Yes," Houston admitted to Dorothy, "I can understand the appeal this
sort of thing must have for anybody. It must be glorious here in summer.
I suppose the deer look after themselves? Yes, it's a wonderful old
place."

A week after their guests had left Tony and Dorothy followed them to
London.

"Oh, by the way, Doodles," said Tony at Paddington, "I ought to have
explained before, but I've got a little surprise for you. I had to sell
one hundred and twenty-nine. I was offered a nailing good price."

"And where are we going to live?" she asked.

"Well, that's the surprise. You'll never guess. I've taken your old flat
in Halfmoon Street."

Dorothy looked at Tony.

"You're not angry?" he asked.

"I think I'm past anger," she said, dully.

While they were driving to their new abode Dorothy decided that it would
be easy to convince her family that such a romantic marriage was the
right thing for Agnes, because her arguments would come from the depths
of her heart.

"And _I_ shall be twenty-nine in March," she kept thinking.

"Of course I kept all your favorite things," Tony was saying. "I sold
the rest. The pictures fetched a deuced poor price. I hope that if the
Clare pictures ever have to go I shall have more luck with them."

"I wonder you don't offer to sell me," said Dorothy, bitterly.

He squeezed her arm affectionately.

"Sha'n't have to do that just yet awhile. I'm going to have a lucky
year. I felt that when I pipped that mouflon. Ever since I broke the
glass at one hundred and twenty-nine I've been deuced uneasy. As soon as
the house was sold I began winning at écarté, and then I pipped that
mouflon."


V

The sale of the house in Curzon Street revived all Dorothy's worst
fears. If Tony could successfully hide from her knowledge such a
transaction he was capable of announcing one day that Clare itself was
gone. Life had not offered much stability since that fatal June except
for the brief period when Tony's career upon the turf had accorded with
the traditions of his order and had seemed to possess the dignity that
confers itself automatically upon those who put forth their hands to
claim their due, her existence had been periodically shaken like a town
in the shadow of a volcano. Was not his marriage judged from the outside
a contribution to failure similar to the running of Moonbeam in the
Derby? Was she herself much more than a disappointing race-horse? She
had failed to keep her classic engagements at Clare; she had failed to
carry her weight in the big handicap at Curzon Street. Was the flat in
Halfmoon Street a selling-plate? Oh, this flat, how it was haunted with
the ghosts of old ambitions! The color schemes and patterns of the
chintz might be different, but how familiarly the bells rang, how
familiar was the sound of the doors opening and shutting, and the light
upon her dressing-table ... and the rumble of the traffic ... leading
whither?

"Tony, what _do_ you want?" she asked, passionately, one morning when
the sparrows were maddening her with their monotonous chirping praise of
the sunshine.

"I want to win the Derby," he said.

"And lose everything else, even me?" she asked.

"And lose nothing," he maintained, obstinately. "Starkey fears nothing."

Starkey feared nothing! Starkey with his long, thin nose and red hair!

By now two of Tony's yearlings stood out well above the rest. Of these a
bay colt by Cyllene out of Midsummer Night and, therefore, a
half-brother of Moonbeam, had run well in the Brocklesby Stakes at
Lincoln, still better in the Westminster Plate at the Epsom Spring
Meeting, and had cantered away with the Spring Two-year-old Stakes at
Newmarket. He was considered to be a certainty for the Woodcote Stakes;
but on Starkey's advice Tony ran instead a chestnut filly by Spearmint
out of Blushrose, who won with considerable ease, beating horses that
had shown up well in the previous races. Clarehaven was jubilant;
Starkey feared nothing; they had next year's Derby in their hands. It
had been just after this last victory that Tony had affirmed his only
ambition in life to be the Derby. At Ascot, still running unnamed, the
filly won the Coventry Stakes; half an hour afterward Moonbeam took the
Ascot Stakes by five lengths, and two days later, starting as an odds on
favorite, he won the Gold Cup without being extended; finally on the
same day the Midsummer Night colt won the New Stakes and was named Full
Moon, for certainly the fortunes of Clare seemed in their complement.

"There's never been such an Ascot," said Tony to his wife.

Houston had had to go to South Africa soon after he returned from the
Mediterranean cruise; while he was still away, Tony's luck touched its
zenith when Moonbeam won the Eclipse Stakes at Sandown Park.

"Though it's lucky Mr. Houston sold Chimpanzee to that Australian
syndicate," said Starkey. "Because I give you my word, my lord, that
Chimpanzee was a better horse than Moonbeam, just as the filly is better
than the colt."

"I think you're wrong about Moonbeam," Tony argued, "though you may be
right about the filly."

When Houston reached England in July he motored down to Winsley with the
Clarehavens to discuss future plans with the trainer, and when the old
argument about the respective merits of Chimpanzee and Moonbeam began,
as usual, he laughed, saying that for him the discussion was a barren
one, because after this Derby victory he did not intend to tempt fortune
any more.

"I wish you could persuade Tony to follow your example," said Dorothy.

"Don't be silly, old thing. I haven't won the Derby yet," Tony
proclaimed, in a hurt voice.

"Don't be afraid, my lord; you can't lose it next year, not if you
tried. Of course I'm not going to say yet for certain whether it'll be
with the colt or with the filly; but I think it'll be with the filly."

"Which reminds me," said Tony. "We haven't given the lady a name yet."

"Why not Vanity Girl?" Houston suggested.

"Of course," Tony shouted, gleefully. "Vanity Girl she is."

Dorothy protested that the name would bring bad luck and begged for
Mignonette instead.

"Mignonette won a race at Liverpool only yesterday," said the trainer.

"But there must be plenty of other names that haven't been used,"
Dorothy insisted. "As we've got the Full Moon of Clare, why shouldn't we
call the filly Supporting Angel?"

"Well," said Mr. Starkey, "with her ladyship's permission, I prefer
Vanity Girl. It sounds like a winner."

Tony and Houston were emphatically in favor of Vanity Girl, and the
filly was named accordingly. Dorothy stayed behind to contemplate the
beautiful creature in her box, the fair, shimmering creature lately
anonymous and now burdened with what was surely a title of ill omen.

"But you have no ambitions," said Dorothy. "If you fail you won't mind.
What do you care about your purple clothing with its black border and
its silver coronet?"

Dorothy left the dim, cool stable and emerged into the glare of the July
noon. She felt sad about the filly's name, and, unwilling to meet the
others until she had recovered from her depression, she walked away from
Starkey Lodge, walked up the sloping single street of the little village
of Winsley, the houses of which seemed to have drifted like leaves into
this cranny of the bare downs. At the top of the street the village
ended abruptly where a white road ran like a line of foam between a sea
of grass that stretched skyward to right and left until the horizon
faded into the summer haze.

"Thirty next March," said Dorothy, aloud. "And what have I done with my
life?"

She envied the thistledown that floated by, envied its busy air and
effect of traveling whither it would; compared with those winged seeds
the blue butterflies seemed as irresolute and timorous of the future as
herself ... herself.... A voice shouted that lunch was waiting, and
there was Tony waving to her from the road. Lunch was waiting for
herself; but for that thistledown what was waiting? Dorothy's clear-cut
personality was becoming blurred; she never used to speculate about
thistledown in cloud cuckoo land. Everybody noticed the change. Some had
heard that there really was something between Dorothy Clarehaven and
that fellow Houston; others knew for a positive fact that Tony
Clarehaven neglected his wife; and all the women decided that she must
be well over thirty by now.

Tony began to bet recklessly as soon as Houston returned, and by the
autumn he was again in difficulties. Moonbeam failed to give two stone
to a smart three-year-old in the Jockey Club Stakes, and he lost much
more than Full Moon had made for him by winning the Boscawen Stakes the
day before. But there had been no purchase at Tattersall's, no ambitious
yearlings from Doncaster, for Tony had given his word to Dorothy that
after next year's Derby he would retire from racing. In fact, to show
that this time he was in earnest he sold all his horses except the two
sons of Cyllene and Vanity Girl. The filly had just won a severe trial
and on Starkey's advice was preferred to Full Moon for the Middle Park
Plate. She was heavily backed, started a hot favorite, and was not
placed. Tony declined to accept her running as true and backed her
heavily to win the Dewhurst Plate. O'Hara was brought over from France
to ride her, and she was again unplaced. Some people declared she was no
stayer, some that her victories at Epsom and Ascot had been flukes;
others spoke of coughing in the Starkey Lodge Stables; a few murmured
that a coup for next year's Derby was being carefully engineered.

"I knew it would bring bad luck to call her Vanity Girl," Dorothy
lamented. "Sell her. Get rid of her. Get rid of them all."

"Sell the Derby winner?" Tony ejaculated. "My dear Doodles, you surely
must realize that her form at Newmarket was too bad to be true. If she
can beat Full Moon at home, and if Full Moon can beat the winner of the
Middle Park as he did in the Boscawen Stakes, one or other of them
_must_ win the Derby. We'll see how they winter. Meanwhile I've sold
Moonbeam to Houston. He paid me twenty-six thousand pounds. He intends
to start a stud; I'm bound to say he got my horse cheap; whatever
Starkey says, Chimpanzee would never have beaten him again; but I wanted
the money."

"I'm sorry you've had to sell Moonbeam, but do sell Vanity Girl, too.
Don't bet any more on any of them. Run Full Moon for the Derby, and if
he wins be content with that. Then we could start a stud at Clare
ourselves. But do get rid of Vanity Girl."

She felt as the dowager must have felt when she was trying to dissuade
Tony from marrying an actress; she instanced every disadvantage she
could think of for the filly; but Tony was obstinate.

They were going out that afternoon to the Pierian Hall. Sylvia Scarlett,
after over two years' absence in America, had returned to England and
suddenly taken the fancy of the public with a new form of entertainment
that was considered very futurist. Dorothy did not think that her
performance deserved all the praise it had received, but she felt
jealous of Sylvia's success and, turning to Tony in the interval, said,
fiercely, that sometimes she wished she had never married him.

"I should have done better to stick to the stage," she vowed.

"If you're wishing you hadn't married me because you'd like to be doing
this sort of thing," said Tony, "you can spare your regrets. This, my
dear Doodles, is the rottenest show I ever saw in my life."

"But it's a success."

"Only because it's so devilish peculiar. If I walked down Bond Street in
pajamas I should attract a certain amount of attention the first time I
did it, but people would get used to it, and I should soon be forgotten.
By the way, would you like to send round a card?"

"No, no," said Dorothy. "I've seen quite enough of her from where we
are."

"Don't get bitter, Doodles. I don't know what's come over you lately.
You seem to hate everything and everybody."

That winter was a miserable one, because Tony took to baccarat again,
and, having been accustomed to bet on the turf in large sums, he carried
his methods to the tables with such recklessness that Dorothy, unable to
stand the strain, left him in London and went down to Clare. She had a
notion to kill herself out hunting, but even in this she was
unsuccessful, for in February all the hunters, including Mignonette,
were sold. Moreover, at the end of the month a valuer arrived with an
authorization from Tony to complete the details for a forthcoming
auction of the whole property as it stood, pictures and all. Dorothy
hastened up to London and demanded what was the matter.

"The matter is that I've got to sell Clare."

"Sell Clare?" she repeated. "I suppose you mean mortgage it?"

"Mortgage it? It's mortgaged already."

"But you paid that off."

"Yes, once. But you don't suppose that I've always got money handy?" he
asked, petulantly. "Some damned firm has bought up all my bills; I'm
being pressed all round; and the Jews won't lend me another farthing."

"Then you must sell the horses."

"The Derby winner? They're my only chance of keeping out of the
bankruptcy court. They're all we have, Doodles."

"You have Clare."

"How can I pay the interest on the mortgages and live at Clare? Try to
be a little reasonable. I've got a good offer, and the money will come
in very handy for the final plunge."

"You're mad."

"All right. I'm mad."

"But your mother?"

"I've given Greenish notice to leave Cherrington Cottage and I'm
reserving that from the sale."

"But what will your mother live on?"

"Oh, of course her jointure will be paid. Besides, I tell you that this
season with Full Moon and Vanity Girl I simply can't go wrong. The
mistake I made was playing baccarat with my ready cash."

"Won't Houston help you?"

"My dear Doodles, it's Houston who's going to buy Clare."

She was silent before the revelation of what for long she had surmised.
The quadrangle of the hospital in Rhodes where she had admitted openly
that for Clare she would do anything flashed upon her vision, and the
thought of that Oriental patience practised for so long terrified her.
His desire for her must have been kindled years ago, a desire that, once
kindled, had been fed by the will to revenge himself for being what he
was upon Clarehaven for being what _he_ was. It was Houston who had
subtly helped his rival along the road to ruin, taking him by the arm as
it were to the edge of the precipice and toppling him over. Now it was
her place to interview this enemy, plead with him, entreat him to be
content with what he had done already ... but of what use would
entreaties be? Of no use except to stimulate the lust of victory.

"You can't sell Clare to Houston," she was saying, mechanically, lest
her silence should be noticed. "You can't sell Clare to Houston," she
was repeating; and then she was off again, chasing the excited, restless
ideas in her brain until she should have driven them like poultry into a
corner and be able to pick the victim that should serve her best. Yes,
yes, if Houston really did covet her, she still had a chance to preserve
Clare. There was no weaker adversary for a woman whose heart was
untouched than a man who was madly in love ... no weaker adversary....
Should she write to Houston and give him the idea that by pressing her
hard he could win? In the past she had known how to cook a dozen geese
in fierce ovens without cooking her own by mistake, without even
burning her fingers. If Houston had waited years, he would surely be
willing to risk a few more weeks.

"You can't sell Clare to Houston," she said, once more.

"For God's sake, don't go on repeating that like a parrot," said Tony.
"I'm going round to settle the matter now."

A few moments later the door of the flat slammed behind him. Houston
lived in Albany, not five minutes away, and Dorothy went across to the
telephone.

"Yes? Who's speaking?"

"Dorothy Clarehaven. Listen," she said, hurriedly. "Once you lent me
money, or at any rate you helped me make money, and you were always very
decent about it. Won't you do the same thing again? You know that Tony
is putting everything on the ability of one of our two horses to win the
Derby. Tell me--there's every reason to suppose he will win the
Derby--why shouldn't you lend him enough to prevent his selling Clare?"

"Why not, indeed?" said Mr. Houston. "But what's the security?"

"Aren't the horses a security?"

"Horses are very capricious, almost as capricious as women."

"Would you prefer a woman as security?" she asked, trying to rake up
from nine years ago a coquetry that had once been so profitable. It was
easier by telephone. "Supposing I offered myself as security?"

So much was she playing a part of long ago that instinctively she had
used her old invincible gesture of lightly touching a man's sleeve. That
also was easier by telephone.

"I could lend a good deal," twanged the voice of the buyer along the
wires. "I could lend a good deal."

"Very well then," said Dorothy. "Lend _me_ the money."

"By telephone? Not good enough. Come, come, let's be frank, let's be
brutally frank. You know you're worth twenty Derby winners to me; but,
as I said, women are more capricious than horses. I'm no longer a
schoolboy. Are you in earnest or not?"

"Of course I'm in earnest," she said. "Why should you think I wasn't?"

"So much in earnest that you'll come to my rooms this afternoon and tell
me so?"

"Yes, if you like," she replied, without hesitating. "But you must prove
to me that you're in earnest too. Send me something on account."

"How much do you want?"

"Oh, I don't know," she said. "About fifty thousand pounds I suppose."

Dorothy's sense of proportion about large sums of money had been
destroyed by her husband's extravagant betting. When one lives with a
man who will win £50,000 at Ascot and lose it all and more the following
week, it is difficult to preserve a table of comparative values. She
supposed that £50,000 would represent about half the price of Clare, and
the importance she attributed to Clare gave money such a relative
unimportance that she saw nothing even faintly ridiculous in demanding a
sum of this magnitude from Houston. Perhaps he was impressed by the size
of her demand into believing that she really was in earnest about
accepting his proposals; even a financier like himself might be excused
for supposing that a woman, one of the most beautiful women in England
and a countess to boot, does not ask for £50,000 without being in
earnest. At the same time it appealed to his sense of humor that any
woman, even England's most beautiful countess, should ask for £50,000 by
telephone.

"Why, it's not even a note of hand," he chuckled, and his laugh,
traveling from Albany to Halfmoon Street along the wires, lost its mirth
on the way and reached Dorothy with the sound of a dropped banjo.

"Well, I must have something to prove you're in earnest," she argued,
fiercely. "Tony is on his way to see you now. He'll be with you in
another minute. Tell him that as a friend you can't let him sell Clare.
Offer him enough to tide him over the Derby. I'm willing to risk
everything on that."

"Are you trying to tell me that if Clarehaven pulls off the Derby our
arrangement is canceled? Ring off. Nothing doing, dear lady."

Away in Albany she heard a bell shrill; it was like a prompter's warning
of the play's ending.

"That's Tony now," she cried. "Do what I ask. Give him enough. He'll say
how much is necessary for the moment. Lend it to him on the security of
Clare. Buy up his mortgages. Do what you like, and if Tony comes back
with Clare still his, at any rate until he has lost all or saved all on
the Derby, I'll come to Albany this afternoon and thank you."

"Tangibly?" murmured Houston.

"Tangibly."

Her agitated breath had so bedewed the mouthpiece that when with
trembling hands she replaced the holder it was like being released from
a kiss.


VI

Tony came back from his visit to Houston in a temper of serene optimism.

"Well, Doodles," he cried, gaily, "I've saved Clare for you."

"Oh, you've saved Clare, have you?" She could not resist a slight
accentuation of the pronoun, but he did not notice it.

"Yes, Houston was very decent. I told him how much I hated getting rid
of the old place, and he was very decent. Of course he knows from
Starkey that the Derby is a certainty and that in Full Moon and Vanity
Girl I've got the two best three-year-olds in England."

"You're still infatuated with the filly?"

"Now wait a minute. Don't begin arguing till you hear what's been
decided. Houston is going to lend me enough cash to pay off the present
mortgages of Clare, and when that is done I'm going to mortgage the
place to him on the understanding that if I don't settle up on the
Monday after the Derby he takes immediate possession. I told him that I
should want some ready money, and he offers to buy whichever horse I
don't run in the Derby."

"Then sell him Vanity Girl," said Dorothy, quickly. She could hardly
refrain from adding, "One of us he must have."

"Don't be in such a hurry. At present Full Moon has engagements in the
Two Thousand Guineas and the Derby, also in the Grand Prix and the
Leger. Vanity Girl is entered for the Thousand Guineas, the Derby, and
the Oaks. I shall run Full Moon for the Guineas; if he wins he will be
the Derby favorite. In that case I shall scratch Vanity Girl for the
Thousand Guineas, and we'll have a secret trial at Winsley. Houston
hasn't taken Moonbeam away yet, and Starkey is to put him into strong
work for this trial. If Full Moon shows up best in the trial I shall
sell Vanity Girl to Houston, who will run her in the Oaks; then I shall
back Full Moon for the Derby till the cows come home. But if, as Starkey
thinks and as I think, Vanity Girl is the goods, Houston is to have Full
Moon for ten thousand pounds as soon as I've scratched him for the
Derby. I don't want to scratch him until I've got my money out on the
filly, but I shall get busy quickly, and the public will have plenty of
time to know which horse I think is going to win. Then you and I,
Doodles dear, will retire from the turf and live ever afterward at
Clare."

"And if Full Moon doesn't win the Guineas?"

"Oh, I've thought of that. In that case I shall run Vanity Girl in the
Thousand Guineas, declare to win with either in the Derby, and Houston
is to have his pick after the race for ten thousand pounds."

"And you've thought out all this wonderful and complicated plan of
campaign?"

"Not entirely," Tony admitted.

"Not at all," said Dorothy, sharply. "You know perfectly well that
Houston thought out every detail of it."

She wondered if a man who could juggle like this with the future of
horses might not be equally expert with women. But no, he wanted the
woman; he did not want the horses. She sent a note round to Albany
saying that a bad headache kept her at home that afternoon, but that she
fully appreciated the good will he had just shown and that she hoped to
see him at dinner to-morrow. She knew that she could not keep Houston at
arm's-length indefinitely, but if she could keep him there until, at any
rate, Clare was temporarily safe she should have a breathing-space until
June. Then if Tony lost the Derby, she should have to offer herself to
preserve Clare; but if he won, she and Clare would both be saved.

"God!" she cried to her soul, "with me it always seems that June is to
decide everything."

When the following night Houston reproached her for breaking the
appointment of yesterday she reminded him that he, too, had only made
promises so far; but when Houston kept his word and freed Clare until
the settling day after Epsom, she still held back.

"You'll appreciate me all the more for being kept waiting."

"I've waited years," he said.

"I'll go for a drive with you to-morrow."

So it went on until the week before the Guineas.

"You're trying to fool me. You think you can get something for nothing
as easily now as you could when you were at the Vanity."

"Be reasonable, my dear man," she begged. "Your money is perfectly safe.
What are you risking? If Tony loses the Derby you win me the moment you
put in my hands the title-deeds of Clare. If Tony wins the Derby...."
She let her deep-brown eyes gaze into his.

"Kiss me," said Houston. "Kiss me once and I'll believe you."

A good lady's maid is bound to enjoy a considerable amount of intimacy
in her relationship with her mistress; no lover is allowed as much.
Dorothy from youth had trained her kisses to be her servants; they had
always served her well, and if a degree of intimacy was unavoidable it
was always the intimacy of a servant, which does not count. One of these
kisses she summoned to her aid now.

Tony proposed that Lonsdale should drive them down to Newmarket for the
Guineas, but Lonsdale said he was booked to fly on that day.

"You never come near us now," said Dorothy, reproachfully.

"I can't stand that fellow Houston. I can't think how you can bear him
around all the time."

"He's very amusing," said Dorothy.

"So's a bishop in a bathing-dress. If you want amusement you can get
plenty of it," Lonsdale growled, "without having to depend on a fellow
like that."

Tufton, who was as sensitive as a tress of seaweed to the atmosphere,
had also neglected his old friends recently, and Dorothy knew by his
manner that people must now be talking very hard about herself and
Houston.

Tony kept his promise not to bet heavily on the result of the Guineas,
and Full Moon's win did not do more than keep quiet a certain number of
low-class creditors who had for some time been supplying Lord and Lady
Clarehaven with such trifles as wine, food, and clothes. However, the
win did seem to make the Derby a certainty for the stable; Full Moon and
Vanity Girl, unlike Moonbeam, had both won at Epsom as two-year-olds,
and if Vanity Girl could beat Full Moon, surely no horse in England
could beat her on a course to which she had already shown her
partiality. When the filly did not appear in the Thousand Guineas the
quidnuncs, the how-nows, and the what-nots of the turf said she had
wintered disappointingly and that she would never be seen in the Oaks.
There was scarcely a sporting paper that did not assure its readers that
they would soon hear of Vanity Girl's having been scratched for both the
Derby and the Oaks. She was a flier, but a non-stayer, and the Stewards'
Cup at Goodwood was her journey.

At the same time the quidnuncs, the how-nows, and the what-nots of the
turf were puzzled to find that after Full Moon's victory in the Guineas
no money from Starkey Lodge seemed to be going on the colt's chances for
the Derby. All the touts set hard to work to solve what was called the
Starkey Lodge Puzzle; Winsley and the hamlets round were frequented by
inquisitive men whose pockets were bulging with sheaves of telegraph
forms.

"They think we've got something up our sleeves," said the trainer to the
owner. It was half past four o'clock of a morning early in May; Tony,
Dorothy, Houston, and Starkey had just taken up their positions to watch
the trial that was to decide which horse should carry the Clarehaven
colors a month hence. They had motored down to Winsley the night before;
and under a cold sky of turquoise scattered with pearls and amethysts
they had ridden up here at dawn; but when their clothing had been taken
off the horses, heads had popped up like rabbits from behind every
hillock along the course.

"No good running it this morning," said the trainer, shouting some abuse
at the touts and galloping his hack in the direction of the horses.

The sun was now well about the rounded edge of the downs; the air of the
morning was lustrous and scented with young grass upon which the dew lay
like golden wine.

"You can't get up too early for these touts," Starkey told them at
breakfast, "and if we want to know where we are for the Derby a bit
before any one else, we'll have to run the trial by moonlight. I'll keep
'em on the hop all the day before and tire some of these Nosey Parkers
into staying at home for once in their lives."

Dorothy was never sorry of an excuse to spend a few days with the
horses. They had caused her so much misery; but she had no ill will when
she saw them.

"Yes," said the trainer. "A moonlight trial. That's the ticket. What
with Full Moon and Moonbeam you can't say it isn't highly suitable. I'm
not going to pretend that Moonbeam is up to his best form. Thinking Mr.
Houston was going to take him to the stud, I only began putting him into
strong work a month ago. So I thought we'd run them at weights for sex,
and put in a couple of good handicappers belonging to Mr. Ginsberg to
make a bit of a field."

At two o'clock there was the clank of a pail in the stable-yard,
followed by a low murmur of voices and the grumble of the big yard gates
being cautiously opened. Presently the team emerged and walked slowly up
the village street, where half a dozen touts were fast asleep, because
they must be up at dawn to haunt the entrance to the Starkey Lodge
Stables. By the magic of the moon the horses in their clothing were
turned into the caparisoned steeds of knights-at-arms setting forth upon
a romantic quest. Dorothy, Houston, Tony, and the trainer followed on
hacks; and even when far out of hearing of the most vigilant tout they
continued to talk in half-tones. So breathless was the night that the
thundering of the hoofs coming nearer and nearer over the turf seemed to
vibrate the stars, and Dorothy had a fancy that presently all the people
in the little villages below the rim of the downs would wake and run
with lanterns up here to know if the moon had fallen down upon the great
world.

Vanity Girl won the trial; Moonbeam was second; the winner of the
Guineas was third.

"Well, I hope that's decisive enough," said Tony, gleefully. "Starkey,
you were right!"

He and the trainer moved off in excited conversation. Houston took
Dorothy's hand, and she did not try to withdraw it from his grasp;
Vanity Girl was going to win the Derby; Clare would be safe in June; she
should be safe in June. The benevolent moon, quite undisturbed by all
this mad nocturnal galloping, gazed blandly at Dorothy's complaisance;
she would not have put a cloud up to her face for much more than that,
the unscrupulous old bawd.

A week later the following paragraph appeared in one of the sporting
weeklies:

                       THE STARKEY LODGE PUZZLE

     Rumor says that the young Earl of Clarehaven, who has recently had
     very heavy losses on the turf, positively intends to capture the
     Derby this year. It was only a few months ago that we had to
     condole with the gallant young nobleman on the sad necessity which
     forced him to sell that great horse Moonbeam last year to the
     well-known South African capitalist, Mr. Lionel Houston, who
     indorsed the public view that Moonbeam's defeat in the Derby by his
     own horse Chimpanzee was not true form when he sold Chimpanzee to
     an Australian syndicate of breeders and bought Moonbeam for the
     stud he is now forming, and which we have no doubt will give many
     famous new names to the history of English racing. But our readers'
     present concern is what is popularly known as the Starkey Lodge
     Puzzle. We have the highest authority for saying that this is no
     longer a puzzle. At an important trial held in great secrecy on the
     Starkey Lodge training-grounds it was conclusively established that
     Vanity Girl is more than likely to give the Blue Riband of the turf
     to Lord Clarehaven and console him for the failure of Moonbeam. It
     will interest our readers from the smallest punter upward to hear
     that Full Moon, the victor of the Two Thousand Guineas and the
     present Derby favorite, will not run at Epsom, having been sold
     like his half-brother to Mr. Lionel Houston, who no doubt intends
     to keep him for the St. Leger, a race which he is ambitious of
     winning. We need scarcely point out to our readers the obvious tip
     for this year's Derby, and we do not hesitate to plump right out
     for Vanity Girl as the winner. We were the only paper to advise our
     readers not to back Full Moon until the intentions of the stable
     were a little plainer, and to all those who failed to follow our
     advice we can only say, "I told you so." Lord Clarehaven has done
     well to scratch the winner of the Guineas, for there is no doubt
     that if both the colt and his stable companion had faced the
     starter at Epsom the public would have followed the son of Cyllene.
     As it is, we confidently expect to see Vanity Girl a raging
     favorite before the week is out, and we may remind our readers that
     Lord Clarehaven's beautiful chestnut has already shown that she
     likes the Epsom course by winning the Woodcote Stakes last year.
     Her running at Newmarket last autumn may be discounted. We happened
     to know that the stable was coughing; as we have hinted, the
     gallant young nobleman who sports the black, white, and purple was
     very hard hit by her defeats, and this expression of renewed
     confidence in the chestnut daughter of Spearmint cannot be
     disregarded.

The people who had hurried to put their money on Full Moon grumbled
loudly; but the public appreciated the clear lead that Tony had given
them. He had put his own money on Vanity Girl before the result of the
trial leaked out, and though he had obtained tens against the first two
thousand he wagered, the news ran round the clubs so quickly that even
before the public was warned by the scratching of Full Moon that Vanity
Girl was the hope of Clare, he was finding it hard to get fours against
the filly; after that her price shortened to five to two; in the week
before the race it was only six to four; in the ring on the day itself
not a bookmaker was risking more than eleven to ten, and with money
still pouring in faster than ever she seemed likely to start at odds on,
an unprecedented price for a horse that had not been seen in public
since two consecutive defeats in the autumn of the year before. The
public could not be blamed for their eagerness to back the filly. It was
generally known that Clarehaven either had to win the Derby or be
ruined, and if he preferred Vanity Girl to the winner of the Guineas at
such a crisis in his affair she must indeed be sure of her success. If
the public had known that even his wife's honor was in pawn besides his
house and his lands they could not have been more confident.

"If Vanity Girl fails," Dorothy asked, on the morning of the race, "you
won't have a halfpenny left?"

"I might have an odd hundred pounds," Tony reckoned.

"And your mother--and Bella?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"I suppose Uncle Chat will look after them."

"And us?"

"Oh, we'll emigrate or something. Rather fun, don't you know. I shall
wangle something. The going will be hardish," he said, looking at the
sky, "and that's always in her favor. She hated that Newmarket mud last
autumn. Come on, Doodles, the car's waiting."

They walked down the steps of the flat, and the porter who had hurried
out to shut the door of the car touched his cap.

"Good luck, my lady! Good luck, my lord! Shepherd's Market is on Vanity
Girl to the last copper."

"Put on a sovereign for yourself, Galloway," said his lordship, grandly
proffering the coin.

Several loafers who had sometimes run for his lordship's cabs shouted,
"Hurrah for the Derby favorite!" and Tony flung them some silver to back
his filly. The road to Epsom was thronged; Tony, who was obviously
feeling nervous, had left the driving to the chauffeur, and was sitting
back with Dorothy in the body of the car.

"I think Lonnie might have come with us," he said, fretfully.

"Does it bore you so much driving with me alone?" she asked.

"Don't be silly! Of course not. But I'm nervy and.... Oh, but what rot!
Nothing can go wrong."

They were passing a four-in-hand with loud toots upon their Gabriel
horn, which were being answered by the guard of the coach, when he
suddenly recognized the occupants of the car. Standing up, he blew a
dear "Viewhalloo!" and shouted: "Berkshire's on the filly, my lord, to
the last baby! Hurrah for Vanity Girl!" There was a block in the
traffic; the occupants of every vehicle in earshot, from the gray hats
and laces of the four-in-hand to the pearlies and plumes of a coster's
cart, applauded the earl and countess, each after his own fashion.

"Don't forget the Mile End Road, Mr. Hearl of Clarehaven," bawled one of
the costers, "if that's who you are. Hoobeeluddiray!" he went on, and
caught his moke an ecstatic thwack on the crupper.

In the ring friends and acquaintances crowded round them, eager to say
how they had backed Vanity Girl and how fervently they hoped for her
victory. There was no doubt that if the filly was beaten a groan of
disappointment would resound through England.

"I think it's so sweet that Lord Clarehaven's horse should be called
Vanity Girl," some foolish woman was babbling. "So sweet and romantic,"
she twittered on.

"Yes, what devotion," chirped another as foolish.

Tony wanted to go round to the paddock to have a few last words with
Starkey and the jockey O'Hara, but Dorothy did not think she could bear
to see the filly before the race.

"I'm so nervous," she said, "that I feel I should communicate my nerves
to her. But don't you bother about me. I'll wait for you in the
inclosure."

"Where's Houston?" said Tony, irritably. "I thought he was going to meet
us."

At that moment a messenger-boy came up. "Are you the Earl of
Clarehaven?" he asked, perkily, and handed Tony a note, which the latter
read out:

     "DEAR CLAREHAVEN,--To what will I'm sure be my lifelong regret,
     important business prevents me from being at Epsom to see your
     triumph. Believe me, my dear fellow, that there is no one who hopes
     more cordially than I do for your success to-day. My kindest
     regards to your wife and tell her from me that I'm looking forward
     to our Derby dinner at the Carlton to-night.

     Yours ever sincerely,

     LIONEL HOUSTON."

"Funny chap! But I believe he's sincere," Tony muttered, "though it
would be all to his interest if I lost."

But how much to his interest, Dorothy thought, how little did Tony know.

She waited for him in the company of the twittering women until he
returned from the paddock.

"They're going down now," he told her.

"Everything all right?" she asked.

"Yes, yes." He was biting his nails and cursing the focusing
arrangements of his field-glasses.

"They're off!"

The roar of the crowd was like a mighty storm within which isolated
remarks were heard like the spars of a ship going one by one.

"She isn't finding it so easy."

"He's taking her into the rails too soon."

"My God! I wouldn't lay sixpence there won't be an objection for
crossing. Did you see that?"

"Go on, Vanity Girl! Go on!"

"Go on, you blasted favorite!"

"She's swishing her tail."

"No, she's not. That's ... yes, it's her. Vanity Girl! Vanity Girl!"

"Go on, Vanity Girl!"

The roaring died down to a suppressed murmur of agitation.

"What's the matter with the favorite?"

"O'Hara's flogging her along."

The horses flashed past the stand with the black, white and purple of
Clarehaven twinkling in the ruck like a setting star.

"Tony!" Dorothy screamed. "She's beaten!"

"Oh well," said the owner, "don't make such a noise about it."

He was smiling a foolish, fixed smile, but he let his glasses drop from
his hands on the toes of a lady close by.

"I'm very sorry, ma'am," said Tony, raising his hat. "I hope I didn't
hurt you."

The injured lady glared at him; it was her first Derby, and perhaps she
did not realize that it mattered who won or lost.

"Come on, Doodles," said Tony. "Home. For God's sake, let's get home."

He would not wait to hear any explanation of the filly's defeat, but
pushed his way savagely through the crowd to find the car.

"Gorblime!" a ragged vender of unauthorized race-cards was ejaculating
near the garage. "Gor strike me blurry well pink! She'd make a blurry
tortoise crick his blurry neck looking round to see why she was dawdling
behind. Race-horse? Why, I reckon a keb-horse could give her three stone
and win in a blurry canter, I do. Vanity Girl? Vanity Bitch, that's what
she ought to have been called."


VII

The news of the defeat had already reached Halfmoon Street, and Galloway
inclined his head when they passed quickly from the car into the hall of
the flats, as if his patrons were returning from a funeral.

"We must telephone round to the Carlton to say that the dinner is off,"
said Tony; even that small action he left to his wife, himself sitting
for the rest of the evening mute of speech, but drumming upon the table
with his fingers or sometimes tambourinating upon an ash-tray. His
dinner consisted of anchovy sandwiches washed down by brandy. There was
no word from Houston, and Dorothy supposed that he was waiting to hear
from her. "Going! Going! Clare! Clare! Clare!" The auctioneer's hammer
seemed to be striking her temples, and, passing her hand over her
forehead, she realized that it was only Tony who was drumming upon the
table or tambourinating upon the ash-tray. She went to bed before he did
and, lying awake in the rosy light of the reading-lamp, she wondered if,
perhaps, he would try to forget this day in her arms, half hoped he
would, and picked up the hand-mirror beside her bed to see how she was
looking. He must have sat up drinking till very late--she had fallen
asleep and did not hear him come to bed--and in the morning his eyes
were bloodshot, his razor tremulous.

The letter-box was choked with bills; but there were several letters of
condolence, and a reminder of the Day of Judgment from an enthusiastic
enemy of the turf who, with ill-concealed relish, advised his lordship
to observe the hand of God in the retribution which had been meted out
to him and to turn away from his wickedness. Finally there were letters
from O'Hara, the jockey, and Houston.

     EPSOM SUMMER MEETING 1914.

     _Wednesday evening._

     MY LORD,--I had hoped to have a few words with your lordship after
     the race, but was told you already left the course. I was intending
     to say that I could not go through what I suffered to-day on
     Friday, and would be obliged if your lordship wouldn't insist I
     would ride Vanity Girl in the Oaks. My lord, the filly is tired,
     and I wouldn't say another race mightn't kill her dead. It's not
     for me to give advice to your lordship, but how you ever come to
     run her in the Derby I don't know. She never was a stayer. I saw
     that plainly enough last autumn at Newmarket. I'm going back to
     France as soon as I hear from your lordship you won't run her in
     the Oaks. I'm engaged to ride Full Moon in the Grand Prix by Mr.
     Houston, and I hope I won't have to suffer what I suffered this
     afternoon. It's enough to make a jockey chuck riding for good and
     all.

     I am,

     Your lordship's obedient servant,

     PATRICK O'HARA.

     Pardon me if I've written a bit unfeelingly. It wasn't the filly's
     fault. She was tired. She didn't seem to know where she was,
     somehow, and when I flogged her along it near broke my heart to do
     it. She couldn't seem to understand what she was wanted to do. Poor
     little lady, I was so savage I could have shot her. But afterward I
     went and had a look at her, and had a few words with Mr. Starkey
     when he was abusing her.

     QZI ALBANY, W.

     _Wednesday._

     DEAR CLAREHAVEN,--I'm not going to worry you with sympathy at such
     a moment. But I'm writing as soon as possible to let you know that
     last week, owing to circumstances which would not interest anybody
     except a business man, I was compelled to part with my Clare
     mortgages for ready money, and I'm afraid that without doubt
     Reinhardt and Co. will foreclose on Monday. I wish I could offer to
     lend you the money to put yourself straight again, but I have been
     speculating myself and for the moment am a little short. By the
     way, I think Full Moon is a good thing for the Grand Prix. Perhaps
     you might get a bit on. Kindest regards to Lady Clarehaven.

     Sincerely,

     LIONEL HOUSTON.

Tony telegraphed to scratch Vanity Girl for the Oaks and ordered that
she should be sold outright for what she would fetch; £200 was the
figure, a tenth of what she had cost as a yearling and an insignificant
fraction of what she had cost in ruinous disappointment, to which,
perhaps, dishonor was soon to be added.

Houston's letter showed plainly that nothing was to be hoped for in that
quarter.

"Reinhardt and Co.," scoffed Tony. "In my opinion Reinhardt and Co.
includes Houston."

Dorothy wondered if the communication was intended to bring her quickly
to heel, to show her brutally that unless she kept her bargain Clare was
lost. She supposed that somehow Houston would be ingenious enough to
keep Tony from being suspicious when he found his house and lands
restored to him, and she even wondered if under the demoralizing effect
of gambling he would much mind if he did know. She looked at him with a
feeling half compassionate, half contemptuous while he was calculating,
with an optimism rapidly rising, every knickknack in the flat at four
times its value in the sale-room. She persuaded him to go out and forget
his troubles at the theater, and telephoned to the Albany that she was
coming to see Mr. Houston after dinner.

Dorothy dressed herself in a frock of champagne silk and wore no jewelry
except a drop pendant of black pearls, thinking ironically, when she
fastened it round her neck, how premature Tony had been in estimating
that it would fetch £500 at auction. She flung over her shoulders a
diaphanous black opera-cloak stenciled in gold and, covering her face
with a heavy veil of black Maltese lace, she passed out of Halfmoon
Street and walked slowly up Piccadilly in the June starlight. On second
thought she decided to enter Albany from Burlington Street instead of
through the courtyard, and, turning into Bond Street, moved like a ghost
along the pavements where on thronged mornings in old Vanity days her
radiance and roses used to compete for the public regard with the
luxurious shops on either side. Burlington Street at this hour was
deserted, and the porter of Albany with his appearance of an antique
coachman, and his manner between a butler's and a beadle's, dared not
hesitate to admit such an empress, and perhaps marveled, when he watched
her walk imperiously along the glass-roofed cloister that smelled of
freshly watered geraniums toward QZI, with what honey the ugly tenant of
it was able to attract this proud-pied moth.

Lady Clarehaven might have been excused for feeling a heroine, a Monna
Vanna in the tent of the conqueror, when she found herself in the big
square room which she now visited for the first time. She did not
indulge herself with heroics, however; it seemed to her so natural for
her to save Clare that the adventure was as commonplace as when once in
early days on the stage she had pawned a piece of jewelry she did not
like in order to save a set of furs to which she attached a great
importance. She threw back the opera-cloak and sat down in an arm-chair
to wait for Houston with as little perturbation as if she were waiting
for a dinner guest in her own drawing-room.

Suddenly he appeared from an inner doorway and, turning on several more
lights, looked at her. He was in evening dress, and the sudden glare
gave the impression that he was going to perform; he looked more like an
intelligent ape than ever when he was in evening dress.

"Well, here I am," she said.

Her coolness seemed to confuse him, and he began to ask her how she
liked his rooms, to say that he had been lucky enough to take them on as
they stood from a man called Prescott who had killed himself here. One
had the impression that he had bought the furniture for a song on
account of the unpleasant associations with a suicide.

"I'm rather tired of values," said Dorothy. "Clarehaven has been valuing
the flat at Halfmoon Street."

"Will you have something to drink?"

"Do you think that I require stimulating? Thanks, I don't."

It was curious that this man, who in Rhodes had appeared so sinister and
powerful and almost irresistible, should here in this decorous room with
only a background of good-breeding appear fussy and ineffective.

"But let me recommend you to have a drink," Dorothy laughed. "For, now
that you've got me, you're as awkward as a baboon with a porcelain
teacup."

Her instinct told her that she must dispel this atmosphere of
embarrassment unless she wanted to be bowed out of the chambers as from
those of a money-lender who had been compelled most respectfully and
without offense to refuse a loan to her ladyship. The allusion to the
baboon was sufficient. The decorum of Albany was shattered and Houston
held her in his arms.

At that moment the servant tapped at the door and announced that Lord
Clarehaven was in the anteroom; before Houston could hustle his quaking
servant outside and lock the door Tony appeared in the entrance, a
riding-crop in his hands.

"My God! you rascal," he was saying, "I've just found out all about you.
I've been fooled by you and that scoundrel of a trainer you recommended.
I've been ... That trial.... I've seen.... I've understood ... you
blackguard!" Without noticing Dorothy he had forced Houston across a
chair and was thumping him with the crop. "Yes, I've heard all about
you.... Of course people tell me afterward ... damned cowards.... You
damned sneaking hound ... I.D.B.... hound.., you dog ... and there's
nothing to be done because you were too clever ... curse you ... but
I'll have you booted off every racecourse in England...."

By this time he had beaten Houston insensible, and, looking up,
perceived his wife.

"Tony," she cried, "you really are rather an old darling."

"What are you doing here?" he panted.

"I was pleading for Clare."

"You oughtn't to have done that," he said, roughly. "You might get
yourself talked about, don't you know. Come along. It's rather lucky I
blew in. I met old Cobbett, who talked to me like a father. Too late, of
course, and nothing can be done. Besides.... However, come along. As
you're dressed we might see the last act."

"We've seen that already," said Dorothy. So brilliant and gay was she
that Tony forgot about everything. So did she, and they walked home arm
in arm along the deserted streets of Mayfair like lovers.

The scene in Albany was not made public property; Houston came to
himself in time to prevent that. Dorothy accepted Tony's interruption as
a sign that fortune did not intend her to preserve Clare, and she now
watched almost with equanimity the fabric of a great family crumble
daily to irreparable ruin. Then Full Moon, the winner of the Guineas,
scratched ignominiously for the Derby, won the Grand Prix in a canter,
and the following letter from the Earl of Stilton, K.G., appeared in the
_Times_:

     SIR,--In the interests of our national sport, which all Englishmen
     rightly regard as our most cherished possession, I call upon Lord
     Clarehaven to give a public explanation of his recent behavior. The
     facts are probably only too painfully known to many of your
     readers. In May Lord Clarehaven's horse, Full Moon, won the Two
     Thousand Guineas; two years ago his horse Moonbeam won the same
     race. Moonbeam ran fourth in the Derby and was transferred to the
     same stable as the winner, Chimpanzee. This horse, owned by Mr.
     Lionel Houston, was scratched for the St. Leger, and the race was
     won by Moonbeam. This was explicable; but when two years later
     another of Lord Clarehaven's horses wins the Two Thousand Guineas
     and finds his stable companion preferred to him to carry Lord
     Clarehaven's colors in the Derby, when, furthermore, the chosen
     filly runs like a plater, and when this morning we read that Full
     Moon, now in the ownership of Mr. Lionel Houston, has won the Grand
     Prix in a canter at a price which the totalizator puts at
     sixty-three to one, a proof that nobody in Paris considered the
     chances of this animal, the public may, perhaps, demand what it all
     means. They will ask still more when I inform them that I have
     absolute authority for saying that this horse was heavily backed in
     England, which proves that by some his chance was considered
     excellent. I have no wish to accuse his lordship of having
     deliberately deceived the public for his own advantage; but I do
     accuse him of folly that can only be characterized as criminal.
     Perhaps he has been the victim of his friend and of his trainer; at
     any rate, if his lordship was deceived about the chance of Vanity
     Girl, and if it is true that the defeat of Vanity Girl in the Derby
     represented to his lordship a loss of thousands of pounds in bets,
     he should make this clear. In that case I have no hesitation in
     accusing Mr. Lionel Houston, formerly known as Leopold Hausberg, of
     having deliberately conspired with the Starkey Lodge trainer to
     perpetrate a fraud not only upon their friend and patron, but also
     upon the public.

     I have the honor to be, sir,

     Your obedient servant,

     STILTON.

Although Lord Stilton's letter hit the nail on the head, Tony was so
furious at being called a fool in public that he sent the following
letter to the paper:

     SIR,--If Lord Stilton had not been my father's friend and a much
     older man than myself, I would pull his nose for the impudent
     letter he has written about me. The running of my filly in the
     Derby is an instance of the uncertainty of fortune, by which I am
     the greatest loser. I was convinced by a trial which I saw with my
     own eyes between Full Moon and Vanity Girl that the former did not
     stand a chance against the filly. It was I who insisted upon
     scratching him for the Derby so that the public might be spared the
     unpleasant doubt that always exists when an owner runs two horses
     in the same race. I sold the colt shortly after this trial to Mr.
     Houston, because I wished to put every halfpenny I could raise upon
     Vanity Girl. When I say that Mr. Houston is so little a friend of
     mine that I was unfortunately compelled to horsewhip him in his
     rooms on the day after the Derby, it will be understood even by
     Lord Stilton that there can be no possible suggestion of any
     collusion between myself and Mr. Houston. I do not know if Lord
     Stilton seriously means to insinuate that I have benefited by Full
     Moon's victory in the Grand Prix. If he does, the insinuation is
     cowardly and unjust. If Lord Stilton is so much concerned for the
     future of English sport, let him think twice before he hits a man
     who is down. Full Moon did not carry a halfpenny of my money.

     I am, sir, etc.,

     CLAREHAVEN.

This letter, with the reference to Lord Stilton's nose excised by a
judicious editor, rehabilitated Tony in the eyes of the public and
earned him a gracious apology from Lord Stilton, who also had to
apologize much less graciously to Houston and Starkey, being threatened
with legal proceedings unless he did so. Had there been the least chance
of substantiating the ugly rumors, both earls might have gone to law;
unfortunately legal advice said that neither of them stood a chance with
the astute pair, and public opinion contented itself with compassion for
the gallant young nobleman who had been thus victimized.

It may have been the victory of Full Moon in the Grand Prix with its
suggestion of what might have been, or it may have been only the
invincible optimism of the gambler, that started Tony off again upon his
vice. When by the middle of July he and Dorothy found themselves with
the rent of the flat paid up to Michaelmas, with enough furniture and
enough clothes for present needs and with £250 in ready money, he told
Dorothy that their only chance was for him to make money at cards. It
was in vain that she argued with him; he seemed to have learned nothing
from this disastrous summer, and with £100 in his pocket he went out one
night, to return at six o'clock the next morning with £1,000.

"My luck's in again," he declared, "and I've got a thundering good
system. You shall come with me every night, and I will give you two
hundred pounds, which I must not exceed. Nothing that I say must induce
you to give me another halfpenny. If I lose the two hundred pounds I
must go away. It'll be all right, you'll see. I'm playing at
Arrowsmith's place in Albemarle Street. Arrowsmith himself has promised
not to advance me anything above two hundred pounds, so it'll be all
right."

Dorothy begged him to be satisfied with the £1,000; but it was useless,
and the following night she accompanied him. He won another £1,000, and
when they had walked back under a primrose morning sky to Halfmoon
Street Tony was so elated that he handed over all his winnings to
Dorothy. The next night he lost the stipulated £200, but he came away
still optimistic.

"I'm not going to touch that two thousand" he assured her. "I've got
fifty left of my own, and one always wins when one's down to nothing;
but on no account are you to offer me a halfpenny from your money. It's
absolutely essential that you should bank everything I make."

The next evening Tony took the keeper of the hell aside and told him
that he was to be sure not to let him exceed £50; if he should lose
that, Arrowsmith was not to accept his I.O.U. and on no condition to
allow him to go on. They were playing _chemin de fer_ and Tony's luck
had been poor; when his turn came to take the bank and he was stretching
out his hand for the box of cards Arrowsmith told him he had already
reached his limit.

"Oh, that's all right, Arrowsmith. I only meant that to count if I'd
already had a bank."

"Excuse me, Lord Clarehaven, but I never go back on my word. The
agreement we came to was...."

"That's all right," Tony interrupted, impatiently. "Dorothy, lend me
some money."

"No, no. You made a promise, and really you must stick to it."

"Dash it! I haven't had a single bank this evening."

"You should have thought of that before."

"But, my dear girl, our agreement was that I shouldn't lose more than
two hundred pounds at a sitting. I've only lost fifty pounds to-night."

"If I lend you any more," she said, "I must break into the two thousand
pounds, which you told me I was not to do on any account."

The other players, with heavy, doll-like faces, sat round the table,
waiting until the argument stopped and the game could be resumed. The
keeper of the hell was firm; so was Dorothy; and Clarehaven had to yield
his turn to his neighbor.

"I'll just stay and watch the play for a bit," he said. "It's only three
o'clock." He took a banana from the sideboard and sat down behind the
player who held the bank.

"No, no, come away," Dorothy begged him. "What is the good of tormenting
yourself by watching other people play when you can't play yourself?"

"Damn it, Dorothy," he exclaimed, turning round angrily. "I wish to God
I'd never brought you here. You always interfere with everything I want
to do."

It happened that the bank which Tony had missed won steadily, and while
the heavy-jowled man who held it raked in money from everybody, Tony
watched him like a dog that watches his master eating. At last the bank
was finished, and with a heavy sigh of satisfaction the owner of it
passed on the box to his neighbor.

"How much did you make?" asked Tony, enviously.

"About two thousand five hundred. I'm not sure. I never count my
winnings."

Tears of rage stood in Tony's eyes.

"God! Do you see what you've done for me by your confounded obstinacy?"
he exclaimed to his wife.

All the way home he raged at her, and when they were in the flat he
demanded that she should give him back all his £2,000.

"So you've reached the point," she said, bitterly, "when not even
promises count?"

"If you don't give it back to me," Tony vowed, "I'll sell up the whole
flat. Damn it, I'll even sell my boots," he swore, as he tripped over
some outposts for which there was no place in the line that extended
along the wall of his dressing-room.

Dorothy thought of that lunch-party in Christ Church and of the first
time she had beheld those boots. She remembered that then she had beheld
in them a symbol of boundless wealth. Now they represented a few
shillings in a gambler's pocket. And actually next morning, in order to
show that he had been serious the night before, Tony summoned two buyers
of old clothes to make an offer for them.

"Don't be so childish," Dorothy exclaimed. "You can't sell your boots!
Aren't you going down to camp this year?"

"To camp?" he echoed. "How the deuce do you think I'm going to camp
without a halfpenny? No, my dear girl, a week ago I wrote to resign my
commission in the N.D.D. You might make a slight effort to realize
that we are paupers. And if you won't let me have any of that two
thousand pounds we shall remain paupers."

At that moment a telegram was handed in:

     All officers of North Devon Dragoons to report at depot
     immediately.

"Hasn't that fool of an adjutant got my letter?" Tony exclaimed.

Another telegram arrived:

     Thought under circumstances you would want to cancel letter holding
     it till I see you.

"Circumstances? What circumstances?"

In the street outside a newspaper-boy was crying, "Austrian hultimatum!
Austrian hultimatum!"

"My God!" Tony cried, a light coming into his eyes. "It can't really
mean war? How perfectly glorious! Wonderful! Get out, you rascals!" and
he hustled the old-clothes men out of the flat.

Three weeks later Dorothy received the following letter from Flanders:

     DEAREST DOODLES,--You'd simply love this. I never enjoyed myself so
     much in all my life. Can't write you a decent letter because I'm
     just off chivvying Uhlans. It's got fox-hunting beat a thousand
     times. Sorry we had that row when I made such an ass of myself at
     Arrowsmith's that night. It's a lucky thing you were firm, because
     you've got just enough to go on with until I get back. Mustn't say
     too much in a letter; but I suppose we shall have chivvied these
     bounders back to Berlin in two or three months. Then I shall really
     have to settle down and do something in earnest. A man in ours says
     that Queensland isn't such a bad sort of hole. Old Cleveden put me
     against it by cracking it up so. It's suddenly struck me that
     Houston is probably a spy. If he is, you might make it rather
     unpleasant for him. I feel I haven't explained properly how sorry I
     am, but it's so deuced hard in a letter. By the way, Uncle Chat has
     just written rather a stupid letter about my mother's jointure.
     Perhaps you'd go down and talk to him about it. He ought to
     understand I'm too busy to bother about domestic finance at
     present. I had another notion--rather a bright one--that when I get
     back you and I could appear on the stage together. Rather a rag,
     eh? The captain of my troop was pipped last week. Awful good egg.
     I'm acting captain now. Paignton sends his love. Dear old thing, I
     wish you were out here with me.

     Yours ever,

     TONY.

A week later the fifth Earl of Clarehaven was killed in action.




CHAPTER VI


I

Dorothy was at Little Cherrington when the news of Tony's death reached
her. The dowager had already vacated Clare Lodge, and with a few of her
dearest possessions was now established in Cherrington Cottage. Only
extreme necessity could have driven her into that particular abode,
because in order for her to go into it, Mr. Greenish had to go out of
it, which upset Mr. Greenish so much that he went out of Cherrington
altogether, out of Devonshire, even, and as far away as Hampshire. His
choice of a county was the dowager's only consolation; Connie lived in
Hampshire; the world was small; Mr. Greenish and Bella might even yet
come together. Bella, absorbed in her short stories--one of which had
been accepted, but not published, and another of which had been
published but not paid for--found that the chief objection to being in
Cherrington Cottage was the noise that the children made going to and
from school. It was strange to find Bella, who in her youth had made as
much noise even as Connie, so dependent now upon quiet; but in whatever
divine hands mortals fall, their behavior usually changes radically
afterward. We all know what love can do for anybody; we all know what
the Salvation Army can do for anybody; and if Virgil's account of the
Cumæan Sibyl may be trusted, the transforming influence of Apollo is
second to none.

Tony's consideration in securing Cherrington Cottage to his mother could
only have been bettered if he had made some provision for a sum of
money to maintain it, or, for that matter, herself; delicious as the
exterior of it undoubtedly was, the walls were not edible. The sudden
stoppage in the payment of her jointure put the dowager in the
humiliating position of having to ask her brother, Lord Chatfield, to
pay the weekly bills, and it was with the intention of dealing with this
matter that Dorothy had gone down much against her will to the scene
that was consecrated to her greatest triumph and her greatest failure.
Perhaps the nerves of the usually so genial Uncle Chat had been too much
wrought upon by the outbreak of war. As deputy lieutenant of the county
he had been harried by a series of telegrams from the War Office, each
of which had contradicted its predecessor. He had had to lend not merely
all his own horses to England, but to arrange to lend most of his
neighbors', some of whom were not quite such willing lenders as his
lordship. His eldest son, Paignton, was already at the front in the
North Devon Dragoons, and his second son was assisting an elderly
gentleman who had lived in obscurity since Tel-el-Kebir--where he had
been jabbed in the liver by a dervish--to command, drill, and generally
produce for their country's need the two hundred and ten rustics that at
present constituted the Seventh Service Battalion of the King's Own
Devon Light Infantry. His daughters, Lady Maud and Lady Mary, had given
him no rest till they were allowed to do something or other; though
before he understood what exactly this was the war had lasted many
months longer than the greatest pessimist had believed possible. His
sister, Lady Jane, in despair of finding anything else to do, was
collecting mittens for the soldiers, a hobby which made the ground floor
of Chatfield Hall look like a congested wool-warehouse in the city.

At such a moment the problem of his younger sister's financial future
struck poor Uncle Chat as much more hopelessly insoluble than it would
have seemed in those happy days when he had nothing to talk about
except cigars and pigs. Bella immediately after the outbreak of war put
down the pen and took up the sword, or in other words yearned to join
the V.A.D., and it was the imperative need of finding money for Bella to
gratify her patriotism in London that drove the dowager into discussing
her finances with her brother. Dorothy, who could not bear the
suggestion that Tony had heartlessly left for France without any heed of
his family obligations, a suggestion that reflected upon herself, at
once turned over to the dowager half of the £2,000 in the bank.
Actually, she only left herself with something over £600, for extra
money had had to be found for Tony's equipment and for the payment of
bills he had overlooked. There was no reason to suppose that Uncle Chat
was really criticizing her behavior in the least; but his air of general
irritation gave her the impression that he was, which preyed upon her
mind so much that she began to feel almost on a level with her
unfortunate namesake who had lost the Derby. She fancied that everybody
was ascribing Tony's mad career to his marriage, and thinking that if he
had only married a nice girl in his own class none of these disasters
would have happened. She fancied that the disapproval of the family
which had been carefully concealed all these years out of deference to
Tony's feelings was now making itself known, she was embittered by the
imagined atmosphere of hostility, and she made up her mind that as soon
as possible she would cut herself off from the Fanhopes and from what
was left of the Clares.

Tony in his last letter had proposed that he and she should go on the
stage when he came home, which of course would have been ridiculous;
but, now that Tony was dead, there was surely nothing to prevent her
return to the stage. When she got back to town she might go and ask Sir
John Richards if he could not find a part in the autumn production at
the Vanity Theater. Whatever was now lacking to her voice, whatever the
years had added to her appearance, and notwithstanding the wear and tear
that had added very little, would be counterbalanced in the eyes of the
British public by the privilege of reading upon the program the name of
the Countess of Clarehaven. Nothing was any longer owing to the family
name; no, indeed, except Bella still bore it, and if third-rate stories
were to appear in third-rate magazines under the signature of Arabella
Clare, there was no reason why a bill of the play should not advertise
the Countess of Clare. It happened that Harry Tufton had come down to
Cherrington to assist at the memorial service which was to be held in
Clarehaven church. Dorothy supposed that he was anxious to keep in with
the Chatfields, and in speaking to him about her project she was not
actuated by any desire for the sympathy of an old friend. She asked his
advice in a practical spirit, because he was connected with the theater,
and when he tried to discourage her by hinting at the fickleness of
public affection, she discerned in his opposition to her plan nothing
except the tired anxiety of one who was being importuned by an old
friend to give the best advice compatible with the minimum of trouble to
himself. Tufton's doubtfulness of her capacity still to attract the
favor of an audience had the effect of strengthening her resolve to test
his opinion; she asked him with that indifferent smile of hers, which
had lost none of its magic of provocation, if he really thought that the
British public was as fickle as himself. Tufton protested against the
imputation, and excused himself for the evasion of friendship implicit
in his attitude by pleading that the War Office kept him so very busy
nowadays.

"Of course it was an awful blow when they wouldn't accept me for active
service," he said, earnestly. "Heart, don't you know."

"Oh, your heart is weak," she inquired, with a mocking air of concern.
"I suppose the very idea of war produced palpitations. Don't strain it
going up-stairs in Whitehall."

"Somebody must do the work at home," he said, irritably.

"Yes, I feel so sorry for you poor Cinderellas," she murmured. "But
never mind, you'll always be able to feel that if it wasn't for you the
poor fellows at the front, don't you know, wouldn't be able to get
along. I suppose you call yourselves the noble army of martyrs?"

It had been fun to twist the tail of that ship's rat, Dorothy thought,
when she saw him hurry away from Cherrington to catch the first train
back to town after the service.

The news of Tony's death had reached Cherrington on the morning of the
day that Dorothy was going back to the flat. When she had made over half
of her money to the dowager and was clear of the fancied atmosphere of
hostility at Chatfield, she had begun to feel penitently that she had
misjudged her mother-in-law and sister-in-law. It had seemed dreadful to
leave them here in this cottage almost within sight and sound of the
changes at Clare Court, and she had invited them to come and stay with
her in Halfmoon Street until the flat was given up. The dowager had been
unwilling to leave the country, and when the news of her son's death
arrived was firm in her determination to remain in Cherrington.

"He was born here," she said, "and it is here that I shall always think
of him best. I don't think I can afford to put up a window to his
memory; he must just have a simple stone slab. I should like to copy
that inscription at Rhodes. Do you remember it? 'Anthony, Fifth Earl of
Clarehaven. With God. 1914.'"

Dorothy's grief at the death of Tony had for the moment been kept in
control by the tremendous effort she had been called upon to make in
facing the future; it was the future which had occupied her mind to the
exclusion of any contemplation of the past. Now when her mother-in-law
spoke these simple words she burst into tears. They linked Tony with so
many generations of his house; and they brought home to her almost as a
visible fact his death. She had spent so many years perpetually on the
verge, as it were, of broken promises, of resolutions never carried out,
of little optimisms and extenuations, that when the announcement of his
death arrived it was more than usually true in her case that she did not
at first realize it. The telegraphic form in which the news had been
conveyed to her involuntarily merged itself with so many telegrams in
the past which had turned out false, and only when the dowager stated
his death like this in terms that admitted of no doubt did Dorothy
suddenly confront the reality. She remembered that once a telegram had
arrived almost on this very date to say that Tony could not get away
from camp in time to be present at the annual show. There was no annual
show this year--war had obliterated it--but on the afternoon of this day
on which she had meant to return to town she walked, instead, about the
field where the show had customarily been held, and so vivid was the
familiar scene of hot women and blazing dahlias that she was transported
back in imagination and found herself excusing on the ground of his
military duties her husband's absence from this spectral exhibition. A
farmer, one of her late tenants, passed her while she was wandering over
the field, touched his cap, and begged to express his sorrow at the
news.

"'Tis going to be a handsome year for partridges, too," he said. "But
there, my lady, his lordship of late never seemed to care for partridges
so much as he belonged. I remember when he was a youngster he'd regular
walk me off my feet, as the saying is, after they birds. And he was
uncommon fond of land-rails. Yes, it always seemed to give him a sort of
extra pleasure, as you might say, when he could get a shot at a
land-rail."

The reproach that was implied in the farmer's first words was mitigated
by these reminiscences of Tony as a boy, and Dorothy thought that if her
son had lived he would already be over six years old and within
measurable distance of shooting his first land-rail in the company of
the burly farmer beside her. Her son! Would it have made any difference
to Tony if he had had an heir? Ought she to thank God or reproach Him
for her childlessness?

Three days later Mr. Beadon sang for the late earl a requiem at
Clarehaven church. Whoever should be the new owner of Clare--nobody had
materialized from that mysterious firm of Reinhardt & Co.--he was not
yet flaunting his proprietorship. The mourners passed slowly through the
somber groves of pines and looked back at the empty house across the
short herbage burnished by the drought of August, and the house empty
and solemn, perhaps more solemn because it had not been dressed for
grief, eyed with all its windows their progress seaward.

It would be cynical to say that at such a moment Mr. Beadon derived a
positive pleasure from conducting a mass of requiem for the dead earl,
and if for a moment he regarded with a kind of gloomy triumph Squire
Kingdon's inevitable conformity to the majestic ritual of woe expressed
by the catafalque from which depended the dead earl's hatchment, he made
up by the grave eloquence of his funeral oration for any fleeting
pettiness. The windows of the little church on the cliff were wide open
to the serene air, and if ever the preacher fell mute for a space to
recover from his emotion the plaint of the tide was heard in a monody
above the mourners' tears; but above the preacher's voice, above all the
sounds of nature in communion with human grief, there was continuously
audible a gay chattering of birds among the tombs, of whinchats and
stonechats that were mobilizing along these cliffs, unaware that there
was anything very admirable or very adventurous about their impending
migration. A cynic listening to those birds might have criticized the
rector's sermon for its exaggeration of the spirit in which the young
earl had set out to Flanders; a cynic might have given himself leave to
doubt if the fifth Earl of Clarehaven was inspired by the same spirit as
inspired Sir Gilbert Clare to defend Rhodes against the Moslem; but,
whatever the spirit in which he had set forth, no cynic could impugn the
spirit in which he had died; no living man, indeed, had any longer the
right to sneer at his frailties and follies or to condemn his vices and
his extravagance. Besides, a cynic contemporary with Sir Gilbert Clare
may have questioned the spirit in which the Hospitaller had watched the
cliffs of Devon fade out in the sunset. Who knows? There were stonechats
and whinchats then as now.

On the morning after the requiem Dorothy was confronted with the
possibility of an event that in its significance, should it come to
fruition, would obliterate all that had happened in the past and would
provide her in the future with a task so tremendous that she almost fell
on her knees then and there to pray for strength and wisdom to sustain
it. This was the possibility that she was going to have a child.

Such a prospect changed every plan for the future that she had been
making and destroyed her freedom in the very moment it had been given
back to her by the death of her husband. Her intention of proving to
Harry Tufton that she could again be a favorite of the public must now
be relinquished; her ambition to withdraw haughtily from the protection
of Lord Chatfield must presumably be abandoned. Yet need they? She
should not be too impulsive. Who now except herself had the right to say
a word about her child's future? Who else could claim to be the guardian
of its destiny? If she was right about her condition, she should rejoice
that Tony was dead. If he had been alive and in that mood he was in
before the outbreak of war solved his future so rapidly and so
completely, this wonderful prospect would only have led to
recriminations, even to open hatred. It would have been he who had
robbed their child of its inheritance, and she could never have
refrained from taunting him with his egotism. Nor was it likely that he
would have been reformed by the prospect of being a father; he had not
shown much inclination that way in the early years of their marriage;
and even if for a while he had changed his habits, he would gradually
have relapsed, and, moreover, with his genial and indulgent character he
would have held out not merely a bad, but also an attractive, example,
which would doubtless have been eagerly and assiduously imitated by any
child of his. Yes, but now the future lay in her hands ... and meanwhile
she must not be too sure that she was going to have a child at all, nor,
even if it were established that she was, must she make too many plans
in advance, because everything would be ruled by whether it was a boy or
a girl. If it should be a girl, she might go back to the stage next
year; she would only be thirty-one next March. It was odd how much
younger thirty-one seemed than thirty. But if it should be a boy ...
well, even if it should be a boy, why should she not go back to the
stage and by her own exertions keep him, educate him, prepare him to be
what he must be--landless, houseless, moneyless, but still the sixth
Earl of Clarehaven? Stoic, indeed, should be his training, and his
nobility should be won as well as conferred.

Several days of uncertainty went by, and finally Dorothy decided to ask
Doctor Lane his opinion of her condition. He was a very old man now and
no longer in practice, but at least he would know how to keep a secret,
and a secret she intended his opinion to remain at present. Already
plans were seething in her head for the immediate future, and when
Doctor Lane assured her that she was going to have a baby, without
saying a word even to the dowager she left next day for London.

Dorothy, who had been fancying that Tony's family wanted to be rid of
her, soon found that, on the contrary, they would not let her alone,
and when the lease expired at Michaelmas and while she was still
wondering where she was going to live next, she received an invitation
to join the dowager, Bella, and Lady Jane at the Chatfield town mansion
in Grosvenor Square. It appeared that Lady Jane had by this time become
so inextricably entangled in unknitted wool that the only way she could
disentangle herself was by coming up to town to continue there with
proper help the preparation of mittens against the winter cold.

"Not that it will be necessary," everybody said, "but it's as well to be
prepared, and of course it _might_ drag on till the spring."

The dowager, who had been worked up by her sister to feel that even
though she had given a son to England she was still in debt, and Bella
were among the twenty ladies collected by Lady Jane to make mittens, and
the spinster was anxious to add Dorothy to her flock, for what between
wool and ladies she was become very pastoral. So great pressure was put
on Dorothy to make mittens, too. Uncle Chat was very penitent for his
behavior over the jointure, and he now insisted that the money Dorothy
had shared with her mother-in-law should be returned to her. Had it not
been for her condition, she would have taken pleasure in refusing this;
in the circumstances she accepted it, but she still did not say a word
about her pregnancy, for reasons compounded of superstition and pride.
Her experience of child-bearing had destroyed her self-confidence and
she felt that she could not bear to have a great fuss made about her and
to be installed in state at Chatfield Hall to wait there doing nothing
through all this anxious winter of war. Nor did the manufacture of
mittens in Grosvenor Square appeal to her. Moreover, it was possible
that the news would not be welcome. She could not have borne to see
Uncle Chat's face fall again at the prospect of having to support a
grandnephew of the same rank as himself, and though she did not think
that the dowager would attempt to interfere, or that she would be
anything but delighted and tactful, there was the chance that after her
son's death she might arrogate to herself a right to spoil her grandson.
If Dorothy accepted for him the charity of his grandmother's family, she
could not avoid admitting the dowager to the privilege of maternity; but
if during the months of expectation she kept close her secret and if it
were a boy, untrammeled by any obligations she should be at liberty to
make her own decision about his up-bringing. More and more she was
forming all her plans to fit the future of a boy, and one of her chief
reasons for not relying upon the good will of the family was her desire
to spare this son prenatal coddling by coddling herself.

Dorothy might have found it hard to analyze justly all the motives that
inspired her to take the step she did; but whatever they were, a hot
morning in late September found her sitting at the window of her old
room in Lonsdale Road.


II

If outwardly Lonsdale Road presented the same appearance as it had
presented on that September morning twelve years ago when Dorothy, after
washing her hair, made up her mind to be engaged to Wilfred Curlew, the
standpoint from which she now looked out of her window was so profoundly
changed that the road itself was transmuted by the alchemy of her mind
to achieve the significant and incommunicable landscape of a dream. It
was as if in looking at Lonsdale Road she were looking at herself, and a
much truer self than she ever used to see portrayed in that old mirror
upon her dressing-table.

In an upper room of the house opposite a servant was dusting. Down
below, amid that immemorial acrid smell of privet, two little girls were
busily digging in the front garden. These were the daughters of her
second sister, the rightful Dorothy, who was staying with her parents
because her husband, Claude Savage, had left Norbiton for France with
his regiment of territorials. Mrs. Savage, a dark, neat little woman, as
capable a housewife as she had promised to become, and at twenty-eight
not quite so annoying as formerly, came into the room from time to time
and glanced out of the window to see that her little girls were not
making themselves too dirty.

"Hope they're not disturbing you with their chattering."

"No, no," said the countess. "I like listening to them."

Ah, there was Edna down below, not as twelve years ago giggling back
from school with Agnes, but wheeling a perambulator and from time to
time bending cautiously over to arrange the coverlet over her sleeping
baby. Edna was a dull edition of Agnes, and already at twenty-six much
more like Mrs. Caffyn than any of her sisters. Her chin was rather
furry; she was indefinite, not so indefinite as her mother because
modern education had not permitted to her what was formerly considered a
prerogative of woman. Edna had been married for about three years to
Walter Hume, a young doctor in Golders Green, who was stationed at some
northern camp with the R.A.M.C. She, too, was staying with her
parents.

"Edna keeps on fussing with the coverlet," said Mrs. Savage, critically.
"But she ought not to be walking along the sunny side of the pavement."

The countess did not pay much attention to the practical sister looking
over her shoulders; she was thinking of Agnes and wondering what she was
doing, and how her baby was getting on.

"Have you heard from Agnes lately?" she asked.

"Yes. Her husband has gone in for politics. But of course politics out
there must be very different from what they are in England. You can't
imagine Agnes as the wife of a politician. Tut-tut! Ridiculous!"

"What did she call her little boy?"

"Oh, gracious, don't ask me! Some perfectly absurd name. Could it be
Xenophon? I know Claude laughed muchly when he heard it. Thank goodness,
he wouldn't have let me choose such names for Mary and Ethel. I suppose
Agnes is happy. She seems to be. I sometimes wonder where some of the
members of our family get their taste for adventure."

"But you've no idea what a lovely place Aphros is ... it lies in the
middle of a circle of islands and...."

"Yes, yes," Mrs. Savage interrupted, "but it's a long way from England,
and the idea of living abroad doesn't appeal to me."

"Don't you ever want to travel?"

"Well, Claude and I had planned to go to Switzerland with a party this
August, but of course the war put a stop to that."

"By the way, isn't the war rather an adventure for Claude?" the countess
asked, with a smile.

"An adventure?" Mrs. Savage echoed. "It's a great inconvenience."

She bustled out of the room to look after her own daughters and give
Edna some advice about hers; soon after she was gone Gladys and
Marjorie, the prototypes of those little girls in the front garden,
strolled in to gossip with their eldest sister. Although it was nearly
noon, they were only just out of bed, because they had been up late at a
dance on the night before. Gladys, a girl of twenty, was very like her
eldest sister at the same age. She was not quite so tall and perhaps she
lacked her air of having been born to grandeur, but she was sufficiently
like to make Dorothy wonder if her career would at all resemble her own.
On the whole, she thought that probably herself and Agnes had exhausted
the right of the Caffyns to astonish their neighbors. Gladys and
Marjorie, the latter a charming new edition of the original Dorothy,
with flashing deep-blue eyes, dark hair, and an Irish complexion, were
already, at twenty and nineteen, too free to be ambitious. Twelve years
had made a great difference to the liberty of girls in West Kensington,
and Mr. Caffyn no longer objected to the young men who came to his
house, mostly in uniform nowadays, which provided one more excuse for
emancipation. Gladys and Marjorie frequently arrived home unchaperoned
from dances at three o'clock in the morning, and their father did not
turn a hair; perhaps he was already so white that he was incapable of
showing any more marks of life's fitful fever. No doubt he had long ago
given up the ladies of Lauriston Mansions, and probably at no period in
his career was he more qualified to be the secretary of the Church of
England Purity Society than upon the eve of his retirement from the
post. Dorothy had not seen her father since that night she drove him
back in her car from the Vanity. Tacitly they had been friends at once
when the countess came to live at home for a while; indeed, she fancied
that she could grow quite fond of him, and she was even compelled to
warn herself against a slight inclination to accept his flattery a
little too complacently. Mrs. Caffyn, with a perversity that is often
shown by blondes upon the verge of sixty, would not go white, and her
hair was of so indefinite a shade as to be quite indescribably the very
expression of her own indefinite personality.

Of the boys--it was odd to hear of the boys again--Roland had long been
married and already had four children. At this rate he was likely to
surpass his father, whom on a larger scale he was beginning to resemble.
Roland was continually in a state of being expected to come and look the
family up. He was so long in doing so that he became almost a myth to
his eldest sister, and when at last, one afternoon, he did materialize
with the largest mustache she had ever seen, his appearance gave her the
same kind of thrill that she used to get at the Zoo, when at short
intervals the sea-lion would emerge from the water and flap about among
the rocks of his cage. It was obvious that Roland regarded her with a
mixture of suspicion, jealousy, and disapproval, for he had not brought
his wife with him, and when the countess asked him if he had also left
his pipe at home, he growled out that he supposed she was far too grand
for pipes. Dorothy remembered that sometimes when they were children he
and she had seemed upon the path of mutual understanding, and, feeling
penitent for her share in the way they had for twelve years been walking
away from each other, she tried to be specially affectionate with
Roland; but he was already out of earshot. He evidently was thinking
that her abrupt re-entry into the family circle would probably mean a
reduction in his share of any money left by their parents, because he
was continually alluding to her financial state and his own. She tried
to ascribe this to his position as the manager of a branch bank; but she
knew in her heart that he was dividing £500 a year first by eight and
then by nine and thinking what a difference to his holiday that extra £7
would make. Of Dorothy's other brothers, Cecil was in camp somewhere,
and hoping to get to France soon with the R.A.M.C.; he had been married
only a few months, and his wife was living in the nearest town to his
quarters. Vincent, who had won a scholarship at Sydney Sussex College,
Cambridge, had already enlisted and wrote home as confidently of
promotion in the near future as twelve years ago he had boasted that he
would soon be in the eleven of St. James's Preparatory School.

Perhaps the most striking result of the countess's return was the
impetus it gave to Mrs. Caffyn's Wednesday afternoons. The punctilious
ladies came as they had been coming steadily for twelve years; but a
quantity of less punctilious ladies also came and were so much over-awed
by meeting a countess in a West Kensington drawing-room that they had no
appetite for cakes, which was just as well because otherwise the strain
put upon the normal provision by so many extra visitors might have been
too much for it. In addition to the Wednesday ladies, several friends of
Dorothy's youth visited No. 17 in the evenings, and though by now the
billiard-table was more like a neglected tennis-lawn, she played one or
two games to remind her of old times, thinking how scornful she would
have been twelve years ago if any one had prophesied to her such
indulgence in sentiment. Among these friends of youth came Wilfred
Curlew, who in outward appearance was the least changed of all. His
career had been successful, if the editorship of a society paper can be
considered success. Being a journalist, he rightly considered himself
indispensable at home, and it is unlikely that his inaccurate and cheery
paragraphs in _The Way of the World_ did any more to make the war
ridiculous than some of the inaccurate and cheery despatches sent home
from the front by generals. A slight tendency which he had formerly had
toward a cockney accent had been checked by an elocutionist who had
imprisoned his voice in his throat, whence it was never allowed to
stray. If Lady Clarehaven had once been a Vanity girl, Mr. Wilfred
Curlew, the editor of _The Way of the World_, had once written fierce
revolutionary articles about Society in _The Red Lamp_; and whereas Lady
Clarehaven had long been indifferent to her past, Mr. Curlew was still
sensitive about his, as sensitive as a man who oils the wheels of
railway-coaches in termini would be if it were known that he had once
been a train-wrecker.

After the first awkwardness of such a rencounter had worn off Dorothy
found Wilfred entertaining. It was astonishing to learn how accurately
the failings and follies of so many of her friends and acquaintances
were known to the editor, who had never met one of them. At first he
pretended that he had met them; but as gradually he saw more of the
countess he gave up this pretense, and finally he revealed the existence
in his mind of a perpetual and abominable dread that soon or late in one
of his cheery paragraphs he should make a mistake, not, of course, a
mistake of fact or even an unjust imputation--that would be nothing--but
a mistake of form. He was really haunted day and night by such bogies as
referring to a maid of honor after marriage without her prefix, though
to have suggested that her behavior with somebody else's husband was
less honorable than that would no more have troubled him than to state
positively that her main hobby was breeding Sealyham terriers, when it
was really communicating every Sunday at St. Paul's, Knightsbridge. If
in Lonsdale Road Dorothy beheld her present self, in Wilfred Curlew she
saw the reflection of what she was twelve years ago, enough of which old
self still existed to make her feel proud that never in her most anxious
moments had she revealed to another person her own dread of making a
mistake.

One day after a long talk about well-known people in society, Curlew
exclaimed from the depths of his inmost being, "If only I had you
always!"

"Is this a proposal?" she laughed.

He rose and walked about the room in his agitated fashion; then
supporting with one arm the small of his back as he used, and wrenching
his voice back into his throat whence in his emotion it had nearly
escaped, he paused to mutter:

"Presumptuous, I know, but sincere."

This phrase remained in Dorothy's mind for long afterward, and in her
gloomiest hours she could always smile when she repeated gently to
herself, "Presumptuous, I know, but sincere."

Naturally, she told Curlew as kindly as she could that his proposal was
far outside the remotest bounds of possibility.

"Besides," she added, "you'd really be much better off without my help.
Readers of your paper will always greatly prefer your view of society to
my view. My view would pull your circulation down to nothing in less
than no time."

"It's true," Curlew groaned. "How wise you are!"

Only that morning he had received a sharp reminder from the great brain
of which _The Way of the World_ was merely an inquisitive and
insignificant tentacle, to say that the last three or four numbers of
the paper had shown a marked falling off in their ability to provide
what the public required.

"You have to admit that I am right," Dorothy pointed out kindly.

"Yes, but if you'd marry me, in a year or two I would give up journalism
and write novels. I've got a theory about the form of the English novel
which I should like to put into practice."

"I'm afraid," said Dorothy, "I have heard too many theories about the
form of race-horses to believe much in theories of form about anything.
Form is a capricious quality."

"It's an awful thing," poor Wilfred groaned, "for a man who knows he can
write good stuff never to have an opportunity of doing so. I'm afraid
I've sold my soul," he murmured, in a transport of remorse.

"We all of us do that sooner or later," she said. "And it's only when we
don't get a good price for it that we repent."

Dorothy's faculty for aphorisms had no doubt been fostered by the
respect which was accorded to her at Lonsdale Road, but she was far from
talking merely for the sake of talking, and her inspiration was really
the fruit of experience, not the mere flowering of words. She had,
perhaps, been wiser than she had realized in coming home for a while.
Notwithstanding those two younger sisters nearly as beautiful as
herself, notwithstanding the knowledge generally diffused that she was
without money, her beauty and rank were still sufficiently remarkable in
West Kensington to preserve her dignity. Here she ran no risks of
acquiring a deeper cynicism from the behavior of old friends like
Tufton, and inasmuch as misfortune had made her more truly the equal of
those around her she had no temptation now to lord it over her sisters,
as no doubt they had expected she would; in the homage of West
Kensington she let the pleasant side of herself develop and, by a strong
effort resisting an inclination to worry about the future, she resigned
herself to whatever fortune had in store for her.

Dorothy was not content with waiting for all her old friends to visit
her; there was one whom she herself sought out soon after she reached
West Kensington. She had not seen Olive Airdale since her marriage, and
she was glad she was visiting her for the first time humbly and on foot,
even if Olive should think that it was only in adversity that she cared
to seek out the companions of her early days. What rubbish! As if Olive
would think anything except that she was glad to see her old friend. It
was an opalescent afternoon in mid-October when Dorothy rang the bell of
the little red house in Gresley Road, and Olive's welcome of her was as
if the mist over London had suddenly melted to reveal that very paradise
which for the fanciful wayfarer existed somewhere behind these
enchanting and transfigurative autumnal airs.

"My dearest Dorothy," she exclaimed. "But why do you reproach yourself?
As if I hadn't always perfectly understood! I've been so worried about
you. And I wish you could have met Jack--but of course he enlisted at
once. You don't know him or you'd realize that of course he had to."

They talked away as if there had never been the smallest break in their
association; Rose and Sylvius, those nice fat twins who would be five
years old next April, interested the countess immensely now that she
would soon be a mother herself.

"And Sylvia?" Dorothy asked.

"Oh, my dear, we don't know. Isn't it dreadful? None of us knows. She
was engaged to be married to Arthur Madden--you remember him, perhaps at
the Frivolity last year--and suddenly he married another girl and
Sylvia vanished--utterly and completely. She went abroad, that's all we
know."

So Sylvia with all her self-assurance had not been able to escape a
fall. In Dorothy's present mood it would have been unfair to say that
she was glad to find that Sylvia was vulnerable, but she did feel that
if she ever met Sylvia again she should perhaps get back her old
affection for her more easily. And while she was thinking this about
Sylvia she suddenly realized that all these other people must be feeling
the same about herself.

The revival of her intimacy with Olive made a great difference to
Dorothy's stay in West Kensington, and she might even have stayed on at
Lonsdale Road until her baby was born had not her two married sisters
turned out to be going to have babies also. Though Dorothy had never
possessed a very keen sense of humor, her sense of the ridiculous had
been sufficiently developed to make her feel that the sight of three
young women in an interesting condition round the dining-room table of
No. 17 would be a little too much of a good thing. She therefore wrote
to Doctor Lane to say that she wanted her child to be born in
Devonshire, and asked for his advice. He suggested that she should go to
a nursing-home he knew of in Ilfracombe. Thither she went in the month
of January, taking with her from Lonsdale Road that old colored
supplement inscribed "Yoicks! Tally-Ho"; and there, without any of those
raptures that marked her first pregnancy, but with abundant health and
serenity of purpose, she waited for her time to come, and at the end of
April bore a posthumous son to Clarehaven.


III

Not until her son was actually born did Dorothy apprise the dowager of
the event. It was lucky that spring was already warm over France and
that the sudden famine of mittens did not inconvenience the troops at
this season, because the instant withdrawal of the dowager, Lady Jane,
and Lady Arabella from the house in Grosvenor Square left the twenty
ladies they had gathered together with neither wool to continue their
good work nor with addresses to which it could be sent. The dowager in a
state of perfect happiness began to trace in the lineaments of the baby
a strong likeness to her dead son, and, as Dorothy had expected, to
lament loudly his disinheritance; Lady Jane insisted that he must be
taken at once to Chatfield, where Uncle Chat would be more than
delighted to look after him entirely; Bella, who had been working
herself up into a state of great excitement over a baby that Connie
expected to bring into the world at the end of May, ceased to take the
least interest in Connie or her child and celebrated the advent of her
nephew, the sixth earl, by abandoning prose for a pæan of rhapsodic
verse. As for Dorothy, she who during the months of waiting had supposed
that she had at last reached that high summit of complete indifference
to the world, lost nearly all her superiority, and with her strength
renewed and increasing every day was on fire to secure somehow or other
to her son the material prosperity that his rank demanded. She was still
averse to taking him to Chatfield, because even if at such an early age
it was improbable that the externals of Chatfield would make the least
impression upon his character, she did not like to surrender all her
fine schemes of independence at once. She compromised by consenting to
take the baby to Cherrington Cottage, where his arrival elicited from
their former tenants a most moving demonstration of affection for the
family.

Clare Court was still vacant, and during that summer Dorothy used to
wheel the perambulator of her baby round and round the domains of which
he had been robbed. For his name she had gone back to her old choice of
Lucius, and she felt that by doing so she was conferring upon this
posthumous son the greatest compliment in her capacity. The dowager was
at first a little distressed that he was not christened Anthony, but
when Dorothy read to her, out of a volume of Clarendon she borrowed from
the rector, that this namesake was "'a person of such prodigious parts
of learning and knowledge, of that inimitable sweetness and delight in
conversation, of so flowing and obliging a humanity and goodness to
mankind, and of that primitive simplicity and integrity of life, that if
there were no other brand upon this odious and accursed civil war than
that single loss, it must be most infamous and execrable to all
posterity.' 'Thus,'" Dorothy read on, "'fell that incomparable young
man, in the four-and-thirtieth year of his age, having so much
despatched the true business of life that the eldest rarely attain to
that immense knowledge, and the youngest enter not into the world with
more innocency.'"

"Yes, yes," sighed the dowager. "Dear old Tony! He was in his
thirty-second year. Dear old boy!"

Dorothy looked at her mother-in-law to see if she were serious; when she
saw that indeed she was she had not the heart to say that the eulogy
might as a description of Tony's life be considered somewhat elevated.
After all, Tony had died for his king and his country; Lord Falkland had
died for his king only.

On the anniversary of the fifth earl's death, when the wind at dusk was
cooing round Cherrington Cottage like a mighty dove, Dorothy was seized
with a sudden restlessness and a desire to encounter the mysterious and
uneasy air of this gusty twilight of late summer. Her son was fast
asleep, with both his grandmother and his aunt Arabella ready to
minister to his most incomprehensible baby wish and serve him, were it
possible, with the paradisal milk of which he dreamed. He had been
restless all day, and now that he was sleeping so calmly Dorothy felt
that she could allow herself to take air and exercise. Owing to the
continued emptiness of the Court, she had grown into the habit of
walking about the park whenever she felt inclined, and except for the
solemnity and silence of the house itself she was hardly conscious that
she was no longer the mistress of Clare, because the lodge-keepers and
various servants of the estate were familiar to her and always showed
how glad they were to see her among them.

The park that evening was haunted by strange noises; but Dorothy's mind
never ran on the supernatural, and neither swooping owl, nor flitting
bat, nor weasel swiftly jigging across her path, nor sudden scurry of
deer startled at their drinking-pool alarmed her. She walked on until
the dusk had deepened to a wind-blown starlight, and she found herself
in the gardens, where on the curved seat of the pergola she sat until
the moon rose and the statues shivered like ghosts in a light changing
from silver to gray, from gray to silver, as the scud traveled over the
moon's face. But Dorothy had no eyes that night for shadows. She was
keeping the anniversary of the fifth earl's death by concentrating upon
one supreme problem--the restoration of all these moonlit acres, of all
these surging yews and cedars, of every stone and statue, to the
rightful heir. If any ghost had walked in Clare that night she would
have thought of nothing but the best way to retain him for her son's
service. Each extravagant idea that came into her head seemed to stay
there but for an instant before it was caught by the wind and blown out
of reach forever. Restlessly she left the pergola and wandered round the
empty house where the wind in the pines on either side was like a sea
and the scent of the magnolias in bloom against the walls swirled upon
the air with an extraordinary sweetness. She entered one of the groves
and passed through to the lawn behind, where a wild notion came into her
head, inspired by the wild night and this mad close of summer, to find
an ax and deface the escutcheon of Clare, to mutilate the angelic
supporters, to eclipse forever that stone moon in her complement, and so
spoil for the intruding owner at least one of his trophies. The
unheraldic moon was not yet above the pine-trees on the eastern side of
the house, and such was the force of the wind blowing straight off the
sea from the northwest--blowing here with redoubled force on account of
the gap in the cliffs through which it had to travel--that when a cloud
passed over the still invisible moon on the far side, Dorothy had the
impression that the luminary was being blown out like a lamp, so dark
did it then become here in the shadow of the house. She had an impulse
to defy this wind, to walk down to the headland's edge and watch the
waves leaping like angry, foaming dogs against the face of the cliff;
but half-way to the sea she had to turn round, exhausted, and surrender
to the will of the wind. Her hair blown all about her shoulders,
spindrift and spume racing at her side, she let herself sail back along
the lea toward the house, looking to any one who should see her like a
mermaid cast up by the tempest upon a haunted island. Haunted it was,
indeed, for just as the moon shining down a gorge of clouds rose above
the pines she met the Caliban of this island.

"You!" she cried. "I knew it was you the whole time."

Houston was unable to speak for a minute, so frightened had he been by
this apparition from the sea, so frightened was he to be wandering round
this stolen house and in his wanderings to have provoked this spirit of
the place, and in the end more frightened than ever, perhaps, to find
who the spirit really was. Dorothy did not realize how strange she
looked, how magical and debonair, how perilous, how wild; she whose
brain was throbbing with one thought perceived in Houston's expression
only the shame he should naturally feel for having robbed her son.

"You look tremendously blown about," he managed to say, finally. "Won't
you come inside for a minute?"

Then suddenly as if the wind had got into his brain he said to her,
"Dorothy, why don't you marry me and take all this back for yourself?"

"Could I?"

She had appealed to herself, not to him; but he, misunderstanding her
question, began like a true Oriental to praise the gifts he would offer
her.

"Stop," she commanded. "All these things that you want to give to me,
will you give them to my son? Don't be so bewildered. You knew I had a
son? I can't stop here to argue about myself and what I can give you or
you can give me. If you will make over Clare as it stands with all its
land--oh yes, and buy back the Hopley estate which Tony's father
sold--to my son, I'll marry you."

"If you'll marry me I'll do anything," he vowed.

There was a momentary lull in the wind, and as if in the silence that
followed he was able to grasp how much he had undertaken, he stammered,
nervously:

"And you and I? Suppose you and I have children?"

"Well," said Dorothy, "they'll be half brothers and sisters of the sixth
Earl of Clarehaven, which will be quite enough for _them_, won't it?"

And that night, while the wind still cooed round Cherrington Cottage,
Dorothy, Countess of Clarehaven, wrote out for Debrett and read to
Augusta, Countess of Clarehaven:

"Clarehaven, Earl of (Clare.) (Earl. U.K. 1816. Bt. 1660.) Lucius Clare;
6th Earl and 11th Baronet; _b._ April 25, 1915; _s._ 1915; is patron of
one living.

"_Arms_--Purpure, two flanches ermine, on a chief sable a moon in her
complement argent. _Crest_--A moon in her complement argent, arising
from a cloud proper. _Supporters_--Two angels, vested purpure, winged
and crined, or, each holding in the exterior hand a key or.

"_Seat_--Clare Court, Devonshire."

THE END







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