The Project Gutenberg EBook of L

Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page Scan Source: Google Books
https://books.google.com/books?id=wdoWAAAAYAAJ
(Harvard University)

Popular Novels by Fergus Hume

THE SECRET PASSAGE

The Albany Evening Journal says: "Fully as interesting as his former books, and keeps one guessing to the end. The story begins with the murder of an old lady, with no apparent cause for the crime, and in unraveling the mystery the author is very clever in hiding the real criminal. A pleasing romance runs through the book, which adds to the interest."

12mo, Cloth bound, $1.25

THE YELLOW HOLLY

The Philadelphia Public Ledger says: "'The Yellow Holly' outdoes any of his earlier stories. It is one of those tales that the average reader of fiction of this sort thinks he knows all about after he has read the first few chapters. Those who have become admirers of Mr. Hume cannot afford to miss 'The Yellow Holly.'"

12mo, Cloth bound, $1.25

A COIN OF EDWARD VII.

The Philadelphia Item says: "This book is quite up to the level of the high standard which Mr. Hume has set for himself in 'The Mystery of a Hansom Cab' and 'The Rainbow Feather.' It is a brilliant, stirring adventure, showing the author's prodigious inventiveness, his well of imagination never running dry."

12mo, Cloth bound, $1.25

THE PAGAN'S CUP

The Nashville American says: "The plot is intricate with mystery and probability neatly dovetailed and the solution is a series of surprises skillfully retarded to whet the interest of the reader. It is excellently written and the denouement so skillfully concealed that one's interest and curiosity are kept on edge till the very last. It will certainly be a popular book with a very large class of readers."

12mo, Cloth bound, $1.25

THE MANDARIN'S FAN

The Nashville American says: "The book is most attractive and thoroughly novel in plot and construction. The mystery of the curious fan, and its being the key to such wealth and power is decidedly original and unique. Nearly every character in the book seems possible of accusation. It is just the sort of plot in which Hume is at his best. It is a complex tangle, full of splendid climaxes. Few authors have a charm equal to that of Mr. Hume's mystery tales."

12mo, Cloth bound, $ 1.25

G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

LADY JIM of
CURZON STREET

A Novel

By
FERGUS HUME

Author of
"The Mystery of a Hansom Cab," "A Coin of Edward VII,"
"The Pagan's Cup," "The Yellow Holly," "The Red Window,"
"The Mandarin's Fan," "The Secret Passage," etc.

G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY

Issued March, 1906

LADY JIM OF CURZON STREET

CHAPTER I

"We're on the rocks this time, Leah, smashin' for all we're worth. How we can win clear beats me."

With hands which had never earned a shilling thrust into pockets empty even of that coin, Jim Kaimes stretched out his long legs and surveyed his neat boots as he made this cryptic speech. His habit of expressing himself in a parabolic fashion was confusing to his friends. But five years of marital squabbling had schooled his wife into ready comprehension, and she usually responded without comment. On this occasion, however, the subject under discussion irritated even her healthy nerves, and she replied irrelevantly.

"Ah-a-a!" said Jim, with the clumsy affection of a bear; "but you're not an ordinary person, Leah. I'm the common or garden ass, that can't straighten things. Now you can."

"Oh yes!" she answered, with a flick of her handkerchief across a pair of scornful lips: "my husband, not a husband."

"As if I could waste time in explaining. We have more serious matters to talk about than your want of brains."

"Serious enough," assented the man, sulkily; "but you know how to deal with trouble, Leah."

"I ought to," retorted his wife, with a shrug, "considering the experience I have had since marrying you. I wish I hadn't."

"So do I," confessed Jim; then mended his speech with a dim sense of having overstepped the mark: "No, by Jupiter, I don't mean that. You an' I get on very well, considerin' each swings on a private hook. You are not a bad sort, Leah, and I'm a--a--a--well, you know what I am."

"Not a diplomatist, certainly. Isn't this praise a trifle obvious? You don't mean it, do you?"

She looked at him wistfully, but her candid husband soon stopped any sentimental illusions she may have momentarily entertained. "Oh yes, I mean it in a sort of way. An' good temper on both sides will help us to push through the business quicker."

"Perhaps I mean the Divorce Court," was his tart reply, but she was quite ready with an answer.

"Who said I could? You've got the one virtue that gives its name to the rest, and think yourself an angel."

"No doubt. It's the sort of thing a man has to say to the woman he is engaged to."

"Heavens!" Lady Jim addressed the ceiling; "as if I required telling. But compared with other women, Jim, I am not----"

"I never said you were," interrupted Kaimes, crossly. "I'd screw your neck if you went on like other women."

"Upon my word, Jim, I would admire you more if you did attempt something of that sort."

"Sneerin' won't alter facts, Leah. The name of Kaimes has always been honoured----"

"Till you dragged it through the mud," interrupted Leah, in her turn. "The old Duke is all right, and Frith's a kind man, if somewhat dull. But you--oh heavens! to think that such a Saul should be amongst the prophets."

Jim, not understanding the scriptural allusion, thought he was being chaffed, a liberty which his bovine pride resented by two minutes of sulky silence. Moreover, he dreaded his wife's formidable tongue, the lash of which could cut through even his tough hide.

"How are we goin' to get through the business at this rate?" was his next contribution to the conversation. "You don't remember that I've to meet a fellow at the club to see about a bet. An' I haven't got one shillin' to rattle against another," declared Jim, pathetically.

"Well," was the sharp reply, "I have to shop this afternoon with but one miserable sovereign in my purse."

"No," said his wife, decisively. "I couldn't and I wouldn't, and I can't and I shan't. Perhaps you'll read the paper and let me think."

"All right," said Kaimes, reaching for the Sporting Times. "I want to see the bettin' on Podaskas."

"Has been," corrected Jim, chuckling; then reverted to his early metaphor: "We're on the rocks this time, Leah, and no mistake."

His wife cast a look of scorn on the pink-and-white face she had once thought handsome. And, indeed, Kaimes was good-looking in a heavy Saxon way. Tall and muscular, with the strength of a bull and the manners of a bear, he was precisely the sort of brutal athlete to attract women. They flocked round him like bees, and gave him more honey than was good for him. He accepted their endearments with the complacent vanity of an egotist, and took little trouble to please even the prettiest, whereupon he was adored the more.

Leah, with her elbows on the breakfast-table, stared at Jim's well-brushed head bending over the pink sheets, and asked herself, for the hundredth time, why she had married him. Physically he resembled a splendid Hercules, but in another sense the likeness was not a speaking one. He satisfied her eyes, and in no other way gave her pleasure. When he talked, he babbled vainly about himself and his doings, to the exclusion of any topic likely to interest other people. Possessed of that easy good-nature which refuses nothing, which costs nothing, Jim Kaimes was looked upon as "a good fellow," a title which covers a multitude of the minor sins. Jim would have been meritorious as a cave-man, and pre-historically perfect. As a civilised being he left very much to be desired.

The subject was neither agreeable nor inexhaustible, and Leah rose with a shrug of her shapely shoulders. Jim looked up.

Here she leaned against the sash and looked at the narrow grey street which was such a good address to impress tradesmen, and so expensive to live in. Not that the question of rent troubled the pair. They paid none, and would have been as much insulted, if visited on quarter-day, as an Irish tenant. The Duke of Pentland at the time of their marriage had presented them with the furnished "10, Curzon Street," but hampered with certain restrictions. They could not sell it, or even mortgage it, nor could money be raised on the furniture. The Duke paid all rates and taxes, and saw to all repairs. Beyond dwelling in this very desirable residence, and calling it publicly their home, Lord and Lady Jim had no interest in it whatsoever. Both thought it was ridiculous that they could not turn the Curzon Street house into money, when they needed ready cash so badly.

And life was so hard to people of their standing and tastes. Leah came of a bankrupt family, and had brought nothing to Jim but her own clever, beautiful self. She considered the two thousand a year which the Duke allowed his second son opulence, until she learned what delightful things money could buy. Then Jim used a large amount of the quarterly payments on his own account, and tradesmen would not give her the delightful things without money. She certainly had bills in nearly every shop in Bond Street and out of it, but even bills had to be paid in the long run. The post brought a good many, and brought also lawyers' letters, not pleasant to read. Between them, this happy pair had mortgaged their income, and the money they had obtained was all gone. Now they had no income and many bills. What was to be done? This problem Jim had set Leah to solve, but clever as she knew herself to be, the solution was beyond her.

"Perhaps a fiver," was the prompt response; "every one's as mean as mean. I've tried 'em all. And you?"

"There's your godmother, old Lady Canvey," suggested Jim. "She's as rich as Dives."

"And, like Dives, won't give a penny to this Lazarus. She smiles, and talks epigrams, and preaches, but as to helping----" Leah shrugged her shoulders again.

The action drew her husband's attention to a very magnificent figure which was loudly admired. Jim had admired it himself before he had got used to seeing it in the breakfast-room. Now it struck him that this attraction might be turned into money.

"You're a ripping woman in the way of looks," he said, throwing down the newspaper; "if you went on the stage--eh?"

"As the fairy queen?" inquired his wife, scornfully: "that's about all I'm suited for. I know the things I can't do, Jim, and acting is one. Besides, think of what the Duke would say."

"He can't say more than he has said," he remarked, lazily. "'Sides, I never go to hear him preach, now."

"Why not? The Duke loves a pretty woman. You can twist him round your little finger."

"An' I'll say it again and again and again," snapped Jim. "You don't seem to realise the hole we're in."

"Don't I?" she queried, with an emotion she would never have shown in society. "I realise that I have one sovereign; and you----?"

"Only a fiver I intend to borrow from a sure man," said Jim; "but I say, what's to be done?"

"What's the use of that? It'll only settle our debts. We want ready money. I don't care a straw about the tradesmen. Can't we let this house?"

"No; the Duke says we can live in it as long as we like, but if we leave he'll take it back again."

"It's like giving a boy half a crown and telling him not to spend it," said Kaimes, looking round. "If we only could! It's a jolly sort of room this, and we'd get a good rent for the house."

The room was indeed pretty, being decorated in a Pompadour manner. Its walls were adorned with white paper, sprinkled with bunches of roses tied with fluttering blue ribbons, and the carpet bore the same dainty design. The furniture was of white wood, upholstered in brocade, also diversified with roses and azure streamers. There were many delicate water-colour pictures, a grate and fire-irons of polished brass, and electric lights in rose-tinted globes. Even the grey December light streaming in through the two windows could not make the apartment look anything but clean, and delicate, and dainty, and delightful. It was an ideal nest for a young couple. But this one had outlived the honeymoon, and cared very little for the ideal.

"A very pretty room," said Jim, again; "and you're the prettiest thing in it, Leah."

She looked at him scornfully, and then glanced around. "I hate all this frippery" she said contemptuously. "Something more massive would suit me better."

If Jim's historical knowledge had been more accurate, he would have made a better comparison. Cleopatra, according to the latest discoveries, was small, foxy-haired, and dainty. She would have suited this Watteau-like room to perfection. But Lady Jim was as tall as any daughter of the gods, and bore herself after the imperial style of Juno, Queen of Olympus. Her hair was of a deep red, and she had a great quantity, as those who saw her pose in charity tableaux knew very well. Leah possessed the creamy complexion which usually goes with such hair, and a pair of large blue eyes, out of which her soul had never peered. They were hard eyes, shallow as those of a bird, and surveyed the world and its denizens with the inquiring expression of a cat on the look-out for titbits. Her lips were thin, and covered admirably white and regular teeth. It was a clever face, and beautiful in its serene immobility. Those who did not like Lady Jim called her a cat; but she was more like a sleek, dangerous pantheress, and woe to the victim who came under her claws. Yet she could purr very prettily on occasions.

"Well, Jim," she said more graciously, for she was sufficiently a woman to be pleased with her husband's grudging compliments. "Now that you have finished saying sweet things, what next?"

"Jim, if you say that again I'll leave you to get out of the trouble yourself. You're my husband. Think of something."

"The insurance," said Leah, thoughtfully; "twenty thousand pounds, isn't it, Jim?"

Her husband nodded. "Old Jarvey Peel, my godfather, had my life insured when I was a child, and arranged that his heirs should pay up the money every year to keep it in force. Then there's accumulations of sorts. I don't understand these stale things myself, Leah, but I know that there's over twenty thousand."

"No; the old man arranged that I should lose it if I tried that game. Lord," said Jim, with disgust, "if I could have raised money I should have got rid of it, ages ago."

"But how does it benefit you?" asked his wife, curiously; "if the money is paid when you are dead, you won't have any fun. But I"--her eyes gleamed.

"Oh no, you don't," snapped Jim, not at all pleased at this hint; "you'd like to turn me into cash in that way, I know. But it so happens that the twenty thousand, and whatever additions may have come, will be paid to me when I'm sixty. Much fun in that, when I shan't have teeth to crack nuts."

"Thirty-five, and you're only five years younger; so when we get the cash at sixty there won't be any enjoyment left for either of us."

"Twenty-five," replied Kaimes, after wrinkling his brow and communing with his none too quick brain. "Beastly long time to wait."

"Not the slightest. I can't get a cent on it, and I can't sell it, and I can't use it in any way. Jarvey Peel was a silly old ass. Died worth no end of coin, and didn't leave me a penny."

"Then I 'spose the money would be paid to you," said Jim, kicking the hearth-rug with a gloomy face; "but don't you make any mistake, Leah. I'm goin' to live right on to sixty and handle the money. I can't do much at that age, but I'll try hard to get through the lot before I slip off."

"Oh, you must look after yourself," said Jim, heartlessly; "but if you can think of some scheme to get the cash now, I'll give you half--there now. There's nothing mean about me."

"I might pretend to die, you know," said Jim, looking at her very directly; "then the cash 'ud be paid to you, and we could share."

"But it's ridiculous," cried Leah, raising her eyebrows; "you would have to give up your position and disappear."

"Who cares? You know I never stop longer in England than I can help. As to my position, it's all debts and duns, and squabbling with you. Oh, I'd give up the whole thing for the money!"

"Got enough to do to think of myself," grumbled Kaimes; "'sides, you don't care for me. As a widow you could have lots of fun on--on, say--five thousand."

Leah shrugged her shoulders again. "There would be very little sacrifice in it so far as you are concerned," she said. "You've been three times to South America since we were married, and I presume with this money you would go there again."

"Oh, well," she said coolly; "I could show my respect to your memory by wearing a widow's dress. I expect I should look rather nice in a cap."

Lord Jim was rather disgusted. Little as he loved his wife, he expected her to be devotedly attached to him, and her ready acquiescence in his disappearance annoyed him greatly.

"Well, you see, Jim, you are so careless a man that I could not think of leaving the only heart I possess in your hands. Besides, so many women have given you their hearts that I thought you might confuse the lot."

Lord Jim did not like this banter, and said so in a few forcible words. Then he moved to the door, casting a disgusted look at a pile of bills on Leah's side of the table.

"Not much. I'm not going to disappear and give up everything for the benefit of a lot of measly tradesmen."

"I wish you wouldn't dangle grapes out of my reach," said his wife, pettishly; "you know it's not to be done."

Jim plunged forward, and, gathering up the mass of papers, threw them into the fire. "Pay them in this way, then," said he, enraged.

"I wish I could," sighed Leah, wearily, and looked at herself in the mirror. "Do stop worrying me, Jim. I'm getting to look quite old. Are you going out?"

"Yes. We've wasted an hour in talking about nothing. We're on the rocks, I tell you."

"And this," she mocked, laying her hand on his shoulder, "is a probable bankrupt!"

"Leave the insurance money to me, Jim," called Leah, as he banged the door. "Twenty thousand pounds," she soliloquised--"it's worth trying for. But I might as well cry for the moon;" and she sighed, the sigh of selfishness, unexpectedly thwarted.

CHAPTER II

Lord And Lady Jim Kaimes were regarded as a most agreeable couple, and utilised this reputation to live on their friends. The husband was an admirable shot, a daring and judicious polo-player, and his skill at cards was as notable as his dexterity in golfing. Consequently, he was much in request, and benefited largely in free board and lodging. He was good-looking, which pleased the women, and good-natured, which satisfied the men. In wrestling and boxing Jim could more than hold his own, and always paid his gambling debts, even at the cost of allowing tradesmen to threaten legal proceedings. Thus, according to modern ideas, he was an honourable man and a good all-round sportsman, a credit to the British aristocracy and a pleasure to his numerous friends. "These be thy gods, O Israel!" A clergyman once preached on this text in Jim's accidental hearing, but Jim did not know what he meant.

The wife was a general favourite with the men, but women fought rather shy of her. She thought too much of herself, they said, and dressed altogether too well; and, moreover, never gave even the most bitter-tongued female a chance of talking scandal in connection with the honoured name to which Jim had called her attention. However, feminine artfulness led one and all to conceal this dislike, and Lady Jim received as much kissing and as many sweet words and invitations as her vain, hungry soul desired. She saw through the wiles of her own sex clearly, and knew that in nine cases out of ten the woman who kissed would have preferred to bite. But they knew that Lady Jim knew, and Lady Jim knew that they knew she knew, so everything went well. As to what was said behind her back Lady Jim cared not a snap of her fingers, and if any rival dared to attack her openly she was quite able to use a particularly venomous tongue, the safeguard against calumny which Nature had given her. And it must be said that she never went out of her way to harm any one: her position was that of a passive resister. As she pathetically observed, she was a contented woman, if only permitted to have her own way.

Certainly the women had cause to complain of Lady Jim's gowns, which were far beyond the ordinary female intellect in cut and fashion, in new material and up-to-date trimmings. She added her own ingenuity and taste to the creations of the dressmaker, and the result was always such a triumph as to lead the rest of her sex to doubt if Providence existed. It would have been even more aggravating than it was, had it been known that Lady Jim paid next to nothing for her gowns, and advertised the dressmaker instead of settling the bill. But Leah did not make this fact public. She was content to use her magnificent figure and good looks, and her popularity in society, to save a lean purse, and therefore was daily and nightly clad in the purple and fine linen which wrung envious tears from other women's eyes. Sometimes Lady Jim, fascinating a society-paper editor, would utilise his columns and circulation to advertise deserving tradesmen: while from these, in return, she exacted tangible gratitude in the welcome shape of gloves, handkerchiefs, scents, and similar needful if expensive commodities. Lady Jim never signed her name to these literary efforts, but they drew custom to the shop and filled her wardrobe with what she wanted at the moment, so she was not ambitious to be known as an authoress. Even Jim never knew how his wife, as he put it, "contrived the tip-top;" and privately thought that the age of miracles was not yet past, when Leah could make something out of nothing.

For five years, more or less, Lady Jim had been clothed as the lilies of the field, and had been supplied with nutriment by the lineal descendants of Elijah's ravens; but now things were coming to a crisis. The long lane down which she had marched as Solomon-in-all-his-glory was about to take a turning, and Lady Jim did not relish the new route. It led to second-rate lodgings at home or abroad, to the lack of frocks and a diminution of other women's envy, to the loss of a thousand and one luxuries which had become necessaries, and to a self-denying ordinance of which she did not approve. Something must be done to prevent the necessity of turning down this penurious alley, but when Lady Jim set out on her shopping excursion she did not very well see how she could avoid the almost inevitable.

Needless to say, Leah had a trifle more in her purse than the one sovereign she had admitted the existence of to Jim. To be precise, she possessed ten pounds, and that had to last a week as pocket-money. She felt very hard up as she stepped into her motor-car and whirled down the street. Had she possessed the lamp of Aladdin she would have made its slave bankrupt; and to think that seven days of desiring pretty things should be supported on ten pounds! The beggar at the gate of Dives could not have been poorer.

But there was no sign of penury on the surface. The unpaid sables Lady Jim wore were the best that the animal could give; the fur rug over her feet had cost enough to keep a poor family for six months in food and fire, though she, or rather Jim, was being dunned for the payment of that; the motor-car was one of the best and newest, and Lady Jim drove it with the reckless speed of a woman who thinks the world was created so that she should play Juggernaut. Having plenty of courage, and a love for playing with death, Leah was a daring and skilful driver. Before now she had swept round a corner with two wheels beating the air. But she had not as yet crushed any one under the said wheels, and she ascribed this luck to her peacock's feather. Like all who have small belief in the Deity, Lady Jim was superstitious in a small way. Her fetish was a peacock's feather, and so long as she had one about her, nothing, so she averred, could possibly go wrong. There was one now thrust into the left-hand lamp of the car, and the panels were painted with the same feathers, until they resembled the tail of Juno's favourite bird. Lady Jim might forget to go to church, or to say her prayers, or to thank God, but she never forgot the necessary peacock's feather which was to ensure prosperity and safety. She was reported to make genuflections before a shrine of this sort, but the report was probably exaggerated. No one knew what kind of a Baal she worshipped, but it is ridiculous to say that she did not adore at least one, for she was, in her way, a very religious woman.

Lady Jim raced her car out of Curzon Street, down Park Lane, and into Piccadilly, where she amused herself with dodging nervous people and shaving the wheels of vehicles drawn by humble quadrupeds. The chauffeur sat grimly silent, expecting an almost certain spill, with the calm of a fatalist. He knew it would come some day, in spite of his mistress's skilful driving, but he neither worried nor remonstrated. He was paid for a silent tongue and healthy nerves, and if his life was insured rather heavily, considering his profession, that was no one's business but his wife's, and she had already decided how to spend the insurance money. But the woman need not have been so sure of such good fortune. Lady Jim did not mind hurting other people, but she had an uncommonly good notion of how to preserve the only neck she possessed.

When the car reached Bond Street, Lady Jim, who was as calm as though she had finished a donkey-ride, stepped down and entered a jeweller's shop. Lately she had paid a trifle off his bill, and thought herself entitled to double the gross amount. The jeweller, knowing the Duke of Pentland had fifty thousand a year, and that Lady Jim was too pretty a daughter-in-law not to get her own way with so gay an old nobleman, did not object to his customer's purchases. If Lady Jim could not pay the Duke would, so she was permitted to take away several objects for which she had no use. Then she went to select some new hats, and look at the latest thing in frocks. A call at certain other establishments resulted in the car being heaped with expensive trifles for Christmas presents. Afterwards the car whirled into Oxford Street, returned to Piccadilly, and stopped every now and then like a bird of prey. At some shops she was received with sickly smiles; at others, which she favoured for the first time with her custom, with rejoicing grins: but out of every place Lady Jim walked calmly, with a shopman in the rear bringing parcels to increase the baggage on the car. She achieved the whole afternoon's work without once opening her purse. Could Rothschild have financed things better?

At five o'clock, with lighted lamps and unabated speed, Lady Jim drove her machine to Berkeley Square, and, leaving the chauffeur to choke and shiver in the damp fog, walked into a dull-looking house to see her godmother, Lady Canvey. She wished to ask the advice of that kindly, shrewd old pagan, and was not at all pleased when she found the Rev. Lionel Kaimes, trying to lead Lady Canvey in the right way. He had been trying to guide her heavenward for the last year, but the bright-eyed old dame still danced along the primrose path with nimble feet and an appreciation of the agreeable people who were dancing along with her to perdition.

"Well, my dear," said Lady Canvey, submitting her withered cheek to a conventional kiss. "Lionel, here, has been speaking of the devil, and you appear. There's some truth in proverbs, it seems."

"I forgot, Leah, this is my 'Philip you-are-but-mortal' companion. You have not met her before, and I don't think you'll seek her company again. She's not quite your sort, my dear, not quite your sort. Joan, come and show yourself."

In response to this order a slim, tall girl, with a serious face, came forward shyly, and put out a timid hand. She was plainly dressed in a black stuff gown, without colour or ornament. Her hands and feet were slim and small; she had wavy brown hair twisted into a loose knot at the nape of her neck, and the features of her somewhat pale face were delicately shaped. On the whole an uncommonly pretty girl, Lady Jim decided, after taking in all this at a glance, but less seriousness and brighter smiles would improve her looks. She was like Pygmalion's statue before the goddess had flushed its cold whiteness with rosy blood.

"How are you?" asked Leah, nodding in a friendly way, but without shaking hands. "You are one of Lady Canvey's discoveries, I suppose."

"My discovery," put in Lionel, cheerfully, and with a proud glance at the white-rose beauty of the girl. "Lady Canvey wanted a companion, and I brought her----"

"One of Fra Angelico's saints," finished Lady Jim, who was honest enough to confess inwardly that this ethereal loveliness was most attractive.

"Quite so," chuckled Lady Canvey, arranging many costly rings on a pair of knuckly hands. "Lionel knows how I enjoy the company of a saint."

"You must put up with a sinner for the time being," said Lady Jim, good-humouredly. "I have come to talk business."

"That means you intend to worry me," grumbled Lady Canvey, with a sharp glance from under her bushy eyebrows. "I hate being worried and bored."

"Yes, you will. Other people's affairs always bore me. I am not like his reverence here," and she waved her ebony cane towards the young curate, who laughed cheerfully.

Then she looked from the young man to the old woman. Lionel was her husband's cousin, and should death make a clean sweep of the Duke, and Frith and Jim, he would inherit the title and the fifty thousand a year which Lady Jim coveted. This possibility, which it must be admitted was sufficiently remote, did not make Leah love the young man any the more. Besides, he was what she called "goody-goody," which meant that he had entered the service of his Master for use and not for show. As the curate of an exacting vicar in a Lambeth parish, he grubbed amongst the dirty poor, and dispensed soup, soap, shelter, and salvation. Rarely did Lionel come to the West End, as his task lay amongst the poor and lowly; but when he did venture into high places he always called on Lady Canvey, who had an odd kind of affection for him. "He's misguided, but genuine, my love," said the pagan, "and moreover, he amuses me!" which last statement amply accounted for the favour with which the old lady regarded him. Lionel was rather like Jim, tall and muscular and handsome. But his face had an intelligent look which Leah had never beheld in the dull visage of her husband, and his blue eyes had the bright, calm gaze of one whose faith is certain. He affected the usual clerical garb, but being only twenty-five, and boyish at that, his face wore a genial, cheerful, unworried expression, which made most people open their hearts. Like a doctor, a clergyman must have a good bedside manner, and this Lionel possessed. Moreover, his heart was kindly, and he was quick to observe the snubbed and neglected. This feeling drew him towards Joan, who had retreated, colouring painfully, when Lady Jim substituted a nod for a handshake. The girl was busy with a silver teapot, egg-shell china, and hot cakes, and presently handed a cup to the visitor. Lady Jim took it somewhat absently, and having satisfied herself with Lionel's looks and personality, turned her eyes on Lady Canvey.

Outwardly the old dame resembled the godmother of a fairy story, and would have been admirably suited to the pointed cap and scarlet cloak of a professed witch. Yet the remains of beauty lingered about her wrinkled face, recalling exciting Crimean days when she had been a belle. She was small and shrunken and bent, and sometimes her grey head shook with palsy. But her spirit was still vigorous and her brain clear, as could be seen by the steadiness of her piercing black eyes, diamond-bright and clear. She wore a lace cap, a dress of silvery grey satin, and many jewels costly but old-fashioned. Add to these a white China-crape shawl and an ebony cane, and behold the portrait of the lady known as the "cleverest old harridan in town." But that description was given by an enemy. Lady Canvey had a quick brain and a sharp tongue, yet her heart was as kindly as that of Lionel. Perhaps it was this which drew the young and old together.

The room was comfortable, and luxuriously furnished, but with the ugly taste of the Early Victorian epoch. Lady Canvey, now over eighty, clung to the decorations and colours which had been fashionable when she was young, and on stepping into the room Lady Jim felt as though she had slipped back to the time of the Great Exhibition. The motor-car outside, and the old lady in the red velvet armchair, represented widely-severed eras. And even Joan the saint and Lionel the curate seemed alien to the world Lady Jim inhabited. For that world closely resembled the one Noah had fled from into the ark, when the denizens "were eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage"--though, to be sure, marriage nowadays, save as a visible sign of respectability, was not much considered.

"Well, godmother," said Lady Jim, thinking to curry favour with this she-Cr[oe]sus by using an approved, if somewhat obsolete, address, "you are looking well."

"Then I'm a living lie," retorted Lady Canvey, grimly. "How can you expect me to look well, when Lionel here has been quoting texts for want of originality?"

"That's your business," replied Lady Canvey, stirring her tea; "but I can hear the scriptures read when I please by Joan, who has a much sweeter voice than you, young man, as I suppose you think;" and she gave one of her dry chuckles.

The curate reddened, and Joan looked confused. Lady Jim, glancing from one serious face to the other, drew her own conclusions, and murmured something about a "sealed fountain." Lady Canvey, not being versed in biblical imagery, did not understand, but Lionel comprehended on the instant.

Leah hated to be addressed in this stiff manner; yet it seemed appropriate to the out-of-date room. But she had no desire to quarrel with her godmother's pet in the presence of that opulent lady, so she turned the tables on Lionel by looking shocked. "Of course I do. I am not a pagan."

"Then I must be one," snapped Lady Canvey; "for I wouldn't be you, Leah Kaimes, for the heaven I don't expect to go to."

"Hush! hush!" said Lionel, pained by this flippancy coming from those withered lips.

Lady Jim glanced at her opulent beauty in a dim mirror, framed in tarnished gold, and laughed softly. Her godmother saw the look and was swift to interpret its meaning.

"I was like that once," she said, in rather a quavering voice, "and you'll come to be such as I am, only you'll never wear so well. Oh, what an arm I had!" and she began to weep silently over her lost beauty.

While Lionel and Joan comforted the poor soul, Leah looked sympathetic but gave no assistance. She decided that Lady Canvey was in her dotage, and would be the more easily dealt with on that account. Her one desire, therefore, was to get rid of the two unnecessary people and begin operations at once. She hoped by skilful management to come away with a considerable cheque in Lady Canvey's shaky handwriting. Those drivelling tears meant a weak will, and that, to one of Leah's determination, meant money.

"About this business," she began, when the old woman was again her cheerful, cynical self: "could you spare me ten minutes, godmother?"

This was not a promising beginning, but Lady Jim knew she would not walk off with the spoils without a sharp brush for their gaining. She looked at Lionel, and then at the girl, whom she was sure in her own heart the curate loved.

"Have you ever heard Mr. Kaimes talk Chinese metaphysics, Miss Tallentire?" she asked Joan, having possessed herself of the companion's surname.

"No," said Joan, opening her violet eyes widely. "I am not clever enough to understand."

"Lionel," interrupted Lady Canvey, sharply, "go into the conservatory with Joan. She will show you a new dwarf oak which I lately bought. Leah will entertain me. And I'm pretty sure," chuckled she, "that I shall entertain Leah."

"She's going to be nasty," thought Lady Jim, with a charming smile, and continued to smile until the curate and his unsuspecting companion went to see the dwarf oak and to talk Chinese metaphysics, which Leah was certain they would do. Lionel, with a defiant glance at his cousin, and with a colour which made him look unexpectedly handsome, followed Joan out of the stuffy room. When the door was closed, and the fire was unnecessarily poked up, and Lady Canvey was comfortably settled in her chair, after a word or two about the draughts which no one but herself could feel in that close atmosphere, Lady Jim waited patiently for her godmother to begin the battle.

She had not long to wait. Lady Canvey's eyes were bright, and Lady Canvey's spirit reared like a warhorse to plunge down on Leah. She sniffed once or twice, and looked sharply at the beautiful, smiling face. Then she delivered herself of a speech which put Lady Jim's late behaviour in a nutshell.

CHAPTER III

Lady Jim was not at all offended. She made every allowance for the querulous temper of old age, and still smiled.

"But they don't always get it, my dear," snapped Lady Canvey; adding inconsequently, "when the cat's in the dairy, she's after the cream."

"I don't think that's an original remark," said Leah, languidly, and loosening her furs, for the room really was heated like the conservatory, in which the lovers talked Chinese metaphysics. "Didn't George Eliot say something of the sort?"

"I never knew him," retorted Lady Canvey, wilfully dense. "You and your Chinese metaphysics indeed! I won't have it----"

Lady Canvey scowled like the fairy Caraboss, and continued, without heeding the impertinence, "Joan is the daughter of Lionel's vicar."

"News!" expressed Lady Jim, serenely. "I never knew such a prig as Lionel could fall in love."

"His love is the love of an honest man," declared the old dame, striking her crutch on the carpet.

"Chinese metaphysics indeed!" grumbled Lady Canvey. "The poor child did not know what you meant."

"Oh, I didn't mean to say she was so dull as all those qualities imply," said Lady Jim, sweetly.

Lady Canvey looked wrathfully round for something to throw at her visitor's head. But the tea-table was too far away, and the old woman prized her cups and saucers. Finally she took refuge in a spiteful speech.

"I sincerely hope so, seeing she is your companion," replied Leah, not caring to take up so ridiculous a challenge. "When did you start her?"

"Leah!" Lady Canvey thumped the ground again. "Don't talk slang. If you wish to know, although I don't think it is any of your business, Joan Tallentire came to me two months ago, during which time you have not come to see me."

"I did meet Jim there. He lost heavily on the red. I won, and came home with enough to see me through the last month."

"Let me think," she murmured, not put out in the least. "Oh, that little dowdy Australian woman, who is trying to get into society on her husband's money, asked me to stop at their villa."

Lady Jim nodded blandly. "You can't expect me to live with pigs for nothing," she said, with the greatest coolness.

"You'd live with the devil and borrow from him, I believe," cried the exasperated Lady Canvey, glaring.

"I do live with one," assented her god-daughter; "but he's a stony-broke devil."

"No. People wouldn't understand if I talked like Lady Jane Grey or Elizabeth Fry."

"But so dull," objected Lady Jim. "Why is it good women are always dull and dowdy?"

"Their outfit can't cost much, then," declared Leah, flippantly; "but aren't we going to talk business? Think of that poor French, sitting in the motor-car all this time."

"Horribly," replied Lady Jim, calmly; "but at least the poor creature is cooler than I am. This room is stifling."

"Ah! Even had I not seen Lionel I could guess he had been with you, godmother. He loves the dirty and disreputable."

"That obvious speech is hardly worthy of your reputation," was Lady Jim's reply. Then she crossed her legs, rested her muff on her knee, and protested, "I can't wait here much longer----"

"No; but I'm going to dine at the Cecil to-night, with a boy in the Lancers. He's a nice boy."

"Of course! I don't like boys without money. But this business," she went on hurriedly. "Jim and I are in a hole."

"That would be a hole," said Leah, good-humouredly; "but you don't want to see Jim and me in the bankruptcy court."

"You're a heartless cat," said Lady Canvey, angrily, and with her eyes scintillating like jewels. "It's no use, Leah. I've helped you and that rascal Jim over and over again. Apply to the Duke."

Lady Jim sat very upright in her chair, and a becoming colour heightened her beauty.

"I don't ask any men for money," she declared; "you know perfectly well, Lady Canvey, that I am any honest woman."

"And how dull that sounds," chuckled Lady Canvey, turning the tables; "you should be more original, Leah."

"I don't mind going out to dinner with a man," cried Lady Jim, feeling herself much aggrieved, "nor do I mind a box at the theatre, or some gloves or things of that sort, so long as Jim doesn't object.'

"I do. Jim's got a temper. He told me this very morning he'd screw my neck if I broke loose."

"Then I respect him for saying it," said Lady Canvey, energetically; "and I'd respect him still more if he did it."

"That's what I said to him," retorted Leah, grimly. "All the same, I am straight enough. No one can say a word against me."

"I'm glad to hear it. You have your good points, Leah," observed Lady Canvey, in a more kindly tone; "but you show your worst side to the world. Why not turn over a new leaf?"

"I'm just about to do so, and there's bankruptcy on the other side, unless you help us, dear godmother," she ended coaxingly.

"I won't," was the firm response. "It's like pouring water into a sieve. I've given you and Jim at least five thousand pounds. Where is it, I ask--where?"

"In ways it shouldn't go," snapped the old woman, feeling herself mistress of the situation. "Don't talk nonsense to me, Leah. You and that rascal are a couple of spendthrifts. The Duke, bless him, started you both with a good home and a good income, and now----"

"Now we're on the rocks, as Jim cleverly puts it," said Leah, who could not help seeing the humour of the dilemma. "You didn't think Jim was so original, did you, godmother?"

"I'm sure I don't know why you should say that," remonstrated Lady Jim. "I must keep up my position."

"It's not as if you had been expensively brought up," went on Lady Canvey, unheeding. "Your father was a wasteful pauper, for he got precious little off that estate of his in Buckinghamshire."

"And what he did get went into his own pocket," said Lady Jim, supplementing the family history; "but as my mother was dead, and I was his only daughter, he might have treated me better."

"Oh, spare me these adjectives," interrupted Lady Jim, rising. "My father is dead, so there's nothing more to say. If you can't help me, at least you needn't call me names."

"I beg your pardon," said Lady Canvey, very politely. "As I don't intend to give you a shilling, I have no right to tell you what I think of your doings. Will you ring the bell, please? I want Joan."

When Lady Canvey took this tone Leah knew well that the case was hopeless. In spite of senile weeping, it appeared that the old woman was not so easily beguiled as might have been expected. There seemed nothing for it but to leave in silence; but remembering how desperate was the position, Lady Jim refrained from ringing the bell and made a last appeal--this time on business grounds.

"If you will give me a thousand pounds for six months," she proposed, "my husband and I will pay it back with interest."

"Ring the bell," was all the answer that Lady Canvey vouchsafed to this proposal; "and goodnight, my dear."

Lady Jim recognised that she was beaten, and nothing remained, but to retire with dignity. Pressing the button of the bell, she crossed to Lady Canvey and kissed her withered cheek with a caressing smile. "I am so pleased to see you looking so well," she said gently; "but I see signs of failing in your conversation."

"You won't see any signs of lending," was the grim response. "Oh, here you are, Joan," as that young lady entered the room with Lionel at her heels. "Send these people away, and read me a chapter out of that new novel which came yesterday."

"Goodnight," said Lionel, bending over the old lady, and kissing her hand with the tenderness of a son.

She twitched it away. "There--there--goodnight. Take Leah to that miserable creature who is perishing in her motor-car, and don't make love to her. She is one of those women who are a crown to their husbands."

Lady Jim did not wait to hear the old woman's chuckle as she fired this last shot, but swept out of the room, smiling kindly on Miss Tallentire. The curate followed her, and Leah began to consider what use she could make of him to farther her plans.

"Let me drive you to Lambeth," she said, while arranging her sables at the door.

Lionel laughed. "Lambeth would be shocked to see me arrive at my lodgings in such an up-to-date style," said he, pulling up the collar of his coat. "No, thank you, Lady James. I'll walk for a time, and then take a Westminster Bridge 'bus."

"No, you won't," she contradicted, in an imperious tone. "I wish to talk to you. Come, get in. French, you can go home."

Looking rather apprehensively at the machine, which was humming and shaking in the bitter cold, French touched his cap and moved away. Leah stepped lightly in, and beckoned to Lionel with one hand, while she gripped the steering-wheel with the other.

The curate did not display much eagerness to come. "Is it safe?" he asked; "you've sent the man away."

"Because I want to talk privately with you. Safe!" she echoed in a tone of impatient scorn; "I'd drive a car against Edge himself."

"Oh, very well," said Kaimes, carelessly, and placed himself beside her. He was utterly devoid of fear, and if there was to be a smash, he was not unprepared to enter the next world. Lady Jim gave the wheel a twirl, and the car glided through the square under the grey muffling of the fog. Reckless as she was, Lady Jim had to steer carefully and move slowly, lest she should run into something, for the fog was a trifle thicker than it had been during the afternoon. All the same, her keen eyes could see clearly enough, and she was not at all afraid. Cool under all circumstances, Lady Jim would have hummed a ditty on the streaming bridge of a plunging, bucking tramp-steamer, going down in the bitter North Atlantic weather. Lionel marvelled at her composure, and wondered if even her dear intellect could grasp the meaning of death and its hereafter. But Lady Jim was thinking of this world rather than of the next, and talked of her troubles while steering the car down Piccadilly.

"Jim and I are in a hole about money," she announced abruptly, for there was no need to be diplomatic with this simpleton.

She laughed and nodded. "No. We have both a wonderful capacity for getting through cash. Now we've got down to what an American girl called the bed-rock, and we want help."

"I never knew you when you did not want help," said the curate, wondering what was best to say; "and in some ways, your want is very dire."

"To such as you and Jim, no doubt. But setting aside the spiritual need, a sermon on your extravagance would do you good."

"I'm afraid not," rejoined Lady Jim, putting on the brake for the St. James's Street incline; "it would only go in at one ear and out of the other. When I want sermons I'll come and hear you preach in that dirty little church of yours. Meantime, you must help to get Jim and me out of this scrape."

Lionel was annoyed by her reference to his church, but from experience he knew it was worse than useless to argue with Lady Jim. "I cannot help you," he said stiffly; "you know my small means."

"Bless the man, I don't mean you to put your hand in your pocket. I am quite aware that the clergy are better at asking than at giving."

"You have no right to say that," remonstrated Kaimes, warmly. "We help the poor and needy."

Lady Jim negotiated Cockspur Street and felt her way along Trafalgar Square in the hope of hitting Whitehall. Only when the car was buzzing down that thoroughfare did Lionel speak.

"I am sitting in a most expensive machine," he said, indignantly, "swathed in a costly rug, and beside a woman with a fortune on her back in the way of clothes."

"Then you ought to be very happy," said Leah, calmly; "but I'll drop you at Lambeth soon, and then you can get back to the mud and rags, which you seem to prefer."

"Nonsense. It is only poor people who can afford them. The rich make their money by self-denial, and wearing clothes which don't fit, in houses furnished with the riff-raff of auction-rooms. Jim and I have been brought up to better things."

"It is people such as you and your husband who make the poor discontented," insisted the curate.

"I'm sure I don't see why the poor should be," murmured Lady Jim, vaguely; "there are lots of shelters and soup-kitchens and workhouses. And I always put ten shillings into the plate on Hospital Sunday, not to speak of the way in which I've danced and sung at performances--got up to help people who don't need the money so much as I do."

"Well, and what else could the poor man have done?" retorted Leah. "There were no fire-brigades in those days, were there?"

"Oh yes, I do. You mean to be nasty. If I were a vindictive woman I would drop you into the river, car and all"--they were crossing Westminster Bridge by this time--"but I always like to be nice. Being nasty brings wrinkles, and makes one so old. But about our trouble," she went on, determined to have her own way. "Lady Canvey won't help us, and no one else either. There's the Duke----"

"Not at all," Lady Jim assured him coolly. "He's kept us on bread and water--that's all."

"Oh!" Lionel was shocked at this ungrateful speech. "And you prefer pâté de foie gras and champagne?"

"Naturally! Not that I like pâté de foie gras. They torture the geese to get it, I believe, and it seems cruel to eat it."

"It has been my ruin. But this trouble----" She harked back again to the one subject which occupied her thoughts. "Will you see the Duke, and ask him to give us--say--er--er--well, two thousand pounds?"

"That's so like you parsons," said Lady Jim snappishly: "we ask for bread, and you give us a stone."

"Not at all, I always ask for twice what I hope to get. But here we are on the other side of the water. I can't take the machine into your dirty little slums. Get down."

Lionel did so, and stepped on to the pavement. "Thank you for the drive," said he, lifting his soft hat.

Kaimes hesitated. He did not wish to appear churlish; yet it seemed useless to interfere. "The Duke is very independent," he explained; "I don't think he'll listen to me."

"Oh yes, he will. You're a parson, and he is old enough to be afraid of the next world. Tell him we're cleaned out, and get Jim and me a thousand. And I tell you what," added Leah, generously. "If you do, I'll give you a ten-pound note for your charities, though I don't believe in helping paupers myself."

"Yes. It will be horribly dull. The Duke is so fond of that old-fashioned Dickens Christmas, with its holly and mistletoe rubbish; but we must keep in with him. What of it?"

"Oh, we've explained it a dozen times. But the Duke doesn't seem to understand. Now, you can put the thing to him nicely."

"Well," said the curate, slowly. "I go to Firmingham at Christmas to preach, so I'll speak to the Duke."

"You're a brick," cried Lady Jim, holding out her hand. "I'll come and hear you preach when we're in Firmingham."

"I hope it will do you good," said Lionel, shaking hands. "You think me a prig, Lady James, but I assure you----"

"I know you do," said Leah, dreading further sermons; "but I must get home to dress. Goodnight."

"Goodnight," echoed Lionel, hopelessly, and saw the car glide away into the fog between the lines of blurred lights. "Poor woman!" he thought, turning towards his lodgings. "How terribly sad her spiritual position is! I trust she will get home safely, seeing she is so worldly."

He need not have troubled. Lady Jim reached Curzon Street in safety, and in very good spirits. Did not a peacock's feather adorn one of the motor-car lamps?

CHAPTER IV

Firmingham was the smallest of the Duke of Pentland's country seats, and so cosy, that he invariably held his Christmas revels there, in preference to dispensing Yule-tide hospitality in more splendid mansions. Situated in a woody and elevated part of Essex--that county presumed to be a fog-tormented puddle--the quaint Georgian house was ideal in itself, and in the repose and charm of its surroundings.

Ugly it probably was when erected, but time had mellowed its glaring walls of red brick, and nature had draped them with hangings of dark green ivy. The square, lofty house, with its freestone ornamentation, its many windows and gigantic porch, stood on a slight rise, a position which enhanced its noble proportions. On three sides, level with the ground floor, extended broad greystone terraces, with shallow steps leading downward to smooth lawns. These, stretching for a considerable distance, terminated in flower-beds, now devoid of blossom and colour. And lawns, house, and flower-gardens were girdled by pines and oaks, sycamore-trees and elms, with noble examples of the birch, the beech, and cedars, proud and tall. A wide, straight avenue ran for a quarter of a mile through grim firs to ornate iron gates swinging between massive stone pillars, surmounted by the ducal arms. And these same gates gave entrance to a spacious and wild park, as delightful as that "wood near Athens" where Oberon tricked Titania.

The charming country outside this sacred enclosure appealed to artists in search of the picturesque. Certainly, the landscape was domestic and tame, for here nature yielded to the controlling hand of man. But the pleasant walks, the deep lanes, the ancient villages, and the comfortable farmhouses, sprinkled thickly for miles, made, in conjunction, a pretty picture of rural peace and contentment. And the contentment was genuine, for no better or more considerate landlord than the Duke existed. He was popular in the neighbourhood, and his sway almost imperial--a true king of the castle.

Jim and his wife drove from the station in quite a Darby and Joan style, and, through fear of the Duke, rather than in compliment to the season, were prepared to enact the parts of man and wife to perfection. It was rather hard for Leah to say pretty things to Jim in public, and for Jim to hover anxiously round Leah as a lover-like husband; but the Duke expected such behaviour, and they were astute enough not to disappoint him. In his rough tweeds, with jovial looks and hearty words, Jim was quite the English squire of the story-book, and shook hands with some of his father's tenants who haunted the local station in quite the "all-men-are-brothers" style. Leah also dispensed smiles and nods to marvelling villagers, who stared open-mouthed at her beauty. But in the comfortable brougham, Jim folded his arms and lapsed into sulky silence, and Leah yawned and looked out of the window for want of something better to do. They were off the stage now, and could take their ease.

Very wintry looked the landscape through which they passed. The meadow-lands were deep in snow, and gaunt, leafless trees started like black spectres from the milky ground. Ponds and ditches wore masks of darkly-green ice, and the frozen road rang like iron under the hoofs of the horses. A yellowish sky, with the promise of almost immediate snow, lowered over the starving world, and, for lack of foliage, the landscape widened to the observing eye. A dull crimson in the west showed that the sun was sinking in foggy splendour. The shrill voices of children, singing music-hall songs instead of carols, saluted their ears.

"If it wasn't for the music-hall songs," assented her husband, looking out of his window. "Wonder if there'll be skatin'."

"We have each our little vanities, Jim," said Lady Jim, whom hope made good-humoured. "There's the church--what a pretty old building, and how well the snow contrasts with the red roof and the ivy!"

"We must show an example to the lower orders," explained Leah, in her British-matron tone. "Besides, Lionel preaches."

"Mr. Dane, the vicar, is ill, and asked Lionel to fill the pulpit. The Duke has nothing to do with it."

"You'd have the church turned into a music-hall, I daresay," retorted his wife, contemptuously. "But you must be as nice as you know how to Lionel. Remember, he promised to speak to the Duke."

"I'll keep awake during his sermon, but I shan't promise to do more, Leah. You're runnin' this show."

"Quite so, but I don't want you to spoil it. Lionel has great influence with the Duke."

"Frightens the old man to death with texts and Tophet, I expect," said Jim, crossly. "I know these parsons."

"I was not aware that your circle of friends included such respectable acquaintances."

"Oh, I can hold a candle to a certain person as well as you, Leah. Who do we meet at Firmingham?"

"The usual dull lot," said Lady Jim, with a yawn. "Frith and his stupid little wife, who seems to model herself on David Copperfield's Dora. Then Lady Canvey, with her new companion, is sure to be present."

"That little Russian doctor, Demetrius. We met him at the Embassy, if you remember. Not the Russian Embassy, but the French. He's out of favour with the Czar, and dare not leave England in case he should be sent to Siberia."

"He can practise for it here," said Jim, shivering, "Beastly cold, isn't it, Leah? What's Demetrius doin' here?"

"I hope he will," muttered Kaimes, devoutly. "For if Frith comes along we shan't get a shillin'!"

"I'm half afraid we shan't get one now," sighed Lady Jim. "Here's the avenue. What a charming place!"

"I'd let it out on buildin' leases, if I had it," remarked the prosaic Jim, "an' cut the timber. Lot of money in those trees."

"Don't look into jewellers' windows, Jim. You're not rich enough to buy the stock."

"Ah, well," said Leah, reassuringly, as the wheels scrunched the frozen snow before the great porch, "we needn't spend anything here, except half a crown for the plate."

"Catch me wastin' money in that way," snapped Kaimes, swinging himself out to help his wife to alight. "Halloa, here's old Colley, lookin' like a dean as usual;" and Jim, again assuming his hearty manner and jovial leer, shook hands with the butler, whom he had known since Etonian days.

The house-party was composed of hostile elements; consequently, every one was compelled to adopt a forced air of Christmas peace and good-will, which rather tried jumpy nerves. The Duke dug up fossilised cousins to participate in the festive season, and these did not suit with some fashionable folk, who for various reasons, as they put it, "had to be nice to the dear old Duke." Mr. Jaffray and his poetic sister of fifty, who quarrelled incessantly, hardly suited the tastes of Mrs. Penworthy, as a daughter of the horse-leech and intensely up-to-date. Nor did Graham, the Little England politician, enjoy the company of Lord Sargon, a Tory, and a believer in the divine right of the last legal descendant of the Stuarts. Also, the various young women and men, who were really nobodies, and fancied themselves somebodies, found the parts they were expected to take in an old-fashioned Christmas rather a bore.

"The season of peace and good-will," explained the Duke, after dinner, when this collection of smartness and do wellness embellished the great drawing-room. "We must all love one another."

The company assented conventionally, and every one smiled violently on every one, to the amusement of Lady Canvey. "If this was the Palace of Truth," she announced, "there would be trouble."

"Just so, Duke. But some people are like certain pears, they won't mellow--they only become sleepy. And that reminds me," she added, looking round for Joan. "I'll go to bed soon."

"Not on Christmas Eve," urged the Duke, bending over her chair. "We intend to keep Yule-tide as our ancestors did--snap-dragon, the mummers, the Christmas-tree, the carol-singers, and the ghost-stories."

"Not one of them clever enough to tell a real ghost story," snapped Lady Canvey, cynically examining faces old and young, made up and natural.

"Oh, I know a lovely, lovely tale," said Miss Jaffray, who was gowned girlishly in white, trimmed oddly with ivy, and who looked like a ruin.

"That will last till to-morrow morning," chimed in her brother, seeing an opportunity of being nasty; "snap-dragon is more fun. Eh, Lady Frith--you used to enjoy that once."

"I do so now--dear snap-dragon," said the Marchioness, who was sentimental and adored her tall lean husband; "but the Christmas-tree--oh, that is too sweet. Bunny and I met for the first time under a Christmas-tree, and he fell in love with me. Didn't you, Bunny?"

It was rather hard on Lord Frith that he should be addressed by this most inappropriate name. He was as stiff as a Spaniard, sad in his looks, and spoke little. Although eminently well-bred, and clever in a political way, he was not a genial personage. In this he differed from his father, for the Duke was stout and kindly looking, beaming with good-humour, and quite the style of host who would have figured in Sir Roger de Coverley's time. Report said that he had been much too gay in his youth, and that the late Duchess had put up with a great deal. Lady Canvey could have related stories about the Duke likely to be much more entertaining than the proposed ghost-tales. But she was fond of her host, who, like herself, was a link with the remote past, and never told stories out of school. When she and the Duke got together, they wagged their old heads over dead and done-with scandals, and lamented these days of vulgar and blatant sin. But whatever their pasts may have been, they were an ideal couple in the way of venerable looks and sweet old age. Quite a Philemon and Baucis of modern times.

Meantime, "Bunny" scowled on his frivolous little wife, and then gave her a sentimental smile. He was always torn between love and propriety, for Lady Frith, imitating Dora, as Lady Jim averred, said the most exasperating things in a sweet treble. He used to lecture her in private and explain what she should say; but these corrections always ended in tears on the part of the child-wife, and in complete surrender on the part of her doting husband. Lady Frith certainly could play her part in society excellently well on occasions, and was more shrewd than would have been guessed from her baby face and infantile manners. But she wanted to be original, and therefore plagiarised from Dickens' novel. This assumption of an imaginary character she called "possessing a personality."

Mrs. Penworthy was old wine in a new bottle: that is, she looked twenty-five, and acted like an experienced coquette of double the age. Married to a modern Job, called Freddy, whose meekness was proverbial, she led him about like a pet lamb and taught him a few parlor tricks, so that people might say, "What an attached couple;" which they did, tongue in cheek. A sweet look from Mrs. Penworthy warmed Freddy's heart for four and twenty hours, even though the cost of the merest glance sometimes ran into double figures. In his hours of leisure, which were few, he frequently told her that she was an angel; but the expression did not sound so agreeable on Freddy's lips, as on those of the half dozen nice boys who constituted her court.

She went everywhere and knew everyone, and did the things she ought not to have done, with discretion. Freddy thought her a playful kitten, quite blind to the fact that she had grown rapidly into a cat. But with smiling looks and sheathed claws, and Freddy's diamonds on her neck, she was a very pretty cat, and blinked sleepily at those who admired her, so long as Freddy gave her a silken cushion to rest on and plenty of cream to drink. Moreover, she only scratched those who could not scratch back.

"I really think it's awful fun," said Mrs. Penworthy to her court--"all this sort of thing, you know--holly and snow and----"

Lady Canvey's sharp ears overheard the banter. "Were I Freddy I know what I'd say," she murmured grimly; then aloud, to spoil sport, "Is your husband here, Mrs. Penworthy?"

"Freddy? Oh, dear me, no. He's gone to Paris, or Peru, or--I forget exactly where--but it's something beginning with a 'P.' Dear Freddy," she laid an entirely useless fan on her lips, pensively, "he works so very, very hard."

"And quite right too," said Lady Canvey, bluntly, "seeing what a devoted wife he has."

"Ah, you don't know how Freddy tries me, dear Lady Canvey. I am devoted--that I am. But, you see, I took Freddy for better or worse."

"Oh no," corrected the old woman, tartly; "you took the better, and Freddy took the worse."

Mrs. Penworthy, not being ready with an answer, murmured something about "jealous old thing," and moved away with her court to where Lord Sargon was holding forth on his pet craze. "If only our ancient kings were back," he said, but not too loud, as the Duke might have disapproved of the disloyalty, "Christmas would be Christmas. In the good old times of the blessed martyr Charles----"

"The bad old times," contradicted Mr. Graham; "it was then that our beloved country began to annex places which are useless. Let us give up everything beyond the Channel, and attend to our own country. Then, indeed, Christmas will be Christmas."

"And the parish pump will pour forth beer," said Mr. Jaffray, referring to the badge of the Little Englander.

"Ah, the conduits ran wine in those sweet old days," sighed his sister, in her poetic vein.

"And people never washed," said a truculent old gentleman given to sanitation. "What I say is, let every house have a bath-room."

"I say, Jim, is this going to last for ever?" asked Leah, considerably bored by these intellectual fireworks.

"A week, anyhow," replied Jim, who was feeling happy after a large dinner; "but if you will come to the Zoo, Leah, you mustn't find fault with th' animals."

"You do," retorted Lady Jim, calmly. "There's Demetrius!" and she left her husband in the clutches of Mrs. Penworthy, with a whispered caution. "Don't let her go too far, Jim. This week we're the respectable middle-class pair, who live in slate-roofed houses."

Jim did not quite understand, but he vaguely guessed that he was to keep Mrs. Penworthy at a distance. For some minutes he did this, but she soon overcame his scruples, and begged him to take her to the picture gallery. The discreet court did not follow.

Constantine Demetrius was a small, dark, neat man with an ivory complexion, black hair, a waxed moustache, and a stereotyped smile. He was dressed perfectly in a foreign fashion, and placed his small feet together when he made his bow to Lady Jim. His English was much better than his morals, and perhaps this was why Lady Jim beckoned him to her side. Demetrius was one of her most ardent admirers, and she had a vague idea of making use of him. At present she did not see how to utilise his services, but if ever she required a thoroughly unscrupulous man, she knew that she would need him. Besides, he was really a clever doctor, and when Lady Jim was ill, she felt it would hasten the cure to think she was being attended to for nothing.

"What do you think of all this?" she asked him, when they were snugly bestowed in a cosy corner.

Demetrius clicked his heels together and made a bow from the middle of his body. "At present I cannot say so," said he, gallantly.

"Is like sunshine to a coal-miner: we get it so rarely. By the way, how is Mademoiselle Aksakoff?"

Demetrius looked at Lady Jim with such fire in his dark eyes that she felt slightly uncomfortable in spite of her courageous nature. It was easy to play with the hearts of phlegmatic Englishmen, but to amuse herself with this fiery Slav was like trifling with a tiger. Nevertheless, Lady Jim, with a view to future contingencies, allured him with sweet looks, and tantalised him with half-granted favours. Katinka Aksakoff, the daughter of a Russian official attached to the Embassy, loved Demetrius even to the extent of helping him to escape the lures of the secret police, which would have drawn him to the Continent, en route for Siberia. Therefore she hated Lady Jim, because that astute diplomatist kept Demetrius dangling at her skirts in the bonds of a never-to-be-requited love, on the chance that some day she might require him. And the Russian knew that Leah Kaimes was a woman who wanted all for nothing, but, if possible, he intended to make his own bargain with her. Lady Jim was clever, but Demetrius thought he could entangle her.

"Monsieur Demetrius," she said after a pause, during which the fire died out of the Russian's eyes, "if you wanted money----"

She stared straight before her, and noted that Lionel was chatting with Miss Tallentire. As yet the curate had not spoken with the Duke, so that was a quarter yet to be tried. Nevertheless, Lady Jim had a shrewd idea, in spite of the comedy being played by herself and Jim, and of Lionel's pleading, that the Duke would be adamant. It behoved her to have another string to her bow, and this she could find in Demetrius. But she did not know yet to what use she could put him. It was impossible to ask him to sway the Duke, strong as his influence was with that gouty nobleman. Lady Jim had a good deal of what she called pride, and did not intend to let Demetrius know her true position, if she could help it.

Before she could say anything, and really she did not know what to say, the Duke gave the signal for the commencement of the Christmas festivities. These were strong in intention, but weak in execution. The company burnt their fingers over snap-dragon, capered in Sir Roger de Coverley, tempted the Fates with roasting chestnuts, and finally adjourned to a large hall, where glittered a splendid Christmas-tree.

Then danced in the mummers, villagers all, tricked out as Robin Hood and Maid Marian, as the Terrible Turk, Santa Claus, St. George and the Dragon--a most meek beast--and with hordes of merry, laughing children. The Christmas-tree dropped its costly, many-coloured fruits into expectant laps, and a chorus of praise hymned the munificence of the gratified Duke. Even Lady Jim thanked him for the dainty gold-net purse which she received, and if she did peep in slyly to see whether it was lined with a cheque or a bank-note, that was only out of compliment to her father-in-law's known generosity.

Jim, who was scowling at his gift,--a set of sleeve-links enamelled with the four vices--women, cards, drink, and racing,--growled.

"No," said Leah, tickled by the implied rebuke, "it doesn't do to wear your heart on your sleeve--links": a witticism which was entirely lost on Jim. He was one of the many obtuse swine who trampled on Leah's pearls.

What with eating and drinking, and professing seasonable sentiments which certainly did not come from the heart, everyone became bored and bilious and fractious. Leah surveyed the yawning revellers with a feeling that Christmas, old style, was a failure.

"You can't arrange an orgy," was her comment to Lady Canvey, "it must come by chance, to be successful."

"I don't think Pentland intended anything so disreputable," retorted the old dame, "consequently you are disappointed."

"Bored," Lady Jim assured her. "I suppose it's eating plum pudding which always makes me dull."

"My digestion has its limits. Good night, godmother; I suppose it's time for you to be taken to pieces," and having stricken Lady Canvey dumb with rage, she slipped away to bed, wondering what would happen before next Christmas.

"Something must be done," she thought, wearily climbing the stairs. "If Lionel fails with the Duke, Demetrius might----"

Might what? She did not know. But she really did feel that something might be done with Demetrius.

CHAPTER V

A congregation drawn to the Church of All Angels, by various inducements, filled it to overflowing the next morning. Some came because it was Christmas Day, others to hear Lionel Kaimes preach; many desired to see the ducal party, and one or two presented themselves in God's house to thank Him for the gift of His Son, sent to save a dying world. Knowing the Duke's old age impeccability, nearly all his guests were present and filled three large pews, to the wondering awe of the villagers and their wives. These last, especially, were distracted by the splendour of the ladies' dresses, and the variety of the new fashions. Many laudable imitations of those marvellous frocks were visible in country lane and village street before Easter.

Lady Jim and her husband discreetly sat in the body of the church, some distance from the pulpit, as Leah did not wish to come under the curate's eye. She thought he was quite capable of preaching at her, in which case a natural resentment would have led to a quarrel, prejudicial to the exercise of Lionel's good offices with the Duke. Moreover, Leah, occupied with her own thoughts, did not want to be distracted by a sermon of religious platitudes. She stood up and sat down mechanically, looking too flamboyant to be in harmony with the simplicity of the building. Tucked into the opening of her "Incroyable" coat, claret-coloured and with strikingly large buttons, she wore a cup-shaped nosegay of white and pink orchids. Her hat was large, with many feathers of the new Titian red, and resembled nothing in nature. She did not wear jewellery, but the vivid colours of her dress made up for the absence of gems. There was something tropical about Leah, and in that chill grey church she glowed like a gorgeous flower, all splendour and perfume and radiant vitality. Her exuberant beauty and colour attracted even the attention of Jim. He bent forward, when the prayer for the King's Majesty was being said:

"H-sh-s-s-s!" breathed Leah, devoutly, and knelt in a saintly attitude which was far from expressing her real feelings. For the moment she did not pray herself, or think of the prayer that was being offered. Her thoughts were busy with bills and duns and Jim's defects, and the chances that Demetrius might prove useful. And when she did murmur a prayer, it was one of those which are rarely answered, or, if answered, turn to the confusion of the suppliant. Plenty of money, no trouble, much enjoyment, and the destruction of her enemies, were the elements which composed this remarkable petition. Lady Jim was not very clear as to whom she was asking, but she had a vague feeling, which she mistook for religion, that there might be Some One who could give her what she required. Moreover, it was just as well to be on the safe side. Yet, even as she tried the experiment, the earthly superstition asserted itself, and she carefully fingered a peacock's feather inside her muff. This serving of God and a fetish may seem ridiculous in a woman of Leah's capacity. Nevertheless, she devoutly believed that if the unseen Deity did not help her, the seen Baal would. And after all, was there not a cat of Heine's acquaintance, who made genuflections before a pink-ribboned flageolet? But cats, as the poet remarks, are so superstitious. And Leah the pantheress was of the feline tribe.

Having made herself safe with the Unknown, Lady Jim joined in the ensuing hymn bravely. She thought the words dreary and the tune barbarous, but the fervour of her deep contralto voice reached the Duke's ears, and he gave her an approving glance; so that was something gained. Leah would have gone through the whole collection of Ancient and Modern to learn the precise meaning of that look, but she was satisfied with guessing, and sat down cheerfully to be bored with the sermon. It occurred to her that the prayer had been heard, and would probably be granted. But whether by the peacock's feather, or the Deity of whom Lionel now began to speak, she could not determine.

"And His name shall be called Wonderful"--this was the curate's text, and he discoursed on it in a simple and impressive way. Speaking of the birth of Christ, of His teaching and plan of salvation, of His self-denying life and unwearying kindness, the young man's grave and tender periods shamed the most inattentive into thoughtfulness. Lionel was not a born orator, but he was very much in earnest, and preached with an emphasis which carried undeniable conviction. Mrs. Penworthy felt suddenly virtuous, and resolved to repeat as much of the sermon as she could remember to Freddy, so that he might not grumble so much over what the silly thing called "her extravagance." Even Lady Canvey wagged her aged head, and thought that she might help a few deserving paupers, if their needs could be supplied in moderation. Leah herself was impressed, to the extent of hoping that the Duke would see that it behoved him to fill the empty pockets of a deserving and pretty daughter-in-law. Jim would have approved of this sentiment, but all the time he was fast asleep, and woke up cross when she pinched him to rise for the Doxology.

Beyond a stray sentence here and there, Leah had not paid much attention: she had heard it all before, though some of the sentiments were new, and, as she thought, ridiculous. When the preacher was fairly started she relapsed into her own thoughts. These being unpleasant, she permitted her hard eyes to wander round the church. After a wondering gaze at the extraordinary fashions of the women, and a patronising examination of the decorations, she caught sight of a face belonging to a young man on the other side of the aisle. He was so like Jim that she involuntarily turned to see if her husband still slumbered placidly by her side. The double was dressed in grey tweeds and looked almost like a gentleman. He stooped a trifle, in spite of his square shoulders and stalwart figure, and every now and then coughed painfully. Apparently he was ill with some pulmonary complaint, which the freezing atmosphere of the church accentuated. Leah wondered at the resemblance, and thought of certain traditionary stories concerning the youthful days of the Duke. But after a second glance she decided that perhaps there was nothing in it. Jim was of a pink-and-white, bovine, commonplace type, and there were hundreds like him in manners and morals and looks. Moreover, she was so weary of seeing Jim's inane face over the breakfast-cups that she did not care to gaze at the imitation. Nevertheless, being a woman with the orthodox share of Eve's curiosity, she resolved to ask questions about this consumptive double. Mrs. Arthur, the Firmingham housekeeper, could doubtless tell some story, as she knew much more about the Duke than had ever appeared, even in the most scurrilous society paper. And Lady Jim knew how to make her talk.

When the plate circled, Leah quadrupled Jim's half-crown, and he did not approve when the piece of gold jingled amongst the silver.

"Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow," sang Leah, without replying; and put her whole heart and voice into the hymn in the hope that some of the blessings might trickle her way. And why not, seeing that she had baited her hook with a sprat to catch the much-needed mackerel? But it was useless to explain this to Jim. He would not have understood such lavish fishing.

"It was really too lovely," Mrs. Penworthy assured the Duke at luncheon. "Mr. Kaimes spoke just the things I feel. And the decorations--oh, really--so very tasteful. But the mistletoe, Duke. I don't think there should have been mistletoe round the pulpit."

"Such an immoral plant," chimed in Lady Canvey, with sharp, twinkling eyes; "and so useless to some people, who can dispense with it as an excuse. I daresay the Druids were no better than they should have been."

"They were before my time," said Mrs. Penworthy, very prettily; "and you must have been quite a child then, dear Lady Canvey."

"Oh, dear Bunny," she said to her saturnine husband, "what a lovely way Lionel puts things! Do let us help people. There's Leah, you know----"

"Exactly," assented Frith, dryly. "I do know, and for that reason I don't intend to waste money in that direction."

"That doesn't include the extravagant and ungrateful," retorted her lord. "You are an unsophisticated child, Hilda."

"Oh, Bunny, how could you call poor Leah and her husband names? We must love every one at this season."

"Oh, I'll love them as much as you please; but not to the extent of supporting them."

Plainly there was nothing to be got out of Frith, as Lady Jim decided when the Marchioness reported a part of this conversation later in the day. But she attempted to soften the Marquis by saying things which she knew the child-wife would babble again to her hard-hearted husband.

"Jim and I don't want money, dear," she said, kissing Lady Frith; "so long as Frith is nice to us, we don't care. You have your position to keep up, and we are nothing. But it was sweet of you to speak."

"Oh no," prattled Hilda, in her childish way. "I want every one to love me, ever so much."

"I thought perfect men had no imperfection," retorted Lady Jim, ironically; "but it's all right, dear," another kiss--"we must bear our cross, as Lionel said this morning. Now I must go to see old Mrs. Arthur. One must be good to one's inferiors."

The result of this conversation was, that Lady Frith told her husband of Leah's pointedly correct humbleness; whereat the marquis laughed shortly. He quite understood Lady Jim's tactics, and was resolved that they should not succeed. Frith was one of the few men Lady Jim had never fascinated, and she hated to be under his clear-sighted gaze. If Hilda could have heard Leah's inward remarks as she proceeded to the housekeeper's room, she would scarcely have given so favourable a report.

"Good day, Mrs. Arthur," said Lady Jim, to the old-fashioned dame in the black silk and lace cap, who rose to drop a prim curtsey. "I have come to wish you the compliments of the season."

Lady Jim selected the most comfortable chair in the quaint small room, and graciously requested the housekeeper to resume her seat. Then she asked about Mrs. Arthur's cough, and her sailor son, and her married daughter, and after various other things in which she did not feel the least interest. The old woman, much impressed with Leah's condescension, and not sufficiently clever to see through her arts, expanded like a winter rose in this aristocratic sunshine. In a few minutes she was chatting quite at her ease, and with the discursive garrulousness of old age. This was the unguarded mood Leah desired for the satisfaction of her curiosity, and having created it by an appearance of the deepest interest in Mrs. Arthur's domestic small-beer chronicles, she proceeded to take advantage of the opportunity.

"The service was delightful this morning," she observed; "the decorations were charming and the congregation so attentive. I suppose you know every one in the village, Mrs. Arthur."

"And a very good representative of the place," said Leah, kindly. "The villagers are really quite nice-looking--especially the men."

"Was he in church this morning?" asked Lady Jim, who knew very well that the young man was with his ship in Chinese waters. "I saw rather a handsome young fellow in one of the pews, but he looked ill. Of course, I thought him handsome," she went on carelessly, and with a soft laugh: "he was the image of my husband."

Mrs. Arthur looked rather nervous. "There is only one young man hereabouts who resembles Lord James," she observed, "and I do not wonder you saw the likeness, my lady. Harold Garth is like Lord James now, and is such as his Grace was in his youth."

"Nothing, my lady--nothing;" and Mrs. Arthur's hands fiddled nervously with the gold chain she wore round her neck. Then, woman-like, she went on to contradict herself. "Harold Garth has lately returned from Canada, where he went to farm."

"I don't know who can have mentioned it to you, my lady. He is the only Garth in the district, and I daresay you never saw him before."

"Canada," explained Mrs. Arthur, vaguely. "He has been there for the last twenty years. He went out to make money, at the age of fifteen."

Lady Jim laughed meaningly. "Oh, the Duke is very kind to him, is he? That's so like the Duke. Always thoughtful. Fifteen and twenty--he is about thirty-five."

"My husband's age," said Lady Jim, pointedly. "Yes, my lady," assented Mrs. Arthur, closing her lips firmly.

Leah tried another question. "Why doesn't this young man's family keep him instead of letting the Duke support him?"

Mrs. Arthur looked down. "I know nothing about his father," she said in low tones. "Harold is a lonely man, poor soul. He lives at the Pentland Arms, and Mrs. Kibby, the landlady, is as kind to him as though he were her own son. And his Grace--bless him--does all he can to smooth Harold's way to the grave. He sent that foreign doctor to----"

"Yes, my lady. He thinks he can cure him of this consumption. I do not think so myself" proceeded Mrs. Arthur, garrulously, "for Harold is booked for death. You can see it in his face. I believe his Grace wants him to go to a warmer climate."

Mrs. Arthur looked up suddenly, and a flush dyed her withered cheek. The eyes of the two women met, and the situation was adjusted without words. After that interchange of glances Leah knew, as well as if Mrs. Arthur had explained at length, that Harold had ducal blood in his veins. "And that is why he is so like Jim," she thought, rising to go. "I hope the poor fellow will get well," she said aloud; "but really, he was foolish to venture into that cold church."

Lady Jim laughed, and went away. She had learned all she wished to learn, but, beyond satisfying a passing curiosity, had no desire to pursue the subject. Still, she thought it would amuse her to ask Demetrius a few questions concerning this patient, and went in search of him. Somehow the subject of Harold Garth and his resemblance to Jim took hold of her imagination, and she could not put it out of her head. While she was thinking of other matters, the thought of the strange likeness--now fully accounted for--would slip in, and she would find herself pondering. Afterwards she declared that this insistence of a passing thought was the work of Providence, for so she called the peacock-feather Baal she served.

Demetrius was not in the house, having been called out to see some one who was ill in the village. So Lionel assured her, and moreover supplied her with the name of the patient. "It's a young fellow called Harold Garth," he said gravely; "he foolishly came to church this morning, and, being already ill, is worse from having ventured out."

"I never heard a parson call going to church foolishness before," said Lady Jim, surprised that the subject should crop up again in so unexpected a manner. "Who is Harold Garth?"

"A protége of the Duke's. He has just returned from Canada," said the curate, simply; "and, curiously enough, he is rather like the Kaimes family. Perhaps that is why the Duke is so kind to him."

"Perhaps it is," said Leah, wondering how much Lionel guessed. "I don't think I ever saw him," she added, mendaciously.

"How awful!" shuddered Leah. "As though one Jim wasn't enough to be bothered with. But can't we talk of something more interesting--your sermon, for instance?"

"I don't preach that people may enjoy, but that they may think seriously of what they are."

"I'm sure I think seriously enough, Lionel. Have you spoken to the Duke? No? I wish you would."

"As if I could forget, with all the nonsense that's going on here," retorted Lady Jim, glancing superciliously round at the decorations. "Every one is overdoing the brotherly business. I quite expected my maid to tell me that she loved me. And I don't see why you shouldn't ask the Duke to-day. You'll squeeze the money out of him the more easily while he's got this Christmassy emotion on."

"That's nothing to boast of. I'd live within mine, if I had ten thousand a year."

"I doubt it," replied Lionel, who could not help laughing at her coolness; "you'd spend fifty thousand if you had it."

"Rather--if I were the Duchess of Pentland. But there's no chance of such luck. Frith's too healthy. Do smile again, Lionel--you've got such nice teeth, and look quite a good sort when you let yourself go."

Lionel was a thoroughly good young man, and had a great sense of the dignity of his cloth and the responsibility of his position. But he also possessed humour, and could not help retorting after the style of a certain witty bishop.

"That's the smallest fire insurance I ever heard of," said he, genially, and moved away, leaving Lady Jim amused.

"I didn't think he had so much fun in him," she thought, making for the library; "but the speech is too clever to be original"--which showed that Leah suspected the existence of the witty bishop.

But the word insurance put her mind on Jim's mad idea to pretend death and cheat the company out of twenty thousand pounds, with accumulations. Leah devoutly wished that the trick could be managed. Its success meant a clearance of debt and of Jim, when the millennium would come, and, as Mrs. Nickleby's admirer put it, "all would be gas and gaiters." She resolved to have another chat with Jim on the subject, and meantime went to seek for a novel. After boring herself with Mrs. Arthur and Lionel, she wished to read away a well-earned hour of peace.

But this for the moment she was not destined to enjoy. The library was empty, save for the presence of the last person whom Lady Jim wished to encounter. When Miss Jaffray looked up from a gigantic volume with an almost toothless smile, Leah turned to fly. But the old maid arrested her flight with a joyful shout. She usually did shout, as her brother was slightly deaf, which deceived her into thinking the entire human race was likewise afflicted.

"So sweet of you to come here," shouted Miss Jaffray. "I am just dying for some one to talk to."

If the decision had been left to Lady Jim, she would have gladly avoided the talk, to bring about this result. But it occurred to her scheming mind that this dull spinster was wealthy, and might be cajoled or frightened into lending money. Leah did not specify the sum, even in her own mind, as she did not know how much more this virgin soil would yield, if properly worked. Sitting down promptly, she began to chat on the first subject that came into her head.

"The Morte d'Arthur," said the spinster, fondling the ponderous tome which her weak knees could hardly support.

"Heavens!" thought Lady Jim, with a charming smile, meaning nothing, "am I to be bored with another Arthur?"

"The black-letter edition," went on Miss Jaffray, in a loud and oratorical voice. "Most interesting. So sweet to think of those dear dead days, when knights went about as troubadours with guitars in steel armour, dying for queens of beauty."

"Delightful," assented Lady Jim, yawning at the dullness of the picture; "but"--with a disparaging glance at the lettering--"isn't it rather like reading a German newspaper? I prefer novels myself."

"So do I, when not in a poetic humour," shouted her companion. "All the old, old masters of fiction. Dickens, Bulwer-Lytton, Wilkie Collins. I love them all--every one."

"I seem to know those names," ventured Leah, carefully. "What did they write, Miss Jaffray?"

The spinster gasped. Brought up in a library, she could not understand this fashionable ignorance, which, truth to say, was partially assumed. Leah was by no means the ignoramus she made herself out to be. But, for the sake of business, she thought it judicious to foster Miss Jaffray's vanity by assuming an inferior position.

"Do you ever read?" asked Miss Jaffray, in the voice of Goliath challenging the army of Saul.

"Nothing amusing is improper to my mind," said Lady Jim, calmly; "and I really did skim through a page or two of Dickens. Horribly dull, I thought him."

"Perhaps that is why his books are dull. Thoroughly good people are invariably----" Here she discreetly pulled the reins, as Miss Jaffray, considering herself good, might not relish the malicious witticism, presuming she could understand it. "I'll take you as my instructor, dear Miss Jaffray," added Leah, stifling another yawn. "Do tell me what to read."

"There's Wilkie Collins's Armadale," said the old maid, delighted at being put into the pulpit; "but you may think me rude for recommending that."

"There's a character in it so like you, in appearance," apologised Miss Jaffray; "in appearance only, you will understand. I should be sorry indeed to think that in morals you resembled Miss Gwilt."

"Gwilt. G-w-i-l-t," spelt the spinster--"the strange name of a strange woman. She's the character I spoke of. No, really you mightn't like her. She was--well--er--er--disreputable. Better begin with The Woman in White."

"A striking resemblance between two women. One is passed off by her wicked husband as the other, and buried--to get money, you understand--a kind of fraud."

Leah turned cold and hot. It sounded as though this simple woman was explaining the contemplated deceit of herself and Jim. "I don't think I should like that book at all," she said, diplomatically cunning; "it sounds dull. I would rather read about the naughty woman--Miss--what's-her-name?"

"It's in yonder bookshelf," said Miss Jaffray, pointing a lean finger to the end of the room, "along with the rest of the master's novels. But please don't think that I fancy you resemble Miss Gwilt's moral character. You certainly have her auburn hair."

"You ought to be," said the old maid, with simple admiration, and rising to put away her tome. "I can imagine you a queen of beauty in the dear old tournaments, with knights at your feet."

"Oh, many are there now, without tournaments," said Leah, with superb self-confidence; "but I prefer men of higher rank than knights. Though I will say," she added generously, "that men who have won knighthood are cleverer than those donkeys who inherit."

All this was Greek to Miss Jaffray, and after putting away her volume she departed, with a final recommendation about Miss Gwilt. Lady Jim walked to where Wilkie Collins's novels lined the shelf, and--needless to say--selected The Woman in White.

CHAPTER VI

It was Jim's custom to saunter into his wife's bedroom, before descending to make a hearty meal, and complain that he had rested badly. This was a pleasing fiction, as he slept like a dormouse, and snored steadily through the hours he allotted to sleep without even a dream. But on entering for his morning grumble, he was so surprised to find Leah in her dressing-gown before a brisk fire, with a breakfast at her elbow and a book open on her lap, that he forgot his egotism. Jim could scarcely believe his lazy eyes, for he knew well that Leah was no student.

"What's up?" he asked, after pausing at the door to say "By Jupiter!" with every appearance of surprise. "Got a headache?"

"Don't know, I'm sure," replied Jim, with the matutinal good-humour of a healthy animal. "Doctors recommend such rum things nowadays. But it doesn't matter. I'm off to feed."

"You're not goin' to read, are you? I can't stand readin' on a empty stom--well, on nothin'."

Lady Jim looked at him steadily. "We might turn this"--she touched the book lightly--"into real life."

"Well, you might call it a comedy," she answered. "I certainly do not want it to be a tragedy--though it might come to that," she ended in a lower tone.

Jim opened his puzzled blue eyes. "Want of breakfast, I s'pose," he ruminated, "but I don't know what you're talkin' about."

"It's useless wasting French on a man who understands only the argot of the trottoir."

"You're wastin' it now. A wakeful night--eh? Why didn't you try that new sedative Demetrius gave you?"

"I didn't want to sleep. This book was too interesting. I wish you to read it;" and she extended the novel to her husband.

"What!!!" If she had offered poison Jim could not have betrayed more abhorrence. "Read? You--want--me--to--read?"

"Well, you know words of two syllables, don't you?" she retorted impatiently. "Take it."

Jim handled the book as though it were a scorpion, turning over a hundred leaves rapidly. "Love an' diaries, and--oh, bosh!"

"Not at all, unless bosh is your word for common sense. I see a chance of getting that money."

Leah made an impatient movement. "How dense you are! The insurance money, of course--the twenty thousand pounds. Suppose you died----"

"It wouldn't be much good," said his wife, with a shrug. "We must have a genuine corpse--like you."

An inkling of her meaning stole into Jim's dull brain, and he sat down suddenly. "Go on," said he, hoarsely.

"In church yesterday. He's ill with consumption, dying they say. Demetrius attends him. Supposing--supposing"--her imagination made her cheeks flush--"supposing--oh, you understand."

The sluggish comprehension of the man grasped her hinted scheme suddenly, and his eyes lighted up. "Supposing he died and was buried in place of me, you mean?"

"You don't suppose I mean murder, do you?" she cried, rising to the height of her tall figure and speaking irritably.

"It would be a natural death," went on Leah, rapidly, and pacing the room to relieve the strain on her nerves. "The poor fellow can't live long. If he died, and was buried as----"

"No go," contradicted Jim, rising in his turn. "Every one about here knows of the likeness; for which," he added slowly, "there's a reason."

"I mean to tell you that I gathered the truth from what she left unsaid. You don't suppose that I require words to explain things."

"Yes, I would, for a quarter of the money. Then I'd go out of your life an' to Lima----"

"Lima," said Lady Jim, stopping suddenly. "Why to Lima? You've been there three times since we married."

His wife looked at his colouring face attentively, and laughed in a short, rasping manner. An idea had occurred to her which she did not think it necessary to impart to Jim. "When you're legally dead," she said sharply, "I shall have no control over your life or movements. All I want to know is, if this business can be managed, will you do your share by disappearing?"

"Read that book, Jim, and you'll understand better. It gave me the idea, though our plot will be different in many ways."

"Don't let any one see you reading, and replace it in the library without any one knowing."

"You fool," snarled Leah, viciously; "if this thing is to be carried through safely, no suspicion must rest on either of us. Do you suppose that I have spoken to this double of yours, or have let any one know that I have read the book? I don't think it really matters much, as people are too stupid to see things; but it is just as well to be on the safe side."

Jim flung the book on the floor, and looked at her with clenched hands. "What is this Demetrius to you?" he asked violently.

"A puppet I can pull the strings of," she retorted; "and be good enough to remember that you are not in a training-stable."

"My dear Jim," said his wife coolly, "if you ask me about Demetrius, I shall certainly ask you about Lima."

Kaimes was taken aback. "Lima," he stammered, flushing to the roots of his fair hair. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that you can trust me to ask no questions, if you will mind your own business."

"Think of me as your widow then," she mocked, "and that I can't be without the aid of Demetrius."

"I might ask you the same question, but"--she picked up the novel and thrust it into Jim's unwilling hands--"I fancy you and I understand one another pretty well."

"Very good," said Leah, calmly; "then you must remain a pauper, and my husband. I'm not going to all this trouble to share you with----"

"Pah!" she said with disgust. "Hadn't we better leave honour out of this shady business we are about to embark in?"

Leah made a grimace. "My loss is another's gain," she said significantly. "Now go away, Jim. I have to dress in my best frock in order to fascinate Demetrius;" and she vanished into her dressing-room with a provoking laugh.

Lord Jim said something about Demetrius that involved the use of unprintable language. Then he slipped the book into the pocket of his shooting-jacket and lumbered downstairs. In spite of his squabbling with Leah, and the existence of some one in Lima, he was furiously jealous of Demetrius, and scowled at the Russian when they met. Demetrius rather liked that scowl, as he guessed the reason, and took it as a tribute to his fascinations. If he had known Lady Jim's real intentions, and that she intended to convert English rather than French fiction into everyday facts, he might not have smiled so victoriously over his coffee. But Demetrius made the fatal mistake of so many clever men: he knew he was clever, and thereby was not what he fancied himself to be. The true secret of success lies, not in knowing how clever oneself is, but how stupid other people are.

While Jim was growling over his provender, Miss Tallentire, who had finished her breakfast, slipped out of the room. She felt strange in the company of the frumps and fashionables which formed the house-party. Certainly the frumps were eating in private, and would not appear till the world was well-aired, and they had been "made-up" sufficiently well to prevent the younger generation being shocked. But the fashionable people came to breakfast in public, and Joan found the talk far above her comprehension. These languid creatures, who ate so little and talked so much, were like inhabitants of a strange planet, and it was with great relief that the girl found herself passed over. Of course, nobody thought of noticing Cinderella in her rags.

As Lady Canvey was being rehabilitated by a skilful maid, and would not be seen as the world knew her for at least two hours, Joan had this time to herself. The brightness of the day tempted her to assume hat and jacket for a morning walk, and she was shortly tripping over the crisp snow of the avenue. The glorious sunshine, the keen air, the dazzling whiteness of the snow, and the generally invigorating influence of this ideal winter morning stirred the current of her blood to nimbleness. Joan began to sing softly, and could hardly keep from dancing, so rapidly did her spirits mount skyward. At length, the place being solitary and she being recklessly young, a sudden impulse sent her flying like an arrow between the grim firs. Near the gates she shot directly into the arms of a man, and uttered an ejaculation. This was hardly to be wondered at, seeing that the arms closed tightly round her, and a pair of warm lips deepened the colour which exercise had brought to her cheeks.

"Lionel!" cried Joan; and "Darling!" replied Lionel, which sufficiently explains the feeling which existed between Lady Canvey's companion and Lady Canvey's pet.

These two babies, as the old lady called them, had been engaged for six months, but the fact was not generally known. The clerical parent of Joan had given his consent, on the understanding that Lionel was to possess a better income and the best vicarage obtainable before he made Joan Mrs. Kaimes. The young man had agreed readily enough, as he did not want to inflict his comparative penury, and poor lodgings, on the girl he so dearly loved. Joan and he had decided to wait for two years, and during that time Lionel was to reform Lambeth. He was attempting to do this with all the vigour of his energetic nature, and between times made love to Joan. Lady Canvey knew of the engagement, and would have had the couple married at once, since she could easily have given Lionel a living, and wished to do so. But the curate was anxious to become the vicar of Firmingham. The present incumbent was seriously ill, and in the event of death the Duke had promised that Lionel should fill the pulpit.

Therefore the lovers waited very happily, and if Firmingham did not come to them within the decreed two years, they were quite prepared to marry on the bread and cheese of a hard London life. Meantime, Joan was seeing a trifle of West End life under Lady Canvey's wing, and her earnings, as Lady Canvey's companion, were most acceptable to the hard-worked Mr. Tallentire and his wife. Thus it was that Joan returned Lionel's kiss, and only released herself from his loving arms when she remembered they were within sight of the lodge.

"How can't I, you mean," he replied, smiling; "do you think I am as cold as the snow?"

"I don't know if you're as nice," pouted Joan, "or you would have asked me to walk with you this morning."

"No, dear," he said, gravely: "I could not have taken you to see Harold Garth. The poor fellow is too ill. But we can walk now. I have nothing to do, and--Joan, where are you going?"

Then they kissed and made it up in full view of a red-breast, who cocked his head on one side and wondered why these human beings looked so pleased. Joan said "Shoo!" and he flew away to tell his wife, while the couple walked sedately through the gates, and into a world which their love created for themselves alone.

All the same, their conversation was a trifle prosaic. They read a letter which Joan had received from her mother about trouble over the Christmas gifts to the poor of the parish, and discussed this old woman who lived in a chilly garret, and that old man who dwelt like a troglodyte in a damp cellar, till the conversation became as sober as the looks of the village sexton whom they met. And he was a teetotaller.

But however enthusiastic human nature may be in the talking and doing of good works, love after all takes precedence of philanthropy, and shortly they began discussing themselves and their happiness. What they said does not matter much. Although foolish, it was sweet to them, and Joan's eyes sparkled like the icicles on the bleak hedge-rows at the looks her lover gave her. They walked in the pleasant Land of Tenderness, and down the by-lane of First Love. Joan had never seen the old French chart of that country, with its quaint names and odd geography, but neither Lionel nor herself needed its guidance. They had skimmed through the country before, and knew the lie of it extremely well.

The pair soared pretty nearly to the gates of their transcendental heaven, until the strain became too great for mere human effort, and they folded their wings of thought to drop earthward. That unfailing timepiece, the human interior, announced the hour of luncheon, and with some haste they turned homeward.

"Garth? Ah, he'll never see another Christmas. Consumption is wasting him to a shadow. In another three or four months----" Lionel broke off with a sigh, "Poor man!"

"Everything possible is being done, Joan. The Duke is looking after Garth in every way--you know how kind he is. He even sent Demetrius to cure him, and if Demetrius can't, no one else can."

"The end would only be retarded for a few months," interrupted the curate. "Demetrius says there is no hope. And I don't think the poor fellow is sorry to go, Joan. He has no relatives, and few friends. I fancy he has had a lonely life."

The tears filled Joan's brown eyes. "Poor fellow!" she echoed, stealing one hand into that of her lover's. "Fancy, if we----"

"I can't fancy it with you by my side. And what is more, I don't intend to fancy it," said Lionel, hastily. "Please God, you and I have many happy and useful years before us. How do you like the Firmingham vicarage, Joan?"

"Oh, it's lovely, and such a sweet church. But I fear it's too good to be true."

"Ah, that's impossible," she laughed, amused at the idea of being a duchess; "the very idea frightens me."

"It needn't," Lionel assured her: "you will never be called upon to wear strawberry leaves, unless the Duke and Frith and Jim all go the way poor Garth is taking. And then Frith's wife may have a little Lord Firmingham. I sincerely hope so, as it would never do for Jim to be the Duke of Pentland."

"In looks, I have no doubt. But with fifty thousand a year and a great position, she and Jim would do good to neither God nor man."

"It's all seeming. Of real, true, self-sacrificing kindness she knows absolutely nothing."

"Oh, Joan!" he mimicked. "Don't worry your head over Lady Jim. She will always get on well in this world, though I am very doubtful about her position in the next. Come," he pointed down the incline of the lane, "I'll race you to the bottom."

"I don't care--I'm out for a holiday;" and away flew Lionel down the snowy lane, with his clerical coattails fluttering in the wind.

Joan, girlish and simple and extremely young, sped after him, and with rosy cheeks arrived at the goal before her lover.

"Come," said the curate, wiping his heated brow, "considering I won three flat races at the 'varsity, that's not bad, Joan."

"I'll be a tyrant after marriage," said Lionel, merrily. "Enjoy your little day, my love!"

"I am enjoying this day," said Joan, as they walked rapidly towards the park gates; "but what will Lady Canvey say?"

"No," contradicted Lionel, critically; "she is old and clever, but I should not call her a dear. That word suits some one else."

The gates were opened and a sledge issued, drawn by two black ponies. In it sat Lady Jim, who was driving, and Dr. Constantine Demetrius.

"What is she up to now?" Lionel asked himself. He was intensely distrustful of Lady Jim, but he did not explain this to Joan.

CHAPTER VII

The sledge occupied by this well-matched couple might have been used by Pompadour, in the days when the finances of France were melting in the furnace of Versailles. The basketwork body of a swan, gilded and painted and elegantly fragile, rested delicately on slim steel runners, and glided over the frozen snow in the rear of two spirited black ponies. These, harnessed in the Russian fashion, with a paucity of trappings and many tiny silver bells, sprang forward, under Lady Jim's skilful guidance, as though they were rioting in a spring meadow. She and her companion were snugly wrapped in an opossum rug, which Leah, rather vulgarly, despised as a cheap article. Her mink cloak, with the snowy ermine scarf drawn through the shoulder cape in the latest fashion, had cost nearly ten times the amount, and Leah wore it with the proud consciousness that she owed no money for it. It was an early-winter present from Lady Frith, and she had accepted it on the generous ground that its cut and rich brown colour became her better than they would have suited the dowdy, insignificant Marchioness. But the little woman never knew that Lady Jim's good-nature had prevailed to this extent. She had thought to give Leah pleasure.

Demetrius, muffled in Muscovite sables, sat contentedly by this Tauric Diana, wondering why he had been graciously invited to drive with the goddess, after a hurried luncheon. The two were tête-à-tête, for the groom had been dispensed with as out of keeping with the novel vehicle. The excuse was artistic. Nevertheless, Demetrius suspected other reasons for the absence of an eavesdropping servant. What these might be he hoped to hear from Lady Jim.

But as yet she showed no disposition to speak frankly, for the Russian, in Jim's picturesque speech, was a gentleman to be handled "with the gloves on." Jim himself had impressed this on Leah, before he sat down to spell out The Woman in White. Needless to say, this unusual effort to improve what Jim was pleased to term his mind bored him extremely. "Not a word about racin'," grumbled Jim, skipping page after page. Still, as Leah pointed out the necessity of poaching on the domain of fiction, Jim sat at his lesson like a good little boy, and his wife drove out with her proposed victim. That the irony of fate might change the victim into a possible tyrant did not occur to Leah at the moment.

All the same, she was careful not to commit herself too hastily, and for two miles talked society-journal paragraphs with an assiduity at once boring and perplexing to Demetrius. Even when the sledge slipped, silent and ghost-like, over an Arctic waste, and they were alone to babble secrets to a frosty sky, Leah showed no disposition to come to the point. She wished Demetrius to question her, and then, by seeing into his mind, she could be guided as to the most selfishly-successful way of making up her own. But the doctor guessed her reason for this diplomatic silence, and knowing what a shameless capacity she had for word-twisting and for slipping out of untenable positions, he gave her no opportunity to overlook his hand. It was certainly, as he reflected, a game of skill, but what the precise style of game might be Demetrius could not guess. However, one thing was certain; this game, like all others, was being played for money. On Lady Jim's part, that is. Demetrius shuffled his cards for the stake of love, and so, having Leah Kaimes for an antagonist, lost at the outset. A game between a man and a woman, on amatory grounds, is always unequal. The one in earnest invariably loses.

"Does this remind you of the steppes?" asked Leah, waving her whip towards a desert of snow and ice. The polite conversation was still much in evidence.

"Somewhat, madame; but I cannot remember sledging across any steppe in such charming company."

Demetrius shrugged his spare shoulders, and replied in the evasive manner which characterised this conversation on the part of both.

"I am well content with England," he remarked calmly. "Many people are pleasant, and all agreeable. Also, the Duke pays me well--too well, considering he is my solitary patient."

"I never knew a physician to quarrel with his fees before," laughed Lady Jim, flicking the ponies lightly; "and you have another patient, I understand--Mr. Kaimes said something about it."

"The young priest--ah, yes. He was at the gates with that most adorable young lady, whom I presume he will marry. Your Anglican priests, like our Greek popes, have that freedom, have they not?"

"Ah, pardon, madame," said the doctor, with an apologetic smile and his hands palm to palm. "Yes--it is so. I have another patient, a peasant--one Harold Garth," he pronounced the name uncommonly clearly.

"How well you speak English, Monsieur Demetrius! So many foreigners over-emphasise their 'h's', and slur their 'r's.'"

"Can you tell the truth in any one of them?" asked Lady Jim, rather rudely; but then she wished to make him lose his temper, in the hope of breaking down his reserve. But love had not yet blinded Demetrius, and he became offensively gentle.

"I take you at your word," said Lady Jim, smartly. "Why did you leave Russia, Monsieur Demetrius?"

"Madame, I come of a princely family, but for the sake of humanity I practised my profession in Moscow. A dear friend of mine foolishly joined the Anarchists, and an order was issued for his arrest. Fortunately, the official who signed the warrant was my patient, and I chanced to be with him when the paper was brought for his signature. He laid it aside for the moment, and I saw my friend's name. I therefore gave my patient a drug, which made him sleep for twenty-four hours, so that he could not sign. Meanwhile, my friend escaped--it matters not how--but he escaped, with my help. Through a rival doctor, my use of the drug to aid my friend became known, and I was accused of conspiring also. The governor of Moscow was enraged, and ordered my arrest in my friend's place. The prospect of Siberia was not pleasant, so I crossed the frontier after many delightful adventures, with the recital of which I shall not trouble you. Behold me, therefore, in your free country, madame, no longer a subject of the Czar, but your devoted slave."

He told the story, without preamble or excuse, in an unemotional and level voice, though all the time he wondered why Lady Jim desired to hear it. She gave him no explanation. "And if you go back to Russia?" she asked carelessly.

"Precisely, madame. She might, and, with small encouragement, she would. But her gaining of my pardon would assuredly lead to a marriage of gratitude."

"Alas, no, madame. The Grand Duke was furious at my share in my friend's escape. He would give much to capture me, and should I set foot on the Continent"--he shrugged his shoulders significantly; "but the Third Section has no power in your land of liberty."

"If it pleases madame better, the secret police. No; unless I marry Mademoiselle Aksakoff, of whom I admit my unworthiness, I must remain in exile--but it has many compensations," he added, bowing his head courteously to Lady Jim's profile.

"Quite so," she assented, scarcely heeding the compliment; then added thoughtfully, "You are a daring man, Monsieur Demetrius."

Leah swung her ponies round a curve with careless dexterity. "It is not probable that any one will invite you to leave your lotus-eating, monsieur. Thank you for the story."

Lady Jim hesitated. "You do not ask me why I requested you to relate it," she said at last.

"Don't jump in the dark," said Leah, with a hard little laugh; "by the way, this woman, for whom you ventured so much----"

"David and Jonathan in Crim Tartary, I suppose. They say," she gave a conscious laugh, "that a man would venture farther for a woman than for one of his own sex. You, I resume, are an exception."

Leah glanced at the pale face beside her with a smile, and saw that the dark eyes were full of fire, "You are romantic."

Lady Jim relieved her feelings by using the whip on the obedient ponies. Demetrius was clever and suspicious; also, as his story assured her, he was daring, clear-headed, and might be dangerous. If she gave this man a hold over her, he might be, and probably would be, unscrupulous enough to use his power. Moreover, Lionel had not yet asked the Duke, and there was always the chance that the money could be obtained without the necessity of plotting. Leah had taken the doctor for this delightful drive with the intention of speaking plainly; but his skilful use of words made her cautious. She was too clever a woman to build her tower without reckoning the expense.

Demetrius watched her with keen, questioning eyes and a perfectly impassive face, but he learned nothing. Lady Jim was quite as Oriental as himself in masking her emotions. Nevertheless, he guessed that the interest displayed in his past involved more than the satisfying of an idle curiosity. She wanted money--he was certain of that. But unless she intended to sell him to the Third Section, he could not conceive why she had forced his confidence. The enigma irritated him, though he paid a silent tribute to the diplomatic powers of this charming Englishwoman. But, cool and cautious as he was, her next speech nearly reduced him to the necessity of speaking plainly, although he regarded candour as a greater sin than making love to another man's wife.

"Madame, the fire in our veins prevents our feeling the disagreeables of nature. I am no phlegmatic Englishman."

"How interesting," said Leah, indifferently. "I wonder if the cattle will face this snowstorm."

They were driving straight into a chaos of eddying flakes, and meeting the sting of bitter sleet dashed in their blinking eyes by the wind. Demetrius bit his lips, and suppressed his fiery nature with an effort due to years of training. He could have killed this woman with her contemptuous indifference and impregnable self-possession. As the ponies plunged, with tossing heads and jingling bells, into that Arctic hurricane, he wished that the sledge would overturn, so that he might extort a word of gratitude by saving her life. But Leah's courage was as high as his own, and her strength greater, so it was quite probable that she would be able to look after herself. All he could do was to unflinchingly face the volleying snow, while Lady Jim dashed through the hostile elements like Semiramis in her war-chariot. With a turn of her wrist she prevented the frightened ponies dashing into a thorny hedge, with another turn swung the light vehicle away from a dangerous ditch, and then lashed the animals into a headlong gallop, which ended only when they trembled, with smoking flanks and drooping heads, before the Firmingham porch. And throughout that furious, rocking, blinding drive Demetrius sat grimly silent. Lady Jim was disappointed. It would have been more courageous and amusing had he made love to her in the jaws of death.

"Quite a Russian adventure," she said, tossing the reins to a groom, and jumped out, all colour and animation. "I hope you were not afraid, Monsieur Demetrius," she added unjustly.

With a rosy face and a display of white teeth, Leah faced him on the steps. "There was no need, I assure you. I can look after myself in every way."

Lady Jim flung her wraps, her whip, her mink cape, and her gloves into his arms. "Thanks," she said carelessly, and turned towards the library, leaving her illegal admirer pale with rage.

She stopped laughing at the remembrance of his wrath when she saw Lionel studying a book near the window. "Well?" she asked, coming lightly towards him: "any news?"

Leah's first feeling was one of relief, and she was almost on the point of expressing gratitude, but a sudden remembrance that aid from the Duke meant the retention of Jim as a most undesirable husband, cooled the warm impulse. She recovered her self-command, and was about to go into figures, when Mrs. Penworthy with a noisy party bustled into the room, looking rather tousled and flushed.

"We have been playing 'Hunt the Slipper,'" she announced, in her high, thin voice, "and Algy found mine three times."

Lady Jim, annoyed at the irruption, glanced at Mrs. Penworthy's feet, which could scarcely have worn the slippers of Cinderella. "I can quite believe that," she said sweetly, and left the room smiling.

Mrs. Penworthy knew perfectly well what was meant, but was too feminine to explain, save in a way calculated to mislead her courtier. This could be done by arousing his egotism.

"She means that you are clever to play the game so well," was her explanation. "I rather think Lady Jim admires you, Algy."

The youth fondled what he called a moustache. "Rippin' woman, Lady Jim," said he, taking the speech literally.

"Nothing would give me greater pleasure," remarked the lady, fervently hating him for his stupidity, "than to see her dancing on you, as she does on all men who are foolish enough to make themselves carpets."

"Then come and play Puss in the Corner," urged Algy, gaily, and Mrs. Penworthy consented, as this game had nothing to do with abnormal slippers.

Leah, pleased at having snubbed Mrs. Penworthy, whom she considered quite an improper person, went to look for Jim in his room. He was there, sure enough, lying on the sofa with the novel tossed carelessly on the floor, and a black pipe between his lips. Evidently he had not heard the good news.

"He has parted," growled Jim, swinging his long legs on to the floor and producing a cheque. "Look at that."

Lady Jim did. It was for two hundred pounds. "Oh!" She crushed it in her two hands, as though she were throttling his Grace. "What an insult!"

CHAPTER VIII

Two hundred pounds. Lady Jim rapidly ran over in her mind such of the most pressing liabilities as she could recollect, and shuddered at a total of two thousand. They owed that, and many other debts which, for the moment, escaped her memory. So far as she could see, nothing remained but a compulsory journey through the court. Not that she really minded bankruptcy. Plenty of people, accepted as immaculate by society, made use of that desirable institution to get a receipt for past extravagances, on the plea of having lived beyond their incomes. She and Jim could make the same excuse with perfect truth, and would doubtless be enabled to make a fresh start. And if a few tradesmen were ruined, what did it matter? They always overcharged, and it might be a lesson to them not to worry customers.

No; the bankruptcy court matters very little, but the want of ready cash mattered a great deal. Leah cared nothing about paying the bills, but ardently desired to have a re-filled purse and no bother about such vulgar things as pounds, shillings, and pence. It was perfectly idiotic of the Duke to be so stingy. If he had come down with a thousand, she and Jim could have enjoyed themselves abroad for a couple of months, and meanwhile, he could have paid these troublesome tradesmen. But two hundred pounds! Did the old fool take them for the respectable middle-class couple, living in slate-roofed houses, to which she had alluded? Without Jim's assistance she could get rid of that trifle in a fortnight.

"I'm not responsible for his crazy arithmetic," retorted Jim, with the helpful addition of a few adjectives.

But, beyond swearing as much as he dared in her presence, Jim could offer no assistance, and Leah concluded that, after all, it might be necessary to trust Demetrius. Her husband, having gained some faint idea of the novel, had ended in declining to turn fiction into fact. His remarks were not without shrewdness.

"The chap who writes the story knows what's goin' to happen," said Jim, when pressed for his opinion, "an' can invent circumstances to dodge results. But if we start a yarn of this kind on our own, we don't know what the end 'ull be."

"Oh yes!" protested Leah, very patiently, considering she disagreed entirely; "you'll disappear, and I shall become a widow with my share of the twenty thousand."

"That depends upon my mood. Some time, I expect, seeing that your death will force me into retirement, and crape is not so very expensive. And when you get through your lot, Jim, what will you do?"

"That's what I'm askin' you," said Jim, evasively; and continued hurriedly, lest she should insist upon a disagreeable explanation, "'Sides, there's my father to be considered."

"Oh, it's all very well talkin'. But your father's your father, when all's said an' done. The Duke doesn't think me a saint, but he'd be sorry to see me die."

"Might I suggest 'sophistry'?" said Lady Jim, quite aware that her reasoning was fallacious.

"Oh, you'll suggest anythin' to get your own way. But what I mean is that, though I do die, I don't really die."

"How clearly you put things, Jim. Please yourself. We must go back to town with this money, to be whitewashed;" and eyeing the cheque contemptuously, she saw that it was unfortunately made payable to Jim. Her husband stretched for the cheque and slipped it into his waistcoat pocket.

"Every blessed thing," said Kaimes, doggedly; "he's my father, an' it's his duty to square things."

"He mightn't follow your reasoning," murmured Leah, with one hand on the mantelpiece and the other holding up her skirts to warm one foot. "But you can't make a much worse mess of it than Lionel has made. Two hundred pounds--he must have thought he was asking money for some old woman. Shall I come with you, Jim?"

"No." He halted at the door to deliver himself of the remark, "You're like a red rag to a bull."

"Oh, very well. I only thought you'd like me to translate your talk into something resembling English."

"Don't you fret yourself, I'll make him understand. An' if I do get things squared," cried Jim, warming at the thought of his heroism in facing an angry parent, "you'll have to drop spending money, an' live as other women do."

"There never was a St. Jim, that I ever heard of," mused Leah, turning pensive eyes on her exasperated husband, "and as you wish to canonise yourself, of course you must change your name. Yes, James"--she moved swiftly towards him, and detained him gently by the lapels of his coat--"from this time forth we'll live in holy matrimony, and pig it on what's left of the income. Curzon Street given up, Bayswater remains, and there, James darling, we'll live a life of extremely plain living and high thinking."

"No, James, I won't, if you will only raise my intellect to the level of your own. And think what a delightful existence it will be, James. A cheap Bayswater dungeon, with three servants and the shopping done at Whiteley's. I'll turn my dresses and trim my hats and you'll give up your clubs, to curse in a stuffy drawing-room while you play bezique with your dear wife, till we go to bed at ten. No more betting on Podaskas, James; no more whist-drives, or bridge, or any such expensive naughtinesses. And how nice it will be for you, James, to flirt with those earnestly-fashionable suburban girls, who are just half an hour behind the times, and who----" Here Jim rent his garments from Leah's grasp, and departed in haste with an impolite word. His wife's humour did not appeal to him in the least, and he banged the door unnecessarily hard.

Leah returned to warm her toes and laugh till she cried. There was something excessively amusing in the idea of Jim setting up for a plaster saint. For once in his dull life he displayed a sense of humour, and she picked up the discarded novel with a fresh burst of laughter at the picture of the Bayswater ménage, as drawn by her fertile fancy. Jim as a middle-class Philistine tickled her even more than Jim in a stained-glass attitude, with an artificial halo misfitting his empty head.

But a remembrance of the cheque--payable to Jim--and of her husband's possible position at the moment, telling clumsy truths to an aggrieved father, made her serious. Certainly the Duke, pleased to hear his son speak honestly for once in a life of consistent fibbing, might shed tears over a hastily-produced cheque-book. Jim's falsehoods, in times of pressing need, were almost inspired, and it was not impossible that he might return with the loot. Then, the tradespeople being paid, Leah decided that she could run up fresh bills to any amount: they would be all the more eager to give her unlimited credit when they knew that the Duke was in the background. Decidedly the prospect was not so bad, and, after all, it might be dangerous to make real-life experiments in sensational fiction.

These common-sense reflections led Lady Jim to thank the watchful fetish for governing her tongue during the afternoon. Demetrius could be nasty when he liked. She was certain of that, and it was just as well to give him no chance. Some people carried tyranny to a ridiculous excess, and liked to hear their victims squeal unmeaningly. Leah did not belong to the squealing species, and vowed a vow that Demetrius should never have an opportunity of provoking such futile outcries. As a gleam of good sense warned her of possible danger, she decided to avoid the Russian, or only to flirt sufficiently to make him miserable and Jim cross.

Having settled the question in this sensible way, Leah sought her room to dress for the five o'clock muffin-scramble. She assumed the prettiest tea-gown she possessed, for the truly feminine purpose of irritating Demetrius into over-estimating what he had lost. Descending like a Homeric deity in a cloud--of lace--she went at once to the library, and restored to its place the text-book of her proposed fraud. Fortunately, the room was empty, so no one would ever know that the novel had been read with a view to plagiarism. Not that it mattered much now, since Jim was proceeding on the lines of "Honesty is the best policy." Leah hoped fervently that he would succeed, but felt more than a trifle doubtful. Jim was so new to this straightforward method of gaining his ends.

The house-party was picnicking in the winter-garden, a delightful Eden, where tropical plants flourished in defiance of the season. On its glass roof the hail rattled like small shot, and through its glass walls could be seen the bleak, wintry landscape, faintly white in the deepening gloom. These glimpses of the unpleasant increased the sense of comfort, and over-civilised humanity luxuriated in the warm atmosphere, as independent of nature's laws as the palm-trees under which it ate and drank and talked scandal. The frumps nibbled dry toast and sipped milk; the fashionables devoured dainty sandwiches and enjoyed the strongest of tea, and both aided digestion with chatter and laughter. It was the complacent contentment of animals, mumbling a plentiful meal, and for the moment all spiritual instincts were governed by material needs.

Mrs. Penworthy's courtiers were feeding their queen, who had a large appetite for so small a woman. After a full meal she was disposed to be amiable, even to Freddy, had he been there; but she became decidedly cross when some of the court deserted her for "that woman," as she termed Lady Jim. Leah was feminine enough to enjoy the fallen expression on Mrs. Penworthy's face, and accepted with marked pleasure the attentions of those who crowded round her. The sight gave Mrs. Penworthy a fit of indigestion, which prevented her enjoying a late dinner. It was hard that her vanity had to content itself with the banal compliments of the faithful Algy, who tried to be a host in himself, and was snubbed for his ambition.

"May I present my nephew to you?" asked Lord Sargon, in his thin, precise voice.

Leah intimated that she would be charmed, and found herself nodding to a slim, dark young man, clean-shaven and alert. He looked more alive than the languid youths around her, and she was not surprised when Sargon explained that Mr. Askew was a naval officer, who had lately returned from a five years' cruise.

"I thought you hadn't been wrapped up in cotton wool all your life," said Lady Jim, when Sargon had removed the attendant youths and the lieutenant was making himself agreeable in a bluff, briny way.

"Highly. You are the nearest approach to pre-historic man I have yet seen," said she, and thus was unjust to Jim.

"Oh, there's no need to apologise. I daresay Circe found Ulysses very agreeable."

"Homer says so," answered Askew, who appeared to be well read; "but if I am Ulysses, you must be Circe."

"Beg pardon. I'm several kinds of ass. But I did mean it civilly, you know. Circe was a clever woman, whose magic turned men into outward semblances of their real characters."

Lady Jim smiled scornfully. "And if my magic could transform these," she glanced disparagingly round the place, "what a menagerie it would be! Pigs, and snakes, and parrots, and----"

"That means you wish to attach yourself to me," said Leah, gravely. "I might take you at your word--I need a friend; but Ulysses deserted Circe."

Askew laughed, and gazed admiringly at her beautiful, pensive face. "We talk parables, I think," he said, with assumed lightness.

"Mine will be now," smiled Lady Jim. "This cup has been empty for five minutes, and you never offered to----"

The young man took the tiny cup hastily. "But for the publicity of the place, I would ask you to tread upon my prostrate body."

Leah eyed his lithe, active figure as he went to the bamboo table presided over by Lady Frith. He was really a delightful sailorman, she reflected, and quicker than most of his sex to understand the unspoken. It might be more amusing to drop Demetrius and flirt with him. But then, his face was too honest, and he might object to being made use of.

"Men of that kind are so dreadfully in earnest," sighed Leah, with a sense of irritation; "they think a woman always means what she says."

Askew walked lightly over the mosaic floor with a fresh cup of tea and a plate of hot cakes. Some man bustled in his way, and he stopped to avoid an upset of his burden. At the moment, he glanced towards the Moorish door which admitted triflers into the winter paradise. To Lady Jim's wonderment, he started, and a look of surprise overspread his expressive face. Her eyes turned at once in the direction of the entrance, and she beheld Jim blinking his eyes at the dazzle of light. He looked heavy and sullen, which hinted that the interview with the Duke had not been successful. But Leah forgot that momentous question for the moment, as her quick brain was trying to understand Askew's look of surprise. Before she could ask herself what he could possibly know about Jim, he approached with the tea.

"This is nice and hot," he said, placing the plate on the table at her elbow and offering the cup. "I hope you'll forgive me for neglecting you."

Leah pointedly suppressed the fact that Kaimes was her husband, as, if there was anything, she would learn it the more easily by pretending that Jim was a stranger. In fact, should Askew learn that the man who had startled him was her lawful lord, he might decline to open his lips. The lieutenant's next words proved the wisdom of her concealment.

"Oh, Berring," he said, carelessly. "Well, I was surprised to see Berring so unexpectedly."

"Is his name Berring?" asked Lady Jim, guessing that she was about to learn something connected with Jim's very shady past.

Leah nodded. "I did learn geography at school," she said, setting down her empty cup; and when Askew coloured at the implied snub, softened it by asking a friendly question: "You are surprised at meeting Mr.--er--er--Berring, here?"

"What a reader of character you are, Mr. Askew!" He looked up eagerly. "You know him, then."

The young man stared at the ground, and replied in muffled tones: "I thought you might have met his wife."

Leah began to laugh. The idea that Jim might be a bigamist had never struck her before. She had guessed that there was a woman connected with those frequent journeys to Lima, but that Jim had adopted the Mormon religion was news. Some women would have been angry, but Leah had no amatory feelings likely to arouse jealousy, so she was frankly amused at her husband's duplicity. Also, she was sorry for Mrs. Berring, who perhaps was silly enough to love Jim.

"Because you are a brick wall I can see through, Mr. Askew. No; I have never met Mrs. Berring. Why did she throw you over and marry Mr.--er--Berring?"

"Well!" echoed Askew, blankly, and their eyes met. He coloured. "No, I can't tell you," he said quickly, for he guessed her desire.

Jim was bearing the artillery of Mrs. Penworthy's eyes in his usual indifferent way, and showed no disposition to seek out his wife. Probably he would remain for the next hour in the clutches of the little woman, who was the limpet to Jim's rock. This being so, Leah began to ask questions which Askew hesitated to answer.

"We hardly know one another," he murmured, embarrassed. "I daren't tell you, Lady James."

Askew flushed through his bronzed skin. "Not at all," he said in a brusque tone. "Señorita Fajardo is all that is good and holy and pure."

"What bread and butter!" thought Leah, wondering if Jim had stumbled upon a convent. But she was too wise to quote Byron to this young man, who apparently was simple enough to regard love as something sacred.

"And a Spanish lady," he said, gloomily. "Lola Fajardo, of the Estancia, San Jago, near Rosario."

"No; I met her there. She is in the habit of stopping at Lima with her aunt. But her true home is at Rosario, in the Santa Fe province of the Argentine republic. I wonder if Berring brought her to England. She was madly in love with him."

"Oh, Berring's a good-looking chap, and not bad," said Askew, with the innate chivalry of a man towards a successful rival. "I suppose they did marry."

"No; I never even knew if they were engaged. But when I joined my ship again at Callao, every one said 'marriage'--they were so uncommonly thick. I must ask Berring."

"I'm sure he'll be delighted to afford you the information you seek," was Lady Jim's ironical reply.

"Then perhaps he did not marry Lola, after all," cried Askew, rising hastily, and with flashing eyes, "unless"--his voice fell--"she is dead."

Leah yawned. "Really, I don't know," she replied; "you had better ask Mr. Berring. I see he is passing out of the garden with Mrs. Penworthy."

"In that case I can't spoil sport," laughed the lieutenant, with an obvious effort; "but later on."

Lord Sargon advanced, and, with an apologetic look towards Leah, took Askew's arm. "I wish to present you to Lady Canvey," he said.

The young man looked towards his charmer. "Will you permit me to leave you for a time?"

"Certainly. You will find Lady Canvey delightful, and as pre-historic as you can wish. We may meet after dinner," and, with a nod, she left the winter garden for the purpose of seeking solitude. She wanted to think over Jim's iniquities, and to consider what use might be made of them for her own benefit.

Lady Canvey was delighted to receive Askew, as she liked handsome young men, especially when they were deferential and attentive, as this new acquaintance appeared to be. "Though I'm a bad substitute for Lady Jim," she remarked pleasantly. "Lady Jim?"

"But private property. Her husband is the Duke's second son, at present in the clutches of that little harpy, Mrs. Penworthy. Don't you make love to Lady Jim, or you'll burn your fingers. I mistrust red-haired women, myself. But she and Jim match each other capitally. Their marriage was made in heaven;" and Lady Canvey chuckled.

"Is her husband here?" asked Askew, looking round, anxious to see who owned Circe-of-the-many-wiles.

Askew remembered how Lady Jim had drawn his attention to an outgoing couple. "Didn't the lady go out with a Mr. Berring?" he gasped.

"Try an unmarried woman," advised Lady Canvey, misunderstanding his emotion. "It's more proper, and less expensive."

CHAPTER IX

Keeping up the necessary Darby-and-Joan comedy, Kaimes strolled into his wife's dressing-room half an hour before dinner to inquire if she was ready. Leah had a second-hand view of him in a full-length mirror before which she posed, while her maid added a few final touches to an eminently successful frock. From the composed expression of his face she guessed that he had not yet renewed his acquaintance with Mr. Askew, and therefore must be ignorant that the free-spoken sailor had let the cat out of the bag. Lady Jim possessed the animal now, but she did not intend to reveal her capture until Jim explained how he had sped with the Duke. A slight nod towards the glass showed her husband that she was aware of his presence, and the maid continued to use experienced fingers. But Leah looked so charming, that further trouble in this way was like adding sugar to honey. Jim stared approvingly, and, when the maid was dismissed, saw his way to a compliment.

"You have the good points of several women rolled into one, Leah," he said, with the look of a sultan appraising an odalisque.

"That polite speech means much, coming from a man of your experience, my dear Jim. What good point of Mrs. Penworthy's have I annexed?"

"Appearances are misleading, then. But," added Leah, remembering Askew's eulogy, "it may be that you prefer something that's good and holy and pure."

"I don't know why you should say that," grumbled Jim, annoyed at being credited with such primitive tastes.

"You may know before long," and she laughed at the thought of the marine bomb-shell which would shortly shatter Jim's complacency.

"I don't know what you're talkin' about," said Kaimes, with unaffected surprise, "an' I'm confoundedly hungry."

"Leah!" Jim became so serious as to look almost intelligent. "My father is the best man who ever wore shoe-leather."

"He is usually condemned to cloth boots for gouty feet," murmured Leah, patting the back of her head. "So you've pulled the wool over his eyes again?"

"I can't pretend to vie with Mrs. Penworthy's purity of speech, my dear man. How much have you got out of the Duke?"

"I wish you'd let me speak," cried Kaimes, testily, "My father has promised to pay all the debts----"

"Wait, I've not finished. He'll pay the debts, and reduce our income to a thousand a year till he recoups himself."

"Really! I thought you had seen your father, and not a money-lender. Have you accepted this most generous offer?"

She laughed in a way calculated to still further infuriate Jim, who paced the room in a towering passion. Nevertheless, she was seriously angry. Had the Duke refused all help, it would have been more decent; but this bargain, which was all on one side, annoyed her beyond measure. What did the Duke mean by taking their money?

"It seems to me we've got to pay our own debts, then," she said, while Jim seethed like a whirlpool.

"Not in your way," cried Kaimes, misunderstanding her, "we aren't going to have any buryin' alive or substituted corpses, an' I'm goin' to hang on as a respectable member of society."

"I'm preachin' now," raged her husband, "an' don't you make any mistake, Leah. I've told the Duke everythin'."

"He didn't even blame me," said Jim, breaking down, "an' there were tears in his eyes."

"I jolly well nearly did," said Kaimes, truthfully, if ungrammatically, "though it's no good explainin' to an icicle like you. But the pater's goin' to pay the debts, free our income, an' let the Curzon Street house."

"He'll allow us one thousand a year till the debts are wiped off," went on Kaimes hurriedly, and wishing to get the explanation over, "an' we can go abroad for a couple of years."

"As an individual, I shan't," retorted Lady Jim, calmly. She was getting over her rage now, as she foresaw a very different interview between herself and Jim before they retired for the night. "It is very good of you to have settled all this without consulting me. And now that you have done so, let us go to dinner."

"There's the gong," observed Leah, opening the door, "and I don't like cold soup."

"You'll have to like lots of things now you didn't like before," said Jim, as they went down.

Jim could have shaken her, and began to understand why the lower orders indulged in wife-beating. But as they were entering the drawing-room at this moment, he had to play the part of a devoted husband. Leah floated radiantly into the brilliantly lighted apartment, and Jim sought out the oldest and ugliest woman he could find. When he thought of his wife, beauty sickened him for the time being. Thus it came about that Miss Jaffray had the pleasure of shouting into his ear throughout a long and wearisome dinner.

Whether it was the work of the fetish or of Lady Frith, Leah did not know, but she found herself seated at the table with Askew on her right hand.

The young man looked flustered, and ill at ease. "I'm so sorry!" he began apologetically, and, as she thought, tactlessly.

"Don't make it harder for me," he entreated softly. "I've been calling myself names ever since we parted."

"There's nothing in it, you know," he stuttered, heedlessly. "Of course, she never married him."

"I hope not, for the sake of morality," said Lady Jim, lightly, and thinking that the soup was worse than usual. "However, it doesn't matter. My husband is a modest man, and sometimes drops his title when travelling. I daresay, as Mr. Berring, he thought he was free to make love."

"But he wasn't," protested Askew, with a glance towards the unconscious Jim, who apparently had not recognised him.

Lady Jim looked at him imperiously, and softened her voice to a very direct whisper. "Don't make trouble," she said, in a somewhat domineering tone; "that will do no good and much harm. And after all, married or unmarried, every man has a right to admire a pretty woman."

"But not to make love to her," muttered the young man, with another vengeful glance.

"I am no casuist," replied Leah, calmly; "and you should be pleased that things are as they are. You can now return to Lima, or Rosario, and marry the lady."

She gave a light laugh. "It seems to me that you are talking; therefore I repeat my question."

"Berring--I mean your husband--saved her from being trampled upon by a mustang."

"No, she didn't," interrupted Askew, hurriedly. "I see I have been mistaken. It was gratitude, not love."

"Of course," said Lady Jim, jeeringly; "a woman always prefers to exercise the former rather than the latter."

"I wish I'd stopped and tried my luck," muttered the sailor, not clever enough to interpret this speech.

"It's not too late. Mr. Berring is safely secured, by love and the law, to my apron-strings, so you can go back and----"

"No; I've just come in for a property of sorts, and the service has seen the last of me."

"A female cousin, who goes with the property, as a fixture. I quite understand. You have to marry her, out of gratitude for the money, and without the discomforting passion of love. The Spanish lady's history repeats itself, I see."

"You can't have had much to do with women," she murmured; "but I hope you will make no trouble in the smoking-room."

"But I say, Lady James," said the lieutenant, anxiously, "I hope what I've inadvertently told you won't----"

"Of course not," she assured him, mendaciously; "my husband is most trustworthy, as you can see by his choice of that ugly old maid as a dinner companion. You were mistaken."

"I think I must have been," said Askew, with great relief. "Of course, people talk at Lima, as elsewhere," he ended apologetically.

She shot an amused glance at his colouring face. "Remember you are engaged to the fixture, Mr. Askew."

"In a most respectable manner with my husband, Mr. Berring. I'm known as Lady Jim of Curzon Street. Most improper, isn't it, when Berring----?"

"I say, don't," expostulated the young man, quickly. "I'll never forgive myself for being such a fool. Can I call you Lady Jim?"

He was getting on very fast, and Leah, in the interests of virtue, deemed it necessary to snub him. "Certainly not. Only people who have known me fifty years address me so familiarly."

This was clever and pleased her. "I was Circe in the days of Homer, Mr. Askew. But as to my name now, there is another Lady Jim--a horrid woman who carries tracts and meddles with morals, and dresses in a piously shabby fashion. So that we may not be mixed up, I am known by the name of the street I live in. To you I am Lady James Kaimes!"

Leah laughed. "We'll see what sort of animal my magic will turn you into," she observed, with an encouraging smile.

This was a distinct promise, or at least he construed it as such, for his eyes brightened, and he glanced at her in a way which assured her that she was looking her best. He was certainly a delightful boy, she reflected, if somewhat fickle. But a man who was catholic enough to marry the fixture, and adore the Spanish lady, and make sudden love to herself, must be worth feminine appreciation and study. Besides, he was good-looking, and had money, conjoined with a frank and unsuspicious nature. Assuredly, he might be useful, if not inclined to explore the Land of Tenderness too assiduously. But in that case, he might compromise her in an earnest, pig-headed way, which would be at once boring, ridiculous, and dangerous. Leah approved of playing with fire, but she was too careful to risk a personal conflagration. Though allured by the prospect of tormenting an honest heart, she had not made up her mind to enjoy the opportunity by the time she left the dining-room. But a distinctly tigerish glance, sent to her address by Demetrius, almost inclined her to give young Askew the chance of making a fool of himself. The Russian had apparently noticed the embryo flirtation.

"All the better," thought Leah, sailing into the Adamless Eden of the winter garden; "it will be an additional card to play"--which showed that Lady Jim was by no means satisfied with the arrangement come to between her husband and his father.

"No, thanks; I leave smoking to women who bait their hooks with agreeable vices;" and she moved towards Lady Canvey.

"Delightful," assented the other, who at the moment would gladly have mounted the scaffold on a charge of murdering her insolent rival. "I call her perfectly lovely. Such a perfect complexion, and exquisite figure, and heavenly eyes, and large hands."

But this piece of spite was wasted, as by this time Lady Jim was seated by her godmother, assuring that sceptical lady how absolutely delighted she was to learn that dear Jim had arranged matters with the dear Duke. "And so sweet of the Duke to tell you," she went on. "I know how anxious you have been about me.

"Can you wonder at it, my dear, when you are so sweet and gentle and womanly?" said Lady Canvey, who was quite equal to a war of words.

"You must be thinking of Hilda Frith," replied Lady Jim, calmly. "I cannot call myself such an angel."

"Possibly. But I might teach him for love, after the fashion of Miss Tallentire and Lionel."

"Leah!" said Lady Canvey, with a pained look. "Why have you such a bitter tongue?"

"I must defend myself somehow. You wouldn't have me scratch and bite, would you?"

"They generally go to other men's wives to be manufactured. Besides, so far as Jim is concerned, you can't make a silk purse out of a certain animal's ear."

"My dear, I am an old woman, and perhaps rather sharp-tongued at times, but I have a motherly feeling for you. Can't you give up this wild life, and go abroad to devote yourself to Jim? He has his good points, my dear, and if you would try and live more amicably with him, I am sure you would be a happy woman. Then, in a year or so, you could come back to Curzon Street, with all the debts paid, and your full income to live on. Believe me"--she laid a withered hand on Leah's beautiful arm--"I speak for the best, my dear girl."

Leah smiled disdainfully. "Now that the sermon's over, can I pass round the plate?" she said cruelly.

"Not for me to put money in," said Lady Canvey, with a flush. "I shan't give you a penny. It is useless talking to you, Leah; your one idea is money and enjoyment and love of admiration."

"It seems to me that those are three ideas," replied Lady Jim, rising; "but as our conversation is neither enjoyable nor instructive, I shall go away." All the same she lingered, and talked in a low tone, with unexpected emotion. "You blame me, Lady Canvey, for being what I am. Pray, what chance have I had of being otherwise? I lost my mother when I was a child; I was brought up by a neglectful and selfish father; I am married to a husband who has nothing of the man about him, save those handsome looks, which lured me into a much-regretted marriage. All my life I have lived with worldly and material people, and your counsel has been as worldly as that of any one of them. I have never been shown the difference between right and wrong, and there isn't a single soul in the world who has a spark of love for me. If my up-bringing and surroundings had been better, I might be a good woman--so far as I can be, I am a good woman. I have my moments of regret--I have my moments when I wish I could be a religious, dowdy saint. But who will help me out of the mire--who will----?" Here she broke off, for her emotion was becoming too strong for the publicity of the place. With a violent effort, which showed the strength and courage of her nature, she calmed down, and the colour faded from her face, as did the frown, which gave place to a cynical smile. Annoyed with herself for having given Lady Canvey a glimpse of her better nature, she walked away, leaving the old woman surprised and startled, and, in her own selfish way, truly sorry. There was much truth in what Leah had said.

But her mask was on again the moment she crossed to the door, and Demetrius, who was obviously looking for her, saw only the beautiful, calm woman he knew so well. His face was as agitated as Leah's had been a few minutes previously.

"Silly--silly," she mocked, then glanced round with up-raised eyebrows; "don't make a scene, monsieur, or I shall begin to believe that you appreciate our English custom of lingering over the wine."

"Certainly--to-morrow, at four. Ill be in the picture gallery. Good night;" and with a friendly nod she moved away.

Demetrius swore softly in Russian, which is a most picturesque language in many ways. Without a glance, Lady Jim ascended the stairs, well pleased. Demetrius was losing command of himself, and therefore would be all the easier to manage, should she require his services. "I'll have that twenty thousand before spring," she decided.

CHAPTER X

"What is love?" asked Leah, the next day, at twenty minutes past four of a clear wintry afternoon.

With all his knowledge of five languages, Demetrius could find no answer, and rose from his knees with the feelings of a man who is trying to melt an iceberg with a lucifer match. Ever since Lady Jim arrived to keep her appointment in the picture gallery, he had been explaining his feelings at length, and in the orthodox attitude of a mortal worshipping a goddess. He had crossed his "t's" and dotted his "i's" with the utmost precision. From English he had glided into French, to plead the attractions of illicit passion: two minutes of German resulted in sentimental assertions of that passion's righteousness, and in illustrations of Wertherism; and, immediately before she asked that impossible question, he had harked back to her native tongue, to impress upon her the solid British common-sense of his wooing. Leah listened to this polyglot love-making with the feeling that she was camping under the tower of Babel. Demetrius might have been a gramophone, pouring out recitations from the poets, for all the impression his impassionate rhetoric made on her well-trained feelings.

"I suppose all these speeches can be classified under the heading of love," she said unkindly, when his exhaustion gave her an opportunity of intervening. "But--what is love?"

"I have been trying to explain," stammered the Russian, getting on his legs dispiritedly.

"Oh, your intentions are of the best. I gather that much; but I am still waiting for a definition."

Lady Jim laughed. This war of words was amusing and pretty, but she wished to arrive at some conclusion which would repay her for spending an hour in a cold gallery, packed with shockingly bad pictures.

"It seems to me that you have been trying to do so. Would you like to hear how I define love?"

His eyes burned like two menacing stars. "Yes," he muttered in a husky voice, and holding his passions in leash.

"Then I--love you," he burst out. "There is no sacrifice I would not make for your dear sake."

"Get up," said Lady Jim, brusquely. He did so. "Take a seat!" He did so. "Look at the floor, and not at me." He did so. "Now then," she continued, feeling relieved that those fierce eyes were not making her flesh creep, "do you know what you are, Monsieur Demetrius?"

"Everything. She is free and I am not; she loves you, and I don't; she will do you good, I shall do you harm; she can gain your pardon and make your fortune----"

"And you can make me happy," cried Demetrius, looking up with the air of one who has found a clinching argument.

The British-matron portion of Leah revolted against this plain speaking. She liked sugar-coated speeches. "You have no right to say that."

"I have no right to make love to you," cried the doctor, rising, "but I do. Pschutt"--he snapped his fingers--"what care I for that English pig, your husband? As to that young fool who sat beside you last night----"

Lady Jim clapped her hands, and jumped up, laughing. "Oh," she cried, with great enjoyment, "so it was Mr. Askew's attentions that made you lose your head?"

"But not my heart. I lost that months ago, when I first met you. Ah, you cruel woman, have I not worshipped and adored you these many days? Do I not ache here?" he struck his breast passionately. "Have you not made my life miserable with your looks and smiles and coldness and beauty?" He seized her hands roughly. "I love you so much that I--even I, Constantine Demetrius--could kill you--kill you."

She released herself with a cold laugh. "That sounds as though you were in earnest. But if I could return your love----"

"One moment." She waved him back, and retreated herself to the window. "Supposing I could love you--what then?"

"I would--I would----" He flung out his hands with a sob. "What is your price?" he cried savagely.

"How crudely you put things!" said Lady Jim, coolly. "My price is your services, to be given blindly, and without question."

Demetrius stared, and gazed at her with unaffected amazement. "You mock me," he said faintly.

"No, I am in earnest. It is true that I am not free now. But," she looked at him steadily, "you can make me so."

"Murder," whispered Demetrius, looking up and down the long, empty, chill gallery, and not at the Eve who was tempting him.

Leah blazed out into genuine rage. "What do you mean?" she cried, stamping her foot. "Not a hair of Jim's head shall be harmed."

"Sit down and listen," she said, pointing to a chair. "I have a deeper feeling for you than you think. No; leave my hand alone. We are now talking business."

Lady Jim nodded composedly. "The pleasure can come later. You have no money, no title, no position----"

"I can make money," he explained rapidly; "and I can take up again my title of Prince, which I dropped when I became a doctor. As the wife of a Russian noble----"

"And, therefore, think yourself worthy of me," said Lady Jim, calmly. "Thank you! There's nothing like being honest."

"Oh yes, I do. I understand that you can make me a cheap sort of princess, and in some way can give me money----"

"You must have the lamp of Aladdin, then," said Leah, with a shrug. "My capacity for spending will try even your finances. But at the present moment I have not a penny, neither has my husband."

Now that the plunge was made she found less difficulty in speaking plainly. Leaning towards him, till the perfume of her hair and the close neighbourhood of her whole gracious person nearly maddened him into seizing her in his arms, she proceeded rapidly. "My husband's life is insured for twenty thousand pounds. If you as a doctor can arrange to satisfy the insurance company of his death, so that we can get the money, he will disappear, and I, in the eyes of the world, shall be free to marry you."

"How stupid you are," said Lady Jim, with unfeigned irritation. "This man Garth is very like Jim, and is apparently dying----"

"Yes," replied Demetrius, whose quick brain seized the feasibility of the scheme at once. "But will your husband give you up?"

"Ah," said Demetrius, sarcastically. "Then the high-born nobleman does not credit me with being a gentleman?"

"What does it matter what he thinks?" said Lady Jim, impatiently. "We needn't trouble about him after he disappears. Can it be managed?"

"Yes, if you will promise to marry me when you are free and in possession of this money."

"Assuredly. Listen! The Duke wishes to save the life of this Garth, because--he is fond of him."

"I say to the Duke that a warm climate will work wonders," continued Demetrius, dramatically. "He will gladly consent, and with this Garth I go to----"

"No," said the doctor, sharply. "If I set foot on the Continent I may be captured by the secret police. I have no wish to take Garth with me to Siberia," he added sarcastically. "It is not a warm climate. The Azores--Madeira--Jamaica--Barbados--any such place, will make him better."

"Leave that to me, madame. Garth will die as Garth, and be buried as Milor, your husband."

"You are scrupulous," rejoined Demetrius, with a shrug. "But make your mind easy. Garth cannot live--he may die on the voyage----

Demetrius shrugged his shoulders again. "In that case, I may have to assist nature."

"No," said Leah, again, and very determinedly. "I could never spend the money with any pleasure if I thought that you--you assisted nature," she ended faintly, not liking to use a strong word.

The Russian looked at her with silent surprise. He could not understand why she should be scrupulous in one thing and not in another. She contemplated a fraud on the insurance company, and bigamistic marriage with him, so it was impossible to guess why she should object to the inclusion of a third crime.

"And it would scarcely be murder," said Demetrius, continuing his train of thought aloud. "He is so ill, this poor Garth, that the relief of death----"

"Don't," interrupted Leah, who both looked and felt pale. "I won't have it. Let the poor man die in peace. If he dies otherwise, I shall refuse to marry you."

"You may do that in any case," said the doctor grimly. "What hold have I over you?"

"There is no need for you to have any hold," said Lady Jim, wincing, and feeling that she had indeed delivered herself into the power of the enemy. "But if you think I will not keep my promise you are mistaken. I swear to marry you."

"Ah, well," said Demetrius, with a penetrating look. "If you do not marry me, you cannot marry another, since your husband will always be alive."

"Oh, you make him out to be immortal also," said she, with an uneasy laugh; then felt the necessity of bringing this interview to a conclusion. "We must part now. It will not do for us to be seen talking together."

"I agree," said Demetrius, gravely; "your proposal alters our relations entirely. In society, I will speak to you little."

Lady Jim nodded, and put her handkerchief to her lips with a feeling of nausea. Now that her scheme was taking shape, its outlines appeared rather repulsive. To read of such a plot conceived and detailed by a dexterous author was amusing and stimulating; to engage in its execution meant worry, and a fearful ignorance as to what might happen, should things go awry. The same difference might be supposed to exist between Aldershot man[oe]uvres and a real battle. Theorising in criminality was easy; practice would be both difficult and dangerous.

Moreover, she might have to pay a very large price for the privilege of engaging in this questionable transaction. Demetrius would certainly exact his bond in genuine Shylock fashion. Needless to say, she had no intention of marrying him, and trusted to the providence of the peacock fetish to avoid the necessity though at the moment she saw no means whereby she could escape fulfilling her promise. This reflection almost made her draw back. As yet, she was not under the doctor's thumb, and could extricate herself even at this eleventh hour by denying everything, should he dare to speak out. But a second thought of her desperate need of money, a sordid vision of cheap hotels and ready-made frocks, a shuddering remembrance that the future, as it now stood, meant limited pocket-money and the everlasting boredom of Jim's society, turned the scale in favour of the venture. "Be bold! Be bold!" said the warning of the door in the old fairy tale, and Leah thought the advice worth taking. But she forgot the concluding words, "Be not too bold!"

"I leave details to you," she said to her companion, when they had concluded their nefarious bargain.

"Madame, I relieve you of all responsibility," said Demetrius, now quite his grave, restrained self. "But, should I tell the Duke that your husband is suffering from consumption, you will endorse my statement, I trust."

Leah had a conscience, though for years it had been persistently snubbed into holding its peace. After all, Jim was her husband, and she had no right to sanction tricks being played on his robust health. "You don't mean----" Her voice died away nervously.

"I mean business," Demetrius flashed out. "I love you, and I mean to win you. The price that you ask shall be paid."

"In that case"--Leah extended her hand, to withdraw it suddenly before the Russian could rain kisses on its soft whiteness. A choking sensation, new to one of her superb health, made her gasp frantically after the breath which seemed to be leaving her. With unexpected force came a new sensation. This abominable playing with the lives and hearts of men stirred up to vehement protest a hitherto unknown better self which overwhelmed her with wave upon wave of reproachful shame. Conscience, uppermost for once in her greedy, selfish, animal life, stripped the contemplated sin of its allurements, and she recoiled before an inward vision of the horror her baser nature was creating. It might prove to her what the monster proved to Frankenstein, and haunt her with nightmare insistence for the remainder of an unbearable life.

"So weak, madame?" asked Demetrius, reading the secret handwriting on the wall like a very Daniel.

The sneer nerved her, and she strove desperately to escape from the light of heaven into the material darkness, that would not reveal her sin, unclothed and shameless. "No!" she cried in a loud, ringing voice. "I--I----" Again the celestial light mercilessly and mercifully disclosed the inward foulness of that fair-seeming sin, and the sight beat down her pride and courage into nothingness. "I take it all back," she stuttered, broken-up and panic-struck. "Forget--don't move in--in----" Something clicked in her throat, and only by a violent effort did she repress the climbing hysteria. Incapable of speech, and only anxious to escape from this extraordinary influence, which compelled her to face the powers of darkness in their naked horror, she passed swiftly down the long, echoing gallery. Not till she was safe in her own room did she halt, to consider why she had fled. Her brain was now clear, and the actual world resumed its wonted aspect. Her face was still white, her lips still quivered, her soul was still shaken by the visitation. But, with a courage worthy of a better cause, she sat down and fought with her fears, till the colour returned and the nerves came under control. Yet her material nature could not grasp that the terrible gift of the interior sight had been hers for one short moment.

And she was. For, as the walls of the flesh closed round her soul, to darken it anew, her good angel, who had wrought the miracle, weeping for the blind that would not see and the deaf that would not hear, left her despairingly. Then the powers of darkness soothed her into such contentment, that she laughed scornfully at her late folly, and adopted their explanation.

CHAPTER XI

A triple knock at the door both interrupted Leah's meditations and annoyed her, as she was far from wishing for company. It could not be Jim, as he usually banged the panels impatiently, and walked in before the invitation to enter could be heard through the noise of his tattoo. Besides, Jim, for obvious reasons, connected with Askew, had made himself scarce for the last four-and-twenty hours. Should it be a visitor, Leah resolved to decline conversation, especially with one of her own sex. But the women of the house-party so rarely ventured into Lady Jim's sitting-room, that she concluded the disturber to be some servant with a message. Perhaps Jim had broken his head while skating, or had made a hole in the ice. If so, his death would greatly simplify matters.

"Come in," she cried impatiently, and to her surprise, Lionel presented himself, with a somewhat diffident look. "Oh, it's you, padre!" Lady Jim had picked up the word from a Sandhurst cadet. "What's the matter,--anything wrong?"

"What should be wrong?" inquired Kaimes, closing the door and remaining on the inside.

"Oh, I don't know. I always expect bad news when I see a lawyer's letter or a parson's face. Well? Has Lady Canvey been converted, or has Jim gone to that place where the climate forbids skating?"

"Nothing of the sort has happened," said Lionel, dryly. "I have merely come to chat with you."

"My dear man, when am I anything else but worried, with Jim for a husband, and the Duke behaving like Shylock at his worst? You and Jim have made a mess of things."

"I don't know about Jim," said Lionel, resenting this ungrateful speech, "but I did my best to put matters in the right light."

"Oh, Lord, who wanted a right light? The less light on Jim's and my affairs the better. A few white lies would have resulted in a larger sum than that miserable two hundred with which the Duke insulted us."

"I daresay. You parsons are so ridiculously punctilious. As if diplomatic lies were not as oil on the troubled waters of this world."

"I did not come to discuss this," said Lionel, seeing how utterly impossible she was, "but to help you in your trouble."

"I don't know. I was reading in the library, when a feeling came to me that I must see you at once--that you needed assistance."

Leah looked rather queer. What could he possibly know of her late experience? "Telepathy, I suppose."

"The Divine Spirit," he repeated, firmly and seriously. "I believe that the impulse to seek you came from above. You are in danger."

"You can't deny that you are in trouble of some sort. I can see it in your expression."

"Pray don't question me," snapped Leah, with a nervous glance around. This interference of the Unseen with her material affairs was both weird and uncomfortable. She could not deny the panic that had driven her headlong from the security of the flesh, and it was remarkable that Lionel, unsummoned and unsought, should seek her at so critical a moment. The feeling that he was meddling with what did not concern him, annoyed her the more. "I wish you would not frighten me," she cried, with an angry determination to stop this uncanny business.

"Because there is something serious the matter, or I should not have been called to your assistance."

"Can you substantiate that statement, seeing how embarrassed your worldly affairs are at this moment?"

Lady Jim could find no direct answer. "Parsons have nothing to do with worldly matters," she muttered, averting her eyes.

"It's a false alarm, padre," she said jeeringly. "I don't want to be preached at, and you're suffering from indigestion, or softening of the brain."

"Well, Lady James," said Lionel, rising with a sigh, "your limitations may lead you to look at the matter in that light. But if I can do nothing for you, I can only retire, after asking your pardon--as I do--for my intrusion;" and he made for the door.

Her mood changed with feminine rapidity, and she beckoned imperatively that he should remain. Disguise it as she would to Kaimes, his sudden coming on the top of her late puzzling experience drove her to acknowledge that something outside the material was at work. Leah was too clever a woman to deny the existence of more things in heaven and earth than came within the scope of her knowledge.

"It is the duty of you parsons to pry into the secrets of souls, I suppose," she said, leaning her elbow on the chair arm, and her chin on her hand. "But what interest can you have in my soul--if I have one?"

"And so fall as Peter fell," said Lionel, sadly. "Yet he repented with bitter weeping."

"I am not a tearful woman," she retorted, and turned to look into the fire. She did not wish to meet his eyes when she spoke the ensuing acknowledgment. "You are a good man, Lionel, and--and--you may be able to help me."

Kaimes resumed his seat. "I hope so; but I can only point the way to a better Helper, and One more powerful."

She continued to gaze at the burning coals. "I was frightened a few minutes before you entered," she said abruptly.

"That is the question you must answer. By something which made me see what a horrid nature I have."

"The Unseen presses closely around us," he remarked at length, "and at times reveals itself. For instance, a contemplated sin may be prevented by a spiritual influence informing the intelligence how terrible the consequences of such a sin may be."

"It was the sin itself rather than its consequence which frightened me," murmured Leah, so softly that Lionel caught but one word.

Lady Jim's cunning made her shirk confession. "Nothing--oh, nothing," she said hurriedly; "only it seems to me that everything pleasant is a sin in your eyes."

"Dead Sea Fruit," replied Kaimes, earnestly; "fair to the eye, foul to the taste. If you turn devoutly to the spiritual, the material pleasures of this world lose their attractiveness."

"Perhaps," she said sceptically; "but many things goody-goody people of your sort shudder at are attractive. You can't deny that."

"I have no wish to. Satan always supplies us with rose-coloured spectacles, through which to contemplate his works."

Lady Jim rose and walked up and down the narrow limits of the room, twisting her hands in a nervous, hesitating way, quite unlike her usually calm, decisive self. "I wish you would not talk nonsense," she snapped; "it is absurd to believe in a personal devil."

"And the Inquisition of the middle ages denied that the earth went round the sun," said Kaimes, grimly; "but I understand that it does."

"Clever, but not convincing. What is the use of talking nursery theology and cheap science to me? What can you say that is likely to do me good?"

"Oh, we always tell the exact truth to doctor and lawyer," said Lady Jim, scornfully, "because we fear for our bodies and our property. But who tells the truth to a parson?"

"In that case I may as well hold my tongue. I am not convinced of anything, not even if I ought to make you my father confessor."

"I cannot compel your confidence. On the other hand, I cannot help you unless----"

"Unless! Quite so. Let me think," and turning her back on him, she went to the window. The early winter gloom was blotting out the distant landscape, but near at hand the spectral glare of the snow revealed blackly the figures of homeward-bound skaters. The cold deadness of so sinister a world did not tend to soothe Leah's overstrung nerves, and shrouded Nature could give her no counsel. Had it been a summer's twilight of nightingales and roses, of sleeping blossoms and murmuring leaves, she would have recovered sufficient spirit to scoff. But this arctic waste, livid and still in the half light, reminded her of the frozen hell, in the deadly chills of which shuddered Dante, the seer. And the virile Saxon word hinted at the possible, if not at the probable. Of course, it was all very ridiculous, and her system was out of order. Nevertheless, she felt that some kindly human comfort and advice might restore her tormented mind to its usual peace. And whatever she said to Lionel, he would not dare to repeat. As a cousin, as a gentleman, as a priest, his lips would be triply sealed. And he might be able to point out a less dangerous path than that towards which the need of money was driving her. He was a good fellow, too, and honest enough, in spite of his superstition. She decided to speak, and came back to her chair. Had she been less material, she could have heard in the stillness the rustling wings of a returning angel. Lionel looked at her inquiringly. She was about to speak hurriedly, lest the good impulse should pass away, when Jim's tattoo was heard. With a snap Leah closed her lips, as he lumbered, red-faced, hearty, and essentially fleshy, into the room. The mere sight of his tangible commonplace made the woman thank her stars that she had not blundered into hysterical frankness.

"Holloa, Lionel! Holloa, Leah! Sittin' in the twilight an' talkin' secrets--eh? Mind some light?" He clicked the ivory knob near the door, and the room sprang into vivid being. "Had a jolly day's skatin. Y' should ha' come, Leah. No end of a lark. Feel sick?" This polite question was asked because she shaded her eyes from the glare.

"Might call it a china-shop," chuckled Jim, glancing disparagingly at the nicknackery. "Nerves slack, I'll bet. Fresh air an' exercise an' cheerful company is what you want, Leah."

"I'm likely to get the last, with you," she rejoined witheringly, for the overpowering vitality of the man made her wince.

"Well, Lionel here's--been no catch in th' way of fun, I expect. Seems to have given you the hump. Goin', old man? All right! I'll cheer her up. See you at dinner."

The curate nodded and went out. Since Jim's plunge into the middle of their conversation he had not uttered a word, for the interruption had jarred on him, as on Lady Jim. Moreover, he departed with an intuitive feeling that the golden moment had passed. And this was truly the case. When she next saw him, Leah wondered why she had so nearly made a fool of herself. And indeed, she was already wondering while Jim, obviously embarrassed, discoursed in a breezy, blundering way, with an attempt at connubial fondness.

"Poor old girl," he said, sitting opposite to her, looking fresh and handsome, and essentially manly. "'Awfully sorry you're chippy. If I'd known I'd ha' come back to keep you company."

Jim, as usual, could not follow this recondite speech. "Don't know what you're talkin' about," he remarked good-humouredly, and bustling to the bell. "You're a peg too low, Leah. Tell you what: we'll have tea here, an' a talk, if you don't mind."

His wife nodded, wondering if he was about to confess his possible Mormonism. She did not think so, as Jim never confessed anything, unless it was dragged piecemeal out of him. Her feelings at this moment did not lean towards cross-examination, so she let him ring the bell and order tea, without using her too-ready tongue. In fact, she unbent so far as to make use of him.

"Get me a dose of sal volatile, Jim," she ordered. "There's a bottle on my dressing-table."

"Poor old girl," said the sympathetic Jim, again, and stumbling into the next room with eager haste.

After Jim dosed her, he was tactful enough to hold his tongue and improve the fire, without clattering the poker and tongs. Then he pulled down the blinds and drew the curtains, and altered the shades of the electrics, so that Leah might not be overpowered by the glare.

"It's quite like a new honeymoon," she said, sarcastically. The drug was doing its renovating work, and her original devil was returning to a swept and garnished house, with seven other spirits more wicked than himself.

Jim took the remark seriously, and coloured with pleasure. "I believe we'd get on rippin'," said he, enthusiastically. "If we only had the money I believe we'd be as happy as birds."

"They can't be very happy in this cold weather," replied Leah, seeing plainly that Jim's amiability was owing to a selfish fear of reproval for his iniquities. "Here's the tea. I don't want any just now, as the sal volatile is doing me good. You can eat."

"Oh, can't I, just," said Jim, when the footman left and he was filling himself a cup. "Th' skatin's given me an appetite. 'Sides, I want to get into form; as I've somethin' serious to say about this insurance business."

"No--o--o," drawled her husband, not meeting her eyes. "Course, th' pater's a good sort an' all that. But his arrangement will give us a howlin' bad time for the next few years."

"Well, then," Jim fiddled nervously with a piece of toast, "why not get the twenty thousand?"

Leah smiled blandly, as she thought of what Jim would say did she reply honestly to this question. But she did not intend to. It seemed to her that Jim was driving her towards the very path which Lionel, unknowingly, wished her to avoid. It was useless to fight against fate, so she decided, and like many another person, she laid the blame on those scapegoats, the stars. She was now completely dominated by the selfish influence of the great god Mammon, and the lesser sin of lying was swallowed up in the greater one of idolatry.

"He'll want a few thousands, of course," she said mendaciously; "but, as yet, we have not fixed any sum."

"Hum," muttered Jim, suspiciously. "I thought he'd want something more than money."

Leah rose indignantly, and proclaimed a virtue that her conscience assured her she might yet lose. "I am an honest woman, Jim," she said haughtily, "and, married or unmarried, I should never allow any man to make love to me."

"When their hearts are broken," growled her husband. "Upon my soul, Leah, I'm straighter than you are."

Jim rashly became aggressively virtuous. "I've not been a bad sort of husband to you, Leah."

"I have seen so little of you that it is rather difficult for me to give an opinion," she said, resting her elbow on the mantelpiece. "Mrs. Berring may be in a better position to judge of your virtues."

Kaimes turned white with emotion, and he rose from his low chair as though worked by springs. "It's a lie," he growled hoarsely. "I never married her."

"You don't care enough about me to raise Cain," said Jim, rather sorry for himself. "I swear I'd be a different man, if you were a different woman."

"Every husband in the divorce court witness-box makes the same excuse. Sit down, Jim, and let us talk over the matter quietly. Your infidelities have long since converted us from man and wife into a business firm to earn money."

"By that soul you know nothing about?" she flashed out contemptuously. "Talk sense, if you are capable of doing so. You have been trying to dodge this explanation ever since you met Mr. Askew last night, in the smoking-room. But now that we've stumbled on an opening, perhaps you will explain."

"Oh, he's been makin' somethin' out of nothin', the silly ass," protested Jim, sitting down and handling the poker with a fervent wish that he could use it on the sailor's head. "I met Señorita Fajardo at Lima, and later at Buenos Ayres. Her brother asked me out to their estancia in the camp of Argentina, near Rosario, and I stopped there for a month. Bit of luck came my way, an' I pulled her from under a beastly mustang, that would have kicked the life out of her. She took a fancy to me, 'cause I saved her life."

"An' she's a pretty woman, an' I'm flesh an' blood," cried Jim, getting up to work himself into a rage. "I met her durin' my second visit, an' went again to the estancia on my third. It was no use luggin' a title round, for these mouldy hotel-keepers always make a chap pay for havin' a handle to his name, so I called myself Berring--James Berring."

"Bachelor, certainly. I haven't married her, and if Askew says I have, he's a liar."

"And assuredly a marplot," said Leah, dryly, "since he has exploded your romance. I understood from him that this lady loves you."

"If I had intended to kick, you would have been black and blue by now, Mr. James Berring. But you needn't flatter yourself that my feelings are hurt in any way. You're not worth it."

"Well, I can't help that, can I? If you'd been a different sort of woman, I'd have----"

"The insurance business. I don't care for you, and you show very plainly that you don't care for me. It is useless for us to struggle together like a couple of ill-matched dogs in leash. Give me fifteen thousand of this money, and then you can marry your Lola woman."

"Can you wonder if I do? How many women would take this scandalous matter as quietly as I do?"

"It's not scandalous," said Kaimes, fiercely. "She thinks that I am a bachelor, and I'm not even engaged to her. I have tried to be true to you, Leah," declared Jim, pathetically.

His wife shrugged her shoulders. It was rather late in the day for Jim to talk sentiment, besides being a waste of time. "Well?" she asked, facing him squarely.

Jim read her purpose in a very flinty face. "I'll do what you want," he said weakly.

"Then there's no more to be said," remarked Leah, coldly, moving towards the door of her bedroom. "Demetrius will explain, if you will afford him half an hour's private conversation."

"I have meant it from the first moment you put the idea into my head," she said in a harsh voice. "This underhand love-making of yours only makes me the more determined."

"Don't lie, Jim. A man can no more love two women than he can serve two masters. Is it to be Lola Fajardo, or myself?"

"Then I choose the fifteen thousand pounds," she said, and vanished into the bedroom. Jim took an impulsive step towards the door, but the sharp click of a turning key showed him that he was locked out for ever.

That evening Leah talked so gaily, and looked so beautiful, that her father-in-law was absolutely fascinated. "Is it all right between you and James?" he asked graciously.

CHAPTER XII

Leah welcomed the New Year at Firmingham, with the fervent hope that its bounty would bestow the insurance money, and rid her of an official husband. It really seemed as though Providence, or the fetish, was in a benign mood, for Jim caught the worst of colds while skating. Being confined to an undesired bed, and fed with food tasteless to a cultivated palate, he lost both flesh and temper. Demetrius talked gravely of weak lungs, and hinted at inherited consumption. The Duke was anxious, but scarcely surprised, and recalled similar cases of a grandmother, two ancestors, and a rackety uncle. Lady Jim encouraged these pulmonary recollections for obvious reasons. She and Demetrius winked privately at one another like the celebrated augurs, when they heard the old man's lamentations. Nature was acting strictly on the lines of the Russian's proposed medicine, and there was no need to dose Jim into a sickly likeness of Garth. Day by day he grew as white-faced, as haggard, and as lean, until he became alarmed at the anxiety of Providence to forward the schemes of himself and Leah.

But there was no end to the kindness of an overruling fate. Jim's illness afforded his wife the opportunity of posing as a sister of mercy, and she fussed round the patient so ostentatiously, that the Duke was quite touched. He began to think that Leah was a true ministering angel, and not the money-wasting doll he had considered her to be. Jim grinned as Leah measured medicine, and fed him with gruel, and read him interesting bits from the sporting journals.

"Why so, dear?" asked his wife, who was profuse of adjectives in private, so that they might slip out the more easily in public.

"It is necessary to keep up appearances," Leah assured him. "Besides, this will be the last chance of my doing anything for you. In future, Lola will soothe your weary pillow;" after which and similar passages of arms, Jim would curse himself to sleep, and wake up to accuse his wife of wishing to poison him.

This fortunate illness kept Lady Jim at Firmingham when the house-party disintegrated. But as the Duke was a twaddling old ass, and Jim the most trying of patients, Leah looked upon her ten days' boredom as a kind of Lenten penance. Besides, she had frequent confabulations with Demetrius, to settle details of the plot. Already the doctor had explained to the Duke that Garth would die easier in the tropics, and Funchal had been selected as the most agreeable place for his demise.

"Those which I propose to bring about," retorted Demetrius, who had his reasons for not explaining himself too fully.

Leah did not question him closely. With a selfish regard for her own safety, in case anything might leak out, she preferred that the doctor should arrange matters in his own way. But she obeyed instructions to the extent of hinting to the Duke that Kingston was the very best place for dear Jim's weak lungs.

"Oh no," said Lady Jim, sweetly; "we mustn't make too much fuss over him, else he'll think he's going to die."

"He might," sighed the Duke. "I had an uncle----" and he described the sufferings of old Lord George for the tenth time.

Leah comforted him after the manner of one Bildad, a Shuhite. "Oh, Kingston will do Jim no end of good, my dear Duke. It won't cure one lung, but it may patch up the other. And then, you know, if he gets worse, I can always reach him in fourteen days."

"He doesn't think poor Jim will ever be so strong as he was," said Leah, gravely; "but he'll hang on, with care."

"Just like my grandmother," muttered the Duke, and then detailed the sufferings of a dowager duchess, who couldn't be kept alive beyond the age of sixty.

"Are you thinking of the insurance money?" demanded Pentland, with sudden anger.

"What insurance money? Oh yes, I think Jim did mention something about an insurance."

"Because, in the event of his dying, the insurance money should be left to you. No will means trouble."

Leah had never thought of a will, as it seemed natural that the money should come to her without the necessity of paying lawyers' bills. But her quick brain seized the chance of smoothing the way to acquiring the fortune with as little trouble as possible, and she promptly cornered the Duke. "You speak to him," she suggested.

And this the Duke did, with the result that a will leaving the money to Leah was drawn up and signed, after some opposition, by Jim. He did not at all relish the carrying out of this necessary step. It was too like preparing a death certificate to please Jim.

However, as a reward for his obedience, Demetrius set him on his legs, and Jim went to Torquay with the devoted Leah. But when he was settled in a comfortable hotel as an interesting invalid, and with a superfluity of pretty girls to soothe him with sympathy, Lady Jim left him for a round of visits to various country-houses. Now that the Duke was out of sight, Jim's connubial comforts were out of mind; but Leah left strict injunctions that he was not to put on flesh. Within the month, she was to see him start for Jamaica, and impressed upon him the necessity of looking quite ready to depart for a place where Jim had no desire to go.

"Oh, I don't think Lola will mind," said Leah, cruelly, and started out to enjoy herself in the best of spirits.

While at Lord Sargon's seat in Shropshire, she met Askew in the company of the fixture. The young man's betrothed was extremely like a dairy-maid, and her frocks set Lady Jim's teeth on edge. If she could combine colours that did not match, she always did so, and her character was as colourless as her wardrobe was gaudy. Marjory was the creature's name, and her conversation was the "Pa-pa!" "Mam-ma!" of a squeaking doll.

"How much are you paying for her?" asked Leah, after satisfying herself that the young lady was really a woman.

"Don't laugh at me," he implored; "you know there is but one woman in the world for me."

"Some one nearer and dearer than her!" he murmured, with what the Americans call "goo-goo" eyes, whereat Lady Jim laughed, and allowed him to fetch and carry, and sit on his hind legs and bark prettily, like a well-trained lap-dog. It amused her, and kept him on tenterhooks. The only annoying thing was, that Marjory seemed to care little for this annexation of her lover. She much preferred a fox-hunting squire, who talked "stables," and glowered on Askew for not appreciating the dairy-maid.

In this capture of another woman's man, Leah combined pleasure with business. She did not wish to spoil Jim's little game with the Spanish lady, and it would never do for Askew to detail Mr. Berring's past in a quarter where such betrayal would lead to trouble. By this time the amorous sailor was the slave of beauty, so Lady Jim was sufficiently mistress of his will to limit his correspondence. This she did one evening after dinner, while admiring Marjory's new frock.

"Yellow and green," murmured Leah, when she and Askew filled up a corner, and watched frantic people playing bridge; "poached egg on spinach. If you design her gowns, Mr. Askew, I should advise a less lavish use of primary colours."

"People who need excuses for existing always do," retorted Lady Jim; "but she is really a sweetly simple girl, with two ideas, neither of which includes you, my dear boy. I am sure you will be very happy together, doing cake-walks."

"That sort of dress always makes me think of South Carolina and the 'old Kentucky home,' you know. They invented cake-walks there, I believe. But I forgot--you prefer places below the equator."

"Of course not. The jewel is more attractive than the casket. When did you last hear from Señorita Fajardo?"

"There's nothing in that," said Lady Jim, quickly. "There never really was, and if you really love this estancia lady, why not marry her?"

As Marjory was looking particularly like a wooden Dutch doll at the moment, Askew reddened.

"It seems to me she has--to that intelligent young man with the face like a sheep and the manners of a costermonger."

"And are still, from the infantile look of them. I quite expect to see their nurse arrive. You know, it won't do," said Leah, gravely; "here I am making fun of Marjory, and you aren't man enough to stand up for her."

The young man coloured still deeper, and mumbled something about a woman's privilege. Shortly he made a lame excuse, and left Leah to devote himself to Marjory, who was not grateful for the attention. Leah did not mind. She had learned that Askew did not correspond with Lola Fajardo, and had no intention of doing so; therefore there was little likelihood that Jim's fettered past would ever become known at the Estancia, San Jago. Being really a good-natured woman with her affections thoroughly under control, Leah half decided to loosen her apron-strings and let Askew lead his bargain to the altar. But this she did not do, for two obtrusive reasons, firstly, the fox-hunting squire and Marjory were made for one another; and secondly, it would be just as well to keep the sailor under her eye for the next year. She did not wish him to hark back to Lima, for melodramatic purposes.

After a very pleasant visit, thanks to Askew's infatuation, Lady Jim returned to Curzon Street. There she found a letter from Demetrius announcing that he and Garth had sailed for Madeira early in the previous week, and that it would be as well if Lord James Kaimes journeyed forthwith to Jamaica. Leah promptly sent an answer to her accomplice at Funchal, a telegram to Jim, a paragraph to a society paper, and a lengthy letter of sorrowful forebodings to the Duke. Then she sat down to wait events, and, meanwhile, considered the situation.

Pentland was all right, thanks to her cajoling. Before she left Firmingham he had arranged to free the income, to pay the debts, and to allow her to occupy the Curzon Street house until such time as Jamaica should kill or cure Jim. That interesting invalid had gone halves over the cheque, and Leah's purse still contained over fifty pounds, which would do for the present. But she intended to get a few hundreds from the Duke, by playing off Jim's sickly looks and her own lonely condition of grass-widowhood. It was really very satisfactory, and she found it hard to look miserable, as in duty bound, when Pentland arrived to see the last of Jim. Leah arranged that the parting between father and son should be in town. She did not want to have a bereaved father bothering at Southampton. The journey back to town after Jim's dispatch would be boring at the best, and her consolatory powers were not great.

"You look disgustingly fit," said Leah, when Jim was established on the drawing-room sofa, with a rug and a few unnecessary medicine bottles, and other sick-room paraphernalia.

"Sorry I can't be more of a corpse," growled the invalid; "but it's not easy to pretend you're a goner, when y' feel fit to jump over the moon."

"Shan't! It hurts m' throat. Hang it, I've lost three stone. I believe you want me dead in real earnest."

Lady Jim thought for a moment. "No, I don't," she said, truly enough. "You haven't treated me over well, and I should have been a different woman, had you been a different man----"

"Divorce court lingo," said Jim, remembering what she had said at Firmingham, and with a derisive laugh.

"Because you've got to be thoroughly sick there. Demetrius will come along later with Garth's corpse, and----"

"Of course," said Leah, impatiently; "but Demetrius has to embalm your body and bring you home to the family vault."

"I say, don't," cried Jim uneasily; "that's the other Johnny you're talkin' about. Leah," he looked round cautiously, "I hope Demetrius won't polish off that poor fellow. He's a sort of relative of mine, y' know."

"Don't worry your head," said Lady Jim, calmly. "Garth's dying as fast as he can; he may be dead by this time, for all we know. And don't think that I would allow Demetrius to be so wicked," she cried, with virtuous indignation. "I'm not a criminal."

"Oh, Lord!" was all Jim could find to say, as he thought of what they were doing, and conversation ended for the time being. Leah went to the theatre and supper at the Savoy that evening, leaving Jim to practise coughing amongst the useless medicine bottles.

Next day, both Pentland and his eldest son arrived at eleven, and were informed by a sad-faced wife that her dear husband would travel to Southampton by the afternoon train. At the sight of Leah's dismal looks and attentive care, Frith expressed his opinion that women were protean.

"Oh, I don't for a moment say that I think Jim is a good man," was Leah's artistic reply; "and we've had our tiffs, like other married people. But Jim's my husband, after all. And he has his good points."

Lady Jim was not prepared with a catalogue of her husband's perfections. "Oh, I don't know," she murmured vaguely; "he drinks in moderation, you know. That's something."

"There's no virtue in resisting a non-existent temptation," said the Marquis, grimly. "Jim doesn't come of a drinking family."

Frith was nettled at the implied slight. "Not at all," he said, with unusual gruffness. "Look at me."

"Oh, he--I don't understand--and if you----" Frith coloured as he met her derisive eyes, and devoted himself to his brother.

Lady Jim left the affectionate trio together, lengthening out their farewells, and retired, laughing, to her room. It was really amusing to think that Jim, who was as healthy as a trout in a pond, should be wept over, and coddled, and pitied, and generally elevated to a sainthood. The business was serious enough, no doubt; but Leah could not help seeing the humorous side. She felt unequal to keeping a grave face while the comedy in the drawing-room was being played, and therefore did not rejoin her husband till the principal comedians had departed.

"Speak for yourself, my dear," she retorted coolly. "Well, and what did they say?"

"Never you mind. You'd only snigger over a father takin' leave of his dyin' son."

"Leah," cried her husband, fiercely, "you're a--never mind. Whatever you are, I'm another."

"Did the Duke leave a cheque for me?" asked Leah, more business-like than sympathetic.

"Dear man," cried his wife, snatching the cheque from his very reluctant hand. "I must go and dress for the journey."

"Won't you kiss me, Leah?" quavered Jim, really moved, and quite forgetting the rascally plot in which he was taking so prominent a part.

At the door she turned with an expression of withering scorn. "Keep your kisses for your wife, Mr. Berring!" cried this too-previous widow, and left him to digest the insult at his leisure.

CHAPTER XIII

The paragraph sent by Leah to her pet editor intimated concisely to the tuft-hunting world of Tom, Dick, and Harriet, that the suddenly developed pulmonary complaint of Lord James Kaimes necessitated his wintering in Jamaica. This intelligence surprised the clubs, as Jim's hectoring voice and devotion to damp field sport had always suggested aggressively sound lungs.

"Never knew him to be chippy in his life," growled one man, who admired Leah as much as he hated Jim for possessing her. "What's his game this time, I wonder?"

"Perhaps he wants to get away from his wife," hinted a pigeon of Jim's plucking. "Bit of a tongue, hasn't she?"

The pigeon sniggered, knowing the speaker's devotion to Delilah. "Oh, Kaimes appreciates those qualities--in another man's wife."

"Scandal! Scandal!" murmured a meek member, blessed with a spouse whose looks prevented temptation. "Kaimes has dined with us many times, but I never saw----"

"No; you wouldn't," struck in a sporting baronet, whom Leah snubbed on every possible occasion. "Jim likes red-haired women."

"Because she sticks to him. If she'd only syndicate her admirers in the D. C., Jim 'ud be after her like an Indian mosquito in search of a new arrival. I'll bet there's some petticoat in this Jamaica business;" and the sportsman looked round for some one to pander to his besetting sin--but no one gave him a chance of committing it.

Contradiction and argument arrived with the oldest inhabitant of Clubland, whose memory was as exasperating as his verbosity. "Wrong! All wrong," he purred, like the tame cat he had been for half a century. "Kaimes is really consumptive. I remember his grandmother dying of tuberculosis. It's in the family, along with gout and water on the brain."

"I never knew that damnation depended upon health," was the retort. "Take a case in point. During the Great Exhibition----"

"I don't believe in second-hand brides myself," said the horsey man, venturing an epigram. "'Sides, her tongue--cuts like a knife. Even the mares shy when she kicks."

"Wit! wit!" explained the admirer, who misread French memoirs. "She is Madame de Rambouillet--without a history."

"Tut! tut!" interrupted the ancient. "Madame de Rambouillet was, and Lady James is, entirely respectable."

"Maybe, though the beast doesn't improve your morals," and the laugh was with the oldest inhabitant.

"Wonder if Kaimes will die," pondered the man who saw Leah as a probable widow and a possible wife.

"You will lose; you will most assuredly lose," said the octogenarian. "Very consumptive family, the Kaimes. And our friend is just the sort of healthy man to depart suddenly."

"To Jim!" finished the racing man, smartly; "but I don't care. Jim, dead or alive, is equally useless to me."

"Catch me trusting him--not much. But what's the use of talking obituary notices? Let's bridge."

"If your play is as bad as your grammar, I prefer to stand out," said Methuselah, and the symposium broke up, in time to prevent bickering between crabbed age and irreverent youth.

There were many such talks during the nine minutes' wonder of Jim's unexpected sickness, and it was generally considered that he would return in spirits of wine to the family vault. Leah did not hear these encouraging prognostications, so conducive to the entire success of the plot. She was tolerating life at San Remo, under the hired roof of a truly great dame, who wished to disentangle her from the golden nets of ultra-fast society. A grass-widow has to be more careful to keep up appearances than the genuine crape article, even at the risk of being bored by highly placed humanity, as dull as stainless. Lady Hengist and her friends belonged to that seventh heaven where newly rich Peris and the Mammons who cocker them seek admittance in vain. Social laws differ from those of nature, inasmuch as the gilded scum does not invariably rise to the top. Hence the creation of the over-discussed smart set, which is taken by the suburban reader of back stairs journalism as representative of the British aristocracy.

Lord Hengist came of an autochthonous family which had been at home when William the Conqueror raided the ancestral cabin. His wife was descended from a knight who emigrated from Normandy in 1066, with apparently several million others, judging by the claims put forward by those who enter the peerage. This alliance--they were too great to talk of mere marriage--resulted in two children, not made of ordinary clay, but compounded of the superlative porcelain sort. Their parents possessed a genuine mediæval castle, as uncomfortable as the builders knew how to make it, and which had the rare distinction of possessing a state-bedroom in which Elizabeth had never slept. The family archives read like the Book of Numbers, and their ancestors had made history at opulent wages for the benefit of the Hengist coffers. The men had sided with the Stewarts and ratted to the Guelphs; the women bloomed in Lely and Kneller portraits in loosely slipping clothes, with pastoral accessories; and finally, the present head of the house, with four seats, two children, a charming wife and a large income, lived comfortably on the loot of ages. Of all these things Lord and Lady Hengist were so proud that they had no need to exhibit pride.

Well-born as Leah Kaimes was, the pleasant, if somewhat stately and stiff, life of these genuine rulers wearied her intensely. Bread and milk is insipid after a repast of ortolans in aspic, and a motor-flight is more exhilarating than a donkey-ride. Moreover, it annoyed her to see how sensibly the Hengists spent their many pounds a day. They could have had much more fun for the money, had they known the right shops; but they patronised out-of-date establishments, where the goods were of an excellent quality, but just five minutes behind the newest things. Of course, this was Leah's figurative way of saying that the Hengists came out of the Ark. They always bought the wrong things at the wrong shops, and had a middle-class eye to the lasting quality of the goods they purchased. They were clothed rather than dressed, and being colour-blind, invariably chose garments which matched abominably with their complexions. In a word, the Hengists were so commonplace as to be original. Lady Jim could not understand why they should have been thrust into positions which they could not fill. It was like bringing cows into the drawing-room.

"It's so hard for me to taste the pleasures of self-denial," complained Hengist, one day, as they sauntered on the promenade.

"I don't think it is wise to attempt the extraction of sunbeams from cucumbers," said Leah, dryly.

"Dean Swift said that, but he was an egotist," replied Hengist, in his serious way, that reminded Lady Jim of Lionel at his worst. "It is more blessed to give than to receive, you know."

"The wisest and most loving of mankind. And it is a true saying. I assure you, that if I deny myself something I greatly desire, and send the money which would have purchased the gratification to a charity, I feel absolutely happy."

"Then I must make a bid for Paradise," she answered, privately thinking that the man talked sad nonsense.

"It's a dreadful thing to be able to have the moon for the asking," went on Hengist, reflectively.

"That's your epigrammatic way of putting it, I suppose; but the moon won't drop from her sphere for me, howl as I may. You are very lucky to command the planet, Lord Hengist."

"Is there? I never knew it existed. I only wish I could cram the twelve hours of the day with twenty-four of pleasure."

"No!" said Leah, promptly. "I'd have the sun as well as the moon, and the stars thrown in, if I had my way."

"Me bored--oh dear no! I am too stupid. It is only clever people like yourself who suffer from ennui. I only wish I were a Roman empress, with provinces for a dowry. Those dear women knew how to live."

"Who? Oh, that man who came to think he was the Roman Empire. Now his work would bore me--I'm not stupid enough to appreciate him."

"Julia"--this was Lady Hengist--"Julia and I read Gibbon during the honeymoon, and received much instruction."

"Oh, Lord!" said Lady Jim; "as though honeymoons were not disagreeable enough without that!" The idea made her laugh consumedly. In her mind's eye she saw this new Paolo and Francesca reading heavy prose in ten volumes. But Hengist did not even smile--he had absolutely no sense of humour. Besides, he considered his companion's chatter painfully frivolous, and sighed to think that she had such a light nature. Leah, still laughing, glanced sideways. "I shall begin to think you are discontented, Lord Hengist."

"I am, that I cannot do the good I should like to do. Both Julia and I wish to benefit mankind."

"We don't want thanks, but results," said Hengist, austerely; "and we can commence in a small way. Next summer we intend to invite five hundred Whitechapel children to the Castle. Will you come and help us to entertain them, Lady James?"

"Delighted," yawned Leah, for the man spoke like a copy-book; "but I hope you'll wash them first. It will prevent disease, and give some new soap a philanthropic advertisement."

Hengist eyed her suspiciously. He was a very, very dull young lord, large-hearted and unintelligent, who took life so seriously that he had almost forgotten how to laugh. England clean, England contented, England happy. He constantly started crusades to bring on a premature millennium, and earned his reward, after the manner of reformers, by being abused in halfpenny newspapers as one who attempted to avert certain revolution, by stuffing the starving with sweets. Lady Jim thought him a bore and a prig, and too virtuous to be amusing. But that he and his wife were of use to her, she would not have endured this presentation of his year-before-last's Tree-of-Knowledge apples. He never plucked fresh fruit, and his Eve was quite as blind as he in discerning up-to-date harvests. Still, Hengist was a sort of bell-wether, leading a flock of prize sheep towards a closely guarded fold. Leah liked the fun and money and adulation of the smart set, but she had no notion of being a shut-out Peri from that dull paradise that the newly rich longed for. Besides, its very dullness gave a fillip to her enjoyment of the larky amusements of those who could not enter the sacred ark.

"I am really very fond of children," she said, to do away with the effect of her last remark. "I wish I had some myself," and she sighed very prettily. "Hilda Frith is more fortunate than I, with her two dear babies."

"I'm sure he would, and both Jim and I would be the very first to congratulate him."

"Yes, poor dear! But Frith is strong and healthy, while darling Jim--oh, I can't bear to talk about it."

This was perfectly true. To invent sentimental domestic histories and bewail a husband she detested was difficult, even to a woman of Leah's imagination and tact. But Hengist thought it was very good of her to talk so generously, and paid her serious compliments till she began to think that some unpardonable sin had thrown her into the society of this prosing creature. It was like reading the dictionary, or drinking Homburg waters, or paying bills. The sight of a friend made her gasp with relief, after the manner of a pearl-diver rising to take the air.

"Here's Lady Richardson and Sir Billy," she said with a frown, for her companion's benefit. "So horrid, to interrupt our nice conversation!"

"Oh, I don't think so," was Leah's quick reply. "It would look rude; and then, Fanny Richardson never passes any one who will listen to her prattle of chiffons. Besides, Billy is a nice boy--quite a little man. Don't you think so?"

"Too much a man for his years," said her companion, austerely. "I do not like Chesterfields in their teens. The lad's manners are too good--much too good."

"She! She never insists on anything, except having the newest dye and the best-cut frock, and a few dozen male ears to pour her babble into. Billy can do no wrong in her eyes, nor in mine. He is such an admirer of women."

"Come now, even you must have made love to some pretty pastry-cook's daughter when you were at Eton. There must be some of the old Adam in you, Lord Hengist."

"I was never an entirely modern child," replied the serious man, evasively, and with a sad eye on the trim figure of the rapidly approaching Billy. "To think that he should take dinner pills, and know the difference between sweet and dry champagne! What will the next generation be?"

The vivacious little fairy who warmly greeted Lady Jim and her solemn escort was as pretty and fragile and dainty as a Dresden china shepherdess, and quite a credit to the maid who re-created her every morning. There was nothing natural about her, save her genuine adoration of Billy, and that arose from a knowledge that royalty had made it fashionable to exploit the nursery. Blonde and plump, jimp and graceful, dressed in perfect taste, and coloured in the latest fashion, she was popular even with her own discriminating sex. Hengist thought her a respectable doll, with no particular vices, and did not object to having her at the Castle. But he disapproved of Billy the precocious, which was decidedly unfair, as Billy could scarcely help shaping himself to the mould into which he had been slipped by a mother who required his assistance to play the pretty comedy of the widow's only son.

"How are you, Leah darling? So sweet you look, and Lord Hengist too. A most unexpected meeting, and so delightful," babbled Lady Richardson, who talked more and said less than any society gramophone. "Billy and I are just going to Monte Carlo, to plunge on the red. Reggy Lake is to meet us at the station; such a nice boy--Lancers, you know--a great chum of Billy's. Won't you come too, Leah, to brighten Billy up? He's got the hump, poor boy, as his new nerve-tonic doesn't suit him, and such a lovely, lovely day as it is too. Don't you think so, Lord Hengist?"

The respectable Hengist's hair bristled at this incoherent speech, and did not lie down again at the look in Billy's eyes. Dressed in a particularly smart Eton suit, gloved and silk-hatted and patent-leather-booted with fashionable accuracy, the boy appraised Lady Jim's beauty in a calm way, which would have made a captain of dragoons blush. Behind his graceful, nonchalant, handsome mask of youth was hidden an old, old man, and in many ways Hengist was his junior. He certainly blushed when Leah gave him an amused glance, but this was Billy's way of mashing the sex. He knew the value of youthful diffidence, backed by mature knowledge.

"Should not your little boy be at school?" asked Hengist, scandalised into an implied snub.

Sir William looked at the troubled face of his elder with the serenity of a cherub. "Goin' back nex' week," said he, carefully dropping his "g's." "Th' little mother wanted me to look after her for a bit."

"Billy can't trust me out of his sight," giggled Lady Richardson. "He's so afraid I'll give him a second father."

"What's a rotter, Sir Billy?" asked Lady Jim, enjoying the disgusted looks of Hengist.

Billy rapidly dropped his left eyelid, and showed a set of white teeth. "I don't carry coals to your Newcastle," he said parabolically. "Say, Lady Jim, chuck this chappy, and come to Charlie's Mount."

The wink and the speech were lost on Hengist, for he was being worried by Lady Richardson. She danced before him, a pretty figure gowned in burnt-almond red, and would have distracted his heart with daintiness but that Julia kept that article in the nursery.

"Do join us, Lord Hengist," she pleaded seductively. "Such fun, when you know the ropes. Billy can show them to you."

"Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings," quoted Hengist, ironically. "Quite a new reading, Lady Richardson."

"Now you are horrid," said the widow, who did not know in the least what he meant. "I'll tell your wife. By the way, how is she, and the darling, darling twins? Twins are too sweet. I wish Billy was a twin."

"I'm sure I don't know what you are talking about, and it's very horrid of you to say so. Billy is adored."

Lady Richardson gave a scream. "How barbarous! The man who tried to whip Billy would have to order his coffin beforehand. Billy can handle his bunches of fives, I can tell you, Lord Hengist."

"It's Billy's way of putting boxing. You should see him give the postman's knock! Oh, he is clever! He can drive a motor, too, and pick out the winner five times out of ten."

"No; he hasn't been to Court yet, and of course, there's only one. How funny you are! Well," Lady Richardson put her head on one side like a coaxing cock-robin, "are you coming with Billy and me? Do, oh do! We have afternoon tea with Monsieur Aksakoff and his daughter."

"Stiff sort of fella'!" said young Eton. "Nothin' birdish about him. Daughter's a clipper, though. Say, little mother, we'd best get. Th' train won't wait, y' know."

Before he had finished speaking Lady Jim had made up her mind. She had not heard from Demetrius, and it was not impossible that he had written to Katinka. In spite of his discouraging love-making he kept in with her, on the chance that she might be able to procure his pardon, and in any case she was useful in keeping him posted in the doings of the Third Section. The girl was so infatuated that she never saw he was making use of her in this way, and constantly wrote to him about any official gossip she heard. There was something pathetic in her devotion and heart-whole love for the man who deceived her. But Leah did not look at the matter in this way. She knew that Katinka, if any one, would have news of the doctor, and being anxious to learn how Garth was progressing towards the grave, she turned to Hengist.

"I think I'll go over," she said in a low voice. "Jim asked me to see M. Aksakoff on some business. Would Julia mind?"

"Not at all," said Hengist, heartily, and quite deceived. "I would escort you, only I have some letters to write about the distress in London."

I Hengist gave him a reproving look (which Billy bore very stoically), and whispered to Leah as they parted, "Don't encourage that lad."

"I don't think he needs much encouragement," said Lady Jim, laughing, and the two women walked away with Billy between them. Hengist stood where he was and frowned.

"Charming woman, Lady James," he murmured, gazing after Leah's amethystine gown; "but that lad--ugh!" He shook his head over young England up-to-date; then returned to the villa to hear the twins say the alphabet. Life had its compensations, even for a millionaire peer.

CHAPTER XIV

After the happy-go-lucky fashion of Italian officialism, the train was detained for some time at Ventimiglia. Lady Richardson, unsettled as a fly, changed her seat five times, and complained garrulously.

"Captain Lake is so very particular," she explained, producing a pocket-mirror and a powder-puff to repair possible damages. "He can't bear to be kept waiting five minutes."

"Then I should make him wait five hours," replied Leah, calmly. "It doesn't do to spoil men."

"Pooh! You are merely a rascal in the making. I wouldn't hint how we govern your sex, if you were anything but a grub."

"Very precocious, at all events. You know much more than is good for you. Fanny, you should whip him."

"I haven't the heart or the muscle, my dear. The only safe thing will be to marry a strong man with a bad temper."

"You will, if you don't behave. Isn't that eyebrow a little crooked, Billy?" and she fingered it delicately.

"So I have. How horrid! There!" dusting it off. "What a comfort you are to your darling mammy, my own! Kiss me."

Billy brushed her rouge with careful lips, and after a glance to see that he had not blurred the picture, Lady Richardson put away the mirror.

"Thank goodness, we're moving again," she prattled. "I do hope Reggy won't be in a bad temper."

"No," answered Leah, amused by his man-about-town air. "Is there anything good on?"

"Awful stuff," announced Billy, with the conviction, of mature judgment. "Couldn't sit out more than two plays. The Woman with Three Husbands isn't bad, though. Very French, of course. Saw it four times before I told the little mother she couldn't face it."

Billy was obviously shocked. "No woman should see that piece. I can stand heaps, but----" an after-me-the-deluge shrug hinted at the degradation of the drama.

"Yes, poor darling," chimed in his mother; "he was blushing three inches deep all over when he came home."

"I am glad to hear that Billy can blush at all," murmured Lady Jim. "How's the betting, William?"

"Tolerable! I pulled off a fiver on Fly-by-Night; but a man in my form lost a tenner, silly juggins."

"Sixteen, and thinks he's twenty. Awfully saucy chap though. Went nap on a girl, and another fella' scooped th' pool."

The youth was quite undisturbed. "Try to," he assured her; "but there's no snap about the classical rot they give us. Oh, here we are."

"And there is Reggy," cried Lady Richardson, craning her dyed head out of the window like another Jezebel. "How d'y do, Captain Lake? Lovely day! So sorry we're late. You know Lady James Kaimes?"

"I have that pleasure," said the tall young soldier, saluting. "Very sorry to hear your husband is ill, Lady James."

"It was different in your youth, no doubt. But I am not a girl, and quite old enough to box the ears of conceited urchins."

"What precocious Christianity! You had better apply to that pretty American girl near the Casino door."

"Miss Mamie Mulrady? Oh, I can get her kisses without fightin'. Not bad-lookin', is she? Lots of tin, an' as spry as they make 'em. There's th' little mother an' that rotter chippin' into th' Casino. Shall we follow, Lady Jim?"

They were stopped on the steps by Miss Mulrady, "who knew both, and claimed acquaintance through a wholly unnecessary lorgnette. She was a vivacious Wild West product, who exaggerated the vernacular, because Europeans expected to find the Californian girl of fiction in real life. Her exaggerated slang was assumed out of sheer amusement, and she greatly enjoyed the amazed looks of those who heard her talk good Anglo-Saxon, which she did, when she escaped from fools to forgather with wise men.

"Keepin' afloat, I guess, but that's about all. The dollars I've lost buckin' the tiger would have bought me a dozen husbands."

"Foreign ones are cheap, I believe," said Leah, admiring the prairie-flower's Paris frock more than her republican manner.

"You make me smile. I'm goin' to run tandem with Sir Billy here--me first and he the wheeler."

"No go," said the boy, quite able to hold his own. "I'm not goin' to marry a Bret Harte girl."

"Oh, do," replied Miss Mulrady, in the purest of English, and placing two small gloved hands together. "I'll be a wife and a mother in one."

Leah started. She thought that Askew was safe in Shropshire, making attempts to civilise the fixture. "Harry Askew?"

"That's so," assented Miss Mulrady, relapsing into her Wild West vocabulary, and with a keen look. "He called on Mommo an' me, when he was cruisin' out 'Frisco way. We're negotiatin' a system to break this old bank."

"You evidently wish to be popularised in a song," said Lady Jim, languidly. "How long has Mr. Askew been devoting his energies to such things?" This with an angry reflection that he had not called on her.

"You might reckon it twenty-four hours," said the American, admiring her pointed brown shoe. "He's here for his health."

"Shouldn't wonder. We ticket our sins best sugar. Sir Billy, come along an' buy me candy at the stores."

"Lady Jim an' I 'ull swap humans. What say?" and she looked at Leah, mischievously overdoing the slang.

"I never swap what isn't my own property," answered Lady Jim, considering this offer too Western, and resenting the familiarity to the extent of walking into the Casino with her head very much in the air. America could hold her own with the mother-country, and Leah did not approve.

"She wants to be the whole show an' the box-office," murmured Mamie, mischievously. "Stay here, Bub."

"I am sorry to refuse a lady," replied Billy, resenting the word; "but I've put my money on Lady Jim, this trip."

"On the red--hair, you mean. Go bye-bye with your nurse, then. Here's Mr. Askew, he's older than you."

"And easier to please," snapped the youth, much offended. "You'll excuse me, Miss Mulrady, but a man can't keep a woman waitin'."

He retired into what Lady Jim called the "devil's parlour" with a Floreat Etona air, and Miss Mulrady, after a glance at the ears which she longed to box soundly, turned to receive a breathless apology from the belated Askew.

"There's a friend of yours gone in to sin for an hour," said she, when a treaty was concluded.

Askew comprehended in a second. "Lady Jim," he stammered; "yes, I heard that she was at San Remo. What's she doing here?"

"Visitin' the sick an' the poor," said Mamie, shrewdly. "It's what folks come to Monte for. Guess, she best drop in on you--a sicker man I never saw, an' you'll be poor enough by th' time we're through with this old system of yours. I know a bank where th' wild time goes. You may look all through Bacon without findin' that remark--it's my own. Let's get."

Thus, with barbaric japes, did the child of nature lead her companion into the gilded halls of iniquity, and the two jostled the well-dressed crowd which circulated round the tables. The silence was that of an arctic night, save for the droning voices of the croupiers, and at times a hurried whisper of joy or dismay.

"Goin' in for rouge et noir with Lady Jim?" asked Miss Mulrady, alluding to the hair of Askew and his friend; "or perhaps she's sportin' on trente et quarante, to suit her years."

"An' you're under the weather, considerable," retorted the American, sharply. "Get up steam an' fizzle a bit, can't you?"

"Try the system, then;" and Askew pushed his way through the Mammon-worshippers to where the roulette ball wheeled its fatal round.

Lady Jim did not play. She had stupidly forgotten her peacock's feather and could not risk loss with her small capital. But Billy, having the audacity and luck of innocence, was at hand, so she gave him five hundred francs to experiment.

"Never take money from a woman," said Billy, gravely; "but I don't mind a fly. Got any sportin' number?"

"Thirteen, because that's your age. There is Mademoiselle Aksakoff, I wish to speak to her;" and she moved gracefully towards the tall, pale girl, while Young Iniquity, with the air of a Vanderbilt, planked her money on the odd number.

Katinka Aksakoff grew crimson when Lady Jim saluted her, and would have evaded the meeting if possible. She might have been a nun from the looks of her, and was garbed in unrelieved black, which Leah concluded was mourning for unrequited affection. After that fleeting wave of colour, her thin, oval face grew marble white, and a pair of dark questioning eyes appeared twice as large and three times as brilliant as they had been before resting on Lady Jim's gracious smile.

"So glad to meet you," murmured Leah, as they shook hands in the air. "Lady Richardson and I have come to tea. Where is your father?"

"He is talking with the German ambassador," replied Katinka, without a smile, and with Siberian coldness.

"Oh yes," rejoined Lady Jim, with perfect good-humour. "When you learn how you misjudge me, we shall get on capitally."

"Probably not, since I have yet to make my explanation. Let us walk on the terrace, and you can throw me over, to where they shoot the pigeons, if my conversation displeases you."

"No!" Mademoiselle Aksakoff's face grew scarlet once more, and she pressed her hand to her heart, as though she felt there a cruel pain. Perhaps she did, poor soul! But the stoicism of the Slav enabled her to summon up a wry smile, and to bow her head, as she followed her brilliant rival. With the excess of an ill-governed, passionate heart did she hate this woman; but as a Niobe, frozen and cold, did she appear when they were pacing the terrace. And not one single word of her companion's sugared speech was she prepared to believe.

Leah's eyes rested appreciatively on the varied beauty of God's work and man's improvements. The huddled white houses of Monaco crowned its giant rock, which bulked hugely against the blended azure of sea and sky. The placid waters ringed its base with foam, and stretched with sparks and dashes of fire towards an immeasurable horizon. Landward bunched the red roofs of the town, below arid and precipitous heights, soaring massively into the radiant and ever-deepening blue. A balmy wind, like some invisible alchemist, changed the sombre green of the olive-groves to patches of glittering silver. Near at hand spread the lustrous foliage of lemon- and orange-trees, nor was wanting the almond-blossom of the far east. They walked under palms suggestive of Bedouin life, and, to the well-read, of Heine's sad little song, immortal and heart-rendingly true. Roses and violets, and flowers of many shapes and hues, bordered the terrace; the wide sea laughed at their feet, and behind them rose the palatial structure of the Casino, gorgeous as the Golden House of Nero. It was Fairyland, and Lady Jim said so to her sad companion, who was too blinded by love to see beauty anywhere when the beloved was absent.

"We can talk in French, if you like," said Leah, after she had paid her tribute to nature.

"In English, I think," replied the Russian girl; "my father wishes me to speak only your tongue, while we remain in London, so that I may improve."

"You can't," answered Leah, genuinely complimentary. "Your accent is much better than a born English person; also your grammar, and your choice of words."

"We're too busy annexing the world to bother about philological lessons," said Lady Jim, remembering Heine's remark anent the Romans.

"Possibly," assented Katinka, with a chilling smile; "but, interesting as this conversation is, I do not see its necessity."

"Monsieur Demetrius," began Leah, abruptly, when Mademoiselle raised a protesting hand.

"I fancy nothing," interrupted the other, haughtily. "Words are not needed where he is concerned."

"Nonsense. We are not in Russia, where people kneel down and say please. Besides, it is necessary for your peace of mind that you should hear what I have to say."

"True, and I make it again, to emphasise my meaning, though I hate repetition. Demetrius loves you."

"What else do you think attracted me? I am an English cat, and I have no lovers. Do you remember La Fontaine's fable?"

"I am trying to be. You think that I love Demetrius, and that he is devoted to me. It is not so."

Katinka winced. She did not like such plain speaking, and, moreover, doubted its truth. "If I could think so, I would----"

"Of course you can think so," said Lady Jim, amiably. "Demetrius is particularly clever in curing consumptive diseases. For that reason I conversed with him a great deal. My husband is very ill, and I wanted the doctor to cure him. If Demetrius thought that my liking for his society meant anything else, he is an egotist. My advice is, that you should procure his pardon and marry him."

"I am!" and the eyes of the two women met. Katinka searched the hard blue orbs of the great lady with painful intensity, and Leah bore the scrutiny with the knowledge that her conduct had been, and always would be, perfectly correct. Had she been the least in love with the doctor, she would not have dared to submit to that probing, painful gaze. Women may deceive mere men; they cannot deceive one another, especially in affairs of the heart. When Katinka withdrew her eyes she was satisfied that Lady Jim cared nothing for Demetrius. Without explanation, she burst into rapid and wrathful speech, and Leah's feminine perspicacity enabled her to guess the unuttered preamble, which a man would have required to be put into words.

"Why then do you lure him to your feet?" cried the Russian girl, in a sharp, pained voice. "If you love him not, why torture him, and me? I know he loves you--I know--I know--oh yes, I know."

"You do not. His love for me--if it can be called so--is the mere passing fancy of a man for a woman who has been kind to him."

"Not at all. But men are so conceited that they think a woman's smile means a woman's love. You have a golden heart, yet you throw it into the greedy hands of this selfish egotist----"

"Yes, he is, and much worse. Demetrius possesses the selfishness of a woman and the vanity of a man."

"No, I don't. Men are far vainer than women, and women more selfish than men. I'm selfish myself, therefore I am happy. You are one of those self-tormenting, self-denying angels, who make men what they are--vain, greedy, conceited, lord-of-creation beasts. And I insult the beasts by such a comparison."

"I use them, and I detest them," retorted Lady Jim, speaking more plainly than was her custom. "There are good men--I don't deny that, for I know one at least"--she was thinking of Lionel; "but the majority--ugh! God help the women like yourself, who give their hearts into the keeping of such animals!"

"We all love our husbands--it's part of the Church Service to love them. Pah!--I am not here to talk of my marriage, but of yours. You know now that I don't care for Demetrius, and that I desired his help merely for my husband's sake."

Lady Jim took it, rather softened. "You poor child, how foolish you are! Why not forget Demetrius?"

Leah smiled grimly. "I know him much better than you do. However, if you insist upon putting him on an imaginary pedestal, there is no more to be said. Have you heard from him lately?"

Mademoiselle Aksakoff was now quite deceived, and looked upon Lady Jim as her dearest and best friend. "Last week I received a letter from Funchal," she said eagerly. "Yes; I wrote to him about the chances of his pardon----"

"Yes, yes; I assure you--yes. I have a cousin, high in favour with the Czar, who can procure an immediate pardon. But my father does not wish me to marry Demetrius----"

"And so there is some difficulty. Oh"--she clasped her hands--"if Constantine would only be guided by me! He comes of a rich family, and has the title of Prince----"

"Ah, but did he say how he had parted from his family because of his advanced ideas? He gave up money and rank, and all that makes life pleasant, to labour among the poor peasants. Is that not noble?"

"But he did--he did. And my father is angered because of this self-sacrifice. If Constantine would only return to the rank of life in which he was born, my father would permit me to marry him, and then the pardon would speedily be procured. But I plead in vain," she murmured, with hanging head "he will not listen."

"He wrote that the Duke of Pentland had asked him to go there, to see after your husband. And you say that----"

"Heard? I have heard nothing. I do not correspond with M. Demetrius, my dear. It is now April, and he has been at Funchal since January, trying to heal that poor man. Has he----?"

"Yes; so Demetrius wrote last week, and said he would go on to Jamaica at the Duke's request to see your husband. But you look quite ill."

"I hate to hear of deaths," said Lady Jim, viciously. She certainly spoke truly with regard to this particular death. In her mind lurked a dread lest Demetrius had assisted nature, after all.

CHAPTER XV

Monsieur Aksakoff owned a toy villa, pleasantly placed amongst orange-groves and lemon-gardens, on the outskirts of Fools' Paradise. Hither, somewhere about the hour of five, trooped a gay party, of which Katinka was not the least merry. So unaccountable were her spirits, that the majority judged her to be what the Scotch aptly call "fey." Lady Jim, in the minority, knew better. A recollection of the recent interview explained the girl's dancing on a possible grave.

Leah had subjugated one of her own suspicious sex. This is a rare miracle; rarer still, it had been achieved by truth-telling. Certainly, with inevitable female reservation, Lady Jim had not told the whole truth and nothing but the truth; but then, her knowledge did not include the shibboleth of oath-taking. She did not love Demetrius--no avowal could have been more honest. Still, his medical acquirements had scarcely induced the flirtation which Katinka resented, and in saying so she swerved from the path of rectitude. Nevertheless, that ingenuous explanation of the illegal apron-string deceived Mademoiselle Aksakoff into believing that Truth had really been dragged, unclothed and impeccable, from her well.

The result may be guessed. From cold hostility, Katinka, ignorant of the golden mean, melted into warm friendship: the sadness of unrequited love was replaced by the allurements of hope, and the hitherto dreary unpeopled world became an Arcadia of magical beauty, through which there ever moved a possible bridegroom. The colour returned to her wan cheeks, the light to her dark eyes, and in place of a listless nun the astonished father beheld a dancing, laughing nymph. Clever as Aksakoff was, he failed to understand the why and the wherefore of this transformation. Being a diplomatist, he searched for the magician who had accomplished its wonders; being mere man, he naturally espied the obvious. The unexpected presence of Demetrius, as he concluded, was responsible for the breathing of life into this statue.

Lady Jim guessed his explanation, and was amused by his inquiring looks. She promised herself the pleasure of making things clear, in such a way as would compel confidences on his part. These might be useful in averting the wrath of Demetrius, when he came to know that his reward was withheld. And Leah was not unreasonable in anticipating trouble of the worst, seeing that the doctor had already loaded her with a portion of a debt which she did not intend to pay. Garth was dead. That part of the task had been accomplished. Now, Katinka informed her that Demetrius was bound for Jamaica. There he would arrange for the obliteration of Jim, and return with a substituted corpse to console the afflicted widow. The widow herself shivered at the prospect of being honest and tangibly grateful; and, since the possible was rapidly becoming the probable, began to consider means of evasion. But it was no easy matter to nullify the bond of a semi-oriental Shylock.

With a diplomatist, superadded to a father, for an ally, and with tricky Muscovite politics to play with, Lady Jim fancied that her end might be obtained. But, although she knew the goal, she could not see the most direct and least dangerous way to gain it. Her path was perplexing and perilous, so it was necessary to find a finger-post. She thought that Aksakoff might stand for such, since he would do much to neutralise the chance of his daughter's marriage with Demetrius. But to enlist him on her side, and in her schemes, required a private conference, and plainer speaking than Lady Jim approved of. However, as there was no opportunity of private speech for at least one hour, she had time to construct feasible plans.

Meanwhile, her silence over the teacups was remarkable in so lively a lady. Certainly, Garth might have died in the orthodox manner, as ample time had been given for his exit. On the other hand, Demetrius, eager for his reward, might have--but no; she could not bear to think of such a horror, and employed her will to deny the possibility. Nevertheless, strive as she would to banish the thought, it returned again and again, insistent and terrifying. No wonder Askew was moved to ask if she felt unwell, and no wonder she protested, with unnecessary emphasis, that she never felt better in her life.

"I am gathering instruction from the conversation of others," she assured him, when he urged smelling-salts.

"I have parted with my colour to Mademoiselle Aksakoff. See, she blooms like an artificial rose."

"Which is as much as to say that I am a woman. I wish you would cease personalities and refill my glass."

This sounded more bacchanalian than it was, for the glass contained nothing more destructive to the nerves than straw-coloured tea, prepared, milkless, in the Russian manner, with plenty of sugar and a squeeze of lemon. Katinka presided over a samovar, and dispensed caviare sandwiches, so that the meal was entirely Muscovite. Aksakoff, stiff and pale and lean, precisely dressed and watchful as a cat, paid diplomatic compliments to Lady Richardson, while Captain Lake laughed with Katinka. Miss Mulrady had annexed a flattering vicomte who wanted money in exchange for a name which dated from the Crusades, and Askew hovered, like the silly moth he was, round Lady Jim's superfine wax candle. This possible tragedy of singed wings doubly and trebly assured Katinka of Leah's honesty, for who could love the demi-god Demetrius and trifle with a nautical butterfly? Thus did she argue, crediting her once rival and now ally with the infatuation which, in Fairyland, made Titania clip Bottom in her arms.

"The air of this place suits you," said Lake, wondering at this bubbling gaiety; "you were pale and sad when we last met, Mademoiselle."

"I may be the same when we meet again," she replied, refilling Lady Jim's glass. "What would you? Moods are agreeable."

Katinka laughed meaningly, and glanced slyly at Lady Richardson. "I see; you prefer an autumn month--highly coloured and mature."

This was too symbolic for Lake, but some intuition of its meaning caused him to flush to the roots of his fair hair, and verbally deny comprehension. "I do not understand."

"No gallant man would," she retorted, and, further enlightened, the captain's pink became a violent crimson, to the concern of its cause.

"How red you are, Reggy!" cried Lady Richardson. "I hope it isn't scarlet fever."

"Plaît-il?" inquired the bewildered vicomte; but received no reply. Miss Mulrady's knowledge of French was too limited to permit of pathological discussions.

"You should really try Billy's new medicine; it has made him very fit. By the way, where is my darling?"

Lake dodged the quizzical glance of Miss Mulrady, and explained that Sir Billy had been last seen wrinkling his young brows over the intricacies of trente et quarante. "Couldn't haul him off; but I daresay hunger will fetch him to the tea-table."

"Such devotion argues good luck," said Leah, wondering if Billy would arrive with full pockets.

"Really, Miss Mulrady," frowned the indignant little mother, "my son is not so eligible for Barnum's Show as you seem to imagine. He hasn't got two heads, or an elastic skin, or any of those things which seem to be so popular in the United States."

"Et moi aussi?" asked the vicomte, whose scant knowledge of Americanese prevented entire understanding.

"M. de Marville is the more interesting on that account," said Leah, rousing herself from a two minutes' silence; "a really good young man should be sealed, as a bore, in a glass case."

"Better leave that well alone," laughed Katinka, gaily. "Besides, only women have pasts."

"After meals, there is nothing to be got, save smoking," said the hostess; "you gentlemen have leave. Captain Lake, will you give me a cigarette?"

Like many Russian ladies, Mademoiselle Aksakoff adored those fatal rolls of tobacco wrapped in coffee-coloured paper, and consumed a great quantity. Lady Richardson, unlike the average Englishwoman, smoked likewise--that is, she fiddled qualmishly with half a cigarette, because it looked smart to do what you shouldn't. The gentlemen also offered incense to the very modern goddess Nicotine, and shortly Lady Jim was the only person present not committed to this agreeable vice.

"I am behind the times," she confessed; "but please don't look upon me as a prude on the prowl. I willingly permit other women to spoil their teeth and ruin their digestions."

"What a nasty speech!" cried Lady Richardson, offended, especially as Leah knew it was an effort for her to sin in this way.

"As often as I recall your face. I can think then of only one adjective, charming, and one noun, angel."

"First person singular, as usual, after the manner of the male egotist. Isn't this rather Lindley-Murray whispering?"

If it was, they had no opportunity of continuing it, for Lady Richardson drew Leah's attention to the fact that she had lost a fortune in the Casino. "I depend upon you, dear, for my return fare."

"Billy will pay," conjectured Lady Jim, calmly: "I quite expect he has broken the bank."

"Not on Mr. Askew's system," cried Mamie; "you couldn't run an apple-stall on his lines."

"If fitted properly into the puzzle, and at the proper time. But it's a mistake to swap horses when crossing a stream."

"Huh!" said Miss Mulrady, in her best Californian style. "I guess the animals belonged to you. I lost no dollars;" and with a comfortable sense of her own 'cuteness, she accepted a cigarette from the attentive vicomte.

This frothy chatter irritated a lady who was inwardly grappling with problems of the near future. Askew ventured on more spindrift, only to be snubbed into seeking the complaisant society of Mamie. This necessitated a game of general post, for Katinka slipped in rapid French and boulevard gossip with de Marville, while Lady Richardson drew Lake once more to her elderly feet. Remained the diplomatist, in splendid isolation, and his gaze wandered to Lady Jim, who stared straight before her. She was looking into the next world, where a reproachful ghost, something resembling Jim, was asking why he had been butchered to make a woman's holiday. And the living, half believing the terrible truth implied, gave shuffling answer to the dead: "Demetrius is to blame----"

So vivid was the vision, so powerful the thought, so guilty the conscience, that her tongue actually framed this much aloud, before she became aware that her secret was slipping out. A hasty glance around assured her that none of the prattlers had overheard; but an echo of the name at her elbow testified to Monsieur Aksakoff's excellent hearing. Lady Jim grew chill. What had she said? How much had he gathered? Instinctively facing a possible danger, she did not even turn her head or raise her voice, but, almost in the same breath, concluded the sentence differently: "----if he does not cure Jim."

With admirable skill Leah started, as though her reflections had been unexpectedly interrupted. "You there, M. Aksakoff? I was thinking of my husband--yes. He is trying to get well in Jamaica, and M. Demetrius has gone to pull him round. I shall certainly blame him if he does not cure Jim."

"That is severe, madame. After all, no human being holds the keys of life and death."

Self-controlled as she was, Lady Jim shuddered. Demetrius certainly held the key of death, and had used it--for so she began to believe--in opening for Garth a door into the unknown. However, she utilised the shudder very dexterously. "Don't talk like that. It makes me fear lest Jim should never get well. But after all, M. Demetrius is extraordinarily clever. I told your daughter, only this afternoon, how I had been attracted to him for Jim's sake, and by his knowledge of consumption."

"Oh!" Aksakoff looked at her with his pale eyes, and very inquiringly. It had not occurred to him that the lady was a model wife. "The medical attainments of M. Demetrius attracted you."

"Naturally! My husband is ill. I wish him to be cured. M. Demetrius has a European reputation for cure of consumption. We have held many conversations on the subject, and I feel certain that there is a chance for poor dear Jim."

"He is," Leah assured him. "The poor creature he was looking after in Madeira, on behalf of the Duke, is dead, and Katinka informed me that M. Demetrius had sailed for Jamaica."

Lady Jim rose to shrug her shoulders, and to seize the opportunity thus offered to solve her problem by means of a private conversation.

"A charming place you have here," she said, glancing round, and giving him to understand that the shrug was his answer; "the air is so balmy."

"You will find it more so without tobacco smoke," said the Russian, throwing away his cigarette, and, without knowing it, was thus skilfully entrapped into a duologue by an ostensibly reluctant woman.

"So pleased, madame; but your sense of the picturesque will make you sacrifice ease for a particularly charming view of the Estrelles."

"The proper study of womankind is man," misquoted Lady Jim, accepting the invitation; "but nature comes as a relief at times. We see so little of her in society," and she glanced at Lady Richardson's dyed hair and tinted cheeks.

"I shall begin to believe so, if you repeat that a third time," she replied, smiling, and glancing sideways at his face. This she did to discover, if possible, his intentions. It suddenly occurred to her, that the diplomatist's insistence meant intrigue on his part. He, like herself, was playing a game, and Lady Jim, for the sake of the result, wished to overlook his hand. Had she seen it, which she did not, the knowledge that people knew more about her domestic affairs than she would have approved of might have shocked her.

Ivan Aksakoff was not a tricky Russian, nor a diplomatist of repute, for nothing. Instructions had reached him several times from headquarters that Demetrius was to be watched while in England, and, if possible, decoyed into the territory of a less scrupulous nation, for the purpose of arrest. A drugged official's feelings had been outraged, a much-wanted Anarchist had escaped through the connivance of the exile, and a paternal government thought that an enforced trip to Siberia might cool misplaced friendships for suspected persons. Several times Aksakoff had tried to induce the Demetrius opossum to climb down from his tree of refuge, but the suspicious beast refused to oblige him. Therefore, all that the diplomatist could do was to keep himself advised of the doctor's doings, in the hope of luring him to destruction when he was off his guard. He had biblical precedent for this hope. Shimei, the son of Gera, lulled by long security, had crossed the forbidden brook Kidron, so why should not Demetrius, likewise forgetful, cross the Channel?

Stealthy inquiry into the doctor's affairs had led Aksakoff to ask himself, why the man dangled at Lady Jim's apron-strings. Reports poured in, fast and thick, that the Curzon Street household was insolvent, but these did not help the diplomatist overmuch. If Lady Jim wanted money, she would scarcely ask a penniless exile for the cash he did not possess. The man was not sufficiently handsome, nor so superlatively fascinating, that he should gain the love of the most beautiful woman in London. And, incidentally, Aksakoff learned that Lady Jim was a modern Lucrece, although she did not profess an ardent love for her lord and master. Therefore, as neither Mammon nor Cupid could explain a friendship which was pretty freely discussed in clubs and drawing-rooms, Aksakoff could not comprehend this particular wile of woman.

In his endeavour to fathom the meaning, he even went so far as to question his daughter, knowing that she was as infatuated with Demetrius as Demetrius was with Lady Kaimes. But Katinka either could not or would not explain, and for months the diplomatist had been exasperated by the sight of a genuinely platonic friendship, for which there seemed to be no reason. Now he learned from one of the parties to the bond that a husband's sickness, and a friend's skill, were the elements which composed the intimacy. Such a case, in such a light, had never before been presented to him, and while sauntering by Lady Jim's side to view the Estrelles against the sunset, he was trying to think if the explanation was genuine. To his acute hearing, it did not sound even plausible.

Nevertheless--and this was Aksakoff's reason for seeking the interview--some use might be made of the woman to entrap the man. Lady Jim was badly in need of ready money, and the Russian Government had, at the time, full coffers. Since there was no love in the question, this singular lady might, for a round sum, dispense with the doctor's attendance on her husband. More--if delicately handled, she might induce Demetrius to show her the sights of Paris. It was difficult to hint this without shocking the feelings of a great lady and a spotless woman. Still, if skilfully done, and without too much emphasis, Lady Jim might gather that her finances could be put in order without much trouble on her part.

But Aksakoff had another argument which induced him to risk a scene with outraged virtue. He loved his daughter, and wished her to marry a highly placed cousin, who would be of political use to his father-in-law. Unfortunately, Katinka was infatuated--Aksakoff could find no more appropriate word--with Demetrius. Marriage with a person wanted by the powerful of St. Petersburg meant a check to the diplomatist and a handle to his many enemies. The match was not to be thought of. Yet, if Demetrius would only prove kind, Mademoiselle Aksakoff would assuredly become his wife, even if she had to achieve the marriage by elopement. Also, Katinka might be able to procure the man's pardon, and of this Aksakoff entirely disapproved. Even if the doctor was whitewashed, he had such socialistic or anarchistic feelings--it mattered not which--that he would never consent to resume his title or the large income attached to such resumption. On the whole, both from a fatherly and a domestic point of view, Aksakoff felt that this marplot would be safer in a Siberian mine. How to get him there was the problem.

The solution might come through Lady Jim. If he could only ascertain her feelings towards Demetrius, and hint that such a lovely woman should not be worried by sordid money affairs, it was not improbable that such a satisfactory result would be arrived at. It was a forlorn hope, but Aksakoff dared it; it was a straw, but he grasped at it--and now, fully committed to the speculation, he was casting about in his mind as to a promising beginning. No easy task, for Aksakoff's spies and Aksakoff's experience assured him that Lady James Kaimes was a prickly plant, needing care in the handling.

So it will be seen that Leah's intuition had not deceived her, scanty as was the ground for suspicion. The closer she examined his face by swift side-glances, the more certain she became that he was playing a game, and--from her experience of diplomatists--by no means for love. To vary the metaphor, she and the Russian were about to engage in a duel, either with foils or swords. Lady Jim did not care which. She was perfectly assured that, however dexterous her antagonist might be, she could fence quite as well, if not better. And thus she marched to the duelling ground, already a victor.

CHAPTER XVI

Silhouetted against a pale purple sky, the dark masses of the Estrelles floated on a shimmering sea. Nearer and clearer, yet less sharply defined, etherealised by amethystine hues, and indistinct through the haze of gloaming, frowned the Grimaldi stronghold, its mouldering walls, clasping closely packed houses, dominated by a lean and soaring campanile. Over the cactus hedge, and between bending palms, could be caught a glimpse of the trim, unromantic modern town, of the sleepy waters of the bay, and fishing-boats rocking beside spick-and-span toy yachts, with here and there the picturesque felucca of Mediterranean commerce, old-fashioned, with oars and lateen sails. Only Shelley in radiant verse could have described with any approach to truth this magical dreamland, real yet unreal, under the changing colours of sunset.

As at the outset of an earlier and less difficult interview, Lady Jim admired the loveliness of paradise, with ostentatious disregard of her embarrassed companion. And embarrassed he was, to such a degree that she marvelled at his choice of a profession in which emotions count as crimes. This judgment was unfair, for Aksakoff ordinarily commanded his feelings with the severity of a martinet. But so great were the stakes for which he proposed to play--his daughter's future and his political advancement--that he shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, clasped and unclasped his hands, and betrayed more of the natural man and anxious father than was consistent with diplomatic reticence.

Having some idea of this mental confusion, Leah waited for him to make an almost certain mistake, of which she intended to take full advantage. She was like a cat watching a mouse-hole, ready to pounce at an opportune moment. Meanwhile, she held her tongue, which sufficiently assured Aksakoff of her dangerous capability. He had never before beheld the ominous miracle of a silent woman, and his nerves were none the better for this surprising spectacle.

"Demetrius, madame," he finally blundered, and recognised the blunder as the words left his mouth--"Demetrius is your friend."

The attack was so weak that Lady Jim contemptuously gave him vantage-ground. "Katinka's lover also, I understand."

"And the Czar's enemy," retorted Aksakoff angrily. "Let us have all his qualifications at once, madame."

"It is very far from well, as you know, madame. I desire no Siberian felon for my son-in-law."

"What an odd choice of a cemetery!" said Leah, shrugging; "but I assure you, M. Aksakoff, that I take no interest in these funeral arrangements."

He was about to blurt out something still more undiplomatic, but that Lady Jim's pity for his ineptitude made her intervene. "I know what it says, and of course I deeply sympathise with you."

"Yes, yes; I comprehend your feelings. It is hard that your own daughter should defy you, especially as M. Demetrius is merely a doctor."

"He is a prince in our country," said Aksakoff, furious that she should take the lead, and at a loss how to regain it.

"Let him venture on French soil, and I shall certainly make him one," snarled Aksakoff, with unpleasantly glittering eyes. Lady Jim had scratched him rather dexterously, and the Tartar stood revealed.

"That shall never be!" He hesitated, then attempted a bear-hug. "I will speak plainly, madame----"

Aksakoff bit his lip. Used as he was to verbal fencing, Leah's handling of her tongue baffled him. He took refuge in truth-telling.

"He loves an--an--an actress," explained Aksakoff, wondering if her interest in the man deepened to jealousy.

Apparently it did not. "That would interest Katinka more than it does me," she assured him; then, affecting the innocence of ignorance, "May I ask why you chronicle small beer?"

"If you remove him to that distance, I confess to an indiscretion. Shall we return?"

Aksakoff shrugged his shoulders. "For the clearing up of misunderstandings. You are anxious--so you say--that Demetrius should cure your husband. My reason for this conversation is, to apologise for my intention to rob you of his very valuable services. If I can trap Demetrius--say in Paris--Lord James must content himself with an inferior doctor."

Leah looked pensive and puzzled. "I comprehend; but why should you make use of the wrong word?"

"Or of my feelings? By this talk of Parisian traps and Siberian punishment, you assume that I am acquainted with the private affairs of M. Demetrius."

"As a diplomatist you should never confess as much. It might be that I may take advantage of your--mistake, to inform M. Demetrius of his danger."

"I foresaw that possibility, madame. As a dutiful wife, you naturally wish to keep so clever a doctor in attendance on your husband."

Aksakoff shrugged again. "I admit the reason, seeing that this particular mountain is married."

"These parables are a trifle wearisome, M. Aksakoff. The air is chilly, and I wish to return to Lady Richardson. Would you mind telling me plainly, before we part, why you sought this interview?"

"Assuredly, madame. My daughter loves this man, who does not love her, and who, by reason of his crime and opinions, is not an eligible husband. You were with Katinka this afternoon, as you informed me, and she is now so cheerful that I suspect you must have delivered some message from Demetrius to so raise her spirits. Or it might be"--he looked squarely at her, as he added, "that Demetrius is in Monte Carlo."

"No; your daughter had a letter from him, in which he stated that he was leaving Madeira for Jamaica. Go on, please."

"Katinka had a letter?" said Aksakoff, with an unpleasant look. "That, no doubt, accounts for her spirits. Were you Cupid's messenger, madame?"

Lady Jim smothered a laugh. "No; though I admit that I should like to see her happy."

"She will never be happy with a man who does not love her. Demetrius will not come near me, and I cannot explain. Will you oblige me by taking a message?"

"Tell Demetrius that if he will give Katinka to understand that he will never marry her my gratitude will be stronger than my duty."

"Where he can't be arrested," laughed Lady Jim. "Well, your message shall be duly delivered. And I may as well confess, since we are committed to plain speaking, that M. Demetrius informed me why he had to leave Russia."

"His confidence will render it easier for you to make a treaty between us, madame."

"Possibly. But you will understand that I assume the rôle of peacemaker solely on my husband's account."

"Madame," Aksakoff bent and raised her hand to kiss it; "as a wife you are far above rubies. Shall we return?"

Leah consented without moving. She had not yet solved her problem. "One moment. You will give me your word that M. Demetrius will not be lured to Paris?"

"I give you my word, if the treaty is made, and Katinka is disabused of her infatuation."

"Which forms part of the treaty," said Leah, lightly. "In the interests of Jim, I'll do my best; but should he go to Paris----"

"He will assuredly leave it for Siberia, which is much colder and not so amusing."

"It will be the act of a friend, madame. And also, you might advise him to beware of this actress."

"If you wish your husband to be cured, it will be as well to do so," Aksakoff recommended. "Mademoiselle Ninette is not to be trusted."

"And have benefited so little that you cannot manage your daughter without my intervention."

"I confess it. Let me amend my statement by saying that I have had many experiences and little experience."

"That is a more correct way of putting it," said Leah, gravely; "for I assure you, M. Aksakoff, that if a woman loves a man, she certainly will not betray him for money."

"We join issue, madame. The Uranian Aphrodite is not the divinity in this case, and Aphrodite Pandemos can be bought."

"You should reckon it in francs, seeing that Mademoiselle Ninette is French. Otherwise she will not understand."

"An agreeable one, at all events. I wish we had more opportunity of studying it. Well, M. Aksakoff, for Jim's sake, I shall see that M. Demetrius affords this harpy no opportunity of earning the money."

"We are a man and woman of the world, M. Aksakoff: there is no need to call spades shovels. I thank you for considering my husband. To lose the skill of M. Demetrius might result in his death."

"I am happy to have been of service to you, madame, and of course, you can understand my paternal feelings."

"Assuredly; I shall do my best to make your daughter see reason. A woman can talk to a woman of such things, you know."

"When she is such a woman as you, madame," said Aksakoff, again bending over her hand; "and now----"

"Just one hour to catch the train," remarked Leah, with a glance at the tiny watch set in her bracelet.

In this way Leah solved her problem, and Aksakoff gained his point; yet, on the face of it, their conversation dealt entirely with the saving of Demetrius from a Siberian prison, and Katinka and Katinka's matrimonial salvation. But Lady Jim knew that, if she could lure the doctor to Paris, she would not longer need to fear a Sabine alliance; while the diplomatist was satisfied that, for two thousand pounds, Demetrius would be safely transported to Siberia. Leah, guessing this, let him think that the money tempted her, though she wondered how he came to know that she needed cash, and was secretly angered that he should dare to offer a bribe. But she could not confess her true reason for wishing the exile of Demetrius without letting Aksakoff know about the plot; therefore, of the two evils she chose the less. But she resolved to take no Russian gold. This cynical foreigner should learn that a strictly virtuous Englishwoman cannot be bought. It was commendable in these augurs that they did not wink at one another.

Their reappearance at the tea-table was greeted with shrieks of joy from Lady Richardson, whose emotions were invariably noisy. "Leah! Leah!" she cried, overcome by maternal love and pride, "Billy has won you twelve thousand francs."

"Twelve thousand five hundred," corrected Sir Billy, who was disposing of tea and cake and sandwiches in a way which argued long abstinence.

"Oh, you dear, clever boy!" said Lady Jim, coming rapidly to the table to kiss her catspaw. "Halves, of course."

Sir Billy shook his head and tried to keep cool, for the kiss rather upset his dignity. "I am more than repaid," said he gallantly.

"So I should think," murmured Askew, who would have doubled the amount for a similar attention.

Mamie overheard, and recalled a phrase she had never used before, but which suited her impersonation of the American girl as--she is not. "Don't put the banana-peel under your own foot, sonny!"

Miss Mulrady glanced at Lady Jim's back, then winked at Askew to intimate that she had remarkably good eyesight; also, that kissing married women led to D.C. cross-examinations; also,--but there was no end to the many meanings of that wink. Lord Burleigh's head-shake, in The Critic, Act II., scene 1, could not have been more eloquent.

Meanwhile applausive adjectives buzzed round Billy's head. He fought his trente et quarante battle o'er again, between hasty mouthfuls, while his mother, thanking Providence for having bestowed on her such a son, murmured ecstatic asides to Katinka Aksakoff. It was the apotheosis of the modern child.

Leah counted her gains, placed them safely in one of those wonderful feminine pockets unknown to man, then gave a passing thought to the virtuous Hengists.

"We must get back, dear," she warned Lady Richardson. "Katinka, darling"--this was for Aksakoff's benefit--"do come over and see me. We have so much to talk about."

"I shall be delighted," replied the girl, flushing with joy, and really was so. The prospect of unlimited conversations on the subject of demi-gods, and their ways with a sympathetic friend, allured her towards an hour of happiness. What was left of Lady Jim's conscience smote her; she felt almost sorry for her dupe. But, with the premeditated self-deception of people who rearrange biblical texts for the palliation of pet sins, she reflected that a fool's paradise for Katinka was better than no paradise whatsoever.

Monsieur Aksakoff said no more. He and Lady Jim understood one another perfectly, and it was useless to add touches to a finished picture. With cordial stiffness he sped his guests on their way through the town and the glare of the electrics down to the station-lift Mamie and her supple vicomte shook hands midway; but Askew and Captain Lake insisted upon seeing the ladies safely into a comfortable compartment.

"Don't talk American slang," rebuked his mother, and pelted the men with breathless adieux. "Goodnight, Reggy, so very charming, our day! Mr. Askew, goodnight--so very amusing! We've had a ripping time."

She paid no attention. Askew was trying to extort an invitation to San Remo, with eloquent eyes and persuasive lips. But a recollection of his four-and-twenty hours in the vicinity without calling, added to a resentment that he should have experimented with his system in the unauthorised company of a much too attractive girl, made her ignore his hints. Moreover, being an ex-sailor and undiplomatic, he would probably prove so affectionately honest, that the Hengists might--and if the Hengists did, then "adieu grapes, the vintage is over." Julia and her serious spouse would never understand the need of a grass-widow for amusements of this sort. While her Ulysses wandered they expected her to be a replica of Penelope, that dull woman who was so fond of speeches and sewing.

"Come to Curzon Street in a fortnight," she advised, and the train departed, leaving him to muse on the "ars amatoria," as understood in the navy.

"I hope you have enjoyed yourself, dear," said Lady Richardson, arranging Billy's tie and kissing Billy's nose, but addressing Leah; "I'm sure you ought to have. This darling has won you pots."

Lady Jim nodded, rather wearily. The cackle of the hen over her chick worried her, and she retreated to the most distant corner, bored by maternal fussiness. This visit had taken her a step farther, but it was most annoying that success should make her feel uncomfortable. Aksakoff, misapprehending her reasons as he did, would certainly assist her materially. But Katinka,--bur-r-r-r! Why couldn't conscience quit worrying?

CHAPTER XVII

Even the skilful find it no easy matter to drive a kicking, squealing team. The off-horse must be flicked into decorum, the near leader soothed, the wheelers, bearing the heat and burden of the day, encouraged into pulling with a will. Then, a deft hand on tugging reins, a quick eye for the deviations of the road, some knowledge of mouths, tender and hard, and manifestations of that will which makes of vehicle and quadrupeds a coherent whole--these things must be attributes of the god in the car. Likewise of the "Dea ex machina," although Lady Jim was in and not out of the vehicle. Enthroned with whip and ribbons, she drove a team of five. And in the odd number lay the difficulty of bringing the car of Destiny to the selected stables.

For by this time, rejecting an overruling Providence other than the fetish, who was a domestic god and biased, Leah looked upon herself as her own omnipotent and triumphing Destiny. She would, so she decided, expunge Jim, utilise Askew and Katinka, obliterate Demetrius, and assist Muscovite politics through Aksakoff. This team, in harness, and rendered obedient by blinkers, she controlled with considerable judgment, and made, single-hearted, for her goal. That the actual Destiny, whose rôle she affected to play, might upset her smoothly-running chariot by a judiciously placed and unlooked-for stone, she never paused to consider. So far as she could see, the course was clear to the prize--a money-bag, which she would seize as a victorious widow of the wrong sort.

Askew was the odd animal of the team, the fifth wheel on her chariot, though he was less like a horse than a troublesome and over-faithful dog. Notwithstanding her prohibition, he invaded San Remo, played a most exasperating Patience on a monument along the promenade, and dodged her angry eyes round convenient street-corners. She could not go abroad but what he turned up in unexpected quarters, nor could she remain at home without his appearing, to excuse, on frivolous pretexts, a wholly unnecessary visit. Luckily, the Hengists approved of his frank looks and modest manners, else she might have been compromised. Even in easy-going Italy such cicisbeism was annoying.

Later, Lady Jim returned to London, for that season invented by man, and left him to kick his heels in cross isolation. But, even before the Curzon Street house could be warmed, he rang the bell, and presented himself in the character of a martyr. For the sake of the future Leah kept him in the team, but she gave him more of the whip than he liked, and also--ironically--a marked almanack, limiting his visits. But that she had some liking for him, and much use, she would have bundled him into the arms of the fixture, with strict orders to give those same arms a legal right to embrace him for ever. But Askew himself put an end to that chance of being safely bestowed.

"What will Marjory say if you make my house your hotel?" she asked, when he appeared on the fifth day of the week for the eighth time, and at afternoon tea, too, when she, with a hard day's pleasure behind her, was recruiting for the night's fatigue.

"Nothing," he asserted, sulkily and guiltily; "she has no right to control my actions."

"What!" Lady Jim was frankly exasperated. She as a married woman, and he as an engaged man, could platonise to any extent; but he free, and she shortly to be a widow--what then? She would no more make him her husband than she would allow Demetrius to lead her to the altar. And here he was, selfishly placing himself in an eligible position for the very matrimony she declined to contemplate.

"Marjory and I decided we were not suited," he explained, but timidly, because her eyes flashed. "She takes half the income, and marries that fox-hunting ass. I am free with the rest of the money;" he waited for congratulations which never came. "I thought you would be pleased," he blundered.

Askew gasped. Her amazing impudence reduced him to staring silence. She had lured him to her feet with sweet looks and significant smiles and cooing words, till he had been deceived into thinking that her passion was as strong and as true as his own. Now she reminded him that she was--married. "Oh!" he gasped again, and Lady Jim laughed shortly. Her cat-nature was enjoying this mouse-play.

Visitors had come and gone, and they were alone in the dainty drawing-room, with an untidy tea-table. Askew, having escorted her home from Ranelagh, had waited for an hour with stubborn patience for this solitude of two. His end had been gained, and now--he looked helplessly round, as though seeking for some third person to explain if his charmer were a demon or a woman. "Oh!" he said, once more.

"Nearly six," said Leah, consulting her bracelet. "How long do you intend to stand there saying 'Oh!'?" and she mimicked him.

"Not even Lady Jim," he said, clenching his brown hands. "Oh, you--you----" His voice became inarticulate with sheer anger.

"And I won't;" he came a step nearer the low chair in which she sat, but her derisive laugh made him pause. "Leah--I--I--love you!" His voice broke, and he stretched out his arms.

"Then why did you----did you?" He stopped, and looked at her with imploring eyes. "I thought you loved me," he murmured, choking.

"Is it not true? Have I been deceived? No!" he flung out a beseeching hand; "don't speak--I cannot bear to hear the truth. Let me go--let me go," he stumbled towards the door, blindly. "You have broken my heart; but I'll go away--far away--to South America, and--and--oh, my God!" he leaned against the wall and covered his face with his hands.

Lady Jim might have been in the stalls of a theatre for all the personal feeling she had hitherto shown. But his last words brought self uppermost. If he went to South America, he would certainly see Lola Fajardo, and, possibly, might come face to face with Jim. Recognition of an admitted corpse would spoil Jim's game and her own. Askew, for she put herself in his place, would certainly make things unpleasant, and she did not wish to provide a scandal in high life for circulating extra editions of newspapers during the silly season. Besides, he was really a nice boy, and she would miss his good looks and canine attentions. Both circumstances and inclinations demanded that she should keep him under her eye. An explanation came to her while he sobbed at the door--looking very ridiculous, she thought--and she made use of it, to soothe his sorrow and save herself.

"You silly boy," she began, and the beginning produced an effect she was far from foreseeing.

"Silly! Yes, I am silly," he admitted between his teeth, and flinging back his head to regard her with fierce, wet eyes. "I am silly to have believed in you and in your false affection;" before she could protest against this language--she had risen to do so--he hurled himself across the room, and gripped her wrists so tightly that she could have screamed with pain. "You shan't treat me in this way--do you hear, you shan't. I'm not going to be whistled to your feet like a dog and then kicked aside. Married! Yes, you are married, as you were when you whistled. But hang your husband and damn your husband--he has no claim on you, other than a legal one. Mine you are, and mine you shall be. I tell you, Leah"--he shook her in his anger--"that you must leave this man, and come with me. You must--you must!"--he dragged her hands to his breast--"you shall!"

"Because I do dare, and I shall dare more, if you play football with my heart. Why couldn't you leave me alone? Why couldn't you stick to the man whose name you bear? Don't struggle, for you shan't be free till I have had my say out. You made me love you--now I shall make you love me. You and your society rubbish, and gimcrack rules, and polite lies, and make-believe of truth! You with--ah-r-r-r!" he shook her again--"you over-civilised coquette, you Circe-of-many-wiles, you ruin of honest men! Do you think that I, who am flesh and blood, care for your lady and gentleman humbug? No, no! I am a man, you a woman, and we are one; you hear--one. If not, I'll put a bullet in your head and another through my own. You have fooled many, you shan't fool me. There!" ha flung her roughly from him; "now you can ring for your servants, to put me to the door."

With bruised wrists and wide-open eyes Leah stood dumfoundered. Jim, at his worst, had never been like this. If he had been she would have truly loved him. At the moment she very nearly loved Askew, recognising in his outburst that masterful nature which every woman adores and succumbs to. In spite of her dexterity in playing with amorous fire, it really seemed as though she was burning her fingers on this occasion. Naturally, she enjoyed the experience. This reversion to cave-life thrilled her pulses. Had Leah been capable of loving anything with a beard she would have then and there fallen at Askew's feet and implored him to trample on her. But her absolute ignorance of the strongest of passions, save self-love, snatched the victory in--what would have been to an ordinary woman--the hour of defeat.

The man, still panting from conflicting passions, acted strangely and foolishly, as men do at crucial moments. He smoothed his hair, arranged his tie, and pulled down his waistcoat, not looking at her but into a near mirror. Yet he saw her astonished face at second hand, and smiled grimly.

"I can be a brute," said he, ominously quiet; "but you haven't seen me at my worst yet."

"Good heavens!" This was undoubtedly a man--the man--the dominating male, the genuine lord of creation, whose animal honesty can rend the cobweb entanglements of the female sex, and does rend them, when the bandage of love inopportunely slips. Defiance would not lure him again to his proper position at her feet; and she was half afraid of the might her trickiness had evoked. But in woman's weakness lies woman's strength, and Delilah pulled down the corners of her mouth to subjugate Samson.

Askew wheeled from the mirror, shied, and winced; but his mouth and eyebrows were still three straight lines.

"My poor wrists!" reiterated the temptress, moving towards her pre-historic man; "see--you have bruised them."

He could see that he had; they were under his eyes, under his very nose, but he threw aside his head, with the modern equivalent of a word which a cave-man might have used in some such plight. Adam was weakened into aggressive firmness.

Eve offered a more tempting apple. "If you really loved me"--tears emphasised the murmur.

He was again in the toils, and kissing the bruised skin madly, with feverish lips. "How could I be so cruel?" he mumbled, and slipped to her victorious feet. "Oh! oh! oh!" in three distinct keys. "Forgive."

Circe's magic having evoked the brute, she knew thoroughly the sort of animal she had to deal with. Considering that she had no feeling of love, or even pity, to create fervour, Leah acted admirably. Cooing like a mother over her babe, and with a seraphic look, she bent above the tame animal, less to caress him than to make sure that the halter was round his neck.

The subjugated obeyed meekly, all the fire out of his veins, and sat like a whipped schoolboy in a distant chair, which she indicated with regal indignation. "For," said Leah, as if she were announcing an entirely new fact, "I am a married woman;" and she slipped behind the tea-table to prevent further demonstrations.

"You look into them, and see pretty things you can't buy. Naturally, a fellow wants to smash the glass and----"

"I understand the parable. But a thief has to reckon with the law, and so has a married woman. You would not like to see me divorced, Harry?"

"Impossible! I am already a wife. If I eloped with you, what respect could you have for me?

"Which I don't like, and won't give," said Leah, indignantly. "In you I looked to find a friend, and I find nothing but ungoverned passion, that would drag the object of his adoration in the mud. Oh! oh!"--out came the inevitable handkerchief--"how I have been deceived!"

By this time, the brute, with a penitent tail between its legs, was beginning to believe itself entirely in the wrong. Lady Jim, seeing this, became more than ever a tender woman. "I forgive you," she declared, plaintively, from behind a handkerchief mopping dry eyes; "this scene will be as though it had never been."

"When you have made such a fool of yourself? Ah, my poor Harry, forget your folly. Remember only that I forgive you."

"I don't exactly mean that," grumbled poor Harry, scenting sophistry, but unable to prevent the war being carried into his camp. "You--well----you see Oh, hang it, Leah, you know that I love you."

These sentiments were really noble, but somehow the bewildered man was not in the mood for copy-book philosophy. "You offer me a stone and call it a beautiful loaf," said he, bitterly, and with heat.

"Another parable! How biblical you are becoming!" said Lady Jim, desperately weary and with her eye on the clock. "I do not understand, nor do you, my poor boy."

"Oh no! Nature has been beforehand there," she retorted, beginning to lose her temper with a man who would explain. "Don't be silly, Harry! Go home, and think of our future."

Leah regretted the misused pronoun, and began to anticipate renewed melodrama. But her little tin god, pitying a votary whose nerves were jangled by stupid honesty, sent a seasonable visitor.

"His Grace the Duke of Pentland," announced a grandiloquent footman, flinging wide the door.

"Don't look so disgusted!" Leah flung an angry whisper in Askew's lowering face as she sailed forward to meet her father-in-law. "How are you, Duke? This is a surprise--a delightful one, of course. I never expected so pleasant a visitor."

The room was tolerably dim, and the Duke had not the keen sight of his youth. "Mr.--Mr.----!" hesitated His Grace.

"Mr. Askew," chimed in Lady Jim, glad that the mask of twilight was on the younger man's very cross face. "He's just going. You know Mr. Askew, of course, Duke. I met him at Firmingham. Must you really go, Mr. Askew? So sorry! We may meet at Lady Quain's to-night--I look in there for half an hour. Good-bye for the present. So kind of you to see me home from Ranelagh! Very dull, wasn't it?" and, rattling on to drown any too tender word he might let slip, she hustled him to the door.

"Our future!" breathed the inconvenient third, opening the gate of paradise most reluctantly.

"Even the brutes have instincts, if not sense," snapped Lady Jim, scathingly, and Adam, without Eve, took his solitary way down the stairs, to be dismissed into a cheerless world by an indifferent footman.

To prevent interruption, Leah closed the door herself, and switched on the electrics, before she returned to her untimely visitor.

"Will you be long, Duke?" she asked, again consulting the clock. "I have to dress for dinner. Mrs. Martin's, you know: a stupid woman with a bad cook. Such a bore!"

"I wonder you care to see people when Jim's away," said Pentland, fretfully, and she noted suddenly his aged looks.

Lady Jim felt inclined to retort with the proverb of the absent cat and the jubilant mice, but she really felt sorry for the old man's drooping mouth and additional wrinkles.

"I won't see any one, if you like, Duke--I'm sure it's no pleasure to make conversation without ideas. Do let me ring for hot tea--you look so tired. Sit down in this chair--and the cushion--there!" She made him comfortable with genuine womanly sympathy, wondering, meanwhile, what was ageing him.

"No tea, my dear. I can only wait for a few minutes; my carriage is below. Tired? Yes, I am very tired; worried, also."

"Oh yes! Last week I received a few lines, and he said that he felt ever so much better. His cough is almost gone."

Leah became nervous and anxious. Had Jim been obliterated at last? "What is it?" she demanded irritably. "Is he--is he?" her tongue could not form the lying word.

"Worse--yes, much worse," said the Duke, rubbing his forehead and producing a letter. "This is from Demetrius. We may expect--oh, my poor son!" and he almost broke down.

"I don't trust these doctors," remarked Lady Jim, skimming the letter with a feeling that Demetrius was really too imaginative. "They always shout wolf, when the animal is miles away. Don't worry."

"But you see, Demetrius says that poor Jim may go off at any moment--and Demetrius is a clever man."

Pentland shook his head, and groaned. "Not Jim. I had a conviction that I should never see him again when we parted in this very room."

"It's absurd!" argued Leah, artfully. "Jim was quite well till he caught that stupid cold at Firmingham. Why should he go off suddenly?"

"I can't believe it. Nothing would surprise me more than to hear of Jim's death;" and she soothed her conscience with the reflection that this speech was perfectly true, considering Jim had the strength of a bull and the appetite of a shark.

"You won't lose him. I'll send a cable to Demetrius, and if Jim is really so sick, I'll go out and nurse him."

Pentland's face lighted up, and he pressed her hand. "How good of you, my dear! It will ease my mind; but--" he hesitated--"I never thought you cared enough about Jim to inconvenience yourself."

"Jim has given me very little reason to care for him," said Leah, with some bitterness. "If he had been a better husband, I should have been a different woman;" she used the stale argument tactfully and regretfully.

"Yes--er--I'm afraid that's true," said the Duke, recalling his son's peccability; "but he is so ill. Forgive and forget, Leah."

"For your sake, if not for Jim's," she said gracefully. "I'll send the cable this very night."

And she did. When Pentland, overflowing with outspoken approbation of her correct conduct, took his leave, she went to her desk and hunted out a cypher with which Demetrius had supplied her. It would not do to let the postal authorities know of their schemes, and the cypher was a particularly intricate one. Leah spent an hour in concocting her cablegram, and was late for dinner in consequence. But she had a good appetite, all the same, in spite of the bad food and the dull conversation. For, on their way to Kingston, Jamaica, were a few lines in cypher, a translation of which would have been of great interest to the father-in-law, who thought her so womanly and good.

"Duke wants me to nurse Jim," ran the cypher, when Demetrius used the key. "Wire that there is no need."

CHAPTER XVIII

An urchin throws a stone into the horse-pond. Circles; form, not only in the still water, but in the fluent air, to enring invisibly our sphere. And who can say to what limit they recede, if limit there be? So with a carelessly selected, hastily flung word. Had Lady Jim said your future, Askew, assuming no coupling, would have grumbled himself back into tame-catism and canine contentment with casual head-pats. But, our future! The pronoun bulked portentous. Its three letters encompassed, to the lover's prolific imagination--divorce, remarriage, a life-long duet and amorous communings in the highest paradise attainable by those yet moving in time.

Lady Jim, less philological, gave him to understand, that a single word could by no means embrace such various interpretations. She again emphasised her matronhood, called Askew's attention to the spotless reputation he wished to smirch, and intimated that poor Jim's illness precluded her from thinking of anything save poor Jim's possible decease. "In which sad case," mourned Leah, "we could renew our conversation without reproach."

"A widow has no bridesmaids, I believe?" hinted Askew, reflectively. She hinted back with sweet smiles, "Don't you prefer a quiet wedding?" And on this adjustment of the situation he built castles, believing the foundation to be sound. Strangely enough, in so honest a gentleman, the heartlessness of utilising possibilities connected with the Kaimes' vault never occurred to him. Which proved, without need of words, the essential selfishness of the feeling he miscalled love.

On this arrangement Lady Jim frolicked gaily through the remaining weeks of the season, well content that things were as they were. A Jamaica cablegram, which--it designedly not being in cypher--she could and did show to the Duke, informed both that a wifely nurse was needless. The last word of the communication promised a letter, which duly arrived. This last also was a public document, Demetrius being too cunning to detail criminality in black and white. Pentland and Leah read the letter cheek by jowl. Lord James was a trifle better, said the script, and if able to outlast the voyage, would return to England, en route for Algiers. Lady James could then nurse him into health, say, at Biskra.

"Thank heaven," quavered the Duke, not reading between the lines, as did his better-informed daughter-in-law. "We'll make a party and go there for the autumn. Frith will be delighted."

"On my account," rebuked the old man. "Frith knows that if Jim is to leave us"--his voice faltered and fell--"I should like to see him depart."

"Why does the prodigal son always banquet on the calf?" mused Lady Jim, restoring the letter to her pocket.

"So it seems. Selfish people receive more praise for one creditable action, than do those kind-hearted fools who spend their lives in self-denial."

She laughed unpleasantly. "It usually springs up wild oats, with over-attention!" and she departed to consider the inexplicable growth of green bay-trees.

Lord Frith had never given his father the slightest trouble; he was a model son, an admirable husband; his friendships were staunch, and his life clean--yet Pentland contented himself with perfunctory praise of these qualities. He expected his eldest son to be a domestic Bayard, as the unimaginative Marquis had shown no desire to sow the wind. Jim, on the other hand, left the reaping of his whirlwind to doting relatives. Devourer of husks with congenial swine, and caring only for his large, healthy, greedy self, he had never done a kind act or shown a filial trait. A spendthrift, a rogue in grain, cursed by many men, blessed by no woman, he--this profligate egotist--was dealt with not only tenderly, but in a way calculated to assure him that he was a pearl without price. His notorious failings were covered by the phrase that "he was his own worst enemy," and the presumed possession of good qualities, never manifested, entitled him to paternal pity. Leah, an easy-going sinner herself, was not hard on those who dwelt in glass houses. But this gilding of Jim's base metal made her gorge rise.

"What's the use of being good?" she moralised, as her brougham sped towards Curzon Street. "Kindness is looked upon as weakness, and the more generous one is, the more those who don't know the meaning of the word sponge and sneer. If you are really bad, sham philanthropists reclaim you and cocker you up, and praise you loudly if you say 'Hang' instead of 'Damn!' A sinner repents, and Heaven is a-flutter; a saint makes one slip, and the world yells hypocrite. A pied person, neither white nor black, is left alone, as the majority are of that mottled complexion. To be really good is to be hated; to be extremely bad means excuses, help, and trumpetings. Frith gets the kicks without deserving them, and Jim the half-pence he has never earned. Clever Jim, who has chosen the world's better part."

It will be seen that Leah, being of the world, judged as the world, and yet with greater discernment. In one way she was right. It is generally your sinner who gobbles up the cakes and ale. But Lady Jim--no very ardent Bible student--misread texts, or rather, read her own material meaning into them. Therefore, although conversant with green bay-trees--did she not dwell in a grove of such?--her memory did not recall the axe that might be laid to the roots thereof. The Seventy-third Psalm might also have assisted her to a better understanding of undeserved worldly prosperity, had she done other than gabble it hastily, when it happened to come into the service. But the fetish which stood to her in place of the Living God did not encourage spiritual explorations, and Leah saw life as a comprehensible stretch of time, limited by birth or death. The hereafter--if any--she could not conceive, knowing only the present as the real, the actual, and the true. Therefore did she grudge Jim his undeserved coddlings. Had he lain on a bed of his own making, it would have been justice--strict justice; but that fools should prepare him a feather mattress and downy pillow seemed, and really was, intolerable. Thinking of the Duke's wasted and misplaced affection, Leah plucked the fruit of her Tree of Knowledge. "Good people need missionaries," said Lady Jim.

However, as Jim and she had occupied separate rooms for many a long day, his featherbedism troubled her little. Also, Askew had been brought to heel by the promise of future bones. The plot was being rounded off in far Jamaica without her aid, and what with Sir Billy's winnings and a moderate cheque cajoled out of the Duke, she had enough to keep the wolf from the Curzon Street door. On the whole, things could not be improved, and it only remained to exercise patience. But of this virtue Leah possessed little, and did not care to expend what she had in twiddling her thumbs at home. Jim was away, so she could play--and did. A masked ball at Covent Garden amused her immensely; the plays condemned by Sir Billy found in her a lenient critic; and now that Pentland had paid off old bills, she ran up new ones with the zest of a woman who required nothing. Also, she went to Epsom, and pulled off a decent sum on a tip breathed into her ear by the racing baronet, whom she had snubbed into slangy admiration. To Hurlingham and Richmond she raced a split-new motor-car of the latest pattern, and exhibited her nerve and skill in the Park. Charity bazaars, Savoy dinners, bridge parties, Sunday river excursions, and such-like time-killers beheld her in varied and tasteful frocks, and she also dined with those friends upon whose cook she could rely. Altogether, she enjoyed the life of a busy idler, and had that remarkably agreeable time which magnificent health, comparative wealth, and a conscience of no importance would give to such a woman. But her head duly governed her frivolities, and she made no plans for the Cowes week, although she knew a manageable man with a delightful yacht. The daily expected decease of Jim had to be considered, and thoughtful Leah had already designed her mourning. Meanwhile, she babbled of Biskra to Lady Canvey, and rather overdid it.

"Are you and Jim going on a second honeymoon?" inquired that suspicious old dame.

"The non-existent can never manifest itself," said Lady Canvey, in scientific English. "Either a miracle has happened to give you a heart, or Jim is dying, and you are getting ready to dance on his grave."

Leah coloured with suppressed anger. This plain speaking annoyed her, and she disliked people who peeped behind the scenes. "Jim and I are not angels, godmother," she said with dignity; "but we're pals enough to make me regret his death. My mourning, though you may doubt it, will be perfectly sincere."

Lady Canvey gave a dry laugh. "See Carlyle on the 'Philosophy of Clothes.' Well, I shan't pay your bill at Jay's."

"Thanks. I don't ask you to. The total might involve a larger cheque than you would care to sign."

The impracticable old woman and her god-daughter were alone, else this snapping might not have occurred. Leah had rather neglected Lady Canvey of late, because that astute octogenarian had locked up her cheque-book. But on her way to an "At Home" she had looked in for a few moments, and sat in the stuffy Victorian room, radiant in a crêpe ninon frock of Parma violet, elaborately flounced, and with a fichu and short sleeves. The dress was simple enough, and she wore little jewellery; but her dazzling neck and shoulders and arms, her glorious hair and calm strong face, would have made her noticeable even in a crowd of picked beauties. Lady Canvey, whose ill-humour was mostly surface-crabbedness, for she preferred losing a friend to withholding an epigram, could not refrain from grudging compliments. But between women these rang hollow.

"After the storm, the sunshine," said Lady Jim, smiling at such novel civility. "Well, I appreciate the change. Whatever my faults may be, godmother, you cannot say that I am disagreeable. I always call, in spite of your--your--what shall we say?"

"Home-truths! And you call when it suits you. Humph! Perhaps I am a trifle short-tempered."

"Old age has its privileges," Lady Canvey reminded her; "and you can be so cleverly nasty when you like, that it amuses me to bring the worst out of you."

"What a doubtful compliment! Do you extract amusement from the Tallentire girl in the same way?"

"Quite so, and you never try to bring out the good which does not amuse you. Sunday schools are beneficial rather than entertaining. I don't see Miss--what's her name?" and Lady Jim glanced round the room.

"Joan Tallentire," snapped her hostess; "you remember the name well enough. It's fashionable to have a short memory, I suppose."

"Lionel isn't always in the pulpit. By the way, Leah, he told me that he had a serious talk with you at Firmingham."

"Did he? Yes! I believe he did give me a dull quarter of an hour. Something about sin, I fancy it was. Parsons have a monomania on that subject."

Lady Canvey made an angry noise in her wrinkled throat. "You're impossible," she pronounced tartly. "Lionel wishes to improve you."

"Oh! He is a man, then. I don't think I ever made running with a clergyman; it might be rather fun. I suppose Lionel would recite the Song of Solomon to me--there's lots of love-talk in it. Not very proper talk, either, I'm told. Perhaps Solomon wrote it for married women; he had some experience of them, hadn't he? He collected concubines, didn't he?--just like a stamp-maniac."

"And impossible!" She rose to go, and arranged the fur-lined Medici collar of her evening wrap in the dim mirror. "But I'm about to be punished for my sins. The Duke made me promise to go to this At Home. Mrs. Saracen, you know--she's one of the submerged Upper Ten, or she married one of them; I forget which, though I know she has something to do with a pickle, or a sauce. Very amusing old thing, too. She gives you a nutshell biography of every one before she introduces."

"Oh, so that you may be warned against people's skeletons. Mrs. Saracen points out the cupboard and tells you not to open it, and of course you do."

"She would, if the law allowed them out of gaol. But at present she contents herself with freaks. I don't go to middle-class menageries as a rule, but at the Duke's request I patronise this one."

Her godmother was silent for a moment. "Leah, my dear," she said at length, taking the gloved hand, "I am sorry we always quarrel when we meet. I really have a corner in my heart for you, and if you were only less--less--" Lady Canvey hunted for the right word--"less exasperating, we should get on excellently."

"Let us make a fresh start," she said gently, for she really felt sorry. "I'll come every day while Miss Tallentire is absent and tell you the news."

"That's a good girl. Goodnight. Enjoy yourself, my dear;" and the two parted better friends than they had been for months.

On her way to Mrs. Saracen, who lived in the wilds of Kensington, Leah saw herself in the new character of dry-nurse to a spiteful old harridan, and wondered at her good-nature. Why should she bore herself with a spent octogenarian, whose sole attraction was the possession of money, with which she declined to part? Yet Lady Jim had promised daily visits to this ruin, and what is more, for no reason discoverable to herself, intended to keep her promise, even though there was nothing to be gained by such self-denial. The idea that she, of all people, should do something for nothing, tickled her greatly, and the street-lamps swinging past the brougham flashed on an amused face. She was so pleased with discovering virtue in such an unexpected quarter that she quite forgot to look mournful when her hostess inquired after Jim's health.

The waist upon which the Honourable Mrs. Saracen had prided herself somewhere about the middle of the nineteenth century was now a matter of guess-work. Her stoutness impressed even the unobservant with the conviction that she had eaten her way through life, and was at present engaged in digging a not-far-off grave with her teeth. And, for her age, she had an astonishingly good set, obtrusively genuine. Her general appearance was in keeping, for she wore her own white hair in smooth bands, under a Waterloo turban, fearfully and wonderfully made, and presented a natural face of winter-apple rosiness, scored with good-humoured wrinkles. As Nature had made her, and Time had aged her, so she was, growing old healthily, if not gracefully. In an alarming dress, many-coloured as Joseph's coat, she wheezed like a plethoric poodle, and rolled in a nautical manner by reason of her bulk. Who would have guessed at a brain hidden in this ponderous mass of adipose?

Yet she was a self-made woman, who had acquired a large fortune by the sale of "Saracen's Sauce." Therefore did current gossip accuse her of beginning life as a cook. A perfect invention, this, as she was a gentlewoman who had, intellectually, married beneath her--that is, she had bought with the sauce money a scampish aristocrat of the Jim Kaimes type, only less manly. He had long since drank himself into the family vault, and had left his wife with one son, who was now in the army. Every one liked Mrs. Saracen, in spite of her eccentricities, and love of glaring colours, and many a society pauper had reason to thank her for timely help. And to cap her good qualities, she professed open pride in the sauce, which appeared on every middle-class dinner-table throughout the three kingdoms.

"Dear Lady James," she wheezed, wagging two fat hands, like a seal its flappers, "how good of you to come! You will find some interesting people here"--she looked round with pride at the collection of lions, old and young, tame and wild, fat and lean, sham and real. "Now, Mr. Wallace here--let me present him. Charming man--very outspoken--great traveller--Zambesi--knows cannibals intimately!" Then, behind a plump hand, whispered a nutshell biography, "Don't mention his wife--divorce."

Thus warned, Leah got on excellently with the lean, brown, keen-eyed man, who confessed to extensive explorations. "Cannibals?--yes, Lady James, I know a few and love them."

"They ate a man I detested. I fear he disagreed with them in death, as he always disagreed with me in life."

Lady Jim laughed. "Is there any one here you would like to make a side-dish of?" she asked, letting her eyes rove.

"No; I am a complete stranger in London. It is the one place I have not explored. But Mrs. Saracen has told me the past of many here, and I can give you histories, if you like."

"Go on, then. Only don't give me dates, else the women here might scratch. I don't know these creatures myself," she went on, with the calm insolence of a great lady; "to me they are like your Central African natives."

"I can quite imagine it. That thin lady over there is evidently of your opinion;" and Leah glanced at a mature damsel who wore just sufficient clothing to prevent interference by the police.

"Miss Fastine? She's a Naturopath, and is trying to revert to primitive simplicity."

"With such a figure she might stop short of the Garden of Eden," said Lady Jim, dryly. "I never heard of a Naturopath. What is it?"

"An American sect, which needs solitude to carry out its theories. The members sleep in the open, cover themselves with earth when they feel sick, and advocate the altogether."

The traveller stifled a laugh. "Upon my word, Lady James, I am in earnest. The sect really does exist. That stout man talking to Mrs. Saracen belongs to another queer lot. Calls himself an Osteopath."

"Yonder is a Christian Scientist. And the man on the left advocates Mahomedanism as the State religion in England."

"While the dressmakers charge so ruinously, he'll never induce men to take four wives. And the woman in the red dress?"

"So I should imagine," said Lady Jim, surveying the lady's nose, which was long and thin and the hue of her gown.

"No, no! I talk of heavenly spirits. Lady Tansey has a large circle of departed friends, who rap."

"What a bore! As if one didn't get enough of friends in this world, without worrying them to knock out bad grammar from the next. Really, Mr. Wallace, I begin to think Mrs. Saracen must keep a lunatic asylum."

"Oh dear no," he answered, chuckling. "It is the sane people that are usually shut up."

"Oh, if you go to those lengths, there would be no society," said Wallace, with a shrug.

The traveller's cynicism exactly suited Leah's humour at the moment, and she made him take her in to supper. Meanwhile, Askew, who had not seen Lady Jim arrive, was watching the grand entrance with a lowering face. He had called at Curzon Street, and thence had borne a message for Leah which he was anxious to deliver. Already he had been bored to distraction with faddists and their whims, and was seriously thinking of slipping away, when Mrs. Saracen bore down on him for the fourth time. Before he could object she had him by the arm, and confronted him with a severe-looking woman, pensive and solitary.

"Do let me introduce you to Miss Galway," she wheezed. "You'll get on so well with Mr. Askew, dear Miss Galway. He's navy, you know, or has been--left it--going to be married. And Mr. Askew, if you can talk of Ph[oe]nician inscriptions to Miss Galway, she'll entertain you for hours. Quite an authority on Solomon, I believe--very clever, most intellectual!" Then aside, hastily: "Say nothing about her brother--jail!"

Poor Askew! Miss Galway proved to be a limpet, and held on to him desperately, not because he was handsome, but for the sake of the two ears he possessed, into which she could pour her archæological triumphs.

She prosed in a manly voice about Hiram of Tyre and the building of Solomon's Temple, and the probability that its design was copied from the Shrine of Moloch, and the remains that Zerubbabel must have found after the Babylonian captivity, until his poor head buzzed like a saw-mill. In the hope of stopping this endless trickle of nothings he cajoled her to the supper-room. There, at a small table well-covered, Lady Jim ate and drank and chatted, light-heartedly, with a sharp-eyed, sun-dried mummy. She nodded a "How d'y do?" to her sailor, and smilingly observed his entanglement. Luckily for the preservation of Askew's temper, a rival archæologist arrived to discuss Hittite grammar, and he managed to slip away while the male and female dryasdusts wrangled over the probable origin of the Perizzites.

"You haven't been near me all the evening," complained Leah, when Wallace received his congé and Askew sat in the seat of the scornful.

"Didn't see you arrive, worse luck. If you'd been dosed with Hivites and Jebusites and all that truck, as I've been, you'd have a headache, too."

"Everything matters, when people have tongues and eyes, and envious natures. Don't be silly. I promised the Duke to stop here for half an hour. And after all, it's amusing. I never knew such people existed outside Punch. Well--what now?" This because, with sudden recollection of an oversight, he brought out an envelope.

"This was waiting at Curzon Street," he explained, handing it across, "and the butler, thinking it might be important asked me to---- Why, what's the matter, Leah?"

It was his turn to inquire, for, reading while he talked, she had suddenly whitened. "Don't call me Leah," she snapped, with the irritation of a shaken woman, then re-read the cablegram, again and again.

"My husband is--dead!" She crushed the paper into a ball, rose to go, and dropped back, overwhelmingly faint. "Oh!" she moaned faintly. For once in her life of shams and sneering and playing with other-world fires she was moved to genuine emotion.

CHAPTER XIX

Leah's emotion--as she felt--was almost cruelly genuine. It bore the trademark of sincerity; it made her heart hammer furiously against her ribs, and drove the blood from her cheeks. Yet she knew that Jim still lived; that the lying cablegram was but a necessary card to play for the winning of large stakes. For once, the expected had happened--that was all. Why then should she exhibit emotions which could not possibly have been caused by the excuse offered to the public. Her heart replied with brutal directness, that she had crossed the Old Bailey Rubicon, and was actually participating in a crime. The last word shook her out of cotton-wool wrappings into a naked world. Up to the receipt of the cablegram she could have drawn back. Now, fully committed to the adventure, she was compelled to tread a perilous path. A criminal! Yes: she had been one in intention, which mattered little; she was now criminal in fact, and that meant punishment. Her imagination conjured up visions of the possible. The judge spoke, the prison gaped, the bolts shot home, Curzon Street was exchanged for Wormwood Scrubbs. Ugh! But after all, such queasy thoughts were unnecessary. If she had broken the eighth commandment, she fully intended to keep the eleventh and unwritten one, "Thou shalt not be found out."

The truth to Mrs. Saracen, excusing a hasty departure, served to circulate the fiction of Jim's death, which the widow wished to be speedily and widely known. She could not have selected a bell with a better clapper. Promulgated by the "sauce queen," the sad invention shortly became town-talk, and, disseminated by myriad tongues, ran like a prairie fire throughout Society, with a capital letter. A more weighty bag on the postman's back resulted, and commiserating platitudes showered on Leah, as thick as the over-quoted leaves of Vallombrosa. She glanced through many, replied to a few, and burned--very wisely--the majority. Between-whiles her attention was given to parcels from Jay's, and considerations of widows' caps, and the recognition that the feminine uniform of woe clothed with marked distinction a really beautiful mourner. To women, grief has its consolations in crape millinery.

Seclusion was necessary in those days of lamentation, but none the less wearisome. To play the nun, while people scattered to Cowes and the Continent, chafed the chameleon woman. Some intimate sympathisers she received, and to these she matched mournful words with a mournful countenance. With the blinds half down and sal volatile at hand, in a becoming gown, and using a handkerchief, three inches black-bordered, to redden the driest of eyes, Lady Jim held funereal receptions, and spoke in low tones of her late husband's hitherto unknown good qualities. His palpable evils she cloaked with the "his-own-worst-enemy" phrase; and mentioned twice that, if not an angel, he at least had been a man. The visitor addressed made her exit expressing hopes that Lord James was an angel now, and the door closed in time to prevent her seeing Leah's enjoyment of the picture thus cashed on her amused mind. "Jim, an angel!" murmured the widow, wiping away real tears. "He'd bet on his flying."

With the Duke she played her comedy of sorrow very prettily. Pentland and Frith arrived in haste, while the Marchioness hurried on beforehand, to prepare Leah for the interview. But she was already word-perfect in her part. Aware that Lord Frith would discredit ostentatious grief, she assumed the position of a shocked rather than a broken-hearted widow, though she said nothing but what might have been inscribed on Jim's tombstone. Not a crocodile tear did she shed under Frith's too-observant eyes, but sat near the Duke, holding his gouty lean hand, and skilfully impressed the trio with the belief that she and the deceased had not been so far asunder as was supposed--the corollary of such impression being that she honestly regretted Jim's untimely demise. No more could be expected, even from the most forgiving woman, and no more was demanded by the ducal family.

After these preliminary condolences Pentland suggested that Leah should come to Firmingham for the funeral. It was necessary to agree to this, and she did with graceful readiness; only intimating that she would remain in town, until the remains arrived at Southampton. Even as she made the stipulation, she wondered how Demetrius had contrived to transfer Garth's body from Madeira to Jamaica for the deception.

"I thought poor Jim would have been buried where he died," she remarked tentatively.

The Duke was shocked. "Certainly not. Jim, poor fellow, must rest with his ancestors. We must look upon his face for the last time."

Leah plucked nervously at her black gown, and wondered if the Russian was wise in submitting a substituted corpse to family scrutiny. "They say that death changes people," she ventured uneasily, "and of course, embalming----"

"Just what I said to Bunny," interrupted Lady Frith, in too vivacious a tone for the occasion. "We shall hardly know Jim with the soul out of him."

Frith looked doubtfully at his sister-in-law. The less said about Jim's destination, the better: therefore did he crush sentiment with dry business. "I expect Demetrius will arrive with the remains about the end of the month," said he, in the hardest of voices; "after the funeral, we can see about the will."

"And accumulations," supplemented Lady Jim; "but need we talk of such things, now?" and she sighed the conversation back to sentiment.

"Quite so--quite so," quavered the Duke, shaking his head; "terrible loss to you, my dear--and your natural grief, and--hum-hum----" Further fossilised phrases escaped his memory.

"I certainly feel for poor Jim," said Leah, with sedate dignity: "he had his faults, of course; but then, so have I."

"Your kind remembrance of Jim excuses the few you possess," was Pentland's reply; while Frith, compressing his thin lips, made no remark.

Indeed, there was no chance, for Hilda clamoured that Leah should come to her house for beef-tea and consolation. She had never agreed with her more sceptical husband about the Curzon Street menage, and credited Lady Jim with the requisite virtues of a genuine widow.

"Your strength must be kept up, dear," she babbled, as though she expected Leah to faint then and there. "I know exactly how you feel. Just as I should, if Bunny became an angel. But we must all die, dear Leah, and death is the gate of life, and----"

"Can't you leave these proverbial condolences to Lionel?" broke in her exasperated husband.

Thus encouraged, the child did talk, and Lady Jim listened with a bent head to original remarks about Time, the great consoler, and meetings on a golden shore, to part no more, and keeping the loved memory green, and bowing to the inevitable, and such-like official utterances, without which no funeral is complete. When Hilda stopped for want of breath and memory, Leah kissed her with the affection of one deeply moved, and observed that she was tired. And indeed she was--bored to death, in fact. So the Marchioness, pleased with her plagiarised eloquence, took leave tactfully and tearfully on the Duke's arm. Frith lingered.

"Huh! I allude to your demure listening. I do not wish to speak ill of the dead, and, after all, Jim was my brother. But are you really and truly sorry?"

"In a way, if you will press for an answer. One can't live five years with a man without missing him at the breakfast-table."

"Hum! Though you and I pretend otherwise, to console my father, we know that Jim was no saint."

"I don't see what politeness has to do with this interview. Have you remained to make yourself disagreeable?"

"On my honour, no. You're a clever woman, Leah, and as a scamp's wife you have conducted yourself admirably."

Frith shrugged in his turn. "I suppose so, since we have agreed to call black white. But I waited to say that I'll help you in any way you wish."

Leah was surprised, and touched. She and Frith had never been good friends. Apparently, he was not such a bad sort after all. But what was behind this offer? Her ineradicable suspicion of human nature made her doubt, though she spared him the question. "It is very good of you," said she, cordially, "but with the insurance money and this house, which your father says I can retain, I shall do very well. There is no need for you to open your purse, or your heart."

The Marquis hunched his shoulders and let them drop. "Hum," he repeated, biting his forefinger; "you will be marrying again?"

Lady Jim felt qualmish. "Demetrius?" she echoed faintly. What could Frith possibly have to say about the prime mover in the plot?

"I can't help lunatics being at large," said Leah, reassured as to his meaning and at once on the defensive. "Have I encouraged him?"

He hastened to protest. "Oh no. As I said before, your conduct as Jim's wife has been admirable--truly admirable. But I should not like to see you marry Demetrius."

"He can be a prince and wealthy, if he chooses to be reconciled with the Russian authorities."

Frith, baffled and perplexed, bit his finger again. "He is devoted to you; they talk of it at the clubs. No, no," hurriedly, as she turned crimson with indignation; "there's not a word said against you. But this absurd infatuation--and you a widow; these foreigners go to ridiculous lengths, so you see----"

"I certainly do not see," interrupted Leah, with conviction. "Did you offer assistance so that you might meddle?"

"Oh no, no," protested the Marquis, looking shocked; "but you have behaved so well as Jim's wife----"

"That is the third time you have said so, and I am by no means stupid. It seems to me," she looked straight at him, "that you believe M. Demetrius will ask me to marry him."

"Will it ease your mind if I say that I have no intention of accepting any impertinent proposal he may make?"

"It will and it does," said Frith, bluntly. "I should not like to see you throw yourself away on that man. Should you marry again----"

He smiled grimly, seeing that she would not permit him to finish a single sentence. "Am I to take your use of my title as an intimation that we are to be strangers?"

"That also is my business. As your interference is concerned with M. Demetrius, and I have set your mind at rest on that point, there is no more to be said."

"Oh, Demetrius," she echoed, enraged by this parrot repetition. "I never wish to hear his name or set eyes on his face again."

This was true enough. Now that the Russian had served her turn he could go hang; she had no further use for him, and he could whistle for his well-earned wages. When Frith, after further interrupted expostulations, took his leave, Lady Jim sat down, chin on hand, to consider this town-talk. The love-sick babbling of Demetrius troubled her little. No scandal could attach to a Diana who never hunted the noble quarry, man; and Leah was such a known lover of herself that even scandal refrained from giving her a rival. Still, the Russian was pertinacious, and could be vindictive; he had fulfilled her bidding for a certain price, and that price he would assuredly demand. Make him her second husband she would not. He belonged to Katinka, who could keep him and welcome. The remembrance of the daughter suggested the useful father.

Aksakoff, unfettered by honourable prejudices, certainly could help her, for the attaining of his own ends, if Demetrius became troublesome. Could she lure him to Paris, his disappearance from her life would only be a question of days, perhaps hours. But, for the moment, she did not see how to export her accomplice to Siberia, via the gay city, without becoming a more active agent than was wise. One Russian had her--there was no blinking the fact--under his thumb; and to remove that pressure, in the only way in which it could be removed, meant the substitution of a similar thumb. She would merely jump from the frying-pan into the fire--both equally uncomfortable.

On this account, and lest she should exchange King Log for King Stork, Leah hesitated to enlist Aksakoff s assistance. Luckily, there was no need to come to an immediate decision. She had three weeks at least to consider the matter. The funeral, the procuring of the insurance money, natural grief, for the tricking of the world, and the regulation period of mourning--she could oppose these obstacles, should Demetrius press his suit unduly hard. This being so, she flung off the burden for the time being, although the necessity of settling the matter, sooner or later, haunted her thoughts. Such insistence of the disagreeable broke up her rest, and she would waken at dawn, to plot escape. Chloral, occasionally, aided her to sleep the difficulty out of her head: but she detested drugs that demand extortionate repayment for their kindness, and used narcotic discreetly. A week of these haggard hauntings aged her. Anxiety became apparent in hollow eyes and colourless cheeks. One day, with outspoken horror, she discovered an entirely new wrinkle, and noted later that the unexpected opening of a door caused her nerves to jump. Kind friends ascribed such things to commendable sorrow for the dead, and Leah tacitly accepted their comforting and petting on this obvious plea. But not to regret a thousand Jims would she have risked her beauty; as, after her tongue--for Leah put brains before looks--it was her keenest-edged weapon with which to fight the world, and was supremely powerful to control fools.

Daily the stream of sympathising friends rolled through the dainty drawing-room, and bore Lady Jim away from comedy grief to more pleasant shores, where gossip of he and she and the "tertium quid," interspersed with millinery discussions and shrewd female handling of current society events, made things more tolerable. Lady Richardson babbled herself in, with a box of chocolate from Sir Billy--a consolation not unpalatable to Leah, who liked Billy and loved sweets. "Both being acquired tastes," said Lady Jim, but not to the little mother.

"So thoughtful of him, isn't it?" chattered Lady Richardson, who was coloured in subdued tints, with a gown to match, for the visit. "The dear boy! He said to me that we must prevent you from breaking your heart."

"And prescribes eating," said Leah, humorously. "I never knew Sir Billy was so young. Thank him for me, Fanny, and tell him that when I think of taking a second I'll give him a look in."

"Oh, Billy has thought of that already--such a boy as he is. You're sure to have a badly spelt proposal from him, dear. But seriously speaking, will you,--oh, of course you will."

"My heart is buried in the grave of Billy's father," murmured Lady Richardson, pensively.

"Settled entirely on myself," said the little woman, shrewdly; then added romantically, "I must be loved for myself alone."

"I mean that men are selfish, dear. They always have their eye on the cash-box, you know."

"I hope that won't be your fate, darling," was the spiteful reply, for Lady Richardson always scratched back.

"Oh, my face is my fortune, Fanny. Jim, poor dear spendthrift, has left me with only a few thousands, which won't last long."

"I should think not, in your hands, dear. But there is Mr. Askew and Dr. Demetrius--both admire you."

"Admiration does not necessarily mean marriage. And at present I think more of my loss than of a second husband."

"So sweet of you, and so proper. But you might take a look at the market. Mr. Trent, now, the South African. He's a millionaire."

"The man who has taken his name from Abraham's cemetery? I suppose he thought it sounded Scotch. No, thanks. My name is Hebrew, but my tastes are Gentile."

"He's a brute, without instinct. I begin to think you keep a matrimonial agency, Fanny."

"It wouldn't pay, were you my only client," retorted Lady Richardson, still remembering the miracle dig. "No one seems to satisfy you. I believe you mean to marry Askew, after all. What of him?"

"He's a nice footman, and doesn't ask wages. Aren't these suggestions rather premature? My heart, like yours, may be in my husband's grave."

"I didn't know he was buried yet," said the little woman, crossly. "How impossible you are, darling!"

Shot and shell were flying rather thickly, and seeing no chance of planting her flag on Leah's bulwarks, Lady Richardson beat a discreet retreat, with Judas kisses and Parthian shots. "So glad if I have cheered you up, dear [kiss]! Bear up and don't break your heart [kiss, kiss]! So sweet your sorrow, and so genuine [kiss, kiss, kiss]!" And having given several Rowlands for one Oliver, Lady Richardson departed.

"Cat!" said Lady Jim to the closed door, and settled to munch Billy's chocolates over Marcel Prévost's Lettres d'une Femme.

CHAPTER XX

The supposed remains of Jim Kaimes duly arrived on British ground in charge of an extraordinarily anxious medical attendant, and Lord Frith arranged for their transfer to Firmingham. There, Leah was already established as Niobe, studiously dismal in the jet-trimmed, crape-flounced equivalent of sackcloth. With the Marchioness, a few decayed cousins, and many hired mourners, connected closely or distantly with the family, she assisted the Duke to lament his Absalom. Therefore, behind lowered blinds, in the twilight atmosphere of the great house, did officially grief-stricken relations move warily on tiptoe, speaking in hushed voices, with downcast eyes, of the deceased and his post-mortem virtues. The apotheosis of the prodigal son, who had thus quietly come home, made the place about as cheerful as a mausoleum.

Limiting the solemnity strictly to the family, Lionel was requested to inter Jim's body, with the rites in which Jim's soul had never believed. Then, for the first time, did he behold Leah in her new character, as hitherto a sympathetic letter had excused a personal interview. Now, face to face, Kaimes considered the advisability, as clergyman, relative, and friend, to administer presumably needed consolation. This last straw broke the widow's overladen back. She had wept with Pentland, mourned with kith and kin, enduring also, for three dreary weeks, twaddling platitudes, written and spoken, by meddlesome well-wishers. These exasperating necessities would have been unendurable, even had Jim been where he deserved to be; but that she should suffer them, when Jim was rejoicing as Mr. Berring and expecting his share of the money she thus laboriously earned, nearly drove her beyond the bounds of decorum. She could have thrown the novel she was reading at Lionel's head, and barely escaped doing so, when he appeared in her sitting-room, almost aggressively sympathetic. But, reflecting that with the funeral would come a cessation of these aggravations, and mindful that the money was almost in her purse, she asked him to be seated and prepared to stomach aphorisms.

"How good of you to come!" she sighed conventionally; then added, to avert, if possible, protracted boredom, "I'm dull company."

"I'm not tearing my hair and gnashing my teeth, if that is what you mean. I will, if you think Jim worthy of such excesses."

"I see evidences of that on all sides of me," replied Leah, tartly. "Shouldn't you say that he is not lost but gone before? I believe that is one of the stock phrases of your profession."

Lionel moved uneasily. It was difficult to whitewash Jim, and he could not invent non-existing virtues on the spur of the moment. "He was your husband, remember," was his effort to parry this thrust.

"Oh, Lord, don't I know it? Would I put up with all this, else? Did you come to tell me that Queen Anne is dead?"

"Lionel, if you preach I shall scream," cried Leah, developing whirlwind passion, and rising a veritable Bellona; "or else I'll--I'll--oh!" she ripped her handkerchief viciously, while sweeping tempestuously up and down. "I don't know what I'll do, if you play Job's comforter."

Her cheeks flamed, her eyes sparkled, and her voice leaped an octave as she flung the last words at him. Lionel started up, surprised at this sudden anger, and wondered if grief was bringing on hysteria.

"Won't you sit down?" said obtuse man, giving the worst possible advice to overstrung woman. "A little sal volatile----"

"I'm sick of sitting down, and lying down, and sal volatile, and listening to humbug, and wearing black, and being bothered. I've had more trouble over Jim in his death than I ever allowed him to give me in his life. You say the same silly things every one else says--you--you parrot! Can't you be original?"

"Death is such an old-established institution that it is difficult to be original," said Lionel, resuming his chair with a shrug.

"Then I shall talk myself. Yes; I wish to speak plainly, and to you I intend to speak plainly, since you are the only man I respect."

"I daresay you are priggish," went on Lady Jim, finding it a marvellous relief to speak loudly and without reserve; "but you are honest in spite of it, and you don't gossip, though you are a parson. In trouble I shall always come to you, padre."

"Eh! What? Yes, of course, Jim's dead." She choked over the lie, and returned to laugh at ease in her chair. "Where has he gone, Lionel?"

"No; nor you wouldn't if you thought for a century. Jim is as bad as they make 'em."

"Oh yes, I forgot. Well, then, Jim was bad; and I don't know if you call telling the truth abuse."

Lionel, amazed by this self-canonisation, became less Aaron the priest and more Adam the natural man. "You don't call yourself immaculate, surely," he observed sarcastically.

"Ah! I see. Lamp-black or snow-white; grey does not exist. Parsons see the horizon, the doorstep, but no middle distance. Woman is Lucrece or Jezebel, with you. I am neither; but a simple woman, as God made me."

"If you don't believe in evil existing, you can't in good. No devil, no God, Lady James."

"I never knew that the Deity depended upon Satan for his being," said Leah, dryly; "and theology doesn't amuse me--it's cobwebs and spindrift. Talk sense, if you must talk."

Lionel, hoping to lead her by a side-path to further consideration of her spiritual needs, consented to diverge for the moment. "I'll talk money, if you call that sense."

"Of course I do; uncommon sense, as there is so little of it. Money?" She looked at him questioningly.

"Very unnecessary. I know all about the twenty thousand pounds. Jim left it to me, by will."

"What! Thirty thousand pounds?" Then, in answer to a nod, "Oh, you--you must be--be mistaken." Leah was truthfully agitated. Had the golden goose laid two eggs instead of one?

"No; your husband's life was insured, when he was a child, for twenty thousand pounds with profits, at an annual premium. Mr. Jarvey Peel and his executors paid the money to keep the insurance in force----"

"Yes, yes; and the principal was payable to Jim at sixty, or to any one he might leave it to at death, I, as the widow, take all--all--all;" she repeated the word three times, in the purring voice of a cat over cream.

"Exactly," assented the curate, thinking she betrayed over-plainly horse-leech parentage; "and the extra ten thousand is the accumulation of an annual bonus of fifteen pounds on every thousand."

"Quite so. Jim was thirty-five when he died. So three hundred a year for thirty-four years comes to ten thousand."

"Two hundred," supplemented Lady Jim, correcting his arithmetic. "Oh, Lord! Thirty thousand two hundred pounds, and Jim never knew that he was worth his weight in this gold."

"He never inquired, since the money would not come to him till he attained the age of sixty."

"It would have been almost double then," commented the lady, pensively. "What a pity Jim did not live till---- But no; we should have both been old then, and there would have been no fun. I am content with thirty thousand--really I am, Lionel. It doesn't do to be greedy."

"You are not," said the curate, ironically, "else you would have again mentioned the odd hundreds."

Leah made a ball out of the torn handkerchief and tossed it gaily in the air. "That will do for lawyers' costs," said she, airily, "though I hope the bill won't be so extortionate. Thirty thousand pounds!" She sprang up, with dithyrambic utterance, scarcely refraining from a war-dance. "Thirty thousand golden sovereigns! Six thousand lovely, lovely Bank of England notes! Oh, Vanderbilt! Oh----" The sight of her relative's disgusted face curbed her ecstasy: "You think that my exultation over this money is vulgar."

"Heartless, at least, since it is the price of your husband's death. To you, apparently, Jim is more valuable dead than alive."

"I entirely agree with you," confessed Leah, candidly; then added with impatient anger, "Do you expect me to tell you lies?"

"That remark is too clever to be original, my dear man. How impossible you are! I wear mourning and cry at the right time, and say things I don't believe about Jim to his father and the rest of them; while to you, who blame me for behaving decently outside, I speak as I feel, only to be condemned. What do you expect?"

"To see you exhibit some real grief," said Lionel, who was really angered by her callous behaviour. "You show more genuine emotion over this miserable money than over poor Jim."

"Then he must have revealed a side of his nature to you which he never showed to me," snapped Leah, sharply. "Foh! what's the use of acting to empty benches? Go downstairs if you want an audience. We are behind the scenes here."

"If I were, the sal volatile yon recommend would be needed, I can tell you. Being a parson you will not understand; being a man, you cannot. Womanly! womanly!--does that imply cant and shams? Am I to mourn with spurious lamentations that selfish profligate, who would have broken my heart had he ever possessed it? To be womanly is to excuse a man's faults, to lie down and be trodden upon, to condone unfaithfulness, and to be grateful for the shreds and patches of an egotistic life. Never! never!" Her lips twisted scornfully, her nostrils dilated, and she clenched her hands to restrain an outburst of that wrath which had consumed her during five years of holy matrimony. Lionel, astonished by her sudden transition from gay to grave, forbore interruption, and she declaimed her marital wrongs in a Boadicean vein. "I have read in that Bible of yours of the casting of pearls before swine. Jim was a Gadarene pig, who would have rent me had I loved him, as I admit a wife should love her husband. My coldness, and what you consider my selfishness, was my sole safeguard against ruin and sorrow and outrage. You know that I speak the truth--I defy you to say otherwise. Jim! oh, Jim," she laughed unpleasantly; "Jim--that rag doll of his family, who is placed on a pedestal and worshipped, as though he were the golden idol he never was and never could be! I respect the Duke much more than I ever respected my husband, for he is genuinely blind to Jim's faults and mourns honestly. But you--you, who knew the man, and rebuked the man--oh, it would be amusing were it not so shameful."

Her bosom heaved as she hurled this speech at him, with gibe and jeer and ironic laughter. "I thank God that the man is out of my life," was her passionate cry. "Yes--I thank God."

"That depends upon belief. The science which treats of God, and of man's duty to God, cannot be understood by you, who have neither hope nor faith."

"And why--according to your lights? Because I do not put up Jim as a pig-idol, to worship with crocodile tears?"

She silenced Kaimes for the moment, as there was much truth in her overstated contention. No decent woman could have loved or honoured the dead man; and this outspoken condemnation, provable in the main, was assuredly more honest than pretended laudation and sham sorrow would have been. Yet the merciless indictment jarred on Lionel's sense of propriety, righteous as he knew it to be.

Leah held her peace. It annoyed the ordinarily self-possessed woman, that for one fierce moment emotion should have overleaped judgment. Reining in her passions, she relapsed into the sober jog-trot necessary on the rutted road of conventionality. But Lionel's final speech provoked a laugh. Would his laudation of the dead, she wondered, change to criticism of the living, did he learn the truth? Feminine desire for the last word would have blurted out this final argument, but that an innate masculine discretion recommended silence. Therefore did she compromise with the laugh, which Lionel, misunderstanding, resented with the warmth of a generous nature.

Following his own line of thought, the curate did not traverse this statement. "A woman can make of a man what she pleases."

"No," said Leah, decisively. "I would not say so to every one, but I do to you, out of respect for your character."

"I am both flattered and grieved. Be lenient, Lady James. Are you so good yourself, that you can refuse charity to the dead?"

Leah shrugged her shoulders and crossed her feet. "That's a trifle personal, isn't it?" she asked good-humouredly; "like the rest of this futile conversation. Well, for the first time and the last, I shall pay you the compliment of defending myself. To begin with, my friend, your definition of good and bad depends upon dogma, so we disagree at the outset."

"Oh, I fear we have not the time to begin with Genesis. What is left of poor Jim arrives in charge of M. Demetrius within two hours, and I must prepare myself for the scene there is bound to be. To be brief in my defence, I can safely say that I am better than most women. I never gave Jim the chances he gave me of appearing in the divorce court. I keep my temper, even when most provoked. I don t say nasty things about those who run me down, and always help those I like. I avoid the use of slang and of excessively strong drink. I neither smoke, nor indulge in morphine. I invariably go to church, with half a crown for the plate; and--and--I think that includes all my virtues. What more would you have?"

"And the world's. I might inquire with the Apostles, and I do inquire, with all curiosity, 'Who then can be saved?'"

"Those whose merits do not spring from the ego, as do yours. To you, Lady James, Satan comes in his favourite guise, as an angel of light, and only the Ithuriel spear of the Holy Spirit can unmask him. Virtuous! I grant you are--because you pamper self too much to sacrifice your position and comforts to a love that is willing to lose the world for love alone. Good-tempered!--why not, with a healthy body and an equable nature? That you do not gossip is certainly a point in your favour, although I suspect that this abstinence is again the ego, which does not permit you to be sufficiently interested in others to discuss their affairs. You help those you like--feed them, as it were, with the over-abundant crumbs from your table; in the words of our Lord I can say, 'Do not even the publicans so?' But would you help those you hate, and at a sacrifice?"

"No; though I admit that the temptation is strong. I try to serve God out of love and gratitude."

"Nothing is impossible with God's help, as without it nothing is possible. Listen, Lady James;" and with his soul on fire to raise her from the material to the spiritual, Lionel attempted reasonable argument. For over half an hour did he preach, expound, warn, demonstrate, quote, deduce, persuade; but at the end of thirty-five rapid minutes he found her and himself again at the starting point.

Leah listened critically, and even with interest. Hindered by her limitations from seeing a satisfactory conclusion, she declined the tournament, and retired to watch her opponent tilt at giants which she mistook for windmills. Said the inversely deceived Donna Quixota: "How well you talk, Lionel! Why don't you leave the Church and go in for Parliament?"

The curate shook the cold water of this douche out of his ears, and rose, markedly discouraged. "I cannot make you understand," he said sadly; "only the Holy Spirit can convince you of your need."

"That would be adding sugar to honey, and I feel very contented with my honey. Good health, plenty of money, a tolerable position, and----"

"And you have yet to reckon with God. All these things come from Him, and all He can take away."

"So you think in your insolence of beauty and health. But when you come to die?"

"What is the glory of the rainbow to the colour-blind?" Lionel asked himself, and walked to the door. There he paused to deliver himself of a final warning: "Though you triumph in your own strength, and be at ease in the palace of sin, yet will the reckoning come. The Most High God--IS," and he departed.

CHAPTER XXI

In that chilly hour preceding dawn, under the searching grey eye of earliest morning, the coffin was opened in the presence of Pentland and his family. The likeness between the lawful son and the unlawful, even more apparent in death than in life, startled the woman best prepared to countenance a gross deception. Leah could almost have imagined this waxen, awful face to be that of Jim; and an emotion of genuine fear shook her to the soul she had so deliberately burdened. Moreover, and not without reason, that haunting thought of an assisted death became appallingly obtrusive before these medicated remains. Was Demetrius--was she--guilty of----? Her will fought desperately against the suggested word, and this mental struggle still further compelled the revelation of elemental feelings. Streaming tears, trembling hands, furtive glances, testified to truthful terrors, breaking through calculated pretence. It needed a scornful look from Frith the sceptic, and an amazed stare on the part of Demetrius, to assure her that she beheld a corpse of no importance, save as a substitute for a living double. And even then this ironic inspection of the false seemed but a gruesome masquerade of Jim's lying in state, when his turn really came.

The actuality of her feelings afforded a welcome escape from further harrowings; and she left the room, clinging to the arm of Demetrius, careless whither he led her. The picture gallery was his goal, since its seclusion invited no eavesdroppers, and here he experimented with personally manufactured salts, pungent and rousing. These, it soon appeared, were scarcely needed. Lady Jim, released from the necessity of playing a grim comedy, recovered speedily, and with recuperation came the disposition to flick away the disagreeable.

"But no heroine. Ugh!" she shivered, and huddled in her chair. "I shall dream of that thing for the next year. It was so like Jim. Ugh! ugh! Horrible! horrible!"

"I am in no mood for metaphors. Go away; you will be needed to shut that thing up."

Leah wanting to know, yet, fearing to know, evaded an answer and shirked a question. "Leave me for a time," she entreated.

"Cannot you wait till after the funeral?" she said crossly. "It will look so strange, your remaining here with me."

"Ah, but no, madame. To those who might speak I am but your doctor, who has brought you here to recover yourself."

She yielded, not being yet her old fighting self after the soul-shaking. It was dangerous to enter upon a contest with flawed armour, so she temporised. It would be best, she decided, to hear his story, without committing herself to comments. Later, when her nerves were steady, she could answer more cautiously the question he was about to ask at an inopportune moment. Her wary nature declined a consideration of marriage arrangements, to the extent of fixing a date for a ceremony in which she did not intend to take part. Still, he could plead, and she could, and would, procrastinate; therefore would the victory be with her when this unprepared interview ended.

"Talk on," she said languidly; then added, with a spite created by shattered nerves, "though I think it very disagreeable of you, to make me look on that horrid dead thing."

Demetrius was tolerant of feminine irrelevance. "Madame, to avert possible suspicion, it was necessary."

"Undoubtedly it was necessary," admitted self-contradicting woman. "But--what a risk!"

"I know nothing about cats, but the faces of the dead certainly vary, M. Demetrius. And dangers cannot be explained away by proverbs."

The plural struck disagreeably on Leah's ear, and reminded her somewhat pointedly of the readjusted relations between herself and the doctor. "We are now safe," she echoed, with reproving emphasis.

"Assuredly," responded Demetrius, wilfully blind. "Monseigneur has been completely deceived; also M. le Marquis and Madame his wife; while your tears, my dear friend, have washed away any possible doubts which, for my part, I do not believe existed."

Again she was faced by positive circumstances, for the Russian's last words hinted a sarcasm which annoyed her. It might be that, with still quivering nerves, she looked too anxiously for causes of offence, but the familiar ease of his manner was unpalatable. A second implied rebuke would avail as little as had the first, and Leah, mindful of her dignity, abstained from indicating in words the Rubicon he was not to cross. Demetrius knew overmuch for her to speak authoritatively, so it was necessary to permit him the odious intimacy of an accomplice. But he should pay hereafter for his usurpation of such a position: that she vowed inwardly, even while smiling on his success. Smiling was possible now, as the prospect of an inevitable verbal duel braced her to abnormal self-control.

"Sit down," she commanded abruptly. "I have yet to learn details of your scheme."

"You flatter me, M. Demetrius, since I cannot take credit for your clever inventions."

"Can you not grasp the fact that I am a widow? When I have a husband," she smiled meaningly, "do you think he will sanction Mr. Berring rowing in the boat you mention?"

Suspicious people are the easiest to gull, and the smile, rather than the words, changed the gloomy doubter into a confiding child. Her enforced diplomacy was gaining her ground already. "My angel! you mean----"

Leah cleverly shortened a possible rhapsody. "Of course I do. Ah!" with a sentimental sigh; "what have I done to be so doubted?"

"Hush!" she raised an admonitory finger to check dithyrambic wooings at an untoward moment. "We are yet in the wood."

"Out of it, while here--yes, here, where you so sweetly promised we should become one;" his voice sank tenderly.

"As you will, Constantine. I can deny you few things, after what you have done."

Lady Jim displayed impatience at this headlong haste. "We are not in Verona, nor will your age permit you to play Romeo to a Juliet of my temperament. When my husband's body is buried"--she laughed consciously--"and my months of mourning are ended, then--well, then--ah, be patient, Constantine."

"If it is any satisfaction;" and she gave him her hand to mumble, ruminating meanwhile on this shrinking of giant to dwarf. The unendurable lasted half a minute; then, "Be sensible, M. Demetrius."

"Oh!" The ejaculation was careless, but the instinct was to box a dullard's ears. "Business before pleasure, M. Demetrius."

"M. Demetrius," she repeated inflexibly. "We are to marry, well and good; but beforehand, I must understand my position as a Russian princess."

The pessimism of the Slav asserted itself in renewed doubts. "I am a simple doctor, madame."

"Very simple, if you imagine--but that can be discussed later. Come," cajolingly to a hesitating and sullen being, "an account of your adventures must prove amusing. Cheer me up for the funeral."

This extraordinary conclusion staggered a man not easily moved to amazement. "Mon Dieu!" Then in English: "You were weeping some minutes ago, madame."

"And I may be weeping some minutes later," she retorted, suppressing rising irritation. "I ask explanations rather than give them. Tell me how you managed."

Shrugging away a question relative to female weathercocks, Demetrius reluctantly obeyed. He desired love-talk, and she hard facts; but naturally her subject forced his subject out of sight. Man being romantic, and woman practical, the latter invariably clips the former's wings, lest he should soar beyond the necessities of her hour. Moreover, his pinions rendered useless, Demetrius could not dispute common-sense views. Thus, dexterously managed, did he yield to a puppet, Fate, the strings of which were pulled by obstinacy and selfishness, blended into what Leah called firmness. She was an adept at ticketing her vices virtues.

"That poor Garth"--the doctor mentioned his late patient thus endearingly throughout the narrative--"died of consumption."

"Of consumption?" Leah put the question she had been shirking for so long with nervous emphasis, and with short, indrawn breaths.

"I know--I know! Do not put it into words," she fiddled with her handkerchief, looking up, down, everywhere except at her companion. "Did he suffer much?" was her inquiring whisper.

"Not at all; he died in his sleep. Pray do not alarm yourself, madame; the release was a happy and an easy one."

"I am so glad--so relieved," murmured Lady Jim, seeing the spectre which had long haunted her pillow dissolve into thin air. "You see, I thought--that is, I fancied----" she hesitated, and passed her tongue over dry lips.

"The need did not arise," explained the doctor, answering somewhat contemptuously her unspoken fears; "although I was prepared to---- No, do not shudder; there is no blood on my hands, nor on yours. We can marry in peace."

The doubly false prophecy of the last sentence provoked her into ignoring the entire speech. "Go on--please go on. Garth died a natural death at Funchal. Well?"

"Is yet to come, if you will accord me a hearing;" whereupon, accepting an impatient permission, Demetrius slipped into the undramatic--literally so, for he avoided oratorical snares, the high colouring of superlatives, and the temptation to dilate on obviously sensational moments. He might have been reciting the alphabet, so dry was his deliver of an advisedly barren tale.

One Richard Strange, mariner--so commenced the sober Odyssey--owned and captained a sea-gipsy, prowling on ocean highways and in harbour byways for the picking up of chance cargoes. As an instinctive buccaneer, ostensibly law-abiding, he lent himself and his tramp-steamer to whatever nefarious proposals promised the acquisition of money at slight risks. Thus fitted for the Russian's requirements, secret instructions brought him to anchor in Funchal Bay. With him sailed, for possible restoration to health, a consumptive nephew, Herne by name, also a factor in an admirably conceived scheme.

"The dead was necessary for the living, and the dead for the dead," said Demetrius, paradoxically.

"The body of that poor Garth had to be buried in Madeira, madame; yet, being wanted here, to pass as the corpse of your husband, it was necessary to arrange for a substitute."

Demetrius assented and proceeded. With his two patients the doctor lodged at a second-rate hotel, not a stone's-throw from the shore. In due time Herne died, and Demetrius, at once transferring the body to Garth's bedroom, induced the surviving consumptive to board the Stormy Petrel,--so the sea-gipsy was named--for the purpose of informing its skipper of his relative's death. Strange, previously advised, detained the young man, and Demetrius proceeded to bury Herne under the prisoner's name.

"An easier task than you would think, madame," he explained; "for the Portuguese landlord confused the names of my patients, owing to his ignorance of their language."

"But scarcely of their appearance, I should think," observed Lady Jim, shrewdly.

Demetrius shrugged away the objection. "I cannot say that the landlord had studied Lavater. To his uninformed eye, two fair young Englishmen were much alike; and consumption, madame, begets a family likeness in those it afflicts. I assure you that this Portuguese was as satisfied that my poor Garth had died, as is Monseigneur convinced that his son lies in the coffin we inspected."

Leah shuddered for the twentieth time at the mental picture evoked. "Ugh! What then?"

The doctor informed her placidly. As Garth, under a tombstone suitably inscribed, the skipper's nephew was buried--the very fact that he had existed thus being blotted out by a chiselled lie. Then did the sea-tramp loaf--the word is appropriate--over-seas to Jamaica at a slow ten knots an hour; with bad luck it would seem to one passenger, at least.

"That poor Garth--ah yes; as a child did he fall asleep, to waken----" Demetrius spread his hands, at a loss to supply further information. His ideas of a future state were vague.

With an admirably embalmed body on board, the disreputable craft of Captain Strange slipped her anchors in Kingston Harbour; but no half-masted ensign intimated her lugubrious cargo. Lord James Kaimes, forewarned by a cypher letter, rowed out to inspect an eidolon of himself, as he would one day appear. His nerves being shaken by enforced invalidism, he did not appreciate the sight. Also, the medicines of Demetrius, given to induce counterfeit consumption and lean, sallow looks, made him fear lest this rascally comedy should deepen into a real tragedy for himself. Those in Kingston with whom he had made acquaintance were not surprised when Demetrius took him eastward to the famous Blue Mountains, in the hope that the healing air would mend his lungs; nor did any one manifest astonishment when, after a discreet period, news came of his death. Perhaps, if these sympathisers had seen one James Berring sneak on board the Stormy Petrel, and had beheld that ship rolling south to Buenos Ayres, they would have expended less pity on his untimely decease. As it was, while Jim foregathered with the skipper--a man after his own buccaneering heart--former acquaintances, Government officials, and local doctors were complimenting Demetrius on the clever way in which he had embalmed the late James Kaimes' body, with such few scientific appliances as could be at hand in the Blue Mountains.

Leah rose, lest her mind's eye should conceive too vivid a picture. "I shall always see it," she murmured, with loathing. "Ugh! What a fool I am--what a fool!"

"It has already lasted too long," she rejoined. "Lord Frith----" Here she stopped, too discreet to repeat club gossip, which might strengthen still more the already strong position of Demetrius.

"Sentiment and business mix about as well as snow and fire," snapped Leah, yet ridden by a nightmare memory of that dead face; "but this sailor whose nephew you borrowed?"

"One cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs," said Demetrius, in dry tones; "it would be well not to vex my friend Strange."

"This letter from your late husband;" and Demetrius handed over an envelope directed in Jim's sprawling hand, and sealed with Jim's ancestral coat of arms.

"Fool!" was Leah's comment on this carelessness. "Doesn't he know he is dead, and is about to be buried?" She thrust the letter hastily into her pocket and was about to hurry away, when she caught a glimpse of the Russian's darkening face. She paused wisely, to dismiss him with a compliment. "You have managed splendidly, M. Demetrius."

"Yes--no--that is--oh, don't bother;" Lady Jim snatched away the hand he had captured. "You foreigners never learn sense."

"I am--if you are clever enough to learn the lesson. See as little of me as possible, and don't speak to me at all. When Jim--that is, when Garth--is buried, we shall see."

"They will be answered," said Demetrius, very distinctly, "before the altar of any church you may select."

A remembrance of his capacity for being dangerous, and an anxious survey of his narrowing eyes, made her deceptive. She diplomatically employed feminine strategy, against which no man living can man[oe]uvre. "You doubt me, Constantine," whispered the she-Judas, with trembling tenderness; "will not this----?" She bent forward to drop a butterfly kiss on his forehead, and left him dazed, in the seventh and most exalted Paradise of Fools.

"Faugh!" said Lady Jim, when shut up in her own room. There she read the communication from her legally deceased husband. It narrated a story similar to that detailed by Demetrius, but scarcely so concisely. Mr. Berring showed a disposition to ramble, and his excursions ended on every occasion in a command to send half the insurance money at once--the last two words being aggressively underlined. He was in the best of health, on his way to Buenos Ayres; thence would travel to Rosario--"where that woman lives," commented Leah, tearing off the address and carefully burning Jim's maunderings. "Half the money--eh? Fifteen thousand pounds! I think not, Mr. Berring. That captain, too, with his absurd charge, and after all my trouble! I wonder Demetrius does not claim his share, also."

It would have been cheaper had he done so, since she possessed the money and he intended to possess her. But he would refuse a cheque and claim her hand, as she reflected with impotent rage. What a pity she could not pay him off, and, along with Jim and Strange, dismiss him into Limbo! She did not exactly know what Limbo was, or where it was, save that once there these people could not bother her. But with all the will in the world she could not get out of the apparent cul-de-sac she had walked into.

"Demetrius wants me, and these other beasts my money," she raged inwardly. "What a mean advantage they all take! Pigs! As though I worked for nothing. What is to be done? What--what?"

This question was difficult to answer. Jim she could bamboozle with a small sum, since he could not well betray her without laying himself open to a charge of conspiracy. But the Russian and the skipper, both adventurers of the most reckless type, would assuredly demand their wages. "I shall have to pay that captain," she decided regretfully; "but Demetrius--insolent little creature!--he shall go to Siberia, even if I have to kiss him again. Faugh!"

Then she descended to tell the Duke how the sight of poor dear Jim's face had broken her up entirely. Yet people said that Leah Kaimes had no sense of humour.

CHAPTER XXII

A sociable undertaker, lacking the indispensable humour of his brethren, bitterly complained that he rarely inquired after a friend's health without being suspected of business motives. Ex-lieutenant Harry Askew found himself in a similar predicament, since his desire to marry a widow precluded him from offering sympathy. That he should personally, or by letter, deplore the necessity of crape caps, would suggest waning affection; while a congratulatory address laid him open to the charge--which this especial widow would certainly make--of unseemly dancing on a newly-made grave. With laboured wisdom Askew dropped between the horns of this dilemma. Paying no visit, writing no letter, he compromised by leaving a card. In this dexterous avoidance of impalement Lady Jim read the untold story of his perplexity, and smiled at the diplomatic evasion.

There being an exception to every rule, the absence which should have made the Askew heart grow fonder produced an opposite effect. Debarred from the temple of his goddess, he began to ask himself why he worshipped, and thereby dug the grave of illicit passion. That such was now permissible, and even praiseworthy, considering its consolatory results, only made him a more ardent sexton. The votaries of Eros can begarland themselves with roses, but Hymen's celebrants wear chains of approved legal pattern. Was the cultus of the matrimonial god worth such encumbrances? Thus Askew inquired of his own pampered self, and, not knowing exactly what his selfishness desired, obtained but a doubtful response. What else could he expect? Two-faced Janus is the true god of oracles.

Lady Jim was witty, beautiful, chaste and brilliant--admirable qualities in a woman, but in a wife, unless informed with love, rather unattractive. Askew doubted if a composite mate of this glittering, unwarmed sort would satisfy his somewhat exacting requirements. Accepting too readily the world's definition, what he and it called love was actually selfishness, masquerading. He fancied, and with much reason, that Leah, openly devoted to herself, would not show devotion to him: that is, she being selfish, and he ditto, genuine happiness would not and could not spring from this union of like and like. Moreover, he ignorantly loved--in the world's sense--through his eyes, and with his lower nature; so it was probable that the legal possession of irresponsive beauty would pall. To limit a butterfly to one rose would bore the butterfly, and if the rose were sentient, she also might feel weary. In this way, and from surface feelings, argued Askew; but natural limitations prevented comprehension of the true reason which disinclined him to prosecute his now legal and therefore uninteresting wooing.

He was a better man than he knew, and this he would have known, had he paid heed to the intimations of his higher self, when it occasionally overcame the lower. When the god within overtopped the brute, he had beheld not so clearly the body as the soul of Lola Fajardo, and had, for one swift moment, recognised that conjunction with the spirit would best promote his happiness. A genuine marriage must be spiritual, and it is the souls, whom God hath joined, which man is forbidden to put asunder. Askew's introspective self knew that his allotted wife on this physical plane was Lola, and that to her alone should love be given. But the lust of the eye demanded Leah Kaimes' beauty, and feigned a spurious passion to gain possession. Absence from Lady Jim made him aware that he did not actually love her, and a feeble struggle of the soul bound in chains of selfishness revealed that he would do well to seek Lola once more. Hence came the war between light and darkness, wherein the light so far triumphed that the young man sought Curzon Street with more self-control than was desirable in an admitted lover--one, be it known, of the worldly, material type only. And may all such, for the well-being of the race, be anathema maranatha!

"At the eleventh and less necessary hour. Besides----" She looked meaningly towards the window-seat, where a flushed and smiling Katinka adored with timid conversation and eloquent eyes a rather sour Demetrius. "Will you have a cup of tea?"

"Thank you," and they moved towards the bamboo table, whence she had risen to whisper her greeting at the door.

Advisedly it would seem, since she cast a rapid and satisfied glance at the doctor's lowering face. The set mouth, the narrowing eyes, hard as jade, betokened jealous rebuke of Leah's condescending to meet the newcomer as royalty should be met. Reading this index of a mind ill at ease, Lady Jim resumed her seat, tacitly pleased. She had an end to gain, and this over-attention to Askew meant the beginning of plots.

It was over a month since the supposed Jim Kaimes had been packed away in the family vault, and his widow enjoyed the fruits of her labours. Dr. Demetrius, looking upon the thirty thousand pounds as purchase money, wished to possess the woman he had thus bought, and objected to other customers eying his bargain. Hence his jealousy discerned a rival in Askew, and Lady Jim--aware of this clear-sightedness--was content that he should so discern. She could neither cajole nor reason Demetrius into trusting himself in Paris: but the desired result might be brought about by utilising green-eyed jealousy. The unexpected meeting of the rivals afforded her an eagerly seized chance of putting fire to powder. The possible explosion, she hoped, would blow Demetrius into Siberian wilds. Thus, playing with amorous fire, she hastened to heap on lavish fuel.

"I am seeing a few friends now," said Lady Jim, ministering to her visitors' five-o'clock wants. "Mademoiselle Aksakoff and Dr. Demetrius--you know both, I believe. Lady Richardson may look in later; also----" Here she checked her tongue. Aksakoff was due in half an hour; but it would not do to advise Demetrius of that. The chances were that Katinka, aware of the intended visit, would carry off the doctor early. Lady Jim devoutly wished that she would. Her drawing-room was no stage for melodrama.

"Also her son, Sir Billy. Have you met him? Of course! Monte Carlo! I remember. Isn't he charming--a D'Orsay of the cradle, Brummel in embryo? I have a mind to marry him, as a pocket-husband."

Leah looked at him suddenly and understood. This man had risen from his knees, and the chances were--going by experience--that he would stroll away. She did not intend to permit that, since he was necessary to her schemes. Until Demetrius was safely bestowed in Siberia he would have to be flattered and coerced and ensnared into remaining. Then he could go and welcome. With freedom and money she wanted no encumbrances. And it vexes a woman to have a man more earnest than herself hanging round her skirts. However, this was not the time for plain speaking, and she answered in this Thalian vein.

The smiles of Leah, the attitude of Askew, the sibilant indistinct voices of both, goaded Demetrius. He all but interrupted the tea-table conference. But since Lady Jim wished to be a princess--she had conveyed that idea clearly--and as Katinka's aid was necessary to the recovering of his birthright, he dared not to offend the girl. Jealous himself, Demetrius knew how easy it would be to arouse the doubts of another--especially of a woman. He therefore remained seated and waited developments, while Katinka chatted earnestly.

She disagreed, hurriedly. "You are wrong. My father is willing, but your enemies are not."

Katinka nodded and proceeded with explanations. "He has, as you know, much influence with the Czar."

That would be used on your behalf, if----" She paused, coloured, and cast down her eyes.

Thin ice indeed, but Demetrius skated extremely well. "Mademoiselle," said he, gravely, "I cut myself off from my princely family, and surrendered wealth that I might work in the cause of humanity. To assist a brother worker did I risk exile, with the result you behold. Why, then, should I demand a sacrifice on your part, to restore that which I personally do not regret?"

"Believe me, my friend, it would mean no sacrifice. You hinted when last we met that you were prepared to consider the proposition of resuming your rank."

"I did--contingent on certain events happening," replied Demetrius, thinking that if Lady Jim insisted upon being a princess of the drawing-rooms, he would be forced to yield; "but we can talk of this in a--well, in a few months. There is no hurry!" recalling the necessary period of mourning. "No, there is no hurry!" He paused, then questioned suddenly, "You love Paul Petrovitch?"

"It is a case of diamond cut diamond," explained Katinka, with the indifference of a woman to all other honour, save that of the man she loves. "Paul Petrovitch wishes to marry me. If I agree, he will induce the Czar to reinstate you in your possessions. When you have made your peace at St. Petersburg, I could refuse to---- Oh!" she broke off with a confused laugh, "do not look shocked, M. Demetrius. I but trick him, as he is prepared to trick me."

"I am far from being shocked," denied the liberal-minded doctor; "to prevent being bitten, we must bite. But the possible sacrifice----"

"Lies in lending myself to such a trick. I make it for you--for you; yes, do you not understand?"

"I think you are," she breathed tenderly. "Will you not permit me to prove my belief?"

"I shall be honoured, if--in a few months--the time is scarcely ripe for me to move; and you will understand. In short, when things are different--your noble offer--we can discuss it later. Believe me"--he thrilled her with a light touch--"I comprehend the nobility of your nature. Ah, my friend, do not press me to take advantage of so glorious a sacrifice."

So stammered Demetrius, his confusion being worse confounded, and wrapping up refusal in evasive words, meaningless if sugared. Katinka sighed. Always she pressed her mediatory offer, and always she declined acceptance. Angry that the proffered gift should be flung back in her face, she suddenly felt a sense of outrage at his persistent quibbling. This man must see that she loved him; yet he trifled with her too obvious passion. There was Lady Jim, of course, in spite of Lady Jim's readjustment of the situation at Monte Carlo. Yet, could he, could any man, love this chilly, self-centered Englishwoman? No! As she knew, Demetrius demanded love for love, and he certainly would not give all to Lady Jim without receiving back in kind. Therefore he did not love the woman; therefore he was heart-whole; and being so, why should he not yield to one who was ready to suffer all for his sake? She could not understand; but this she knew--that her self-respect rebelled.

And at the moment, that feeling, swallowing up all others, impelled her to walk away, without even a backward glance. But she remained where she was, since her adoration for this unresponsive god amounted to monomania. She hated to cringe, to cast down her womanly dignity; but she was forced to do so. Passion proved stronger than self-respect, than natural shame, than maiden pride. Enthralled by Venus, as had been Helen of Troy, she was forced to grovel at the feet of this--as she suspected--ignoble Paris. Would he never smile? Would he never unbend? She could not say; she did not know. All she felt was pure unhappiness, and she could have cursed the power which trammelled her in these nets of undesired love. The gods were sporting, and Olympus shook with laughter at her mortal sorrow.

Demetrius was self-seeking, yet possessed human feelings, and of these shame was uppermost. The vein of divinity which streaked his clay made him acknowledge that he was using hardly this flouted worshipper. Outwardly at least, and with an impetuosity alien to his calculating character, he wished to make amends.

"There is no need," she replied coldly, and crossed to the tea-table. "You will excuse my departure, Lady James. I have an engagement, Mr. Askew!" She bowed, and then went silently out of the room.

"Do you follow, doctor?" asked Lady Jim, stepping with him to the scarcely closed door.

He did not reply directly, but glanced across her shoulder towards the yawning lieutenant. "Remember," he breathed significantly, and in his turn departed.

Leah wondered that the feelings which had evoked the word should not have kept him watchful of her pretty play, and confessed herself puzzled by his abrupt following of Katinka's trail. But having, as she knew, aroused his jealousy, there was no need to consider meanings which would not affect her schemes. Aksakoff was due, and before he appeared it was necessary to teach Askew the rôle of cat's-paw. He was to decoy Demetrius to Paris, but of course, she did not mean him to be aware of his ignoble duties. She returned to rebuke him for yawning and to propose a remedy.

"What you need is change of scene, if not of society. Now there is Paris, which you probably know well."

"What a neglected education! I must teach you Paris. Will you be ready for your first lesson early next week?"

Lady Jim nodded laughingly. "Which proves that 'our future' is now split into 'your future' and 'my future.'"

Lady Jim curled her lip contemptuously. "You men need so much explanation," said she; then, meaningly, "I can still retain you as a friend, I hope."

"What do you--that is--on what grounds----? You do not comprehend!" He stuttered, grew red, and writhed over the fire on which she was grilling him, with much enjoyment to herself.

"And no truth either, when you make such a statement!" With a light laugh she recalled his fierce wooing: "you would not attempt to break my wrists now."

Leah clapped her hands gaily. "How very badly you do it! Do not go on the stage, I beg of you. Well!" she kissed her hand to him, "adieu! I hope she will be happy."

"There is no----" He caught her derisive eyes, and broke down with an uneasy laugh. "I suppose we have made a mistake."

"Ah!" His pride was wounded by the implied indifference. "Then you knew it would come to this?"

"Of course, because I did not choose that it should end otherwise. If I had chosen, you would still have been----" She glanced smilingly at her slim feet, then handled the teapot with ostentatious liveliness. "You can have some cold tea, if you like."

As Askew had intended to drop her, the idea that she was dropping him--and very readily, too--was wounding to his vanity. "You never loved me," he declared.

She clasped her hands over her knee, and smiled indulgently at his mortified face. "All the same, you are unwise to explain, so we will change the subject, Mr. Askew."

"Certainly not for that of Askew. Señorita Fajardo may think differently, when you propose."

"How do you know I shall?" he asked sulkily, for every word she uttered fretted his uneasy vanity.

"Because you are a shuttle-cock between two battledores. She sent you flying to me; I shall speed you back to her."

The young man was almost too mortified to speak. "What a light, vain fool you make me out to be!"

"No. You are merely a man in the hands of two women--clay in the hands of accomplished potters. Now," she laid a caressing hand on his arm, "promise me to go back to Rosario at once."

"No!" snapped Askew, wincing at the touch, and so gave her the very answer she required.

Her motive in pelting him with hard sentences had been to arouse his vanity to assert itself in aggressive contradiction; and for three reasons. Firstly, she did not wish him to make an inconvenient third in Mr. Berring's wooing of the Spanish lady, lest he should learn much that it was undesirable for him to know. Secondly, she required him as her Parisian decoy-duck. And thirdly, it was out of the question that he should dare to end the flirtation without her leave. A reflection of these things led her to play skilfully on manly conceit, with the aforesaid result. She was satisfied when he replied in the negative. Askew also, since thereby, in his own estimation, he had vindicated virility, and lacked the insight to see himself her puppet. Having gained her end, Lady Jim apparently yielded to the lord-of-creation fiat.

"Well, then, come to Paris with me and Joan Tallentire. We go on Monday to the Hotel Henri Trois, Champs Élysées. You can come on Wednesday."

"Of course; we always bully those we love--as friends, that is. Ah, here is M. Aksakoff. What a surprise!" She rose gracefully and sailed forward with outstretched hand, "So kind of you to come! You know Mr. Askew, I think."

The diplomatist bowed, and seated himself near the table, whereat Askew, devoured by a desire for further confidences, fumed, with depressed eyebrows and twisted mouth. Lady Jim rang for fresh tea, listening meanwhile to Aksakoff discussing the safe subject of the weather. Occasionally she glanced with amusement at her victim, who by this time did not know his own mind, and certainly was incapable of analysing his very complicated feelings. She bewildered him; he was not master of himself in her presence, and alternately quailed and rebelled under her spells. Flight from Circe was his wisest plan.

"To be bored. Naturally; a widow is but dull company. Please do not leave us in the dark. The button is on the right-hand side of the door. No; that is wrong!" She rose and switched on the light herself. "That is better! Don't you think it is? So good of you to come and cheer me!" Then, dropping her voice, "Paris?"

"I shall cross on Wednesday," he murmured; "then we can resume our conversation."

"What pleasure you promise me!" she retorted; and, closing the door, came back to the waiting diplomatist, yawning daintily. "Excuse me, M. Aksakoff: I have just ended a bad quarter of an hour."

"The same. He wants to marry me. Shocking, isn't it, seeing that I scarcely know how to pose as a widow?"

"How nicely you pay compliments! By the way," sliding away from the subject, "your daughter was here. She has gone off somewhere with your friend, M. Demetrius."

Aksakoff frowned. "It is kind of you to enlarge my circle of acquaintance, madame. I presume you desire to speak of this gentleman?"

The diplomatist became unworthy of the name, through sheer irritation. "Can we not drop our masks, madame?"

"I never knew that we wore such things," said Lady Jim, lightly. "I am sure I do not. Why should I?"

Leah placed her elbows on the table, and the tips of her fingers together. "I did, to ask you for some letters to nice people in Paris."

"I shall be delighted;" Aksakoff was now beginning to understand the necessity of reading between the remarks. "But are letters necessary? I hope to be in Paris myself next week."

"How delightful! You will be able to amuse me. Do not look shocked. I assure you I only wish to drown my grief."

"Of course," assented Aksakoff, dryly; then added, with a significance she ignored: "Do you go alone to Paris?"

"Oh, dear me, no. Miss Tallentire goes with me. A charming girl who is engaged to my cousin, the Rev. Lionel Kaimes. We stay for a week at the Hotel Henri Trois, Champs Élysées. Very quietly, you know, as I am still mourning."

"Certainly. You would not have me flaunting colours with poor dear Jim just dead. I want to be cheered up, and I ask you and Mr. Askew to cheer me."

"He said something about it. Such a nuisance, seeing that he thinks--well, I told you."

Aksakoff's patience was almost exhausted. "We spoke at Monte Carlo," he reminded her. "Surely we understand one another."

"Possibly you may. I am quite in the dark. Why should you couple my name with that of M. Demetrius?"

"Oh--report!" She laughed, frankly amused. "If you believe reports----" Here a shrug and a contemptuous laugh. "Why, reports leave no one a shred of character. I quite expect that my enemies--Mrs. Penworthy, for one--will say that Mr. Askew followed me to Paris, for the purpose of marrying me at the British Embassy."

Aksakoff admired her profoundly. Without committing herself in any way or for a single instance, she was placing in his hands the thread of the intrigue. Tacitly acknowledging a diplomatic superior, he followed her lead. "I trust that Mrs. Penworthy, whom I have the honour to know, will not spread such a report," he said gravely.

"Oh, but she will. A horrid woman, and scarcely respectable. She has called in Dr. Demetrius as her medical attendant, and if--as you say--he admires me, she is sure to make mischief."

"Well," said Aksakoff, reflectively, "I am perfectly sure that if M. Demetrius heard such gossip, he would----"

"Forbid the banns," finished Leah, hastily and derisively. "Pah! Do you think, knowing his danger, he would trust himself in Paris? You are entirely wrong, M. Aksakoff. Our mutual friend left me this very afternoon to follow your daughter. Let him marry her--now do."

"No," said Aksakoff, setting down his cup. "Until he surrenders Katinka he is safer in England."

"In that case, please do not let Mrs. Penworthy gossip him into crossing the Channel."

"For your sake, I will not," said Aksakoff, dryly, and with every intention of aiding and abetting Mrs. Penworthy. "Will you give me another cup of tea?"

She supplied him, and their conversation embraced a variety of subjects. No further mention was made of Demetrius, or of Katinka, or of Askew, or even of Paris. They quite understood one another, did these two clever people. When the diplomatist departed he kissed Lady Jim's hand with courtly warmth.

"You are a charming woman, madame--a truly admirable woman; but"--he straightened himself, and looked into her eyes--"I should not like to have you for an enemy."

CHAPTER XXIII

"Oh, it's lovely, lovely, lovely!" sang Joan Tallentire, clapping her hands, and whirling dervish-fashion around the room.

A radiant day or so in Paris had acted on her as sunshine acts on a flower, when the petals expand, the colour deepens, and the perfume exhales. What observer, casual or close, would have recognised in this eager-eyed and sparkling girl the timid companion of Lady Canvey? For weeks she had associated with the octogenarian; many months had she superintended the well-being of pauper hags in Lambeth slums; and in the nursing of an ailing mother many precious years had been expended. No wonder the fire of being burnt low; no marvel that for long the eyes had lacked lustre and the cheeks colour. It was truly a case of the old eating the young--stealing by contact, as it were, the vitality of youth to reanimate waning life.

Now Lady Jim, playing fairy-godmother, had transformed this Cinderella, and the grub of Lambeth soared a splendid dragon-fly. The spring, long delayed in its coming, sang in her veins. With stimulating company, amidst novel surroundings, and with tempting food for satisfying physical and moral appetites, came the renascent period. Joan felt the burden of artificial years slip from her shoulders; her quick blood, responding to its environments, rose to fever heat. One cloud alone necked the sunshine of pleasure's dawn.

"A Pagan in the temple, a Jew in the church," said Lady Jim, shrugging. "My dear, Paris was invented for clergymen to rail at, not to enjoy."

"Magic-lanterns and penny readings. I fear Paris cannot supply those dissipations. You can enjoy them under the honeymoon. Meanwhile Mr. Askew is less exacting and more amusing."

Joan pursed up her pretty lips and wrinkled a smooth brow. "I don't understand that," said she, meditatively.

"I could give you fifty reasons, but three will do. You are good and kind and healthy-minded to excess--an angel, whose white wings flutter above the mire in which we bipeds grovel. Quite the wife for our unsophisticated padre. St. Sebastian and St. Cecilia--surely a marriage arranged in heaven."

Miss Tallentire could not quite follow Leah's flights--not an infrequent occurrence. Nevertheless, her intuition espied a compliment.

"As I rarely mean anything. Let me be candid for once, since we converse in the nursery, and say that I respect Lionel and I respect you."

Leah touched her breast with eight finger-tips. "From----" Then in response to an answering blush: "My dear, I love no one but myself."

"Merely the desire for a new sensation. I assure you, as Lionel assured me, that all my virtues spring from the Ego."

"I don't think you are selfish," persisted Joan; "if you really and truly were, you would not say so."

"Oh, but I should; that is my refined form of self-love. When I cry aloud my imperfections, I receive some such compliment as you have paid. Then little god Ego, sitting within my breast, sniffs up the incense."

"And to be given nice things, such as---- Well, I expect Lionel, in spite of clerical propriety, can explain better than I, and," added Lady Jim, mischievously, "in dumb show. My dear, your Ego is shaped like a good young padre; you are merged in Lionel--swallowed up, as some one's rod swallowed up some one else's. I suppose now"--Leah nursed her knees with clasped hands--"I suppose when you marry St. Sebastian, you will be wildly happy in a dull country rectory, wearing twice-turned gowns and last year's hats, and fussing after old women and grubby village urchins, with your husband's sermons for relaxation when penny readings pall."

"Quite happy," assented Joan, laughing at the over-coloured picture--"with Lionel, of course."

"As I say: your Ego is his Ego. Dear!" and Lady Jim dropped two impulsive kisses on her companion's cheeks. Joan wondered at this uninvited display of affection, and wondered still more when Leah turned away with a somewhat bitter laugh. Perhaps, had she guessed the truth, her sympathy would have extended to this woman, whom self-love isolated from humanity.

It pleased Leah to pose as this simple maid's providence, and on the whole she sustained her deity excellently. Many a time did she check her free-spoken and sharp tongue, lest Joan should feel hurt, or become precociously enlightened about those sins which are dubbed idiosyncrasies in society. The amusements provided were primitive and commonplace, as befitted the retirement of a newly made widow and uncultured débutante tastes. Drives in the Bois; visits to the Louvre, to Versailles, to Notre Dame--on the tail of Hugo's romance--to Père Lachaise; many inspections of many delightful shops, one concert at least, and the exploration of places which had to do with the picturesque history of France filtered through Baedeker and Murray. Leah, unused to bread and milk, thought the majority of these outings insipid; but Joan enjoyed them immensely, and wondered at Continental dissipation. Her ignorance credited Leah with loving, and invariably leading, this Cook's-tourist life when abroad; and that lady laughed frequently, in the seclusion of her bedroom, at the idea of being limited to nursery geography. Nevertheless, she did not undeceive her ingénue; the bloom, if she could prevent it, should not be brushed too early from this peach. Which reticence and determination showed that Lady Jim had in her some soul of that goodness which lives in things evil.

Askew duly arrived forty-eight hours later, so that his meeting with Leah might appear unexpected. He called daily at the Hotel Henri Trois, and on a hint from Lady Jim devoted attention to Joan the maid. Leah herself philandered in a business-like way with M. Aksakoff, who, strange to say, followed Askew's trail on important business. Lady Jim enjoyed many interesting conversations with him, dealing with a quiet obliteration of Demetrius, if he should by any chance walk into the trap. Joan and her cavalier, good surface readers, did not guess at the elements working below, and so danced unsuspectingly on a volcano. The fickle sailor was now lukewarm in his affections, and, as Leah purposed dropping him gradually as soon as Demetrius was on his way to Siberia, she was not ill pleased to watch red-hot passion cool to ashen-grey friendship. Certainly it still remained to withhold him from seeking a foreign wife over-seas, but she postponed schemes of prevention pending the disposal of immediate troubles. Sometimes it occurred to her that Askew, a man of tow like all sailors, might catch fire from contact with Joan; but, player as she was with the hearts and brains of men, she cherished sufficient friendship for Lionel to forgo a possible spoiling of his sober romance. There was little danger that Miss Tallentire would exchange Church for Navy, but that the juxtaposition of an artless maid and an inflammable bachelor might not breed fickleness, Lady Jim wrote a letter. "Why not come over and escort us back to town?" ran this epistle. "Also, in Paris you will assuredly find material for a sermon on the wickedness of that great city Nineveh,--I believe you parsons give Western towns Eastern names, when you wish to abuse them--to avoid libel actions, maybe." Then followed the mention of the rope to drag this clerical lover across Channel. "Do come, if only to see how Joan enjoys the society of Mr. Askew."

The expected happened on the fifth day of Lady Jim's sojourn in Paris, when, shortly after noon, Demetrius, obviously disordered in dress and mind, presented himself in the character of a bolt from the blue. Luckily, Askew was translating to Joan the Luxor hieroglyphics in the vicinity of the Place de la Concorde Obelisk, so that she had an hour to explain away the rumours which had undoubtedly brought him over. When the sitting-room door clicked behind him--he facing her with black looks--she drew a deep breath to brace for the fight, and heard, what he did not, the snick of prison bolts shot home. So far, lured by the will-o'-the-wisp, jealousy, he had followed recklessly the dangerous path; now it remained for her to conduct him to the precipice, over which she and Aksakoff intended he should be thrown. A trifle of acting was necessary to reassure the venturesome and perhaps suspicious traveller.

"Not Constantine, then." He panted like a spent runner, and his face twisted in a wry smile.

Demetrius dropped heavily into the nearest chair, and sent angry, inquiring glances into every corner. "Where is he?"

"I know nothing, save that you are foolish to venture into Paris, where there is a price on your head. M. Aksakoff is here, too; if he knew--if he guessed."

"Yet they must be strong ones in the present instance, to make you enter the bear's den."

"I have one reason for my venture, madame--you; and another--Mr. Askew; not to speak of a third--this marriage at your Embassy."

"I can understand the first; the second may be explained by wholly unnecessary jealousy; but the final one--this marriage you speak of?"

Lady Jim stared, then laughed good-humouredly. "My dear Constantine, the idea is too ridiculous."

"Which is the last authority you should believe. Mr. Askew is certainly here; but not, I believe, in the character of a bridegroom."

"You yourself have denied the truth of it twice. Mr. Askew at this moment dances round Miss Tallentire's skirts. Would I permit that, if----? Oh, ridiculous! You men swallow camels."

Her dupe rose to pace the room, and to pour out the anger of many brooding hours. "It is not true--ah, if I could only be sure of that. This woman--this Mrs. Penworthy--she swore--swore--that you--that you----" He choked, flung himself headlong to where she smiled contemptuous, and seized her hands vehemently. "Swear that it is false!" He dropped on his knees, almost tearful.

"I do swear," rejoined Leah, disengaging her wrists. "You can take Mr. Askew back to London if you like. He is engaged to marry a lady in South America. There is nothing between us--nothing. A flirtation, yes; banter and pretty smiles, idle nothings and surface conversations." She smoothed back his hair and smiled playfully. "Am I marrying Othello?"

"In your eyes, no doubt. Mr. Askew prefers brunettes south of the Equator. But!"--she rose suddenly, as though she spurned him--but "I prefer trust. I am angry--yes, very angry. Oh, that you should doubt me--doubt me!" Her tragic assertion was admirable.

"Your presence here proves otherwise. Mr. Askew, indeed--a general lover, a volatile sailor with a wife in every port for all I know. Can you not credit me with more exclusive tastes?"

"He is handsome," muttered the still suspicious doctor, and rose, brushing his knees mechanically.

"Is he? So you think I am to be won by looks, like a schoolmiss in her teens;" she looked at his sharp white face, and laughed cruelly. "That I am engaged to you should prove differently."

Leah, calculating the effect, lost her temper. "I shall in a moment," she cried angrily. "The most patient of women--of whom I am not one--have their limits. Why do you allow jealousy to overrule common sense, when the position is so plain? You fixed your price and fulfilled your part of the bargain. Am I, I ask you, free to play you this trick of a hasty marriage, when you can expose me as privy to a fraud? You see that I do not mince matters; I speak plainly, do I not? You have all the winning cards, and can compel me to become your wife, even if I dissented. Why, then, do you come here on a fool's errand?"

"And love, being blind, makes you stumble into danger. I think you had better return to England by the night train."

"Oh, take him with you; I gave you permission before. And pray don't make scenes--I dislike them."

"Faugh! If you doubt my word, perhaps you will take Mr. Askew's. He will be here soon with Miss Tallentire. I decline to defend a position which requires no defence."

A shrug ended this speech, and this, in conjunction with the anger brightening her hard blue eyes, reduced him to profuse apologies.

"But indeed, my soul, you should not be enraged; that I should risk what I do risk surely proves my love for you."

"You have proved it before by getting me the insurance money," she replied impatiently; "pray return at once. I can see you in Curzon Street when I return on Tuesday."

"Yes!" Leah heaved a sigh of exhaustion. "How often do you wish me to say so? Even if you remain Dr. Demetrius I am bound to become your wife, seeing that you hold my reputation in your hands. Though of course," she added sweetly, "I expect to be Princess Constantine Demetrius."

"I am willing--believe me, I am willing," he stuttered, now quite positive that Mrs. Penworthy was a liar of the worst. "Aksakoff----"

"Did you not say that he would aid me to regain my position, if I gave up Katinka?"

"He said something like that," she rejoined carelessly, and wondering why at this moment he recalled the proposition. "But I rather fancy his offer was merely to leave you alone."

Demetrius looked silently at the carpet. Leah watched him with a doubtful look, on her guard against complications. He looked up suddenly, and with rather a shamed face. "Certainly I could secure the services of Mademoiselle Aksakoff," he murmured; "but it seems cruel to use her influence and then to leave her. She loves me. Ah, yes, she loves me very truly, and I--I treat her most badly."

"Because I love you, and at great risk I have bought you." He glared at her savagely. "I refuse to let you go; you are mine--mine."

"I never denied that," said Lady Jim, dryly; "but I really cannot accompany you to Siberia, and if you remain here----"

"Yes. Ah, my adored, I know how you feel for my safety;" his voice took on a caressing tone. "But--it is nothing;" he brushed away imaginary danger with a rapid gesture. "I shall see him. I shall plainly surrender Katinka, and then--then, when he knows that we--you and I--are to marry, he will interest himself with the Czar, on our--you mark me, my angel--on our behalf."

"Ah, bah! He will not arrest me publicly--he cannot. The scandal--the diplomatic storm--the newspapers. No, no!--it is too absurd. Besides"--he shrugged--"this tender father will repay me if I give his daughter to understand that we can never marry. He desires her to be the Countess Paul Petrovitch."

"Hum!" said Lady Jim, rejoicing that the prisoner judiciously saw to the closing of the door, before turning to meet Aksakoff's inquiring gaze. "You approve of a full table, madame?"

Leah resumed her seat with raised eyebrows. "I fear you will think me dull, M. Aksakoff, but I do not understand."

The diplomatist bowed an apology. He had forgotten that even in private her comedy was to be played by the book. The conversation of the next few minutes he foresaw very plainly. She would play round the reason for their meeting, without coming to grips, mysteriously conveying her meaning in speeches which she did not mean. Only a politician of Aksakoff's subtlety would have understood the unsaid from what she now proceeded to say.

"Besides"--she was continuing the speech interrupted by his bow--"you promised that no harm should come to the doctor."

"Which means that it is not signed. H'm! M. Demetrius is anxious, even willing, to renounce your daughter."

A dull red stained Aksakoff's opaque skin. "How flattering to my fatherly pride! There is, then"--the hint was delicate--"another?"

"How should I know? He has never mentioned the creature's name to me, nor would he dare to. He came, so he declares, to see me."

Her avoidance of the necessary topic exasperated him. Sharp words were on the tip of his tongue, but wisdom withheld them. His accomplice was not the woman to yield to dominance, and the merest hint of its exercise might, probably would, engender wrath likely to jeopardise the almost achieved plot. Money or no money--Aksakoff still ascribed mercenary reasons--her pride would never bend to the yoke of advice. To be silent was his second thought, and silent he became. This, it would seem, was wise, since she began to explain, Aksakoff paying out liberally the necessary rope that she might hang herself.

"M. Demetrius is unwise to come here. I told him so; yes, I confess--remember my warning--that I betrayed you. All the same--very foolishly, I think--he insisted upon an immediate meeting, to recover his birthright, he says. Can you arrange for the rehabilitation, of this exiled Esau?"

"That is his affair and yours. No doubt"--she spoke meaningly--"you will wish to speak to him privately?"

"There is no need, madame, seeing that you are in his confidence, and in mine. Besides"--very slowly--"we can converse over our tea."

Lady Jim's nerves jumped. "Over tea," she echoed equally slowly--"tea, after luncheon?"

"It is a Russian custom. M. Demetrius and I are Russians. Still, if the suggestion appears presumptuous"--he waved his hand with assumed deprecation--"I withdraw it and apologise."

"No!" She passed her tongue over dry, white lips, and answered faintly. "You shall have your--tea." Then, rising hurriedly, she made for the near window on an obvious excuse. "I do not see him coming."

As plainly as though Aksakoff had put it into words did Lady Jim know that he intended to drug their victim. What would occur if this plotter succeeded she did not know; what might occur she shivered to think of, and the thought made her rash. "The police!" she murmured, turning from the window.

M. Aksakoff joined her, adjusting his pince-nez leisurely, and proceeded to look up and down the street, two stories below. "I do not see the police, madame. But what a delightful day! I trust the night will be equally mild, since I journey to Havre."

"By a moderately late train. My cousin, Count Petrovitch, is there with his yacht. We have to talk about his possible marriage with my daughter, before he leaves to-morrow for Kronstadt."

"Oh!" sighed Lady Jim, very white. "How--how--amusing!" and after misusing the word, she went back to her chair with geographical thoughts. Paris--Havre--Kronstadt--Siberia; and Demetrius. "Oh!" sighed she again, with a trembling hand shielding her eyes.

The warning hissed through the chatter of Joan and Askew, who entered, almost riotously happy. Their exuberant manners and frank speech brought a wholesome breeze of cleansing honesty into the atmosphere of stale rascality. The bracing wind blew Lady Jim out of dark chambers into the day-lit spaces of the commonplace. With the protean capability of women she flashed as a sun from passing storm-clouds, to shine on the honest and hungry.

"Not that a man should forget an invitation," she explained; "but that a single meal should escape his greedy memory."

"Not invariably, since we now converse in English," said Askew, dryly; and she approved of the retort. Clearly he was rapidly recovering from the green-sickness of crude passion.

Meantime Joan instructed Aksakoff in ancient history. "The hieroglyphics on the Place de la Concorde Obelisk describe the triumphs of Rameses II., who reigned over Egypt in the fourteenth century before Christ. Mr. Askew knows him."

"Hum! Information while you wait--Murray and Baedeker's extract of history--archeological tabloids."

"You have been ill then, monsieur;" Aksakoff addressed the colouring young gentleman.

"Heart-disease," flashed Lady Jim, gaily--"Ah, M. Demetrius!"--and so did her ex-lover out of a retort. "You know Miss Tallentire--Mr. Askew; they were at Firmingham, if you remember. And M. Aksakoff, who will doubtless recall Dr. Demetrius."

"You place me too high," said the doctor, bowing stiffly. "Out of Russia I am but a simple physician."

Leah murmured a sharp aside, reproving the professional humility which necessitated an allusion to her loss. A bowing waiter entered before the doctor's apologetic shrug could be followed by words.

"Madame is served," said the waiter, and the lift lowered five hungry people to the dining-room.

Says a disciple of Brillat-Savarin, with solemn truth and the infallible judgment of experience, "Breakfast in Scotland, lunch in America, and dine in Paris." Circumstances prevented Lady Jim from dispensing Boston hospitality, but having supervised the ideas of the Henri-Trois chef, she placed a very dainty and tempting repast before a quartette almost too hungry to be critical. Nor was wanting wine, chosen with masculine discretion, to loosen rusty tongues and release fair thoughts embedded in slow brains. But this latter adjective must be taken--very appropriately at table--with a grain of salt. None of those who ate and drank were dull; three of them, indeed, were much too clever, and the remaining two made up in sparkle what they lacked in depth. Many good things were eaten and said during that merry meal, and the corner near the large window bubbled with laughter. Leah, watching stealthily the courtesy of Aksakoff and his fellow-countryman, shivered internally at the irony of circumstances. Paris--Havre--Kronstadt--Siberia: the four names repeated themselves dolorously in her brain like a street cry. What wonder, then, that the spectacle of this tragic comedy made her laugh and babble, and smile and nod, and play to perfection the rôle of an attentive hostess. She was quite glad that what would prove in all probability to be her victim's last civilised meal was appetising. Aksakoff professed himself charmed with her esprit. Here, thought he, were the makings of an ideal conspirator, and he regretted her nationality. The Anglo-Saxon nature is so alien to working mole-fashion. Yet, had he only known the truth, Lady Jim had already proved her willingness to conspire, if not against a throne, at least for the cheating of a limited company.

The luncheon was thus pleasant, and not less so the digestive hour, when the repleted guests assembled in the sitting-room. Anxious to afford the diplomatist every assistance, Lady Jim gathered the young people under her wing near the piano at the far end of the apartment. Joan, who had more of a soul than a memory for music, played scraps, chatting to right and left while her nimble fingers ran from Mozart to Chopin and attempted what their owner remembered of Wagner's creations. Thus the Muscovites, smoking by special permission, were enabled to exchange views in comparative privacy. To assure complete secrecy, and with the hole-and-corner instinct of the Slav, they talked Russian with a bluntness strangely opposed to Lady Jim's elusive suggestiveness. The situation--to Demetrius, at least--did not admit of sugared phrases or ambiguous explanations.

"Madame yonder"--he nodded towards Leah--"told you why I desired this interview."

"Yes!"--Aksakoff handled his cigarette daintily--"but an explanation from you is necessary."

"Mademoiselle Aksakoff," said Demetrius, coldly, "has done me the honour to admire me. But that my affections are already engaged, I should certainly reciprocate."

A look of surprise flitted across the other's face. "The actress? Why should you think so?"

"And, as usual, rumour is wrong. Mademoiselle Ninette was assuredly my patient, but I received my fees in gold, not in kisses. As poor Dr. Demetrius I I cannot live on love, Ivan Aksakoff."

"None is needed. I intended to tell you the name of the lady, Ivan Aksakoff; it is madame yonder."

"I heard something in London clubs of your admiration for her, Constantine Demetrius; even before her husband died it was said that you had laid yourself at her feet. What a pity you cannot marry her! An ideal match, my friend; quite ideal, and so useful in promoting a social understanding between Holy Russia and these islanders."

"Ah, no; but pardon me, it is impossible!" Aksakoff, really and truly startled, dropped his cigarette. That haughty Lady James Kaimes should---- "It is quite impossible," said he, staring.

"A-a-a-h!" droned the other, picking up his cigarette to place it in the ash-tray, and lighting another; "y-e-s!" He stared again at his companion, then stole a glance at Leah. Apparently her desire to assist Muscovite politics was not entirely a question of pounds, shillings, and pence. She was less sordid and more subtle than he had guessed.

Demetrius, giving him no time to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion, went on with his explanation. "You will, therefore, understand that my marriage with your daughter is out of the question."

"Of course," assented Aksakoff, absently, and wondering why Lady Jim engaged herself to this exile. "Of course," he added more briskly, "I trust you will permit me to announce this engagement to my daughter."

"That you are unworthy of her hand," ended Aksakoff, sharply, for here the father overleaped the diplomatist.

"Quite so, Ivan Aksakoff, and I hope soon to congratulate the Countess Petrovitch."

"You are too good, Constantine Demetrius." "In return for thus arranging your domestic affairs," continued the doctor, unmoved by the sarcasm, "will you gain my pardon from the Czar? Can you gain it?" he asked with emphasis.

"Both shall be restored. And of course," added Aksakoff, with a keen glance, "you will no longer work in what you term the sacred cause of humanity."

Demetrius waved his hand gloomily. "Dreams of youth--desires for the impossible. I am aware," he added bitterly, "that individuality in a bureaucratic administration is looked upon as a crime."

"Can you wonder at it? If one wheel refuses to fit in with another, the machine will not work. We are all parts of a mighty engine----"

"A most dangerous word, current only in that Utopia you dreamed of. It is not in the Russian dictionary."

Demetrius turned on the scoffer a glittering eye. "It will be, some day," said he, slowly.

"My friend"--Aksakoff shook the ash from his cigarette--"if you propose to edit dictionaries you must remain Dr. Demetrius--in exile."

"I gladly would," rejoined the other, heartily; "only----" His voice died away, as he looked towards Lady Jim.

The diplomatist laughed. "There is always a woman. Ah, these dear ladies, how practical they are! In their hands we are wax, which they mould after the honey is squeezed out;" he laughed again, then resumed, business-like: "You will write to my daughter and place the truth of this engagement beyond question."

"To-morrow, Ivan Aksakoff, when I am in London. And needless to say, I shall always profoundly respect Mademoiselle your daughter."

"If you can so far bend her to your ambition," retorted Demetrius. "You promise, then, to right me with the Czar?"

Aksakoff nodded and laughed cynically. "You are already Prince Constantine Demetrius, rich, honoured, and--unsympathetic." The doctor winced at the last word, but shook hands on the agreement. Lady Jim glanced across the room with Judas and his kiss in her mind. That the cap fitted her, also, she did not consider for the moment.

"It is tea on this occasion," replied Leah, and went over to take charge of the tray brought in by a smiling waiter.

"Tea?" Joan echoed the word in an amazed voice, and tripped like a fairy towards a comfortable low chair. "Who ever heard of tea in the middle of the day?"

"Australian colonists in the back blocks," explained Askew, sauntering to assist in arranging a harlequin set of cups. "They drink tea at all hours."

"In Russia, also," remarked Lady Jim, jingling the saucers. "This is a concession to the prejudices of our foreign guests;" and she laughed amiably at the Muscovites.

Demetrius bowed and smiled, twisting his waxed moustache with admiring glances at Leah's red hair. He was far from suspecting a snare, and that Aksakoff should have a finger and thumb in his waistcoat-pocket did not seem remarkable. But Lady Jim--nervously on the alert--guessed that the diplomatist was fiddling with something of a narcotic nature. Also, his significant glance at her, at the teacups, at Demetrius, hinted at her duty. She fulfilled it with a spasm of fear, well masked by frivolity.

"Joan, I have dropped my handkerchief--near the piano, I think. Will you please look for it?"

Miss Tallentire rose, to be anticipated, as Leah guessed she would be, by two attentive gentlemen. "Allow me!" "Permit me, mademoiselle!" and with Askew, Demetrius crossed for the search, while Lady Jim ran on lightly:

Then Joan looked on the carpet--Leah also, the latter straining her ears to hear the almost inaudible. The faint tinkle of a pellet dropped into a cup sounded to her guilty soul like a clap of thunder.

"Here it is," cried Joan, fishing under the table, and picking up what Lady Jim had purposely dropped.

"Thanks awfully, dear. Mr. Askew, M. Demetrius, do not trouble. Give me the teapot, Joan. Ah!" she babbled on, while filling the cups--"What a pity we have not glasses, so that you could drink the tea in your own fashion, M. Demetrius. M. Aksakoff, we did so enjoy the novelty at your Monte Carlo villa. Still, here is a lemon; slice it, Joan, dear. Do sit down, doctor. M. Aksakoff, you can be waiter."

Leah wiped her lips, which were dry, and stole a stealthy glance at the cup which he handed to the doctor. It was of a deep blue colour. "Augh!" she breathed, as he set it to his lips.

"You are wearied with your duties, madame," conjectured Aksakoff, sipping with gusto; "and I, alas, can relieve you only by acting as waiter."

"You are a guest now," she rejoined, with a nervous laugh; "is the tea to your liking?"

"You compliment the decoction too highly. Tea on the Continent is like rain in the Sahara. I except Russia, of course," she ended, smiling.

Leah looked inquisitively at Aksakoff, who spoke, guessing that he was in possession of the truth, and wondering what he thought of the engagement. The man's face betrayed nothing, however, and her gaze travelled to Demetrius. He was sitting perfectly still, and his eyes looked dull, as though the fire of life was dwindling within. Meeting her smile, he roused himself with a jerk and an apology.

"I can't say that I feel scorching," said Askew, glancing through the window at a grey sky.

Joan laughed. "You remind me of a horrid story my brother told me. An old Anglo-Indian was being cremated at Woking, and said that it was the first time he had felt warm in England."

"A horrid story indeed," murmured Lady Jim, with her eyes on the expressionless face of Demetrius. "You shouldn't tell it, dear." Then she rose hurriedly: "Are you quite well, M. Demetrius?"

"Oh yes--quite;" the doctor's voice droned into an inarticulate mumble and his head fell forward.

"Oh! Mr. Askew--M. Aksakoff--what it the matter? His eyes are closed; his breathing--just listen!"

"Kind of fit, perhaps," said Askew, rising to shake Demetrius, and so extorted a cry from the kind-hearted hostess.

"Don't--the man is ill! Oh, how dreadful! Loosen his collar--open the window. I wonder if he needs a doctor," and she stepped to the electric button of the bell.

"There might be one in the hotel," said Aksakoff, as Joan and Askew obeyed her directions. And from the tone of his voice she knew that there was one in the hotel. "It really seems to be a kind of fit," said Aksakoff, looking at the now unconscious man. "Yet he appeared to be quite well a few minutes ago."

Leah did not hear. She was already at the door issuing hurried instructions to a waiter, whose smile had vanished. When she came back the two men had placed Demetrius on the sofa, where he lay breathing heavily, his face white and his lips purple; not a pleasant sight by any means, as Askew thought.

"Only the doctor can do that--if there is one," said Aksakoff, observing his handiwork on the sofa with a critical eye.

Then, at the tail of a triple rap, entered the fat proprietor of the Henri Trois, scared in looks and importantly fussy in manner. Behind him glided a spick-and-span man, not unlike Demetrius, and unmistakably Tartar.

"Dr. Helfmann happened to be luncheoning," explained M. Gravier, "fortunately. What is the matter, madame?"

Helfmann soon explained that. He felt the pulse of the patient, laid a gentle hand on a weakly-beating heart, and turned up the purple eyelids. Askew and Aksakoff stood aside with the proprietor. Lady Jim and Joan bent forward with pale faces and clasped hands, anxious for the verdict.

"A kind of fit," explained the doctor; "he will be insensible for two--three hours."

"In my hotel? Ach!--the scandal!" cried Gravier, spreading his fat hands in dismay.

"Madame"--the doctor faced her coldly--"to speak technically would not enlighten you. I can bring this gentleman back to his senses; but I think--with your permission," added he, bowing, "that if you will permit me to take him in a cab to a chemist's shop where I can procure the drug I require, it will save time. And in this case"--he glanced calmly at the unconscious man--"time means life."

"If you think it is better," murmured Lady Jim, not daring to meet the victorious eye of the diplomatist.

"Of course," rejoined Askew, brusquely. "You and Miss Tallentire can do nothing, and the sight is not a pleasant one."

"Joan;" Lady Jim drew the girl away, and passed with her into the bedroom adjoining. There behind a closed door they listened to the sound of a body being removed. The scraping of feet, the heavy breathing of ladened men, the bumping and humping of something soft (horrible suggestion)--they could hear these intimations of removal very plainly. Leah sat on the bed with tightly clasped hands between slack knees. "Augh!" said Leah.

"It is all right, Lady James," said Joan, petting her. "Poor M. Demetrius will soon be all right. I wonder what made him ill?"

"I wonder," echoed Lady Jim, and wondered very truly. She could not understand what drug Aksakoff had used to reduce Demetrius so rapidly to unconsciousness. And not another word was spoken for ten minutes.

"They have driven away in a fiacre," announced Miss Tallentire, from the window.

Before her question could be answered a sharp knock came to the door, and Aksakoff presented himself when it was opened.

"All is well, dear ladies," said he, blandly. "Dr. Helfmann has gone with our sick friend. Mr. Askew follows to see that all is well."

The diplomatist still smiled. "He has a kind heart, that young Mr. Askew, and so----" he shrugged, then bowed to Joan. "I compliment you, mademoiselle, on your courage. You also, madame. And now, all being well, I must take my leave;" he kissed Lady Jim's hand. "I shall see you again in London, as to-night I journey to Havre."

He went out, and Leah again heard four names as though a ghostly porter was calling them at a ghostly junction.

CHAPTER XXIV

Alone and punctual, hungry for mid-day victuals, and eager to impart newly acquired knowledge, Miss Tallentire returned from studying the Luxor Obelisk. Her coming upon the hour and solitary state were noted, but a second-hand rendering of hieroglyphic lore could be dispensed with by a lady entertaining a more modern-minded guest. Aksakoff, with a notable sparkle in his eyes--begotten by confidential conversation with his hostess--rose to welcome the fair interrupter. International courtesies were exchanged, while Leah, glancing impatiently at the clock, waited for their conclusion to slip in a question or so.

"He did, Lady James, as far as the lift. He is now writing a letter in the smoking-room."

"And so will forget that I asked him to luncheon. Please remind him, dear; or, better, tell the waiter to bring him up. M. Demetrius is coming also."

"Dr. Demetrius!" Joan paused in her exit. "I did not know that he was in Paris, Lady James."

"Nor did I until an hour ago. Don't lose time, dear. Mr. Askew may go, and I particularly wish him to stay."

Lady Jim ushered the girl out hurriedly, and judiciously saw to the closing of the door, before turning to meet Aksakoff's inquiring gaze. "You approve of a full table, madame?"