"But Miss Vancourt," interrupted Mrs. Keeley, who had been listening to her friend's flow of language in silent wonder,—"She don't eat an' drink like that, do she?"

"Miss Maryllia, bless 'er 'art, sits at her table like a little queen,"—said Mrs. Spruce, with emotion—"Primmins sez she don't eat scarce nothin', and don't say much neither. She just smiles pretty, an' puts in a word or two, an' then seems lookin' away as if she saw somethink beautiful which nobody else can see. An' that Miss Cicely Bourne, she's just a pickle!—'ow she do play the comic, to be sure!—she ran into the still-room the other day an' danced round like a mad thing, an' took off all the ladies with their airs an' graces till I nearly died o' larfin'! She's a good little thing, though, takin' 'er all round, though a bit odd in 'er way, but that comes of bein' in France an' learnin' music, I expect. But I really must be goin'—there's heaps an' heaps to do, but by an' by we'll have peace an' quiet again—they're all a-goin' next week."

"Well, I shan't be sorry!"—and Mrs. Keeley gave a short sigh of satisfaction—"I'm fair sick o' seein' them motor-cars whizzin' through the village makin' such a dust an' smell as never was,—an' I'm sure there's no love lost 'tweens Missis Frost an' me, but it do make me worrited like when that there little Ipsie goes runnin' out, not knowin' whether she mayn't be run over like my Bob's pet dog. For the quality don't seem to care for no one 'cept theirselves—an' it ain't peaceful like nor safe as 'twas 'fore they came. An' I s'pose we'll be seein' Miss Maryllia married next?"

Mrs. Spruce pursed up her mouth tightly and looked unutterable things.

"'Tain't no good countin' chickens 'fore they're hatched, Missis Keeley!" she said—"An' the Lord sometimes fixes up marriages in quite a different way to what we expects. There ain't goin' to be no weddin's nor buryin's yet in the Manor, please the A'mighty goodness, for one's as mis'able as t'other, an' both means change, which sometimes is good for the 'elth but most often contrariwise, though whatever 'appens either way we must bend our 'eads under the rod to both. But I mustn't stay chitterin' 'ere any longer—good day t'ye!"

And nodding darkly as one who could say much an' she would, the worthy woman ambled away.

Scraps of information, such as this talk of Mrs. Spruce's, reached Bainton's ears from time to time in a disjointed and desultory manner and moved him to profound cogitation. He was not quite sure now whether, after all, his liking for Miss Vancourt had not been greatly misplaced.

"When I seed her first,"—he said to himself, pathetically, while hoeing the weeds out of the paths in the rectory garden, "When me an' old Josey went up to get 'er to save the Five Sisters, she seemed as sweet as 'oney,—an' she's done many a kind thing for the village since. But I don't care for 'er friends. They've changed her like—they've made her forget all about us! An' as for Passon, she don't come nigh 'im no more, an' he don't go nigh 'er. Seems to me 'tis all a muddle an' a racket since the motor-cars went bouncin' about an' smellin' like p'ison—'tain't wot it used to be. Howsomever, let's 'ope to the Lord it'll soon be over. If wot they all sez is true, there'll be a weddin' 'ere soon, Passon'll marry Miss Vancourt to the future Dook, an' away they'll go, an' Abbot's Manor'll be shut up again as it used to afore. An' the onny change we'll 'ave will be Mr. Stanways for agent 'stead of Oliver Leach— which is a blessin'—for Stanways is a decent, kindly man, an' Oliver Leach—well now!" And he paused in his hoeing, fixing his round eyes meditatively on a wall where figs were ripening in the sun—"Blest if I can make out Oliver Leach! One day he's with old Putty Leveson—another he's drunk as a lord in the gutter—an' another he's butterfly huntin' with a net, lookin' like a fool—but allus about the place—allus about—an' he's got a face that a kid would scream at seein' it in the dark. I wish he'd find another situation in a fur-off neighbourhood!"

Here, looking towards the lawn, he saw his master walking slowly up and down on the grass in front of his study window, with head bent and hands loosely clasped behind his back, apparently lost in thought.

"Passon ain't hisself,—seems all gone to pieces like," he mused— "He don't do nothin' in the garden,—he ain't a bit partikler or fidgetty—an all he cares about is the bits o' glass which comes on approval from all parts o' the world for the rose window. I sez to him t'other day—'Ain't ye got enough old glass yet, Passon?'—and he sez all absent-minded like, 'No, Bainton—not yet! There are many difficulties to be conquered—one must have patience. It's almost like piecing a life together,' sez he—'one portion is good—another bad—one's got the true colour—the other's false—and so on—it's hard work to get all the little bits of love an' charity an' kindness to fit into their proper places. Don't you understand?' 'No, Passon,' sez I, 'I can't say as I do!' Then he laughed, but sad like—an' went away with his 'ead down as he's got it now. Something's wrong with him—an' it's all since Miss Vancourt came. She's a real worry to 'im I 'spect,—an' it's true enough the place ain't like what it was a month ago. Yet there's no denyin' she's a sweet little lady for all one can say!"

Bainton's sentiments were a fair reflection of the general village opinion, though in the town of Riversford the tide of feeling ran high, and controversy raged furiously, over the ways and doings of Miss Vancourt and her society friends. A certain vague awe stole over the gossips, however, when they heard that, whether rapid or non-rapid, 'Maryllia Van,' as Sir Morton Pippitt persisted in calling her, was likely to be the future Duchess of Ormistoune. Lord Roxmouth had been seen in Riversford just once, and many shop-girls had declared him 'so distinguished looking!' Mordaunt Appleby, the brewer, had thrown out sundry hints to Sir Morton Pippitt that he 'should be pleased to see his lordship at Appleby House'—Appleby House being the name of his, the brewer's, residence—but somehow his lordship had not yet availed himself of the invitation. Sufficient, however, was altogether done and said by all concerned to weave a web of worry round Maryllia,—and to cause her to heartily regret that she had ever asked any of her London acquaintances down to her house.

"I did it as a kind of instruction to myself,—a lesson and a test," she said—"But I had far better have run the risk of being called an old maid and a recluse than have got these people round me,—all of whom I thought were my friends,—but who have been more or less tampered with by Aunt Emily and Roxmouth, and pressed in to help carry on the old scheme against me of a detestable alliance with a man I hate. Well!—I have learned the falsity of their protestations of liking and admiration and affection for me,—and I'm sorry for it! I should like to believe in the honesty of at least a few persons in the world—if that were possible!—I don't want to have myself always 'on guard' against intrigue and humbug!"

Everyone present, however, on the night of the last dinner-party she gave to her London guests, was bound to admit that a sweeter, fairer creature than its present mistress never trod the old oaken floors of Abbot's Manor; and that even the radiant pictured beauty of 'Mary Elia Adelgisa de Vaignecourt,' to whom no doubt many a time the Merry Monarch had doffed his plumed hat in salutation, paled and grew dim before the living rose of Maryllia's dainty loveliness and the magnetic tenderness of Maryllia's eyes. Something of the exquisite pensiveness of her mother's countenance, as portrayed in the long hidden picture which was now one of the gems of the Manor gallery, seemed to soften the outline of her features, and deepen the character and play of the varying expression which made her so fascinating to those who look for the soul in a woman's face, rather than its mere physical form. Lady Beaulyon, beautiful though she was, owed something to art; but Maryllia was nature's own untouched product, and everything about her exhaled freshness, sweetness, and radiant vitality. Roxmouth, entering 'most carefully upon his hour,' namely at a quarter to eight o'clock, found her singularly attractive,—more so, he thought, than he had ever before realised. The stately old-world setting of Abbot's Manor suited her—the dark oak panelling,—the Flemish tapestries, the worn shields and scutcheons, the old banners and armorial bearings,—all the numerous touches of the past which spoke of chivalry, ancestral pride and loyalty to great traditions, lent grace and colouring to the picture she herself made, as she received her guests with that sweet kindness, ease and distinction, which are the heritage of race and breeding.

"Pretty little shrew!" he said, in an aside to Marius Longford—"She is really charming,—and I begin to think I want her as much for herself as for her aunt's millions!"

Longford smiled obsequiously.

"There is a certain air of originality, or shall we say individuality, about the lady,"—he observed, with a critical, not to say insolent stare in Maryllia's direction,—"The French term 'beaute du diable' expresses it best. But whether the charm will last, is another question."

"No woman's beauty lasts more than a few years,"—said Roxmouth, as he glanced at the various guests who had entered or were entering. "Lady Beaulyon wears well—but she is forty years old, and begins to show it. Margaret Bludlip Courtenay must be fifty, and she doesn't show it—she manages her Paris cosmetics wonderfully. Some of these county ladies would be better for a little touch of her art! But Maryllia Vancourt needs no paint,—she can afford to be natural. Is that the parson?"

Walden was just entering the room, and Longford put up his glasses.

"Yes,"—he replied—"That is the parson. He is not without character."

Roxmouth became suddenly interested. He saw Walden go up to his hostess and bow—he also saw the sudden smile that brightened Maryllia's face as she welcomed her clerical guest,—the one Churchman of the party.

"Rather a distinguished looking fellow,"—he commented carelessly— "Is he clever?"

Longford hesitated. He had been pulverised in one of the literary weeklies by an article on the authenticity of Shakespeare's plays, signed boldly 'John Walden'—and he had learned, by cautious enquiries here and there in London, that though, for the most part, extremely unassuming, the aforesaid John Walden was considered an authority in matters of historical and antiquarian research. But he was naturally anxious that the future Duke of Ormistoune, when he had secured Mrs. Fred Vancourt's millions, should not expend his powerful patronage to a country clergyman who might, from a 'Savage and Savile' point of view, be considered an interloper. So he replied with caution:

"I believe he dabbles a little in literary and archaeological pursuits,—many parsons do. As an archaeologist, he certainly has merit. You entertain a favourable opinion of the church, he has restored?"

"The church, as I have before told you, is perfect,"—replied Roxmouth—"And the man who carried out such a design must needs be an interesting personality. I think Miss Vancourt finds him so!"

His cold grey eyes lightened unpleasantly as he made this remark, and Marius Longford, quick to discern every shade of tone in a voice, recognised a touch of satire in the seemingly casual words. He made no observation, however, but kept his lynx eyes and ears open, watching and listening for anything that might perchance be of use in furthering his patron's desires and aims.

Walden, meanwhile, had, quite unconsciously to himself, created a little sensation by his appearance. HE was the parson who had dared to stop in his reading of the service because the Manor house-party had entered the church a quarter of an hour behind time,—HE was the man who had told them that it was no use gaining the whole world if they lost their own souls,—as if, in this advanced era of progress, any one of them had souls to lose! Preposterous! Here he was, this country cleric, who, as he was introduced by his hostess to the various gentlemen standing immediately about her, smiled urbanely, bowed ceremoniously, and comported himself with an air of intellectual composure and dignity that had a magnetic effect upon all. Yet in himself he was singularly ill at ease. Various emotions in his mind contended together to make him so. To begin with, he disliked social 'functions' of all kinds, and particularly those at which any noted persons of the so-called 'Smart Set' were present. He disliked women who made capital out of their beauty, by allowing their photographs to be on sale in shop-windows and to appear constantly in cheap pictorials, and of these Lady Beaulyon was a notorious example, to say nothing of the graver sins against morality and principle for which she was renowned. He had no sympathy with sporting or betting men—and he knew by repute that Lord Charlemont and Bludlip Courtenay were of this class. Then again, deep down in his own soul, he resented the fact that Maryllia Vancourt entertained this sort of people as her guests. She was much too good for them, he thought,—she wronged herself by being in their company, or allowing them to be in hers! He watched her as she received part of the 'county' in the Ittlethwaites of Ittlethwaite Park, with a charming smile of welcome for Bruce Ittlethwaite, a lively bachelor of sixty, and for his eldest sister Arabella, some ten years younger, a lady whose portly form was attired in a wonderful apple-green satin, trimmed with priceless lace, the latter entirely lost as an article of value, among the misshapen folds of the green gown, which had been created, no doubt, by some local dressmaker, whose ideas were evidently more voluminous than artistic. And presently, as he stood, a quiet spectator of the different types of persons who were mingling with each other in the casual conversation on current topics and events, which always occupies that interval of time known as the 'mauvais quart d'heure' before the announcement of dinner, he happened to look at Maryllia's own dress, and, noticing it more closely, smiled. It was not the first time he had seen that dress!—and a faint colour warmed his cheeks as he remembered the occasion when Mrs. Spruce had sent for him as a 'man o' God' to serve as a witness to her system of unpacking her lady's wardrobe. That was the dress the garrulous old housekeeper had held up in her arms as though she were a clothes- prop, with the observation, 'It's orful wot the world's a-comin' to- -orful! Fancy diamants all sewed on to a gown!' The gown with the 'diamants' was the very one which now clothed Maryllia,—falling over an underskirt of palest pink satin, it glittered softly about her like dew spangles on rose-leaves—and involuntarily Walden thought of the pink shoes he had also seen,—those absurd little shoes!—did she wear them with that fairy-like frock, he wondered? He dared not look towards the floor, lest he should catch a sudden glimpse of the shining points of that ridiculous but fascinating foot-gear that had once so curiously discomposed him. Those shoes might peep out at any moment from under the 'diamants'—with a blink of familiarity which would be, to say the least of it, embarrassing. His reflections were at this juncture interrupted by a smooth voice at his ear.

"How do you do, Mr. Walden?"

A glance showed the speaker to be Mr. Marius Longford, and he responded with brief courtesy.

"Permit me"—continued Mr. Longford—"to introduce you to Lord Roxmouth!"

Walden bowed stiffly.

"I must congratulate you on the beauty of your church, Mr. Walden,"- -said Roxmouth, with his usual conventional smile—"I have never seen a finer piece of work. It is not so much a restoration as a creation."

Walden said nothing. He did not particularly care for compliments from Lord Roxmouth.

"That sarcophagus,"—continued his lordship—"was a very singular 'find.' I suppose you have no clue to the possible identity of the saint or sinner whose ashes repose within it?"

"None,"—replied Walden—"Something might probably be discovered if the casket were opened. But that will never happen during my lifetime."

"You would consider it sacrilege, no doubt?" queried Roxmouth, with a tolerant air.

"I should, most certainly!"

"Nonsense, nonsense!" said Sir Morton Pippitt, obtruding himself on the conversation at this moment—"God bless my soul! Not so very long ago every churchyard in England used to have its regular clean out—ha-ha-ha!—all the bones and skulls used to be dug up and thrown together in a charnel house, higgledy-piggledy—and nobody ever talked about sacrilege! You should progress with the age, Mr. Walden!—you should progress! Why shouldn't a coffin be opened as readily as any other box, eh? There's generally nothing inside—ha- ha-ha!—nothing inside worth keeping, ha-ha-ha! The plan of a spring-cleaning for churchyards was an excellent one, I think;—God bless my soul!—why not?—makes room for more hodies and saves extra land being given up to those who are past farming it, except in the way of manure, ha-ha-ha! There's no such thing as sacrilege nowadays, Mr. Walden!—why we've got the photograph of Rameses, taken after a few thousand years' decomposition had set in—ha-ha- ha! And not bad looking—not bad looking!—rather wild about the eyes, that's all—ha-ha! God bless my soul!"

These choice observations of the knight Pippitt were brought to a happy conclusion by the marshalling of the guests into dinner. Sir Morton, much to his chagrin, found himself deputed to escort Lady Wicketts, whose unwieldy proportions allied to his own, made it difficult for both to pass with proper dignity through the dining- room doorway. A little excited whispering between Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay and Lady Beaulyon took place, as to whether 'Maryllia Van' in her professed detestation of Lord Roxmouth, would forget etiquette and the rule of 'precedence'—but they soon saw she did not intend to so commit herself. For when all her guests had passed in before her, she followed resignedly on the arm of the future Duke. As the greatest stranger, and as the highest in social rank of all present, he had claim to this privilege, and she was too tactful to refuse it.

"What a delightful chatelaine you are!" he murmured, looking down at her as she rested her little gloved hand with scarce a touch on his arm—"And how proud and glad I am to be once more beside you! Ah, Maryllia, you are very cruel to me! If you would only realise how happy we could be—always together!"

She made no answer. Arriving in the dining-room, she withdrew her hand from his arm, and seated herself at the head of her table. He then found that he was on her right hand, while Lord Charlemont was on her left. Next to Lord Charlemont sat Lady Beaulyon,—and next to Lady Beaulyon John Walden was placed with the partner allotted to him, Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay. On Roxmouth's own side there were Lady Wicketts and Sir Morton Pippitt,—so it chanced that the table was arranged in a manner that brought certain parties who were by no means likely to agree on any one given point, directly opposite to each other. Cicely, peeping out from a little ante-room, where she had entreated to be allowed to stand and watch the proceedings, made a running commentary on this in her own particular fashion. Cicely was looking very picturesque, in a new white frock which Maryllia had given her,—with a broad crimson sash knotted carelessly round her waist and a ribbon of the same colour in her luxuriant black hair. She was to sing after dinner—Gigue had told her she was to 'astonish ze fools'—and she was ready to do it. Her dark eyes shone like stars, and her lips were cherry-red with excitement,—so much so that Mrs. Spruce, thinking she was feverish, had given her a glass of 'cooling cordial'—made of fruit and ice and lemon water, which she was enjoying at intervals while criticising the fine folks in the dining-room.

"Well done, Maryllia!" she murmured, as she saw her friend enter on Roxmouth's arm—"Cold as a ray of the moon, but doing her social duty to the bitter end! What a tom-cat Roxmouth is!—a sleek pussy, sure to snarl if his fur is rubbed up the wrong way—but he is just the type that some women would like to marry—he looks so well-bred. Poor Mr. Walden!—he's got to talk to the Everlasting-Youth lady,— and old Sir Morton Pippitt is immediately opposite to him!—now that's too bad of Maryllia!—it really is! She knows how the bone- boiler longs to boil Mr. Walden's bones, and that Mr. Walden wishes Sir Morton Pippitt were miles away from him! They shouldn't have faced each other. But how very, very superior to all the lot Mr. Walden looks!—he really IS handsome!—he has such an intellectual head. There's Gigue chattering away to poor old Miss Fosby!—oh dear! Miss Fosby will never understand him! What a motley crew! And I shall have to sing to them all after they've dined! Saint Moses! It will be a sort of 'first appearance in England.' A good test, too, because all the English eat nearly to bursting before they go to the opera. No wonder they never can grasp what the music is about, or who's who! It's all salmon and chicken and lobster and champagne with them—not Beethoven or Wagner or Rossini. Good old Gigue! His spirits are irrepressible! How he is laughing! Mr. Walden looks very serious—almost tragic—I wonder what he is thinking about! I wish I could hear what they are all saying—but it's nothing but buzz, buzz!"

She took a sip at her 'cordial,' watching with artistic appreciation the gay scene in the Manor dining-room—the twinkling lights on the silver and glass and flowers—the elegant dresses of the women,—the jewels that flashed like starbeams on the lovely neck and shoulders of Lady Beaulyon,—the ripples of gold-auburn in Maryllia's hair,— it was a picture that radiated with a thousand colours on the eye and the brain, and was certainly one destined, so far as many of those who formed a part of it were concerned, never to be forgotten. Not that there was anything very remarkable or brilliant in the conversation at the dinner-table,—there never is nowadays. Peeple dine with their friends merely to eat, not to talk. One never by any chance hears so much even as an echo of wit or wisdom. Occasionally a note of scandal is struck,—and more often than not, a questionable anecdote is related, calculated to bring 'a blush to the cheek of the Young Person,' if a Young Person who can blush still exists, and happens to be present. But as a rule, the general habitude of the dining class is to discourse in a very desultory and inconsequential, not to say stupid, style, and the guests at the Manor proved no exception to the rule. Sir Morton Pippitt fired off bumptious observations at Walden, who paid no heed to them—Bruce Ittlethwaite of Ittlethwaite Park, found a congenial spirit in Lord Charlemont, and talked sport right through the repast—and Louis Gigue enlivened the table by a sudden discussion with Mr. Marius Longford, relative to the position of art in Great Britain.

"Mon Dieu!" he exclaimed, with a snap of his fingers—"Ze art is dead in Angleterre,—zere is no musique, ze poesie. Zis is ze land of ze A-penny journal—ze musique, ze poesie, ze science, ze politique, ze sentiment,—one A-penny! Bah! Ca, ce, n'est pas possible!—zis pauvre pays is kill avec ze vulgarite of ze cheap! Ze people are for ze cheap—for ze photographic, instead of ze picture- -ze gramophone, instead of ze artist fingers avec ze brain—et ze literature—it is ze cheap 'imitation de Zola,' qui obtient les eloges du monde critique a Londres. Vous ecrivez?"—and he shook his finger at Longford—"Bien'! Ecrivez un roman qui est sain, pure et noble—et ze A-penny man vill moque de ca—mais—ecrivez of ze dirt of ze human naturel, et voila! Ze A-penny man say 'Bon! Ah que c'est l'art! Donnes moi l'ordure que je peux sentir! C'est naturel! C'est divin! C'est l'art!'"

A murmur, half of laughter, half of shocked protest, went round the table.

"I think," said Mr. Longford, with a pale smile—"that according to the school of the higher criticism, we must admit the natural to be the only divine."

Gigue's rolling eyes gleamed under his shaggy hair.

"Je ne comprends pas!"—he said—"Ven ze pig squeak, c'est naturel— ce n'est pas divin! Ven ze man scratch ze flea, c'est naturel—ce n'est pas divin! Ze art ne desire pas ze picture of ze flea! Ze literature n'existe pas pour ze squeak of ze pig! Ah, bah! L'art,— c'est l'imagination—l'ideal—c'est le veritable Dieu en l'homme!"

Longford gave vent to a snigger, which was his way of laughing.

"God is an abstract illusion,"—he said—"One does not introduce a non-available quantity in the summing up of facts!"

"Ah! Vous ne croyez pas en Dieu?" And Gigue ruffled up his grey hair with one hand. "Mais—a quoi bon! Ca ne sert rien! Dieu pent exister sans votre croyance, Monsieur!—je vous jure!"

And he laughed—a hearty laugh that was infectious and carried the laughter of everyone else with it. Longford, irritated, turned to his next neighbour with some trite observation, and allowed the discussion to drop. But Walden had heard it, and his heart went out to Gigue for the manner in which he had, for the moment at least, quenched the light of the 'Savage and Savile.'

Up at the end of the table at which he, Walden, sat, things were of rather a strained character. Lord Roxmouth essayed to be witty and conversational, but received so little encouragement in his sallies from Maryllia, that he had to content himself with Lady Wicketts, whom he found a terrible bore. Sir Morton Pippitt, eating heartily of everything, was gradually becoming purple in the face and somnolent under the influence of wine and food,—Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay, tired of trying to 'draw' Walden on sundry topics, got cross and impatient, the more so as she found that he could make himself very charming to the other people in his immediate vicinity, and that, as the dinner proceeded, he 'came out' as it were, very unexpectedly in conversation, and proved himself not only an intellectually brilliant man, but a socially entertaining one. Lord Roxmouth glanced at him curiously from time to time with growing suspicion and disfavour. He was not the kind of subservient, half hypocritical, mock-meek being that is conventionally supposed to represent a country 'cure.' His independent air, his ease of manner, and above all, his intelligence and high culture, were singularly displeasing to Lord Roxmouth, especially as he noticed that Maryllia listened to everything Walden said, and appeared to be more interested in his observations than in those of anyone else at the table. Exchanging a suggestive glance with Lady Beaulyon, Roxmouth saw that she was taking notes equally with himself on this circumstance, and his already hard face hardened, and grew colder and more inflexible as Walden, with a gaiety and humour irresistibly his own, kept the ball of conversation rolling, and gradually drew to his own strong and magnetic personality, the appreciative attention of nearly all present.

Truth to tell, a sudden exhilaration and excitement had wakened up John's latent forces,—Maryllia's eyes, glancing half timidly, half wistfully at him, and her fair face, slightly troubled in its expression, had moved him to an exertion of his best powers to please her, and make everything bright and gay around her. Instinct told him that some secret annoyance fretted her—and watching her looks, and noting the monosyllabic replies she gave to Lord Roxmouth whenever that distinguished personage addressed her, he decided, with a foolish thrill at his heart, that the report of her intended marriage with this nobleman could not be true—she could never look so coldly at anyone she loved! And with this idea paramount in his brain he gave himself up to the humour of the hour—and by and by heads were turned in his direction, and people whispered—'Is that the parson of the parish?'—and when the answer was given in the affirmative, wondering glances were exchanged, and someone at the other end of the table remarked sotto voce:—'Much too brilliant a man for the country!'—whereat Miss Arabella Ittlethwaite bridled up and said she 'hoped nobody thought that town offered the only samples of the human brain worth noticing,' as she would, in that case, 'beg to differ.' Whereat there ensued a lively discussion, which ended, so far as the general experience went, in the decision that clever men were always born or discovered in the country, but that after a while they invariably went up to town, and there became famous.

Presently, the dinner drawing to an end, dessert, coffee and the smoking conveniences for both ladies and gentlemen were handed round,—cigars for the gentlemen, cigarettes for both gentlemen and ladies. All the women helped themselves to cigarettes, as a matter of course, with the exception of Miss Ittlethwaite,—(who, as a 'county' lady of the old school, sat transfixed with horror at the bare idea of being expected to smoke)—poor old Miss Fosby, and Maryllia. And now occurred an incident, in itself trifling, but fraught with strange results to those immediately concerned. Lady Beaulyon was just about to light her own cigarette when, in obedience to a sudden thought that flashed across her brain, she turned her lovely laughing face round towards Walden, and said:

"As there's a clergyman present, I'm sure we ought to ask his permission before we light up! Don't you think it very shocking for women to smoke, Mr. Walden?"

He looked straight at her—his face paling a little with a sense of strongly suppressed feeling.

"I have always been under the impression that English ladies never smoke,"—he said, quietly, with a very slight emphasis on the word 'ladies.' "The rest, of course, must do as they please!"

Had a bombshell suddenly exploded in the dining-room, the effect could hardly have been more stupefying than these words. There was an awful pause. The women, holding the unlit cigarettes delicately between their fingers, looked enquiringly at their hostess. The men stared; Lord Roxmouth laughed.

Maryllia turned white as a snowdrop—but her eyes blazed with sudden amazement, indignation and pride that made lightning in their tender blue. Then,—deliberately choosing a cigarette from the silver box which had been placed on the table before her, she lit it,—and began to puff the smoke from her rosy lips in delicate rings, turning to Lord Roxmouth as she did so with a playful word and smile. It was enough;—the 'lead' was given. A glance of approval went the round of her London lady guests—who, exonerated by her prompt action from all responsibility, lighted their cigarettes without further ado, and the room was soon misty with tobacco fumes. Not a word was addressed to Walden,—a sudden mantle of fog seemed to have fallen over him, covering him up from the consciousness of the company, for no one even glanced at him, except covertly,—no one appeared to have heard or noticed his remark. Lord Charlemont looked, as he felt, distressed. In his heart he admired Walden for his boldness in speaking out frankly against a modern habit of women which he also considered reprehensible,—but at the same time he recognised that the reproof had perhaps been administered too openly. Walden himself sat rigid and very pale—he fully realised what he had done,—and he knew he was being snubbed for it—but he did not care.

"Better so!"—he said to himself in an inward rage—"Better that I should never see her again than see her as she is now! She wrongs herself!—and I cannot be a silent witness of her wrong, even though it is wrought by her own hand!"

The buzz of talk now grew more loud and incessant;—he saw Sir Morton Pippitt's round eyes fixed upon him with an astonished and derisive stare,—and he longed for the moment to come when he might escape from the whole smoking, chattering party. All that his own eyes consciously beheld was Maryllia—Maryllia, the dainty, pretty, delicate feminine creature who seemed created out of the finest mortal and spiritual essences,—smoking! That cigarette stuck in her pretty mouth, vulgarised her appearance at once,—coarsened her— made her look as if she were indeed the rapid 'Maryllia Van' his friend Bishop Brent had written of. What did he care if not a soul at that table ever spoke to him again? Nothing! But he cared—oh, he cared greatly for any roughening touch on that little figure of smooth white and rose flesh, which somehow he had, unconsciously to himself, set in a niche for thoughts higher than common! He was quite aware that he had committed a social error, yet he was sorry she could not have reproved him in some other fashion than that of deliberately doing what he had just condemned as unbecoming to a lady. And his mind was in a whirl, when at last she rose to give the signal to adjourn, passing out of the dining-room without a glance in his direction.

The moment she had vanished, he at once prepared to leave, not only the room, but the house. No one offered to detain him. The men were all too conscious of what they considered his 'faux pas'—and they were also made rather uncomfortable by the decided rebuff he had received from their hostess. Yet they all liked him, and were, in their way, sorry for what had occurred. Lord Roxmouth, with the easy assurance of one who is conscious of his own position, remarked with kindly banter:—

"Won't you stay with us, Mr. Walden? Are you obliged to go?"

Walden looked at him unflinchingly, yet with a smile.

"When a man elects to speak his mind, Lord Roxmouth, his room is better than his company!"

And with this he left them—to laugh at him if they chose—caring little whether they did or not. Passing into the hall, he took his hat and coat,—he was angry with himself, yet not ashamed,—for something in his soul told him that he had done rightly, even as a minister of the Gospel, to utter a protest against the vulgarising of womanhood. He stepped out into the courtyard—the moon was rising, and the air was very sweet and cool.

"I was wrong!"—he said, half aloud—"And yet I was right! I should not have said what I did,—and yet I should! If no man is ever bold enough to protest again the voluntary and fast-increasing self- degradation of women, then men will be most to blame if the next generation of wives and mothers are shameless, unsexed, indecorous, and wholly unworthy of their life's mission. How angry she looked! Possibly she will never speak to me again. Well, what does it matter! The wider apart our paths are set, the better!"

He reached the gate of the courtyard, and was about to pass through it, when a little fluttering figure in white, with crimson in its rough dark hair, rushed after him. It was Cicely.

"Don't go, please Mr. Walden!" she said, breathlessly; and he saw, even by the light of the moon, that her eyes were wet—"Please don't go! Maryllia wishes to speak to you."

He turned a pale, composed face upon her.

"Where?"

"In the picture-gallery. She is alone there. She saw you cross the courtyard, and sent me after you. All the other people are in the drawing-room, waiting to hear me sing—and I must run, for Gigue is there, and he is so impatient! Please, Mr. Walden!"—and Cicely's voice shook—"Please don't mind if Maryllia is angry! She IS angry! But it's all on the surface—she doesn't really mean it—she wouldn't be unkind for all the world! I know what you said,—I was watching the dinner-party from the ante-room and I saw everything— and—and—I think you were just splendid!—it's horrid for women to smoke—but they nearly all do it nowadays—only I never saw Maryllia do it before, and oh, Mr. Walden, make it all right with her, please!"

For a moment John hesitated. Then a kind smile softened his features.

"I can't quite promise that, Cicely,—but I'll do my best!" And taking her hand he patted it gently, as she furtively dashed one or two tear-drops from her lashes—"Come, come, you mustn't cry! Run away and sing like the little nightingale you are—don't fret—-"

"But you'll go to Maryllia, won't you?" she urged, anxiously.

"Yes. I'll go!"

She lifted her dark eyes, and he saw how true and full of soul they were, despite their witch-like wildness and passion. Just then a stormy passage of music, played on the piano, and tumbling out, as it seemed, on the air through the open windows of the Manor drawing- room, reminded her that she was being waited for by her impetuous and impatient maestro.

"That's the signal for me!" she said—"I must run! But oh do, do make it up with Maryllia and be friends!"

She rushed away. He waited till she had disappeared, then turning back through the courtyard, slowly re-entered the house.



XXIII

The lights were burning low and dimly in the picture-gallery when he entered it and saw Maryllia there, pacing restlessly up and down, the folds of her dress with the 'diamants' sparkling around her as she moved, like a million little drops of frost on gossamer, while her small head, lifted proudly on its slim arched throat, seemed to his heated fancy, as though crowned with fresh coronals of gold woven from the summer sun. Turning, she confronted him and paused irresolute,—then, with a sudden impulsive gesture, came forward swiftly,—her cheeks flaming crimson,—her lips trembling, and her bosom heaving with its quickened breath like that of a fluttered bird.

"How dare you!" she said, in a low, strained voice—"How dare you!"

He met her eyes,—and in that moment individual and personal considerations were swept aside, and only the Right and the Wrong presented themselves to his mental vision, like witnesses from a higher world, invisible but omnipotent, waiting for the result of the first clash of combat between two human souls. Yielding to his own over-mastering emotion, and reckless of consequences, he caught her two hands lightly in his own.

"And how dare YOU!" he said earnestly,—"Little girl, how dare YOU so hurt yourself!"

They gazed upon one another,—each one secretly amazed at the other's outbreak of feeling,—she grown white and speechless,—he with a swift strong sense of his own power and authority as a mere man, nerving him to the utterance of truth for her sake—for her sake!—regardless of all forms and ceremonies. Then he dropped her hands as quickly as he had grasped them.

"Forgive me!" he said, very softly,—and paused, till recovering more of his self-possession, he continued quietly—"You should not have sent for me, Miss Vancourt! Knowing that I had offended you, I was leaving your house, never intending to enter it again. Why did you summon me back? To reproach me? It would be kinder to spare me this, and let me go my own way!"

He waited for her to speak. But she was silent. Anger, humiliation and wounded pride, mingled with a certain struggling respect and admiration for his boldness, held her mute. She little knew how provocatively lovely she looked as she stood haughtily immovable, her eyes alone flashing eloquent rebellion;—she little guessed that John committed the picture of her fairness to the innermost recording cells of his brain, there to be stored up preciously, and never forgotten.

"I am sorry,"—he resumed—"that I spoke as I did just now at your table—because you are angry with me. But I cannot say that I am sorry for any other reason—"

At this Maryllia found her voice suddenly.

"You have insulted my guests—-"

"Ah, no!" said John, almost with a smile—"Women who are habitual smokers are not easily insulted! They are past that, believe me! The fine susceptibilities which one might otherwise attribute to them have been long ago blunted. They do not command respect, and naturally, they can scarcely expect to receive it."

"I do not agree with you!" retorted Maryllia, with rising warmth, as she regained her self-control, and with it her deep sense of irritation—"You were rude,—and rudeness is unpardonable! You said as much as to imply that none of the women present were ladies—-"

"None of those who smoked were!"—said John, coolly.

"Mr. Walden! I myself, smoked!"

"You did,"—and he moved a step or two nearer to her, his whole face lighting up with keen emotion—"And why did you? The motive was intended to be courteous—but the principle was wrong!"

"Wrong!" she echoed, angrily—"Wrong?"

"Yes—wrong! Have you never been told that you can do one thing wrong among so many that you do right, Miss Vancourt?" he asked, with great gentleness—"You had it in your power to show your true womanliness by refusing to smoke,—you could, in your position as hostess, have saved your women friends from making fools of themselves—yes—the word is out, and I don't apologise for it!"— here a sudden smile kindled in his fine eyes—"And you could also have given them all an example of obedience."

"Obedience!" exclaimed Maryllia, astonished,—"What do you mean? Obedience to whom?"

"To me!" replied John, with perfect composure.

She gazed at him, scarcely believing she had heard aright.

"To you?" she repeated—"To you?"

"Why certainly!" said John, wondering even as he spoke at his own ease and self-assurance—"As minister of the parish I am the only person here that is set in authority over you—and the first thing you do is to defy me!"

His manner was whimsical and kindly,—his tone of voice playfully tender, as though he were speaking to some naughty child whom, notwithstanding its temper, he loved too well to scold,—and Maryllia was completely taken aback by this unexpected method of treating her combative humour. Her pretty mouth opened like a rosebud,—she seemed as though she would speak, but only an inarticulate murmur came from her parted lips; while the very faintest lurking suspicion of a smile crept dimpling over her face, to be lost again in the hostile expression of her eyes.

"You say I was rude,"—he went on,—"If I was, need you have been rude too?"

She found utterance quickly.

"I was not rude—-" she began.

"Pardon me,—you were! Rude to me—and still more rude to yourself! The last was the worst affront, in my opinion!"

"I do not understand you," she said, impatiently—"Your ideas of women are not those of the present day—-"

"Thank God, they are not!" he replied—"I am glad to be in that respect, old-fashioned! You say you do not understand me. Now that is not true! You do understand! You know very well that if I was rude in my UNpremeditated speech, you were much more rude in your premeditated act!—that of deliberately spoiling your womanly self by doing what you know in your own heart was—will you forgive me the word?—unwomanly!"

Maryllia flushed red.

"There is no harm in smoking," she said, coldly;—"it is quite the usual thing nowadays for ladies to enjoy their cigarettes. Why should they not? It is nothing new. Spanish women have always smoked—Austrian and Italian women smoke freely without any adverse comment—in fact, the custom is almost universal. English women have been the last, certainly, to adopt it—but then, England is always behind every country in everything!"

She spoke with a hard flippancy,—and she knew it. Walden's eyes darkened into a deeper gravity.

"Miss Vancourt, this England of ours was once upon a time not behind, but BEFORE every nation in the whole world for the sweetness, purity and modesty of its women! That it has become one with less enlightened races in the deliberate unsexing and degradation of womanhood does not now, and will not in the future, redound to its credit. But I am prolonging a discussion uselessly,— " He waited a moment. "I shall trouble you no more with my opinions, believe me,—nor shall I ever again intrude my presence upon yourself or your guests,"—he continued, slowly,—"As I have already said, I am sorry to have offended YOU,—but I am not sorry to have spoken my mind! I do not care a jot what your friends from London think of me or say of me,—their criticism, good or bad, is to me a matter of absolute indifference—but I had thought—I had hoped—-"

He paused,—his voice for the moment failing him. Maryllia looked at his pale, earnest face, and a sudden sense of shamed compunction smote her heart. Her anger was fast cooling down,—and with the swift change of mood which made her so variable and bewitching, she said, more gently:

"Well, Mr. Walden? You thought—you hoped?"

"That we might be friends,"—he answered, quietly—"But I see plainly that is impossible!"

She was silent. He stood very still,—his eyes wandering involuntarily to the painted beauty of 'Mary Elia Adelgisa de Vaignecourt,' which he had admired and studied so often for many lonely years, and back again along the dimly lit gallery to that unveiled portrait of the young bride who never came home, the mother of the little proud creature who confronted him with such fairy-like stateliness and pretty assertion of her small self in combat against him, and upon whom his glance finally rested with a lingering sadness and pain. Then he said in a low tone:

"Good-night, Miss Vancourt—good-bye!"

At this a cloud of distress swept across her mobile features. "There now!" she said to herself—"He's going away and he'll never come to the Manor any more! I intended to make him quite ashamed of himself- -and he isn't a bit! So like a man! He'd rather die than own himself in the wrong—besides he ISN'T wrong,—oh dear!—he mustn't go away in a huff!"

And with a sudden yielding sweetness and grace of action of which she was quite unconscious, she extended her hands to him—

"Oh, no, Mr. Walden!" she said, earnestly—"I am not so angry as all that! Not good-bye!" Hardly knowing what he did, he took her offered hands and held them tenderly in his own.

"Not good-bye!" she said, trembling a little, and flushing rose-red with a certain embarrassment—"I don't really want to quarrel—I don't indeed! We—we were getting on so nicely together—and it is so seldom one CAN get on with a clergyman!"—here she began to laugh—"But you know it was dreadful of you, wasn't it?—at any rate it sounded dreadful—when you said that English ladies never smoked- —"

"Neither they do,"—declared John resolutely, yet smilingly, "Except by way of defiance!"

She glanced up at him,—and the mirthful sparkle in his eyes was reflected in her own.

"You are very obstinate!" she said, as she drew her hands away from his—"But I suppose you really do think smoking is wrong for women?"

His heart was beating, his pulses thrilling under the influence of her touch, her appealing look and sudden change of manner,—but he was not to be moved from his convictions, though all the world should swim round him in a glamour of blue eyes and gold hair.

"I think so, most certainly!"

"But why?"

He hesitated.

"Well, the act of smoking in itself is not wrong—but the associations of the habit are unfit for womanhood. I know very well that it has become usual in England for ladies to smoke,—most unfortunately—but there are many habits and customs in this country as well as in others, which, because they are habitual, are not the less, but rather the more, pernicious. I confess to a strong prejudice against smoking women."

"But men smoke—why should not women smoke also?" persisted Maryllia.

Walden heard this plea with smiling patience.

"Men,—a very large majority of them too—habitually get drunk. Do you think it justifiable for women to get drunk by way of following the men's example?"

"Why no, of course not!"—she answered quickly—"But drunkenness is a vice—-"

"So is smoking! And it is quite as unhealthy as all vices are. There have been more addle-pated statesmen and politicians in England since smoking became a daily necessity with, them than were ever known before. I don't believe in any human being who turns his brain into a chimney. And.—pardon me!—when YOU deliberately put that cigarette in your mouth—-"

"Well!" and a mischievous dimple appeared on each soft cheek as she looked up—"What did you think of me? Now be perfectly frank!"

"I will!" he said, slowly, with an earnest gravity darkening in his eyes—"I should not be your true friend if I were otherwise! But if I tell you what I thought—and what I may say I know from long experience all honest Englishmen think when they see a woman smoking—you must exonerate me in your mind and understand that my thoughts were only momentary. I knew that your better, sweeter self would soon reassert its sway!"

Her head drooped a little—she was quite silent.

"I thought,"—he went on, "when I saw you actually smoking, that something strange and unnatural had happened to you! That you had become, in some pitiful way, a different woman to the one that walked with me, not so long ago, and showed me her old French damask roses blossoming in the border!"—he paused an instant, his voice faltering a little,—then he resumed, quietly and firmly—"and that you had, against all nature's best intentions for you, descended to the level of Lady Beaulyon—-"

She interrupted him by a quick gesture—-

"Eva Beaulyon is my friend, Mr. Walden!"

"No—not your friend!"—he said steadily—"Forgive me! You asked me to speak frankly. She is a friend to none except those of her own particular class and type—-"

"To which I also belong,"—said Maryllia, with a sudden flash of returning rebellion—"You know I do!"

"I know you do NOT!" replied Walden, with some heat—"And I thank God for it! I know you are no more of her class and type than the wood lily is like the rank and poisonous marsh weed! Oh, child!—why do you wrong yourself! If I am too blunt and plain in what I say to you, let me cease speaking—but if you ask ME as your friend—as your minister!"—and he emphasised the word—"to tell you honestly my opinion, have patience with my roughness!"

"You are not rough," she murmured,—and a little contraction in her throat warned her of the possible rising of tears—"But you are scarcely tolerant!"

"I cannot be tolerant of the demoralisation of womanhood!"—he said, passionately—"I cannot look on with an easy smile when I see the sex that SHOULD be the saving purity of the world, deliberately sinking itself by its own free will and choice into the mire of the vulgarest social vice, and parting with every redeeming grace, modesty and virtue that once made it sacred and beautiful! I am quite aware that there are many men who not only look on, but even encourage this world-wide debasement of women in order to bring them down on a par with themselves—but I am not one of these. I know that when women cease to be womanly, then the sorrows of the world, already heavy, will be doubled and trebled! When men come to be ashamed of their mothers—as many of them are to-day—there will be but little hope of good for future generations! And the fact that there are many women of title and position like your guest, Lady Beaulyon, who deliberately drag their husband's honour through the dust and publicly glory in their own disgrace, does not make their crime the less, but rather the more criminal. You know this as well as I do! You are not of Lady Beaulyon's class or type—if you were, I should not waste one moment of my time in your presence!"

She gazed at him speechlessly. And now from the drawing room came the sound of Cicely's voice, clear, powerful, and as sweet as legends tell us the voices of the angels are—

"Luna fedel, tu chiama Col raggio ed io col suon, La fulgida mia dama Sul gotico veron!"

"You know," he went on impetuously—"You know I told you before that I am not a society man. I said that if I came to dinner to meet your London friends, I should be very much in the way. You have found me so. A man of my age and of my settled habits and convictions ought to avoid society altogether. It is not possible for him to accommodate himself to it. For instance,—see how old-fashioned and strait-laced I am!—I wish I had been miles away from St. Rest before I had ever seen you smoking! It is a trifle, perhaps,—but it is one of those trifles which stick in the memory and embitter the mind!"

Around them the air seemed to break and divide into pulsations of melody as Cicely sang:

"Diro che sei d'argente D'opale, d'ambra e d'or, Diro che incanti il vento, E che innamori i fior!"

"You have seemed to me such an ideal of English womanhood!"—he went on dreamily, hardly aware how far his words were carrying him—"The sweet and fitting mistress of this dear old house, richly endowed as it is with noblest memories of the noble dead! Their proud and tender spirit has looked out of your eyes—or so I have fancied;— and you are naturally so kind and gentle—you have been so good to the people in the village,—they all love you—they all wish to think well of you;—for you have proved yourself practically as well as emotionally sympathetic to them. And, above all things, you have appeared so pre-eminently delicate and dainty in your tastes—so maidenly!—I should as soon have expected to see the Greek Psyche smoking as you!"

She took a swift step towards him, and laid her hand on his arm.

"Can't you forget it?" she said.

He looked at her. Her eyes were humid, and her lips trembled a little.

"Forget what?" he asked gently.

"That I smoked!"

He hesitated a second.

"I will try!"

"You see!"—went on Maryllia, coaxingly—"we shall have to live in the same parish, and we shall be compelled to meet each other often- -and it would never do for you to be always thinking of that cigarette! Now would it?"

He was silent. The little hand on his arm gave an insistent pressure.

"Of course when you conjure up such an awful picture as Psyche smoking, I know just how you feel about it!" And her eyes sparkled up at him with an arch look which, fortunately for his peace of mind, his own eyes did not meet,—"And naturally you must hold very strong opinions on the subject,—dreadfully strong! But then—nobody has ever thought me at all like Psyche before—so you so—you see!— " She paused, and John began to feel his heart beating uncomfortably fast. "It's very nice to be compared to Psyche anyhow!—and of course she would look impossible and awful with a cigarette in her mouth! I quite understand! She couldn't smoke,—she wouldn't!—and— and—I won't! I won't really! You won't believe me, I expect,—but I assure you, I never smoke! I only did it this evening, because,— because,—well!—because I thought I ought to defend my own sex against your censure—and also perhaps—perhaps out of a little bit of bravado! But, I'm sorry! There! Will you forgive me?"

Nearly, very nearly, John lost his head. Maryllia had used the strongest weapon in all woman's armoury,—humility,—and he went down before it, completely overwhelmed and conquered. A swirl of emotion swept over him,—his brain grew dizzy, and for a moment he saw nothing in earth or heaven but the sweet upturned face, the soft caressing eyes, the graceful yielding form clad in its diaphanous draperies of jewelled gossamer,—then pulling himself together with a strong effort which made him well-nigh tremble, he took the small hand that lay in white confidence on his arm, and raised it to his lips with a grave, courtly, almost cold reverence.

"It is you to forgive ME, Miss Vancourt!"—he said, unsteadily. "For I am quite aware that I committed a breach of social etiquette at your table,—and—and—I know I have taken considerable liberty in speaking my mind to you as I have done. Even as your minister I fear I have overstepped my privileges—-"

"Oh, please don't apologise!" said Maryllia, quickly—"It's all over, you know! You've said your say, and I've said mine—and I'm sure we both feel better for it. Don't we?"

John smiled, but his face was very pale, and his eyes were troubled. He was absorbed in the problem of his own struggling emotions—how to master them—how to keep them back from breaking into passionate speech,—and her bewitching, childlike air, half penitent, half mischievous, was making sad havoc of his self-possession.

"We are friends again now,"—she went on—"And really,—really we MUST try and keep so!"

This, with a quaint little nod of emphatic decision.

"Do you think it will be difficult?" he asked, looking at her more earnestly and tenderly than he himself was aware of.

She laughed, and blushed a little.

"I don't know!—it may be!" she said—"You see you've twice ruffled me up the wrong way! I was very angry—oh, very angry indeed, when you coolly stopped the service because we all came in late that Sunday,—and to-night I was very angry again—-"

"But I was NOT angry!" said John, simply—"And it takes two to make a quarrel!"

She peeped at him from under her long lashes and again the fleeting blush swept over her fair face.

"I must go now!"—she said—"Won't you come into the drawing-room?— just to hear Cicely sing at her very best?"

"Not to-night,"—he answered quickly—"If you will excuse me—-"

"Of course I will excuse you!" and she smiled—"I know you don't like company."

"I very much DISLIKE it!" he said, emphatically—"But then I'm quite an unsociable person. You see I've lived alone here for ten years—- "

"And you want to go on living alone for another ten years—I see!" said Maryllia—"Well! So you shall! I promise I won't interfere!"

He looked at her half appealingly.

"I don't think you understand,"—he said,—then paused.

"Oh yes, I understand perfectly!" And she smiled radiantly. "You like to be left quite to yourself, with your books and flowers, and the bits of glass for the rose-window in the church. By the bye, I must help you with that rose-window! I will get you some genuine old pieces—and if I find any very rare specimens of medieval blue or crimson you'll be so pleased that you'll forget all about that cigarette—you know you will!"

"Miss Vancourt,"—he began earnestly—"if you will only believe that it is because I think so highly of you—because you have seemed to me so much above the mere society woman that I—-I—-"

"I know!" she said, very softly—"I quite see your point of view!"

"You are not of the modern world,"—he went on, slowly—"Not in your heart—not in your real tastes and sentiments;—not yet, though you may possibly be forced to become one with it after your marriage—-"

"And when will that be?" she interrupted him smiling.

His clear, calm blue eyes rested upon her gravely and searchingly.

"Soon surely,—if report be true!"

"Really? Well, you ought to know whether the date has been fixed yet,"—she said, very demurely—"Because, of course YOU'LL have to marry me!"

Something swayed and rocked in John's brain, making the ground he stood upon swerve and seem unsteady. A wave of colour flushed his bronzed face up to the very roots of his grey-brown hair. Maryllia watched him with prettily critical interest, much as a kitten watches the rolling out of a ball of worsted on which it has just placed its little furry paw. Hurriedly he sought in his mind for something to say.

"I—-I—-don't quite understand,"—he murmured.

"Don't you?" and she smiled upon him blandly—"Surely you wouldn't expect me to be married in any church but yours, or by any clergyman but you?"

"Oh, I see!" And Maryllia mentally commented—'So do I!'—while he heaved a sigh unconsciously, but whether of relief or pain it was impossible to tell. Looking up, he met her eyes,—so deep and blue, so strangely compassionate and tender! A faint smile trembled on her lips.

"Good-night, Mr. Walden!"

"Good-night!" he said; then suddenly yielding to the emotion which mastered him, he made one swift step to her side—"You will forgive me, I know!—you will think of me presently with kindness, and with patience for my old-fashioned ways!—and you will do me the justice to believe that if I seemed rude to your guests, as you say I was, it was all for your sake!—because I thought you deserved more respect from them than that they should smoke in your presence,—and also, because I felt—I could not help feeling that if your father had been alive he would not have allowed them to do so,—he would have been too precious of you,—too careful that nothing of an indecorous or unwomanly nature should ever be associated with you;— and—and—I spoke as I did because it seemed to me that someone SHOULD speak!—someone of years and authority, who from the point of experience alone, might defend you from the contact of modern vulgarity;—so—so—I said the first words that came to me—just as your father might have said them!—yes!—just as your father might have spoken,—for you—you know you seem little more than a child to me!—I am so much older than you are, God help me!"

Stooping, he caught her hands and kissed them with a passion of which he was entirely unconscious,—then turned swiftly from her and was gone.

She stood where he had left her, trembling a little, but with a startled radiance in her eyes that made them doubly beautiful. She was pale to the lips;—her hands,—the hands he had kissed, were burning. Suddenly, on an impulse which she could not have explained to herself, she ran swiftly out of the picture-gallery and into the hall where,—as the great oaken door stood open to the summer night,—she could see the whole flower-garlanded square of the Tudor court, gleaming like polished silver in the intense radiance of the moon. John Walden was walking quickly across it,—she watched him, and saw him all at once pause near the old stone dial which at this season of the year was almost hidden by the clambering white roses that grew around it. He took off his hat and passed his hand over his brows with an air of dejection and fatigue,—the moonlight fell full on the clear contour of his features,—and she drew herself and her sparkling draperies well back into the deep shadow of the portal lest he should catch a glimpse of her, and, perhaps,—so seeing her, return—

"And that would never do!" she thought, with a little tremor of fear running through her which was unaccountably delicious;—"I'm sure it wouldn't!—not to-night!"

The air was very warm and sultry,—all the windows of the Manor were thrown open for coolness,—and through those of the drawing-room came the lovely vibrations of Cicely's pure fresh voice. She was singing an enchanting melody on which some words of Julian Adderley's, simple and quaint, without having any claim to particular poetic merit, floated clearly with distinct and perfect enunciation—

"A little rose on a young rose-tree Shed all its crimson blood for me, Drop by drop on the dewy grass, Its petals fell, and its life did pass; Oh little rose on the young rose-tree, Why did you shed your blood for me?

"A nightingale in a tall pine-tree Broke its heart in a song for me, Singing, with moonbeams around it spread, It fluttered, and fell at my threshold, dead;— Oh nightingale in the tall pine-tree, Why did you break your heart for me?

"A lover of ladies, bold and free, Challenged the world to a fight for me, But I scorn'd his love in a foolish pride, And, sword in hand, he fighting died! Oh lover of ladies, bold and free, Why did you lose your life for me?"

And again, with plaintive insistence, the last two lines were repeated, ringing out on the deep stillness of the summer night—

"Oh lover of ladies, told and free, Why did you lose yowr life for me?"

The song ceased with a clash of chords. It was followed by a subdued clapping of hands,—a pause of silence—and then a renewed murmur of conversation. Walden looked up as if suddenly startled from a reverie, and resumed his quick pace across the courtyard,—and Maryllia, seeing him go, advanced a little more into the gleaming moonlight to follow him with her eyes till he should quite disappear.

"Upon my word, a very quaint little comedy!" said a coldly mocking voice behind her—"A modern Juliet gazing pathetically after the retiring form of a somewhat elderly clerical Romeo! Let me congratulate you, Miss Maryllia, on your newest and most brilliant achievement,—the conquest of a country parson! It is quite worthy of you!"

And turning, she confronted Lord Roxmouth.



XXIV

For a moment they looked at each other. The smile on Roxmouth's face widened.

"Come, come, Maryllia!" he said, easily—"Don't be foolish! The airs of a tragedy queen do not suit you. I assure you I haven't the least objection to your amusing yourself with a parson, if you like! The conversation in the picture-gallery just now was quite idyllic—all about a cigarette and Psyche! Really it was most absurd!—and the little sermon of the enamoured clergyman to his pretty penitent was as unique as it was priggish. I'm sure you must have been vastly entertained! And the final allusion he made to his age—THAT was a masterstroke of pathos!—or bathos? Which? Du sublime au ridicule il n'y'a qu'un pas, Madame!"

Her eyes were fixed unswervingly upon him.

"So you listened!" she said.

"Naturally! One always listens to a comedy if it is played well. I've been listening all the evening. I've listened to your waif and stray, Cicely Bourne, and am perfectly willing to admit that she is worth the training you are giving her. It's the first time I've heard her sing to advantage. I've listened to Eva Beaulyon's involved explanation of a perfectly unworkable scheme for the education of country yokels (who never do anything with education when they get it), on which she is going to extract twenty thousand pounds for herself from the pockets of her newest millionaire- victim. I've listened to the Bludlip Courtenay woman's enthusiastic description of a new specific for the eradication of wrinkles and crowsfeet. I've listened to that old bore Sir Morton Pippitt, and to the afflicting county gossip of the lady in green,—Miss Ittlethwaite is her name, I believe. And, getting tired of these things, I strolled towards the picture-gallery, and hearing your delightful voice, listened there. I confess I heard more than I expected!"

Without a word in response, she turned from him and began to move away. He stretched out a hand and caught her sleeve.

"Maryllia, wait! I must speak to you—and I may as well say what I have to say now and get it over."

She paused. Lifting her eyes she glanced at him with a look of utter scorn and contempt. He laughed.

"Come out into the moonlight!"—he said—"Come and walk with me in this romantic old courtyard. It suits you, and you suit it. You are very pretty, Maryllia! May I—notwithstanding the parson—smoke?"

She said nothing. Drawing a leather case from his pocket, he took a cigar out and lit it.

"Silence gives consent,"—he went on—"Besides I'm sure you don't mind. You know plenty of men who can never talk comfortably without puffing smoke in between whiles. I'm one of that sort. Don't look at me like Cleopatra deprived of Marc Antony. Be reasonable! I only want to say a few plain matter-of-fact words to you—-"

"Say them then as quickly as possible, please,"—she replied—"I am NOT a good listener!"

"No? Now I should have thought you were, judging by the patience with which you endured the parson's general discursiveness. What a superb night!" He stepped from the portal out on the old flagstones of the courtyard. "Take just one turn with me, Maryllia!"

Quietly, and with an air of cold composure she came to him, and walked slowly at his side. He looked at her covertly, yet critically.

"I won't make love to you,"—he said presently, with a smile— "because you tell me you don't like it. I will merely put a case before you and ask for your opinion! Have I your permission?"

She bent her head slightly. Her throat was dry,—her heart was beating painfully,—she knew Roxmouth's crafty and treacherous nature, and her whole soul sickened as she realised that now he could, if he chose, drag the name of John Walden through a mire of social mud, and hold it up to ridicule among his own particular 'set,' who would certainly lose no time in blackening it with their ever-ready tar-brush. And it was all through her—all through her! How would she ever forgive herself if his austere and honourable reputation were touched in ever so slight a degree by a breath of scandal? Unconsciously, she clasped her little hands and wrung them hard—Roxmouth saw the action, and quickly fathomed the inward suffering it indicated.

"You know my dearest ambition,"—he went on,—"and I need not emphasise it. It is to call you my wife. If you consent to marry me, you take at once a high position in the society to which you naturally belong. But you tell me I am detestable to you—and that you would rather die than accept me as a husband. I confess I do not understand your attitude,—and, if you will allow me to say so, I hardly think you understand it yourself. You are in a state of uncertainty—most women live always in that state;—and your vacillating soul like a bewildered butterfly—you see I am copying the clerical example by dropping into poetry!—and a butterfly, NOT a cigarette, is I believe the correct emblem of Psyche,—" here he took a whiff at his cigar, and smiled pleasantly—"your soul, I repeat, like a bewildered butterfly, has lighted by chance on a full-flowering parson. The flight—the pause on that maturely-grown blossom of piety, is pardonable,—but I cannot contemplate with pleasure the idea of your compromising your name with that of this sentimental middle-aged individual who, though he may be an excellent Churchman, would make rather a grotesque lover!"

She remained silent. Glancing sideways at her, he wondered whether it was the moonlight that made her look so set and pale.

"But I said I would put a case before you,"—he continued, "and I will. Here are you,—of an age to be married. Here am I,—anxious to marry you. We are neither of us growing younger—and delay seems foolish. I offer you all I am worth in the world—myself, my name and my position. You have refused me a score of times, and I am not discouraged—you refuse me still, and I am not baffled. But I ask why? I am not deformed or idiotic. I would try to make you happy. A woman is best when she has entirely her own way,—I would let you have yours. You would be free to follow your own whims and caprices. Provided you gave me lawful heirs, I should ask no more of you. No reasonable man ought to ask more of any reasonable woman. Life could be made very enjoyable to us both, with a little tact and sense on either side. I should amuse myself in the world, and so I hope, would you. We understand modern life and appreciate its conveniences. The freedom of the matrimonial state is one of those conveniences, of which I am sure we should equally take advantage."

He puffed at his cigar for a few minutes complacently.

"You profess to hate me,"—he went on—"Again I ask, why? You tell your aunt that you want to be 'loved.' You consider love the only lasting good of life. Well, you have your desire. I love you!"

She raised her eyes,—and then suddenly laughed.

"You!" she said—"You 'love' me? It must be a very piecemeal sort of love, then, for I know at least five women to whom you have said the same thing!"

He was in nowise disconcerted.

"Only five!" he murmured lazily—"Why not ten—or twenty? The more the merrier! Women delight in bragging of conquests they have never made, as why should they not? Lying comes so naturally to them! But I do not profess to be a saint,—I daresay I have said 'I love you' to a hundred women in a certain fashion,—but not as I say it to you. When I say it to you, I mean it."

"Mean what?" she asked.

"Love."

She stopped in her walk and faced him.

"When a man loves a woman—really loves her,"—she said, "Does he persecute her? Does he compromise her in society? Does he try to scandalise her among her friends? Does he whisper her name away on a false rumour, and accuse her of running after him for his title, while all the time he knows it is he himself that is running after her money? Does he make her life a misery to her, and leave her no peace anywhere, not even in her own house? Does he spy upon her, and set others to do the same?—does he listen at doors and interrogate servants as to her movements—and does he altogether play the dastardly traitor to prove his 'love'?"

Her voice shook—her eyes were ablaze with indignation. Roxmouth flicked a little ash off his cigar.

"Why, of course not!" he replied—"But who does these dreadful things? Are they done at all except in your imagination?"

"YOU do them!" said Maryllia, passionately—"And you have always done them! When I tell you once and for all that I have given up every chance I ever had of being my aunt's heiress—that I shall never be a rich woman,—and that I would far rather die a beggar than be your wife, will you not understand me?—will you not leave me alone?"

He looked at her with quizzical amusement.

"Do you really want to be left alone?" he asked—"Or in a 'solitude a deux'—with the parson?"

She was silent, though her silence cost her an effort. But she knew that the least word she might say concerning Walden would be wilfully misconstrued. She knew that Roxmouth was waiting for her to burst out with some indignant denial of his suggestions—something that he might twist and turn in his own fashion and repeat afterwards to all his and her acquaintances. She cared nothing for herself, but she was full of dread lest Walden's name should be bandied up and down on the scurrilous tongues of that 'upper class' throng, who, because they spend their lives in nothing nobler than political intrigue and sensual indulgence, are politely set aside as froth and scum by the saner, cleaner world, and classified as the 'Smart Set.' Roxmouth watched her furtively. His clear-cut face, white skin and sandy hair shone all together with an oily lustre in the moonlight;—there was a hard cold gleam in his eyes.

"It would be a pretty little story for the society press," he said, after a pause—"How the bewitching Maryllia Vancourt resigned the brilliancy of her social life for a dream of love with an elderly country clergyman! By Heaven! No one would believe it! But,"—and he waited a minute, then continued—"It's a story that shall never be told so far as I am concerned—if—" He broke off, and looked meditatively at the end of his cigar. "There is always an 'if'— unfortunately!"

Maryllia smiled coldly.

"That is a threat,"—she said—"But it does not affect me! Nothing that you can do or say will make me consent to marry you. You have slandered me already—you can slander me again for all I care. But I will never be your wife."

"You have said so before,"—he observed, placidly—"And I have put the question many times—why?"

She looked at him steadily.

"Shall I tell you?"

"Do! I shall appreciate the favour!"

For a moment she hesitated. A great pain and sorrow clouded her eyes.

"No woman marries a leper by choice!"—she said at last, slowly.

He glanced at her,—then shrugged his shoulders.

"You talk in parables. Pardon me if I am too dull to understand you!"

"You understand me well enough,"—she answered—"But if you wish it, I will speak more plainly. I dream of love—-"

"Most women do!" he interrupted her, smilingly—"And I am sure you dream charmingly. But is a middle-aged parson part of the romantic vision?"

She paid no heed to this sarcasm. She had moved a pace or two away from him, and now stood, her head slightly uplifted, her eyes turned wistfully towards the picturesque gables of the Manor outlined clearly in the moon against the dense night sky.

"I dream of love!"—she repeated softly,—while he, smoking tranquilly, and looking the very image of a tailor's model in his faultlessly cut dress suit, spotless shirt front, and aggressively neat white tie, studied her face, her figure and her attitude with amused interest—"But my dream is not what the world offers me as the dream's realisation! The love that I mean—the love that I seek- -the love that I want—the love that I will have,"—and she raised her hand involuntarily with a slight gesture which almost implied a command—"or else go loveless all my days—is an honest love,— loyal, true and pure!—and strong enough to last through this life and all the lives to come!"

"If there are any!"—interpolated Roxmouth, blandly.

She looked at him,—and a vague expression of something like physical repulsion flitted across her face.

"It is no use talking to you,"—she said—"For you believe in nothing—not even in God! You are a man of your own making—you are not a man in the true sense of manhood. How can you know anything of love? You will not find it in the low haunts of Paris where you are so well known,—where your name is a byword as that of an English 'milord' who degrades his Order!"

"What do YOU know of the low haunts of Paris?" he queried with a cold laugh—"Is Louis Gigue your informant?'

"I daresay Louis Gigue knows as much of you as most men do,"—she replied, quietly—"But I never speak of you to him. Indeed, I never speak of you at all unless you are spoken of, and not always then. You do not interest me sufficiently!"

She moved towards the house. He followed her.

"Your remarks have been somewhat rambling and disjointed,"—he said- -"But essentially feminine, after all. And they merely tend to one thing—that you are still an untamed shrew!"

She looked back at him over her shoulder. Her eyes gleamed in the moonlight,—a faint smile curved her pretty mouth.

"If I am, it will need someone braver than you are to tame me!" she said—"A trickster is always a coward!"

With an angry exclamation he flung away the end of his cigar,—it fell into a harmless bed of mignonette and seared the sweet blossom, burning redly in the green like a wicked eye. And then he caught her hand firmly and held it grasped as in a vice.

"You insult me!" he said, thickly—"And I shall not forget it! You talk as a child talks—though you are no child! You are a woman of the world—you have travelled—you have had experience—and you know men. You are perfectly aware that the sentimental 'love' you speak of exists nowhere except in poems and story-books—you know that no sane man alive would tie himself to one woman save for the law's demand that his heirs shall be lawfully born. You are no shrinking maid in her teens, that you should start and recoil or blush, at the truth of the position, and it is the merest affectation on your part to talk about 'love lasting forever,' for you are perfectly aware that it cannot last very long over the honeymoon. The natural state of man is polygamous. Englishmen are the same as Turks or Hottentots in this respect, except for the saving grace of hypocrisy, which is the chief prop of European civilisation. If it were not for hypocrisy, we should all be savages as utterly and completely as in primaeval days! You know all this as well as I do—and yet you feign to desire the impossible, while all the time you play the fool with a country parson! But I'll make you pay for it—by Heaven, I will! You scorn me and my name—you call me a social leper—-"

"You are one!" she said, wrenching her hand from his clasp—"And what is more, you know it, and you glory in it! Who are your associates? Men who are physically or morally degenerate—women who, so long as their appetites are satisfied, seek nothing more! You play the patron to a certain literary 'set' who produce books unfit to be read by any decent human being,—you work your way, by means of your title and position, through society, contaminating everything you touch! You contaminate ME by associating my name with yours!—and my aunt helps you in the wicked scheme! I came here to my own home—to the house where my father died—thinking that perhaps here at least I should find peace,"—and her voice shook as with tears—"that here, at least, the old walls might give me shelter and protection!—but even here you followed me with your paid spy, Marius Longford—and I have found myself surrounded by your base tools almost despite myself! But even if you try to hound me into my grave, I will never marry you! I would rather die a hundred times over than be your wife!"

His face flushed a dark red, and he suddenly made an though he would seize her in his arms. She retreated swiftly.

"Do not touch me!" she said, in a low, strained voice—"It will be the worse for you if you do!"

"The worse for me—or for YOU?" he muttered fiercely,—then regaining his composure, he burst into an angry laugh. "Bah! You are nothing but a woman! You fling aside what you have, and pine for what you have not! The old, old story! The eternal feminine!"

She made no reply, but moved on towards the house. "Quel ravissement de la lune!" exclaimed a deep guttural voice at this juncture, and Louis Gigue came out from the dark embrasure of the Manor's oaken portal into the full splendour of the moonlight—"Et la belle Mademoiselle Vancourt is ze adorable fantome of ze night! Et milord Roxmouth ze what-you-call?—ze gnome!—ze shadow of ze lumiere! Ha-ha! C'est joli, zat little chanson of ze little rose- tree! Ze music, c'est une inspiration de Cicely—and ze words are not so melancolique as ze love-songs made ordinairement en Angleterre! Oui—oui!—c'est joli!"

He turned his shrewd old face up to the sky, and blinked at the dim stars,—there was a smile under his grizzled moustache. He had interrupted the conversation between his hostess and her objectionable wooer precisely at the right moment, and he knew it. Roxmouth's pale face grew a shade paler, but he made a very good assumption of perfect composure, and taking out his case of cigars offered one to Gigue, who cheerfully accepted it. Then he lit one for himself with a hand that trembled slightly. Maryllia, pausing on the step of the porch as she was about to enter, turned her head back towards him for a moment.

"Are you staying long at Badsworth Hall?" she asked.

"About a fortnight or three weeks,"—he answered carelessly, "Mr. Longford is doing some literary work and needs the quiet of the country—and Sir Morton Pippitt is good enough to wish us to extend our visit."

He smiled as he spoke. She said nothing further, but slowly passed into the house. Gigue at once began to walk up and down the courtyard, smoking vigorously, and talking volubly concerning the future of his pupil Cicely Bourne, and the triumph she would make some two years hence as a 'prima donna assoluta,' far greater than Patti ever was in her palmiest days,—and Roxmouth was perforce compelled, out of civility, as well as immediate diplomacy, to listen to him with some show of interest.

"Do you think an artistic career a good thing for a woman?" he asked, with a slight touch of satire in his voice as he put the question.

Gigue glanced up at him quickly and comprehendingly.

"Ah, bah! Pour une femme il n'y'a qu'une chose—l'Amour!" he replied—"Mais—au meme temps—l'Art c'est mieux qu'un mariage de convenance!"

Roxmouth shrugged his shoulders deprecatingly, smiled tolerantly, and changed the subject.

That same evening, when everyone had retired to bed, and when Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay was carefully taking off her artistically woven 'real hair' eyebrows and putting them by in a box for the night, Lady Beaulyon, arrayed in a marvellous 'deshabille' of lace and pale blue satin, which would have been called by the up-to-date modiste 'a dream of cerulean sweetness,' came into her room with dejection visibly written on her photographically valuable features.

"It's all over, Pipkin!" she said, with a sigh,—Pipkin was the poetic pet-name by which the 'beauty' of the press-paragraphist addressed her Ever-Youthful friend,—"We shall never get a penny out of Mrs. Fred Vancourt. Maryllia is a mule! She has told me as plainly as politeness will allow her to do that she does not intend to know either you or me any more after we have left here—and you know we're off to-morrow. So to-morrow ends the acquaintance. That girl's 'cheek' is beyond words! One would think she was an empress, instead of being a little bounder with only an old Manor-house and certainly not more than two thousand a year in her own right!"

'Pipkin' stared. That she was destitute of eyebrows, save for a few iron-grey bristles where eyebrows should have been, and that her beautiful Titian hair was lying dishevelled on her dressing table, were facts entirely lost sight of in the stupefaction of the moment.

"Maryllia Vancourt does not intend to know US!" she ejaculated,— "Nonsense, Eva! The girl must be mad!"

"Mad or sane, that's what she says,"—and Eva Beaulyon turned away from the spectacle of her semi-bald and eyebrow-less confidante with a species of sudden irritation and repulsion—"She declares we are in the pay of her aunt and Lord Roxmouth. So we are, more or less! And what does it matter! Money must be had—and whatever way there is of getting it should be taken. I laughed at her, and told her quite frankly that I would do anything for money,—flatter a millionaire one day and cut him the next, if I could get cheques for doing both. How in the world should I get on without money?—or you either! But she is an incorrigible little idiot—talks about honour and principle exactly like some mediaeval story-book. She declares she will never speak to either of us again after we've gone away to- morrow. Of course we can easily reverse the position and turn the tables upon her by saying we will not speak to her again. That will be easy enough—for I believe she's after the parson."