The even flow of his speech ceased.—"What do you think of it, Helen?" he demanded, almost harshly.

"I think it can't last. It is too intangible, too fantastic."

"I admit that to keep it intact needs an infinity of precautions. For instance, I can make no near acquaintance with Naples. I cannot permit myself to see the town at close quarters. I only look at it from here. If I want to go to or from the yacht, I do so at night and in a closed carriage. I took on de Vallorbes' box at the San Carlo. If any good opera is given I go and hear it. Otherwise I remain exclusively in the house and garden. I am not acquainted with a single soul in the place."

"And the woman," Helen exclaimed, a singular emotion at once of envy and protest upon her. "Do you treat her with the same cold-blooded calculation?"

"Of the woman I know just as much and just as little as I know of Naples. It is conceivable there may be unlovely elements in her character, as well as unlovely quarters of this beautiful city. I have avoided knowledge of both. You see the whole arrangement is designed not for her benefit, but for my own. It's an elaborate piece of self-seeking on my part, but, so far, it has really worked rather successfully."

"It is preposterous. It cannot in the nature of things continue successful," Helen declared.

"I am not so sure of that," he replied calmly. "Even the most preposterous of religious systems proves to have a remarkable power of survival. Why not this one? In any case, neither the success nor the failure depends on me. I shall be true, on my part. The rest depends on her."

As Richard spoke he turned, leaning his back against the balustrade, his face away from the sunlight and the wide view. Again the extent of his deformity became arrestingly apparent to Madame de Vallorbes.

"Has this woman ever been here?" she asked.

"Yes—she has been here."

"And then? And then?" Helen cried.

The young man looked up at her, his face keen yet impassive, his eyes—as windows opening on to endless perspective of empty space—telling nothing. She recognised, once again, that he was very strong. She also recognised that, notwithstanding his strength, he was horribly sad.

"Ah! then," he said, "the last of the poor, little, subjective supports and consolations seemed in danger of going overboard and joining their fellows in the uneasy deeps of the sea.—But the history of that will keep till a more convenient season, Cousin Helen. You have stood in the midday sun, and I have talked about myself, quite long enough. However, it was only fair to acquaint you with the limited resources in the way of society and amusement offered by your present dwelling. There are horses and carriages of course. Give what orders you please. Only remember both the town and the surrounding country are pretty rough. It is not fit for a lady to drive by herself. Always take your own man, or one of mine, with you if you go out. I hope you won't be quite intolerably bored. Ask for whatever you want.—You let me dine with you? Thanks."



CHAPTER III

HELEN DE VALLORBES APPREHENDS VEXATIOUS COMPLICATIONS

Four gowns lay outspread upon the indigo-purple, embroidered coverlet of the bed. The afterglow of an orange and crimson sunset touched the folds of them, ranged upward to the vaultings of the frescoed ceiling, and stained the lofty walls as with the glare of a furnace. Sea-greens, sea-blues, died in the heat of it, abashed and vanquished. But so did not Madame de Vallorbes' white lawn and lace peignoir, or her abundant hair, which Zelie Forestier—trim of figure, and sour of countenance—was in the act of dressing. These caught the fiery light and held it, so that from head to foot Helen appeared as an image of living gold. Sitting before the toilet-table, her reflection in the great, oval mirror pleased her.

"Which shall I wear?"

"That depends upon the length of time madame proposes to stay here. The black dress might be worn on several occasions with impunity. The peacock brocade, the eau de Nil, the crocus yellow, but once—twice at the uttermost. They are ravishing costumes, but wanting in repose. They are unsuited for frequent repetition."

Zelie's lean fingers twisted, puffed, pinned, the shining hair very skilfully.

"I will put on the black dress."

"Relieved by madame's parure of pink topaz?"

"Yes, I will wear the pink topazes."

"Then it will be necessary to modify the style of madame's coiffure."

"There is plenty of time."

Helen took a hand-glass from the table and leaned forward in the low, round-backed chair—faithful copy of a fine classic model. She wanted to see the full glory of the afterglow upon her profile, upon her neck, and bosom. Thus might Cassiopeia, glass in hand, in her golden chair sit in high heaven!—Helen smiled at the pretty conceit. But the glory was already departing. Sea-blues, sea-greens, sad by contrast, began to reassert their presence on walls and carpet and hangings.

"The black dress? madame decides to remain then?"

As she spoke the lady's-maid laid out the jewels,—chains, bracelets, brooches,—each stone set in a rim of tiny rose-knots of delicate workmanship. As she fingered them little, yellow-pink flames seemed to dance in their many facets. Then the afterglow died suddenly. The flames ceased to dance. Helen's white garments turned livid, her neck and bosom gray—and that, somehow, was extremely unpleasing to Madame de Vallorbes.

"Light the candles," she said, almost sharply. "Yes, I remain. Do hurry, Zelie. It is impossible to see. I detest darkness. Hurry. Do you suppose I want to stay here all night? And look—you must bring that chain further forward. It is not graceful. Make it droop. Let it follow the line of my hair so that the pendant may fall there, in the centre. You have it too much to the right. The centre—the centre—I tell you. There, let the drop just clear my forehead."

Thus admonished the French woman wound the jewels in her mistress' hair. But Madame de Vallorbes remained dissatisfied. The day had been one of uncertainty, of conflicting emotions, and Helen's love of unqualified purposes was great. Confusion in others was highly diverting. But in herself—no thank you! She hated it. It touched her self-confidence. It endangered the absoluteness of her self-belief and self-worship. And these once shaken, small superstitions assaulted her. In trivial happenings she detected indication of ill-luck. Now Zelie's long, narrow face, divided into two unequal portions by a straight bar of black eyebrow, and her lean hands, as reflected in the mirror, awoke unreasoning distrust. They appeared to be detached from the woman's dark-clothed person, the outlines of which were absorbed in the increasing dimness of the room. The sallow face moved, peered, the hands clutched and hovered, independent and unrelated, about Helen's graceful head.

"For pity's sake, more candles, Zelie!" she repeated. "You look absolutely diabolic in this uncertain light."

"In an instant, madame. I am compelled first to fix this curl in place."

She accomplished the operation with most admired deliberation, and moved away more than once, to observe the effect, before finally adjusting the hairpin.

"I cannot but regret that madame is unable to wear her hair turned back from the face. Such an arrangement confers height and an air of spirituality, which, in madame's case, would be not only becoming but advantageous."

Helen skidded the hand-glass down upon the dressing-table, causing confusion amid silver-topped pots and bottles, endangering a jar of hyacinths, upsetting a tray of hairpins.

"Have I not repeatedly given you orders never to allude to that subject," she cried.

The maid was on her knees calmly collecting the scattered contents of the tray.

"A thousand pardons, madame," she said, with a certain sour impudence. "Still, it must ever be a matter of regret to any one truly appreciating madame's style of beauty, that she should be always constrained to wear her hair shading her forehead."

Modern civilisation imposes restrictions even upon the most high-spirited. At that moment Madame de Vallorbes was ripe for the commission of atrocities. Had she been—as she coveted to be—a lady of the Roman decadence it would have gone hard with her waiting-woman, who might have found herself ordered for instant execution or summarily deprived of the organs of speech. But, latter-day sentiment happily forbidding such active expressions of ill-feeling on the part of the employer towards the employed, Helen was forced to swallow her wrath, reminding herself, meanwhile, that a confidential servant is either most invaluable of friends or most dangerous of enemies. There is no via media in the relation. And Zelie as an enemy was not to be thought of. She could not—displeasing reflection—afford to quarrel with Zelie. The woman knew too much. Therefore Madame de Vallorbes took refuge in lofty abstraction, while the tiresome uncertainties, the conflicting inclinations of the past day, quick to seize their opportunity, as is the habit of such discourteous gentry,—returned upon her with redoubled importunity and force.

She had not seen Richard since parting with him at noon, the enigmatic suggestions of his conversation still unresolved, the alternate resentment at his apparent indifference and attraction of his strong and somewhat mysterious personality still vitally present to her. Later she had driven out to Pozzuoli. But neither stone-throwing urchins, foul and disease-stricken beggars, the pale sulphur plains and subterranean rumblings of the Solfaterra, nor stirring of nether fires therein resident by a lanky, wild-eyed lad—clothed in leathern jerkin and hairy, goatskin leggings—with the help of a birch broom and a few local newspapers, served effectually to rouse her from inward debate and questioning. The comfortable, cee-spring carriage might swing and sway over the rough, deep-rutted roads behind the handsome, black, long-tailed horses, the melodramatic-looking coachman might lash stone-throwing urchins and anathematise them, their ancestors and descendants, alike, to the third and fourth generation in the vilest, Neapolitan argot, Charles might resort to physical force in the removal of wailing, alms-demanding, vermin-eaten wrecks of humanity, but still Helen asked herself only—should she go? Should she stay? Was the game worth the candle? Was the risk, not only of social scandal, but of possible ennui, worth the projected act of revenge? And worth something more than that. For revenge, it must be owned, already took a second place in her calculations. Worth, namely, the enjoyment of possible conquest, the humiliation of possible defeat and rejection, by that strangely coercive, strangely inscrutable, being, her cousin, Dickie Calmady?

No man had ever impressed her thus. And she returned on her thought, when first seeing him upon the terrace that morning, that she might lose her head. Helen laughed a little bitterly. She, of all women, to lose her head, to long and languish, to entreat affection, and to be faithful—heaven help us, faithful!—could it ever come to that?—like any sentimental schoolgirl, like—and the thought turned her not a little wicked—like Katherine Calmady herself! And then, that other woman of whom Richard had told her, with a cynical disregard of her own claims to admiration, who on earth could she be? She reviewed those ladies with whom gossip had coupled Richard's name. Morabita, the famous prima donna, for instance. But surely, it was inconceivable that mountain of fat and good nature, with the voice of a seraph, granted, but also with the intellect of a frog, could ever inspire so fantastic and sublimated a passion! And passing from these less legitimate affairs of the heart—in which rumour accredited Richard with being very much of a pluralist—her mind traveled back to the young man's projected marriage with Lady Constance Decies, sometime Lady Constance Quayle. Remembering the slow, sweet, baby-face and gentle, heifer's eyes, as she had seen them that day at luncheon at Brockhurst, nearly five years ago, she again laughed.—No, very certainly there was no affinity between the glorious and naughty city of Naples and that mild-natured, well-drilled, little, English girl! Who was it then—who? But, whoever the fair unknown rival might be, Helen hated her increasingly as the hours passed, regarding her as an enemy, a creature to be exterminated, and swept off the board. Jealousy pricked her desire of conquest. An intrigue with Richard Calmady offered singular, unique attractions. But the force of such attractions was immensely enhanced by the excitement of wresting his affections away from another woman.

Suddenly, in the full swing of these meditations, as she reviewed them for the hundredth time, Zelie's voice claimed her attention.

"I made the inquiries madame commanded."

"Well?" Helen said. She was standing fastening clusters of topaz in the bosom of her dress.

"The servants in this house are very reserved. They are unwilling to give information regarding their master's habits. I could only learn that Sir Richard occupies the entresol. Communicating as it does with the garden, no doubt it is convenient to a gentleman so afflicted as himself."

Helen bowed herself together, while the black lace and China-crape skirt slipped over her head. Emerging from which temporary eclipse, she said:—

"But do people stay here much? Does my cousin entertain? That is what I told you to find out."

"As I tell madame, the servants are difficult of approach. They are very correct. They fear their master, but they also adore him. Charles can obtain little more information than myself. But he infers that Sir Richard, when at the villa, lives in retirement—that he is subject to fits of melancholy. There will be little diversion for madame it is to be feared! But what would you have? Even though one should be young and rich ce ne serait que peu amusant d'etre estropie, d'etre monstre enfin."

Helen drew in her breath with a little sigh of content, while taking a final look at herself in the oval glass. The soft, floating draperies, the many jewels, each with its heart of quick, yellow-pink light, produced a combination at once sombre and vivid. It satisfied her sense of artistic fitness. Decidedly she did well to begin with the black dress, since it had in it a quality rather of romance than of worldliness! Meanwhile Zelie, kneeling, straightened out the folds of the long train.

"Ah!" she exclaimed. "I had forgotten also to inform madame that M. Destournelle has arrived in Naples. Charles, thinking of nothing less than such an encounter, met him this morning on the quay of the Santa Lucia."

Helen wheeled round violently, much to the discomfiture of those carefully adjusted folds.

"Intolerable man!" she cried. "What on earth is he doing here?"

"That, Charles naturally could not inquire.—Will madame kindly remain tranquil for a moment? She has torn a small piece of lace which must be controlled by a pin. Probably monsieur is still en voyage, is visiting friends as is madame herself."

A sudden distrust that the black dress was too mature, that it constituted an admission of departing youth, invaded Helen. The reflection in the oval mirror once more caused her discomfort.

"Tell Charles that I am no longer acquainted with M. Destournelle. If he presumes to call he is to be refused."

Helen set her teeth. But whether in anger towards her discarded lover, or the black dress, she would have found it difficult to declare. Again uncertainty held her, suspicion of circumstance, and, in a degree, of herself. The lady's-maid, imperturbable, just conceivably impertinent, in manner, had risen to her feet.

"There," she said, "it will be secure for to-night, if madame will exercise a moderate degree of caution and avoid abrupt movements. Charles says that monsieur inquired very urgently after madame. He appeared dejected and in weak health. He was agitated on meeting Charles. He trembled. A little more and he would have wept. It would be well, perhaps, that madame should give Charles her orders regarding monsieur herself."

"You should not have made me wear this gown," Helen broke out inconsequently. "It is depressing, it is hideous. I want to change it."

"Impossible. Madame is already a little late, and there is nothing wrong with the costume. Madame looks magnificent. Also her wardrobe is, at present, limited. The evening dresses will barely suffice for a stay of a week, and it is not possible for me to construct a new one under ten days."

Thereupon an opening of doors and voice from the anteroom announcing:—

"Dinner is served, my lady. Sir Richard is in the dining-room."

And Helen swept forward, somewhat stormy and Cassandra-like in her dusky garments. Passing out through the high, narrow doorway, she turned her head.

"Charles, under no circumstance—none, understand—am I at home to Monsieur Destournelle."

"Very good, my lady," and, as he closed the double-doors, the man-servant looked at the lady's-maid his tongue in his cheek.

But, on the journey through the noble suite of rooms, Helen's spirits revived somewhat. Her fair head, her warm glancing jewels, her graceful and measured movements, as given back by many tall mirrors, renewed her self-confidence. She too must be fond of her own image, by the way, that unknown rival to the dream of whose approval Richard Calmady had consecrated these splendid furnishings—witness the multiplicity of looking-glasses!—And then the prospect of this tete-a-tete dinner, the interest of her host's powerful and enigmatic personality, provoked her interest to the point not only of obliterating remembrance of the ill-timed advent of her ex-lover, but of inducing something as closely akin to self-forgetfulness as was possible to her self-centred nature. She grew hotly anxious to obtain, to charm—if it might be, to usurp the whole field of Richard's attention and imagination.

A small round table showed as an island of tender light in the dimness of the vast room. And Richard, sitting at it awaiting her coming, appeared more nearly related to the Richard of Brockhurst and of five years ago than he had done during the interview of the morning. In any case, she took him more for granted. While he, if still inscrutable and unsmiling, proved an eminently agreeable companion, ready of conversation, very much at his ease, very much a cultivated man of the world, studious—a little excessively so, she thought—in his avoidance of the personal note. And this at once piqued Helen, and incited her to intellectual effort. If this was what he wanted, well, he should have it! If he elected to talk of travel, of ancient and alien religions, of modern literature and art, she could meet him more than half-way. Her intelligence ran nimbly from subject to subject, point to point. She struck out daring hypotheses, indulged in ingenious paradox, her mind charmed by her own eloquence, her body comforted by costly wines and delicate meats. Nor did she fail to listen also, knowing how very dear to every man is the sound of his own voice, or omit to offer refined flattery of quick agreement and seasonable laughter. It was late when she rose from the table at last.

"I have had a delightful dinner," she said. "Absolutely delightful. And now I will encroach no longer on your time or good nature, Richard. You have your own occupations, no doubt. So, with thanks for shelter and generous entertainment, we part for to-night."

She held out her hand smiling, but with an admirable effect of discretion, all ardour, all intimacy, kept in check by self-respect and well-bred dignity. Madame de Vallorbes was enchanted with the reserve of her own demeanour. Let it be well understood that she was the least importunate, the least exacting, the most adaptable, of guests!

Richard took her outstretched hand for the briefest period compatible with courtesy. And a momentary spasm—so she fancied—contracted his face.

"You are very welcome, Helen," he said. "If it is warm let us breakfast in the pavilion to-morrow. Twelve—does that suit you? Good-night."

Upon the inlaid writing-table in the anteroom, Helen found a long and impassioned epistle from Paul Destournelle. Perusal of it did not minister to peaceful sleep. In the small hours she left her bed, threw a silk dressing-gown about her, drew aside the heavy, blue-purple, window curtain and looked out. The sky was clear and starlit. Naples, with its curving lines of innumerable lights, lay outstretched below. In the southeast, midway between the two, a blood-red fire marked the summit of Vesuvius. While in the dimly seen garden immediately beneath—the paved alleys of which showed curiously pale, asserting themselves against the darkness of the flower borders, and otherwise impenetrable shadows of the ilex and cypress grove—a living creature moved, black, slow of pace, strange of shape. At first Helen took it for some strayed animal. It alarmed her, exciting her to wildest conjectures as to its nature and purpose, wandering in the grounds of the villa thus. Then, as it passed beyond the dusky shade of the trees, she recognised it. Richard Calmady shuffled forward haltingly, to the terminal wall of the garden, leaned his arms on it, looking down at the beautiful and vicious city and out into the night.

Helen de Vallorbes shivered—the marble floor striking up chill, for all the thickness of the carpet, to her bare feet. Her eyes were hard with excitement and her breath came very quick. Suddenly, yielding to an impulse of superstitious terror, she dragged the curtains together, shutting out that very pitiful sight, and, turning, fled across the room and buried herself, breathless and trembling, between the sheets of the soft, warm, faintly fragrant bed.

"He is horrible," she said aloud, "horrible! And it has come to me at last. It has come—I love—I love!"



CHAPTER IV

"MATER ADMIRABILIS"

"There, there, my good soul, don't blubber. Hysterics won't restore Lady Calmady to health, or bring Sir Richard back to England, home, and duty, or be a ha'porth of profit to yourself or any other created being. Keep your tears for the first funeral. For I tell you plainly I shan't be surprised out of seven days' sleep if this business involves a visit to the churchyard before we get to the other side of it."

John Knott stood with his back to the Chapel-Room fire, his shoulders up to his ears, his hands forced down into the pockets of his riding-breeches. Without, black-thorn winter held the land in its cheerless grasp. The spring was late. Night frosts obtained, followed by pallid, half-hearted sunshine in the early mornings, too soon obliterated by dreary, easterly blight. This afternoon offered exception to the rule only in the additional discomfort of small, sleeting rain and a harsh skirling of wind in the eastward-facing casements.—"Livery weather," the doctor called it, putting down his existing lapse from philosophic tolerance to insufficient secretions of the biliary duct.

Before him stood Clara—sometime Dickie Calmady's devoted nurse and playfellow—her eyes very bright and moist, the reds and whites of her fresh complexion in lamentable disarray.

"I'd never have believed it of Sir Richard," she assented, chokingly. "It isn't like him, so pretty as he was in all his little ways, and loving to her ladyship, and civilly behaved to everybody, and careful of hurting anybody's feelings—more so than you'd expect in a young gentleman like him. No! it isn't like him. In my opinion he's been got hold of by some designing person, who's worked on him to keep him away to serve their own ends. There, I'd never have believed it of him, that I wouldn't!"

The doctor's massive head sank lower, his massive shoulders rose higher, his loose lips twisted into a snarling smile.

"Lord bless you, that's nothing new! We none of us ever do believe it of them when the little beggars are in long clothes, or first breeched for that matter. It's a trick of Mother Nature's—one-idead old lady, who cares not a pin for morality, but only for increase. She knows well enough if we did believe it of them we should clear them off wholesale, along with the blind kittens and puppies. A bucket full of water, and broom to keep them under, would make for a mighty lessening of subsequent violations of the Decalogue! Don't tell me King Herod was not something of a philanthropist when he got to work on the infant population of Bethlehem. One woman wept for each of the little brats then, but his Satanic Majesty only knows how many women wouldn't have had cause to weep for each one of them later, if they'd been spared to grow up."

While speaking, Dr. Knott kept his gaze fixed upon his companion. His humour was none of the gentlest truly, yet he did not let that obscure the main issue. He had business with Clara, and merely waited till the reds and whites of her comely face should have resumed their more normal relations before pursuing it. He talked, as much to afford her opportunity to overcome her emotion, as to give relief to his own. Though now well on the wrong side of sixty, John Knott was hale and vigorous as ever. His rough-hewn countenance bore even closer resemblance, perhaps, to that of some stone gargoyle carved on cathedral buttress or spout. But his hand was no less skilful, his tongue no less ready in denunciation of all he reckoned humbug, his heart no less deeply touched, for all his superficial irascibility, by the pains, and sins, and grinding miseries, of poor humanity than of old.

"That's right now," he said approvingly, as the heaving of Clara's bosom became less pronounced. "Wipe your eyes, and keep your nerves steady. You've got a head on your shoulders—always had. Well, keep it screwed on the right way, for you'll need all the common sense that is in it if we are to pull Lady Calmady through. Do?—To begin with this, give her food every two hours or so. Coax her, scold her, reason with her, cry even.—After all, I give you leave to, just a little, if that will serve your purpose and not make your hand shake—only make her take nourishment. If you don't wind up the clock regularly, some fine morning you'll find the wheels have run down."

"But her ladyship won't have any one sit up with her."

"Very well, then sleep next door. Only go in at twelve and two, and again between five and six."

"But she won't have anybody occupy the dressing-room. It used to be the night nursery you remember, sir, and not a thing in it has been touched since Sir Richard moved down to the gun-room wing."

"Oh, fiddle-de-dee! It's just got to be touched now, then. I can't be bothered with sentiment when it's ten to one whether I save my patient."

Again sobs rose in Clara's throat. The poor woman was hard pressed. But that fixed gaze from beneath the shaggy eyebrows was upon her, and, with quaint gurglings, she fought down the sobs.

"My lady's as gentle as a lamb," she said, "and I'd give the last drop of my blood for her. But talk of managing her, of making her do anything, as well try to manage the wind, she's that set in her ways and obstinate!"

"If you can't manage her, who can?—Mr. March?"

Clara shook her head. Then reluctantly, for though honestly ready to lay down her life for her mistress, she found it far from easy to invite supersession in respect of her, she said:—"Miss St. Quentin's more likely to get round my lady than any one else."

"Well, then, I'll talk to her. Where is Miss St. Quentin?"

"Here, Dr. Knott. Do you want me?"

Honoria had strolled into the room from the stairhead, her attention arrested by the all-too-familiar sound—since sorrowful happenings often of late had brought him to Brockhurst—of the doctor's voice. The skirt of the young lady's habit, gathered up in her left hand, displayed a slightly unconventional length of muddy riding-boot. The said skirt, her tan, covert coat, and slouched, felt hat, were furred with wet. Her garments, indeed, showed evident traces of hard service, and, though notably well cut, were far from new or smart. They were sad-coloured, moreover, as is the fashion of garments designed for work. And this weather-stained, mud-bespattered costume, taken in connection with her pale, sensitive face, her gallant bearing, and the luminous smile with which she greeted not only Dr. Knott but the slightly flustered Clara, offered a picture pensive in tone, but very harmonious, and of a singularly sincere and restful quality. To all, indeed, save those troubled by an accusing conscience and fear of detection, Honoria St. Quentin's presence brought a sense of security and reassurance at this period of her development. Her enthusiasms remained to her, but they were tempered by a wider experience and a larger charity—at least in the majority of cases.

"I'm in a beastly mess," she observed casually.

"So are we," Knott answered. He had a great liking for this young lady, finding in her a certain stoicism along with a quickness of practical help. "But our mess is worse than yours, in that it is internal rather than external. Yours'll brush off. Not so ours—eh, Clara? There, you can go. I'll talk things over with Miss St. Quentin, and she'll talk 'em over with you later."

Honoria's expression had grown anxious. She spoke in a lower tone of voice.

"Is Lady Calmady worse?"

"In a sense, yes—simply because she is no better. And she's ill, I tell you, just as dangerously ill as any woman can be, who has nothing whatever actually the matter with her."

"Except an only son," put in Honoria. "I am beginning to suspect that is about the most deadly disease going. The only thing to be said in its favour is that it is not infectious."

John Knott could not quite keep admiration from his eyes, or provocation from his tongue. He richly enjoyed getting a rise out of Miss St. Quentin.

"I am not so sure of that," he said. "In the case of beautiful women, judging by history, it has shown a tendency to be recurrently sporadic in any case."

"Recommend all such to spend a few months at Brockhurst then, under existing circumstances," Honoria answered. "There will be very little fear for them after that. They will have received such a warning, swallowed such an antidote!—It is like assisting at the infliction of slow torture. It almost gets on one's brain at times."

"Why do you stay on then?"

Honoria looked down at her muddy boots and then across at the doctor. She was slightly the taller of the two, for in these days his figure had fallen together and he had taken to stooping. Her expression had a delightful touch of self-depreciation.

"Why does any one stay by a sinking ship, or volunteer for a forlorn hope? Why do you sit up all night with a case of confluent smallpox, or suck away the poisonous membrane from a diphtheric throat, as I hear you did only last week? I don't know. Just because, if we are made on certain lines, we have to, I suppose. One would be a trifle too much ashamed to be seen in one's own company, afterwards, if one deserted. It really requires less pluck to stick than to run—that's the reason probably.—But about dear Lady Calmady. The excellent Clara was in tears. Is there any fresh mischief over and above the only son?"

"Not at present. But it's an open question how soon there may be.—Good-day, Mr. March. Been riding? Ought to be a bit careful of that cranky chest of yours in this confounded weather.—Lady Calmady?—Yes, as I was telling Miss St. Quentin, her strength is so reduced that complications may arise any day. A chill, and her lungs may go; a shock, and her heart. It comes to a mere question of the point of least resistance. I won't guarantee the continued soundness of any organ unless we get changed conditions, a let up of some sort."

The doctor looked up from under his eyebrows, first at Honoria and then at Julius. He spoke bitterly, defiant of his inclination towards tenderness.

"She's just worn herself out," he said, "that's the fact, in the service of others, loving, giving, attempting the impossible in the way of goodness all round. 'Be not righteous over much'—there's a text to that effect in the Scriptures, Mr. March, isn't there? Preach a good, rattling sermon on it next Sunday to Lady Calmady, if you want to keep her here a bit longer. Nature abhors a vacuum. Granted. But nature abhors excess, even of virtue. And punishes it just as harshly as excess of vice.—Yes, I tell you, she's worn herself out."

Miss St. Quentin dropped into a chair and sat bowed together, her hands on her knees, her feet rather far apart. The brim of her hat, pulled down in front to let the rain run off, partially concealed her face. She was not sorry, for a movement of defective courage was upon her, evidence of which she preferred to keep to herself. Julius March remained silent. And this she resented slightly, for she badly wanted somebody to say something, either vindictive or consolatory. Then, indignation getting the better alike of reticence and charity, she exclaimed:—

"It is unpardonable. It ought to be impossible one person should have power to kill another by inches, like this, with impunity."

Ludovic Quayle had sauntered into the room behind Julius March. He too was wet and dirty, but such trifles in no wise affected the completeness of his urbanity. His long neck directed forward, as in polite inquiry, he advanced to the little group by the fire, and took up his station beside Honoria's chair.

"Pardon me, my dear Miss St. Quentin," he asked sweetly, "but why the allusions to murder? What is unpardonable?"

"Sir Richard Calmady's conduct," she answered shortly. She threw back her head and addressed Dr. Knott. "It is so detestably unjust. What possible quarrel has he with her, after all?"

"Ah! that—that—lies very deep. A thing, perhaps, only a man, or a mother, can quite comprehend," the doctor answered slowly.

Honoria's straight eyebrows drew together. She objected to extenuating circumstances in this connection, yet, as she admitted, reason usually underlay all Dr. Knott's statements. She divined, moreover, that reason, just now, touched upon matters inconveniently intimate. She abstained, therefore, from protest or comment. But, since feminine emotion, even in the least weakly of the sex, is bound to find an outlet, she turned upon poor Mr. Quayle.

"He is your friend," she said. "The rest of us are helpless. You ought to take measures. You ought to suggest a remedy."

"With all the pleasure in life," the young man answered. "But you may remember that you delivered yourself of precisely the same sentiments a year and a half ago. And that, fired with the ardour of a chivalrous obedience, I fled over the face of the European continent in hot pursuit of poor, dear Dickie Calmady."

"Poor, dear!" ejaculated Honoria.

"Yes, very much poor, dear, through it all," the young man affirmed. "Breathless, but still obedient, I came up with him at Odessa."

"What was he doing there?" put in the doctor.

Mr. Quayle regarded him not without humour.

"Really, I am not my friend's keeper, though Miss St. Quentin is pleased to make me a handsome present of that enviable office. And so—well—I didn't inquire what he was doing. To tell the truth, I had not much opportunity, for though I found him charming,—yes, charming, Miss St. Quentin,—I also found him wholly unapproachable regarding family affairs. When, with a diplomatic ingenuity upon which I cannot but congratulate myself, I suggested the advisability of a return to Brockhurst, in the civilest way in the world he showed me the door. Impertinence is not my forte. I am by nature humble-minded. But, I give you my word, that was a little episode of which I do not crave the repetition."

Growling to himself, clasping his hands behind his back, John Knott shifted his position. Then, taken with that desire of clergy-baiting, which would seem to be inherent in members of the Faculty, he addressed Julius March.

"Come, now," he said, "your pupil doesn't do you an overwhelming amount of credit it must be admitted, still you ought to be able to give an expert's opinion upon the tendencies of his character. How much longer do you allow him before he grows tired of filling his belly with the husks the swine eat?"

"God knows, not I," Julius answered sadly, but without rancour. "I confess to the faithlessness of despair at times. And yet, being his mother's son, he cannot but tire of it eventually, and when he does so the revulsion will be final, the restoration complete——"

"He'll die the death of the righteous? Oh yes! I agree there, for there's fine stuff in him, never doubt that. He'll end well enough. Only the beginning of that righteous ending, if delayed much longer, may come a bit too late for the saving of my patient's life and—reason."

"Do you mean it is as serious as all that?" Ludovic asked with sudden anxiety.

"Every bit as serious!—Oh! you should have let your sister marry him, Mr. Quayle. Then he would have settled down, come into line with the average, and been delivered from the morbid sense of outlawry which had been growing on him—it couldn't be helped, on the whole he has kept very creditably sane in my opinion—from the time he began to mix freely in general society. I'm not very soft or sickly sentimental at my time of day, but I tell you it turns my stomach to think of all he must have gone through, poor chap. It's a merciless world, Miss St. Quentin, and no one knows that better than we case-hardened old sinners of doctors.—Yes, your sister should have married him, and we might have been saved all this. I doubted the wisdom of the step at the time. But I was a fool. I see now his mother's instinct was right."

Mr. Quayle pursed up his small mouth and gently shrugged his shoulders.

"It is a delicate subject on which to offer an opinion," he said. "I debated it freely in the privacy of my inner consciousness at the time, I assure you. If Lady Calmady had lighted upon the right, the uniquely right, woman—perhaps—yes. But to shore up a twenty-foot, stone wall with a wisp of straw,—my dear doctor, does that proceeding approve itself to your common sense? And, as is a wisp of straw to such a wall, so was my poor, little sister,—it's hardly flattering to my family pride to admit it,—but thus indeed was she, and no otherwise, to Dickie Calmady."

Whereupon Honoria glanced up gratefully at the speaker, for even yet her conscience pricked her concerning the part she had played in respect of that broken engagement. While John Knott, observant of that upward glance, was once again struck by her manifest sincerity, and the gallant grace of her, heightened by those workmanlike and mud-bespattered garments. And, being so struck, he was once again tempted by, and once again yielded himself to, the pleasures of provocation.

"Marry him yourself, Miss St. Quentin," he growled, a touch of earnest behind his raillery, "marry him yourself and so set the rest of us free of the whole pother. I'd back you to handle him or any fellow living, with mighty great success, if you'd the mind to!"

For a moment it seemed open to question whether that very fair fish might not make short work of angler as well as of bait. But Honoria relented, refusing provocation. And this not wholly in mercy to the speaker, but because it offered her an opportunity of reading Mr. Quayle a, perhaps useful, lesson. Her serious eyes narrowed, and her upper lip shortened into a delightful smile.

"Hopeless, Dr. Knott!" she answered. "To begin with he'll never ask me, since we like each other very royally ill. And to end with—" she carefully avoided sight of Mr. Quayle—"I—you see—I'm not what you call a marrying man."



CHAPTER V

EXIT CAMP

About twenty minutes later the young lady, still booted and spurred, opened the door which leads from the Chapel-Room into Lady Calmady's bedchamber. As she did so a gentle warmth met her, along with a sweetness of flowers. Within, the melancholy of the bleak twilight was mitigated by the soft brightness of a pink-shaded lamp, and a fitful flickering of firelight. This last, playing upon the blue-and-white, Dutch tiling of the hearth and chimney-space conferred a quaint effect of activity upon the actors in the biblical scenes thereon depicted. The patriarch Abraham visibly flourished his two-inch sword above the prostrate form of hapless Isaac. The elders pranced, unblushingly, in pursuit of the chaste Susanna. While poor little Tobit, fish in hand, clung anxiously to the flying draperies of his long-legged, and all-too-peripatetic, guardian angel. Such profane vivacity, on the part of persons usually accounted sacred, offered marked an almost cynical contrast to the extreme quiet otherwise obtaining, accentuated the absoluteness, deepened the depth, of it. For nothing stirred within the length and breadth of the room, nor did any smallest sound disturb the prevailing silence. At these southward-facing casements no harsh wind shrilled. The embroidered curtains of the state-bed hung in stiff, straight folds. The many-coloured leaves and branches of the trees of the Forest of This Life were motionless. Care, the Leopard, crouched, unobservant, forgetful to spring, while the Hart was fixed spellbound in the midst of its headlong flight. A spell seemed, indeed, to rest on all things, which had in it more than the watchful hush of the ordinary sickroom. It suggested a certain moral attitude—a quiet, not acquiesced in merely, but promoted.

Upon Honoria—her circulation quickened by recent exercise, her cheeks still tingling from the stinging sleet, her retina still retaining impressions of the stern grandeur of the wide-ranging fir woods and gray-brown desolation of the moors—this extreme quiet produced an extremely disquieting effect. Passing from the Chapel-Room and the society of her late companions—all three persons of distinct individuality, all three possessing, though from very differing standpoints, a definitely masculine outlook on life—into this silent bedchamber, she seemed to pass with startling abruptness from the active to the passive, from the objective to the subjective side of things, from the world that creates to that which obeys, merely, and waits. The present and masculine, with its clear practical reason, its vigorous purposes, was exchanged for a place peopled by memories only, dedicated wholly to submissive and patient endurance. And this fell in extremely ill with Honoria's present humour, while the somewhat unseemly antics of the small, scriptural personages, pictured upon the chimney-space and hearth, troubled her imagination, in that they added a point of irony to this apparent triumph of the remote over the immediate, of tradition over fact.

Nor as, stung with unspoken remonstrance, she approached Lady Calmady was this sense of intrusion into an alien region lessened, or her appreciation of the difficulties of the mission she had been deputed by doctor, priest, and amiable young fine gentleman—her late companions—to fulfil, by any means lightened.

For Katherine lay back in the great rose-silk and muslin-covered armchair, at right angles to the fireplace, motionless, not a participant merely, so it seemed to the intruder, in that all-embracing quiet, but the very source and centre of it, its nucleus and heart. The lines of her figure were shrouded in a loose, wadded gown of dove-coloured silk, bordered with swan's-down. A coif of rare, white lace covered her upturned hair. Her eyes were closed, the rim of the eye-socket being very evident. While her face, though smooth and still graciously young, was so attenuated as to appear almost transparent. Now, as often before, it struck Honoria that a very exquisite spiritual quality was present in her aspect—her whole bearing and expression betraying, less the languor and defeat of physical illness, than the exhaustion of long sustained moral effort, followed by the calm of entire self-dedication and renunciation of will.

On the table at her elbow were a bowl of fresh-picked violets and greenhouse-grown tea-roses, some books of the hour, both English and French, a miniature of Dickie at the age of thirteen—the proud, little head and its cap of close-cropped curls showing up against a background of thick-set foliage. On the table, too, lay a well-worn, vellum-bound copy of that holiest of books ever, perhaps, conceived by the heart and written by the hand of man—Thomas a Kempis' Imitation of Christ. It was open at the chapter which is thus entitled—"Of the Zealous Amendment of our Whole Life." While close against it was a packet of Richard's letters—those curt, businesslike communications, faultlessly punctual in their weekly arrival, which, while they relieved her anxiety as to his material well-being, stabbed his mother's heart only less by the little they said, than by all they left unsaid.

And looking upon that mother now, taking cognisance of her surroundings, Honoria St. Quentin's young indignation, once again, waxed hot. While, since it was the tendency of her mind to run eagerly towards theory, to pass from the particular to the general, and instinctively to apprehend the relation of the individual to the mass, looking thus upon Katherine, she rebelled, not only against the doom of this one woman, but against that doom of universal womanhood of which she offered, just now, only too eloquent an example. And a burning compassion animated Honoria for feminine as against all masculine creatures, for the bitter patience demanded of the passive, as against the large latitude permitted the active principle; for the perpetual humiliation of the subjective and spiritual under the heavy yoke of the objective and practical,—for the brief joy and long barrenness of all those who are condemned to obey and to wait, merely, as against those who are born to command and to create.

From a child she had been aware of the element of tragedy inherent in the fact of womanhood. It had quickened exaggerations of sentiment in her at times, and pushed her into not a little knight-errantry,—witness the affair of Lady Constance Quayle's engagement. But, though more sober in judgment than of old and less ready to get her lance in rest, the existence of that tragic element had never disclosed itself more convincingly to her than at the present moment, nor had the necessity to attempt the assuaging of the smart of it called upon her with more urgent voice. Yet she recognised that such attempt taxed all her circumspection, all her imaginative sympathy and tact. Very free criticism of the master of the house, of his sins of omission and commission alike, were permissible in the Chapel-Room and in the presence of her late companions. The subject, unhappily, had called for too frequent mention, by now, for any circumlocution to be incumbent in the discussion of it. But here, in the brooding quiet of this bedchamber, and in Lady Calmady's presence, all that was changed. Trenchant statements of opinion, words of blame, were proscribed. The sinner, if spoken of at all, must be spoken of with due reticence and respect, his wilfulness ignored, the unloveliness of his conduct gently, even eagerly, explained away.

And, therefore, it came about that this fair champion of much-wronged womanhood, though fired with the zeal of righteous anger, had to go very softly and set a watch before her lips. But as she paused, fearful to break in too abruptly upon Lady Calmady's repose, she began to question fearfully whether speech was, in truth, still available as a means of communication between herself and the object of her solicitude. For Lady Calmady lay so very still, her sweet face showed so transparent against the rose-silk, muslin-covered pillows, that the younger woman was shaken by a swift dread that Dr. Knott's melancholy predictions had already found fulfilment, and that the lovely, labour-wasted body had already let the valiant, love-wasted soul depart.

"Cousin Katherine, dear Cousin Katherine," she called very gently, under her breath, and then waited almost awestricken, sensible, to the point of distress, alike of the profound quiet, which it seemed as an act of profanity to have even assayed to break, and of the malign activity of those little, scriptural figures anticking so wildly in the chimney-space and on the hearth.

Seconds, to Honoria of measureless duration, elapsed before Lady Calmady gave sign of life. At length she moved her hands, as though gathering, with infinite tenderness, some small and helpless creature close and warm against her bosom. Honoria's vision grew somewhat blurred and misty. Then, with a long-drawn, fluttering sigh, Katherine looked up at the tall, straight figure.

"Dick—ah, you've come in! My beloved—have you had good sport?" she said.

Honoria sat down on the end of the sofa, bowing her head.

"Alas, alas, it is only me, Cousin Katherine. Nothing better than me, Honoria St. Quentin. Would that it were some one better," and her voice broke.

But Lady Calmady had come into full possession of herself.

"My dear, I must have been dozing, and my thoughts had wandered far on the backward road, as is the foolish habit of thoughts when one grows old and is not altogether well and strong."—Katherine spoke faintly, yet with an air of sweetly playful apology. "One is liable to be confused, under such circumstances, when one first wakes—and—you have the smell of the sleet and the freshness of the moors upon you." She paused, and then added:—"But, indeed, the confusion of sleep once past, I could hardly have anything dearer for my eyes first to light on than your very dear self."

Hearing which gracious words, indignation in the cause of this woman, burning compassion for the wrongs and sorrows of universal womanhood, both of which must be denied utterance, worked very forcibly in Honoria. She bent down and taking Lady Calmady's hand kissed it. And, as she did this, her eyes were those of an ardent, yet very reverent lover, and so, when next she spoke, were the tones of her voice.

But Katherine, still anxious to repair any defect in her recognition and greeting, and still with that same effect of playful self-depreciation, spoke first.

"I had been reviewing many things, with the help of blessed Thomas a Kempis here, before I became so drowsy. The dear man lays his finger smartly upon all the weak places in one's fancied armour of righteousness. It is sometimes not quite easy to be altogether grateful to him. For instance, he has pointed out to me conclusively that I grow reprehensibly selfish."

"Oh come, come!" Honoria answered, in loving raillery. "Thomas is acute to the point of lying if he has convinced you of that!"

"Unhappily, no," Katherine returned. "I know it, I fear, without any pointing of Thomas's finger. But I rather shirked admission of my knowledge—well, for the very bad reason that I wanted very badly to put off the day of amendment. Now the holy man has touched my witness and"—she turned her head against the pillows and looked full at the younger woman, while her under-lip quivered a little. "My dear, I have come to be very greedy of the comfort of your companionship. I have been tempted to consider not your advantage, but solely my own. The pointing finger of Thomas has brought it home to me that Brockhurst and I are feeding upon your generosity of time, and helpfulness, to an unconscionable extent. We are devouring the best days of your life, and hindering you alike from work and from pleasure. It must not be. And so, my dear, I beg you go forth, once more, to all your many friends and to society. You are too young, and too gifted, to remain here in this sluggish backwater, alongside a derelict like me. It is not right. You must make for the open stream again and let the free wind and the strong current bear you gladly on your appointed course. And my gratitude and my blessing will go with you always. But you must delay no longer. For me you have done enough."

For a little space Honoria held her friend's hand in silence.

"Are—are—you tired of me then?" she said.

"Ah, my dear!" Katherine exclaimed. And the exclamation was more reassuring, somehow, than any denial could have been.

"After all," Honoria went on, "I really don't see why you're to have a monopoly of faithfulness. There's selfishness now, if you like—to appropriate a virtue en bloc not leaving a rag, not the veriest scrappit of it for anybody else! And then, has it never occurred to you, that I may be just every bit as greedy of your companionship as you of mine—more so, I fancy, because—because——"

Honoria bowed her head and kissed the hand she held, once again.

"You see—I know it sounds as if I was rather a beast—perhaps I am—but I never cared for any one—really to care, I mean—till I cared for you."

"My dear!"—Katherine said again, wondering, shrinking somewhat, at once touched and almost repulsed. The younger woman's attitude was so far removed from her own experience.

"Does it displease you? Does it seem to you unnatural?" Honoria asked quickly.

"A little," Lady Calmady answered, smiling, yet very tenderly.

"All the same it's quite true. You opened a door, somehow, that had always been shut. I hardly believed in its existence. Of course I had read plenty about the—affections, shall we call them? And had heard women and girls, and men, too, for that matter, talk about them pretty freely. But it bored me a good deal. I thought it all rather silly, and rather nasty perhaps."—Honoria shook her head. "It didn't appeal to me in the least. But when you opened the door"—she paused, her face very grave, yet with a smile on it, as she looked away at the little figures anticking upon the hearth. "Oh, dear me, I own I was half scared," she said, "it let in such a lot of light!"

But, for this speech, Lady Calmady had no immediate answer. And so the quiet came back, settling down sensibly on the room again—even as, when at dawn the camp is struck, the secular quiet of the desert comes back and possesses its own again. And, in obedience to that quiet, Katherine's hand rested passively in the hand of her companion, while she gazed wonderingly at the delicate, half-averted face, serious, lit up by the eagerness of a vital enthusiasm. And, having a somewhat sorrowful fund of learning to draw upon in respect of the dangers all eccentricity, either of character or development, inevitably brings along with it, she trembled, divining that noble and strong and pure though it was, that face, and the temperament disclosed by it, might work sorrow, both to its possessor and to others, unless the enthusiasm animating it should find some issue at once large and simple enough to engage its whole aspiration and power of work.

But abruptly Honoria broke up the brooding quiet, laughing gently, yet with a catch in her throat.

"And when you had let in the light, Cousin Katherine, good heavens, how thankful I was I had never married. Picture finding out all that after one had bound oneself, after one had given oneself! What an awful prostitution."—Her tone changed and she stroked the elder woman's hand softly. "So you see you can't very well order me off, the pointing finger of Thomas notwithstanding. You have taught me——"

"Only half the lesson as yet," Katherine said. "The other half, and the doxology which closes it, neither I, nor any other woman, can teach you."

"You really believe that?"

"Ah! my dear," Katherine said, "I do more than believe. I know it."

The younger woman regarded her searchingly. Then she shook her charming head.

"It's no good to arrive at a place before you've got to it," she declared. "And I very certainly haven't got to the second half of the lesson, let alone the doxology, yet. And then I'm so blissfully content with the first half, that I've no disposition to hurry. No, dear Cousin Katherine, I am afraid you must resign yourself to put up with me for a little while longer. Your foes, unfortunately, are of your own household in this affair. Dr. Knott has just been holding forth to us—Julius March, and Mr. Quayle, and me—and swearing me over, not only to stay, but to make you eat and drink and come out of doors, and even to go away with me. Because—yes, in a sense your Thomas is right with his pointing finger, though he got a bit muddled, good man, not being quite up-to-date, and pointed to the wrong place——"

Honoria left her sentence unfinished. She knelt down—her tall, slender figure, angular, more like that of a youth, than like that of a maid, in her spare mud-stained habit and coat. Impulsively she put her hands on Lady Calmady's hips, laid her head in her lap.

"Have you but one blessing, oh! my more than mother?" she cried. "Do we count for nothing, all the rest of us—your household, and tenants rich and poor, and Julius the faithful, and Ludovic the bland, and that queer lump of sagacity and ugliness, John Knott? Why will you kill yourself? Why will you die and leave us all, just because one person is perverse? That's hardly the way to make us—who love you—bear with and pity him and welcome him home.—Oh! I know I am treading on dangerous ground and venturing to approach very close. But I don't care—not a hang! We're at the end of our patience. We want you, and we mean to have you back."

Honoria raised herself, knelt bolt upright, her hands on the arms of Lady Calmady's chair, her expression full of appeal.

"Be kind to us, be kind," she said. "We only ask you, after all, to eat and drink—to let Clara take care of you at night, and I'll do so by day.—And then, when you are stronger, you must come away with me, up north, to Ormiston. You have not been there for years, and its gray towers are rather splendid overlooking that strong, uneasy, northern sea. It stirs the Viking blood in one, and makes that which was hard seem of less moment. Roger and Mary are there, too—will be all this summer. And you know it refreshed you to see them last year. And if we go pretty soon the boys will be at school, so they won't tire you with their racketing. They're jolly monkeys, though, in my opinion, Godfrey wants smacking. He comes the elder-brother a lot too much over poor little Dick.—But that's neither here nor there. Oh! it's for you to get out of the backwater into the stream, ten times more than for me. Dearest physician, heal thyself!"

But Katherine, though deeply touched by the loving ardour of the younger woman's appeal, and the revelation of tenderness and watchful care, constantly surrounding her, which that appeal brought along with it, could not rouse herself to any immediate response. Sternly, unremittingly, since the fair July night when Richard had left her nearly five years earlier, she had schooled herself into unmurmuring resignation and calm. In the prosecution of such a process there must be loss as well as gain. And Katherine had, in great measure, atrophied impulse, and, in eradicating personal desire, had come near destroying all spontaneity of emotion. She could still give, but the power of receiving was deadened in her. And she had come to be jealous of the quiet which surrounded her. It was her support and solace. She asked little more than not to have it broken up. She dreaded even affection, should that strive to draw her from the cloistered way of life. The world, and its many interests, had ceased to be of any moment to her. She asked to be left to contemplation of things eternal and to the tragedy of her own heart. And so, though it was beautiful to know herself to be thus cherished and held in high esteem, that beauty came to her as something unrelated, as sweet words good to hear, yet spoken of some person other than herself, or of a self she had ceased to be. All privilege implies a corresponding obligation, and to the meeting of fresh obligations Katherine felt herself not only unequal, but indisposed. And so, she smiled now upon Honoria St. Quentin, leaning back against the rose-silk and muslin-covered pillows, with a lovely indulgence, yet rather hopelessly unmoved and remote.

"Ah! my dear, I am beyond all wish to be healed after the fashion you, in your urgent loving-kindness, would have me," she said. "I look forward to the final healing, when my many mistakes and shortcomings shall be forgiven and the smart of them removed. And I am very tired. I do not think it can be required of me to go back."

"I know, I know," Honoria replied.—She rose to her feet and moved across to the fireplace, her straight eyebrows drawn together, her expression one of perplexity. "I must seem a brute for trying to drag you back. When Dr. Knott, and the other two men, asked me to come and reason with you, I was on the edge of refusing. I hardly had the heart to worry you. And yet," she added wistfully, "after all, in a way, it is just simply your own, dear fault. For if you will be a sort of little kingdom of heaven to us, you see, it's inevitable that, when you threaten to slip away from us, we should play the part of the violent and do our best to take our kingdom by force and keep it in spite of itself."

"You overrate the heavenliness of the poor little kingdom," Katherine said. "Its soil has become barren, its proud cities are laid waste. It's an unprofitable place, believe me, dearest child. Let it be. Seek your fortune in some kingdom from which the glory has not departed and whose motto is not Ichabod."

"Unfortunately, I can't do that," the younger woman answered. "I've explained why already. Where my heart is, there, you see, my kingdom is also."

"Ah! my dear, my dear," Katherine said, touched, yet somewhat weary.

"And after all it is not wholly for our own sakes we make this fight to keep you."—Miss St. Quentin's voice sank. She spoke slowly and as though with reluctance. "We do it for the sake of the person you love best in the world. I don't say we love him very much, but that is beside the mark. We owe him a certain duty—I, because I am living in his house, the others because they are his friends. When he comes home—as come he surely will—they all say that, even while they blame him—would it not be an almost too cruel punishment if he found Brockhurst empty of your presence? You would not wish that. It's not a question of me, of course. I don't count. But you gone, no one—not even the old servants, I believe—would stay. Blame would be turned into something awkwardly near to hatred."

Lady Calmady's serenity did not desert her, but a touch of her old loftiness of manner was apparent. And Miss St. Quentin was very glad. Anything, even anger, would be welcome if it dissipated that unnatural, paralysing calm.

"You forget Julius, I think," she said. "He will be faithful to the very end, faithful unto death. And so will another friend of happier days, poor, blind, old Camp."

A sudden inspiration came to Honoria St. Quentin.

"You must only count on Julius, I am afraid, Cousin Katherine—not on Camp."

And to her immense relief she perceived Lady Calmady's serenity give a little. It was as though she came nearer. Her sweet face was troubled, her eyes full of questioning.

"Camp grew a little too tired of waiting about three weeks ago. You did not ask for him——"

"Didn't I?" Katherine said, smitten by self-reproach.

"Never once—and so we did not tell you, fearing to distress you."

Miss St. Quentin came over and sat down on the end of the sofa again. She rested her hands on her knees. Her feet were rather far apart. She fixed her eyes upon the small prophets and patriarchs anticking upon the hearth.

"But it wasn't really so very bad," she said reflectively. "And we did all we could to smooth his passage, poor, dear beast, to the place where all good dogs go. We had the vet out from Westchurch two or three times, but there was nothing much he could do. And I thought him a bit rough. Nervousness, I fancy. You see the dog did not like being handled by a stranger, and made it rather hot for him once or twice. I could not let him be worried, poor old man, and so Julius March, and Winter, and I, took turn and turn about with him."

"Where did he die?"

"In the Gun-Room, on the tiger-skin."—Honoria did not look round. Her voice grew perceptibly husky. "Chifney and I sat up with him that last night."

"You and Chifney?" Lady Calmady exclaimed, almost in protest.

"Yes. Of course the men would have been as kind as kind could be. Only I had a feeling you would be glad to know I was there, later, when we told you. You see Chifney's as good as any vet, and I had to have somebody. The dog was rather queer. I did not quite know how to manage him alone."

Lady Calmady put out her hand. Honoria took it silently, and fell to stroking it once more. It was a declaration of peace, she felt, on the part of the obstinate well-beloved—possibly a declaration of something over and above peace.

"Winter saw to our creature comforts," the young lady continued. "Oh, we weren't starved, I promise you! And Chifney was excellent company."

She hesitated a moment.

"He told me endless yarns about horses—about Doncaster and Newmarket, and Goodwood. I was greatly flattered at being regarded sufficiently of the equestrian order to hear all that.—And he told me stories about Richard, when he was quite a little boy—and about his father also."

Honoria had a conviction the tears were running down Lady Calmady's cheeks, but she would not look round. She only stroked the hand she held softly, and talked on.

"They were fine," she said, "some of those stories. I am glad to have heard them. They went home to me. When all is said and done, there is nothing like breeding and pluck, and the courtesy which goes along with them. But after midnight Camp grew very restless. He had his blanket in the big armchair—you know the one I mean—as usual. But he wouldn't stay there. We had to lift him down. You see his hindquarters were paralysed, and he couldn't help himself much. It was pathetic. I can't forget the asking look in his half-blind eyes. But we couldn't make out what he wanted. At last he dragged himself as far as the door, and we set it open and watched him, poor, dear beast. He got across the lobby to the bottom of the little staircase——"

The speaker's breath caught.

"Then we made out what it was. He wanted to get up here, to come to you.—Well, I could understand that! I should want just that myself, shall want it, when it comes to the last. He whimpered when Chifney carried him back into the Gun-Room."

Honoria turned her head and looked Lady Calmady in the face. Her own was more than commonly white and very gentle in expression.

"He died in the gray of the morning, with his great head on my lap. I fancy it eased him to have something human, and—rather pitiful—close against him. Julius had just come in to see how we were getting on, I won't declare he did not say a prayer—I think he did. But I wasn't quite as steady as I might have been just then."

She turned her head, looking back at the figures upon the hearth. She was satisfied. Lady Calmady's long-sustained calm had given way, and she wept.

"We buried him, in his blanket, under the big Portugal-laurel, where the nightingale sings, at the corner of the troco-ground, close to Camp the First and Old Camp. The upper servants came, and Chaplin and Hariburt from the house-stables, and Chifney and the head-lad—and some of the gardeners. Poor, old Wenham drove up in his donkey-chair from the west lodge. Julius was there, of course. We did all things decently and in order."

Honoria's voice ceased. She sat stroking the dear hand she held and smiling to herself, notwithstanding a chokiness in her throat, for she had a comfortable belief the situation was saved.

Then Clara entered, prepared to encounter remonstrance, bearing a tray.

"It's all right, Clara," Miss St. Quentin said. "Lady Calmady is quite ready for something to eat. I've been telling her about Camp."

And Katherine, sitting upright, with great docility and a certain gentle shame, accepted food and drink.

"Since you wish it, dearest," she said, "and since Julius must not be left alone in a quite empty house."

"Our kingdom of heaven stays with us then?" Honoria exclaimed joyously.

"Such as it is—poor thing—it will do its best to stay. I thought I had cried my eyes dry forever, long ago. But it seems not. You and Camp have broken up the drought."

"I have not hurt you?" Honoria said, in sudden penitence.

"No, no—you have given me relief. I was ceasing to be human. The blessed Thomas was right—I grew very selfish."

"But you're not displeased with me?" Honoria insisted. Lady Calmady's playfulness had returned, but with a new complexion.

"Ah! it is a little soon to ask that!" she said. "Still I will go north with you a fortnight hence—go to Ormiston. And by then, perhaps, you may be forgiven. Open the casement, dearest, and let in the wind. The air of this room is curiously dead. Give my love to Julius and Ludovic. Tell them I will come into the Chapel-Room after dinner to-night.—What—my child, are you so very glad?—Kiss me.—God keep you.—Now I will rest."



CHAPTER VI

IN WHICH M. PAUL DESTOURNELLE HAS THE BAD TASTE TO THREATEN TO UPSET THE APPLE-CART

Helen de Vallorbes rose from her knees and slipped out from under the greasy and frayed half-curtain of the confessional box. The atmosphere of that penitential spot had been such as to make her feel faint and dizzy. She needed to recover herself. And so she stood, for a minute or more, in the clear, cool brightness of the nave of the great basilica, her highly-civilised figure covered by a chequer-work of morning sunshine streaming down through the round-headed windows of the lofty clere-storey. As the sense of physical discomfort left her she instinctively arranged her veil, and adjusted her bracelets over the wrists of her long gloves. Yet, notwithstanding this trivial and mundane occupation, her countenance retained an expression of devout circumspection, of the relief of one who has accomplished a serious and somewhat distasteful duty. Her sensations were increasingly agreeable. She had rid herself of an oppressive burden. She was at peace with herself and with—almost—all man and womankind.

Yet, it must be admitted, the measure had been mainly precautionary. Helen had gone to confession, on the present occasion, in much the same spirit as an experienced traveler visits his dentist before starting on a protracted journey. She regarded it as a disagreeable, but politic, insurance against possible accident. Her distaste had been increased by the fact that there really were some rather risky matters to be confessed. She had even feared a course of penance might have been enforced before the granting of absolution—this certainly would have been the case had she been dealing with that firm disciplinarian and very astute man of the world, the Jesuit father who acted as her spiritual adviser in Paris. But here in Naples, happily, it was different. The fat, sleepy, easy-going, old canon—whose person exuded so strong an odour of snuff that, at the solemnest moment of the confiteor, she had been unable to suppress a convulsive sneeze—asked her but few inconvenient questions. Pretty fine-ladies will get into little difficulties of this nature. He had listened to very much the same story not infrequently before, and took the position amiably, almost humorously, for granted. It was very wicked, a deadly sin, but the flesh—specially such delicately bred, delicately fed, feminine flesh—is admittedly weak, and the wiles of Satan are many. Is it not an historic fact that our first mother did not escape?—Was Helen's repentance sincere, that was the point? And of that Helen could honestly assure him there was no smallest doubt. Indeed, at this moment, she abhorred, not only her sin, but her co-sinner, in the liveliest and most comprehensive manner. Return to him? Sooner the dog return to its vomit! She recognised the iniquity, the shame, the detestable folly, of her late proceedings far too clearly. Temptation in that direction had ceased to be possible.

Then followed the mysterious and merciful words of absolution. And Helen rose from her knees and slipped out from beneath the frayed and greasy curtain a free woman, the guilt of her adultery wiped off by those awful words, as, with a wet cloth, one would wipe writing off a slate leaving the surface of it clean in every part. Precisely how far she literally believed in the efficacy of that most solemn rite she would not have found it easy to declare. Scepticism warred with expediency. But that appeared to her beside the mark. It was really none of her business. Let her teachers look to all that. To her it was sufficient that she could regard it from the practical standpoint of an insurance against possible accident—the accident of sin proving actually sinful and actually punishable by a narrow-minded deity, the accident of the veritable existence of heaven and hell, and of Holy Church veritably having the keys of both these in her keeping, the accident—more immediately probable and consequently worth guarding against—that, during wakeful hours, some night, the half-forgotten lessons of the convent school would come back on her, and, as did sometimes happen, would prove too much for her usually victorious audacity.

But, it should be added that another and more creditable instinct did much to dictate Madame de Vallorbes' action at this juncture. As the days went by the attraction exercised over her by Richard Calmady suffered increase rather than diminution. And this attraction affected her morally, producing in her modesties, reticencies of speech, even of thought, and prickings of unflattering self-criticism unknown to her heretofore. Her ultimate purpose might not be virtuous. But undeniably, such is the complexity—not to say hypocrisy—of the human heart, the prosecution of that purpose developed in her a surprising sensibility of conscience. Many episodes in her career, hitherto regarded as entertaining, she ceased to view with toleration, let alone complacency. The remembrance of them made her nervous. What if Richard came to hear of them? The effect might be disastrous. Not that he was any saint, but that she perceived that, with the fine inconsistency common to most well-bred Englishmen, he demanded from the women of his family quite other standards of conduct to those which he himself obeyed. Other women might do as they pleased. Their lapses from the stricter social code were no concern of his. He might, indeed, be not wholly averse to profiting by such lapses. But in respect of the women of his own rank and blood the case was quite otherwise. He was alarmingly capable of disgust. And, not a little to her own surprise, fear of provoking, however slightly, that disgust had become a reigning power with her. Never had she felt as she now felt. Her own sensations at once captivated and astonished her. This had ceased to be an adventure dictated by merry devilry, undertaken out of lightness of heart, inspired by a mischievous desire to see dust whirl and straws fly, or undertaken even out of necessity to support self-satisfaction by ranging herself with cynical audacity on the side of the Eternal Laughter. This was serious. It was desperate—the crisis, as she told herself, of her life and fate. The result was singular. Never had she been more vividly, more electrically, alive. Never had she been more diffident and self-distrustful.

And this complexity of sensation served to press home on her the high desirability of insurance against accident, of washing clean, as far as might be possible, the surface of the slate. So it followed that now, standing in the chequer-work of sunshine within the great basilica, self-congratulation awoke in her. The lately concluded ceremony, some of the details of which had really been most distasteful, might or might not be of vital efficacy, but, in any case, she had courageously done her part. Therefore, if Holy Church spoke truly, her first innocence was restored. Helen hugged the idea with almost childish satisfaction. Now she could go back to the Villa Vallorbes in peace, and take what measure——

She left the sentence unfinished. Even in thought it is often an error to define. Let the future and her intentions regarding it remain in the vague! She signed to Zelie Forestier—seated on the steps of a side-chapel, yellow-paper-covered novel in hand—to follow her. And, after making a genuflexion before the altar of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, gathered up her turquoise-coloured skirts—the yellow-tufa quarries were not superabundantly clean—and pursued her way towards the great main door. The benevolent priest, charmed by her grace of movement, watched her from his place in the confessional, although another penitent now kneeled within the greasy curtain. Verily the delinquencies of so delectable a piece of womanhood were easily comprehensible! Neither God nor man, in such a case, would be extreme to mark what was done amiss.—Moreover, had she not promised generous gifts alike to church and poor? The sin which in an ugly woman is clearly mortal, in a pretty one becomes little more than venial. Making which reflection a kindly, fat chuckle shook his big paunch, and, crossing himself, he turned his attention to the voice murmuring from behind the wooden lattice at his side.

Yet it would appear that abstract justice judged less leniently of the position. For, passing out on to the portico—about the base of whose enormous columns half-naked beggars clustered, exposing sores and mutilations, shrilly clamouring for alms—the dazzling glare of the empty, sun-scorched piazza behind him, Helen came face to face with no less a personage than M. Paul Destournelle.

It was as though some one had struck her. The scene reeled before her eyes. Then her temper rose as in resentment of insult. To avoid all chance of such a meeting she had selected this church in an unfashionable quarter of the town. Here, at least, she had reckoned herself safe from molestation. And, that precisely in the hour of peace, the hour of politic insurance against accident, this accident of all others should befall her, was maddening! But anger did not lessen her perspicacity. How to inflict the maximum of discomfort upon M. Destournelle with the minimum of risk to herself was the question. An interview was inevitable. She wanted, very certainly, to get her claws into him, but, for safety's sake, that should be done not in attack, but in defense. Therefore he should speak first, and in his words, whatever those words might be, she promised herself to discover legitimate cause of offense. So, leisurely, and with studied ignorance of his presence, she flung largesse of centissimi to right and left, and, while the chorus of blessing and entreaty was yet loud, walked calmly past M. Destournelle down the wide, shallow steps, from the solid shadow of the portico to the burning sun-glare of the piazza.

The young man's countenance went livid.

"Do you dare to pretend not to recognise me?" he literally gasped.

"On the contrary I recognise you perfectly."

"I have written to you repeatedly."

"You have—written to me with a ridiculous and odious persistence."

Madame de Vallorbes picked her steps. The pavement was uneven, the heat great. Destournelle's hands twitched with agitation, yet he contrived not only to replace his Panama hat, but opened his white umbrella as a precaution against sunstroke. And this diverted, even while exasperating, Helen. Measures to ensure personal safety were so characteristic of Destournelle.

"And with what fault, I ask you, can you reproach me, save that of a too absorbing, a too generous, adoration?"

"That fault in itself is very sufficient."

"Do you not reckon, then, in any degree, with the crime you are in process of committing? Have you no sense of gratitude, of obligation? Have you no regret for your own loss in leaving me?"

Helen drew aside to let a herd of goats pass. They jostled one another impudently, carrying their inquisitive heads and short tails erect, at right angles to the horizontal line of their narrow backs. They bleated, as in impish mischief. Their little beards wagged. Their little hoofs pattered on the stone, and the musky odour of them hung in the burning air. Madame de Vallorbes put her handkerchief up to her face, and over the edge of it she contemplated Paul Destournelle. Every detail of his appearance was not only familiar, but associated in her mind with some incident of his and her common past. Now the said details asserted themselves, so it seemed to her, with an impertinence of premeditated provocation.—The high, domed skull, the smooth, prematurely-thin hair parted in the middle and waved over the ears. The slightly raised eyebrows, and fatigued, red-lidded, and vain, though handsome eyes. The straight, thin nose, and winged, open nostrils, so perpetually a-quiver. The soft, sparse, forked beard which closely followed the line of the lower jaw and pointed chin. The moustache, lightly shading the upper lip, while wholly exposing the fretful and rather sensuous mouth. The long, effeminate, and restless hands. The tall, slight figure. The clothes, of a material and pattern fondly supposed by their wearer to present the last word of English fashion in relation to foreign travel, the colour of them accurately matched to the pale, brown hair and beard.—So much for the detail of the young man's appearance. As a whole, that appearance was elegant as only French youth ventures to be elegant. Refinement enveloped Paul Destournelle—refinement, over-sensitised and under-vitalised, as that of a rare exotic forced into precocious blossoming by application of some artificial horticultural process. And all this—elaborately effective and seductive as long as one should happen to think so, elaborately nauseous when one had ceased so to think—had long been familiar to Helen to the point of satiety. She turned wicked, satiety transmuting itself into active vindictiveness. How gladly would she have torn this emasculated creature limb from limb, and flung the lot of it among the refuse of the Neapolitan gutter!

But, from beneath the shade of his umbrella, the young man recommenced his plaint.

"It is inconceivable that, knowing my cruel capacity for suffering, you should be indifferent to my present situation," he asserted, half violently, half fretfully. "The whole range of history would fail to offer a case of parallel callousness. You, whose personality has penetrated the recesses of my being! You, who are acquainted with the infinite intricacy of my mental and emotional organisation! A touch will endanger the harmony of that exquisite mechanism. The interpenetration of the component parts of my being is too complete. I exist, I receive sensations, I suffer, I rejoice, as a whole. And this lays me open to universal, to incalculable, pain. Now my nerves are shattered—intellectual, moral, physical anguish permeate in every part. I rally my self-reverence, my nobility of soul. I make efforts. By day I visit spots of natural beauty and objects of art. But these refuse to gratify me. My thought is too turgid to receive the impress of them. Concentration is impossible to me. Feverish agitation perverts my imagination. My ideas are fugitive. I endure a chronic delirium. This by day," he extended one hand with a despairing gesture, "but by night——"

"Oh, I implore you," Helen interrupted, "spare me the description of your nights! The subject is a hardly modest one. And then, at various times, I have already heard so very much about them, those nights!"

Calmly she resumed her walk. The amazing vanity of the young man's speech appeased her, in a measure, since it fed her contempt. Let him sink himself beyond all hope of recovery, that was best. Let him go down, down, in exposition of fatuous self-conceit. When he was low enough, then she would kick him! Meanwhile her eyes, ever greedy of incident and colour, registered the scene immediately submitted to them. In the centre of the piazza, women—saffron and poppy-coloured handkerchiefs tied round their dark heads—washed, with a fine impartiality, soiled linen and vegetables in an iron trough, grated for a third of its length, before a fountain of debased and flamboyant design. Their voices were alternately shrill and gutteral. It was perhaps as well not to understand too clearly all which they said. On the left came a break in the high, painted house-fronts, off which in places the plaster scaled, and from the windows of which protruded miscellaneous samples of wearing apparel and bedding soliciting much-needed purification by means of air and light. In the said break was a low wall where coarse plants rooted, and atop of which lay some half-dozen ragged youths, outstretched upon their stomachs, playing cards. The least decrepit of the beggars, armed with Helen's largesse of copper coin, had joined them from beneath the portico. Gambling, seasoned by shouts, imprecations, blows, grew fast and furious. In the steep roadway on the right a dray, loaded with barrels, creaked and jolted upward. The wheels of it were solid discs of wood. The great, mild-eyed, cream-coloured oxen strained, with slowly swinging heads, under the heavy yoke. Scarlet, woolen bands and tassels adorned their broad foreheads and wide-sweeping, black-tipped horns, and here and there a scarlet drop their flanks, where the goad had pricked them too shrewdly. And upon it all the unrelenting southern sun looked down, and Helen de Vallorbes' unrelenting eyes looked forth. One of those quick realisations of the inexhaustible excitement of living came to her. She looked at the elegant young man walking beside her, apprised, measured, him. She thought of Richard Calmady, self-imprisoned in the luxurious villa, and of the possibilities of her, so far platonic, relation to him. She glanced down at her own rustling skirts and daintily-shod feet traveling over the hot stones, then at the noisy gamblers, then at the women washing, with that consummate disregard of sanitation, food and raiment together in the rusty iron trough by the fountain. The violent contrasts, the violent lights and shadows, the violent diversities of purpose and emotion, of rank, of health, of fortune and misfortune, went to her head. Whatever the risks or dangers that excitement remained inexhaustible. Nay, those very dangers and risks ministered to its perpetual upflowing. It struck her she had been over-scrupulous, weakly conscientious, in making confession and seeking absolution. Such timid moralities do not really shape destiny, control or determine human fate. The shouting, fighting youths there, with their filthy pack of cards and few centissimi, sprawling in the unstinted sunshine, were nearer the essential truth. They were the profound, because the practical philosophers! Therefore let us gamble, gamble, gamble, be the stake small or great, as long as the merest flicker of life, or fraction of uttermost farthing, is left! And so, when Destournelle took up his lament again, she listened to him, for the moment, with remarkable lightness of heart.

"I appeal to you in the name of my as yet unwritten poems, my masterpieces for which France, for which the whole brotherhood of letters, so anxiously waits, to put a term to this appalling chastisement!"

"Delicious!" said Helen, under her breath.

"Your classicism is the natural complement of my mediaevalism. The elasticity, the concreteness, of your temperament fertilised the too-brooding introspectiveness of my own. It lightened the reverence which I experience in the contemplation of my own nature. It induced in me the hint of frivolity which is necessary to procure action. Our union was as that of high-noon and impenetrable night. I anticipated extraordinary consequences."

"Marriage of a butterfly and a bat? Yes, the progeny should be surprising, little animals certainly," commented Madame de Vallorbes.

"In deserting me you have rendered me impotent. That is a crime. It is an atrocity. You assassinate my genius."

"Then, indeed, I have reason to congratulate myself on my ingenuity," she returned, "since I succeeded in the assassination of the non-existent!"

"You, who have praised it a thousand times—you deny the existence of my genius?" almost shrieked M. Destournelle. He was very much in earnest, and in a very sorry case. His limbs twitched. He appeared on the verge of an hysteric seizure. To plague him thus was a charmingly pretty sport, but one safest carried on with closed doors—not in so public a spot.

"I do not deny the existence of anything, save your right to make a scene and render me ridiculous as you repeatedly did at Pisa."

"Then you must return to me."

"Oh! la, la!" cried Helen.

"That you should leave me and live in your cousin's house constitutes an intolerable insult."

"And where, pray, would you have me live?" she retorted, her temper rising, to the detriment of diplomacy. "In the street?"

"It appears to me the two localities are synonymous—morally."

Madame de Vallorbes drew up. Rage almost choked her. M. Destournelle's words stung the more fiercely because the insinuation they contained was not justified by fact. They brought home to her her non-success in a certain direction. They called up visions of that unknown rival, to whom—ah, how she hated the woman!—Richard Calmady's affections were, as she feared, still wholly given. That her relation to him was innocent, filled her with humiliation. First she turned to Zelie Forestier, who had followed at a discreet distance across the piazza.

"Go on," she said, "down the street. Find a cab, a clean one. Wait in it for me at the bottom of the hill."

Then she turned upon M. Destournelle.

"Your mind is so corrupt that you cannot conceive of an honest friendship, even between near relations. You fill me with repulsion—I measured the depth of your degeneracy at Pisa. That is why I left you. I wanted to breathe in an uninfected atmosphere. My cousin is a person of remarkable intellectual powers, of chivalrous ideals, and of superior character. He has had great troubles. He is far from well. I am watching over and nursing him."

The last statement trenched boldly on fiction. As she made it Madame de Vallorbes moved forward, intending to follow the retreating Zelie down the steep, narrow street. For a minute M. Destournelle paused to recollect his ideas. Then he went quickly after her.

"Stay, I implore you," he said. "Yes, I own at Pisa I lost myself. The agitation of composition was too much for me. My mind seethed with ideas. I became irritable. I comprehend I was in fault. But it is so easy to recommence, and to range oneself. I accept your assurances regarding your cousin. It is all so simple. You shall not return to me. You shall continue your admirable work. But I will return to you. I will join you at the villa. My society cannot fail to be of pleasure to your cousin, if he is such a person as you describe. In a milieu removed from care and trivialities I will continue my poem. I may even dedicate it to your cousin. I may make his name immortal. If he is a person of taste and ideals, he cannot fail to appreciate so magnificent a compliment. You will place this before him. You will explain to him how necessary to me is your presence. He will be glad to cooperate in procuring it for me. He will understand that in making these propositions I offer him a unique opportunity, I behave towards him with signal generosity. And if, at first, the intrusion of a stranger into his household should appear inconvenient, let him but pause a little. He will find his reward in the development of my genius and in the spectacle of our mutual felicity."

Destournelle spoke with great rapidity. The street which they had now entered, from the far end of the piazza, was narrow. It was encumbered by a string of laden mules, by a stream of foot passengers. Interruption of his monologue, short of raising her voice to screaming pitch, was impossible to Madame de Vallorbes. But when he ceased she addressed him, and her lips were drawn away from her pretty teeth viciously.

"Oh! you unspeakable idiot!" she said. "Have you no remnant of decency?"

"Do you mean to imply that Sir Richard Calmady would have the insolence, is so much the victim of insular prejudice as, to object to our intimacy?"

Madame de Vallorbes clapped her hands together in a sort of frenzy.

"Idiot, idiot," she repeated. "I wish I could kill you."

Suddenly M. Paul Destournelle had all his wits about him.

"Ah!" he said, with a short laugh, curiously resembling in its malice the bleating of the little goats, "I perceive that which constitutes the obstacle to our union. It shall be removed."

He lifted his Panama hat with studied elegance, and turning down a break-neck, side alley, called, over his shoulder:—

"Abientot tres chere madame."



CHAPTER VII

SPLENDIDE MENDAX

Unpunctuality could not be cited as among Madame de Vallorbes' offenses. Yet, on the morning in question, she was certainly very late for the twelve o'clock breakfast. Richard Calmady—awaiting her coming beneath the glistering dome of the airy pavilion, set in the angle of the terminal wall of the high-lying garden—had time to become conscious of slight irritation. It was not merely that he was constitutionally impatient of delay, but that his nerves were tiresomely on edge just now. Trifles had power to endanger his somewhat stoic equanimity. But when at length Helen emerged from the house irritation was forgotten. Moving through the vivid lights and shadows of the ilex and cypress grove, her appearance had a charm of unwonted simplicity. At first sight her graceful person had the effect of being clothed in a religious habit. Richard's youthful delight in seeing a woman walk beautifully remained to him. It received satisfaction now. Helen advanced without haste, a certain grandeur in her demeanour, a certain gloom, even as one who takes serious counsel of himself, indifferent to external things, at once actor in, and spectator of, some drama playing itself out in the theatre of his own soul. And this effect of dignity, of self-recollection, was curiously heightened by her dress—of a very soft and fine, woolen material, of spotless white, the lines of it at once flowing and statuesque. While as head-gear, in place of some startling construction of contemporary, Parisian millinery, she wore, after the modest Italian fashion, a black lace mantilla over her bright hair.