She was always cheerful, grandmamma, but if I could just see her again to tell her I will, indeed I will, try to follow her advice! Hush! here is Augustus; I hear his clumsy footsteps. He has a telegram.

Alas! alas! My fears are true—grandmamma died this morning. Oh! I cannot write, the tears make everything a mist.

* * * * *

It is late July and I am at Ledstone as its nominal mistress—I say nominal, for Augustus's mother reigns, as she always did.

The sorrow of grandmamma's death, the feeling that nothing can matter in the world now, has kept me from caring or asserting myself in any way. I feel numb. I seem to be a person listening from some gallery when they all speak around me, and that the Ambrosine who answers placidly is an automaton who moves by clockwork.

Shall I ever wake again? I sit night after night in my mother-in-law's "budwar," the crimson-satin chairs staring at me, the wedding-cake ornament with its silver leaves glittering in the electric light; I sit there listening vaguely to her admonitions and endless prattle of Augustus's perfections. I have now heard every incident of his childhood: what ailments he had, what medicines suited him best, when he cut all those superfluous teeth of his.

One little trait appears to have been considered a sign of great astuteness and infantine perception. His fond parents—the late Mr. Gurrage was alive then—gave him a new threepenny bit each week to give to a barrel-organ man who played before the house at Bournemouth. Augustus at the age of two invariably changed it on the stairs with the butler for two pennies and two halfpennies, keeping one penny halfpenny for himself.

"Me dear"—my mother-in-law always completes this story with this sentence—"Mr. Gurrage said to me, 'Mark my word, Mary Jane, the boy will get on!'"

In the class of my belle famille, mourning is fortunately a matter of such importance that the wearing of crepe for grandmamma has been allowed to be sufficient reason for abandoning the wedding rejoicings.

Dear grandmamma! it would please you to know your death had done me even this service. I am encouraged to grieve, especially in public. Mrs. Gurrage herself put on black, and her face beamed all over with enjoyable tears the first Sunday we rustled into the family pew stiff with crepe and hangings of woe. They gave grandmamma what Miss Hoad—I mean Amelia—called a "proper funeral."

And so all is done—even the Marquis has gone back to France, and only Roy is left.

There is something in his brown eyes of sympathy which I cannot bear; the lump keeps coming in my throat. Kind dog, you are my friend.

Next week Lady Tilchester will have returned to Harley, and soon Augustus and I are to go and pay a three days' visit there.

Once what joy this thought would have caused me—I was going to say when I was young!—I shall be twenty next October, but I feel as if I must be at least fifty years old.

Augustus is not a gay companion. He has a sulky temper; he is often offended with me for no reason, and then a day or so afterwards will be horribly affectionate, and give me a present to make up for it. I can never get accustomed to his calling me Ambrosine—it always jars, as if one suddenly heard a shopman taking this liberty. It is equally unpleasant as "little woman" or "dearie," both of which besprinkle all his sentences. He has not a mind that makes it possible to have any conversation with him. He told me to-day that I was the stupidest cold statue of a woman he had ever met, and then he shook me until I felt giddy, and kissed me until I could not see. After a scene of this kind I feel too limp to move. I creep out into the garden and hide with Roy in a clump of laurel bushes, where there is a neglected sun-dial that was once the centre of the old garden, and left there when the new shrubbery was planted; there is about six feet bare space around it, and no one ever comes there, so I am safe.

Sometimes from my hiding-place I hear Augustus calling me, but I never answer, and yesterday I caught sight of him through the bushes biting his nails with annoyance; he could not think where I had disappeared to. It comforted me to sit there and make faces at him like a gutter-child.

I have never had the courage to go back to the cottage. It is just as it was, with all grandmamma's dear old things in it, waiting for me to decide where I will have them put. Hephzibah has married her grocer's man, and lives there as caretaker.

I suppose some day I shall have to go down and settle things, but I feel as if it would be desecration to bring the Sevres and miniatures and the Louis XV. bergere here to hobnob with the new productions from Tottenham Court Road.

Augustus is having some rooms arranged for me, so that I, too, shall have a "budwar" for myself. He has not consulted my taste; it is all to be a surprise. And an army of workmen are still in the house, and I have caught glimpses of brilliant, new, gilt chairs and terra-cotta and buffish brocade (I loathe those colors) being carried up.

"Then I'll be able to have you more to myself in the evening," said Augustus. "The drawing-rooms are too big and the mater's budwar is too small, and you hate my den, so I hope this will please you."

I said "Thank you," without enthusiasm. I would prefer the company of my mother-in-law or Amelia to being more alone with Augustus. The crimson-satin chairs are so uncomfortable that now he leaves us almost directly after dinner to lounge in his "den," and I have to go there and say good-night to him. The place smells of stale smoke, some particularly strong, common tobacco he will have in a pipe. He gets into a soiled, old, blue smoking-coat, and sits there reading the comic papers, huddled in a deep arm-chair, a whiskey-and-soda mixed ready by his side. He is generally half-asleep when I get there. I do not stay five minutes if I can help it; it is not agreeable, the smell of whiskey.

There are so few books in the house. The first instalment of my handsome "allowance" will soon be paid me, and then I will have books of my own. I shall feel like a servant receiving the first month's wages in a new place—a miserable beginner of a servant who has never been "out" before. I feel I have earned them, though—earned them with hard work.

Just this last month numbers of people have been to call on me. They left only cards at first, because of my "sad loss," but we often are at home now when they come.

My mother-in-law's visiting-list is a large one, and comprises the whole of the "villa" people from Tilchester as well as the county families. With the former she is deliciously patronizingly friendly; they are all "me dears," and they talk about their servants and ailments and babies, mixed with the doings of Lady Tilchester—they always speak of her as the "Marchioness of Tilchester." They are at home when we return the visits sometimes, too, and this kind of thing happens: our gorgeous prune-and-scarlet footman condescendingly walks up their paths and thumps loudly at their well-cleaned brass knocker, and presses their electric bell. A jaunty lump of a parlor-maid in a fluster at the sight of so much grandeur says "At home" (some of them have "days"), and we are ushered into a narrow hall and so to a drawing-room. They seem always to be papered with buff-and-mustard papers and to have "pongee" sofa-cushions with frills. There is often tennis going on on the neat lawn beyond, and we see visions of large, pink-faced girls and callow youths taking exercise. The hostess gushes at us: "Dear Mrs. Gurrage, so good of you to come—and this is Mrs. Gussie?" (Yes, I am called Mrs. Gussie, Oh! grandmamma, do you hear?) We sit down.

I have no intention of freezing people, but they are hideously ill at ease with me, and say all kinds of foolishnesses from sheer nervousness.

The worst happened last week, when one particularly motherly, blooming solicitor's wife, after recounting to us in full detail the arrival of her first grandchild, hoped Mrs. Gurrage would soon be in her happy position!

Merciful Providence, I pray—that—never!

The county people are not so often at home, but when they are it is hardly more interesting. There do not seem to be many attractive people among them. They are stiff, and it is my mother-in-law who is sometimes ill at ease, though she gushes and blusters as usual. The conversation here is of societies, the Girls' Friendly Society, the Cottage Hospital, the movements of the Church, the continuance of the war, the fear the rest of the Tilchester Yeomanry will volunteer; and now and then the hostess warms up, if there is a question of a subscription, to her own pet hobby. Their houses are for the most part tasteless, too; they seem to live in a respectable borne world of daily duties and sleep. Of the three really big houses within driving distance, one is shut up, one is inhabited for a month or two in the autumn, and the third is let to a successful oil merchant to whom Augustus and my mother-in-law have a great objection, but I can see no difference between oil and carpets. I have seen the man, and he is a weazly looking little rat who drives good horses.

I wonder what has become of my kinsman, Antony Thornhirst. He came with Lady Tilchester to the wedding. I saw his strange eyes looking at me as I walked down the aisle on Augustus's arm. His face was the only one I realized in the crowd. We did not speak; indeed, he never was near me afterwards until I got into the carriage. I wonder if he will be at Harley—I wonder!

Augustus wishes me to be "very smart" for this visit; he tells me I am to take all my best clothes and "cut the others out." It really grieves him that my garments should be black. He suggested to his mother that she had better lend me some of the "family jewels" to augment my own large store, but fortunately Mrs. Gurrage is of a tenacious disposition and likes to keep her own belongings to herself, so I shall be spared the experience of the park-paling tiara sitting upon my brow. Such things being unsuitable to be worn at dinner I fear would have little influence upon Augustus; I am trembling even now at what I may be forced to glitter in.

We are to drive over to Harley late in the afternoon.



II

In spite of Augustus—in spite of everything—I suddenly feel as if I had become alive again here at Harley!

The whole place pleases me. It is an old Georgian house, with long wings stretching right and left, and from a large salon in the centre the other reception-rooms open.

Lady Tilchester is so kind, and makes one feel perfectly at home. A number of people were assembled upon the croquet lawn and in the great tent playing bridge when we arrived, and as no one seems to introduce any one it has taken me two whole days to find out people's names. Some of them, indeed, I have not grasped yet! It does seem a strange custom. Either it is because every one in this set is supposed to be acquainted with the other, and strangers are things that do not count, or that meeting under one roof constitutes an introduction. I have not yet found out which it is.

Anyway, it makes things dull at first. Augustus found it "deuced unpleasant," he told me, as, instead of remaining quiet until he knew his ground, he proceeded to commit a series of betises.

The first afternoon I subsided into a low chair, and a gruff-looking man handed me some tea, and patted and talked to a bob-tailed sheep-dog that was near.

I don't know if he expected me to answer for the dog, and so make a conversation. He was disappointed, however, if so, as I remained silent. Presently I discovered he was our host.

Lady Tilchester was busy being gushed at by Augustus. A little woman with light hair came and sat down at the other side of me. She looks like a young, fluffy chicken, and has a lisp and an infantile voice, and wears numbers of trinkets, and her name, "Babykins," spelled in a brooch of diamonds. I should not like to be called "Babykins," and I wonder why one should want strangers to read one's name printed upon one's chest.

Everything of hers is marked with that. Chain bracelets with "Babykins" in sapphires and diamonds. On her handkerchief, which she plays with, "Babykins" again stares at you. Even the corner of her chemise, which shows through her transparent blouse, has "Babykins" embroidered on it. It is no wonder even the young men never call her anything else.

You have the first impression that you are talking to a child, but afterwards you are surprised to find what a lot of grown-up, scandalous things she has said.

She was very agreeable to me, and gave me to understand she was so interested to make my acquaintance, as Lady Tilchester had told her so much about me.

"You come from Yorkshire, don't you?" she said; "and your husband has that wonderful breed of black pigs, hasn't he?"

"No," I said, "we live only sixteen miles off."

"Oh, of course! How stupid of me! You are quite another person, I see," and she laughed. "But the pig farmers are coming, and I am so anxious to meet them, as I have a perfect mania for piglets myself. I want to start a new sort, and I hoped you could tell me about them."

"I am so sorry," I said. "I wish I could help you, but I do not believe—except casually in the village—that I have ever seen a pig; they must be delightful companions."

"Yes, indeed! I have large families of the fat white ones, and really the babies are most engaging, and the very image of my step-children. I always tell my husband it seems like eating Alice or Laura when he insists upon having suckling-pig for luncheon. I suppose one would not mind eating one's step-children, though—would one? What do you think?"

Her great, blue eyes looked at me pathetically.

I tried to consider seriously the problem of the consumption of possible step-children; it was too difficult for me.

"I quite hoped to make it pay," she continued—"keeping prize pigs, I mean; we are so frightfully poor. But I am away so much I fear it does not do very well. You play bridge, of course?"

This did not seem to have much to do with the pigs.

"No, I do not play."

"You don't play bridge? How on earth do you get through the day?"

"I really do not know."

"Oh, you must learn at once. I can give you the address of a woman in London who goes out for five pounds an afternoon and who would teach you in three or four lessons. It does seem funny, your not playing."

I said "Yes."

She did not appear to want many answers from me after this, but prattled on about people and the world in general, and before half an hour was over I was left with the impression that society is chiefly composed of people living upon an agreeable and amusing ground somewhere at the borderland of the divorce court.

"So tiresome of the husbands!" she concluded. "Before the war they used to be the most docile creatures; as long as they got a percentage, and the wives did not worry at their own little affairs, all went smoothly. Now, since going out there and fighting, they have come back giving themselves great airs, and talking about wounded honor, and ridiculous things of that sort that one reads of in early Victorian books. One does not know where it will end."

She yawned a little after this, and Lord Tilchester shuffled up and sat down in the corner of the sofa near her. He has the manner of an awkward school-boy.

"You are taking away every one's character, as usual, I suppose, Babykins," he chuckled. "What will Mrs. Gurrage think of it all, I wonder?"

Lady Tilchester interrupted further conversation by carrying me off to see the garden. She is the most fascinating personality I have yet met. There is something like the sun's rays about her—you feel warmed and comforted when she is near. She looks so great and noble, and above all common things, one cannot help wondering why she married Lord Tilchester, who is quite ordinary. When she talks, every one listens. Her voice is like golden bells, and she never says stupid things that mean nothing. We had half an hour in the glorious garden, and she made me feel that life was a fair thing, and that even I should find bits to smile over. How great to have a nature like this, that one's very presence does good to other human beings!

"There are a lot of tiresome people here, I am afraid," she said, at last; "but I wanted you to come to the first party we had after our return, so you must try and not be bored. You shall sit next Mr. Budge to-night; he will be obliged to take in Lady Lambourne, but I will put you on the other side. He will amuse you; he is the cleverest man I know."

"Mr. Budge is a politician, is he not?" I asked. "I think I have heard his name."

"That is delightful," she laughed, "Poor Mr. Budge! He—and, indeed, many of us in England—fancies there is no other name to be heard. He has a fault, though. He writes sentimental poetry which is complete rubbish, and he prides himself upon it far more than upon his splendid powers of oratory or wonderful organization capacities."

"What a strange side for a great man to have!" I said. "Sentimental poetry—it seems so childish, does it not?"

"We all have our weaknesses, I suppose," and she smiled. "We should be very dull if we left nothing for our friends to criticise."

"Si nous n'avions point de defauts nous ne prendrions pas tant de plaisir a en remarquer dans les autres!" I quoted.

After a while we went back to the house.

Augustus and I got down at half-past eight for dinner, as grandmamma had always told me that punctuality is a part of politeness, but only one or two men were standing by the huge wood-fire that burns all the time in the open fireplace in the salon where we assembled.

We did not know any of their names, and I suppose they did not know ours. We stared at one another, and they went on talking again, all about the war. Augustus joined in. He is dreadfully uneasy in case the rest of the Tilchester Yeomanry may volunteer at last to go out, and was anxious to hear their views of the possibility. I sat down upon a fat-pillowed sofa, one of those nice kind that puff out again slowly when you get up, and make you feel at rest any way you sit.

A short man with a funny face came and sat beside me.

"What a wonderful lady, to be so punctual!" he said. "You evidently don't know the house. We shall be lucky if we get dinner at nine o'clock."

"Why did you come down, then," I asked, "since you are acquainted with the ways?"

"On the off chance, and because a bad habit of youth sticks to me, and I can't help being on time."

"I am finding it absurd to have acquired habits in youth; they are all being upset," I said.

He had such a cheery face, in spite of being so ugly, it seemed quite easy to talk to him. We chatted lightly until some one called out: "Billy, do ring and ask if we can have a biscuit and a glass of sherry, to keep us up until we get dinner."

At that moment—it was nearly nine—more people strolled in, two women with their husbands, and several odd pairs—the last among the single people quite the loveliest creature I have ever seen. She does not know how to walk, her lips were almost magenta with some stuff on them, but her eyes flashed round at every one, and there seemed to be a flutter among the men by the fireplace.

Augustus dropped his jaw with admiration. She had on a bright purple dress and numbers of jewels. I feel sure he was saying to himself that she was a "stunner." She did not look at all vulgar, however, only wicked and attractive and delightful.

"Darling Letitia," she pleaded, to a stiff-looking old woman sitting bolt-upright under a lamp, "don't glare at me so. I am not the last to-night; there are still Babykins and Margaret and several others to come."

"Oh, Lord, how hungry I am!" announced Mr. Budge, in a loud voice. I recognized him now from his picture being so often in the papers.

Then, from a door at the other end, in tripped Babykins, and close behind her Lord Tilchester, and, last of all, when the clock had struck nine-fifteen, and even the funny-faced man next me had exhausted all his conversation, the door at the north end of the salon opened, and serenely, like a lovely ship, our beautiful hostess sailed towards us.

"So sorry to be a little late," she said, calmly. "Tilchester, as you have, of course, told every one whom they are to take in, we may as well start."

Lord Tilchester had been sitting in the window-seat with Babykins, and had completely forgotten this duty, I suppose. He got up guiltily and fumbled for a paper in his pocket.

"Oh, don't let us wait for that," said Mr. Budge, gruffly. "Come, Lady Tilchester, I shall take you and lead the way," and he gave her his arm.

She laughed and took it.

"Very well," she said.

Every one scrambled for the people they wanted or knew best; and so it happened that I found myself standing staring at a pale young man with weak blue eyes and a wonderfully well-tied tie, the last of the company.

He held out his arm nervously, and we finally got to the dining-room and found two seats.

It was not until dinner was almost over that I found out he was the Duke of Myrlshire, and ought to have taken in Lady Tilchester.

Augustus had placed himself next the purple lady, and his face grew a gray mauve with excitement at her gracious glances.

My ducal partner was unattractive. He had a squeaky voice and a nervous manner, but said some entreprenant things in a way which made me understand he is accustomed to be listened to with patience, not to say pleasure.

He told me he was grateful to Mr. Budge for his move, as he had been admiring me since the moment we arrived, and had determined, directly the melee began, to secure me if possible.

"Er—you don't look like an Englishwoman," he said, "and it is a nice change. My eye is wearied with them; their outlines are all exactly alike."

He further informed me that Paris was the only place to live in, and that the English as a nation were crude in their vices.

"They make such a noise about everything here," he added. "One cannot do a thing that it is not put the wrong way up in the halfpenny papers."

"The penalty of greatness," I said, laughing. "They don't worry at all, for instance, about what I am doing."

"Then they show extremely bad taste," he said, with a look of frank admiration.

Before the women swept in a body from the room, I understood that his object in life would henceforth be to make me sensible of his great worth and charm. All these masterful, forward sentiments sounded so comic, expressing themselves in his squeaky voice, I could not help smiling. He became radiant. He did not guess in the least what amused me.

Although the salon is immense, the ten or twelve women all crowded around the fireplace. It was a damp, chilly evening.

They all seemed to know one another very well, and called each other by their Christian names, so until Babykins again gave me some information I did not realize who people were.

The purple lady is Lady Grenellen; her husband is at the war. She is most attractive. She sat on a big sofa and smoked cigarettes rapidly in a little amber holder. She must have got through at least three or four of them before the men came in.

Lady Tilchester and two other women were deep in South-African news, the rest talked about books and their clothes, but Babykins and Letitia exchanged views upon the scandal of the time.

"In my day," Letitia said, "it sometimes happened that men made love and ran away with a woman because they found they liked her better than anything else in the world. It was a great sin, but their passion was mixed with respect, and the elopement constituted the wedding ceremony. Now you remain on at home until you are found out, and then the husband takes a gratuity and the matter is hushed up, and probably the lover passes on to your best friend, an added feather in his cap."

"Dear Lady Lambourne, how severe you are!" chirped Babykins. "And you really should not use that little word 'you.' Of course, you don't mean any of us, but it sounds unkind and might be misunderstood—especially," she added, in a whisper to me, "as that is the exact case of Cordelia Grenellen."

Letitia (Lady Lambourne) has a distinct voice and decided opinions. She continued, as though no interruption had taken place:

"If the matter was only for love, too, I should still have nothing to say; but it is so often for a string of pearls, or some new carriage-horses."

"But, surely, it is more logical to have that reason than no reason at all, like the case of your poor cousin. I understood that was sheer foolishness, and Lord Edam did not even pretend to care for her."

Lady Lambourne looked daggers and remained speechless. "What scandalous things you are all saying," laughed Lady Grenellen from her sofa. "Letitia, you are sitting there and being epigrammatic, just like the people in those unreal society plays they had last year. We are all perfectly contented and happy if you would let us alone."

"One cannot but deplore the change," said Lady Lambourne.

"Personally, I am delighted with everything as it is," cooed Babykins. "Life must be much pleasanter now than in your day, dear Lady Lambourne; such a fuss and pretending, and such hypocrites you must all have been—as, of course, human nature was the same then, and since the beginning of time. We have always eaten and drank too rich food and wine in our class and have not had enough to do, so we can't help being as we are, can we?"

"Babykins, you silly darling, as if what we eat makes any difference!" said Lady Grenellen, puffing her cigarette-smoke into cloudy rings in the neatest way.

"Of course it does, Cordelia! Food makes all the difference, you know. I have kept those white pigs for four years and I know all about it."

Babykins has the most pathetic blue eyes, and her childish voice is arresting. Lady Grenellen went into a fit of laughter.

"You are perfectly mad about those horrid pigs!" she told her.

Lady Lambourne interrupted again, in a dignified voice. "Human nature was not the same in my day—as you call it—Mrs. Parton-Mills" (thus she discovered to me Babykins' name). "We lived much more simply, and enjoyed our pleasures and did our duties, and stayed at home more."

"And I expect you were frightfully bored, Letitia, darling," said Lady Grenellen, "and that is why you never stay at home now."

It seemed to me quite wonderful how they could be so disrespectful to this elderly lady, but she did not seem at all offended.

"You are incorrigible, Cordelia," was all she said, and she laughed.

"You had no bridge, and it must have been exactly like it still is when I stay with Edward's relations in Scotland," Babykins continued. "As we arrive there I feel 'goose-flesh' on my arms, with the stiffness and decorum of everything. We chat about the weather at tea, and no one ever says a word they really think; and we play idiotic, childish games of cards for love in the evening; and it is all feeble and wearisome, and the guests are always looking at the clock."

Lady Tilchester came and joined us; it seemed a breath of fresh sunlight illuminating the scene.

"You appear all to be talking scandal," she said.

Imperceptibly the conversation changed, and we were discussing the war news when the double doors of the dining-room opened.

Augustus looked very flushed in the face and unattractive as he came towards us, but Lady Grenellen moved her skirts and made room for him on her sofa. She smiled at him divinely, and was perfectly lovely to him—as friendly and caressing as if he were an equal. It perfectly astonished me. I could not talk and joke familiarly that with Augustus any more than if he were one of the footmen. And she is a viscountess, and must at least know what a gentleman is.

Half the party moved off to play bridge in one of the drawing-rooms; the rest arranged themselves comfortably, two and two. Lady Tilchester and Mr. Budge wandered into the music-room, and I, who had not stirred, found myself almost alone by the fireplace with the Duke.

He proceeded to say a number of things to me that astonished me greatly. I should not have understood them all had I not been to those plays in Paris.

I suppose he was beginning to make love to me—if this is what is called making love. His personality is not attractive, so it did not touch me at all, and I am only able to look upon men now through eyes which see coarse brutes. Perhaps they may be really nice, some of them, but as I look at them one after another, the thought always comes, how revolting could they appear in the eyes of their wives? This is not nice of me, and I am sure grandmamma would reprove me for it.



III

Next day, Sunday, some of us went to church. Augustus insisted upon my going. He thought it would be a good opportunity of showing I was in Lady Tilchester's company, although what it could have mattered to the Harley villagers I do not know.

He himself stayed behind with Lady Grenellen, he said, to take her for a walk in the woods.

After lunch every one seemed to play bridge but Lady Tilchester and I and her politician and the weak-eyed Duke. We climbed the hill to the ruins of the old castle and there sat until tea-time.

"Isn't it a bore for me I shall have to marry an heiress?" the Duke said, pathetically. "Marriage is the most tiresome ennui at any time, but to be forced through sheer beggary to take some ugly woman you don't like and don't want is cruel hard luck, is it not?"

"Yes," I said, feelingly.

He was melted by the sympathy in my voice.

"You are a delicious woman; you seem to understand one directly. People have got into the way of thinking it is no hardship to have to do these things for the sake of one's title, but I can see you are sympathetic."

"Yes, indeed!" I said.

"Cordelia Grenellen is arranging it for me. I have not seen her yet—I mean the heiress."

"If I were a man I think I should keep my freedom and—and—work," I faltered.

He looked at me, perfectly astonished.

"But what can I do?" he asked. "Only go into the city, and that is quite played out now. I have no head for business, and it would seem to me to be rather mean just to trade upon my name to get unsuspecting people to take shares in concerns; whereas if I marry an heiress it is a square game—I at least give her some return for her money."

"There is a great deal in what you say," I agreed.

"I told Cordelia—she is a cousin of mine, you know—I told her I would not have a very ugly one, and I should prefer that she should be a good, healthy brewer's daughter. Our family is over-well bred. You see, if you are going to sacrifice yourself to keep up your name, you may as well choose some one that will be of some ultimate use to it. Now we want a strain of thick red blood in our veins; ours is a great deal too blue. We are becoming reedy shaped, and more or less idiotic."

He said all this quite gravely. He had evidently studied the subject, and as I looked at him I felt he was perfectly right. If he represented the type of his race, it had certainly grown effete.

"I won't have an American," he continued. "They are intellectual companions before marriage, and they are generally so agreeable you don't notice how nervous and restless they are really, but I would not contemplate one as a wife. I must have a solid English cow-woman."

He stretched himself by my side and began pulling a bit of grass to pieces. His hands look transparent, and he has the most beautifully shaped filbert nails; his ears, on the contrary, are not perfect, but stick out like a monkey's.

"You see, I should always live my own life," he went on, lazily. "I worship the beautiful. The pagans' highest expression of beauty which moved the world was in sculpture—cold and pure marble of divine form. That awakened their emotions; one reads they had a number of emotions. The Renaissance people, to take a medium time, expressed themselves by painting glorious colors on flat canvas; they also had emotions. Those two arts now are more or less dead. At any rate, they have ceased to influence masses of people. Our great expression is music. We are moved by music. It gives us emotions en bloc—all of us—some by the tune of 'Tommy Atkins,' and others by Wagner. Well, all these three—sculpture, painting, and music—give me pleasure, but I should not want my cow duchess to understand any of them. I should want her to have numbers of chubby children and to fulfil her social duties, and never have to go into a rest-cure, or have a longing for sympathy."

I said a few "yeses" and "reallys" during this long speech, and he continued, like a mill grinding coffee:

"It don't do to over-breed. You are bound to turn out some toques if not altogether idiotic, and then my sense of beauty is outraged by the freaks that happen in our shapes—you should see my two sisters, the plainest women in England. Now you give me joy to look at. You are quite beautiful, you know. I never saw any one with a nose as straight and finely cut as yours. Why do you keep putting your parasol so that I cannot see it?"

"One uses a parasol to keep off the sun, which is hot. Would you wish me to get a sunstroke to oblige you?" And I put down my parasol still lower.

"You are selfish!" in an aggrieved voice.

"Of course."

"And not the least ashamed of it!"

"Not the least."

He moved his position deliberately so that he came to my other side, where the sun was not.

"I learned a certain amount of manoeuvring in South Africa, where I went for a month or two," he said. "I hope this side of your face will be as pretty. People always have a better and a worse side."

I laughed. It was too hot to circumvent him again, and his looking at me could not hurt me.

"This is even prettier," he said, presently. "Where did you hide yourself, that we none of us ever saw you before you married?"

"I lived rather near here for a little while."

"Now you look sad again. I never watched any one's face so much. Yours is not like other people's; you look like a cameo, you know."

"Tell me about the people here," I said. "They are all strangers to me."

"But I would much rather talk about you."

"That does not interest me; you said I was selfish, so you do what I wish."

"What can I tell you of them? They are like all companies—dull and amusing, mixed. They are a fair specimen of most people one meets in the monde ou l'on s'amuse. My cousin Lady Grenellen is perhaps the most interesting among them, as she had the most histories."

"Histories?"

"Yes; her career has been one of riding for a series of falls, and escaping even a peck."

"She is very lovely."

"Oh yes, Cordelia is good-looking enough," he said, as though there was considerably more to add.

I did not continue the subject further. We talked of books, the war, and various other things, and by-and-by our hostess called to us from the higher level of the old drawbridge where she was sitting.

"We must be descending for some tea," she said, and started on with her politician.

When we got back, Augustus was swinging Lady Grenellen in a lovely Louis XV. balancoire, fixed up between two elm-trees; she put one foot out, and looked so lovely and radiant!

Augustus had the expression of one of those negro pages Thackeray drew in The Virginians—a mixture of pride and self-complacency—a he held the red silk ropes.

Tea was so merry! No one was witty like grandmamma and the Marquis, but every one was in a good temper and it was gay.

The party was rather more punctual at dinner on Sunday night, and Lady Tilchester had arranged, as she meant to the night before, that I should sit next her politician. Mr. Budge and Mrs. Gurrage—the names went well together!

I do not know anything about politics, but he is what I suppose must be a Radical, as he preaches home rule for Ireland, and equal rights for all mankind, and an apologetic tone to other nations, and a general dividing up of all one's biens. But they say he has a splendid house in Grosvenor Square, and a flat in Paris, and never asks any but the smartest titled people to his big pheasant shoot in Suffolk.

He was delightful at dinner, anyway, and made me laugh. His voice is clear, with just the faintest touch of Irish in it. And he sparred with Lady Tilchester across me.

She is the greatest grande dame one could meet, and a Tory to the backbone in politics, but her manner to the servants is not nearly so haughty as Mr. Budge's.

I do not like his hands; I cannot say why; they are neither big nor ill-shapen, but there is something fat and feminine about the fingers. I dare say, underneath, he could be like Augustus.

Lady Tilchester is devoted to him, and he has the greatest admiration and respect for her. Their conversation is most interesting.

Some of the other men are very nice, and several of them almost come up to grandmamma's criterion of the perfect male—that he should "look like a man and behave like a gentleman."

The women are very smartly dressed all the time, but they do not show a great sense of the fitness of things. Only Lady Grenellen and Lady Tilchester are always adorable and attractive in anything and in any way.

I believe they do not love one another very much, although they are quite friendly; one somehow can see it in their eyes.

The Tilchester boy, who is thirteen, has just gone to Eton, but will soon be home for the holidays; the little girl is at the sea. So I have not seen either of them.

The whole house here is so beautifully done; there is no fuss, and everything is exactly where one wants to find it. I shall be sorry when we leave.

Just as we had begun luncheon to-day, Sir Antony Thornhirst came in, and, after a casual greeting to every one, sat down near me.

He seems quite at home here, and as if he were accustomed to turning up unannounced in this way.

I felt such a queer, quick beating in my heart. I suppose because among all these strangers he was some one I knew before.

"So you decided not to cut the Gordian knot," he said, presently, as if we were continuing the discussion of some argument we had had a moment before.

He bridged in an instant the great gulf since my wedding. This sang froid stupefied me. I found nothing to say.

He continued:

"Do you know, I have heard since that to give any one a knife cuts friendship, and brings bad luck and separation, and numbers of dreadful things. So you and I are now declared enemies, I suppose. Shall we go and throw the little ill-omen in the lake after lunch?"

"No; I will not part with my knife; I find it very useful," I said, in a bete way.

"Antony," called out Lord Tilchester, "you have arrived in the nick of time to save Babykins from turning into a hospital nurse. She thinks the costume becoming, and threatens to leave us for the wounded heroes. Cannot you restrain her?"

"How?" asked Sir Antony, helping himself to some chicken curry. "Really excellent curry your chef makes, Tilchester."

"Don't tell him about it, Reggie," lisped Mrs. Parton-Mills. "The unfeeling creature is only thinking of his food."

"You seem to have all the qualities for an ideal convalescent nurse," said Sir Antony, with an air of detaching himself with difficulty from the contemplation of the curry.

"And those qualities are—?" asked Lord Tilchester.

"Principally stimulating," and he selected a special chutney from the various kinds a footman was handing.

"What do you mean?" demanded Babykins, pouting.

"Exactly what you do," and he looked at her, smiling in a way I should have said was insolent had it been I who was concerned.

"But I want to go and help the poor dear fellows, and to cheer them and make their time pleasanter."

"I said you would be an ideal convalescent nurse. But what would become of the pigs?"

"Oh, Edward could look after them. I think too little attention has been paid to the poor boys who are getting well. I could read to them and write their letters home for them," and she looked pathetically sympathetic.

"Hubble-bubble, toil and trouble," quoted Sir Antony.

"Who for?" laughed Lord Tilchester, in his rough, gruff way.

"The recipients of the letters, who would certainly receive them in the wrong envelopes," said Sir Antony. "I think, Tilchester, you had better persuade Babykins to stay in England, for the sake of the peace of many respectable and innocent families."

"How wicked you are to me," flashed Babykins.

"Just what you deserve," chuckled Lord Tilchester.

"What tiresome nonsense these people talk," said Sir Antony, calmly, to me. "You and I were in the middle of an interesting problem discussion, were we not? And now I have lost the thread."

"It does not in the least matter," I said.

The Duke, who was on the other side of me, did not care to be left out, and persistently talked to me for the rest of lunch.

Sir Antony consumed his with the appreciation of a connoisseur. It appeared to be the only thing which interested him.

Babykins, from the other side, did her utmost to engage him in a war of wits, but he remained calm, with the air of a placid lion.

When we got outside in the great tent he came up to me.

"I am going to take you for a walk," he said—"a nice, cool walk in the woods. Will you get your parasol?"

The Duke was at that moment fetching it for me from the hall table, where I had left it.

"I do not know what we shall do to-day," I said, "I believe I am going to play croquet."

"Oh no, you are not. It is much too hot, and you must see the woods. They are historical, and—Here, take this parasol and let us start." This last hurriedly, as the Duke was seen returning with mine.

I cannot say why I allowed myself to be dragged off like this. My natural impulse has always been to do the opposite thing when ordered by any one but grandmamma. But here I found myself walking meekly beside my kinsman down a yew-bordered path, holding a mauve silk parasol over my head which did not belong to me.

We did not speak until we got quite to the end, where there is a quaint fountain, the centre of four allees of clipped yews.

My heart still continued to beat in a quick, tiresome manner.

"You look changed, Comtesse," Sir Antony said. "Your little face is pale. Do you remember the night we danced together? It was round and rosy then. Is it a hundred years ago?"

There is a something in his voice which is alluring. The mocking sound goes out of it now and then, and when it does one feels as if one must listen. Oh, but listen with both one's ears!

"Yes, it is a hundred years ago," I said.

"I was so sorry to hear of your grandmother's death," he continued. "I wanted to tell you how I felt for you, but I was away in Norway, and have only just returned. Did you think I was unkind?"

"No, I never thought at all. Grandmamma was glad to die. I knew she could not live, but it came suddenly at the end."

"What a splendid personality! How I wish I had seen more of her! I generally manage to seize the occasion, but fate kept you and her beyond my reach. Why did we not all meet this time last year?"

"Oh, do not talk of that!" I cried. I felt I could not bear to hear any more. "I am trying to forget, and to find life full of compensations. Grandmamma and the Marquis promised me that I should."

He looked at me, stopped in the path, and bent down to a level with my face. His eyes seemed as if they could see right through my mind then, as on another occasion in our lives.

"Dear little white Comtesse!" he said. Almost the same words.

An emotion that is new to me happened. It was as if my heart beat in my throat.

"We are dawdling by this fountain," I said. "Where are the woods?"

After that we were gay. He told me of many things. I seemed to see a clear picture of the world as he talked—a light and pleasant world, where no one was so foolish as to care for anything seriously.

One felt a donkey, to worry or grieve when the sun shone and the birds sang!

How I enjoyed myself!

"Has Babykins chirped at you yet?" he asked, presently. "She is very dangerous when she chirps."

"I do not like her," I said.

"Oh, you will presently. We all love Babykins. She acts as a sort of moral mosquito in a big party. She flies around stinging every one, and then we compare our bites and tear and scratch the irritated places together. You will meet her everywhere—she is the only person Tilchester takes a serious interest in."

"Are you staying here," I asked, "or did you only drive over?"

"I sent for my servant to bring my things, and I shall stay now I find you. You always seem to forget we are cousins, and that people ought to take an interest in their relations!"

"Tell me about your house—Dane Mount it is called, is it not?" I asked, presently. We had been silent for a moment, walking down a shady path, great pine-trees on each side.

"No, I won't tell you about it; you must come over there some day and stop with me for a night or so. You ought to see the home of your ancestors, you know. Promise me you will when I come back from Scotland!"

We had gone deep into the wood by now. It was quite dusky. The thick trees met overhead, and only an occasional sunbeam penetrated through.

I felt stupid. The words did not come so easily as when I am with the Duke.

"How silent you are, Comtesse!"

"Is it not time to go back?" I said, stupidly.

"No, not nearly time. I want you to tell me all about yourself—where you lived, and all that happened until you flashed into my life at the Tilchester ball. See, we will sit down on this log of wood and be quite comfortable."

We sat down.

"Now begin, Comtesse: 'Once upon a time, when I was a little girl, I came from—where?'"

"Do you really want to hear the family history?" I asked.

"Yes."

I told him an outline of things and how grandmamma and I had lived at the cottage, and of all her wise sayings, and about the Marquis and Roy and Hephzibah, and the simple things of my long-ago past. It seemed as if I was speaking of some other person, so changed has all my outlook on life and things become since I went to Paris with Augustus.

"And now we come to the day we met in the lane," he said. "You were not even engaged then, were you?"

"Oh no! Grandmamma had never had a fainting-fit; she would have found the idea too dreadful at that time." I stopped suddenly, realizing what I had said. I could not tell him how and why I had married Augustus; he must think what he pleased.

He evidently thought a good deal, by the look in his eyes. I wish—I wish when he looks it did not make my heart beat so; it is foolish and uncomfortable.

"What a fool I was not to come with the automobile the night before your wedding and carry you off to Gretna Green," he said, in a voice that might have been mocking or serious, I could not tell which.

"Tell me, Comtesse, if I had tapped at your window, would you have looked out and come with me?"

"There was a bad thunder-storm, if I recollect. We should have got wet," I laughed, in a hollow way. He could not know how he was hurting me; he should not see, at all events.

"You would have been very dear to take to Gretna Green," he continued. "I should have loved to watch your wise, sweet eyes changing all expressions as morning dawned and you found yourself away from them all—away from Augustus."

I did not answer. I drew hieroglyphics with the point of the mauve parasol in the soft moss beneath our feet.

"Why don't you speak, Comtesse?"

"There is nothing to say—I am married—and you did not tap at the window—and let us go back to the house."



IV

The last evening at Harley is one of the things I shall not want to recall. Augustus got drunk—yes, it is almost too dreadful to write even. I had not realized up to this that gentlemen (of course I do not mean that word literally, as applied to Augustus, but I mean people with money and a respectable position)—I never realized that they got drunk. I thought it was only common men in the street.

It struck me he was making a great noise at dinner, but as he was sitting on the same side of the table as I was I could not see. When the men joined us afterwards it came upon me as a thunder-clap. His face was a deep heliotrope, and he walked unsteadily—not really lurching about, but rather as if the furniture was in the way.

One or two of the men seemed very much amused, especially when he went and pushed himself into the sofa where Lady Grenellen was sitting and threw his arm along the back behind her head. I felt frozen. I could not have risen from my chair for a few moments. She, however, did not seem to mind at all; she merely laughed continuously behind her fan, the men helping her to ridicule Augustus.

For me it was an hour of deep humiliation. It required all my self-control to go on talking to Babykins as if nothing had happened.

The Duke came over and joined us. He drew a low chair and sat down so that I could not see the hilarious sofa-party.

I have not the least idea what he said or what any of us said. The guffaws of laughter in Augustus's thick voice was all I was conscious of.

Sir Antony Thornhirst, who had stopped to speak to Lady Tilchester by the billiard-room door, now came over to us. He stood by me for a moment, then crossed to Lady Grenellen.

"They are wanting you to play bridge in the blue drawing-room," he said.

She rose quite reluctantly, still overcome with mirth. Augustus tried to get up, too, but stumbled back into the sofa.

Then, with infinite tact, my kinsman attracted his attention, said some thrilling thing about the war, and, as Lady Grenellen moved off and Augustus made another ineffectual attempt to rise and follow her, Sir Antony sat down in her vacant place and for half an hour conversed with my husband. Oh, I force myself to write the words "my husband." It is to keep the hideous fact in remembrance, otherwise I might let myself express aloud the loathing and contempt I feel for him.

Sir Antony had never before taken the least notice of him beyond the most casual politeness, and now, from the scraps of conversation that my preternaturally sharpened ears could catch, he seemed to be trying his best to interest and retain Augustus beside him. Gradually the whole company dispersed into the different drawing-rooms as usual, and I followed the rest to look at the bridge.

As I was passing the sofa, where the two men were sitting, Augustus seized hold of my dress.

"Don't look so damned haughty, little woman," he hiccoughed. "Er—I'm all right—give me a kiss—"

"As I was going to tell you," interrupted Sir Antony, "I heard for a fact that the rest of the Tilchester Yeomanry that have escaped so long are going to volunteer to go out, after all."

Augustus dropped my dress. His face got paler. This information seemed to sober him for an instant, and in that blessed interval I got away and into the blue drawing-room. Lady Tilchester was not playing bridge, and she sat down in the window-seat beside me. It was a lovely night, and the windows were wide open.

She is the most delightful companion. I am beginning to know her a little and to realize how much there is to know.

To-night she was more than usually fascinating. It seemed as if she wished to make me forget everything but the pleasure in our conversation. She has a vast knowledge of books, and has even read all the French classics that grandmamma loved. We talked of many things, and, among them, gardens. She told me that I must make a new garden at Ledstone, and I would find it an immense interest; and she spoke so kindly of Mrs. Gurrage, and said how charitable she was and good-hearted, and then delicately, and as if it had no bearing upon the Gurrage case, hinted that in these days money was the only thing needed to make an agreeable society for one's self, and that in the future I must have plenty of amusement.

Insensibly my heart became lightened.

She talked to me of grandmamma, too, and drew me into telling her things about our past. She was interested in grandmamma's strange bringing-up of me, so different, she said, to the English girls of the present day.

"And is it that, I wonder, which has turned you into almost as great a cynic as Antony Thornhirst? He is the greatest I know."

"But can one be a cynic if one has so kind a heart?" I asked.

She looked at me quickly with a strange look.

"How have you discovered that so soon? Most people would not credit him with having any heart at all," she said. "You know with all his immense prestige and popularity people are a little afraid of him. I think one would sum up the impression of Antony as a man who never in all his life has been, or will be, called 'Tony.'"

Her voice was retrospecting.

"You have known him very long?" I questioned.

"Ever since I married, fourteen years ago. I remember I saw him first at my wedding. He and Tilchester had, of course, been old friends, always living so near each other. We are exactly the same age—thirty-four, both of us. Growing old, you see!" She laughed softly, then she continued:

"Antony was never like other men exactly. He is original, and extraordinarily well read—only casually one would never guess it. He wastes his life rather, though. I wish he would go into Parliament. He has a habit of rushing off on long travels. Some years ago he went off suddenly and was away for ages and ages—about five years, I think. Then he stayed at Dane Mount for a while, and then, when the war first began, he went out there, and has only been home a year."

"He never speaks of himself nor what he does, I notice."

"No; that is just his charm. I should like you to see Dane Mount. It is far nicer than this, and he has wonderful taste. It is the most comfortable house I know. He has delightful parties there when the shooting begins."

"It would interest me to see it, because grandpapa came from there," I said.

"Of course, you are cousins, in a way. You don't know how interested Antony was in you that night after the Tilchester Yeomanry ball. He came and sat in my sitting-room and talked to me about you, and then it was he put two and two together and discovered you were related. I had heard that evening about your grandmother and you living at the cottage, and was able to give him some information. I don't think he realized when you met that you were connected, did he?"

"No, not at all."

"A friend of mine and I were sitting by the fire, having said good-night to the rest of the party—do you remember what a cold May night it was? Antony came in and joined us. We all had admired you so. I recollect this is one of the things he said: 'I met an eighteenth-century marquise to-night.'"

"Yes, he called me that."

"He is so very hard to please. The ordinary women, like Babykins and Cordelia Grenellen, don't understand his subtle wit. They are generally in love with him, though. Cordelia was madly eprise last autumn; but he is as indifferent as possible, and does not trouble himself about any of them. He is reported to have said once that it had taken him five years to degrade himself sufficiently to be able to enjoy the society of modern women. He is a wonderful cynic!"

"The Duke gave me to understand that no man of the world was ever without some affair," I said.

"Well, I suppose it is true more or less, but Antony is always the person who holds the cheek, hardly even complacently—generally with perfect indifference. I have never known him, for years, put himself out an inch for any woman."

I don't know why, but this conversation interested me deeply.

Just then some one came and joined us at the window, and Lady Tilchester had to rise and talk with her other guests; but before she moved off she put her hand on my arm and said, as if she had only then remembered it:

"Oh, the housekeeper let me know just now that some soot had fallen in your chimney. I do hope you won't mind sleeping in a tiny bedroom off mine, just for to-night. We were so afraid the smell would keep you awake. Your maid has moved your things."

Dear and kind lady! I will never forget your goodness to me nor cease to love you.

* * * * *

It was pouring rain as we drove home next day.

Augustus and I only met as we were ready to get into the carriage. I had breakfasted in my room.

His face was the color of putty, and he had that look in his eyes which, I remember, long ago I used to say appeared as if he had not had enough sleep. His expression was sulky and morose, and I was thankful when at last we started.

The guests were catching all sorts of trains. There were casual good-byes. Lady Tilchester was not down, and no one occupied themselves much with any one.

Lady Grenellen left just before us. She did not take the least notice of me, but she talked in a caressing way to Augustus, and I heard him say:

"Now, you won't forget! It is a bargain!" in the most empresse voice, as he pulled his head out of the carriage-window.

For the first mile or two of our journey neither of us spoke. Augustus lit a cigarette and smoked in a nervous way, and kept opening and shutting the window.

Then he swore at me. I will not say the words he used, but the sentence ended with a demand why I sat there looking like a "stuck pig."

I told him quietly that if he spoke to me like that I would not reply at all.

He got very angry and said he would have none of that nonsense; that I seemed to forget that I was his wife, and that he could do as he pleased with me.

"No, you cannot," I said. "I will not be spoken to like that."

"You'll be spoken to just as I jolly well please," was his refined reply. "Sitting there like a white wax doll, and giving yourself the airs of a duchess!"

I did not answer.

"A deaf and dumb doll, too," he said, with an oath.

He then asked where I had been all night, and what I had meant by daring to stay away from him.

I remained perfectly silent, which, I fear, was infinitely provoking, but I could not stoop to bandy words with him.

He began to bluster, and loaded me with every coarse abuse and a tremendous justification of himself and his behavior of the night before. I had not mentioned the subject or accused him of anything, but he assured me he had not been the least drunk and that my haughtiness was enough to drive any man mad.

When at least ten minutes of this torrent had spent itself a little, I said the whole subject was so disagreeable to me and discreditable to him that he had better not talk of it and I would try and forget it.

Grandmamma often told me how her grandfather, the husband of Ambrosine Eustasie, had refused to fight with a man of low birth who had insulted him, but had sent one of his valets to throw the creature into the street, because in those days a gentleman only crossed swords with his equals. I now understood his feelings. I could not quarrel with Augustus, the whole situation was so impossible.

I tried to tell myself that it did not in the least matter what he said and did. Then, as he continued abusing me, I repeated a bit of Beranger to myself, and so grew unconscious, at last, of the words he was saying.

Silence came eventually, and then, after a while, in quite a humble voice, Augustus said:

"I say, little woman—er—you won't tell the mater—er—will you?"

Something touched me in his face—his common, unpleasant face. The bluster was gone and there was a piteousness in it. I felt a slight lump in my throat.

"Oh no; do not fear," I said.

Then he called me an angel and kissed me many times, and that was the worst of all.

Oh! When the year is up, will the "monotonous complacency" have set in?



V

The days are flying by. October has almost come, and the damp and the falling leaves. It will soon be time for Mrs. Gurrage to depart for Bournemouth.

Augustus is in a continual ferment, as the report that the rest of the Tilchester Yeomanry are going to volunteer for active service has cropped up frequently, and, while he likes the uniform and what he considers the prestige of belonging to such a corps, he has no ardor for using his weapons against the Boers.

I have tried very hard to take an interest in the matter, but the numbness has returned. The oppression of the surroundings at Ledstone cramps my spirit.

We have had several "parties"—batches of Gurrage relations—one or two really awful people. And some days ago I was bidden to write and invite the guests for the first big partridge drive.

"The mater will be gone to Bournemouth," Augustus said, "and you'll have to stand on your own legs."

Matrimony has not cured him of his habit of using horrid phrases.

He has often been very rude to me lately, and has taken to going more frequently to town for the day, and stays away for a night or two sometimes.

These seem to me as holidays, and I have never thought of asking him where he has been, although he comes back with an apologetic air of a guilty school-boy which ought to excite my jealousy, I feel sure.

During these absences his mother looks uneasy and has once or twice asked me if I know where he is.

My books have come—quantities of books!—and I spend hours in my boudoir, never lifting my eyes from the pages to be distracted by the glaring, mustard-brocade walls around me.

Mrs. Gurrage treats me with respect. There is a gradual but complete change in her manner to me, from what cause I do not know. I am invariably polite to her and consider all her wishes, and she often tells me she is very proud of me; but all trace of the familiarity she exercised towards me in the beginning has disappeared.

I am sorry for her, as she is deeply anxious, also, about this question of the Yeomanry going to the war.

Augustus is still her idol.

Perhaps I am wicked to be so indifferent to them all. Perhaps it is not enough just to submit and to have gentle manners. I ought to display interest; but I cannot—oh, I cannot.

It is the very small things that jar upon me—their sordid views upon no matter what question—the importance they attach to trifles.

Sometimes in the afternoons, after tea, Amelia reads the Family Herald to Mrs. Gurrage.

"A comfort it was to me in my young days, my dear," she often tells me.

The delinquencies of the house-maids are discussed at dinner, the smallest piece of gossip in Tilchester society.

I cannot, try as I will, remember the people's different names, or whom Miss Jones is engaged to, or whom Miss Brown. Quantities of these people come out to tea, and those afternoons are difficult to bear. I feel very tired when evening comes, after having had to sit there and hear them talk. Their very phraseology is as of a different world.

Augustus has not been drunk since the night at Harley, but often I think his eyes look as if he had had too much to drink, and it is on these occasions he is rude to me.

I believe in his heart he is very fond of me still, but his habit of bullying and blustering often conceals it.

He continually accuses me of being a cold statue, and regrets that he has married a lump of ice. And when I ask him in what way I could please him better, he says I must love him.

"I told you before we were married that I never should, but I would be civil to you," I said to him at last, exasperated beyond all endurance. "You agreed to the bargain, and I do my best to keep it. I never disobey you or cross you in a single thing. What have you to complain of?"

"Everything!" he said, in a fury, thumping the table so hard that a little Dresden-china figure fell down and broke into pieces on the parquet floor. "Everything! Your great eyes are always sad. You never take the least interest in anything about any of us. You are docile—yes; and obedient—yes; and when I hold you in my arms I might be holding a stuffed doll for all the response you make. And when I kiss you, you shudder!"

He walked up and down the room excitedly.

"Oh, we have all noticed it!" he continued. "You are polite, and quiet, and—and—damned cold! Does Amelia ever let herself go before you? Never! The mater herself feels it. You are as different to any of us as if you came from Mars!"

"But you knew that always. You used to tell me that was what you liked about me," I said, wearily. "I cannot change my nature any more than—than Amelia can hers."

"Why not, pray?"

"Have you never thought," I said, driven at last to defend myself, "that there may be a side in the question for me also? I feel it as badly as you do—your all being different to me."

He stopped in his angry walk and looked at me. This idea was one of complete newness to him.

"Well, you'd better get out of it and change, for we sha'n't," he said, at last. "You owe everything to me. You would have been in the gutter now if I had not had the generosity to marry you."

I did not answer, but I suppose my eyes spoke, for he came close up to me and shook his fist in my face.

"I'll break that proud spirit of yours—see if I don't!" he roared—"daring to look at me like that! What good are you to me, I should like to know? You do not have a child, and, of all things, I want an heir!"

A low growl came from the hearth-rug, where Roy had been lying, and the dear dog rose and came to my side. I was afraid he would fly at Augustus, shaking his fist as if he was going to strike me. I put my hand on Roy's soft, black head and held his collar.

In a moment Augustus turned round and rushed to the door.

"I'll have that dog poisoned," he said, as he fled from the room.

I took up a volume of La Rochefoucauld, which was lying on the table near—grandmamma's copy—and I chanced to open it at this maxim:

"On n'est jamais si heureux ni si malheureux qu'on s'imagine."

About happiness I do not know, but for the rest—well, I must tell myself that to feel miserable is only foolish imagination, when I have a fire, and food, and a diamond necklace, and three yards of pearls, and a carriage with prune-and-scarlet servants, and a boudoir with mustard-silk walls, and—and numbers of other things.

Roy put his nose into my hand.

"Why did we not go on the long journey with grandmamma?" I said to him. And then I remembered that it is ridiculous to be morbid and dramatic, and so I rang for my maid—a dour Scotchwoman whom I like—and told her to bring my out-door things here to the boudoir-fire. And soon Roy and I were a mile from the house.

Lady Tilchester has been in Scotland almost ever since we spent our four days at Harley. When she comes back I shall ask her if she will come over here. She may help me to awake.

I am sure if any one could read what I have written, they would say that poor Augustus had a great deal to put up with in having a wife like me. Probably, from his point of view, I am thoroughly tiresome and irritating. I do not exonerate myself.

* * * * *

After a brisk walk I felt better, and by lunch-time was able to come back to the house and behave as usual. Augustus, I found, had gone to London.

Mrs. Gurrage was uneasy. She dropped her h's once or twice, a sure sign, with her, of perturbation and excitement.

When the servants had left the room she said to Amelia:

"Quite time you were off with that basket for Mary Higginson."

And Amelia took the hint meekly and got up from her seat, leaving a pear unfinished.

"Shut the door now, and don't stand loitering there!" my mother-in-law further commanded.

Amelia is a poor relation, and has often to put up with unfinished manners.

"Look here, my dear," Mrs. Gurrage said, when she felt sure we were alone, "I don't like it—and that's flat!"

"What do you not like?" I said, respectfully.

"Gussie's goings-on! If you tried to coax him more he would not be forever rushin' up to London to see that viscountess of his. I wonder you don't show no spark of jealousy. Law! I'd have scratched her eyes out had she interfered between me and Mr. Gurrage as she is doing between you two, even if she was a duchess!"

"I do not understand," I said.

"Well, you must have your eyes glued shut," Mrs. Gurrage continued, emphatically. "That Lady Grenellen, I mean. A nice viscountess she is, lookin' after other people's husbands! Why, you can't never have even glanced at the letters Gussie's got from her!"

"Oh, but of course not!"

"Well, I have. My suspicions began to be aroused directly after you got back from Harley. I caught sight of a coronet on the envelope" (Mrs. Gurrage pronounces it "envellup"), "and I said to myself, there's something queer in that, Gussie never sayin' a word—he as would be so proud of a letter with a crown on it."

"Yes," I said. I felt sorry for her, she was so agitated. All the veneer knowledge of grammar had left her, and she spoke with a broad, natural accent.

"The next one that came—and never a word from him made me sure—so, I thought to myself, I'll make certain, and I opened the bag myself with my key for a few mornings—I came down early before him on purpose—and soon I sees another gold crown and great, sprawly writin'. The kettle was singing. It took me no time to get the gum unstuck, and—well there! My dear, you never did! I blush to think of it. The hussy! She was thankin' him for a diamond bracelet. Now I know my son Gussie well enough to know he did not give her that bracelet for nothing. Then she said as how he might come on Tuesday to see her, as she would be passin' through London and would be at her town-house for the day."

"But please don't tell me—it—oh, one ought never to read other people's letters!" I exclaimed.

Mrs. Gurrage flushed scarlet.

"There! That's just you—your high and mighty sentiments! And why, pray, shouldn't a mother watch over her son, even if his wife has not the spirit to?"

I did not answer.

"There! It's been so from the first. I thought you'd have been proud and glad to marry my Gussie—you, as poor as a rat! I don't set no store by our wealth—the Lord's doin', and Mr. Gurrage takin' advantage of the opportunities, his partener dyin' youngish—but I liked the idea of your bein' high-born, and I was frightened about Gussie's lookin' at that girl at the Ledstone Arms. And you seemed good and quiet and well-brought-up. And Gussie just doted on you. You ought to have jumped at him, but you and your grandma were that proud! All the time you were engaged you were as haughty as if you were honorin' him, instead of his honorin' you! Since you've been my daughter-in-law, I have no cause to complain of you, only it's the feelin', and your settin' quiet and far away, when a flesh-and-blood woman would have clawed that viscountess's hair! Gussie'd never have been after her if you'd show'd a little more affection. You're not a bad-lookin' woman yourself if you wasn't so white."

"Do let us understand each other," I said. "I told your son from the first that I did not care for him. My grandmother was old and dying. We had no relations to depend upon. I should have been left, as Augustus was unchivalrous enough to tell me this morning, 'in the gutter.' These reasons seemed strong enough to my grandmother to make her deem it expedient that I should marry some one. There was no time to choose—I had never dreamed in my life of disobeying her. She told me to marry Augustus. This situation was fully explained to him, and he understood and kept us to the bargain. I have endeavored in every way to fulfil my side, but in it I never contemplated a supervision of his letters."

"Oh, indeed! And why couldn't you love him, pray? A finer young man doesn't live for miles round," Mrs. Gurrage said, with great offence. The other questions seemed in abeyance for the moment.

"We cannot force our likes and dislikes," I said.

"Well, you are married now, and part and parcel of him, and a wife's duty is to keep her own husband from hussies—viscountesses or no they can call themselves."

"What do you wish me to do?"

"Why, tax him with it when he comes home to-night. Let him see you know and won't stand it. It's all your fault for not lovin' him, and your duty now's to keep him in the path of virtue."

"May I say you informed me of his behavior? Because how otherwise could I account for my knowledge? He would know I should never have thought of opening or looking at his letters myself."

Mrs. Gurrage was not the least ashamed of having done this, to me, most dishonorable thing. She could not see the matter from my point of view.

I remember grandmamma once told me that servants and people of the lower classes always think it is their right to read any one's letters they come across, so I suppose my mother-in-law cannot help her standard of honor being different to ours.

"You mustn't make mischief between my boy and me," she said. "You must invent something—think of some other way."

"But I cannot tell a lie about it. I shall say you have received disquieting information; I will not say how. Otherwise, I will not speak to him at all about it."

Mrs. Gurrage burst into tears.

"There—it's breakin' my heart!" she sobbed, "and you don't care a brass farthing!"

"Of course I care," I said, feebly.

* * * * *

Oh, grandmamma! For once you must have been wrong, and it would have been better for me to have worked in the gutter! I wonder if you felt that at the end. But we had given our word. Augustus held us to it, and no Calincourt had ever broken his word.

By the afternoon post came a letter from Sir Antony Thornhirst. He had returned from Scotland, he said, and hoped we would soon pay him our promised visit.

It was a short note, dry and to the point, with nothing in it unnecessary in the way of words. I do not know why I read it over several times. His writing gave me comfort. I felt as if there was some one human who would understand things.

* * * * *

When I was dressing for dinner, Augustus returned. He shuffled into the room without knocking, while McGreggor was brushing my hair.

He seemed to have forgotten the scene of the morning, and was in a most amiable mood. He had brought me a new muff chain, in wonderfully good taste; he could never have chosen it himself. It is so difficult to thank people for things when you would like to throw them in the fire rather than receive them.

However, I did my best.

McGreggor felt it her duty to leave the room. Would this be a good opportunity to get over what I had promised my mother-in-law to say to Augustus? Oh, it was an ugly moment.

I told him, as simply as I could, that his mother was worried about him, fearing he had contracted a dangerous friendship with Lady Grenellen, and that I hoped he would make her mind at ease upon the subject.

He came over to me and seized my wrists. There was an air of conscious pride in his face. He was not displeased that this gallantry could be attributed to him.

"It's all your fault if I do look at any one else," he blustered; "and, anyway, a man of the world must have a little amusement, with such a dull, stuck-up wife at home as I have got. Cordelia is a darned sight higher rank than you are, and yet she does not give herself your mighty airs."

"Oh, do not think it matters to me," I said, as calmly as I could, "only it worries your mother, who spoke to me about it."

"If I thought you cared it would be different," Augustus said, delighted to grasp at this excuse.

"No, it would be just the same, only in that case it would grieve me, and I should suffer, whereas now—" I left the sentence unfinished, I do not know why.

"Now you don't care what I do or whether I am dead or alive—that is what you mean, I see," he said, dropping my wrists and walking towards the door.

"Augustus!" I called to him, and he came back. "Listen. You swore at me this morning. You were very rude to me, and you spend the day in London with another woman, and return bringing me a present. I have done my best not to resent these insults, but I warn you I will not stand any more."

He became cringing.

"Who's been telling the mater these stories about me?" he asked. "There's not a word of truth in them. It is a queer thing if a man may not speak to a woman without people making mischief about it!"

"That is between you and your mother. All I would like to know is that you will not swear at me in future and will treat me with more civility."

I felt I could not continue the subject of his "friendship" with Lady Grenellen. The whole matter seemed so low.

"Well, you are a brick, after all, not to kick up a row," Augustus said. "So let us kiss and be friends again, and I am sorry if I was nasty this morning. There! little woman, you need not be jealous," and he patted my hand, and then began twisting the long waves of my hair in and out of his thick fingers.

"What is a fellow to do when a woman falls in love with him?" he continued, with self-conscious complacency. "He can't be a bear to her, even though he is married, eh?"

"No, it is only to his wife he can be the bear," I said.

Of course, I ought to have been very jealous and angry, I am sure, but I could not feel the least emotion. I only longed to wrench my hair out of his hands, and to tell him that he might speak to and make love to whom he pleased so long as he left me alone and in peace.

He then became more affectionate, telling me I was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and that I had "stunning hair" and various other charms, and if only I would not be a lump of ice he would never leave me!

I could not say, as I felt, "But that is the one thing I should like you to do," so I said nothing, and, as soon as I could get near the bell unperceived, rang for McGreggor again, and put an end to the scene.



VI

Next morning at breakfast Augustus said: "As Farrington has refused for the 15th, you had better write and ask that fellow Thornhirst—your cousin. They tell me he is a capital shot, and I want my birds killed this year."

The year before, apparently, the party had been composed of indifferent marksmen, and the head keeper had spoken rather sarcastically upon the subject.

Augustus, when not bullying them, stands in great awe of his servants.

"I am afraid, with only this short notice, there is little chance of Sir Antony being disengaged," I remarked.

I somehow felt as if I did not want him to come to Ledstone. He would be so ridiculously out of place here.

"A keen shot would throw over any invitation he had had previously for such a chance as my two best days," Augustus replied, pompously, helping himself to a second kidney and smearing it with mustard. "You just write this morning, and ask him to wire reply."

"Very well," I said, reluctantly. He would certainly be engaged though I need not fear, "I had a note from yesterday, saying he had returned from Scotland, and asking us to go over soon and pay our promised visit to dine and sleep."

"There! I'll bet he was fishing for an invitation to this shoot," said Augustus, triumphantly. And, not content with the mustard he had already plastered the kidney with, he shook pepper over it, heaping it up upon his knife first and agitating that implement with his fork to make the pepper fall evenly. I do not know why these details of the way he eats should irritate me so.

"Now, mind you catch the early post," he continued, "and tell him who the party are."

At fifteen minutes to eleven I found myself still staring irresolutely at the sheet of note-paper lying before me on the writing-table in my boudoir. It had the date written, and "Dear Sir Antony." The rest was a blank.

The little, brand-new Dresden clock on the mantel-piece chimed the three-quarters. The post leaves at eleven. I took up the pen and dashed at it.

"Eight guns are going to shoot partridges here on the 15th of October, and Augustus will be very pleased if you will make the ninth," I wrote. Could anything be more bete? "Please wire reply, and believe me, yours sincerely—" I hesitated again. Must I sign myself "Ambrosine de Calincourt Gurrage"? The strangest reluctance came over me.

It has always been a disagreeable moment when I have had to write "Gurrage," but never so disagreeable as now.

"A. de C.G.," I began. No, initials would not do—"urrage," I added, and the distance between the "G" and the "u" showed, I am afraid, that there was something unnatural about my signature.

"No one would accept such a stupid invitation as that," I said to myself, hopefully, as I folded the sheet and put it in the envelope. But by ten o'clock next day a telegram was handed to me:

Very pleased to come on 15th. Many thanks.—ANTONY THORNHIRST.

So he will see the stuffed bears, and the negro figures, and the Tottenham Court Road Louis XV. drawing-rooms, after all, whether I wish it or no!

Whether I wish it or no!

Augustus was delighted—not so much at the acceptance of this guest, but his own wonderful prehension.

"There! I told you he'd jump at it," he said.

* * * * *

For several days after this a good deal of my time was taken up by my mother-in-law's advice and directions as to how I should rule the house during her absence at Bournemouth, where she would be until she returned to spend Christmas with us.

It was a great wrench, one could see, to Mrs. Gurrage to relinquish even for this short two months her rule at Ledstone. But she was in so good a temper with me for what she considered I had done in bringing Augustus back "to the path of duty" (we have heard no more of Lady Grenellen) that she bestowed upon me her sceptre with a good grace.

At last the day came when Amelia, carrying the parrot, followed her into the brougham.

Augustus had preceded them to the station, and with infinite fuss of maids and footman, and stray card-board boxes, and final directions, the whole party disappeared down the drive, and I was left standing on the red-granite steps.

A sudden sense of exaltation came over me.

I was alone for the first time since my wedding!

It would be evening before Augustus could return from seeing them off in London.

There was almost one whole day. What should I do? Where should I go?

Roy even barked with pleasure.

As I turned back into the house, the butler informed me Hephzibah—Mrs. Prodgers—was waiting to see me.

Dear old nurse! She comes up rarely. She is radiantly happy with her grocer's man, and I think it grieves her to see me.

To-day it was to tell me that she had an accident with one of the Sevres cups, a chip having appeared in the handle.

She almost cried over it.

"Oh! If madam could know!" she said; then, "I dearly wish you would come back just to see how I have kept things," she added.

"Oh, Hephzibah, I will some day, but do not ask me yet! I—I should so miss grandmamma."

"You—you're happy, Miss Ambrosine?" she faltered, timidly. "Madam always knew best, you know. But I had a dream last night of your father, and he shook his fist at us—right there."

"Papa!" I felt startled. Our settled conviction had been so long that he was dead. "You dreamed of papa? Oh! Hephzibah, if he should still be alive!" I cried.

"There, there," she said, uneasily. "It is too late, anyway, my deary, but he'll understand that we could none of us stand against madam—if he should come back, ever. He—he—won't blame us."

I did not ask her what he should blame us for—her, poor soul! for having been unable to keep me with her, free; me for having submitted to the mutilation of my own life. Would papa blame us for this?

Kind, awkward, abrupt papa!

Hephzibah glanced round the room. It is the first time she had been in my boudoir since it was finished.

"Why won't you have up some of your things?" she said, at last. "It don't look like you, this grand place."

"No, it is not very like me, is it? But you see everything is changed, and they would not do mixed, the old and the new. I am a new person." I sighed. "See—this book is the only thing I brought with me, besides the miniature of my great-great-grandmother," and I took up La Rochefoucauld tenderly.

"It don't feel like home," said Hephzibah, and then she suddenly burst into tears.

"Oh, my deary!" she sobbed, "And you so beautiful, and pale, and proud, and never saying a word, and they are none of them fit to black your boots."

"Oh, hush, hush, Hephzibah!" I said.

My voice calmed her. She looked round as though afraid that grandmamma would come in and scold her for crying.

"There! I am an old fool!" she whimpered. "But it is being so happy myself and knowing what real love is that makes me cry."

This picture of my dear old nurse as the heroine of a real love story was so pathetically comic that a lump, half tears, half laughter, rose in my own throat.

"I am so glad you are happy, Hephzibah," I said, unsteadily. "And of course I am happy, too. Come—I will show you the beautiful chain Mr. Gurrage gave me lately, and a set of new rings, a ruby, a sapphire, a diamond, each stone as big as a peanut."

Hephzibah had not lived with grandmamma for years without acquiring a certain tact. She spoke no more of things that could emotion us, and soon we parted, smiling grimly at each other.

But the sense of exaltation was gone.

I could fly a little, like a bird round a large aviary. The bars were there beyond.



VII

It was odious weather, the afternoon of the 15th. Our eight guns had arrived in time for tea, some with wives, some without—one with a playful, giddy daughter. Men predominated.

There were some two or three decent people from the county round. The remainder, commercial connections, friends of the past.

One terrible woman, with parted, plastered hair and an aggressive voice and rustling silks, dominated the conversation. She is the wife of the brother of the late Mr. Gurrage's partner who "died youngish."

This couple come apparently every year to the best partridge drive. "Dodd" is their name.

Mrs. Dodd was extremely ill at ease among the other ladies, but was determined to let them know that she considered herself their superior in every way.

At the moment when she was recounting, in a strident voice, the shortcomings of one of her local neighbors, the butler announced:

"Sir Antony Thornhirst."

Our ninth gun had arrived.

"So good of you to ask me," he said, as he shook hands, and his voice sounded like smooth velvet after the others. And for a minute there was a singing in my ears.

"Jolly glad to see you," Augustus blustered. "What beastly weather! You motored over, I suppose?"

Sir Antony sat down by me.

I remembered the ways he would be accustomed to and did not introduce him to any one.

He had exchanged casual "How do you do's" with the neighbors he knew.

I poured him out some tea.

"I don't drink it," he said, "but give me some, and sugar, and cream, and anything that will take time to put in."

I laughed.

"It is very long since we met at Harley, and I began to think you were going to forget me again, Comtesse!"

"Is that why you came here?"

"Yes—and because they tell me your keeper can show at least a hundred and fifty brace of partridges each day!"

"Augustus was right, then."

"What about?"

"He said you would come because of the number of the birds. I—I—felt sure you would be engaged."

"Your note was not cordial nor cousinly, and I was engaged, but the attraction of the game, as Mr. Gurrage says, decided me."

His smile had never looked so mocking nor his eyes so kind.

"Might I trouble you for a second cup, please, Mrs. Gussie?" the female Dodd interrupted, loudly, from half across the room, "Mr. McCormack is taking it over to you. And a little stronger this time, please. I don't care for this new-fangled taste for weak tea—dish-water, I call it—only fit for the jaded digestions of worn-out worldly women."

"Who owns this fog-horn?" my kinsman whispered. "Will it come out shooting to-morrow? The game-book record will be considerably lower if so!"

"It won't shoot; it will only lunch," I whispered back.

Somehow, my spirits had risen. I loved to sit and laugh there with—Antony. (I think of him as Antony, now we are cousins, I must remember.)

I poured out the blackest tea I could, and inadvertently put a lump of sugar into it. I am afraid I was not attending.

Mr. McCormack, a big, burly youth, with a red face and fearfully nervous manners, stood first on one foot, then on the other, while he waited for the cup, which, eventually, he took back to Mrs. Dodd.

All this time Antony was sitting talking to me in his delightfully lazy way, quite undisturbed by any one else in the room. He has exactly grandmamma's manner of finding a general company simply furniture.

He was just telling an amusing story of the house in Scotland he had come from, when an explosion happened at the other side of the fireplace. Loud coughing and choking, mixed with a clatter of teaspoons and china—and, amid a terrified silence, the fog-horn exclaimed:

"Surely, Mrs. Gussie, I told you plain enough that sugar in my tea makes me sick."

I apologized as well as I could, and repaired my want of attention, and then I felt my other guests must claim me, so I whispered to Antony:

"Do go and talk to Lady Wakely, please. You are preventing me from doing my duty! I am listening to you instead."

"Virtuous Comtesse!"

But he rose, and crossed over to the fat wife of the member for this division, and soon her face beamed with smiles.

I soothed Mr. McCormack, who somehow felt the sugar had been his fault.

Augustus mollified the fog-horn Dodd, and peace was restored all around.

It is a long time between tea and dinner when the days are growing short. It was only half-past six when every excuse for lingering over the teacups had expired.

What on earth could one do with this ill-assorted company for a whole hour?

Augustus, with a desire to be extremely smart, had commanded dinner at half-past eight.

Mercifully, the decent people and some of the men played bridge, and were soon engaged at one or two tables. Augustus, who is growing fond of the game, made one of the fourth, thus leaving five of our guests hanging upon my hands.

"Shall I show you your rooms? Perhaps you would like to rest before dinner," I said to the ladies, who were good enough to assent, with the exception of Mrs. Dodd, who snorted at the idea of resting.

"Wullie," she said to Mr. Dodd. She had evidently picked up the Scotch pronunciation of his name from him, a quiet, red-haired man originally from Glasgow. He was hovering in the direction of one of the bridge-tables. "Wullie, don't let me see you playing that game of cards. There are letters to be written to Martha and my mother. Come with me," she commanded.

Mr. Dodd obeyed, and they retired to the library together.

They are evidently quite at home here, and did not need any attention from me.

Antony Thornhirst was the only other guest unemployed, and he immediately rose and went to write letters in the hall, he said. He had refused to play bridge on account of this important correspondence.

So at last I got the two women off to their rooms, and was standing irresolutely for a second, glancing over the balustrade after closing the last door, when my kinsman looked up.

"Comtesse," he called, softly, "won't you come down and tell me when the post goes?"

I descended the stairs. He was standing at the bottom by one of the negro figures when I reached the last step.

"Have you not some quiet corner where we might sit and talk of our ancestors?" he asked, with a comic look in his cat's eyes. "This place is so draughty, and I am afraid of the bears! And we should disturb that loving couple in the library and the bridge-players in the drawing-room. Have you no suggestions for my comfort? I am one of your guests, too, you know!"

"There is Mrs. Gurrage's boudoir, that has straight-up, padded chairs and crimson satin, and there is my own, that is mustard yellow. Which could you bear best before dinner?" I said, laughing.

"Oh! the yellow—mustard is stimulating and will give me an appetite."

So we walked up the stairs again together and he followed me down the thickly carpeted passage to my highly gilded shrine.

For the first time since I have owned it, I felt sorry I had been too numb to make it nice. The house-maids arrange it in the morning, and there it stays, a monument of the English upholsterer's idea of a Louis XV. boudoir.

As I told Hephzibah, the little copy of La Rochefoucauld and the miniature of Ambrosine Eustasie are the only things of mine—my own—that are here, besides all my new books, of course.

I sat down in the straight-backed sofa. It has terra-cotta and buff tulips running over the mustard brocade. The gilt part runs into your back.

Antony sat at the other end.

A very fat, rich cushion of "school of art" embroidery, with frills, fell between us. We looked up at the same moment and our eyes met, and we both laughed.

"You remind me of a picture I bought last year," Antony said. "It was a little pastel by La Tour, and the last owner had framed it in a brand-new, brilliant gilt Florentine frame."

Suddenly, as he spoke, a sense of shame came over me. I felt how wrong I had been to laugh with him about this—my home. It is because, after all these months, I cannot realize that Ledstone is my home that I have been capable of committing this bad taste.

I felt my cheeks getting red and I looked down.

"I—I like bright colors," I said, defiantly. "They are cheerful and—and—"

"Sweet Comtesse!" interrupted Antony, in his mocking tone, which does not anger me. "Tell me about your books."

He got up lazily, and began reading the titles of a heap on the table beyond.

"What strange books for a little girl! Who on earth recommended you these?"

"No one. I knew nothing at all about modern books, so I just sent for all and any I saw in the advertisements in the papers. Most of them are great rubbish, it seems to me, but there are one or two I like."

He did not speak for a few moments.

"All on philosophy! You ought to read novels at your age."

"I did get some in the beginning, but they seemed all untrue and mawkish, or sad and dramatic, and the heroines did such silly things, and the men were mostly brutes, so I have given them up. Unless I see the advertisement of a thrilling burglary or mystery story, I read those. They are not true, either, and one knows it, but they make one forget when it rains."

"All women profess to have a little taste for philosophy and beautifully bound Marcus Aureliuses, and Maximes, and love poems—clever little scraps covered in exquisite bindings. And one out of a thousand understands what the letter-press is about. I am weary of seeing the same on every boudoir-table, and yet some of them are delightful books in themselves. You have none of these, I see."

He picked up the La Rochefoucauld.

"Yes, here is one, but this is an old edition." He turned to the title-leaf and read the date, then looked at the cover. It is bound in brown leather and has the same arms and coronet upon it that my chatelaine has—the arms of Ambrosine Eustasie de Calincourt and an "A. E. de C." entwined, all tooled in faded gold.