That night Launa could not sleep. She was so angry with Paul Harvey and with herself; she loathed herself. Her ideas of men and their passions were those of a young girl, to whom passion is unknown, to whom men appear as gods. She considered a man must love a woman by whom he has a child. Love, love! Paul was the father of a squaw’s child—of a squaw’s child; it reiterated in her brain until she almost writhed with anguish. She had thought of him as always her own. The shame of it! And worse than shame, the pain, because she would have to give him up. Oh, to get home! To be able to wander about alone! Away on the big barrens where she could move as she liked, and tire herself out. Their wind-laden sweetness would revive her, their vastness would bring peace; she was so tired of the life away from “Solitude.” She forgot how much joy hope had always given to her. She had hoped. The past tense is easily conjugated once, but to live in the past for ever, to regret for ever is torment, death-like torment. She resolved not to regret, not to suffer, and so she read Carlyle until daylight.

Next day Mrs. Montmorency’s party drove to Paradise. There were wonderful beech woods in which to walk. Paul met them there. His first look was for Launa; she was standing talking to two men, and he joined them and waited with patience, until at last he asked her to go for a walk.

“No, thank you,” she said. “I am too tired to walk.”

“I want to show you the trees. Come into the wood and sit down, you can rest there.”

“Well, I will walk,” she answered.

She looked at him with an involuntary air of appeal. She was not afraid of him, she assured herself, only afraid of herself. Some day he might tell her things, ask her questions, and she, through weakmindedness, might answer. They started to walk, and she still meditated. Why should she think he cared for her? Ah yes, and why did she want him to care? These questions opened an endless vista of ideas and feelings before her. She felt indifferent for the moment, as no doubt he did.

“The view is lovely,” she exclaimed at last. “Let us go to the village.”

“What are you thinking about?” he asked, coming nearer and looking at her.

“Of many things. I think in heaven I should miss the sweetness of the air which is here.”

“So should I.”

They walked down the road past a cluster of Indian cottages. A young squaw with a baby in her arms sat in front of one of them. Launa looked at her and at the child; its hair was more curly, and not quite so black as the long, straight locks of Indian children.

“What a queer baby!” she exclaimed.

She looked at her companion. He was digging with his stick in the red clay of the road; his eyes were hidden; a red flush mounted to his forehead, and he was singularly embarrassed. She turned away and walked slowly on, followed by him in silence.

“What is that noise?” she said.

They heard a sound like a moan quite near them, and it grew louder; something—some animal—was suffering intensely.

“Look!” she cried.

In a ditch by the roadside lay a horse, thin, so thin that his bones seemed as if they would come through his skin. A few children clustered round, throwing stones at it at intervals and poking it with sticks. Blood slowly oozed from a wound in its head, and its poor body was covered with sores.

“Do something,” she said, and her voice quivered with the horror of it. “Can’t we put it out of its misery? Whose horse is it?”

Paul had driven away the children, and gone close to it.

“Someone has half shot it; it must be in torture.”

“Go and borrow a rifle,” she said. “I will stay here and keep away those little fiends. Do go.”

“You are not afraid?”

“Afraid? No, only so sorry. What horrible, unavailing suffering! Go, and be quick.”

He walked briskly away, and she strolled up and down. The children came near to stare at her, but they ceased to torment the horse. She could not bear its eyes; they seemed to beg of her to kill it, and she could do nothing. She clasped her hands together with such force that they hurt her as she longed and longed for Paul’s return. It began to grow dusk. She had forgotten tea, and the rest of the party—would they be looking for her, and imagining all sorts of things? Meanwhile the horse’s moans grew louder; the young squaw with the baby came slowly down the road—the baby was crying.

Launa asked if she knew who owned the horse.

“A man named Morris, who lives down the road four miles away. He turned him out to die; he is too old to work or eat.”

The baby wailed.

“Your child is ill,” said Launa.

“Yes,” grunted the girl, who was so young and almost pretty; “my grandmother cursed him.”

“Cursed him?”

“Because of his father, he—”

“Oh,” interrupted the other, “will Paul never come? If he would only be quick.”

She could not bear these revelations. The moans of the horse and the shrill misery of the child were torturing her.

Someone suddenly threw a stone from behind the shelter of a spruce tree; it struck the horse, which gave a sharp scream. In the distance Launa heard footsteps. She ran down the road. It was Paul.

“I am so glad you have come,” she said breathlessly, quickly. “Hurry. Did you get a rifle?”

“Are you glad?” his voice changed. “Yes, I have it.”

“The horse is suffering so terribly.”

He looked at her with a certain wistfulness which was unusual.

He is going to tell me he is sorry for that, she thought, remembering the squaw and the child who had come near them.

“Go, go and put him out of his misery,” she said, with quick anger and excitement. “There is so much torture, so much suffering for animals, women, and children. Oh, God! it is awful!”

He turned and saw the Indian girl.

“You,” he said merely, but with bitterness, almost hatred, in his tone. “Go away.”

“You are a brute,” said Launa, “to talk to her in that way. What has she done? Go and kill the horse.”

“Not until you are further away,” he said, with gentleness. “He may, and probably will, scream. That woman is not fit for you to talk to or to touch.”

For one moment Launa felt afraid, and she wanted to ask him to come with her down the road out of earshot, away from it all. The twilight was growing dense. The horse would scream; ugh! how horrible the suffering! There were witches abroad in the night—witches of selfishness, of pain, of terror. She wanted Paul to put his arms round her, to kiss her, even with the girl near with his child in her arms. She felt degraded, and yet loath to let him leave her, until she remembered the horse.

“Come with me,” said Paul, and he took her hand and led her down the road. “There is a big rock here. You will wait for me? Sit down and I will wrap your cloak round you; you are cold.”

Her teeth chattered with apprehension as he walked firmly back. She listened with her fingers in her ears, hearing only the thump of her heart beating. One, two sharp reports and a sort of checked scream told her it was over before he came back.

They walked quickly to the hotel, where the rest of the party were waiting dinner. They were curious as well as hungry, and anxious to hear the result of all this wood walking. They discovered nothing; neither Launa nor Paul appeared happy, or at ease. He ate his dinner with indifference; she ate nothing, and felt as if all her body, beginning with her teeth, was beyond her control.

Before they left to drive home he said:—

“You misunderstood me to-night. I want to tell you about that squaw.”

“I know it. Do not tell me.”

“You are angry with me because of her. I could not help it.”

“I despise a man who could not help it,” she answered. “I am sorry for her and for you. You could shoot the horse.”

“You are angry about her?” he asked again.

“I am outraged, not merely angry. Why,” she continued suddenly, “should there be one law for me and one for her? I could not bear anyone who treated her claim as nothing. She will belong to you, be one of you—” she paused.

“I would never treat her claim as of no value,” he said quickly, “but—”

“You will never come again to me,” she said.

Had she said too much? Would he understand? She continued:

“Do not explain. Be careful—they may think of revenge.”

“That is enough. And so it is good-bye? Good-bye, then.”

Mrs. Montmorency took Launa home with her in the brougham. They talked about clothes, while Launa remembered the queer dark evening, the half-pretty Indian girl, and heard the wailing sobs of her baby, and then she saw Paul’s face full of anger. Love was there, hatred as well, as he said, “Go away,” to the girl. She shuddered, and he thought her angry—simply angry—good that he could think she felt so slight an emotion. Women are angry every day with their maids, and their dressmakers, and their rivals, and it leaves no impression, not even a wrinkle; there remains no ache whatever, unless it be weariness.

“I love crepon,” she said to Mrs. Montmorency. “It is so soft and graceful.”

Paul Harvey did not go again to “Solitude.” Miss Black lamented his absence loudly. From inquiries she made she learned that he had gone away to the Restigouche with some Englishmen to fish.

Launa took up shorthand as a sedative, and worked with great diligence. But she learned nothing. However, as neither her father nor Miss Black was aware of this, because of their utter ignorance of shorthand, its failure as an attainable subject caused no surprise to them.

Mr. Archer went to New York, and then Launa frequently took long wandering walks—over stretches of rocky country with narrow, gloomy, cuttings full of granite boulders, where there were caves.

One day she went, in her canoe, up a stream, until she reached a chain of lakes where she could paddle on and on—far away into space—where the stillness was maddening yet restful.

The peace of autumn, of approaching death, lay on the woods. The maples, with their gorgeous colouring, shone and flamed in the bright sun; the birches were yellow, almost gold, in the brilliant light; occasionally a leaf fell slowly, it reminded Launa of a ghost of the end; there was dread in the creeping slowness, as of the invincible, powerful march of a quiet enemy. The breeze sprung up gently, it rippled the water, and stirred the tall pine trees slowly with a rhythmic movement, and the sun began to sink. She gazed again and again at the warm rapturous colouring, the triumph of the trees at the end of their summer life, for the leaves have a glorious finish, and then she turned her canoe round and paddled swiftly back to “Solitude.”

Everything there was in confusion; Miss Black had been taken suddenly ill. She was still unconscious, and they had sent for the doctor, who arrived only to tell them she was dead.

Launa did not know her father’s address. Miss Black’s relations were merely cousins, to whom her death and funeral were matters of indifference.

So Launa stayed alone with the dead woman weeping tears of sorrow—some tears were for the loss of companionship, some for the love and never ceasing care. The idea of a funeral was terrible to her; death meant earth and creepy things. At last Mr. Archer got his telegram, and came home.

Launa felt as if the end had come to her. Death, the intruder, had entered into her life; he was a powerful enemy, and hitherto she had only regarded him as a sleeping brother.

Mr. Archer’s grief was not perfunctory, he grieved honestly and really. Miss Black was his friend—if any longing for a nearer and perhaps dearer connection (the dearness thereof is wont to depart when the nearness is an accomplished fact) had ever crossed his mind, it had crossed only and never taken root. The constancy of man is more frequently attributable to circumstances than to everlasting love.

Mr. Archer observed that Launa had grown different—older, more absorbed in something, more sympathetic. Always a child of deep emotions, she had developed into a woman. But because her heart was not navigable to floundering old women, the world near “Solitude” called her cold, unfeeling, and indifferent.

Her father regretted this alteration. She had been a child, but apparently death had stepped in and changed her.

He studied her gravely and with attention. “Solitude” was dreary. Launa’s admirers grew weary of vain visits, of fruitless attempts to see her, and they ceased to come. They said she was in love with an unknown man; they had to account for her refusal to see them, and pique and vanity suggested this solution.

After a long, cold winter, spring was beginning. All life was breaking out again. The world was glad, triumphant, new, and Mr. George Archer’s mind turned to England. Launa must go there for change of scene and air, so they left Canada on the first of May.

Launa and Paul had never met since the memorable day he had shot the horse. Mr. Archer casually mentioned that Paul was in Montreal. Launa had a burning desire to hear tidings of him, but she repressed it; she pushed it back, back, back in her mind, far away into those cupboards everyone has, and keeps locked and sealed always, by sheer force of will.

The long streak of smoke from the steamer’s funnel lay black on the calm sea; the strong throb of the engines sounded like the measure of a waltz to Launa. She sat on deck every day after the first woe of sea-sickness was over, and felt utterly and completely miserable. She wanted to go back again, for the ache of unconquered pain remained in her heart. She gave herself a little shake and tried to make herself agreeable to a young man who was returning to England to be married. He told her happily that the engines were playing the “Wedding March”; to her it was a hateful discord, with the refrain of a waltz to which she had danced with Paul. The young man hummed Mendelssohn, and she heard Paul’s voice, and fancied his kisses on the warm cheek of the squaw.

“When I am married I would rather have the ‘Dead March in Saul’ played than that,” said Launa at last.

The triumphant whistler gazed incredulously at her. He found her irresponsive, so he left her alone, and went to get a whisky and soda. No doubt the poor girl was feeling sick. She would not argue about anticipation and realisation, or time and love. She seemed so cold. He could imagine her sailing on through life alone. She evidently did not care for men; anyhow she did not encourage him.

Launa was occupied with her thoughts. She was trying to seal up her life as if it were a book and could be put away. The long, uneventful days were good for reflection, but they were trying and full of remorse and regret.

“I am young,” she said to herself; “only nineteen, and I will forget,” said her mind, “and I wish for Paul,” said her heart, which was like the ship’s engines—an essential part of movement and life.

“Hearts,” she said to the young man with anticipations, when he returned, “are only necessary to one’s being as the engines are to a steamer.”

She considered herself very wise.

“You are so young,” he answered, wondering why she should mention her heart.

Just then Mr. Archer appeared at the companion door to breathe the air. He was writing a paper on the intestines of salmon and grayling. The young man turned to him and said:

“Miss Archer compares our hearts to the engines.”

“A very good way,” murmured the father.

The young man left them and went to play poker; they were an unsuitable pair. Mr. Archer came over to Launa, who turned quickly to him.

“Father, I heard you talking to Mrs. Montmorency that day on the Lethe—about Mr. Harvey—was it true?”

Mr. Archer frowned.

“What did you hear?”

“Something about—a squaw and a child.”

“It was quite true about the squaw and the child,” he answered slowly.

“Ah!” she exclaimed with a little gasp. “Then a man can think of two women at the same time.”

Then he turned and looked at her.

“Men are very brutal.”

“You said he was thinking of marriage?”

“He is.”

She turned her face away from him, for his kind, penetrating look hurt her, and just then she needed him to be cross to her.

“Why do you ask me these questions, child?”

“Because it seemed so strange to me—I could not understand him.”

“Merely strange and not brutal? Nothing to you? Well, you hardly knew him, Launa.”

“Nothing to me,” she repeated, and her father returned to his writing.

The young man with anticipations saw his departure, and hastened to talk to Launa. He was singularly anxious to realise the pleasure of Miss Archer’s society; she was quite original.

“You look pale,” he said, with solicitude.

“Do I?”

“And worried. As if someone were dead.”

“Some one is dead.”

“Relations of yours? Cheer up. Wait until you get to London.”

“And then?”

“Then? Oh, you can have a good time. You can have the best of good times in London—the very best—and forget everything disagreeable, too. I give you my word, it is just like morphia. When I am in a hole, and feel down on my luck, I go to town.”

“Is that the fog? I think I should not like the after effect of morphia.”

“Fog?” he asked. “No, it isn’t fog, and yet it is fog, too; it deadens the brain. When someone threw me over, you bet I felt bad. I went up to town and forgot for a week. I did, really.”

“A week! It lost its effect in a week, so quickly?”

“Well, she wrote then and forgave me, and I hadn’t done anything wrong; she flirted. But she took me back, and I just licked her boots.”

“But suppose she had not taken you back?”

“Then I should have lived and forgotten her; I’m hanged if I wouldn’t,” he said, with energy. “Life does it.”

“Life?—you mean time.”

“I mean living it down.”

“But suppose you could not forget? Suppose you were so fond that you thought of her always?”

“I would forget. I mean—Well, I couldn’t, you know,” he said, and laughed. “Now I’ve got her, you see, and don’t need to try. I do not mind telling you—you seem so interested, and are so sympathetic to-day—that I only forgot her when it was noisy and all that. But when I was alone and quiet—at night, you know—I was miserable. You have nothing like that to worry you, Miss Archer? It is very kind of you to take so much interest in my trouble. You won’t think of your relations when you get to town. Are they in Canada?”

“Yes.”

“And one died—a girl, I suppose? And the others want to interfere with you; they want you to be dull because they are? Relations always do that. Now, I have an aunt—she’s a caution; she thinks I ought not to marry. But I would not stand that. Have you any aunts in town?”

“No. My father has a cousin; Mrs. Carden is her name.”

“She won’t bother you, I expect. You are lucky. Your father adores you. You have plenty of money, and are young. My Aunt Maria is a—Oh, the very deuce.”

Here he launched forth into anecdotes of his relations, and Launa murmured a polite accompaniment to his reminiscences until the bell rang for dinner.

“We’ll meet after dinner, won’t we, and finish our talk? It’s very jolly,” he said. “You have such a nice voice, too.”

“You have done me a great deal of good,” she answered. “Time is all one wants.”

“And life, amusement, and love,” he added softly, with a glance at her, which, considering the state of his feelings for another lady, was unnecessarily kind.

“Leave out love,” she answered. “I am hungry.”

On deck after dinner when he looked for her she was not to be seen, so he concluded she was tired and had gone to bed, wherefore he played poker.

But Launa was not tired. She had hidden from him. His talks about his Aunt Maria had no interest for her, except when she regarded them as a narcotic, and then his musings were soothing. That evening she wanted to think and to be alone.

Her father had insisted on her drinking champagne at dinner. Mr. Archer said a voyage was exhausting, and he looked weary. He had not recovered from the surprise which his daughter’s questions had produced. Were they caused merely by curiosity—the curiosity of an ignorant girl—or by interest? Curiosity is merely an inheritance from Eve; interest is the first instinct towards a man when a woman loves him or is going to love him.

“Launa must drink champagne to-night,” he decided. “And soon we shall be in London. But why did she ask those curious questions?”

Launa took some cushions and rugs and went forward behind the boats. The steamer was surging on, the wind was rising, and the waves were breaking below with big white heads of foam. She began to think; she drew a picture of it all for herself in her mind and called herself a fool. Suppose Paul were there on the steamer, suppose he came to her with love in his eyes, and he were hers for the time—and that was it, that was what hurt—for the time, perhaps only for a time. Would she be willing to take him at the price of another woman’s shame? And to know and to remember what was between her and him, like a bar, or a hand—the warm soft hand of a woman! No, it was over. She would shut up the book. Paul was dead, her Paul, the Paul she loved—she would think of him as she did of her dead mother—sometimes. But her mother was with the angels, and Paul was alive. She shivered a little; it was cold and damp, and the swirl of the waves as the steamer rushed through them was cruel.

She resolved to begin again, to rub out the writing of the first episode of life—such a new book to her—and to make the page ready for London and fresh impressions.

When the Archers arrived in London they took a flat near the Thames Embankment, and Launa revelled in new clothes, music, and horses. Her father soon had many friends. His wee world was exciting itself about the question of bones of fish, and he flung himself with ardour into the controversy.

After some days of continual absence on his part, and loneliness on Launa’s, she went to him and said:—

“I want to know some women. I love nice women. Don’t you know some?”

He looked surprised.

“There is your cousin, Lavinia Carden; she lives in town. I will take you to see her. Her husband is dead; poor man, he never was happy. He yearned for the country and for pigs—Lavinia only appreciated bacon, and would not live out of Bayswater. A month at the seaside was all poor Carden got in the way of country.”

“I shall not like her.”

“She will give you good advice, Launa,” he said, laughing. “You don’t like that.”

Mrs. Carden lived in a semi-detached house, beyond Bayswater, far from the region of the fashionable, in the heart of cheap villadom, where twelve pennies had to make a little over a shilling. Endeavouring to save a farthing on one’s rolls or one’s fire-lighters is an absorbing occupation, and it seems to have most interest for those to whom it is immaterial whether they do save their farthing or not. Mrs. Carden had one son. When he was at home she saw what she considered life—an occasional visit to the theatre, or a dull dinner party, both reached with due propriety in a four-wheeler.

Mrs. Carden was a selfish woman, with a firm belief in her own opinions, and her own importance; anyone who contradicted her or disagreed with her was at once a detestable person. Her affection for her son was expressed in long letters, and the frequent use of “dearest.” But her love was variable, and when he was at home he disturbed her breakfasts, while her nights were made feverish by his late hours, which kept the hall gas a-light until sometimes past twelve o’clock. Her servants assumed a more frivolous demeanour on his arrival, and it seemed to her that while their caps were coquettishly crooked and smart, her stiff house became sometimes slightly untidy.

Charlie Carden was in a line regiment stationed at Malta, with one hundred and fifty pounds a year besides his pay. His mother wondered why he never became dashing, or soldier-like, or anything of a hero, with a sprinkling from the pepper-pot of wickedness—to possess this is the bounden duty of every man when he puts on a red coat or a sword. Carden remained dull, and his mother almost despised him; he was not even selfish, nor did he bully her.

George Archer and Lavinia Carden were second cousins, she was the only relation left whom he had known as a boy. His recollections of her were hazy. In these she figured as a muslin-fichued, sandy-haired girl, in whose face piety and cruelty struggled for mastery; now she parted her hair deliberately in the middle, and indulged in them both. In her youth she had regarded George as a possible husband, and, not loving him, had forgotten him, therefore when reminded of his existence she felt angry with him. Was it not his fault that she had married a man whose only inclinations were to have a farmyard, against which she had had to struggle all her life?

The day before the Archers went to 52 Lancaster Road a note was sent to Lavinia to prepare her for their visit. Mrs. Carden therefore left off her cap for the afternoon, braving the smile of her parlourmaid with the fortitude of a widow who has given up hope of a second marriage, and who suddenly finds the wonderful idea returning with unwonted sweetness—brought back to her by the visit of a man who was long ago considered a possibility. His fondness for a walk from church on Sunday evenings with her had more than proclaimed this fact. She forgot he had a daughter, and that it was five and twenty years since they had met.

The outside of Lavinia’s house was grey. Inside her drawing-room suggested the past and dust, which was constantly being removed; its mark was on the carpet, the walls and the furniture. Only the red blinds shed a little cheerful light, which the drab curtains chastened and subdued.

Mrs. Carden began by relating reminiscences of the family, and then pitied George Archer for his long residence among Colonists. He explained that his residence was quite voluntary, and that he regarded it as the happiest period of his life.

“Did you think my father was obliged to live in Canada whether he liked it or not?” asked Launa; “that he was suffering an unwilling exile?”

“Not exactly that,” said Mrs. Carden. “Where are you staying?”

When she heard of the flat, and contemplated Launa’s boots and dress, she murmured to herself, “Money.”

“George, sometimes when you are busy I should be so glad to take care of Launa; I would take her to—” She paused. Where could she take Launa? “We might go to the Zoo.”

“Thank you very much,” said Launa politely. She did not press Mrs. Carden to name the day for this expedition; she was not favourably impressed by her relative.

“You will come and dine with us, Mrs. Carden,” said Launa.

“Call me Lavinia,” said Mrs. Carden.

“Come any evening next week; which one will suit you?” asked Mr. Archer.

“Next Thursday,” answered Lavinia.

Then they talked of Mr. Archer’s old home, and looked at photographs of the whole of the family.

“Those happy days,” murmured Mrs. Carden, not without an uneasy feeling that her hair was growing thin at the parting; besides, she began to feel cold without her cap.

They drank weak tea, and Lavinia asked Launa her impressions of England.

“I think London is perfectly delightful,” she answered. “I don’t like the horses much. You use bearing reins. The river is quite perfect, and so different from ours. And yet sometimes I long for a stretch of rocky country, for more freedom. But the music and the life are so interesting. Yes, I love London.”

“Horses, river, life,” repeated Mrs. Carden.

A horse to her was a vehicle of locomotion, like an engine; it conveyed her to the station or to a party. Some deluded beings owned horses; she preferred hers hired, with no responsibility as to legs or grooms.

“You love boating and freedom,” remarked Mrs. Carden. “They are both often dangerous.”

“In this country, yes—where freedom frequently ends in trespassing,” answered Launa.

“Or worse—the loss of one’s reputation,” Lavinia said with decision.

Then she turned to George and told him anecdotes. She conversed rapidly and loudly; when she was a girl her family had told her she was arch.

When they rose to go she said: “George, my dear son will be at home in a few days. May I bring him to dine? Launa, he is your cousin.”

“Do bring him,” said Mr. Archer; “Launa will be glad to see him, I know.”

What a name—Launa! reflected Lavinia after their departure. What a fatality there is in our annexing the Colonies! Still, there is money behind the girl, and she is young.

By which reflection we may infer that Mrs. Carden thought of her son in connection with the money and Launa.

The Archers went home in a hansom.

“You call her a woman, daddy; now I call her a fossil,” said Launa. “She is not the sort of woman friend I need. I want a living woman—not one who has existed on husks until she withers everyone who goes near her.”

“She is a type,” he answered vacantly.

“She is an imitation. Show me some one who is brave—who has or knows life.”

“Would you like Mrs. Phillips to come and see you? She is Sir John Blomfield’s daughter, a widow and young. She wants to know you.”

“I am doubtful, not whether she will like me,” with sublime conceit, “but whether I shall like her.”

“You must try her,” he laughed.

His daughter amused him with her odd ideas.

However, when Mrs. Phillips did come, Launa approved of her.

All this time Launa was learning. She was filled with a desire to know and see more; people and life were so interesting. It was like a new play. She noticed how differently her father, herself, and the others were affected by it, and the noise was soothing, even at times deadening.

Launa found Mrs. Phillips entertaining. She explained some of the parts in this vast human drama. She found Miss Archer absurdly young in many of her notions, and absurdly old in others.

“I want to see everything,” said Launa, “and to live myself. It is terrible to feel oneself growing old. It will soon be over, and I haven’t done what I meant to do.”

Mrs. Phillips laughed.

“Go on. What did you mean to do?”

“I should like,” said Launa, “to be happy.”

“So should we all. Tell me more.”

“I want to play a little first, and then—to make the world a little brighter for someone.”

“If I were you, I would simply play myself and leave the others alone. Playing is real and not difficult. Once you begin to mix other people in your life, with your or their happiness depending on you, you will probably be very miserable.”

The admiration of one woman for another is sincere when it is felt when with her, and not merely expressed to a man.

Mrs. Phillips admired Launa for her youth, for her length of limb, and for her slight, graceful body and her warm brown skin. Launa’s mind was attractive. She made friends quickly; she seemed very adaptable; everyone interested her. Some men adored her as they had done at Musquodobit. To others, with a taste for sensuality, she was an indefinite slight girl, while to the few she was wholly desirable—madly desirable. Of course to the crowd she was just a girl.

Music exercised all its old fascination for her. She practised with diligence, and she listened greedily. It transported her to “Solitude,” to the wild sea there, to the rivers and lakes, the life which she loved and missed, which life and Paul she strove every day to forget. And in music she was with him. It was a dream life—she lived in it. Paul was dead to her, but for all that he existed sometimes. She was stared at in her canoe on the river, her paddling was so strong and vigorous, her body so lithe, her arms so round and firm as she took long, almost masculine, strokes, and nowhere did she miss Paul so much as she did there.

The Cardens both went to dinner.

Captain Carden was a nondescript. He might have been attractive if he had ever appeared interested. He was tall, fair, with grey eyes, and very ugly hands, which were forced into notice because of his constant endeavour to hide them. Launa regarded mother and son with curiosity, for they were English and new, and reminded her of the characters in Trollope’s novels. Neither Charlie Carden nor his mother appeared to have found much to interest them in this world. They were ignorant as well as superior, and gloried in knowing nothing, unlike Mrs. Phillips’s friends, who were anxious to know everything, and to impress outsiders with their knowledge.

The Archers talked first about the opera. Mrs. Carden’s ideas of it were limited to “Pinafore” as new and “Martha” as old. German opera and Wagner were nothing to her, nor did she care about books.

Captain Carden talked about horses to Launa, who gathered that he fancied his own opinion as well as his own horses and prowess.

Mrs. Carden thought George should ask her to take the head of the table; she considered Launa too young. She was disappointed when she found the table was round.

Mrs. Phillips and Mr. Herbert were the other guests. Mr. Herbert was an ugly, short man, with a square face, and a stubbly black moustache. He was a journalist—besides which he was clever. Shortly he was going to Canada to write articles for some papers on the country and its resources.

“You are going to write to me, too,” said Mrs. Phillips.

“Yes,” he replied, with a glance, full of—what?

Launa saw it; here was a man and a woman who clearly were of moment to each other. Launa was so absolutely ignorant of men; she knew only one man, and she tried to forget him. She had believed in them all as a class, and in their chivalrous respect for women—indefinite women—and in their everlasting love for one particular woman at last, but her belief was tottering.

That all men were brave she believed, too, it was part, an essential part, of her idea of a man, as all women are lovely and good. Of course she knew women existed with protruding teeth, who have no attraction, but men do not love them. Mrs. Carden she classed among them.

Captain Carden talked to her with assiduity. He told her he found London dull.

“I hate the people; they are so difficult to know. I have called over and over again on the Huntingdons. You know who he is? Lord Huntingdon in the War Office. And I go often to the club for billiards, but no one is friendly, and society is very difficult to get into.”

“But do you not go in for something? Don’t you ride, or row, or play golf? I think all men should care for things of that sort, even for making love.”

“I never make love; that means marriage, and I have no money.”

“Do you ride?” she asked, feeling perfectly indifferent as to his reply. “All soldiers do.”

This conversation was so profoundly insipid.

“Sometimes; but I hate it. I am always afraid of falling off. I go in for it because the regiment would not think much of me if I didn’t. But I hope I have not bored you,” with a sudden change of tone. “We are cousins, you know, and it is so funny how intimate I can be with you; there are so few women I like, or with whom I can be confidential.”

Launa ate an almond with deliberation.

“Perhaps some day you will come for a drive with me. I might hire a safe horse.”

“Oh, no, thank you. Please do not trouble, I do not like safe horses.”

Mr. Archer turned to Captain Carden and asked about Malta, and Launa watched Mrs. Phillips, who was talking very little, while Mr. Herbert’s conversation was incessant. His air was persuasive, his eyes eager, ardent, full of desire.

At ten the Cardens departed. Charley Carden had time to assure Launa again that she was the only woman with whom he could be confidential. Mrs. Phillips was to stay the night. Launa and she had bedrooms adjoining, with a door of communication. They both put on dressing-gowns, and Lily Phillips went into Launa’s room.

“You are not sleepy, are you? Shall we talk?”

“Sit here,” said Launa, “in this comfortable chair.”

There was a small fire.

“I am always cold,” said Launa. “I love a fire.”

“What do you think of Mr. Herbert?”

“I think him clever, and he evidently likes you.”

“Yes, he is clever. But tell me, Launa, are you modern?”

“In what way?”

“Would you ask a man who loved you if he had a past? Would you object to it if he had?”

“If a past were a present I would object. Can’t men be without past? Is there always a woman they have loved first?”

She seemed to hear the wailing of a child and the rustling of the trees, and to feel the fresh breeze. She shuddered. Mrs. Phillips observed the shudder and the look.

“I do not object. Men are different; they are coarse. They like kissing—indiscriminate kissing.”

Launa laughed, and said, “Go on.”

“If I love a man I shall not care what he has—past, present, anything, if he loves me. I would like one man to really love me.”

“You have been married,” suggested Launa.

“But not loved. My husband was nice; we never quarrelled, but we never made it up. Nice men do not love women; they ask us to marry them, to be mothers to their children. Devils love us and often leave us.”

For some time there was silence.

“You like Mr. Herbert?” again asked Mrs. Phillips.

“He wants to marry you,” said Launa.

“He thinks he does. I am afraid of marriage. I am four-and-twenty and I feel fifty; he is thirty and seems twenty.”

“If I were a man,” said Launa, “I would love you. You are not merely beautiful; you are more—not only attractive, you will never grow old.”

“Thank you, dear,” said Mrs. Phillips; “that is a compliment.”

Mrs. Phillips was small and slight; her hair was a very dark brown, her lips were red, her eyes large and dark blue. Her mouth was the most beautiful part of her face. Her fascination was great; men loved her, went mad over her, and loved her still. She was not good-tempered; a man would never have chosen her for his friend merely. She was variable; not the least of her attraction was that men never could tell how she would treat them. Some women lose their power by their variableness; Mrs. Phillips gained hers. She was cold, yet she could have been passionately fond; but she worshipped self-control, and considered a man ceases to care for a woman when once he is sure of her.

“I shall marry him,” she said. “I think I shall. He is not poor, but I shall never live with him.”

“Why not? What will you do?”

“Though he cares for me, he will grow tired of marriage, and so shall I. The accessibility of a wife is so dull. I shall live in my own flat, and he can keep his rooms. Our marriage notice in all the papers will be followed by a week’s honeymoon, and then he can go back to his work, and I can play. He must love me better for not being sure of me at breakfast, weary of me at dinner, and asleep in the drawing-room at night. All the attraction of the—” she paused—“of the others will be mine. I shall be his wife. We can entertain, and he will be sure of me.”

“Do men always grow tired of us?” asked Launa, “even if or when they love us?”

“Not always tired, but secure. If they were merely tired, they would let us alone. They cease to desire to please us; we belong to them. Ah, my dear, love! do men love us? Yes, they love us, but do they love one woman?”

Launa’s clock struck twelve.

“I must go to bed,” said Lily Phillips. “I shall not kiss you. Women should never kiss each other. Good-night.”

“Good-night,” repeated Launa.

“That Carden man will want to marry you, Launa. Beware of them both. He is a worm, and has awful legs!”

A few nights after this, Mrs. Phillips took Launa to a ball given by some bachelors—eligible, delightful young men—whose reputation for wickedness was wholly obliterated by their fortunes or the want thereof.

Captain Carden was there. He had procured his invitation with great difficulty. The mother of one bachelor had cause for gratitude towards him. Her son was in his regiment, and when his reputation promised to become inconveniently large, Captain Carden for once used his wits, saved him from the consequences thereof, and the family felt they owed Captain Carden something. Mrs. Carden rejoiced. She thanked Providence for having delivered the sons of the enemy into her hand, and piously glanced at the ceiling (where a brass chandelier hung, symbolic of the worship of light, also brass) when Charlie related his success. He disliked Mrs. Phillips. She circumvented him by introducing several men to Launa before Captain Carden could demand more dances than he had a right to expect. But then she could give him only two.

“Mr. George will amuse you, dear,” said Mrs. Phillips to Launa. “He is clever, and will tell you about his books.”

Mr. George appeared young, and looked not more than two-and-twenty. He was tall, with a pink and white skin, yellow hair, and an infantile smile. He seemed to have vacated the pinafores of the nursery only the day before; but this was not the case, for he had really left them long ago, and he was thirty years old. He told Miss Archer he was writing a book.

“About what? Is it a novel?” she asked.

“About Beginnings,” he replied; “they are so neglected. Everyone writes about Pasts and Probable Futures, but Beginnings are so interesting. The first love-making is a joy, afterwards it palls. The Beginning—the doubt of how she will take it, and how one can make it—is rapture.”

“You think there is joy in uncertainty?” she said.

“I do,” he replied.

“But when men love, they—”

George interrupted her.

“Dear Miss Archer, I have taken to you at once. I notice you do not use that detestable expression ‘in love.’ This is our Beginning. You were saying—?”

“I was going to say, when men love they are never happy until they discover whether she loves them in return; uncertainty gives them no joy.”

“It does, they think it does not. That is just what I want to illustrate; when a man does know it, and she does love him, then he marries her, he is certain of her. He may become resigned, but he is not happy, and then—”

“Yes, and then?”

“He is forever dissatisfied.”

“I thought women only were dissatisfied.”

“Men are, too,” said Mr. George; “I want to show the unhappiness of certainty. I know it.”

“This is our dance, Launa,” said Captain Carden, standing before her and endeavouring to show his proprietorship.

She did not rise. She looked at him and resented his calling her “Launa” as he did. He was not her friend. She disliked him. His jerky manner and his shifty eyes repelled her.

“Launa,” murmured Mr. George, “your name? and it was surely not given by your godfathers and godmothers?”

“Our dance,” said Captain Carden again.

“I will tell you about my name,” she said, “by and by.”

The band was playing a waltz. In spite of herself she felt gay, inspirited. To Captain Carden it was as all other waltzes. He was tired of dancing with young ladies who bored him, and equally weary of ladies who plainly showed they thought him not worthy of a look or a word.

Launa came as a change and a relief. She had intense vitality and energy; a waltz always affected her; it made her glad or sad. She loved the music, the motion, and she looked so desirable.

Captain Carden was not sure whether she was beautiful or not. He wanted to hear someone else say it; he distrusted his own opinion; he had no self-confidence. She was eligible, virtue of virtues; he was a man, she a woman, and as such glad to get him. Did a woman ever refuse a man with his advantages? Never.

Dancing gave Launa more colour. She waltzed several times round the room with him. He danced badly, and held her too close. They stopped. Her hair was ruffled. She stood near him, and he longed to possess her, to own her, to kiss her until she was breathless. His eyes shone as he looked at her. How he would reform her. She would long for his words; she would yearn for his caresses.

“Isn’t that a reviving waltz?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied almost impulsively.

Her presence was reviving, not the music. After this she danced with Mr. George, and explained her captivating name to him. He said he adored it.

“As a Beginning,” she suggested.

“Yes,” he answered instantly.

Then he asked leave to call upon her father to explain his recently published book of Proverbs. He offered to bring a copy with him, and she accepted his offer, for he greatly amused her.

She met another man, called Wainbridge. He also expressed his intention of calling at Victoria Mansions. He called himself a musician, though he did not play any instrument; she promised to play for him.

“He will be Lord Wainbridge some day,” said Mrs. Phillips, as they drove home together. “His uncle has no children by this wife. If she were to die!” Lily Phillips shuddered, “there is another, a young woman with sons.”

“He must be a beast,” said Launa.

“No, not necessarily, only a victim to circumstances, and she is very pretty. I think Mr. Wainbridge knows her. Lady Wainbridge is a horror; she is a Plymouth sister, and wears bombazine always, and a front. She was only evangelical when he married her, and he considered she possessed the possibilities of the good wife, and he expected an heir. He has suffered intensely.”

“Rubbish,” said Launa, “the other woman suffers.”

“You may be sure he has settled all he can on her,” said Lily Phillips, “for I suppose she does suffer, principally because she is not his wife. I often wish I knew her. I wonder if she feels wicked. It would be interesting to know any one living on a volcano, as she does. His wife might die, he might marry a young and innocent girl. Men like their wives to be ignorant of their vices and peculiar passions until after marriage—then—Well, good-night. It was a very cheery ball. You liked it?”

“Immensely,” answered Launa.

“You are very young, Launa. You think men love once. You would not care for a man who could love you and kiss another woman?”

“He could not love me then.”

“My dear, men are different. There is passion and love, and not always felt for the same woman. Love and passion last; passion alone—Bah! it is nothing.”

“Nothing,” repeated Launa.

“It is an impulse; it goes, and they love you again.”

Some days after the ball they were all at tea at Mrs. Phillips’s—Mr. Wainbridge, Launa, Mr. George, and others. The two men had already called on Mr. Archer, and had been invited to dine.

“I want above all things in the world,” said Launa slowly, “to drive a hansom, to sit up high and see the world.”

“I bet you five pounds you can’t,” said Mr. George. “I beg your pardon. But I am sure you can’t.”

She laughed. “I will.”

“How will you climb up?” asked Mrs. Phillips.

“Easily. I will do it at night.”

“And drive me,” Mr. George said. “I will pay you. Don’t overcharge.”

“Take me too,” said Mr. Wainbridge.

“You may both come,” answered Launa gaily.

“You must all dine here to-morrow night,” said Lily Phillips. “Launa, make your arrangements, and get it over.”

It was after dinner. Launa and Mr. George had been delightful. Mr. Wainbridge was suffering from his feelings for her; he could not be frivolous. The carriage came for Miss Archer, who sent it away.

“Come,” she said. “Good-night, Lily, I am going to drive. Jacobs got me a hansom, and has arranged it all for me. Do hurry,” she said to Mr. George. “I feel so excited.”

She put on a long driving coat, a little cap, and a very large silk handkerchief, which went round her neck, and covered the lower part of her face completely.

Mrs. Phillips came out to the door.

“We can’t start here,” said Launa; “the hansom is in a narrow street close by.”

They found it waiting just round the corner.

“Get in quickly,” she said.

“I won’t,” said Mr. Wainbridge, “until you are up. Don’t do it. I wish you wouldn’t.”

“Rubbish,” she replied. “I am going by the back streets. I know the way, so does the mare. I am driving Nell, you know.”

She climbed up and arranged the rugs.

“It is splendid, it gives one such a grip. Let her go.”

They dashed off with a clatter. The mare evidently was pulling.

“I never thought she would do it,” said Mr. George.

“I wish to Heaven she had not tried,” said the other.

“Get out, then,” said Mr. George. “Shall I stop her?”

“No! If she is killed, I’ll be killed too!”

Mr. George laughed quietly with intense enjoyment. They drove through dark streets. Launa had been coached by Jacobs which way to go. In one place where it was brightly lighted there was a public-house and a policeman. She drove slowly. Mr. Wainbridge glanced with apprehension at the stalwart supporter of law.

Then they turned a corner, and stopped in front of Victoria Mansions. Jacobs was waiting. Launa got down.

“It was perfectly celestial,” she said. “I never enjoyed anything so much in my life.”

“Nor I,” said Mr. George, “though I owe you five pounds. There is something romantic in being driven by a woman, and that woman you, and you drive so well. I am callous when I remember that five pounds, though I was alarmed about you.”

“Of course I would not take it,” she said.

Mr. Wainbridge looked white. He helped her to take off her coat.

“You will never do it again,” he said. “Promise—never.”

She laughed softly.

“I shall do it perhaps if I want to.”

“Only with me.”

The tone was beseeching.

“No, no, with anyone I choose.”

After they left, Launa went into her father’s work-room.

“I drove to-night,” she said. “Mr. George and Mr. Wainbridge came in the hansom, and I drove it.”

“You drove a hansom cab?”

“Yes, I feel very proud, so don’t tell me I ought not to be.”

“You should be ashamed, and I must scold you.”

“Ah, no. You are a dear.”

“Was it a successful party? You like Mrs. Phillips?”

“I like her very much. . . . Do men love women—often?”

Her father looked at her, but it was evidently a problem question, not as it affected herself, but others.

“Yes,” he replied.

“They talk so much about it.”

“I suppose so. You have . . . no theories, no experience, I suppose?”

“No, I think a man in love must be rather a bore. Good-night, I am very sleepy.”

“Don’t drive any more hansoms, Launa.”

“Very well, father, I won’t.”