DAPHNE BRUNO

THE END OF THE LONG PROLOGUE

I

Mr. Thomas Tenter Bruno, sitting beside his writing-table, with the revolving arm-chair swung round so that his legs could stretch past the drawers and his arm rest along the blotting-pad, stared musingly at the wall. The pained set of his mouth and the lift of his eyebrows showed that his thoughts, though they might often graze afield, were none the less tethered to a fixed anxiety.

Had he been sitting with the grace he assumed in public rooms, instead of so relaxed a port, his appearance and his surroundings would have excellently suited a presentation portrait of T. Tenter Bruno, Esq. For on the writing-table were sheets of paper, a silver ink-pot and a pen—the very symbols of his craft; and in the background rose shelves of books, the finished product of his kind and the true setting of his life. On one shelf was a row of fifteen volumes, with fifteen titles, over one author's name—"T. Tenter Bruno." Above them and below them, and on either side of them, were the works of Hume, Johnson, Burke, Bentham, Hazlitt, Lamb, Landor, De Quincey, Mill, and all the other critics, essayists and economists in whose company Mr. Tenter Bruno considered that his books might without presumption take their seat.

In these days (two decades before Victoria died), when men wore side-whiskers or moustaches and double-breasted frock-coats, Mr. Tenter Bruno wore a trim, pointed beard and a short-coated grey suit, perfectly tailored. The grey suit was almost as constant as the beard. In daytime, at any rate, Mr. Bruno was as likely to be seen with a shaven chin as in anything but a grey suit. It was hardly that he dressed the part of a literary artist, since he affected to despise those unpublished brothers who could only be known for great men by the length of their hair, the languor in their walk, and the lawlessness of their ties. The perfect precision of his grey suit, the uprightness of his tall, slender figure, and the neatness of his beard were a challenge to nincompoopdom. But (he admitted this to no one, not even his wife) it was best to have some sort of professional appearance—something that differentiated you from the unfamed multitude—something that the Press-picture left firmly on the memory for the paragraph writer to harp upon and foolish women to gossip about. To his wife the beard had been explained as necessary owing to the excessive tenderness of his skin (a tenderness which no man yet regarded as anything but a credit to him) and the grey suit was attributed to a very nice taste.

In reality Mr. Tenter Bruno's creation of his private and, as it were, patented exterior was rooted in his contempt for the crowd. There was no doubt whatever that a platform appearance and other food for the literary chatterer were commercial assets; and if people were such fools as to buy a writer's books more readily after tattling about his clothes, any wise man would keep their tattling green. At one time he even played with the humour to be a vegetarian and a teetotaller, but his love of comfort was more than his desire to have these interesting things written about him. As he put it to himself, the occasional paragraph was a pleasant thing, but an assured and adequate dinner every day was a greater.

There was a knock at his study door, but he decided not to hear it, remembering that he was anxious. Not that his anxiety was humbug, for it was very real indeed; but, since it was there, it might at least have the credit of its full dimensions. So he let the servant knock again.

"Oh, come in," said he patiently; and there entered a big-hipped, comfortable servant of about forty-five years, in a dress of powder-blue cotton and a plain apron.

"Now, excuse me, sir," begged the woman pleasantly, "but won't you have a cuppa-tea? What I mean to say is: a nice little bit of breaden-butter with a potta-tea. I'll bring it to you here, sir. It's after four o'clock, and we're having ours in the kitchen; and we couldn't bear to think of you sitting here, and sort of—what I call—having nothing. And I'm sure you ate nothing at lunch."

Mr. Bruno had heard the tea-bell and ignored it, and now would have liked a cup of tea, for his mouth was unpleasant; but this good woman's doubts whether during an emotional crisis he would take tea prompted him in a moment of weakness to reject the offer.

"No, thank you, Hollins. I don't think I'm wanting anything just now."

He saw all that was happening in Hollins' mind. The good woman, while persuading herself that she was disappointed at this refusal, was really pleased that her master's suspense should be so interesting. And along with her conviction that persistence was the interesting part for her to play went a real desire to minister to him.

"Well, I should, sir, if I were you. Just a nice little cup, and a thin slice a-breaden-butter. I mean, you want to sort of—what I call—keep up, sir."

"Oh, well, oh, well," agreed Mr. Bruno, swinging his chair so that he faced his papers and his pen, and taking up a sheet and dropping it, "bring it along." He thought that perhaps he would drink it and perhaps he would leave it untouched to provide an interesting topic of conversation in the kitchen.

"That's right. And I'll just make it a little comfortable in here. Why, you've almost let the fire go out."

He glanced obediently at the fire. It was powdery with decay. This rather pleased him, as proving that, despite all postures, his anxiety had really been his master.

"Oh, we'll soon have a cheerful bitta flare here," said Hollins, kneeling down with difficulty and rather heavily, while Mr. Bruno, in his mind, was providing her with her next words: "There's nothing like a bit of a coal fire to cheer you up."

Hollins took the poker and probed the embers with the delicacy of a surgeon whose scalpel was more in danger of killing than curing. Over the moribund glow she arranged some small coals, like a child building bricks, and then swept the hearth. "There's nothing like a bit of a coal fire to cheer you up," said she; and, being a heavy woman, got up with as many divided motions as a camel. The window curtains required straightening, so while this was being done, and till she was gone out, Mr. Bruno drew parallel lines on a piece of paper.

The closing of the door suggested that he sought some new occupation for his mind. He rose and walked towards the book shelves. He was examining his present condition with the detachment of a literary artist; indeed, the whole affair was, to him, an exceedingly familiar literary incident, on which the trite comment was the truest:

"This is one of my great hours."

His eye fell on the fifteen volumes bearing his name. It was always good to see this long chain of Tenter Brunos among the works of immortal essayists. He took down a volume issued from the house of his American publisher, and on a slip inside it read the enthusiastic praise of its contents.

"No one can afford to neglect the writings of Mr. T. Tenter Bruno. With great critical acumen he combines pungent wit, gay humour and a coruscating style. ('Disgusting bit of prose, that,' thought Mr. Bruno.) His reach is ubiquitous; he seems to write with equal scholarship on literature, art, music, history, sociology and political economy."

He replaced the book. Even if one discounted half of the American publisher's cheers, the residue spoke of a triumph. And though Mr. Bruno had enjoyed this fine fame for fifteen years, there were still times when it seemed too good to be true, and he wondered if it were a dream from which he would wake up to find himself an unrecognised aspirant of forty, bombarding publishers but abandoning hope.

But no; he had been successful from the beginning. He had been carried to Harrow on a brilliant scholarship from one of the cheaper preparatory schools; and there his master had said, as he entered his name:

"'T. Tenter Bruno!' Good lord, what a name! With a name like that you ought to go in for being a literary pundit or something. I mean, it inspires confidence, Bruno; and once heard is not easily forgotten. I mean, it sticks and festers in the memory like a poisoned dart. With a name like that, and a few eccentricities like Byron's curl, and a modicum of natural gifts, which apparently you possess, why, Bruno, you might go far."

Young Bruno thought the same. Every talent he possessed he built into the genius of a great critic, essayist and philosopher. A famous university prize brought his name before the world of letters. For a few years he was assistant editor of a critical journal. Every spring he published a volume, and each volume made ripples wider than the last, till he was in a position so secure that he needed not to call any editor master, but could retire to his study and write what books and articles he pleased.

On the whole, then, he was satisfied. Occasionally he would have liked to live with a larger flourish, instead of in a small country house with one old servant and an undermaid. And he could have done so if two tyrant weaknesses had not always quashed the impulse—the one a timidity that dreaded a failing wit and its consequence, a falling revenue, and the other a settled indolence which made him prefer studying in an arm-chair to creating at his desk.

A tray of tea-things clattered outside, and he walked rather quickly back to his chair. Why he did this he hardly knew; perhaps because he wanted Hollins to tell the maid that he had never stirred all the afternoon. And as he sat down, he rebuked himself for the thought; it was contemptible to expose his anxiety for the study of his servants, like an interesting specimen on a pin.

He heard the corner of the tray rested against the jamb of the door, while Hollins freed one hand to turn the knob.

"There you are, sir. I've made it nice and strong."—His brain instantly provided her with her next words: "It do put new life in you, a cuppa-tea."—"It do put new life in you, as I always say myself," continued Hollins. "And I should be inclined to kind of eat something. I've boiled you an egg in case it should take your fancy."

"Thank you, Hollins, thank you." His manner with his servants and their devotion were a pride with him.

The thought of the egg was appetizing; and he ate and enjoyed it so much that he wished it had been two. The tea raised his optimism and expelled his anxiety.

"Everything'll be all right with little Sheila, of course. It's no use picturing the worst. I'll read."

He pushed the tray to one side, and from a little book-stand on the desk took a new volume. It quickly interested him. Only the tiring of his eyes, as the room darkened with the fall of a February evening, told him how the hours were passing. Outside in the passage an opal-glass lamp-shade jingled on its stand, and a moving ribbon of light appeared beneath the door. It would be Hollins bringing a light.

As she entered and rested the lamp on his desk, he felt rather guilty to be reading, but refused, this time, to hide the fact. She drew the curtains, and went out, taking the tray with her. Mr. Bruno turned again to his volume. It stimulated him sufficiently to demand pencilled annotations, and he was lost in this task when a bell gongled alarm through the house. His heart jumped; and the bell, repeating itself, jarred his nerves.

Voices in the hall: "Bruno?"

"Yes."

The telegram, beyond a doubt.

Hollins entered, as delighted and funereal as every one is who carries a telegram. With fingers that fumbled, Mr. Bruno opened the envelope.

"Daughter. Wife doing splendidly."

His eyebrows went up. "A daughter. H'm!" But his momentary disappointment was lost in an uprushing, swelling tenderness. In a voice, not under perfect control, he said to Hollins:

"Yes, yes.... Oh, an answer? ... No, no answer. I shall be there as quickly myself."

"Yes, sir." Hollins went out to the messenger, but her excitement was like a stretching elastic that drew her immediately back to her master's study. "Yes, sir, I've told the boy; and is there——"

"Oh, Hollins, Mr. Spencer told me he would lend me his trap, if I needed it. You might go—or send Agnes round and ask for it. Old Eadigo's there, and will bring it."

"Yes, sir. And may I—what I mean to say is—is everything all right?"

"Yes, magnificent, Hollins." Stirred by excitement, Mr. Bruno forgot that he ever postured, or that he had felt a second's disappointment at the sex of his child. "I've got a daughter."

"Well, there now!" said Hollins. "A little daughter. I do congratulate you, sir. The noos has just come, has it? And I shall always be able to remember that I brought you the noos. I shall be able to tell her that. And it's a little baby girl, is it? I like a little girl for the first one."

She moved towards the door, but her master wanted to continue talking.

"Yes, a girl. What shall we call her, Hollins?"

"Well, sir, that'll sort of take some thinking about, won't it? Will you call her after her mother, sir?"

"No, that's shirking trouble. Something original, I think."

"Yes," agreed Hollins vaguely, for the elastic was pulling towards the kitchen now. "I'll just go and—and send Agnes for that trap. I'll be back in a minute."

The kitchen of this country house was only a dozen flagstones away, and Hollins was soon back.

"What do you think of 'Daphne Deirdre Tenter Bruno,' Hollins?"

Hollins tried to look intelligent and pleased; and Mr. Bruno explained more slowly: "Daphne—Deirdre"; and his smile widened.

"Well, yes, sir, those sound very nice. But I expect the mistress'll have her ideas.... I'll get your hat and coat."

Mr. Bruno walked up and down, repeating:

"Daphne Deirdre Tenter Bruno.... Daphne Bruno."

He was in the power of that up-swelling tenderness. His mind, ever penetrating and introspective, could examine that tenderness and see that, whether or not it were soiled by time, at the moment it was utterly selfless, and charged with reverence and humility. "She's no one but me"; the thoughts were running; "Good lord, I wish I were better.... My influence will be immeasurable.... She must be good.... It's unthinkable that she should be bad...." With a heart filling and filling from the reservoir of these thoughts, he pictured her at every age: one year old and crawling about the floor; three or five, and scrambling over his knees; seven or eight, and playing with a spade on holiday sands; in her school when he came to visit her; a long slim girl of sixteen, slim like the plait down her back; a bride in white and silver.

II

Wrapped in a thick overcoat, muffler and driving gloves, he walked impatiently up and down the study, now and then clapping his gloved hands. Like all men who could drive well, and yet could not afford a horse, he always felt rather proud when dressed for the box seat and waiting for the reins.

"Curse that old Eadigo! Why can't he hurry? Phlegmatic old fool! Hollins has no doubt told him the news with an indecent exuberance, and if he had the imagination of one of his turnips, he'd guess what I'm feeling."

At the sound of wheels on the drive and of a voice gibbering to a pony, he glanced out of the window and in the light thrown by the open hall door, saw Eadigo standing near the horse's head. Eadigo was Mr. Spencer's gardener, who came for two days a week to work on Mr. Bruno's much smaller plot. Mr. Bruno, looking out at him with the detached amusement of a critic, saw a large, corpulent man in a blue serge waistcoat and trousers that had once been Mr. Spencer's. These trousers, enabled by some triangular insertions of Mrs. Eadigo's to surround her husband's paunch, stayed there, as the open waistcoat showed, without aid from braces or belt: palpably they needed none, being less likely to fall than to fissure.

Eadigo, who never dreamed of taking an uncovered head into the air—not through fear of catching cold, but simply because the two ideas of open air and a hat were inseparable—was wearing a soiled felt hat discarded and given to him by Mr. Bruno three years before. It was too small; and perhaps to give it an appearance of being larger, the brim was turned down all round. Mr. Bruno could see the sweat-stains round the faded ribbon, and remembered how God had promised such things to Adam in a garden. He heard Hollins bustle out to Eadigo and say:

"Well, you have been a time! The master's in a hurry. Naturally."

And the even voice of the gardener returned:

"It's ready for 'e. 'E can have it anywhen now."

Without waiting for Hollins, Mr. Bruno walked out and mounted to the seat and took the reins.

"Lamps all right, Eadigo?"

"Yessir."

"Well, get away, Nipper."

The horse, fresh from little use, clattered out of the open gate onto the country road. It was the last moments before the final darkness, and the stars were in possession. On one side of the road, the tall beeches, looking more slender and tapering than in the daylight, stretched their bared branches like long tenuous arms towards the sky. On the other side a line of Austrian firs, marking a private park, stood dense and black against a sea-green glow. The road ran along high ground; and as it left these skirting trees, Mr. Bruno overlooked the waving weld of Sussex. The sea-green glow sang in the west, its answering light in the east; and now the candle-lamps of the trap shone at their prime. The monotonous clatter of Nipper charmed Mr. Bruno into a reverie.

It was picturesque, this driving to find his baby girl. But though the drama of it pleased him, he knew that this was but a small part of his emotion. That tenderness and excitement was crowding into a corner all lesser thoughts. He examined it again, happy about it. "Daphne Bruno." A little girl... then a slip of a school-miss, satchelled... seventeen years, and a tall, affectionate sapling, with her own concealed emotions... a lover in the embrace of some long youth—his heart beat quicker at the thought of this—and then, a bride—from which point he cared not to carry on the picture. And she was born from him; she was out of him.

By God! he must do his part by her. Humbly, Mr. Bruno, as he flicked the pony, felt that he was being lifted to a moment of nobility. With a grim smile he wondered if it would last.

"Clop-clip, clop-clip, clop-clip." Nipper's hoofs, in the darkness, knocked a spark from a flint. Mr. Bruno, in his waking dream, touched the beast again.

All his books were written from one viewpoint: that of a detached mocking at convention. They proclaimed the right of the artist to accept nothing on authority, either in religion or in art, but to build his own authority out of his own experience. With the rest of the thinking world (as it appeared to him) in that latter half of the century, he had rejected Christianity; with many artists, though he was proud to be unplacable in any school, he had questioned the accepted canons of art. This mocking viewpoint he had kept consistent. His readers might believe that behind it was a philosophy of his own. They might believe that he spoke from some sure though hidden ground; that he at least had found a code by which to live, and thus achieved his integrity. And indeed, some of his followers had written articles on "The True Philosophy of Tenter Bruno."

But Mr. Bruno, driving to his daughter, knew that he had achieved no such thing. He felt dissatisfied with his management of life. He was vain, thought he, and indolent and selfish; and when all brilliant theories were puffed away, he knew that he had an unconquerable conviction that vanity, indolence and selfishness were wrong. And there was a corruptive falsity, his keen mind told him, in his whole position; for, while intellectually a revolutionary, he had no courage to be a libertine; he wrote it all from his brain, while his will allowed his life to drift conventionally enough. If only he had really found a sure code, that he might give it to this little girl—or, rather, to that long, slim girl, slim as the plait down her back! ... She would have brains.

"I should like to vow that henceforth there's to be one good thing in my life: my self-effacing service of her." The shoulders of the sceptic shrugged in distrust of himself.

With tenderness, too, he thought of his wife; and his head shook, regretfully. Poor little Sheila, she hadn't had much of a time. He saw her as she was at their first meeting: a little fair-haired thing of twenty, beautifully frail, eighteen years younger than he. He studied how he had come to marry her. All his life he had waited in the hope that he would fall in love with some one, but the monopolizing love of his own books had kept other loves out of doors. Still, the one last sentimentality had persisted in him, this hope that love would arrive and last for ever. Then came this exquisite little creature (as his fancy had seen her), bringing a manifest adoration—and the thought of possessing her had been sweet. How delighted she had been with the attentions of so famous a man! In her feebleness she had rather thrown herself at him. He had begun to wonder if he was in love with her, and had given answer: "Yes, since I am nearly forty, if this be not love, no other will come." So they had become engaged. And though before marriage he had discovered the poverty of her mind, he had lacked the strength to withdraw—and the cruelty. Chaffingly surrounding her with a haze of adjectives, "frail," "fay," "gossamer," "little Thistledown," he had kept his promise and married her.

"She's mindless ... little ... weak ... cowardly," muttered he to the horse's crupper.

It had hurt his pride that he had given himself to one intellectually so far beneath him. Self-pityingly he would remember the wives of other famous men, whose gifts had largely made their husbands what they were. Poor little Sheila. And now she mooned rather dully about his cottage. Doubtless her illusions had been as short-lived as his. Henceforward all must be different. He, as well as she—hang it all!—had undertaken duties in marriage.... And he was the stronger and wiser.

Pity for her filled him.

Pity. The word was the bell-note for all the emotion in him to-night. Perhaps it was the key-word to a philosophy. One could not know much in this dark and candle-lit world, but one could hang on to pity. One could wander at will in search of other secrets about religion and art, but one must keep tight hold of pity.

"What pity ordains is right; what pity condemns is wrong ... when all's said and written and done, everything in me knows that much to be true...." He saw the long, slim Daphne again. "I shall teach her that, if nothing else."

Relief came to Mr. Tenter Bruno, for this idea had a face as of revelation. And the cynic in him laughed that he should have suddenly seen a newness in anything so old. Old! Ghosts of old philosophers began to do battle in the grey lists of his mind for the principle of man's inherent benevolence—Hobbes and Jeremy Bentham, Hartley and Paley, Shaftesbury and Hutcheson and Hume.

"Clop-clip, clop-clip, clop-clip." He was hearing Nipper's hoofs again.

And then a horrid thought leapt up. Supposing this Daphne were deformed in any way; supposing she were an imbecile; or blind; or deaf and dumb; or had some freakish limb! Supposing the Christian God had punished his sedition like that! The telegram had only said: "Daughter. Wife doing splendidly." Not "Both doing splendidly." Good God, not "both!" He pictured the news being broken to him before he was taken to see her.

"Nonsense!" He pulled himself together, and urged the horse to a canter. "She'll be beautiful, because her mother's beautiful; and she'll have brains."

III

While Hollins was bringing tea to her master, before the bell jangled through the house, Sheila Bruno was lying back on her bed suffering her final pains. A nurse watched her as they waited for the doctor. The nurse, seeing many such month by month, was not easily moved, but her patient of to-day seemed like a child who was bearing too early; and, even in her suffering, she held her beauty. Her hair, very fair, was of the fuzzier sort that looked as pleasant when tumbled as when tidy, and her lids were down over childish cheeks in an abandonment to pain that was almost calm.

Sheila Bruno's eyes were closed because she had no interest in the world beyond her racked body. Pain filled her mind, leaving room for no altruistic thought. All that she wanted was to die and be done with pain. She could not care that it left her husband deserted and her baby motherless; she could not think for them. Somewhere in her pain-filled thoughts she felt ashamed that it should be so. Labours! Maternity! Why, she could still only think of herself as a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl, punishable by mistresses; she felt no different in mind or body from what she was at fifteen.

Somewhere lurked shame and despair of herself. From the beginning her thoughts about this baby had caused her secret shame. Instead of being delighted at the prospect of its coming—as were all the good wives she had read about, and as she pretended to be—she had only been frightened, exasperated and rebellious. She had made the futile effort to think of it prettily as her husband's child, and to love it and him the more; but in her months of sickness and disfigurement this thought had actually worked an opposite result. It had encouraged criticism and dislike of him. There had come to the surface of her mind thoughts that hitherto she had kept submerged. He had marred her life by marrying her—that was the unveiled truth of it. Almost she might say he had tricked her. He had seemed so wonderful—with his brilliance, his tall and graceful presence and his courtesy. And she had paid out everything for the prize, her whole future and the right to love again. Then in a few months he had cast off all ceremonial vesture, probably because its wearing was too much of an effort.

Oh, life was a roomful of pain. If only she could die! What matter if it were cowardice? Let her admit her feebleness and die. Once she was blotted out in death, her self-contempt would not worry her.

Oh, this miserable, hard, business-like room in the nursing home! Even her death would be a failure in a white box of a room like this. Why had she come here? It was wrong of Tom to send her. Of course, she had wanted to come, so as to go through an experience that she expected might defeat her courage, away from her husband and servants. But just now she chose to forget her willingness in order that she might keep her grievance against Tom. Why had he sent her here? It was a thing seldom done. Despite all his talk about her greater comfort, the greater facilities available, and their isolation in the country, she suspected that the contemplation of his own ease had not been absent, nor a satisfaction in the unconventionality of such a step.

"I think I hate him."

And since she hated him, she had better die, for there was nothing before her except a long life of dull exasperation. She was a failure. Best admit it, and go upon the scrap-heap.

Oh, this pain! And this underground stream of aching thoughts that kept appearing above the surface! Sometimes sharper agonies made her abandon thinking and only suffer. Voices far away and yet near-by reminded her of nursery days.

A crowning, unbelievable agony.... And then peace—lovely liberation and forgetful rest. This was the beginning of death, sweet like drowning. The voices were still about her, and there was a new voice, a crying voice like a baby's. Sheila's heart stirred, as she had always read it would: it must be the voice of her child, the thing dragged from her and now living its own independent life. She who had been one a few minutes ago was now two. That other one was she—and alone now, poor lonely little darling. Her consciousness cleared, and, wondering with a thrilled anticipation if it were a boy or a girl, she opened her eyes and saw the nurse by her bed.

"Splendid, dear, you were splendid; and you've got a little daughter."

A disappointment at the word "daughter" was rolled aside by an out-stream of love and excitement. And her relief from agony made her feel gay. She stared up at the nurse with an unintelligent smile, wondering what they did next.

The nurse was leaning a bundle forward to show her something in its cowl-like opening: a tiny model of a human face, complete with smooth brow, eyelashes, nose, and lips and chin. It was placid now, with its eyelids down. She looked at it for a long time, riveted; and at length, without a word, shut her eyes.... Oh, the adorable, incredible little thing! It brought a recurring glow, the recollection of that little face. Sheila felt exultant—perhaps hysterically so, for she was ready to pour out a mixture of crying and laughter. The pain, now that it had receded into memory, seemed nothing so very terrible after all, and she wondered why people made such a fuss about it.

Downstairs the hall door closed. Ah, the matron was sending to Tom. How delightful to have this news to send him! An hour ago she had thought she hated him, and here was she imagining delight at his excitement! She began to enwrap him with her tenderness. After all, perhaps he had as much to criticise in her as she had in him. In some ways she had tricked him too. Had she not used every art to appear before him as beautiful? Had she not tried to appear more cultured than she was? Had she not often lied—that was what it amounted to—in representing her education as much finer than it had been, and her circle of friends as much more impressive? After marriage, Tom, with his penetration, must quickly have found her out. She wondered that he had not done so before. Yes, he had claims on her which she had disappointed: henceforth she must always remember that.

She imagined all that was happening in the cottage. Hollins, dear, stout old Hollins, how full she would be of the news! And Tom, of course, was getting the trap from Mr. Spencer's. In less than half an hour he would be here. She saw him mounting to the driver's seat, and clattering out of the gate along the country road. She saw the trap moving through the daylight, till, noticing that her gas had been lit and curtains drawn, she changed the picture into a night scene. There came the yellow candle-lamps, and Nipper tossing up his head as he trotted over the ringing road. Now Tom had probably reached Shadwell Green and was driving along the mossy, listing wall of The Ballards. That would mean that he would be here in less than ten minutes.

A short, timid ring at the front door set excitement a-tremble. Yes, that was Tom's voice, rather stuttering and nervous. And here was the matron bringing him upstairs. The door opened, and Sheila turned her head towards it.

"Hallo, dear."

"Sheila, darling! Why, you look rosy. One'd think you were resting after a tennis match."

She parried this with a smile and glanced towards the cot at the fire.

"There it is."

Mr. Bruno carried to the cot his fear that there might be something amiss. The thought, "One second now, and I shall know," accompanied his steps. But no hare-lip or fingerless hand met his eyes: instead he saw the sleeping face, turned on its side, with its perfect little nose and chin, dropped lids and exquisite ear. One hand showed above the blanket, palm downward.

It broke one's breath.

Sheila was speaking. "Isn't she like you? And I'm sure she'll grow up and adore you much more than she will me. Girls always do."

A quick vision of the long, slim Daphne stirred his heart. He bent down to study the features again, trying to imagine them fifteen—nineteen years hence.

IV

When Daphne was brought to her father's door, Hollins received her with the expected magnificat.

"Now let me take her, ma'am. The love! You must be tired, and you must go sort of—what I call—easy. Let me take her.... Well, there's a beauty. O ma'am, she's a cherub! And ain't she the living image of you?"

"Don't be absurd," corrected Mrs. Bruno, as she passed into the cottage. "Why, I'm seeing more and more likeness to her father every day."

"Well, yes." Hollins touched the little face with an ingratiating giggle. "She is like the master, but she favours you too, ma'am. Oh, yes, you favour your mummy, miss, don't you? Oh, what big wondering eyes!"

Mrs. Hollins, being a widow and the mother of an only child who died young, was determined by right of this experience to take a leading part in the management of her mistress's little girl. She felt as if at last she had come into her own. Very deliberately had she taken the purchase of nursery equipment out of the incompetent hands of her master and mistress.

The best of her purchases was the princely perambulator in which young Mrs. Bruno took her daughter for a ride the following day. As she pushed the carriage towards the garden-gate, half nervous of taking this public confession of her motherhood into the highways, and half proud, she saw Eadigo stooping over a flower-bed. His waistcoat, as usual, hung open; and on his crown was the hat, a small and greasy derelict, that she could remember being often raised from her husband's head in the days of their courtship. Her heart absurdly quickened with anticipation of his comment. The sound of the perambulator on the gravel caused him to look up, and he touched his cap and turned to his bed.

Sheila paused. Their gardener was a person she liked to chaff, and it was not to be suffered that he should say no word on such an occasion. No matter if he did think this appearance of a baby in the world as of the same order, and no more interesting than the appearance above ground of one of his onions.

"Well, Eadigo," said she, stopping the perambulator, and holding it with one hand while she stood sideways and faced the flower-bed. She was conscious, as she naturally assumed this position, that she was pleasurably imitating all her sisters of the perambulator. "Don't you want to see my little girl?"

He glanced up again and straightened himself.

"Yes, mum."

"Well, there she is."

Eadigo looked into the carriage and said:

"Yes, mum, she be there right enough."

"Think she's nice?"

Eadigo turned back to his bed.

"Well, mum, it's early yet."

"I suppose so," agreed Mrs. Bruno, pushing the pram on. "And she'll improve as she gets bigger."

Daphne's improvements, her father used to declare, were chiefly physical. She improved herself out of long clothes into short ones, and out of her wicker cradle into a fine cot, and out of her shoes and socks twenty times a day. She improved her squinting into a straight if rather doubtful stare. She improved her early screaming into gurgling and chuckling, which her father maintained was the greatest improvement of all.

Generally these remarks were made at meal-times when Daphne, or "Duffy," as he now called her, was at play upon the floor. He liked to watch her and to offer a witty and polished commentary; or sometimes just a crudely humorous one, since it was only for the home and not for publication. As Daphne was always busy and restless, and always anxious to do another thing than she happened to be doing at the moment, Mr. Bruno would enter the dining-room and inquire of Sheila, "Is it one of your daughter's busy days to-day?" or express the hope that Mrs. Bruno's daughter had got on well with her work that morning. And Sheila, stirred by the picture of Daphne these words created, would reply no more brightly than to ejaculate, "The darling!"

But this persiflage was a veil for things unspoken. He had not forgotten his desire to introduce one self-effacing love into his life. And he gave the love its exercise by forcing himself to be patient when Daphne's restlessness bruised his nerves or shipwrecked his work. He kept, too, his heightened love for his wife. She was a brave little girl. He had kissed her very affectionately when she declared that she would nurse Daphne herself and that Hollins and she would do everything: "Yes, I never meant to do it, Daddy, but I've made up my mind to. Hollins says it's the only way to give them a proper start. And she's so adorable." He tried to be a better companion to his wife by coming in to her tea parties and sitting through the insupportably fatuous conversation of the ladies. Oh, mon Dieu! it seemed that women spoke never of ideas but only of things and persons; or if they did enunciate an idea, it was always a stock one off the shelf, and he could provide them with the very words they would use.

But in time he decided that too much self-abnegation, if you dealt with weak women, was itself a weakness. They were allowing Daphne to make an infernal noise in any and every room of the cottage. As sure as she cried they stampeded past his study door to save or sympathise with the child. And the more they sympathised with her, the more she sympathised with herself and determined that her present trouble was a case for regular refills of air which must be expelled again in shrieks of temper. The household, in fact, was circling round Daphne instead of round his workroom which (they all seemed to have forgotten) was the mainspring of everything. Yes, when his daughter should reach intelligence, then would be the time for him to consider how he could efface himself for her. Meantime he must get on with his work.

He summoned his wife and explained that he was considering everybody else as much as himself when he stipulated that Daphne should be kept to an upstairs back room. For such brain-work as his he needed silence and freedom from domestic cares. Sheila could see that, could she not? "Rousseau, with more courage than most of us, sent his children to a foundling hospital when they interfered with his work. You remember: 'Comment les soucis domestiques et les fracas des enfants me laisseront-ils la tranquillité d'esprit nécessaire pour faire un travail lucratif?"

And Sheila said, "All right, Daddy."

Sometimes in the next weeks, however, the thought of the old lumber-room, which Sheila had cleared and furnished for a nursery, with its two easy chairs, one for herself and one for Hollins, troubled his compassion; and he would leave his books and climb up to it, saying he had come to see Daphne in her bath. Once Hollins had taken over the bathing, and he could see that the good soul was determined to show them how such a business should be performed. Listening, as she rhapsodised over the infant in her wide, aproned lap he thought many thoughts about the native poetry of all peasants, from the Hebrews of old to the Cockneys or the Hodges of to-day. And he called her runnel of nonsense "The Song of Hollins."

"They didn't give you much hair, did they, darling?" she was saying, as the upper flock went over Daphne's head. "No, she said, I'm going to spend all my money on a big pair of eyes. She said, I don't reckon hair is very important, or a nose. As regards them things, I'll just have any fairly decent reach-me-downs out of the cupboard, but I shall spend all my money on a very extra special pair of eyes. She said, eyes are the thing. You can do a lot of damage with a good pair of eyes. You can break the hearts of the handsome young beaus and—keep still, lovey—and, until they come along, you can see all that ought to be seen and most that ought not to be seen, and, she said, you can see every opening for mischief. There now. There's a boo'ful little body. Into tub it goes. In she goes. Nice waters. Oh, lovely waters. Oh, such a lovely silky skin. That's right, splash your walkers about. Kickey walkers. Up she comes, all clean and smelling of soap. Such a 'licious feeling! Big, big towel. There's a little, round, hobgoblin face, out of miles and miles of nice soft warm towel. Look at its chin. No, she said, you've got it wrong. I kep' a little of my money back for a really dainty chin. Gr-r-r-r! She said, Oh, I am a cute one, I am. When the time comes, won't I flutter the hearts of the handsome young mashers? I knew a thing or two, I did."

By this time Daphne was in her long flannel nightgown, and stretched out both hands with spread fingers towards her mother, who, captured by such an appeal, picked her up, tossed her towards the ceiling, and then hugged her, murmuring:

"Oh, she says, I like Hollins all right, and I find my daddy quite amusing, but it's mummy I really want. She says, I'd sell 'em all up for my mummy."

But now Mr. Bruno had wearied of these sentimental rhapsodies, and withdrew downstairs.

V

When Daphne was something over a year old, Sheila knew that her second baby was coming. The knowledge was a shock of dismay, and then a sickly, dull acquiescence. Though at the first sight of Daphne all hostility had surrendered, still her picture of the future had shown only this one child playing about her. The picture of herself with two, or perhaps a flock of children, was horrible. Before telling her husband, she went away like a hurt animal into her bedroom and sat by the window, staring out at the garden.

"I don't want it. Oh, all that sickness again and ugliness and shame. And I shall have to begin nursing all over again. Oh, I know all this is selfish, and I ought to be delighted, but I'm not. I am selfish. I like my little Daphne, but I don't want another. Daphne was different; she was the first, and strange, and adorable."

Into the despair rose the thoughts that she usually shut underground. It was all wrong, children issuing from a partnership that she knew to be nine parts bankruptcy and disappointment. There was no true intimacy between her and Tom, and never could be. And Tom had quite obviously learnt this, and accepted it as their incommutable sentence. An incommutable sentence! Life stretched dark in front of Sheila, and the word "death" had trancing, sweet overtones again.

"I thought marriage was going to be heaven.... And it's—it's this.... But no. My Daphne was worth it.

"For Daphne's sake I'll try and bear this new cross." She found a refuge in these suburbs of nobility. "They say it's bad for a child to be an only child. They're much better off, if they have a brother or a sister for a companion.... I'll look at it like that. I'm providing something that's really good for my baby—a playmate. I made up my mind to be unselfish where she was concerned.... All right, my darling, you shall have your playmate."

Overcome with her own self-sacrifice, she burst into tears.

As the time of her confinement drew nearer, she concealed under a mask of quiet liveliness a premonition of death. How this idea arose she could not remember, nor when; but it was now the unsleeping master of her mind. Perhaps it was born from her languor—a languor that grew till she lived with a sense of physical decline. Once she hinted at her fears to Hollins, who laughed the laugh of common sense.

"Nonsense, ma'am, if you'll excuse me putting it like that. You'll hardly feel it this time. It'll come as natural as natural. And each time it will seem more and more natural."

"But people do die in childbirth," submitted Sheila. "One reads of heaps."

"Not young ones like you, ma'am, if I may say so."

"Isn't it sometimes the young ones who are most likely to die?"

"No, no—you're a bit sort of—what I call—down, ma'am. You put all those ideas out of your head."

"But I never was strong. When I was ill as a child, I was always worse than any one else."

"And they're always the wiry ones, that sort of anæmic, skinny type," assured Hollins. "Any one'll tell you that."

Nevertheless the idea stayed, strengthening its hold. In the hours before sleep, when the mind was susceptible to auto-hypnotism, it sent its roots deeper and deeper. In the daytime it haunted the background of all her thoughts and conversations. So fixed was it that she determined to have her confinement in her own house rather than die in a distant, hard, unloving room, with Daphne far away.

She was walking in the garden when this thought wandered into her mind; and she stopped dead as she faced another thought that came behind: Daphne would never remember her.

She shrugged her shoulders and closed the lips that had parted. Her mouth quivered. Old Hollins would have to tell Daphne when she grew up what her mother had been like.

These twilight thoughts she never exposed to Tom's kindly ridicule. She only told Hollins gaily that this time she was going to stay in her own home. And Hollins heartily approved.

"Of course, ma'am, since you mention it, I may say I never did like the idea of your going away last time. It seemed out of—I mean, sort of unnatural like. If I couldn't have looked after you, who could, I should like to know? You'll enjoy it in your own room."

Merrily Sheila smiled in answer, though to herself the smile felt wan. The conviction that her life had been given its term was in complete occupation.

Complete. She would wander along the garden or the country roads, and any stretching green prospect that troubled her with its beauty stirred also the sad self-pity. The half-heard chirrup of the birds in the deathly slumber of a windless day; the red glow after tea-time behind the fir trees; the sound, one autumn evening, of a crowd of men singing in harmony as they went down the road; the tales in her books of the raptures of first love—it was a wistful matter suddenly to apprehend the beauty of these things and to feel that she had only a few more weeks with the world.

She felt the same faint ache when she patted the sleek neck of the pony, Nipper, or saw on a shelf in her bedroom the books that she had brought from home. They reminded her of a hundred places where as a child she had been merry. Strange if all those scenes had only preceded an early death! And if she chaffed old Eadigo as he laboured in the garden, she felt the ache in her spurious laughter. Once the sight of her own face in the mirror, looking pretty with its fair hair, filled her eyes with tears; but she pulled herself briskly together and forced laughter from herself all that morning. No one but she detected the settled despair in that noisy laughter.

Perhaps the most poignant thing of all was the sight of Daphne's toys upon the floor.

VI

Mr. Bruno this time felt none of the fears that had disorganized him before the birth of Daphne. He remembered with something of contempt the way he had then worked himself up to the proper anxiety. His main trouble now was an annoyance that another child should have come so soon, but this was balanced by a pride in remembering how he had shrugged his shoulders and decided to greet the inevitable with goodwill.

When Sheila took to her bed he kissed her very lovingly and told her everything would be all right. And when the hour came, and the doctor and the nurse were with her, he walked in to the garden taking only an anxiety that poor little Sheila should not suffer too much. Her moans hurt him cruelly.

The year was one month older than when Daphne was born. The primroses were under the hedges, and young grass appearing in many places where it ought not to appear, and the old grass turning to a deep green after humid March days. His tea had just been cleared away, and there was the usual silence of half-light in the garden: a thundery stillness, this evening, and the birds, chirruping on the branches, seemed less to break it than to be part of it. As he walked along the herbaceous border, now and then removing a gravel stone from the turf edge, a sudden cry of pain sounded from the house. He stood up erect and listened. The cry dwindled back into moans again, and above the moans sounded the plaint of a baby. It was not Daphne's voice. He hurried excitedly back to the hall to hear the news. As he expected, Hollins was coming down the stairs as fast as her figure would allow her.

"It's a little boy this time, sir."

"Oh, good—good! How's the mistress?"

"She's low, sir, distinctly low. But that's nothing, sir. They sometimes take it badly like that. I'll nip back and see if you can come in and see her."

Hollins climbed up the stairs, while Mr. Bruno waited in the hall. He heard a man's step, evidently the doctor's, leave his wife's room and come along the passage, so that he met Hollins at the top of the stairs. There was a murmured colloquy, voices pitched very low, as if in reverence for suffering. Then Hollins came more slowly and rather timidly down to her master.

"The doctor says the mistress is very sadly, sir. But I shouldn't worry, or the like of that," faltered Hollins. "They're often sadly."

He did not listen to her, but ran up the stairs. The doctor barred his way. He was an old man, and seemed as perplexed and dismayed as Hollins.

"Just a minute, Mr. Bruno. I—er—can't understand it. Your wife seems—there's no fever—her pains were very bad, of course, but I thought that was due to muscular strength—but she seems to be sinking. It looks like collapse."

Mr. Bruno tried to push past him. A sob was in his throat, and his mind was overborne with self-reproaches—for what he hardly knew.

"The boy's perfect—quite perfect," said the doctor, by way of comfort.

Mr. Bruno had forgotten the child and rushed into the bedroom and looked down upon his wife. Hollins followed with tear-stained cheeks.

Sheila lay in the last surrender to death. When he touched her hand she lifted her eyelids.

"I knew it would be like this, daddy," she said.

He dropped on one knee by her side.

"My darling, it's all right. You're only weak and worn out, and feel depressed. To-morrow you'll be feeling splendid again. And such a beautiful boy, they tell me. See, down there by the fire. My darling, I'm so proud of him."

"That's right," smiled Sheila wanly. "But I knew it would happen like this. I knew all along, but I wouldn't tell you. Where's Hollins?"

Hollins, who had been behind, came forward, violently sobbing.

"Bless you, ma'am, don't you worry. You'll be all right. They're often took like this. I ought to know."

"Where's my baby?"

"In his little crib, ma'am, by the fire. Such a beautiful child. He's fallen asleep."

The nurse picked up the little bundle to bring it to her.

Sheila lifted again the heavy lids.

"No, I meant Daphne. Bring my baby to me."

"Daphne's in bed. It's after six o'clock," began Hollins; but seeing the dying look on her mistress's face, she moved towards the nursery.

Sheila opened her eyes again.

"Is it so late? ... Don't disturb her.... She mustn't be disturbed.... It's bad for her to be disturbed. She's always slept an unbroken sleep at night right from the start. Hasn't she, Hollins? ... Let her sleep."

"Sheila! Sheila!" cried Mr. Bruno.

Behind he heard Hollins muttering to the doctor:

"She seemed to have sort of made up her mind—been telling me things to tell the children when they're grown up." The recollection of this broke up Hollins, and the hearing of it made Mr. Bruno cry out:

"Sheila! Sheila! Don't go!"

His senses carried inappropriately to his brain the sibilance of the birds in the branches, and voices over the evening stillness of the fields, and some laughter of girls.

Sheila's eyes were closed. All the thoughts that had kept her sad during the past months were in her mind again, and her bewilderment at the failure of her life. "I don't understand—I don't understand," she kept thinking. "I can't understand." Then she remembered Daphne, and this boy—what was his name? She would never know. And that neither could have lived if it hadn't been for her. There was some comfort in the thought—if God gave them a good life. "O God, give them a good life." ... "O God, make them happy...."

VII

Mr. Bruno's first idea after the loss of his wife was to leave the children and the house to the management of Hollins and to retire into the solitude of his study. Such an attitude would best suit his grief, and had its picturesqueness. His grief, when he analysed it alone in his room, seemed a pain of pity for little Sheila, mixed with remorse for not having made her happier, rather than a sense of irreparable loss.

But his sister, who had very kindly swept down upon his cottage the day after Sheila's death, had other views about the children. Belle Phillimore, the widow of a cavalry officer, was twelve years older than her brother, and, in his opinion, an unutterable fool. Her head could hold no ideas except those provided by her dead colonel and the superannuated clergy and ignorant ladies of her circle.

"No, Tom, it won't do," she pronounced. "This Hollins is a good soul, I'm sure, but what little Daphne and her brother will want is a lady. For instance, look at the way Hollins talks. She misuses grammar like all those sort of people do."

Mr. Bruno nodded. "Yes, grammar is a ticklish business."

"Yes, children are always vulgarized by the society of servants. Besides, she's sure to be full of old superstitions and fill Daphne's head with them. Can Hollins teach the children their Bible and Catechism? Why, she probably doesn't understand them herself."

"You forget, Belle," interrupted Mr. Bruno, "or perhaps I should say that, being a sister and an elder sister, you naturally have never read the few poor books that I have written.... Or if you have read them in an idle curiosity, you have naturally not taken them seriously. But, as a matter of fact, I am quite serious in my inability to accept your Christianity."

"But, Tom! You surely wouldn't have a child brought up without religion?"

"I didn't say that. But I don't see why I should have a child brought up in what I believe to be error."

"Oh, but it's different for you. A child always goes to pieces if it isn't given some religion. You're a full-grown man with some cleverness."

The description did not please Mr. Bruno, and he told himself, "That's as much as a relative will ever allow." But this self-protecting thought was an intruder among others, and quickly lost. Standing by the window and staring out, he was really thinking of the afternoon Daphne was born and the night Sheila died.

"I should like them to have some religion," he said suddenly.

"Exactly. We must get some good Christian gentlewoman to manage the household and the children—that was what I was going to suggest. We'll advertise in a Church paper."

Mr. Bruno brought his eyes away from the window.

"I've just had an idea. Since these children went through the whole course of evolution when they were in the womb"—Belle moved uncomfortably—"it may do them no harm to go through the Christian period as well. It may keep them fairly straight till they are developed enough to wander alone."

"Exactly. A sort of housekeeper-guardian. Your servants will obey her. They would never obey Hollins, one of their own number who'd been promoted. They never do. My poor Charlie used to say that the ranker officer had precious little control over his men; they preferred a gentleman any day."

"Oh, my God!" thought Mr. Bruno; and his reading chair called to him like a refuge.

"Well, look here, Belle," said he. "Is it too much to ask you to draw up the advertisement, and perhaps to stay here and keep an eye on the place till the proper person is engaged?"

His sister give a ready nod. She would be only too pleased to do so, she said.

VIII

These were years before public libraries and reading-rooms were to be found in every borough. But in a suburb that was developing beyond the green fields of Hammersmith, one of the first of them had appeared, thanks to the munificence of a departed M.P. It was an oblong room with some tall lecterns for such daily newspapers as the Times and the Standard on one side of the gangway, and on the other long elmwood tables for the reading of weekly journals which, when not in use, roosted in wire mangers on the walls. On the Friday after Mr. Bruno's conversation with his sister—Friday being the day the best religious papers appeared—a woman entered this reading-room and, walking as one who knew her purpose, glanced immediately at the rack where the Warden usually rested. She was tall and thin, and might have been thirty-five or forty years old. Thirty-five probably, the care-lines and the hint of hardness having come prematurely to a face that had once been soft and handsome. Her walk had the rectitude of a woman who defends her title to gentility by her manner, since her dress, though neat, can betray little but poverty. Her black skirt was frayed where it touched the ground, and the first finger of one black kid glove was split at the seam. As proof of her social grade, however, she wore a veil, or "fall," terminating just below her mouth. And she carried a neatly folded umbrella and a reticule in which were visiting cards with the name (printed, not engraved) "Miss Durgon."

She gave a little "St—! st—!" of annoyance when her glance at the wire shelf showed her that the Warden had been removed. She must see who was reading it, and make sure that she got it next. Walking among the tables, she found that it was being read by a middle-aged woman in a brown skirt and coat and a fur, all slightly decayed; and, as this woman had a stunted and bitten pencil in her right hand with which she was tracing down the "Situations Vacant," and in her left a soiled envelope on which she was noting addresses, it seemed probable that she would monopolise the journal for most of the morning. Miss Durgon said "St—! st—!" again. The calm way these people sat, as by right, over papers for which they had paid nothing! The ferrule of her umbrella beat impatiently on the ground, but without results. So, to intimate that she was waiting for the Warden, she sat down rather deliberately in the empty chair next the woman, and tapped out a resigned tattoo on the table top. The woman with the pencil glanced round, and, resenting such a hint, slightly turned her back towards Miss Durgon. Her right to the paper she defended by being a little slower in her perusal and a little more deliberate in her noting of addresses. She thought it most annoying the way these women came and sat rudely beside you, as if they had some claim on a paper for which they had paid nothing.

Minutes passed, and Miss Durgon could only express her impatience by repeating her tattoo on the table-top, and occasionally consulting a large watch at her breast. Once another woman, a fat creature with a basket, came and stood by the person in possession, as if, in spite of Miss Durgon's long wait, she expected to have the paper next. Then Miss Durgon advanced her chair nearer to the Warden, rehearsing the words she would utter if the fat creature stepped in before her. But the fat woman, seeing she was forestalled, walked away with just such a "St—! st—!" as Miss Durgon's.

At last Miss Durgon's impatience compelled her to speak.

"You'd oblige me if you'd allow me to see this paper. I've waited fifteen minutes already."

The woman with the pencil turned towards her; and then without answering gave Miss Durgon her back again.

Miss Durgon's blood was up, and her hand went out to take the paper. But its possessor snatched it back and held it tight.

"If I were you, I should learn to speak the truth," said she, and pretended to be lost in the advertisements, though her stumpy pencil was trembling.

"Speak the truth!" snapped Miss Durgon. "What do you mean? ... Insolence.... Perhaps I can find an attendant."

"Saying you've been waiting fifteen minutes when you've not been waiting five. You'll be saying you've been an hour next."

Miss Durgon tossed her head, and adjusted a brooch.

"I've no desire to speak to you. All I ask is that, when you've found your situation——"

"Situation yourself!" hissed the woman, deeply offended at this term. "If you want to do the highty-tighty, I should mend your glove."

And she resumed her perusal of the paper.

Miss Durgon scorned her, and trusted that the creature felt the scorn. The woman, however, finished her study and, to annoy this detestable creature beside her, turned to a column of "News from the Dioceses," and read them. Miss Durgon continued to enfilade her with contempt, and at length the woman got up and walked away.

Miss Durgon slided along to the vacated seat, and, opening her reticule with dignified calm, took out a thin silver pencil, somewhat bitten, and a penny note-book whose leaves were dog-eared. But she had hardly read two advertisements before the fat woman with the basket, who had appeared once before, came back to see if the paper were yet disengaged. Annoyed to find it occupied by a person who, to judge from her pencil and notebook, intended remaining for some time, she sat down in the seat Miss Durgon had just left. This was too exasperating. Here she had only just secured the paper, and this fat sack of a woman came and seated herself menacingly beside her, as if to make her hasten. She would do nothing of the sort. If anything, she would travel over the advertisements with greater precision and an ostentatious calm. Nor should the fat woman's drummings or "Tut tuts!" create any panic in her. So she jotted down the possible situations, none of which animated her much, till suddenly she read:

"WANTED, for a Widower's home. Lady Housekeeper, and Guardian to two very young children. Two servants (one as nurse). Governess later. Apply Tenter Bruno, Underwold, Francefield, Sussex."

So exactly did this suit Miss Durgon that she immediately felt confident that Destiny had led her to it this morning, and the post would undoubtedly be given her. She must hurry back and write at once. In her satisfaction she only handed the paper to the fat lady with a pleasant smile that made her think, as she walked away, how much more agreeable her manners were than those of the disgusting creature who had first held the paper. Tenter Bruno? Tenter Bruno? A familiar name. She had seen it in papers, and heard it in conversations. Could it be the well-known writer? She must find out. If it were, it would make the position doubly desirable. She foresaw herself studying the comfort and securing the quiet of a literary man, and becoming quite indispensable to him.

IX

When Mr. Bruno's sister heard from Miss Durgon's lips, in the dining-room of the cottage, that she was the fifth daughter of an officer, she felt satisfied on all points. And with some pride, as though her labours had been extensive and exhausting, she came into her brother's study to announce her complete success.

"I think I've got the very person, Tom, the very person you need. An excellent person. First and foremost, she's a lady, the daughter of an officer. A good-looking woman, too. I've represented to her, Tom, that what she's got to do is to relieve you of all anxiety, whether it be about the children or the ménage of the house. She was most interested in your writing."

Mr. Bruno, who like all comfort-loving literary men was sanguine about everything except the sale of his books, was only too pleased to believe all his sister said.

"Excellent, Belle, excellent. I'm sure I'm very grateful to you. It is of paramount importance that I am left to the undisturbed pursuit of my writing and reading. The kindest thing I can do for the children is to go into my study and shut the door and work. But that I could never have done—at least, not with the necessary detachment"—Mr. Bruno seemed almost to be trying to reassure himself in a dubious abandonment to comfort —"unless I had your assurance that everything possible was being done for the children."

"Yes, I think you can be comfortable about that," interposed his sister. "She struck me as a lady in every respect."

Mr. Bruno, thinking, as usual, what a fool Belle was, merely replied:

"Well, I'm sure I can trust your judgment on that point, Belle. I feel very satisfied and relieved at this stroke of yours."

He was seeing long, quiet, self-sufficient days with his books, varied by an occasional kindly patronage of his children. He felt vaguely that Belle had accepted the responsibility of the choice, and called down any blood upon her own head. His clearer mind told him, in quickly closed moments, that he whose best works had tried to battle through to the secrets of life and art, had, in the matter of his children, been too indolent for thought.

X

The resentment of Hollins at this promotion of "Miss Skin-and-Grief" to the place she had hoped to fill was given its airing before the young maid in the kitchen:

"I knew she was going to be awful. I went to the door myself, and she says, 'Does Mrs. Phillimore live here?' And I says, 'No, miss,' I said. 'This is Mr. Bruno's house, but he's got his sister staying with him.' 'Well, can I see her?' she says tartly. I don't think she liked the 'miss.' And I says, 'I'll see if she can see you, miss.' I wasn't, so to speak, going to wave flags in front of her. I said, 'What name, miss?' And she says, 'Durgon.' So I went up and came down again, and says, 'Yes, Miss Durgon, Mrs. Phillimore can see you if you step this way.' She bridled up at the 'Miss Durgon,' but said nothing, feeling, I suppose, that she hadn't sort of secured her position. And, well, here she is, for good and all, if you ask me; and I don't reckon she'll worship the very ground I walk on."