“Then we quite understand each other, I see,” said Mrs. James.

“I hope we do,” said the other. “It shan’t be my fault if we do not.”

Mr. Germain was very uncomfortable, but there was now none too much time for the train, according to his calculations. While Mary was “changing her hat”—as it was put—the wedding party, rigidly segregated, stood astare, each at its window, upon the gusty vagaries of a late autumn day.

Mary was at the glass, flushed and on the edge of tears. Her hands were at her hat, while her eyes searched Jinny’s stony pair for a sign of melting. But Jinny was immovable. In vain did the pretty bride turn this way and that, invite criticism, invoke it: Jinny’s disapproval persisted. This was not to be borne—with a little whimper the victim turned, clasped Medusa round the waist; with one hand to her chin she coaxed for kindness. She stroked Jinny’s cheek, tiptoed for a kiss. Presently she fairly sobbed on Jinny’s bosom.

“Oh, you are unkind to me—you hurt me dreadfully! What have I done, that you won’t love me?”

“Done!” cried Jinny. “Hear her!” Then with blazing wrath she scorned her sister. “I’ll tell you what you’ve done, my dear. You’ve married a gravestone. Sacred to the Memory of John Germain, Esquire—that’s what you’ve sold yourself to—take your joy of that. The price of a kissed hand! You’ll find out before morning, my beauty. If I marry a crossing-sweeper, he shall be a man.”

“You liked him, you know you liked him——.”

“Yes, for a grandfather, my dear; but for a husband, if you please, I’ll have a man. And so might you—over and over. You’ve been as good as promised half-a-dozen times——.”

“Jinny, you know that’s not true.” She was ruthlessly put away to arm’s length.

“But it is true. There was Rudd—what do you say of him?”

Rudd must be owned to. So far off he showed so dim a speck in the distance, there seemed nothing in it.

“Young Stainer—you forget him, too, I suppose——.”

“Stainer?” said poor Mary. “He was a boy, Jinny.”

“He had a pair of arms, I believe. And I should like to hear your opinion of Fred Wimple. You were never at Folkestone in your life, I suppose? You never talked to Sandgate by moonlight? Never met any one in your life by moonlight?”

The remembrance of a meeting by moonlight, more recent than any at Folkestone, enabled Mary to consider Mr. Wimple’s case.

“I don’t think you need drag up flirtations against me. You’re not very generous, Jinny. Of course I flirted.”

“Did you flirt with Mr. Ambrose Perivale? Was that what made him follow you home across England? Did you flirt with Mr. Dup—.” But now Mary clung to her.

“Stop, Jinny, oh, stop! If I’ve been wicked I must pay for it—it’s always the girl that pays. But I have never been wicked—you know it, oh, you must know it of your sister. I’ve told him everything, Jinny—all that he would hear. But he’s too good to believe anything against me; he’ll protect me, he’ll never let me come to any harm. Oh, Jinny, Jinny, don’t be cruel to me any more! If ever a girl meant to do her duty in life I mean it now. Dearest, you must help me—I’m afraid of him, you know.”

Jinny folded her arms tightly over her chest. “Yes, I can believe it—and you may be afraid of your husband before long—for the same reason. You go out of your own walk—and you get lost. Your Tristram Duplessis, who looks at a girl as if he wanted to eat her! You can’t be expected to understand such ways. And it’s my belief that your John Germain, Esquire, is no better—except for one thing, that he hasn’t any teeth. If you ask me, I would rather be eaten any day by Mr. Duplessis. He’d make a cleaner job of it.”

Mary was not crying. On the contrary, her eyes were hard. She was pale and serious.

“I know that I’ve done a thing which you don’t approve. You think that I’m going to leave you all for good. I hope that I shall show you soon that you are wrong. Do me justice, Jinny. You have never seen me try to get out of my station. I shall do whatever Mr.—, my husband, wishes, of course—but I will never turn my back on my people. Nor would he ask it of me—be sure of that. I can’t say any more—except that you have hurt me by what you have said—and that five minutes after I’ve gone away, you’ll be sorry.” Then she choked down something, and Jinny was sorry.

“Molly, I’ve been a brute——”

“No, no.”

“But I have. I’m proud of you, really—you looked quite a beauty in your French clothes——”

“Jinny! Beside you I’m a little brown mouse.”

“You’re not, my dear. You’re as sharp as any needle. You’ll be one of them in a month, and they’ll be the first to own it. I could see that old Lady Rewish look you over—and nod her wicked old head. She knows, bless you! Little Moll, forgive your tiresome sister—kiss me now——”

“Darling Jinny, darling Jinny——”

They clung, wept, and kissed; and presently a radiant bride went down to meet her lord.

Good-byes were said in haste. Jinny promised there should be no rice. A momentary flush of cordiality warmed the unhappy guests. Lady Barbara kissed the bride on both cheeks; Jinny hovered about her, eager now to show her contrition. Wonder of all, Mr. Germain, saluted her fair cheek. Jinny was seen to blush. Riceless, slipperless they went their way—and the party dissolved like smoke.

It was afterwards agreed at Blackheath that Mr. Germain and the Rector were gentlemen.

XVII
THE WEDDING NIGHT

Torquay was the place for the honeymoon; but Exeter was to be the end of that day’s stage. Mr. Germain’s valet put them into the train, handed his master the tickets, Mary her jewelcase, took off his hat and retired to an adjoining compartment. Everything was very easy, done with an absence of enthusiasm which might have chilled a more resolute heart than this bride’s. It was done, she reflected, as if a wedding was a matter of every day. Why, a budget of evening papers, Punch, Truth, and other things had been laid in order upon the opposite seat. Was he going to read all these? It was almost incredible—but after the events of the afternoon she could have believed anything. She felt her ring to make sure, and then her eye caught sight of the paper on the window—Reserved to Exeter—J. Germain, Esquire. Perhaps great people always reserved carriages when they travelled—perhaps a carriage would always be reserved for her when she went about alone. There would have been a maid if she had chosen; it had been proposed to her. She had laughed and said, “Of course not!” But he had taken his man-servant—and how could he? On his wedding journey! Had he taken him before—? This was his second wedding, she remembered.

Anxiety as to whether the train could be caught might account for the bridegroom’s silence during the carriage journey. His watch was open in his hand. For some time, too, after the train moved, he kept silence. She found herself looking soberly at the little pointed toe of her shoe when her thoughts were broken in upon by the capture of her hand. The sudden attack made her heart beat; she blushed hotly, lost her command of experience. As if it had been the first advance he had ever made, she dared not raise her eyes. She must be wooed from the beginning if she was to be won.

This was the way to charm him; he was charmed. He called her his Mary, and asked, of what she was thinking? She didn’t know, couldn’t say. Was she thinking of their coming life together? No, not then. “I think constantly of that,” he told her and put his arm about her. She let him draw her closer as he developed his plans for their joint happiness. “Calm spaces for work together, my love—there is so much in which your help will be a pride to me—and something I do believe, in which I can be useful to you. We must keep up our languages—French, Italian, even Spanish (quite worth your while for Cervantes’ sake): I do think I can help you there. Then your music—I could not bear you to abandon that. I have a little surprise for you when I bring you to Southover—you shall see. Then riding. I think you don’t ride? You shall be under Musters’s care. Musters is an admirable fellow—you will like him. We ride together daily, I hope. Will you like that?”

“Yes, yes, I shall like everything. It will all be very wonderful to me—all quite new.”

He smiled, as if tolerant of a simplicity which could find daily horse-exercise wonderful—and she felt it. In her present state of acute sensibility she needed anything but this treatment. He should have taken her as an adorable dunce and laughed at her outright between his kisses, or he should have whirled her off her balance in the torrent of his ecstasy. But Mr. Germain never laughed—it was not a Germain’s habit—and ecstasy at four in the afternoon was not possible to him. He liked his cup of tea at a quarter past, and when that hour came proposed to Mary that she should give it him from her tea basket—Lady Barbara’s present.

She was thankful for the relief, and almost herself again in the bustle of preparation; she forgot her dumps, and when he burnt his fingers and said “Tut-tut!” she fairly laughed at him and took, and even returned, his kisses. Things were better; but he very nearly imperilled the position thus hardly won, by wiping his mouth with a silk pocket handkerchief. True, she had been eating bread and butter—but was this a time—?

They chatted after tea—first of Berkshire where her home was to be. He spoke of his “riverine property.” She could almost see the edge of his estate as they slipped away from the ragged fringe of Reading. Then, by natural stages, he was led to reflect upon the society she would meet about Southover. The Chaveneys—he thought she would like the Chaveneys; they were her nearest neighbours, five miles off. Sir George was asthmatic—a sufferer; but Lady Chaveney was a charming woman, a woman of the world. She had been a Scrope of Harfleet. The girls were quite pleasant young women; and there was a son—rather wild—an anxiety occasionally. Then there were—but her eyes were wide. Five miles off! Were those the nearest people? She had thought there was a town—was not Farlingbridge the post town? He considered Farlingbridge. Yes, Farlingbridge was a mile and a half from the Park gates—a market town of 2,000 souls. There was a Vicar, a worthy man, of the name of Burgess. He met Burgess, of course—on the Board of Guardians, for instance. There was a Colonel Dermott, too; yes, he had forgotten Dermott. Nobody else. Her “Oh, I see,” was his reproof; he was ashamed of himself. “Two thousand other people, of course! Everybody will be delighted to see you, my dearest. Don’t misunderstand me. They won’t call, probably—Foolish old customs die hard with us. But there won’t be a door in Farlingbridge which won’t be open to you. I shall go with you, if you will allow me. I have long wished to know more of my neighbours—but you know how sadly I have lived.” He drew her closely to him—“How I have lived so long without my Mary passes my comprehension! Do you remember that last July was not the first time I saw you?”

She was pleased, and showed that she was. She questioned him shyly. Had he seen her before this year? What had he thought? What made him notice her this time? His answers were in the right vein. He was allowed to be the lover—and so the moments passed, and Swindon with them. The train swung slowly by a crowded platform. He released her.

Silence succeeding, she relapsed at once into her desponding mood. She was embarked indeed—but on what a cruise! The Chaveneys—five miles away—Sir George and Lady Chaveney—She knew what that meant; how the County reckoned, from one great house to another. Why, if a Colonel Dermott, a Reverend Burgess were as nothing—from what a depth of blackness had she been dragged up! . . . A toy, an old man’s plaything, Jinny had called her . . . picked out of a village and put in a great house . . . five miles from anybody. . . .

During this time of long silence, of reverie, in the which, though his arm embraced her and his hand was against her side, his eyes were placidly shut, while hers gazed out of window, fixed and sombre, at the flying country, she suddenly started and became alert. Misgivings faded, a wash of warm colour—as of setting suns—stole comfortably about her. For a moment, it may be, she was conscious again of wide horizons. The train was rolling smoothly—so smoothly that its swiftness had to be felt for—over an open common backed by a green down. Furze-bushes dotted it, clumps of bramble; there was a pond, a dusty road, geese on the pond, a cottage by the road, with a woman taking linen from the hedge. Along the road, pushing to the West, went a cart, drawn by a white horse; the driver sat on the tilt, smoking, his elbows on his knees; a grey dog ran diligently beside. Could this be—? Could it be other? Oh, the great, free life! Oh, the beating heart! Oh, the long, long look! Mary strained against the arm of her husband; his hand felt her heart beat. He opened his eyes, looked at her, and smiled to see her eager gazing. But what mystery of change in women! The next moment she had turned to him, her eyes filled with wet. She turned, she looked wistfully upon him; her lip quivered. “My darling?”—and then she flung herself upon his breast. “Oh, take me, take me, keep me safe!” she cried. “I will be good to you, I will, I will! But you must love me always——”

“My sweet wife, can you doubt it? What has frightened my pet?” She hid her face on his shoulder. “Nothing—nothing—only thoughts. I’m not good, you know. I told you so—often.”

He pressed her closely to him. “Who is good? Who dares to ask for love? We ask for mercy—not love. But we can always give it. It is our blessed privilege. You have the whole of mine.” He kissed her hair—all that he could reach of her, and she lay with hidden face for a long time. The unknown resumed its chilly grip—the horizon narrowed again, the fog hung about the hedgerows which hemmed it in. But the outlook was not quite the same—or the out-looker was changed. The tilt-cart was journeying to the West, and so was the train. . . . But Mr. Germain exulted in every mile which he could watch out with that dear head upon his shoulder. The tired child slept!

“Exeter, my love!” he awoke her with a kiss; she blushed, looked dazed, and snuggled to him in an adorable way. But for that unlucky servant of his it is possible that the day might have been saved yet. But inexorable order resumed its hold, and she chilled fatally between station and hotel. A carriage and pair was waiting for them, a cockaded coachman touched his hat; the porters touched theirs; the luggage followed with Villiers; up the stairs of the hotel there was quite a stately procession. . . . They were shown their rooms; sitting-room, dining-room, two bed-rooms, all en suite. Mr. Germain disappeared with anxious Villiers; a gigantic chambermaid, old, stately, with a bosom fit for triplets, superintended the unpacking of Madam’s trunk, which was plundered by two smart underlings with velvet bows very far back upon their sleek heads. Would Madam require a dresser? Madam said, Oh, no, thank you—and then had to ring in confusion for somebody to fasten her bodice. Madam looked charming, when all was done, in a gown of dangerous simplicity, and Madam knew it—but there beat a wild little heart under the tulle, and a cry had to be stifled, a cry to a friend on the open road—for good fellowship, sage counsel, and trust to float between eyes and eyes. Her treadings had well-nigh slipped; she felt herself to be drowning—as it were, in three feet of water.

She sat at his table, and ravished his delicate fancies with her pretty embarrassments, her assumed dignity, her guarded eyes and lips. King Cophetua lived again in this honest man, who had no need to protest to Heaven that he would cherish his elected bride. He was now perfectly happy, wallowing in sentiment, bathing every sense. The exquisite antithesis he had made! From nothing she was become this! Sweet before, and now all dainty sweet; rare unknown, now known to be the rarest. Her white neck with a jewel upon it, her scented hair with a star, rings glittering on her fingers, her gown as dainty as her untried soul—and through the clouded windows of her eyes that shrinking soul looking out—wistful, appealing, crying for help. Ah, what loyal help should be hers! Complacent, benevolent gentleman.

She sipped his champagne, she watched everything, missed nothing, gave no chances, knew herself on her trial. She was strung up to the last pitch, and staked all her future upon the hazard of this night. If she was cold in her responses, slow to take up, quick to abandon positions in the talk, she may be excused. She could be bright enough when she was at ease—but who is at ease with his honour at proof? Great honour had been done her, she knew; and it required all her honour in return. That prompted her to a curious requital. She burned to cry out to this courteous gentleman in black and fair white, and to these noiseless, prompt attendants—“Look at me well—I am nothing, a shred from the wilderness. He has chosen me for his breast, decked me out—I am a slave-girl—my ignorance is hired. How dare you wait upon me, you who would pass me in the street, and nudge, and tell each other with a wink what I was, and how you found my looks? Was I so low that I must be thus lower? Can you not spare me this?” She burned with shame, was dangerously near to panic. More than once she must bite her lip to hold back these words—and as she bit, he looked at her and adored her splendid colour and lovely frugality of glance and speech. . . . She left him to his port, and sat alone in the drawing-room, a prey to all the misgivings.

When he took her in his arms and struggled with himself to tell her all he had found in her of excellence and beauty, she could only hide her face. But she clung to him at last, sobbing out her protest that she would serve him utterly. “Oh, you are good to me, you are good! Oh, help me to be what you wish. I am so ignorant—I cannot tell you—” She broke off here, and, holding herself stiffly in his arms, looked strangely in his face. “Do you know—have you thought—that—that—I cannot be what you think me?” she said; and when she saw that he was taken aback, “Listen,” she said, “let me sit by you.” He took her on his knee and held her swinging hand. Her eyes were veiled as she tried to speak to him. “I have been—I began to work, you know, when I was sixteen. I went away from home——”

She caught him unawares, or she hit by some fatal telepathy the centre of his thought. He flinched at the blow, but she could not know that, being too full of her own affair. She must discharge her heart at all costs—and at this eleventh hour, if so must be. Now let him be generous if he is to be accounted wise!

Once too often he was tried. This time, at the crisis, he did not respond. Generosity, which is Love’s flag of victory, was not at command. The hand that shaded his eyes made a deeper shadow. His voice was small and still. “Yes, my dear, yes?”

She lifted her head and looked up, not at him, but over the room. She went on as if she was reading her story off the wall. But she was reading it from Jinny’s eyes of scorn.

“You must know me as I really am before you—before to-morrow. I was engaged—once—before I knew you. He was a farmer’s son—Mr. Rudd. He thought—I thought—he gave me a ring. That was soon after I had gone to Misperton. I was twenty-two.”

He sat very still, hiding his face. It looked as if he were crouching from a storm. “Yes, yes, my child. Why not?” She was pitiless.

“Oh, but— . . . I have more to tell you.”

He seemed to shrivel. “You wish to speak of these things? You were very young.” And yet his voice said, Tell me all—all.

“At sixteen? Yes. Of course I was very foolish.”

“There had been—Before you went to Mr. Nunn’s—before you went to Misperton?”

She left his knee, and sat opposite to him upon a straight chair. She folded her hands in her lap and began her tale. As if she had been in the dock she rehearsed her poor tale. He neither stirred nor spoke.

She made no excuses, did not justify herself, nor accuse herself. She did not say—it never entered her head to say—You, too, have made mistakes. There was a Lady Diana for your bitterness. But she knew what she was doing only too well; and a force within her said, “Go on—spare nothing—go on. Whatever it cost you, be done with it. No peace for you else.” . . . “I must tell you that there was a gentleman—you will not ask me his name. I think that you know it. He gave me a book—and—other things. I have not seen him since—since you spoke to me at the school-feast.”

He stirred, but did not look up. “I will ask you not to see him.”

“I will never see him. I have refused——”

“He has tried to see you?”

“I took care that he should not.”

“I don’t wish to seem unreasonable,” he said slowly; “I cannot bear to seem so to you. But—it would be for our happiness.”

“I assure you that I have no intention. I hope you will believe me.” His lips moved, but he did not look up. She rose. “I am very tired,” she said; “I think I will go now.” He got up immediately; the fog seemed in the room. She came and stood before him.

“Be patient with me,” she said. “Be kind to me. I shall try to do everything you wish.”

He made as if he would take her, but she drew back quickly.

“I should have told you all this before if I could have thought you would care—would allow it. Indeed, I have tried more than once, but you—Now, I am glad that you know me—but I am very tired.”

“Mary,” he said, and held out his hands to her. She looked into his face, then shut her eyes.

“I am very tired. Please let me go. Good-night.”

He held open the door for her.

I
IN WHICH WE PAY A FIRST VISIT TO SOUTHOVER

The house—Southover House, Farlingbridge, Berks—stands terraced above formal gardens in the Italian taste; ribbony borders, edged with white stone, form a maze of pattern. Urns on pedestals, statues of nymphs and fauns, stone seats, stone cisterns, gleam among the carpeted flowers. Beyond these is the great park, with a wall (they tell me) six miles round. The herd of fallow deer is praised by Cotton in his famous book. Mr. Germain used to show you the passage.

The mansion, built by Wyatt, is classical; an exact rectangle of pink brick faced with Bath stone. It has a pediment and a balustrade, with white statues at intervals along the garden front. Within, it is extremely proper, having narthex and atrium, or, if you please, vestibule and hall. The reception rooms open out of this last, and above it a gallery gives on to the chambers, about whose doors the valets are to be seen collected at seven-thirty or so of an evening. They wait for their masters, while they observe and comment in monosyllabic undertones upon the doings of their betters below. Surprising how much a man-servant can get into how little. From April to June, from September to November, the hall is used for tea and after-dinner lounging. It is the core and heart of the house. During the summer months tea should be on the terrace unless Nature is willing to see Mr. Germain vexed; in wintertime it is always in the little library where the Murillo hangs.

I choose the time of tulips for our visit, when Southover has had a new mistress for two years come the fall of the leaf. The family, as they say down here, has been abroad this year; has not long returned. It went to the Riviera directly after Christmas, to Mentone; was in Rome in February, and studying churches in the Rhone valley in March. It Eastered in Seville, going thither by Barcelona and Granada, and came home by Madrid and Paris. Now it is mid-May, and the Italian gardens glitter with tulips. Tea is served, according to custom, in the hall at a quarter before five. The footman on duty—his service passed by the butler—has retired, but the statelier functionary stands at his post, tapping his teeth with a corkscrew. The hour is now five—gone five. Silver chimes have proclaimed it to an empty hall. There he stands, a solemn, florid personage, full of cares, regarding in an abstracted manner the glittering array of covered dishes, cups, and covered jugs. Now and again he adjusts a teaspoon, now and again humours a spirit-flame. At a quarter past five Mr. Germain enters the hall from the library, his secretary, young Mr. Wilbraham, at his heels.

The butler, with a careful hand, placed a rack containing three triangles of toast upon a little table. He poured a cup of chocolate from a porcelain jug, and added that to the feast. The afternoon’s post, upon a salver, was held for Mr. Wilbraham. These things done, he waited until Mr. Germain was in his deep-seated chair. “The ladies are not returned, Sir,” he said, and went his noiseless way.

Mr. Germain, who looked white and had faded eyes, munched his toast in silence. Young Mr. Wilbraham, quick, gentlemanly, pleasantly alert, demolished envelopes and their contents while he ate muffin. Three or four letters he handed to his patron.

“Those look to me personal,” he said. Mr. Germain, having adjusted his pince-nez, inspected the envelopes and put them unopened into his pocket. Toast-munching was resumed, and silence. Once or twice Mr. Germain looked at his watch, once compared it with the hall-clock, but made no other sign.

Wilbraham poured more tea, spread himself honeycomb on bread and butter, and went on with his letters. He broke the silence. “The Association has written again to know whether you have decided. They hope you will come forward. Sir Gregory has gone to Madeira. They say, he’s quite made up his mind.”

Mr. Germain blinked solemnly at space, without reply.

“And I’ve a note here from Mr. Jess—rather, from his secretary. There was a meeting at the Reform on Monday. Your name was mentioned. Mr. Jess hopes that he hasn’t been indiscreet. He referred to the possibility.”

Mr. Germain, without turning his head or ceasing to munch, asked here, Who was Mr. Jess’s private secretary.

“Duplessis,” said brisk Mr. Wilbraham, adding, as if to himself,

“Clever beggar.” After a pause Mr. Germain got up.

“I shall rest for a little, Wilbraham. We will consider these things before dinner. Meantime I will ask you to remember that they are between you and me. Strictly so.”

“Oh, of course! Quite understood,” the friendly young man nodded.

The master of the house had his hand on the library door when a step on the flags of the vestibule caused him to look quickly round. There was a moment during which he could have been observed to hold his breath in suspense. A tall and sumptuously fair lady, free-moving, deep-bosomed, robed in white—all her dresses robed her—came into the hall. She wore a broad-brimmed Tuscan hat, which set about her like a halo, and carried flowers. This was the Honourable Hertha de Speyne, the last of the Cantacutes.

Mr. Germain turned away from his refuge and stood attentive; Wilbraham jumped to the upright.

“Shall I have in some more tea?” he asked at large. “This has been here since five.”

“Not for me,” said Miss de Speyne. “I hate it. But the others are coming. I saw them in the bottom. They’ve been on the lake, I think.”

“And you?” This was from Mr. Germain, with a courtly inclination.

“Oh, I’ve been painting, of course.”

“Happily, I hope.”

“Miserably. Deplorably. I’ve scraped out everything, and come away at least with a clean canvas. Few painters can say as much of a day’s work.”

“Few would confess it.”

“Ah, I’ve been taught the blessing of an uncharged heart. Mr. Senhouse taught me that last year. What I was trying to do was perfectly impossible. One knows too much; one has botany, flower-shows, catalogues behind one. Fields of asphodel! But suppose you had been shown how asphodel grows?”

“Have I fields of asphodel here?” Mr. Germain looked his polite misgivings.

“You have a glade of Poets’ narcissus—like a Swiss valley. Mr. Senhouse could have done it—an Impressionist. It’s not for me. I see them stiff in vases; I know that they have stalks.”

“So, surely, does Mr. Senhouse.”

“Indeed he does. He knows that they have souls. But he’s ruthless with his brushes; he forgets their souls, and his own science.”

“And you——?”

“I’m so proud of mine that I could never forget it.” She looked out into the vestibule, to the sunlight beyond. “Here comes Mary. Do get some tea for them,” she urged Wilbraham—who flew to the bell.

Mr. Germain remained where he was—long enough to see his wife’s eyes dilate at the sight of him there, long enough to hear the laugh falter upon her lips; and then he turned and slowly gained the library. He shut the door behind him. Mrs. Germain, with a high colour and gleam of light in her fine eyes, came quickly to the tea-table. She was followed by two young men in flannels—self-possessed, assured, curt-spoken young men with very smooth heads.

“Oh, we’re dreadfully late!” she cried. “Hertha, have you been in long? Have you had everything?” In a much lower key she asked, “Has—was—he here when you——?”

Miss de Speyne looked kindly at her friend. “He was just going when I came in; but he stayed and entertained me. It was awfully kind of him. I know he’s very tired.”

Mary stood by the tea-table, fidgeting a cup by the handle. She looked uncomfortable. “I’m frightfully sorry. Hertha, I meant to be in by a quarter to five.”

“It’s all right, you know,” said one of the young men—the youngest of them—lengthily at ease in a chair. “You’re only an hour slow. I call that good.”

She made no answer, but went on fidgeting the teacup. The entry of butler and footman with supplies did not move her.

Young Lord Gunner stood to his muffin, and confidently explained:

“It’s my fault, you must know. I was diving after half-crowns—and getting ’em, too.”

“He was though,” said Mr. Chaveney from his chair. “I ought to know. They were my half-crowns.”

“Well then, of course, I had to change. I’m not a mermaid, as it happens.”

“Not yet, my boy,” said the loser of half-crowns.

“So I sent a chap up for my chap with some things, and changed in the châlet. That’s why we’re late, if you must know.”

Miss de Speyne was pouring out tea. “I see. And the others reckoned up their losses——”

“Words to that effect,” said Mr. Chaveney.

Lord Gunner put down his cup. “Don’t know what they did. But I’ve brought them safe to port. Wilbraham, I’ll play you squash rackets before dinner. It’ll do you good. You’re overdoing it, you know, and you’re not used to it. You’ll get a hemorrhage or a nervous breakdown, and we shall have to give you a rest-cure. Chaveney shall score.”

“Can’t,” said Mr. Chaveney. “Ordered my trap. My people are going to take me out to dinner. They won’t be denied.”

“England hath need of him,” said Wilbraham. “Come along, Gunner. My things are in the court. I’m due at the desk at seven.”

Mr. Chaveney—very young, very fair, and very flushed, with long and light eyelashes—was now at the piano. He swayed as he played.

“Do you like that?” he said, looking at Mrs. Germain, who was still pensive. “It’s ‘Carmen.’”

“Beg pardon,” said Lord Gunner. “It sounded like Chaveney.” The youth ran up a scale.

“Go and play rackets, Gunner, and leave me to my art. I’m going.”

“He’ll stay to dine—you see if he don’t,” was Lord Gunner’s passing shot. He was answered by a crashing chord.

Miss de Speyne, regarding the pianist’s back, said in a gentle voice, “He’s in the library. You’d better go to him for a minute.”

Mrs. Germain had the knack of making her eyes wide and round so that you got the full-orbed splendour of their brown light. “I expect he’s asleep. I’ll see him before dinner.” Her friend shook her head.

“He’s walking up and down. He’ll rest after you have been.”

“Do you think so—really?”

“I’m sure. You had better go.” Mrs. Germain stayed no longer, but went quickly, holding her head stiff.

She stood in the doorway of the library, inside the closed door, a charming figure for all her anxious eyes. She was in blue linen, with a wide straw hat; was sunburnt and fresh, looked ridiculously young. Mr. Germain paused in his pacing of the long carpet and waited for her to speak—which presently she did, rather breathlessly.

“Oh,” she said, “I was afraid you might be resting, or I should have come——”

He shut his eyes for a moment. “No. It is not possible just now,—nor desirable. I have much to think of.”

She went quickly to him and held out her hand a little way. “Aren’t you well? May I stay with you? I meant to have been in early, but——”

“But it was not convenient, you would say?”

“No, not that. I couldn’t get them to leave the water. They were absurd—like children. One was throwing money in for the other to dive after. I did try—but they went on just the same. Did you expect—did you want me? I promise you that I tried to come. I tried hard.”

Something of the sort had been what his self-esteem exacted of her; something of the sort must have been tendered him or he had been really ill. He was now softened, he smiled, took up her offered hand. “My little love,” he said, drew her near and kissed her forehead. For a moment she urged towards him, but then, having glanced timidly up and seen his averted eyes, she sighed and looked to the floor, her hand still held.

He led her to his escritoire, put a chair for her beside it, and sat in his own. “Constantia writes to me, Mary, that she and James would like us to pay them a visit—in July, as usual. What do you say?”

She considered this for some moments. Her head was bent towards her hands in her lap; she looked at her weaving fingers—a habit of hers. “That would be to the Rectory, I suppose?”

“Obviously,” said Mr. Germain. “You will remember that it was a yearly custom of mine.” She had every reason to remember it; but he must hear her say so. “You will not have forgotten that, Mary?”

“No! Oh, no! Of course I haven’t.” She looked at him for a moment—trouble in her eyes and flame in her cheeks.

“Last year,” he resumed, “I had Southover to show you—and there were reasons why I should not take you back so soon. This year there could be no such reason. I think that you might be pleased to see Misperton again; more particularly since you and Hertha de Speyne have struck up such a happy friendship. She is a noble young creature in every way; nothing could have pleased me more. Constantia will, of course, write to you; but, being my sister-in-law and happening to have other matters of which to speak, she mentioned it to me in the first event. I can assure you that there has been no want of respect——”

She flashed him another reproachful look—reproachful, not that he should think her offended, but that he should pretend to think her so. “Oh, of course not! How could you imagine such a thing? It is absurd—really absurd.”

He made no reply, was evidently waiting for her decision. She gave it reluctantly. “We will go, if you wish it,” she said.

He was immediately piqued. “That is hardly cordial, is it? I am not sure that I should, or could, wish it, on those terms.”

She had reasons of her own for disliking it extremely; but she kept her counsels in these days. “I will tell you exactly how I feel, if you will be patient with me,” she said. “I am sure that the Rector would be glad to have me there with you; and of course Hertha would like it. If there was nobody else I should love to go. I shall remember Misperton as long as I live. Wonderful things happened to me there; don’t think that I can forget them for an hour. But Mrs. James—Constantia, I mean—doesn’t like me at all. Why should we disguise it? She disapproves of me, doesn’t trust me, thinks me a nobody—which I am, of course——”

“I beg your pardon, my love—” he would have stopped her; but she saw what in particular had offended him, and ran on.

“I am your wife, I know. But I am a person, too; and I own that I would rather be with people who—who respect me for what I am in myself, as well as for what you have made me. Forgive me for saying so; it is rather natural, I think. And it happens that I should like to see my parents again, and my sisters. It is six months since I was at Blackheath. So that would be an opportunity, and a reason—while you were at the Rectory.”

“You wish me to go there alone?” She could guess at the scalding spot beneath his armour-plate.

“I should love to go with you,” she said, “if—if it could be managed.”

“I may mention to you,” he said coldly, “that you will not find an old acquaintance there. Since his mother’s death my young relative, Tristram Duplessis, has bestirred himself. He has sold the cottage.”

She had not been prepared for an attack in flank, and blenched before it. Then she told her fib. “My reason against going with you had nothing to do with Mr. Duplessis,” she said; and, watching her, he did not believe her.

He turned to his papers. “It shall be as you wish, my love,” he said. “I will write to Constantia. It may well be that I shall not care to resume a broken habit. Are you going up to dress? If so, and if you should happen to see Wilbraham, would you tell him that I am ready?”

She hovered about his studious back, as if on the brink of speech; but thought better of it and went slowly out of the room. Intensely conscious of her going, he cowered at his desk, looking sideways—until he heard the door close. Then he began to read, with lips pressed close together.

In the hall Mrs. Germain almost ran into the arms of Wilbraham, who, scarlet in the face and wet as with rain, was racing to his room.

“By jove, I beg your pardon, Mrs. Germain!”

“You only made me jump,” she laughed. “Have you been playing all this time?”

“I know, I know! It was Gunner’s fault, upon my honour.”

“It always is Lord Gunner’s fault. Mr. Germain asked me to tell you that he was ready.”

“Good Lord!” cried the unhappy youth. “And I’m sw—as hot as anything.”

“Go and change,” she said kindly. “I’ll go back to him.”

He was fervent. “You are an angel! But I’ve told you that before.” Their eyes met; they laughed together. He pelted upstairs.

“Mr. Wilbraham will be with you in a second,” she said, entering the library again. Had she seen him spring round as she came in? No doubt of it. “I left my book down by the lake—and I know you don’t like that. Do you?”

“No, dearest, no. I confess the foible.” His eyes invited her nearer. She advanced to his table and stood by him, her hand touched his shoulder. He was inordinately happy, though he made no immediate sign. But presently his arm went about her waist, and then she bent down and leaned her cheek for his kiss. They remained together, saying nothing, until she heard Wilbraham coming down, three stairs at a time. Then she slipped away and just caught him outside the door.

“I had to tell a fib,” she told him. “I said that I had left my book by the lake.”

“Well!” He looked at her. “I’ll bet that’s not a fib.”

“No,” she laughed. “But it was meant to be. Now I’m going to get it myself.”

“You are an angel!” he said. “Don’t. I’ll go presently. I should love to.”

“No. I shall go myself. I deserve it.”

“You deserve—!” He stopped himself. “Look here,” he said, “send Gunner. No, he’s changing. Send young Chaveney.”

She opened her eyes—fatal use! “Is Mr. Chaveney here? I thought he said——”

Wilbraham chuckled. “Did you suppose he’d go when it came to the point? Not he! Why, before we’d played half a set he came to borrow some clothes off me.”

He glided smoothly into the library. Mrs. Germain fetched her book.

II
REFLECTIONS ON HONEYMOONS AND SUCHLIKE

The years fly, we know, and come not again, and there’s balm in that for the wounds they leave. For we forget a good deal, and Hope is a faithful lover, and never quits us for long together; and then there’s honest Use-and-Wont, surely our friend. Because you were a fool yesterday, you’re wise to-day; and if you’re a fool to-morrow—why, the alternation is established. There’s a progression; it is like the rotation of crops.

There’s a mort of healing in a brace of longish years. The county, which had found little Mrs. Germain stiff when she came home from her honeymoon, now looked to her for stiffness when it felt relaxed. Her idiosyncrasy was accepted, you see; once admitted to be a person, she became a personage. And, discovered by the county, she discovered herself. She found out that she had a character; she had never known that before, nor had any others who had had to do with her: Mrs. James, to wit, Miss de Speyne, her husband. The process of these discoveries ought to entertain us for a chapter, and its resolution shall be attempted. But the county learned it first, when it came to rely upon her stiffness. The Chaveneys, the Gerald Swetebredes, the Trevor-Waynes, the Perceforest people, before the two years were over, forgot that they had ever eyed each other, with brows inquiring “Colonial?” or spelling “Hopeless, my dear!” Such looks had passed, but now, on the contrary, they leaned—some heavily. Lady Chaveney was one. “She is charming with Guy,” she said more than once, “quite charming. An influence—in the nicest way.” She added, once, as if the news was sacred, “I believe he’s told her everything.” Guy was the Chaveney heir, the florid, assured youth whom we met just now on our visit; he had been pronounced “wild” by Mr. Germain; and he had told her everything. She took herself quite seriously with Guy, in the elder-sister fashion, Mr. Germain, at first approving, as, at first, he had approved every sign of her making way. He came, before the end of two years, to feel differently, lost touch with the sense of his benevolence, felt to be losing grip of many things. But in the early days he had approved, there’s no doubt—in those days of stress and taut nerves when, returning from a honeymoon by much too long, she had found Mrs. James pervading the great, orderly house, and had, without knowing it, braced herself for a tussle, and unawares found herself in it, and amazingly the winner. Her husband had backed her up there, in his quiet way. Short, quick, breathless work it had been—a fight in spasms. She had been crossing the hall when the great lady came out of the Little Library.

“Ah, Mary—A Mrs. Burgess has called, I see—wife of some one in Farlingbridge. She called while you were out. A politeness very natural under the circumstances—but not the custom here, I think. Lady Diana, I happen to know, never—I suppose you will send cards by the carriage. That would answer the purpose very well. We have never known the townspeople, you know—in that sort of way. There is a tenants’ party in the summer. They come to that.”

Mary had listened. She was pale, but her eyes smouldered.

“I can’t do that, Mrs. Germain. I mean, I must return the call.”

“Ah? It will be against my recommendation.”

“I am very sorry. I asked Mrs. Burgess to call when I met her the other day at Waysford.”

“Really? Waysford? One would meet her there, I suppose. A Sale of Work?”

“Yes. But I asked her to call upon me. It was kind of her to come so soon.”

Mrs. James pressed her lips together. So soon! Why, the woman would fly! “Does my brother know of this, may I ask?”

“I don’t know,” said Mary, out of breath. She was scared, but meant to go on.

“It will be better that he should be told.”

“If you think it will interest him—yes,” Mary said, and went upstairs—to stare out of window, clench and unclench her hands. Mrs. James reported the case to her brother-in-law, and Mary drove, the next day, to Farlingbridge—her husband with her—and returned the call. Nothing more was said; nor, when the visit of a Colonel Dermott, V.C., and his lady, townspeople, too, had to be witnessed, was a word of warning uttered. But Mrs. James left within a fortnight of her rout, staying only for the first dinner-party at Southover. That was how she learned that Mary Middleham had character. It shocked her; and it was annoying, too, that she could expect no sympathy from James.

The house-parties for the winter shooting, and those dinner-parties for the county had to be gone through with somehow. She set herself squarely to the task, and was glad enough to believe towards the end of her two years that she was learning the business. There was little to do, indeed, but be agreeable, but she found that more than enough. Agreeable she could be when she felt happy; her nature was as sweet as an apple. But if she felt hurt she must show it, and she discovered that that was a cardinal sin. Then there was the language to master, the queer, impertinent, leisurely laconics of these people—expensive, perfectly complacent, incredibly idle young men, old men without reticence, airy, free-spoken women, and girls who unaffectedly ignored her. To cope with such as these she must be even as they were, or seem so. The quickness of their give-and-take in conversation, the ripple and flow, the ease of the thing, asked an alertness of her which excited while it tried her to death. Perpetually flagging at the game, she spurred herself perpetually; for she discovered that there is no more deadly sin in the code than an awkward pause, that being all of a piece with the end and aim of living—which is smooth running. A woman should die sooner than drop a conversation, or murder it.

She was at her best with the men, as perhaps she might expect. She could run, she could walk all day, chatter, laugh outright, seem to be herself; they paid her the compliment of approving looks. But among the women she knew that she must be herself, a very different thing. She felt infinitely small, ill-dressed, ill-mannered, clumsy, and a dunce. It was from them, however, that she gained her reputation of being stiff; she had them to thank for that. It had come to her in a flash of spirit one day in the summer of her first year, that if ignoring was in the wind, she could ignore with the best. She chose to ignore Mrs. Chilmarke, Mrs. Ralph Chilmarke, a beauty, a dainty blonde and a wit. She did it steadily for three days, at what a cost she could never have guessed when she began it, and her reward was great. Mrs. Chilmarke respected her for it, and the Duchess—a duchess was in the house—was frankly delighted, and said so. She had watched out the match, and had backed the brune.

Under such exertions as these character will out, while it may slumber through years of pedagogy. But she worked hard at her lessons directly she had found out what she wanted, and was tolerably equipped for her tour in France and Italy when the time came. She made no way with Latin—Mr. Germain had to give that up; and English literature made her yawn. She insisted on botany, for reasons unknown to the good gentleman, and became great friends with the head gardener, a Scotchman, who made the initial mistake of supposing her a little fool, and was ever afterwards her obedient servant. Shall we do wrong in putting this study down to Senhouse’s credit? I think not. Quietly and methodically, after a method all her own, Mary Germain began to find herself, as they say. But before she did that her husband had to find her; and he, poor gentleman, who had had to begin upon their wedding day, was at the end of his discoveries before he was at the end of his honeymoon. So far he struggled, but after that he suffered—dumbly and in secret, within his plate armour. The fact is, there had been too much honeymoon. His evident discomfort had made her self-conscious, killed her ease, threatened her gratitude—upon which he had proposed to subsist—and turned him from an improbable mate into a rather unsuccessful father of his wife.

October is a bad time for honeymoons; the evenings are so long. Nevertheless, at Torquay, her mind had been fairly easy about him. He had liked the hotel. At Saltcombe he had been pretty miserable, much on her conscience. He had taught her chess, it seems, and if she had known what she was about, chess might have done pretty well. But unfortunately she took to chess, and began to beat him at it by audacious combinations and desperate sallies quite unwarranted by science. That vexed him sadly. He abandoned the game, telling her frankly that he could not help being irritated to see skill out-vailed by temerity. “One plays, you see, my love, for the pleasure of playing, not to win. That is the first condition of a pastime.” She told him she was very sorry, and he kissed her. But after that Villiers used to lay newspapers and reviews on the sitting-room table while they were dining. She consoled herself with the remembrance of that kiss on the lips; it was nearly the last of them. He selected her forehead, from Saltcombe onwards, or her cheek. From Saltcombe they went down into Cornwall—Truro, Penzance, Sennen, St. Ives. There it was that she learned to be happy in her own company. She spent hours alone, scrambling among the rocks, watching the sea.

Her life was filling, her vistas opening. This was great gain, to feel the triumph of discovery. She had never been so far afield before, and the wild splendours of rocks and seas made her at times like a thing inspired. She was amazed at herself—at the stinging blood in her which made her heart beat. She used to get up early at Sennen, steal, hatless, out of the sleeping inn, and fleet over turf to the edge of the cliffs. There she stood motionless, with unwinking eyes and parted lips, while the wind enfolded her. All was pure ecstasy; she was like a nymph—bare-bosomed, ungirdled, unfilletted, in the close arms of the Country God. From such hasty blisses she returned drowsy-eyed, glossed with rose-colour, with a sleek bloom upon her, and ministered to her husband’s needs, dressed with care, with the neatness which he loved. She sat quietly by him, hearing but not heeding his measured tones, dreaming of she knew not what, save that the dreams were lyric, and sang of freedom in her ears.

They took more tangible shape as they waxed bolder in outline and scope. There was a tumble-down white cottage on the cliff beyond the coastguard station; two rooms and a wash-house below green eaves. It faced the open sea, but lay otherwise snugly below a jutting boulder, and was so much of a piece with rock and turf that the sea-pinks had seeded in the roof and encrusted it with emerald tufts. Her fancy adorned this tenement; she saw herself there in a cotton gown, alone with wind and sea. What a life! The freedom of it, the space, the promise! Not a speck could she descry upon the fair blue field of such a life. Childlike she built upon the airy fabric, added to it, assured herself of it. Some day, some day she would be there—free! The thought made her perfectly happy; she felt her blood glow.

Mr. Germain complained of the damp Cornish air and took her to St. Ives and Newquay on the way to Southover. Once on the homeward path, he had no eyes for her in Cornwall; all his hopes were now set upon the feast he should have of her, queening it there in his hall—queen by his coronation. She, for her part, was all for lingering good-byes to her glimpses of the wild. She went obediently, but carried with her the assurance that she should see her cottage again; and by some juggling of the mind, in the picture of it which floated up before her at call, she came to see always near it the tilt-cart and its occupant, her friend of the open Common. A community down there! The tilt-cart stood in a hollow of the rocks within sound and sight of the sea; the Ghost cropped the thyme above it; Bingo ran barking out of the tent, and, seeing her, lowered his head and came wriggling for a caress. Above them all, dominant, stood her friend, bareheaded to the buffeting gale, so clearly at times that she could see the wind bellying his white trousers or flacking the points of his rolling collar. His face unfortunately was not always to be seen; a mist over it baffled her, but egged her on. For a flash, for a passing second, his bright, quizzing eyes might be upon her; she could hear the greeting of the dawn laugh from them, and feel her bosom swell as she answered it, and knew the long day before them—and every long day to come. What a comradeship that might be—what a comradeship! She came to thank God daily that she had such a friend, and to declare stoutly to herself that she had no need to see him. Friendship was independent of such needs; the necessities of touching, eyeing, speaking—what were these but fetters? Lovers might hug such chains and call them leading-strings. Poor lovers could not walk without them. But friends had their pride in each other and themselves. Each stood foursquare in the faith of his friend; the independence of each was the pride of the other. So far was she from loving Mr. Senhouse that she learned without a pang of his visit to the Cantacutes in the following summer, of his painting days with Hertha de Speyne, and was surprised at herself. It drew the two girls closer together; it gave zest to letter-writing, and brought Miss Hertha more than once to Southover. Senhouse was the presiding genius of their fireside talks; between Hertha and Senhouse Mary began to find herself—a person, with a reasonable soul in human flesh.

Her wedding-day, and the days that followed it, had dismayed the flesh; she could not be one to whom marriage was a sacred mystery, to be unveiled to piercing music. She had cried herself to sleep—once; but she cried no more. If she had been in love with her husband, even if she had ever been in love with anybody, she might have been won over by pity or by passion; but poor Mr. Germain was incapable of the second, and somewhat to her surprise she found herself unpersuaded, though she was touched, by the first. She did pity him, she pitied him deeply, but she could not help him. Esteem she gave him, gratitude, obedience, meekness, respect. But herself—after that once—never, never! For that discharging of her conscience of its poor little trivial, human load had been forced upon her by pure generosity on her part (she knew it), and had cost her an agony of shame. And it had chilled him to the bone—she had seen his passion fade before her eyes, such passion as he had. Her generosity had stultified her, played the traitor. She never taxed him with want of magnanimity, didn’t know the word—but she found herself resolute, and was as much surprised as he was. What dismay she had, as the honeymoon wore on, was brought her by her own position, not by her husband’s; that a girl such as she, with undeniable proofs to hand of her attractiveness of face and person, with experience of men and their ways, should find herself daughter to her husband! An indulged, courted, only daughter, if you please—but certainly a daughter. Here was an anti-climax, to say the least of it; and her dismay endured through the honeymoon—until Cornish cliffs gave her happier things to dream of. It disappeared as the great red flank of Southover House filled up the scene. Tussles with Mrs. James, the sweets and perils of victory, ordeals of shooting-parties, dinner-parties, household cares, and, above all, routine—such drugs as these sent her heart to sleep. By the time she had been eighteen months a wife she had forgotten that she had never been other than a maiden.

Now, what of Cratylus, poor Cratylus the mature, who, clasping his simple Mero (or Marina) to his heart, found that he had to reckon with her character first? Good, honest man, he had never supposed her to have one; and the bitter thing was that the finding of her character woke up his own. He saw himself again in full plate-armour, cowering behind it, hiding from himself as well as from the world a terrible deformity—an open sore in his self-esteem which could never be healed again, which, at every chance of her daily life, must bleed and ache. Oh, the pity of it, on how light a spring all this had depended—a hair, a gossamer! Exeter—fatal day of Exeter! He had believed himself young again. As she clung to him, half-sobbing, after dinner, he had pressed her to his bosom, called her his bride, his wife. She had not dared to look at him, had bowed her head, hidden her face in his shoulder, let him feel the trembling, the wild beating of her heart. Then her broken confessions; pitiful, pitiful! What did they amount to, when all was told? But they, and what followed upon them—his own conduct, his own curse; and her conduct, and her curse—were his nightmare. He had found out that he could not live if he must remember them. He fought, literally, for life; and after a six months’ toil had succeeded in living. He spent himself in benevolence and care, gave her everything she could want, before she asked, taught her, prayed for her, watched over her. She was never out of his thoughts—and, poor girl, without knowing it, she stabbed him deeply every day.

He had his benevolence to fall back upon. He could be King of Southover, of the Cophetua dynasty; he could dazzle her, take her breath away, and have the delight, which he had promised himself, of seeing her misty eyes and cheeks flushed with wonder. Yes, yes; but the æsthetic nerve, you see, dulls with use, and the worst of a king’s homage to a beggar maid is that the more obsequious the homage the less beggar is the maid. If you set a coronet in her hair she will blush deliciously for a week; but in two years’ time it will be there as a matter of course, put there nightly by her woman—and bang goes your joy of that. So with all the other enrichments of society, travel, book-learning. The more she had of them, the more she was able to take for herself. He who put her in the way of knowledge could not grumble if she acted upon what he had taught her. Such gifts as his destroy themselves. It had filled his eyes with tears to see his wilding in the great terraced house, to watch the little airs of dignity of matronhood, wifehood (alas, poor gentleman!) flutter about her, and, like birds, take assurance, and alight. Her cares were charming, too. It was pretty to see her knit her brows over some tough nugget of Dante’s, exquisite when she came faltering to him, coaxing for help. But then, naturally, the more help she had the less she came. It grew to be her pride to get through alone—her pride and his disaster. No. Tristram Duplessis had been wiser in his generation than he. If you love to fill a thing you must take care to keep it pretty empty. Thus it was that King Cophetua kneeled in vain. He had kneeled too low.

But there’s a balm in the passing years for Cratylus as well as for Marina. The musical clockwork of Southover, which he had promised himself, became his. He went about his duties as landlord, county magnate, patron of reasonable things, tolerably sure of a welcome home from a pair of kind brown eyes. Kisses might be his if he chose to call for them, clinging arms, a warm and grateful heart. Such things had to be his solace; and sometimes they were. And he still fought for his treasure, against all the odds, with his teeth set hard. If he had lost grip it was because her muscles were more practised. He must try another, and another, if he would whirl her in the air. He must impress her anew, prove to her that he was a man, honour-worthy and loveworthy. His ambitions were rekindled: that was the result of his musings. In the spring of the year, when the tulips blazed in the Italian gardens, and Mary Middleham had been Mary Germain for a good eighteen months, we heard him speak with young Mr. Wilbraham of Sir Gregory and the Farlingbridge division of the county. There was a chance of lighting up the wonder again in a pair of brown eyes. He hoarded the thought for the month, and by June had made up his mind. Then he broke it to his Mary. “I will gladly put my experience at the service of the country,” he told her, “and convince you, if I can, that I am not too old for a public career.” She had told him that he wasn’t old at all, and had kissed his forehead. They happened to be alone for a few days just then; so that he could draw her down to his knee and talk to her about himself, and the part she would have to play for him in London. The house in Hill-street must be reopened.