It Never Can Happen Again

CHAPTER XIX

HOW AUNT STINGY BECAME MARIANNE'S COOK. A MOST OFFENSIVE BIBLE CLASS. MR. CHALLIS'S JUDITH. ESTRILD AND THE OSTROGOTHS. THE ACROPOLIS CLUB

It was certainly our friend Marianne at the Hermitage, Wimbledon, to whom Mrs. Steptoe, now a free-lance, was going to apply for a cook's place. It was rather an audacious piece of effrontery; so also are two-thirds of the applications the Registry sends you on, and charges you five shillings for. Mrs. Steptoe was a very poor cook indeed; but, then, it was so long since she done any cooking reg'lar that it was easy for her to forget how poor it had been.

The coincidence was not a miraculous one, and it will not appear so if you will image to yourself Mrs. Charlotte Eldridge coming down very late one morning and opening letters. Further, imagine that the contents of one takes her aback, binds her attention, and excites a sort of torpid curiosity in Mr. John Eldridge, who is just off to catch his train; but the nine thirty-eight will do if he misses it. Then that the lady throws the letter down, and says: "Well, I declare! Elizabeth Barclay, of all people in the world!"

Don't try to imagine Mr. Eldridge, nor his hat, nor its band, nor the woollen comforter he buttons his coat over. It isn't worth the effort. But take the story's word for it that he said "Elizabeth Barclay?" six times, and ended with, "What's she been had up for?"

"John, you're a fool! She's Marianne's cook, and she wants me to find her another. Of course!"

"But what's her game? What's Marianne's cook's little game? What's she been a-takin' shares in? Where's she been selling her dripping to? Tell away, Lotty!—spit it out!" But he does not forward matters, for he again says "Elizabeth Barclay" several times, and finishes up with "Well!"

"When you've done." A pause. "She's going to marry a corn-factor."

Mr. Eldridge closes one eye. "Females do," he says; and then adds, quite inexplicably: "I shouldn't wonder if he was in the Brixton Road."

"It doesn't matter whether he is or isn't. The question is, where am I to go to find a really good plain cook for Marianne?"

"Ah!—that's the question."

"Well, but you might help, instead of looking like a gaby."

"Why not ask that party?"

"What party?"

"Over Clapham way. Some connection. Where you got Ellen Sayce." Mrs. Eldridge looks her despair, for was not Ellen Sayce a girl who wept on the stairs instead of doing them down, and had to return to her parents? Nevertheless the attempt was worth a postcard, which was written as Mr. Eldridge—whose peritonitis had gone—trotted away down a snow-swept footway slapping his gloves, and saying "Elizabeth Barclay" at intervals. But she omitted the date, as she decided not to post it then and there, but to exhaust her other resources first. Ellen Sayce was a poor result.

The consequence of this was that for a month or thereabouts Mr. Eldridge was never without a topic of conversation, frequently calling attention to the unborn postcard in a recess on his wife's escritoire. "I say, Lotty, when's Miss Fossijaw's letter a-going?" being his form of query, connecting the matter in hand with phosphorus-poisoning, humorously but not intelligently.

However, when Mrs. Eldridge's other presentments ran dry, the postcard was despatched, and reached Adeline Fossett just the moment after Mrs. Steptoe had been submitting her cookworthiness, and lodging her claims for favourable consideration. Whereupon Miss Fossett despatched a summons to her to come next day for a written character (which would do in this case), and the events we know of followed. There was nothing remarkable in the coincidence whatever.

But there was something very remarkable—so Mrs. Challis had thought—about Elizabeth Barclay's unaccountable desire to marry a corn-factor, after being in the family fourteen years! For the Challis family had monopolized Mrs. Barclay during the whole of that time, and it was natural it should be indignant at her desertion. In fact, Marianne had hardly been able to believe her ears when one day the good woman, who had been very distraite over the ordering of dinner, took advantage of its conclusion to say, through huskiness and hesitation, that she had been thinking it well over, and had decided on it, in spite of her attachment to the family and heartfelt desire to cause it no inconvenience. Being pressed to say what she had decided on—which she had not so far mentioned—she had turned the colour of a tomato, and with a determined rush had said: "I have decided, ma'am, to change my condition," and had then revealed the corn-factor with such a tremendous accent on his first syllable that an impression followed it in the mind of Bob Challis, the boy, home for the holidays, that factors of many other goods had been under consideration, and that Mr. Soul had been the fortunate candidate. For his name was actually Seth Soul.

This, of course, was at the Christmas following Challis père's visit to Royd. But Mrs. Barclay had kept her condition unchanged for the time being, to oblige Miss Marianne, which was how she as often as not spoke of Mrs. Challis. That lady had really exerted herself to find a substitute, any plausible application having been referred for settlement to the corn-factor's fiancée. That very honest woman had denounced and rejected every candidate for the place so far. She applied the same formula to all: "It don't speak much for her"—that there was such a flaw in her register, or such a defect in her demeanour. It didn't speak much for one that she had just taken a twelvemonth's leisure at a relative's; or for another that she smelt of spirits at that time in the morning; or for another that she nearly came tumblin' down the kitchen flight, and couldn't walk straight. It certainly didn't. But it spoke volumes for Mrs. Barclay's integrity that she rejected them all, when, by accepting one, she might have flown straight to the corn-factor and nested under his wing, the minute her things were got.

The acceptance of our friend Aunt Stingy was the result of desperation, as we have hinted, on Mrs. Challis's part. However, to do her justice, she tried to shift the responsibility off her own shoulders.

"I should not have dared to send her packing after what you said this morning, Titus," said she; scarcely, perhaps, quite fairly. But Titus replied good-humouredly—for think how well that chapter had started!—"Never mind, Polly Anne! I'll be responsible. She'll turn out all right enough, I dare say."

And thus it had come about that Mrs. Steptoe found herself, within six weeks of her husband's death, in a situation where, although its standard of cooking was no better than that of most English houses of the same type, she was hard put to it to keep up the pretence of any knowledge at all. A very slight early experience had to go a long way, and detection and conviction would have ensued if Marianne Challis had profited by her dozen of years of housekeeping. But Elizabeth Barclay had been a treasure; and treasures—that is to say, persons who don't drink, can roast and boil, and know three sorts of soup—make it quite unnecessary for any English mistress to give any thought to the subject. The new cook, too, was entrenched in a strong position. Who shall say that any chance person who does not know how to pull and grill now was incompetent to pull and grill ten or fifteen years ago? Or that it is impossible that she passed a culinary youth in contact with mayonnaise sauce, truffles, or Gorgonzola cheese, and yet should in that period have forgotten the very names of them? The problem Aunt Stingy had to solve was how to acquire knowledge without admitting ignorance. And the attitude she took up in the pursuit of this object was that of a higher cult graciously stooping to accommodate itself to insular prejudice or mere bucolic barbarism. She elicited a great deal of information by dwelling on skilful achievements hard to believe in, but practised for all that in the Augustan age of her experience, for the tables of an almost Parisian circle of connoisseurs. There was danger in the method, but her intrepidity was more than Murat-like. As, for instance, when, apropos of omelettes, she said that "we"—that is, the cooks attached to that circle—always made them without eggs. On learning that omelettes contained nothing but eggs, she exclaimed with the greatest presence of mind, "Oh yes!—what we used to call egg-pancakes."

"I'm afraid you'll have to give this woman the sack, Polly Anne. She can't cook worth a cent." Thus Mr. Challis, sampling something one day at lunch, perhaps an omelette without eggs.

"Oh, do have a little patience, Titus!"

"Well—of course we must give her a fair trial. I didn't mean immediately."

"Anyone would have thought you did. And it only upsets me, and does no good at all. Do leave it alone till Elizabeth Barclay has shown her one or two of her receipts. She's very willing to learn, and goes to chapel." For Marianne was disposed to be lazy about this as about other things, and was inclined to temporize. If Mrs. Steptoe could be educated, why not retain Mrs. Steptoe? "Even if you dined out every night for a time—you know you can; look at all those invitations!—it would be better than having to go through it all again. Oh dear!"

But Challis was not anxious either to dine out every night, or to quarrel over the dinners at home. He was really well pleased with himself and his surroundings, when he could feel that he had passed a comfortable domestic evening free from self-questionings and collisions with—well!—that disorder he made the awkward compound word for. But he never got off without scars. When he thought he had succeeded, after a very well-executed quiet evening with his wife, in saying to himself:

really almost with earnestness!—all the wind was taken out of his sails by a perfectly uncalled-for reflection on Marianne's education. He was angry after with himself for making it. Besides, no one in his senses could ascribe any abnormal culture to.... Never you mind!—what on earth had she to do with it?

The fact is that, at this date of the story, some two or three weeks after we last heard his voice in that cab that drew up in Grosvenor Square, Challis was keeping watch and ward over his love of his own home and the mother of his two children. His other world—especially the brilliant and fascinating one that centred in the Megatherium Theatre and the preparation of his new play—was both courted and kept at bay by him. He could make no strong stand against its temptations; but he could resent them, and did so. And whenever his conscience—however he nicknamed it—had been especially intrusive, he could always rebuke it by a little more home life than usual, by a more patient toleration of some home discomfort. He did not see that the very fact of his doing penance, as it were, for his enjoyment of that outer world of enchantment, was really opening a postern-gate to admit the enemy his culverins were pounding from the battlements. When he paid himself out for that delightful supper with the Megatheriums in the small hours of the morning by showing forbearance over Mrs. Steptoe's fatuous attempts at cookery, he was no more conscious that he was really pleading guilty on the main issue than was Judith Arkroyd, when she declined an invitation to join it, conscious that she was only hedging against her dallyings with perfect truth and honour towards her family in keeping back the lengths she had gone in rehearsals of the part of Aminta Torrington. Mrs. Steptoe's greasy cookery and a dull pompous dinner at the Duke's each did duty as a salve to conscience without the unwilling sharers in either detecting their own self-deception. But it was good for Mr. Ramsey Tomes, who took Miss Arkroyd in to the banquet and bored her by his appreciation more than by his talk; which Judith mimicked extremely well, to Mr. Challis's great delight, when she met him next day at the theatre. And it was good for Mrs. Steptoe, who between Challis's penances and Marianne's indisposition for another excursion into disengaged-cook land, seemed likely to attain the low standard of excellence we have mentioned as satisfactory to the British housekeeper.

Marianne gave her husband no help. Of course, she was not bound to. We know! No woman is under any legal obligation to assist her husband against himself, if his affections—promised at the altar, don't you see?—become weak-kneed and uncertain. He may have to love uphill, but he must take his chance of that. Still, she need not skid his wheels or put stones in his path. But did Marianne do so?

In our opinion she did. Mere words, told in a story, go for little; a shade of accent makes them much or nothing. How, we ask you, did Bob Challis, Rugby-sharpened, know that his mater, whenever she made an allusion to churches or chapels, was having a fling at his Governor? How did Bob know that his Governor was making no answer in italics, as one might say, when he turned to him and said: "Got your new skates, human schoolboy? Let's have a look! Now, why is it no new strap ever has a hole in the right place?" And made conversation, transparently. Bob did know, somehow; and had he been present to hear his mother say that Mrs. Steptoe went to Chapel, he would have quite understood her inflection of voice to convey an addendum, "which you don't; or, at least, Church, and you wouldn't say the responses if you did."

If Mrs. Challis would only have left that point alone, it would have made a world of difference in her relation with her husband. Why would she not? He had left her free to secure salvation, not only to her own children, but to her nephew or stepson, whichever you like to call Bob. And he had made no conditions except that he himself should be allowed the luxury of perdition on his own terms. "You let me go to the Devil my own way, Polly Anne," he had said, "and you shall have poor Kate's boy, and tell him any gammon you like." Perhaps the reason why he said—just now in the story—"Docta conjux, indeed!" may have been some memory of how, when Bob blacked another boy's eye for calling the Founder of Christianity a Jew, Marianne had defended his action, and condemned the other boy for impiety and heathenism. "And you know I'm right, Titus," said the lady triumphantly.

Of course, it is impossible to say that a really honest fulfilment of the religious bargain would have diverted the current of events into another channel. All the story points to is that if Challis could have reposed on the bosom of his "docta conjux" with less fear of its bristling suddenly—like the image of the Virgin with which the Inquisition convinced the most sceptical—with suggestions of precept or reproof, even as the blessed image shot out spikes, then there would have been one needless apple of discord the less. And if Marianne had carried out her half of the compact, Titus would certainly have been more scrupulous in saying, before the boy, things of a racy nature on subjects of reverence in the eyes of all Christendom and many thoughtful persons outside it. It wasn't fair to Marianne, who had no sense of humour at all, to develope an old line of critical analysis of the Scriptures for the benefit of Bob; to consider that young man, in fact, as a Bible Class, anxious to discover and record the first mentions of all the trades, all the professions, all the popular complaints delicacy allows to be canvassed in public, all the sports and all the winners, in a volume his mother regarded as sacred. What did it matter how indistinct an idea she had of what she meant by the word sacred, or anything else? She might at least have been spared one especial atrocity—the first mention of pugilism. To do him justice, however, Challis was not himself guilty of this triumph of successful research, which we need not record here. It came home from school with Bob next Easter holidays, and Bob teemed and twinkled with it until at last he got the chance of delivering it into his father's ear as he sat astride of his knee, with all the license of a boy just released from the classics.

"You young scaramouch! Where do you expect to go to? Don't you go and tell your mother that!" For Challis, in the presence of this youth, kept up a certain parade of potential reverence, available in extreme cases. He could countenance the first mention of Cannibalism—"The woman tempted me, and I did eat." But this one ran near the confines of the unpermissible—overpast them.

"Shuttleworth and Graves Minor's going to tell their sisters. Because they'll be in such an awful rage!"

"A very low motive. Perhaps you'll be good enough to regulate your conduct on better models than Shuttleworth and Graves Minor."

"Their father's a Bishop. At least, Graves Minor's is. He only allows him a shilling a month pocket-money. He's gone to his aunts Jane and Mary's for the holidays because they're infectious...."

"Which—the holidays or the aunts? Pay attention to your antecedents, young man!"

"Neither. They're infectious at home; they've got scarlet fever. He's awfully glad, because his Aunt Jane lives in a haunted house, and he can get out on the leads. I say, pater!"

"What, offspring?"

"When's that lady coming that gave me my skates at Christmas, and the 'Lives of the Buccaneers'?"

"I don't know. I can't say. Some day." Challis has become reserved suddenly. "Give me the little Japanese ash-pan, and find yourself a chair. A strong one, I should recommend." For Bob is at that pleasant growing age that has relapses into babyhood, if not checked by a hint now and then. He accepts the hint this time, but declines the chair, preferring to lean over the back of his father's, and pull his hair.

"The mater hates her. I don't." Now, if this had been said immediately, it would have seemed much slighter conversation, easy to pass by. Coming after a good pause of hairpulling, it implied a confidence in the speaker's mind that his hearer's had been dwelling, during that pause, on the person he didn't hate and his mother did.

"It's no concern of any young monkey's who his mother hates or doesn't hate."

"Well!—it's true. And I say it's a beastly shame. After all, it wasn't her fault that it thawed."

"You unblushing young egotist! Is the whole world to be nothing but skates—skates—skates? Whose fault wasn't it? Your mother's?"

"No fear! The mater wanted me to chuck it up, and not skate at all. Rather!" This youth's language depends for expression on a tone of overstrained contempt for experience outside his own. But the desert of his egotism has oases. He reaches one now, and says in quite a natural voice: "I say, pap!"

"Go on, human creature!"

"Shall I tell you what me and Cat...."

"What who?" This is accompanied by a pantomimic threat of extermination.

"Well! Cat and I, then ... what we call her, when we're alone?"

"By all means. Only look alive! Because your father's cigar is waning, and copy is behindhand. Go it!"

"We call her Judy. Cat and I do. Short for Judith."

"You'll make your little sister as bad as yourself, and she's too sharp by half already. How do you know her name's Judith? It might be Sarah—or Euterpe."

"But it ain't. It's Judith."

"Ah!—but how do you know? That's the point."

"Because we listened. And we knew the mater meant her."

Perhaps if Master Bob had seen his father's face, it would have checked his outflow of virgin candour. But he was behind him, and saw nothing. Challis was balancing a nice question in his mind. Ought he not to check this revelation? Was it not like eavesdropping to listen to it? He decided that he might, as Marianne would surely never say before the children anything she would not wish him to hear. But he wanted to know, too. Still, he was conscious enough of his wish to know, to find it necessary to impute his reluctance to be influenced by it to that mental vice he had invented a name for.

"How did you know your mother meant her? How did you know she didn't mean the new cook?"

"No fear! Her name's Priscilla. Besides, the mater calls her Steptoe. Besides, Aunt Lotty did it, too."

"Did what? What did Aunt Lotty do?"

"Called her Judith. Cat heard her, same as me."

"Probably you ought to say 'same as I,' young man. But it may be an open question." Challis paused, half-minded to request his promising son and heir to keep his confidences in reserve. But the evil genius of himself or Marianne stepped in, and caused Catharine, the little girl, who was still under seven, to sing with her mouth shut as she hung over the bannisters in the passage outside. Master Bob immediately left off pulling his father's hair and rushed to the door, shouting loud enough for the Universe to hear, "Didn't she, Cat?" and ended a perfectly orthodox interview for the collection of evidence by lugging the witness in, nearly upside down, to testify.

"Put your sister down, you young ruffian—do you hear?" And Challis adds under his breath: "Much good your school's doing you!" But the young persons explain simultaneously, "That's how we do," not without pride in an ancient usage.

Now, this little provincialism, or scrap of folklore, had its share in moulding events. For consider!—if a Sabine woman, after Rubens, had been put down right-end-up, anxious to make a statement, who could have refused to listen to her? Challis, who would not have objected to hearing no more of what Aunt Lotty said, felt bound to take the readjusted maiden on his knee—she wasn't Sabine, and he could—and get at the upshot of her disjointed testimony. Master Bob, following ascertained usage, dictated or suggested her evidence; and nipped anticipated statement in the bud, at his convenience. Between the two of them, however, it was clear-enough what sort of talk had gone on between their mother and Aunt Lotty.

"After all," said the vexed man to himself, after packing off his young informants to presumable mischief elsewhere—"after all, what can it matter if Marianne did say in a moment of irritation that I might go away to ..." he paused on the next two words, and finished without them abruptly "... altogether if I liked?" Then he tormented himself a little about his own shrinking from uttering the words "my Judith," and ended by saying them in a cowardly way, under his breath, to show his independence.

He was sitting in his library at the time, opposite to a half-written sheet of foolscap. It was copy, waiting for more copy, which came not. Challis denied his self-accusation that this was owing to the way that fool of a woman's words had upset him—meaning Charlotte Eldridge; he absolved his wife. Had he not often to wait for an idea, to get a start with? Let him see, where was he? Oh yes!—where Estrild tears off her jewels and flings them at the Ostrogoths. Judith Arkroyd would be simply magnificent there! For this was the great tragedy he had promised Judith he would try his hand on expressly for her. How that incomparable arm and hand would tell, with Estrild's blood visible on it, torn by the bracelet her vehemence had plucked off!...

Very likely it was all a blunder of the kid's, and Charlotte Eldridge had never said any such thing. Was it likely she would say, "Of course, Titus calls her Judith, when they're alone"? Still, the deposition did sound like that, and that was a damnable mischief-making woman, mind you! Challis was conscious, as he said this to himself, of an image of Charlotte Eldridge, rather a graceful one, turning an impish glance over her shoulder to see the effect of some apple of discord, just thrown. There was a skittishness about this image, a skirt-sweep, that was true to life. So was the becoming hat the odious woman always wore indoors whenever she could, with that meaning feather in it. How Challis hated her as he thought to himself that they all meant, somehow, her studentship in the University in which that dowdy Eros, whom we mentioned before, was Dean of the Faculty of Discord-breeding between a lady and gentleman, about a gentleman or lady. But they were the constituents of a Stylish Female, according to John Eldridge, her husband, the victim of peritonitis.

"Come in!" No wonder Mr. Challis said it a little impatiently, when a knock came at his study-door, because he had just got his idea, and was at last effectively at work again upon the Ostrogoths. The impatience caused Marianne, who had knocked, to say that another time would do as well. But to her husband's sensitive hearing the tone, distant and severe, in which she said it spoke volumes. And the Tables of Contents of those volumes related to gulfs placed between married couples resident in Wimbledon by fashionable beauties with a turn for the stage. It was a large order for a mere tone of voice, but it was quite filled out, as the commercial phrase it. Challis could not possibly allow Marianne to depart, closing the door with aggressive gentleness. It would have been checking the items of the large order. "Come back!" he shouted. "What is it? How can you be absurd, Polly Anne? Come in!"

Polly Anne came in, but every step of her entry was fraught with instant withdrawal. "I won't keep you a minute, because of Steptoe and the dinner," she said, jumbling her context horribly. "Only I must know if you're going out or not."

Challis really tried to be jolly and good-natured over it. "Oh no! it's all right," said he. "I'm at home to-night."

"You had better make sure." She spoke rather like an iceberg—a forbearing one, but still an iceberg. "Look at your cards on the chimney-piece."

Now, the fact was that the lady knew the position, having gone over the ground the evening before in her husband's absence. "The pink card!" said she. And thus guided, Challis found himself brought to book—convicted of inconsiderate forgetfulness alike of his friend and his household. "I wish you would be more careful," said the iceberg.

"But I really did think the Acropolis was to-morrow, the twenty-third."

"To-day is the twenty-third." One more degree of frost on the iceberg.

"I thought to-day was Wednesday." A feeble effort to extenuate.

"To-day is Thursday. You see on the card. It doesn't matter. I can easily arrange with Steptoe.... Oh no!—you can't throw them over at the last moment. Quite absurd!"

"Well!—I'm awfully sorry."

"It makes no difference at all. Now, I won't disturb you any more." And the iceberg retired.

But if Challis had given way to his first impulse, had run after his wife, kissed her, said good-humouredly, "Don't be miffy, Polly Anne!—I shall be at home to-morrow. And you know the Acropolites did ask you too"—had he done this, all might have gone better. But his impulse was weakened by the thought—or the knowledge—that his wife knew perfectly well when she entered the room that he had this engagement, and must already have made all her household arrangements with reference to it. He resented her insincerity, and though he rose from his chair and went towards the door, his resentment had the best of it half-way, and he bit his lip and returned, looking vexed. Now, why couldn't she have said honestly to him at breakfast, "Recollect, to-night's the Acropolis dinner"? He was in such a state of sensitive irritation that, just as he was getting into stroke again, he had a new upset—caught a crab, as it were—because Estrild reminded him of Eldridge, and brought the whole vexation back in full force!

CHAPTER XX

MRS. ELDRIDGE IN FULL BLOW. THE IMPROPER STUDY OF MANKIND. NOTHING REALLY WRONG! AN IDENTIFICATION WITH A VENGEANCE. HOW CHALLIS CAME HOME LATE

Be good enough to note that none of the characters in this story are picturesque or heroic—only chance samples of folk such as you may see pass your window now, this moment, if you will only lay your book down and look out. They are passing—passing all day long—each with a story. And some little thing you see, a meeting, a parting, a quickened step, a hesitation and return, may make the next hour the turning-point of an existence. For it is of such little things the great ones are made; and this is a tale made up of trifles—trifles touching human souls that, for aught we know to the contrary, may last for ever.

It is the share Marianne had in a thousand little things like the triviality with which our last chapter ended that makes us say that she gave her husband no help against himself. Many a time a word of concession from her, in answer to any of his unspoken appeals for help—for the plain truth is, he made many such appeals—might have led to a rushed embrace of reconciliation, and a flood of not altogether uncontrite tears from her, and even some from him; for though one may pity him, he cannot be held absolutely blameless. The fact is, Alfred Challis had loved this Marianne even better than ever he did her sister, Bob's mother—loved her, that is, as men love what is called beauté de diable, and a kind of rough, good-natured manner. Besides, see how good she was with the boy!

If there had been no core of jealous reserve born of overstrained self-respect inside this rosy-seeming apple—if the girl would have obligingly matured without change—she would always have remained Polly Anne, as of old. But the core was there, and there Challis was to find it, after a pleasant year or so of experience of the outside of the fruit—the best part. Hence she came to be Marianne rather than Polly Anne to him, oftener and oftener; Mrs. Challis rather than Marianne to friends; and "your mother" rather than "mamma" to the children.

She was not the woman for the position in which she found herself. There was really only one chance of steady sailing for the domestic ship, and that was that she should go everywhere with her husband, brave the snubs of the scornful toff, laugh at her own inferiorities, and, above all, rejoice publicly at every new success of her husband. Inwardly she may have done the last; all the other conditions she failed in. The one chance was not caught at, and this man found himself alternately in the brilliant world of Imperial London, made much of, looked up to as an authority and quoted, refusing from sheer plenitude welcomes to one rich house after another—all these on the one hand, and on the other—suppose we put it briefly—Mrs. Steptoe.

If Marianne had only had a friend who would have pointed out the exaggerated nature of her impressions about the motley crew we owe so much to Sir Bernard Burke for telling the likes of us about! A friend, even, who would have said to her, "Don't give way to jealous pride, stupid; but go and observe the ways of the human toff, and come home and tell me, ici bas. I'll do your hair for you." But there was none such!—only Charlotte Eldridge!

Mrs. Eldridge certainly got some satisfaction out of the concern; it would have been a sad pity if no one had got any. It was all in the way of her own specialty, the proper—or improper—study of her kind. It may as well be admitted that the conversation the children overheard part of had run thus:

"I don't think, dear, that my feeling uneasy whenever John is out of my sight ought to count. John is a fool. Besides, girls that apply for situations are very mixed, whether telegraph or sorters. The most dangerous class of girl may apply. The safeguard in his case is that there is so little reserve in his nature. When his admiration is excited he always makes grimaces about them, and then I know who, at once. If taxed with them he always whistles popular airs and shuts one eye. 'Pop goes the Weasel' or 'Tarara-boomdeay.' But I try to believe he knows where to draw the line. This case is different."

"I don't see the difference."

"The girls are different. This Miss Sibyl What's-her-name...."

"The one Titus admires so much is Judith. Sibyl's the Art Coiffure one, that wanted to do my hair like a picture of Titian's...."

"Titian's mistress, I suppose. They did, then. Well!—I meant Judith. Don't you see how entirely different the cases are? Judith's position!—the publicity, dear!—the whole thing!..."

"No!—I see no difference."

"My dear!—what nonsense! Do you mean to say ... why, only look how he 'Miss Arkroyds' and 'Miss Sibyls' them! One judges from little things."

"When we're here, Titus does. But when they're alone...?"

"Well, of course! When they're alone, Mr. Challis may call her Judith. I don't say he does, but suppose he does, what does it all amount to?... Now don't be unreasonable, Marianne dear!"

"I am not unreasonable, Charlotte.... Nonsense! I'm not crying about it. I wouldn't be such a fool. But all I can say is, if Titus wants to go away to his Judith, let him go? I don't want to keep him, against his will.... What are those children at, in there?" At which point the conversation may stop.

Incidentally, it helps us to see that Sibyl had lent herself to an effort, which seemed to her—as to us—a politic one, to induce Mrs. Alfred Challis to be a little more coming and tractable. She quite appreciated that friendship between her sister and Challis, if Marianne was included in it, would be a very different thing from the same thing, conditioned otherwise. And when she called at the Hermitage with her sister, she was strongly impressed that scandal, if any arose, would be the more dangerous unless Marianne could be induced to change her attitude, which suggested that of a civil tigress, with a grievance against the jungle.

"You needn't make a fuss about me," said Mrs. Challis to her husband, just departing for the Acropolis Club. He always went through an apologetic phase, partly real, every time he deserted the domestic hearth. This time his remorse was superficial; for surely Marianne might just as well have accompanied him to this entertainment. You know the Acropolis Club, no doubt?—a cock-and-hen club of the purest water, with about the proportion of hens one sees in farmyards. He would have preferred her coming. However, he wasn't to make a fuss about her; that was settled. It was fine, she said; and Charlotte had said she would come in if it was fine. Challis became aware that Charlotte must have said she would come in, sometime before he himself had been reminded of his engagement to go out. His remorse vanished all the quicker, and he was beginning to enjoy his clean shirt-front—a phrase his mind put by for his next story on any light social subject—before his hansom landed him at Wimbledon Station. The Acropolis, you remember, is barely ten minutes cab from Waterloo, so this way did perfectly.

"John finds it do better," said Mrs. Eldridge, arriving in due course. "Only when he wants a walk he goes by East Putney, because the District saves him at the other end. Eight o'clock dinner, I suppose. Besides, they won't be punctual. They never are, nowadays." This was said to show how thoroughly au fait the speaker was of the ways of fashionable life. It was mere talk by the way, unspiced by direct reference to any Eros, respectable or otherwise.

"I know nothing about them," said Marianne damningly—that is, so far as a suggestion that she was none the worse thereby could condemn. Another, that it was best to know little of the class referred to, was latent. It rankled though, all the more that Mrs. Eldridge's expressive silence recognized its existence better than words. A garrulous person's silence may have all the force of a pause in a symphony. When the bâton of Mrs. Eldridge's conductor, Mischief, allowed the music to steal gently in again, it came on tiptoe, with subtle finished skill; a pianissimo flute-phrase in the stillness, harbinger perhaps of a volume of sound.

"Couldn't you—Marianne dear—couldn't you...?"

"Couldn't I what?" It may be unfair to use the adjective grumpy to describe this question. When a lady beds her chin in both hands, with her elbows on her knees, and gazes at a slow-combustion stove doing its best, while she speaks, her words may have an altogether false effect.

"Ah—well! Perhaps I oughtn't to say.... Never mind, dear! Let's talk of something else. How's Mrs. Steptoe getting on with her soups?" A brisk rally of the orchestra—a rousing thrill on the drum. But too artificial!

"Elizabeth Barclay's been here to-day, to show her about blotting-paper. Greasy, and then Titus grumbles. But what did you mean to say?"

The conductor hushes the orchestra—gives gentle permission again to the flute. "No, dear, I oughtn't to say. Because I know how you feel about it, exactly. But what I thought of saying was...."

"Yes. Do go on, Charlotte!"

"Couldn't you have made up your mind to go—just this once? Because you were asked, this time."

"I shouldn't have enjoyed myself."

"Of course not, dear! Neither should I. But you know what I think. It all turns on a question of prudence. Anything is better than an esclandre." The other instruments come in again, and the conductor is warming to his work.

"I don't see why we want anything French in it. There's nothing of that sort, so far as I know."

"Of course not, with the people!" Given, that is, this character cast, Parisian laxities have no chance. But distinctions must be made. "Nobody's the least likely to do, but people will say, exactly the same as if they did do." Better expressed by Hamlet, in the plague he offered poor Ophelia as a dowry! Who shall escape calumny?

Marianne mutters something her friend takes to be, "I don't care what people say." The orchestra—pursuing our strained musical metaphor—sees a crescendo phrase ahead, and the conductor interprets it as accelerando.

"That's where you're so wrong, dear—do forgive me for saying it! But you are wrong. Pure and honest natures like yours always make that mistake. Of course you know, and I know—we all know—that to speak of anything really wrong in the same breath with your husband would be absurd, and even this fashionable girl for that matter. I mean, you know, really wrong." A nod-supported whisper—the music goes to pianissimo quite suddenly; consider the sharp ears of Mrs. Steptoe, and Harmood, in the kitchen! But enough of that. Our text calls for no secrecies; brush them aside, and resume without pedals, but con espressione. "But everyone is not like you, dear! So many people take pleasure in putting—well! the most horrid constructions on the most innocent.... What?" For Mrs. Charlotte had stopped to gloat so long over the first syllable of innocent—she did not enjoy the "horrid constructions" half so much—that she had not heard what Marianne said. Who, on request, repeated it:

"I didn't say I didn't care what people said ... oh well!—I've forgotten what I did say now, and it doesn't matter. Anyhow, I consider I've done my duty, and now I simply won't go to any of their dinners, come what may, Acropolis Club or no! So there!" This is a stronger ground than a plea of simple non-enjoyment as a cause of abstention, and Charlotte makes no protest. Her mind, too, is attracted by another point. She speaks dreamily to express that it is feeling its way, as through a mist, to illumination.

"What was it ... oh, don't you know? Lewis Smithson heard it ... oh dear!—what was the name of the club now? One of these mixed clubs ... oh no!—of course, I know what the story itself was—you needn't tell me that!... I mean what was the name of the club?" But Marianne cannot help, and conversation can't stop for it. At any rate, it wasn't the Acropolis. Which Mrs. Eldridge repeats more than once confirmatorily, to make the Acropolis safe before resuming the general question. She dismisses the legend itself—what it was does not matter here—as quite unworthy of credence. "I believe Lewis Smithson made it himself," she says. "Anyhow, it's nonsense. For my part, I should say they were much more likely to be stiff and straight up, for fear of its getting about. Besides, who was it you said was coming to this party? Lord and Lady Who?"

"Some name like Albatross."

"Ross Tarbet. Why, my dear, they're the pink! Corstrechan Castle in Banffshire. Oh no!—it's all right enough as far as that goes. But still I do think, if you ask me, it would have been just as well if you hadn't refused."

"Why? I do wish you would speak plainly, Charlotte, and not go round and round."

Mrs. Eldridge won't commit herself to a statement without passing through a period of reflection. It is consistent with the contemplation of the shadow of her free hand, held beyond it, on the screen she is interposing between her face and the fire. Its silhouette of outspread fingers seems to satisfy her, and not to interfere with the thoughts that her drooped eyelids and fixed look are grave about. After quite enough cogitation, she says abruptly: "I wasn't thinking of at the dinner. Nor the rest of the evening. But seeing home comes in. However, if you think of it, she would be with the Ross Tarbets, and they would drive her home. Let's see! The club's in Jermyn Street. Her family are in Grosvenor Square. I fancy the Ross Tarbets are in Park Lane. It's all in the way."

Such talk ought to have had a soothing, reassuring influence. Miss Arkroyd under the wing of a live Countess, safe of an escort to the paternal mansion, what more could be asked? Nevertheless, there is an hysterical sound—to Mrs. Eldridge's experienced ear—in the laugh with which Marianne says: "What silly nonsense! As if it made any difference to me if Titus saw the girl home in twenty cabs!"

"Because you have such confidence in Titus, my dear. And that is right! I wouldn't trust John myself. But he's different."

If Marianne had been in the least a humorist, the image of Mr. Eldridge, in danger from an aristocratic enchantress, seeking to unsettle his devotion to the stylish female he could now call his own, would have drawn from her a more genuine laugh than her last. But she was in no mood for laughing, and the greatest booby in Christendom might have passed muster with her as a parallel to her husband. We are not prepared to say he had not done so in the present case.

Marianne got up uneasily from the low chair she sat on before the fire; took another, but did not keep it long; rose again, and walked restlessly about the room. Unlike her!—so thought her companion, glancing up at her keenly, but furtively. Mrs. Eldridge had no definite plan of mischief; she only wanted the luxury of caressing her favourite subject. She felt a little alarmed, and rather wished the disquieted one would sit down again. But Marianne showed no tendency to do so. On the contrary, she said suddenly: "I forgot to tell Martha those underthings must not go to the wash. That woman always shrinks them," and left the room. Mrs. Eldridge heard her bedroom door close above, but no sound of colloquy with Martha. Then her attention was taken off by a tap at the door, whose executant she gave leave to come in.

It was Mrs. Steptoe, meek and creditable as an evening-cook; to wit, one that has done her washing-up. A sense of chapel hangs upon her, and the cough she gives as preface to speech seems conscious of its indebtedness to a pause in some sort of devotional service undefined. Her widowhood and the distinction of her sudden loss have given Aunt Stingy a chastened identity. But though in the ascendant, she will not obtrude herself. Mrs. Challis—servants seem lately to have left off saying missis and master—not being to the fore, she will retire and remain in abeyance, exceptin' rang for. It was only to remind about ordering Huntley and Palmer, Mr. Challis being that particular. But Mrs. Challis would be back directly, said Mrs. Eldridge. Aunt Stingy, nothing loth, would remain to chat.

Interrogated, Lizarann's aunt is finding the place comfortable. The ketching chemley draws a little imperfect, certainly; but the boiler full up, if hot over-night, lastis on the next day, and any quantity. A great convenience! It is noticeable about Mrs. Steptoe's speech that it does not improve when she tries to talk up to her company. When she spoke to her equals in Tallack Street, without desire to impress, she was provincial and unpolished, but seldom Cockney. Now, her attempts to be classical and win respect from Mrs. Eldridge are failures.

"What sort of a place was Mrs. Fossett's!"

"Miss!—excusin' my makin' bold to correct. But not in a place there. Only as a reference."

"Where was your last place, then?" But Mrs. Steptoe explained, with many reserves and sidelights, that she had never been truly in service; having led, broadly speaking, a regal life, until she married beneath her, but, nevertheless, into a respectable trade connection. The suggestion that her husband's brain had been affected rounded off a tale that hinted at ancestry and a pursuing evil destiny—the race of Laius! "But you used to cook, wherever you were, once," said Mrs. Eldridge, wedded to practical issues.

"Oh, there, now!—cook, indeed! Why, I was sayin', only today, to Miss Harmood, 'If you could have seen the table they kep' at Sea View, soups and jellies and made-up dishes and the whole attention left to me, in the manner of speakin'.' Owing, ma'am, you see, to uncertain health, my aunt's sister—in charge of the establishment—suffering with a complication, and terminated fatally eleven years this Easter Day. Coming back to me, naturally, with the season." A retrospective sigh, over life's changes, came well in here.

"Was it a sort of private hotel, or boarding-house?" Mrs. Eldridge thought she saw light.

Mrs. Steptoe conveyed general assent, without close definition. "But very select!" she added. And Mrs. Eldridge said, "Of course," entirely without reason.

Aunt Stingy felt encouraged, and made up her mind to resume in full all particulars of the banquet we have heard about. After all, she is not the only person that ever dwelt overmuch on scanty incidents of slight importance in themselves; but oases, for all that, in the arid stretches of an eventless life. Besides—as her tale showed after Mrs. Eldridge had heard all about the splendid cooking accommodation of this establishment at Ramsgate, and full particulars almost of every dish on the table—there was revealed a curious sequel to this seaside dissipation, which no doubt would have been communicated to Mrs. Challis, if that lady had been as inquisitive as her friend. For Mrs. Charlotte hearing of an occasion—fifteen years ago!—when six or eight persons of either sex had dined together, forthwith smelt rats, and made for their places of concealment with the alacrity of a Dandie Dinmont.

"You seem to remember them all very well, Mrs. Steptoe."

"Along of what followed, no doubt, ma'am." The speaker appeared to become suddenly reserved, but awaiting catechism for all that.

Mrs. Eldridge's shrewd intelligence reached the issue promptly. "Perhaps you promised not to tell it. Don't tell me!" This would have disappointed Aunt Stingy, if she had believed it genuine. But she didn't, and confirmation of her disbelief came. "Only really, it's so long ago! It's almost ridiculous." The catechumen still awaited pressure. "But do just as you feel, Mrs. Steptoe. Of course, it's no affair of mine."

Aunt Stingy laughed slightingly, to remove the matter from among grave responsibilities. "Ho, as for that," she said, "I was never under any promise—only Mr. and Mrs. Hallock wished no reference made. Only, as you was sayin', such a many years after.... Is that Mrs. Challis coming?" But it wasn't.

"She's speaking to Martha upstairs. She won't come yet." Mrs. Eldridge betrays her curiosity—is very transparent. So urged, Aunt Stingy gives, not at all obscurely, a narrative some ten minutes long, which, for all purposes of this story, may be condensed as follows:—

The Mr. and Mrs. Hallock who figure in it had, for some not very evident reasons, felt justified in abetting the marriage of their nursery-governess with a man supposed to be of good means and antecedents, with the full knowledge that this marriage was concealed from her family, and was to remain so for a term. The dinner that was Aunt Stingy's culinary triumph was a festivity to welcome this happy couple on their return from a short honeymoon. The young gentleman named as Harris among the guests was a friend of the bridegroom. So far, nothing very criminal. But there was a sequel. The Hallocks, returning next season to the same apartments, where it seemed they spent every summer, frequently referred to the affair, but always with surprise that no news had reached them of the wedded couple, and this in spite of inquiries by letter. "Ungrateful girl!" was their verdict. One morning towards the end of their stay they were dumbfounded by an advertisement of a wedding, in the Telegraph. The bride actually bore the name of their ex-governess—her maiden name, that is—while the bridegroom's was, to their nearest recollection, that of the friend who had been introduced to them as Mr. Harris the year before. That was the substance of Mrs. Steptoe's story.

"They were that surprised," she said, "you might have knocked either of 'em down with an electric shock. 'My word,' says Mr. Hallock, 'to think of that!' he says. 'Then Horne must be dead, and that girl married to his friend already! And not so much as a letter!'... Oh yes! Mr. Hallock, he was resentful like, but Mrs. Hallock, she leans across to him, and she says: 'My dear, it's a coincidence! Kate never would—never! I knew the girl,' she says. So she talked him down, and they put it at a coincidence, and let it go."

"But did you hear no more?"

"They heard—not me! Or only remarks fell by chance. There come a letter next day, and they was a-talking and she a-crying over it. Little scraps they let drop, loud enough to reach. 'Ho, the miscreant!' and 'The licensual scoundrel!' And then Mrs. Hallock she says: 'Whatever could possess us, Edwin, not to make more certain about the ceremony?' Then they see me, and dropped to a whisper. Only saying to me after, not to repeat anything I'd heard, which I made the promise, as requested."

"There's Mrs. Challis coming. I wish you could have been more sure of the names, because it's interesting. Couldn't you think them up a little?"

Mrs. Steptoe cogitated. Hallock, of course, she said. Because she knew them a long time. But the other names hardly, to be any surer. Except it was the young lady's single name. Because that she see in the newspaper, when she come to look at the advertisement. Then she must have seen the bridegroom's name, said her interrogator. It seemed not; the glance was a hurried one. But she was sure about the girl's. It was Catherine Verrall.

This story has only had occasion once to refer to the name of Challis's first wife, Marianne's half-sister. And though Mrs. Eldridge had often talked with her friend about this half-sister, dead five or six years before the families became acquainted, it was always about "Kate"—no other name—or "my sister" when Marianne was the speaker. It is quite an open question whether she would at once have felt the name familiar, if it had not been for Bob's full name. Her knowledge that it was Robert Verrall Challis was perhaps what made her say, "What?—what's that?—did you say Verrall?" with stimulated interest. Mrs. Steptoe repeated "Catherine Verrall" quite distinctly, just as her mistress, returning, opened the door. Mrs. Eldridge hoped, without having had time to make up her mind why, that Marianne had not heard the name. For a few moments she thought she had not. The whole thing happened very rapidly.

Mrs. Steptoe delivered her reminder about Huntley and Palmer's Oatmeal Biscuits, to be ordered with the stores. Mrs. Challis had not forgotten them. One or two other small matters were referred to, and then Mrs. Steptoe said good-night with due humility, and departed. She was instructed not to sit up for Master Bob, who had gone to a neighbour's to assist in acting charades. Marianne would let him in. She did not resume her seat by the fire, but lay down on the sofa, away from it. She had a flushed, turbulent look, and a smell of eau-de-Cologne, backed by ruffled hair over the forehead, conveyed the idea that she had been putting it on her face, to cool it. Mrs. Eldridge felt uneasy. Had she gone too far?

"Was it all right about the flannels?" she asked.

"I think so. I don't know. I didn't see Martha. I felt sick, and lay down.... Oh yes!—I'm all right now."

"No, you're not, dear! You look very flushed. Shan't I get something? A little brandy-and-water?"

"Oh heavens, no!—make me sick! Like on the steamer—the very idea makes me ill! There's nothing the matter."

Mrs. Eldridge wasn't convinced. Should she open the window to let a little air in? She was one of those plaguing people that will remedy, whether you like it or no. Mrs. Challis repulsed her open-window movement with some asperity; reduced her to fiddling with her screen with a fixed gaze of solicitude, fraught with ultimatums about medical advice, failing prompt improvement in the patient.

Marianne remained still on the sofa, with her eyes closed for a few minutes. Then she said suddenly, rather as one who turns to an offered relief: "What were you and Steptoe saying about my sister when I came in?"

Her hearer started; grasped the coincidence of name fully for the first time probably. "Your sister, Marianne.... Why, how?" And then, with a complete perplexity: "How could that be?"

"My sister was Catherine Verrall—my sister Kate, that died. Why were you talking about her?"

"It must have been another Catherine Verral—must have been."

"Who must have been?"

"This girl. Stop, and I'll tell you!... But, really, the coincidence!" And, indeed, Mrs. Charlotte seems almost knocked silly by it, as the pugilists say. Marianne is roused and interested at her perplexity—sits up on the sofa fanning herself with her pocket-handkerchief—seems half inclined to laugh.

"What's it all about, Charlotte?" she says, and then adds—a little passing tribute to the memory abruptly revived—"Poor Kate!"

"Oh, my dear, of course it's nothing to do with poor Kate. Just an odd coincidence of a girl Mrs. Steptoe knew at Ramsgate, I think—years ago!"

"Kate was at Ramsgate, though, when I was a child. She taught music to some people's children. What was their name now?" But the name would not come back, on any terms. Marianne gave it up. Her friend felt actually glad, for the puzzle was too incisive to be pleasant.

"Very likely she was at Ramsgate. Why not? But she hadn't been twice a widow when she married your Titus, at any rate. Come, Marianne!"

"Certainly not! She wasn't nineteen, for one thing. Was this coincidence-lady a widow?"

"Perhaps I had better tell you the story?"

"Much better, I should say." On which Mrs. Eldridge repeats Mrs. Steptoe's tale, neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance, but with a tendency—very common in narratives we pass on to others, but ourselves have no part in—to substitute descriptions or epithets for names. Thus the Mr. and Mrs. Hallock of the original narrative appeared as "this lady and gentleman" until Mrs. Challis, whose puzzled look was on the increase, asked a question about them:

"What were they—this lady and gentleman? What was their name?"

"I fancy he was a coal merchant or dealer in something. Mrs. Steptoe didn't say. The name was Hallock." Mrs. Challis sprang up from the sofa excitedly.

"Charlotte!—what did you say? Hallock?"

"Yes—Hallock. Why not?"

Marianne's breath is quite taken away. "But that is the name I had forgotten—Hallock," she says, as soon as she can speak. "They're in one of those photographs in the old book—the one I brought from mother's." Her speech is rapid and frightened. The strangeness of the story is getting its mastery, and she feels, without imaging them, the ambushes in wait for her. "Oh dear!" she gasps, sinking back again on the sofa, "all this—it's so odd! Charlotte, I'm afraid to look at the photograph."

Charlotte's nerves are stronger, and she, recovered from the momentary alarm her friend had given her, is ready, one might say, to be in mischief again. "Don't be a goose, Marianne," she says. "You're frightened of everything. Do let's get the thing explained, dear, instead of going dotty over it. Which photograph book is it?... left-hand chiffonier?... no?—right-hand ... top shelf?... No!—I won't make a mess.... I expect it's this."

It was, and it exactly confirmed Mrs. Eldridge's anticipation of a coal merchant and his wife, two young daughters, and a governess a few years older than themselves. A stupid seaside photographer's group, but with well-marked face-features. The artist's address in a little oval underneath, conspicuously Ramsgate.

"Of course it's all some confusion of Mrs. Steptoe's," says Mrs. Eldridge. She knows she is talking nonsense, but she wants to calm all troubled waters while she gets her curiosity satisfied. "You'll see she won't recognize any of these—unless you give her hints, Marianne."

This is unprovoked, and Marianne resents it. "Show them to her when I'm not there if you like. Show her now and I'll go. Only I'm afraid they're gone to bed." If they have, no harm in ringing the bell! It is rung, and evolves Harmood, apologetic for not having gone up yet. And then Mrs. Steptoe, even more so.

Marianne does not go, but then that was mere talk. Mrs. Eldridge wants Steptoe—so she tells her—to see if she recognizes a photograph. Aunt Stingy is not dissatisfied to be consulted about anything. Mrs. Eldridge shows diplomacy, astutely getting her to identify Mrs. Challis at different ages. Having put the witness on a false scent, she shows the group, and asks: "Now which of those is Mrs. Challis?"

The witness tried to find an excuse for identification, but failed. But having admitted failure, why hold so tightly to the photo-album?

"Well, Mrs. Steptoe?" Mrs. Eldridge speaks.

"Nothing, ma'am. Oh no!—only what unaccountably caught my eye. Nothing to detain. What would be termed an impression." She relinquished the album slowly with a vaguely constructed "Excusin' the liberty I took, I'm sure!"

"You noticed something, Mrs. Steptoe?"

"In the manner of speaking, yes! But not to detain. It just cut across me like ... yes, ma'am, thank you, just a minute!" For Mrs. Eldridge had said, "Look at it again," and handed the open book back.

Aunt Stingy looked and looked, in more and more visible bewilderment. Pressed to explain it, she at last said: "I can't make no less of it, put it how you may. That's Mr. and Mrs. Hallock I was telling of, just now half-an-hour gone. And that is the young lady."

Iterations, stimulated by an incredulity Mrs. Eldridge affects in order to procure them, are interrupted by a knock at the front door. Mrs. Steptoe departs to open it. It is Mr. Eldridge, to accompany his wife home. He is not, she says, to hurry and fuss, but to sit down and wait, and not knock things over. He makes the remark, "Somethin' up! Easy does it!" implying, perhaps, readiness to wait for enlightenment, and becomes seated, but knocks nothing over. His wife throws him a gleam, to live on. "We are discussing the identity of a photograph," she says.

An occurrence interposes, Master Bob's arrival; the toleration for a few brief moments of exultation over the evening's successes, and his dismissal to bed, rather disgusted at Europe's want of appreciation. Then Mrs. Steptoe, who had retired to admit him, re-enters and resumes.

"Those are the parties I told you, ma'am," says she, in an undertone of confidence brought forward from the previous conversation, rather definitely exclusive of the newcomer, who had overlapped it. But he has his ideas, and as soon as he has thoroughly polished with his wrist the bridge of a nose he has just blown, he offers counsel:

"No name on 'em? Look on the back. Look on the edges where they tuck in. Nothin' like lookin'!" His wife accepts the suggestion without tribute to his sagacity; and when the photo is slipped from the passepartout, there on the back is plainly written: "Mr. and Mrs. Hallock, Nelly, Totty, and self. June, 1888."

"She'll be all right," said Mrs. Eldridge, returning to her husband in the drawing-room a quarter of an hour later. For Mrs. Challis, already upset by her previous interview with her friend, had been in no condition to have it burst upon her suddenly that important events—which she could not the least understand, so far—relating to her sister's life, and perhaps to his own, had been concealed from her by this husband whom she was now called upon to have so much faith in. She had completely broken down; had left the room white as ashes, having been previously flushed and feverish; and had nearly fainted away on the stairs. She had been got safely to bed, and had so far recovered as to be able to say that she should go to sleep soon. Perhaps her chief wish was to be let alone. She wanted to think to the bottom of this photograph story. What was it all about?

But Mr. Eldridge perceived that this sort of weather was trying to some constitutions, and suggested drastic treatment. His wife said, "Be quiet while I write this," and ignored his suggestions. She wrote a brief note to Mr. Challis, and left it in his bedroom candlestick on the hall-table outside. He was sure to see it. She then asked her husband whether he was coming, or was going to go on mooning there indefinitely. He chose the former course without insisting on closer definition of the latter.

A couple of hours later Alfred Challis paid a cabman a shilling too much, to avoid discussion, through his confessional guichet overhead, and escaped from a guillotine—thanks to its momentary forbearance—in a steady shower of rain that had heard that the wind had fallen, and caught at the opportunity to come down. It was lucky he had a waterproof on, though he had only to negotiate the garden's length to reach shelter and discover his latchkey.

He was not in the best of humours; all the more so that Miss Arkroyd, who was to have accompanied the Ross Tarbets, had been unable to do so on account of a sprained ankle—a trifle in itself, but warranted to become serious if walked on.

Seeing the envelope after lighting his candle, he opened it and read the note. His comments, in their order, were a "Hm—hm!" of concern and apprehension, another with some impatience in it, a grunt with nothing else, and a suppressed "Damn the woman!" He read it twice, and again, and went upstairs noiselessly.

Marianne was not asleep. She was wide awake, and wholesomely disposed to trust her husband, and tell the events of the evening at whatever risk. It would have to come out some time. Besides, the relief of knowing, either way! However, to tell him as natural sequence to an enquiry how things had gone with her was one thing; to rush the position another. She could not bring herself to call out to him—so little concerned about her as to make no such enquiry, and still scintillating, as it were, with sparks from the brilliancies of his evening's entertainment—to come into her room and hear the story. No, let him go—him and his Grosvenor Squares and Countesses!

Meanwhile he, however little weight he attached to anything Charlotte Eldridge said, conceived that he was on the safe side in paying attention to what she enjoined about a patient whom she had seen, and he had not. She might have been more definite about the nature of the attack. It was just like her to make a mystery of it. But it was evidently better to take her hint not to disturb his wife—now at near one in the morning! Challis made as little noise as possible, and got to bed in his own room, next to hers, without opening the door between lest he should wake her.

This was the text of Mrs. Charlotte's letter:

"She is much better, and will sleep. John and I both think you need not be the least alarmed. She has been too much excited lately, but will be all right now. Be very careful not to disturb her when you go up. I will try to come round in the morning. C. E."